Random language thread 6

[linguoboy]

I tried to translate "free game" into German just now and--to my surprise--I checked three different lexicographical sources (LEO, dict.cc, Wiktionary) and none of them listed it, not even on the discussion pages. This phrase is an ordinary part of my speech. I probably use it on a weekly basis and I don't have a synonymous alternative.

Like a free mobile game?

No, like "these cookies are free game", i.e. nobody has any ownership claims on them, take as many as you like.

[Yasna]

No, like "these cookies are free game", i.e. nobody has any ownership claims on them, take as many as you like.

Huh, I don't think I've ever heard that phrase. I would say "fair game" in that situation, but I can't think of a good German equivalent.

[Linguaphile]

No, like "these cookies are free game", i.e. nobody has any ownership claims on them, take as many as you like.

Huh, I don't think I've ever heard that phrase. I would say "fair game" in that situation, but I can't think of a good German equivalent.

I would say "fair game" as well.

For "fair game" Wordreference has Freiwild, erlaubtes Ziel and the phrase für vogelfrei gehalten werden; Linguee has Freiwild, faires Spiel, and jagbares Wild. Dict.cc has Freiwild, für vogelfrei gehalten werden and jagbares Wild. Some of these are a bit too literal for your purposes, but it's a start.
Linguee and Wordreference both have good entries for "free game," too (Gratisspiel, Freispiel, freies Spiel, kostenloses Spiel), but not with the meaning you're looking for.

[Bubulus]

My father was telling me the other day that back in El Salvador in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the pronoun vosotros was still used in formal speeches. He remembers that at events of his elementary school the teachers would normally address the audience using vosotros. My mother added that she remembers that the priest at mass would also do the same.

In my own childhood in the late 1990s and early 2000s, vosotros was already dead. It could only be seen in some translations of the Bible made in Spain, and only heard in media produced in that country (pop music, films).

[OldBoring]

Ironically vosotros is the plural T-pronoun and thus, supposed to be more informal than ustedes.

[Linguaphile]

Ironically vosotros is the plural T-pronoun and thus, supposed to be more informal than ustedes.

It doesn't seem "ironic" to me because of the social distances that are involved: in both of these examples, the usage is a person of higher social status using it in addressing a "lower-status" audience (teachers to elementary school students, priest to congregation). T/V distinction here is at least as much about social distance as it is about formality, and that distance is likely to be more emphasized in formal situations.
Plus, the T/V distinction has a rather complicated history in Spanish. There is tú, vos, vosotros, usted, and ustedes. Vosotros comes from what used to be the V-pronoun (hence the v at the beginning of it, and a form of it led to the word usted as well: vuestra merced) and nowadays vosotros and vos are both used in some areas of the Spanish-speaking world and not in others, and in different ways where they are used. If I remember correctly this is because the shift began around the same time as the beginning of the colonial period, and so the shift happened differently (and at different speeds) in different places. The result is that the rules for which pronoun to use in a given situation vary from region to region as well as historically.

[Car]

No, like "these cookies are free game", i.e. nobody has any ownership claims on them, take as many as you like.

Huh, I don't think I've ever heard that phrase. I would say "fair game" in that situation, but I can't think of a good German equivalent.

I would say "fair game" as well.

For "fair game" Wordreference has Freiwild, erlaubtes Ziel and the phrase für vogelfrei gehalten werden; Linguee has Freiwild, faires Spiel, and jagbares Wild. Dict.cc has Freiwild, für vogelfrei gehalten werden and jagbares Wild. Some of these are a bit too literal for your purposes, but it's a start.
Linguee and Wordreference both have good entries for "free game," too (Gratisspiel, Freispiel, freies Spiel, kostenloses Spiel), but not with the meaning you're looking for.

Freiwild, erlaubtes Ziel and für vogelfrei gehalten werden don't fit at all. You use them when someone (or some animal) has been outlawed. Jagbares Wild also has a clear hunting meaning. Faires Spiel sounds weird to me and the ones involving Spiel are about actual game that are for free (as in don't cost anything). Honestly, I can't think of any expression you could use.

[Linguaphile]

No, like "these cookies are free game", i.e. nobody has any ownership claims on them, take as many as you like.

Huh, I don't think I've ever heard that phrase. I would say "fair game" in that situation, but I can't think of a good German equivalent.

I would say "fair game" as well.

For "fair game" Wordreference has Freiwild, erlaubtes Ziel and the phrase für vogelfrei gehalten werden; Linguee has Freiwild, faires Spiel, and jagbares Wild. Dict.cc has Freiwild, für vogelfrei gehalten werden and jagbares Wild. Some of these are a bit too literal for your purposes, but it's a start.
Linguee and Wordreference both have good entries for "free game," too (Gratisspiel, Freispiel, freies Spiel, kostenloses Spiel), but not with the meaning you're looking for.

