Jump to content

Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 June 23

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Language desk
< June 22 << May | June | Jul >> Current desk >
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.


June 23

[edit]

Word for an opening on the door of a speakeasy

[edit]

For the life of me I can't find a word for the little eye-level trap that you might see on the door of a speakeasy (most likely in the movies), what a doorman might peep through to see who's there. Not a peephole but something with a latch maybe that can be raised and lowered from the inside? Like a mail slot but eye level. Is there a unique word for this? Wolfgangus (talk) 05:09, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Peephole?--Shantavira|feed me 07:25, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Peephole + "not a peephole" ≅ mutual destruction. The Shantavira Method, a great way of getting rid of nuclear waste, is hereby announced.  :) -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 08:21, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Lots of suggestions in these two threads: [1][2]. -- BenRG (talk) 09:01, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Those threads were immensely helpful, thank you so much. Wolfgangus (talk) 11:10, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
In French it's called a vasistas, because the party who opens it might ask was ist das?. —Or so I thought; but my French-English dictionary renders vasistas as ‘transom/fanlight’. —Tamfang (talk) 04:50, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Bellows' French Dictionary (1943 edition) translates vasistas as hopper or fanlight. --70.49.171.225 (talk) 06:04, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
What's a hopper? —Tamfang (talk) 04:57, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
A Hopper (particulate collection container). Is that really the best title for the article? Tevildo (talk) 14:58, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
First used by Chaucer in the Reeve's Tale, incidentally. "By God, right by the hopur wil I stande", Quod John, "and se howgates the corn gas in." Tevildo (talk) 15:05, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
was ist das is not French... --Bowlhover (talk) 06:36, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps French people won't open the door to Germans, but just shout at them through the fanlight? Alansplodge (talk) 12:45, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
French people will open the door to Germans, but not if they're holding a bottle of nasty German wine. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:21, 25 June 2014 (UTC) [reply]
Is that related to why, when a French person is fond of a German person, they ask them to "shut the door"?  — Preceding irrelevant response added by 71.20.250.51 (talk) 19:48, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]