Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 August 22

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August 22[edit]

Translation of French paragraph[edit]

Can someone please translate the second paragraph of Page 86 from this book? I just need the text from "La famile royale" to "la cour". I would write this all out but some of the accent marks are really hard to write. Google translating it makes for a difficult read. --KAVEBEAR (talk) 06:20, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Aside from the king and queen, the royal family consisted of Kekuanaoa, the king's father, Prince Lot Kamehameha, his brother, and Princess Victoria, his sister, about 20 years old. Victoria was one of the richest landowners in the archipelago. Her great fortune and her rank condemned her to a life of celibacy which was a burden to her. Among her brother's aides-de-camp there was a young Englishman, a handsome cavalier, whose service and friendship with the king gave him free access to the palace. He was married. One day, following a dinner which went a bit late where there had been drinks in abundance, the aide-de-camp went up to the the princess and acted so boldly that that she called for help. The king and his brother immediately had the man arrested and condemned him to be banished under penalty of death. The foreigners, and especially the English, protested in vain against this summary sentence, and threatened to free the man; the king was insistent, and Mr. M..., placed on board a steamship by force, was transported to California. From there, some years later, thanks to the pleas of his wife, he was allowed to return to the islands, but was not able to return to the court." Adam Bishop (talk) 07:57, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

VCR & DVD commands in Spanish?[edit]

Where could I find commonly used Spanish words for DVD and VCR controls? I'm looking for such words like "Play All", "Stop", "Fast Forward", "Rewind", "Chapter", "Pause", "Record", "Skip", etc. Online translators are pretty bad at one word translation because there is no context. Google Translate wants to convert "play" into "juego", which I know is the wrong type of play. --24.249.59.89 (talk) 17:33, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I googled panasonic vcr manual spanish and one of the first hits is this VCR manual which includes both English and Spanish versions, so you can compare. It refers to the buttons as PLAY, FF, REW, etc., because that's how the VCR buttons are labeled; but you may be able to use the context of the instructions to get what you need. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:51, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

After changing my Windows' language settings to American Spanish and its region to Spain, I opened a movie in VLC Media Player and checked:

Play= Reproducir
Pause= Pausar reproducción
Stop= Detener reproducción
Fast Forward= Más rápido
Rewind= Más lento

I would assume "Play all" would be "Reproducir todo," Chapter to be "Capítulo," record to be "Grabar," and skip to be "Saltar," though those are all just assumptions; although I've studied Spanish for 4 1/2 years, it's not my native language and there are still a myriad of idioms unknown to me. Hope this helps!

I think it's worth noting too that in Spanish it's not uncommon to find expressions that seem to be "clarified", like in the case of "Pausar Reproducción" (As opposed to just "Pausar.") Bossadai (talk) 19:01, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Más lento" seems to be a particularly poor translation for "rewind"—it means "slower", which is not at all what "rewind" means. —Bkell (talk) 16:43, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Rewind translates into my dialect of Spanish (Spain) as "rebobinar". --Belchman (talk) 17:40, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Schnuffel/Schnüffler[edit]