Freiwild, erlaubtes Ziel and für vogelfrei gehalten werden don't fit at all. You use them when someone (or some animal) has been outlawed. Jagbares Wild also has a clear hunting meaning. Faires Spiel sounds weird to me and the ones involving Spiel are about actual game that are for free (as in don't cost anything). Honestly, I can't think of any expression you could use.

Thanks! I thought that would be the case, but since some of the entries in the first set were tagged as "figurative", I couldn't be sure of whether or not they could have a figurative usage that matched the English meaning.
I posted the second set, about free games, mainly to show that Linguee and Wordrefernce have entries for that particular phrase, since the sources Lingoboy cited apparently do not. But again, they don't have the meaning he's looking for either.

[linguoboy]

For "fair game" Wordreference has Freiwild, erlaubtes Ziel and the phrase für vogelfrei gehalten werden; Linguee has Freiwild, faires Spiel, and jagbares Wild. Dict.cc has Freiwild, für vogelfrei gehalten werden and jagbares Wild. Some of these are a bit too literal for your purposes, but it's a start.
Linguee and Wordreference both have good entries for "free game," too (Gratisspiel, Freispiel, freies Spiel, kostenloses Spiel), but not with the meaning you're looking for.

Freiwild, erlaubtes Ziel and für vogelfrei gehalten werden don't fit at all. You use them when someone (or some animal) has been outlawed. Jagbares Wild also has a clear hunting meaning. Faires Spiel sounds weird to me and the ones involving Spiel are about actual game that are for free (as in don't cost anything). Honestly, I can't think of any expression you could use.

You also use the expression "fair/free game"[*] when talking about, for instance, targets of criticism or humour, e.g. "Now, the president's daughter is fair game for criticism; she has a role in the White House and is a public figure." Would "Freiwild" or "erlaubtes Ziel" work in that context?

[*] Thanks to all who reminded me of the more common variant. Now I'm really interested in finding out more about the distribution and origins of "free game".

[Linguaphile]

You also use the expression "fair/free game"[*] when talking about, for instance, targets of criticism or humour, e.g. "Now, the president's daughter is fair game for criticism; she has a role in the White House and is a public figure."

That's actually pretty much the only type of context I've heard it used in, by the way. I don't think I've heard it used for things like cookies or if I have, not often. To me it implies there is some kind of "victim" involved (i.e., the public figure who is about to be criticized). I'm not going to say I've never heard it used in reference to some inanimate object that people are free to take (I'm not sure whether I have or not), but if someone said something like a plate of cookies were "fair game" I wouldn't be surprised to hear someone else laugh and say, "oh, those poor cookies don't know what's coming!"
But then I don't think I've heard "free game" used that way even for public figures etc., so there are probably regional variations on the usage. And I've certainly heard other expressions using "free" (such as "free for the taking") used for things like cookies.
This whole discussion is making me wish for a plate of cookies right now.

[Car]

For "fair game" Wordreference has Freiwild, erlaubtes Ziel and the phrase für vogelfrei gehalten werden; Linguee has Freiwild, faires Spiel, and jagbares Wild. Dict.cc has Freiwild, für vogelfrei gehalten werden and jagbares Wild. Some of these are a bit too literal for your purposes, but it's a start.
Linguee and Wordreference both have good entries for "free game," too (Gratisspiel, Freispiel, freies Spiel, kostenloses Spiel), but not with the meaning you're looking for.

Freiwild, erlaubtes Ziel and für vogelfrei gehalten werden don't fit at all. You use them when someone (or some animal) has been outlawed. Jagbares Wild also has a clear hunting meaning. Faires Spiel sounds weird to me and the ones involving Spiel are about actual game that are for free (as in don't cost anything). Honestly, I can't think of any expression you could use.

You also use the expression "fair/free game"[*] when talking about, for instance, targets of criticism or humour, e.g. "Now, the president's daughter is fair game for criticism; she has a role in the White House and is a public figure." Would "Freiwild" or "erlaubtes Ziel" work in that context?

Yes, "Freiwild" definitely is used like that. Not sure about "erlaubtes Ziel", it sounds more literal than "Freiwild", also in the first Google results. I found this which is closer to the English meaning, but a) that may be translated from English and b) it still is a bit more literal, I think (what do you think about the example).

[linguoboy]

Every once in a while, I will completely misparse a German compound word and confuse the hell out of myself. Earlier this week, it was Herbstacker, which my brain divided into herb + stack- + -er and could make no sense of. Only after I Googled it did I realise it was actually Herbst + Acker.

The other fun thing I discovered from Googling is that Russian has a monosyllabic equivalent, namely зябь. (There may be a technical/dialectal equivalent in English, but I only know paraphrases like "a winter field plowed for spring planting".)

[Linguaphile]

Every once in a while, I will completely misparse a German compound word and confuse the hell out of myself. Earlier this week, it was Herbstacker, which my brain divided into herb + stack- + -er and could make no sense of. Only after I Googled it did I realise it was actually Herbst + Acker.

