Language desk
< March 31	<< Mar \| April \| May >>	April 2 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

April 1

In the following sentence "himself" referes to whom? Why?

"The doctor knows that the fact that taking care of himself is necessary surprises Tom." Can "himself" refer to either "the doctor" or "Tom"? 117.211.88.149 (talk) 07:19, 1 April 2011 (UTC)Vineet Chaitanya[reply]

In the most natural reading of this sentence (which is already a very unnatural sentence) it refers to Tom. rʨanaɢ (talk) 07:45, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict):I would read it that "himself" is intended to refer to "Tom", but the sentence is badly constructed and allows a glimmer of ambiguity. It should be re-cast along the lines of "It is a surprise to Tom that taking care of himself is necessary, and the doctor knows this fact" or (just possibly) "The doctor knows the fact that taking care of himself is necessary, and this is a surprise to Tom" (but the original would start with "The fact that" if that were the intended meaning). The confusion arises because it it not made clear what "fact" is referring to. Dbfirs 07:48, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Rjanag that the "natural" reading of this sentence is that "himself" refers to Tom. But the questioner asks "why?". For me, the answer lies in a subconscious unpacking of the sentence that one performs when coming across it. So: the doctor knows something. But, what? Well, he knows that Tom is surprised by something. And what, in turn, is Tom surprised by? Well, it's the fact that he has to take care of himself. The himself only enters the equation once we learn about the thing that surprises Tom. So, naturally enough, the "himself" applies to Tom. (Not my most transparent explanation.)

But the more I think about it, the more interesting this really is. For example, if one changed the sentence to read "The doctor knows that the fact that taking care of himself is overlooked surprises Tom", I believe "himself" would refer to the doctor.

To be honest, I have now read the original so many times that it might as well be written in Greek. So I'm probably not a reliable witness.164.36.44.4 (talk) 13:00, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The sentence is ambiguous (and unpunctuated). The reader only assumes it means Tom because the other party is a doctor. If you replace "The doctor" with "Stanley", it proves the case: "Stanley knows that the fact that taking care of himself is necessary surprises Tom." Could be that Tom needs to look after Stanley and is surprised by that. --Dweller (talk) 13:09, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)Basically agreeing with Dweller: the biggest reason that himself refers to Tom and not to the doctor is contextual. Doctors don't typically tell you what they need to do for their health, they tell you what you need to do for your health, and most people, I think, would bring that expectation to their reading of the sentence. If himself was intended to refer to the doctor, emphasis would be placed on that fact, because it would be counter to expectations: "The doctor knows that the fact that even he needs to take better care of himself is a surprise to Tom, who assumes that all doctors must be in perfect health." --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 13:19, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I just noticed that my suggested sentence also did away with "taking care of himself is necessary," to the betterment (I think) of the sentence. "the fact that taking care of oneself is necessary" seems to me to be a more likely construction. The sentence would still rely on context to imply who "oneself" referred to in the situation. --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 13:26, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Origin of "Black-Eyed Susan"

In John Fowles' The Magus, Chapter 76, first paragraph, there is a sentence that says, "Almost every night I contrived to pass through Russell Square, rather in the way, I suppose, that the sailors' wives and black-eyed Susans would, more out of boredom..." It seems to me that the black-eyed Susans are not a reference to the flower but to something else. Does anybody know what this is. Is it a euphemism for a prostitute?˜˜˜˜ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.85.218.125 (talk) 15:52, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It might be a reference to John Gay's early 18th-century poem "Black-Eyed Susan" (or "All in the Downs"). ---Sluzzelin talk 16:00, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, .125, not that tilde: you used the diacritic tilde (option n in MacOS) but what we want is the ASCII tilde, which on my keyboard is at the left of the digits. —Tamfang (talk) 19:49, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You might be interested in Black-Eyed Susan, the 1829 play about a sailor who comes home and finds his wife in a pickle. WHAAOE. BrainyBabe (talk) 21:17, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Schränker

Is this the name or the title of the character in the film M? Clarityfiend (talk) 20:48, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Since he's referred to as "der Schränker" (here [under "Darsteller"], for instance), I think it's safe to say that it's a nickname meaning "Safecracker". Deor (talk) 21:30, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:36, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

French name for Warsaw

Why is it Varsovie? Other than having a consecutive "ars", it doesn't sound anything like Warsaw. --70.244.234.128 (talk) 22:09, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

German for Warsaw is Warschawa, replace the Germanic pronunciation of W as the French V, and you can see how it developed thusly. Corvus cornix_talk 22:13, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

According to our article on the city, the German name for Warsaw is "Warschau," although because of the sensitivity of the matter Germans will sometimes use a native name (endonym) for Slavic cities rather than the traditional German name. The Polish word for the city is "Warszawa." It appears the French borrowed their word directly from the Poles, while perhaps the English adapted the German version. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 22:23, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Whoops, you're right. Maybe I was thinking Russian instead of German. Oh, well. Sorry. Corvus cornix_talk 22:28, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Notice that the English seems to be a spelling pronuncation: most languages use /v/ not /w/ in pronouncing the name. --ColinFine (talk) 23:26, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think the French actually comes from the Latin Varsovia. Warsaw#Etymology and names says that an old spelling was Warszowa, so based on that, here is my guess for the full etymology: Old Polish Warszowa /varʃova/ > Latin Varsovia /varsovia/ (non-Latin ʃ replaced by s, Latin ending added) > French Varsovie /varsovi/. Lesgles (talk) 00:28, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A better question is, why is it Warsaw in English? Sounds like a name of some fantasy weapon, but not anything like Warszawa. The closest English phonetic transcription of the Polish name would be Varshava (with a rolled R). — Kpalion^(talk) 11:22, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]