The article Schnuffel says that the character's name means something like "snuggle" in English. The name is very similar to the German word "Schnüffler", meaning detective, snoop, noser-around. Are these words in any way related to each other? JIP | Talk 19:35, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nein. Not at all. If you do a Google search in German Google you find a lot of cuddly animals. A "Schnuffel" (god only knows where it comes from) is a term of endearment. If my German girlfriend Brigitte calls me a "Schnuffel," then I say "ah" and cuddle her a little more. If she calls me a "Schnüffler," then she complains that I had read her emails, went through old love letters from her ex, sniffed glue, or her underpants. The primary meaning of "schnüffeln" is to sniff, and a "Schnüffler" is primarily a sniffer, which only later turned into a detective, snoop etc. If I would have to find an English equivalent of "Schnuffel," I'd use "snookums". Has nothing to do with ... BsBsBs (talk) 20:10, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note that it in some Alemannic dialects "Schnuffel" (without Umlaut) can mean an animal's muzzle or snout too (and it can apply to a person's mouth as well :-). Of course this is again related to sniffing and sniffling and snuffling. Dialect examples: Alsatian (Parlons alsacien, Jean-Paul Schimpf, Robert Muller, Editions L'Harmattan, 1998, p. 202) and Swabian (Schwäbisches Handwörterbuch, Hermann Fischer, Hermann Taigel, Mohr Siebeck, 1999, p. 579). ---Sluzzelin talk 05:41, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Adelung, 1808 edition lists the verbs "schnuffeln" and "schnüffeln" (en: nuzzle, sniff, sniffle, snoop, snuffle) as synonymous and colloquial. A mid 19th century dictionary reports that "schnüffeln" was at the time becoming standard usage. Today "schnüffeln" is standard and "schnuffeln" is used in southwestern and western dialects. The standard verb yields the noun "Schnüffler" (negative connotation, en: sleuth), whereas the dialect form yields a noun "Schnuffel" (nose, snout) and a colloquial name "Schnuffel" (affectionate term, pet name for dogs, rabbits, teddy bears). --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 11:39, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Too much trust in 200 year old dictionaries can become painful: Call your girlfriend a "Schnüffler" instead of a "Schnuffel" and she might slap you. I'd treat German dialects with even greater caution. For instance, a "Fotzn" in Bavarian is a mouth, further up north, it becomes a derogatory term for the primary female genital. Common cause of misunderstandings and occasional fistfights, even amongst native Germans.BsBsBs (talk) 14:23, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
True perhaps, but JIP was asking about a possible etymological connection between the fictional character and the German word "Schnüffler", not whether the two words were interchangeable. We merely maintain that an etymological connection cannot be excluded, prima facie. (Nobody is suggesting you call your girlfriend Brigitte a Schnüffler :-) ---Sluzzelin talk 14:35, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, now that we are not joking anymore: Jakob Heinrich Kaltschmidt's "Kurzgefasstes vollständiges stamm- und sinnverwandtschaftliches Gesammt-Wörterbuch der Deutschen Sprache" of 1834 says "die Schnuff" is closer to the aforementioned Fotze (Bavarian Version); "die Schnoff, Schnüff, Schnuffe, Riff, die Schnauze, Nase, Schnabel, Spitze" - it is more related to "Schnauze", colloquial for "mouth" or "snout" than to the nose. If someone says "ich geb dir eins auf die Schuff" then he threatens to kick my teeth in, not to bang my nose up. When someone die "Schnuff" voll hat von uns, then the has "die Schnauze voll" i.e. he has it up to here. If someone is worried "dass Du nur auf die Schnuff bekommst" then he's afraid you'd be beaten up, that you "bekommst was auf die Schnauze" und nicht "die Nase." It's complicated: "Schnäuzen" means to blow your nose. A "Schnauzer" or "Schnäuzer" is a mustache. But a "Schnauze" is the next one down, the mouth. According to Kaltschmidt, that's where it comes from.BsBsBs (talk) 19:36, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"Schnauze" comes from Middle Low German "snute" (cf. Pfeifer, Etymolog. Wörterbuch des Deutschen, p. 1228 and Grimm). "schnüffeln" (older form "beschnuffeln") comes from the Middle Low German/Middle Dutch verb "snûven" (i. e. "schnauben" in modern High German), cf. Pfeifer, p. 1233 and Grimm.
Schnuffel and Schnüffler seem to be related to each other: there was a form without umlaut, but now it is rather uncommon (cf. Grimm: "die unumgelautete form des wortes begegnet häufig bei Göthe, ist aber in neuerer zeit nicht mehr schriftgemäsz."), cf. "Schnuffler" or this entry.--91.12.221.199 (talk) 21:18, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Eggs, microwaves and vegetables[edit]

Is there a name (possibly veggie custard) for a meal made from beaten whole eggs and one can of mixed vegetables and perhaps a variety of seasonings that have been microwaved until the egg in no longer liquid? --DeeperQA (talk) 20:33, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you don't stir it, you are likely to get some of the egg turning to rubber before the rest turns solid. If you do stir it (between bouts of microwaving), you basically have scrambled eggs with vegetables. Looie496 (talk) 20:49, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A frittata or lazy version of Spanish omelette (if you add potatoes)? Although being fried is a pretty characteristic quality of those. A pastryless quiche? 86.163.214.39 (talk) 20:59, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I would call the resulting dish a "scramble", which is usually the term for scrambled eggs with a bunch of stuff mixed in. A stovetop version may be Egg bhurji, perhaps what the OP has made is microwaved bhurji. --Jayron32 02:43, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This dish is stirred at one minute intervals after microwaving on high after all ingredients are mixed before microwaving and specifically does not involve oil or frying so frittata and Spanish omelette are close except for the oil and frying. Pastryless quiche and microwave scramble or microwave egg bhurji very much describe what it is. What I'm still looking for a nick name I suppose is rather than an acronym like EMV perhaps. --DeeperQA (talk) 06:49, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It kinda reminds me of an Arab dish called eggah. --TammyMoet (talk) 08:43, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) Pastryless quiche reminds me of the breadless sandwich. Or the foodless meal. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 08:45, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
See List of egg dishes. Oda Mari (talk) 10:05, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]