I do that all the time! I've had the same problem in both German and Estonian. Sometimes it can be rather fun actually... you can end with hilarious misunderstandings.

Estonian puuteekraan : the first time I saw it I was imagining some sort of barrel-like keg full of tea with a wooden spigot attached, since I parsed it as puu + tee + kraan (wood + tea + faucet). It's actually puute + ekraan (touch-screen).

Someone here at Unilang had a great one in Estonian, kõrvalaine (kõrval + aine, "academic minor") as kõrva + laine "ear curl," thinking of it as a curl of hair above the ear. Makes sense to me.

Estonian söögivaheaeg really does have two different meanings: söögi + vaheaeg lunch hour or coffee/snack break, lit. "the break [vaheaeg] for food [söök]" and söögivahe + aeg time between meals, lit. "the time [aeg] between meals [söögivahe]". At first I learned only one of the two meanings so imagine my confusion when I read Söögivaheaegadel pole kasulik midagi süüа as "it's not healthy to eat anything during lunch breaks" when it's actually "it's not healthy to eat anything between meals". (Ehh... so when you are you supposed to eat then, if not during lunch breaks?)

Actually in Estonian there endless possibilities along these lines. Like if you parse laekaunistus (lae + kaunistus "ceiling decoration") incorrectly you end up with (laeka + unistus "dream of a chest/coffer". Puurauk (puur + auk "borehole") becomes puu + rauk "feeble old tree" and so on. Salamander is a loanword that simply means "salamander" just the same as in English, but it can be mis-read as sala + mander "secret continent." I think there is a name for this sort of wordplay when it is done deliberately, but I don't remember what it is. They are used as a sort of pun.

The other fun thing I discovered from Googling is that Russian has a monosyllabic equivalent, namely зябь. (There may be a technical/dialectal equivalent in English, but I only know paraphrases like "a winter field plowed for spring planting".)

In Estonian it can either have two parts or three (sügiskünd "autumn-plowing" or sügiskünnipõld "autumn-plowing's-field"). It is an autumn (not winter) field in German as well. In springtime there's kevadkünd and Frühlingsacker.

[linguoboy]

In Estonian it can either have two parts or three (sügiskünd "autumn-plowing" or sügiskünnipõld "autumn-plowing's-field"). It is an autumn (not winter) field in German as well. In springtime there's kevadkünd and Frühlingsacker.

They're plowed in (late) fall, but they're most often talked about in winter. (The Russian word is derived from the same root as зябнуть "to suffer from cold, to be freezing".)

[Linguaphile]

In Estonian it can either have two parts or three (sügiskünd "autumn-plowing" or sügiskünnipõld "autumn-plowing's-field"). It is an autumn (not winter) field in German as well. In springtime there's kevadkünd and Frühlingsacker.

They're plowed in (late) fall, but they're most often talked about in winter. (The Russian word is derived from the same root as зябнуть "to suffer from cold, to be freezing".)

I meant that etymologically, in both Estonian and German the meaning of the first element of the compound is "autumn".

[Naava]

Someone here at Unilang had a great one in Estonian, kõrvalaine (kõrval + aine, "academic minor") as kõrva + laine "ear curl," thinking of it as a curl of hair above the ear. Makes sense to me.

That was me! I just can't read. I do this all the time in Finnish but I can't remember any examples right now.

[Linguaphile]

Someone here at Unilang had a great one in Estonian, kõrvalaine (kõrval + aine, "academic minor") as kõrva + laine "ear curl," thinking of it as a curl of hair above the ear. Makes sense to me.

That was me! I just can't read. I do this all the time in Finnish but I can't remember any examples right now.

I went back and looked for that thread, and you'd even posted this photo of what a kõrvalaine should look like. I think it's hilarious. I love the silly meanings that result from words like that.

[IpseDixit]

Do you consider burgundy a type of red or a color on its own (or a type of another color)?

Some days ago, I had to meet up with a friend of mine who's a native-Portuguese-speaker, and since we had to meet in a very crowded square, I told him I was wearing a red shirt, when he saw me he told me that my shirt was burgundy, not red, and ok, I'm the first one to admit that burgundy is not what I would immediately picture if I thought of the color red (I would actually picture something like scarlet), nonetheless burgundy definitely remains a kind of red for me (and that's what we call it in Italian: rosso bordeaux).

What about you?

And please, I don't really care about the "scientific" definition (if we can call it that), so don't cite Wikipedia or other sources. I just want to know what you think.

[linguoboy]

Burgundy is closest to purple. (I had a favourite burgundy jacket when I was young and I would never have called it "red".)

[Luís]

Bordeaux for me is definitely a kind of (dark) red. But if someone told me they were wearing a red shirt, I'd probably be looking for something more stereotipically red.