Names: My newspaper column: now featuring The Old Man and the most famous spouse of witch

[Ormond]

Here's the link to today's column. I would have liked to include novelist Trey Ellis as an example of a famous Trey. One reason I didn't is that I simply was not able to find reliable information as to whether he has "Trey" on his birth certificate or if it's a nickname for him.

https://omaha.com/lifestyles/cleveland-evans-remembered-as-popular-slang-trey-continues-as-a-nickname-or-signifying-the-third/article_cfc5c70c-9fcc-11ec-90b6-b3c5fe88a13d.html

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

@Ormond, a strange look into the work you love:

Who said there were no knew names? 

[Ormond]

I had heard of the name of Elon Musk's child before, but I guess I just did not pay attention to the name and profession of the child's mother. 

Looking her up on Wikipedia I found the following:

Quote

Boucher began writing music under the name Grimes in 2007. Her performer name was chosen because at the time, MySpace allowed artists to list three musical genres. She listed "grime" for all three, without knowing what the grime music genre was.[21][22] Grimes is self-taught in music and visual art.[23][24]

So if Wikipedia is correct (and please someone tell me if it isn't), this person initially gave herself the pen/stage name Grimes based on a term for a musical genre she knew nothing about. Evidently she just thought "grime" sounded cool. This sort of makes her choice of a name for her child much more understandable.

[Ormond]

Here is the link to today's column:

https://omaha.com/lifestyles/cleveland-evans-evelyn-historically-popular-for-both-men-and-women/article_e1f75560-aad2-11ec-ab77-bff85455f687.html

[Ormond]

Here's the link to today's column. Sorry I did not have enough room to mention Jonas Salk.

https://omaha.com/cleveland-evans-old-testament-or-modern-use-jonas-continues-to-give/article_fef59868-b5de-11ec-abd5-23194df93272.html

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Think of all the money you've left on the table @Ormond:

 

[Ormond]

Yeah, well I would think anyone both rich enough and neurotic enough to pay someone $10,000 for this would also likely be the sort of person to sue you 13 years down the road when their teenage daughter goes through the "I hate my name, why didn't you name me something else" phase that a lot of kids go through. I don't need the aggravation of dealing with such people.   

Now if any film or TV producer wants to pay me $10,000 to help name a character I'm available. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

57 minutes ago, Ormond said:

Now if any film or TV producer wants to pay me $10,000 to help name a character I'm available. 

And if posters want to pay you in like buttons for their short stories? 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

On 3/27/2022 at 2:20 PM, Ormond said:

Here is the link to today's column:

https://omaha.com/lifestyles/cleveland-evans-evelyn-historically-popular-for-both-men-and-women/article_e1f75560-aad2-11ec-ab77-bff85455f687.html

Wasn’t Evelyn Waugh’s wife’s name also Evelyn?

[kiko]

Sorry for the threadjack but I believe it's a place where I can find people interested in language details. I'm afraid it won't be read in an extra thread.

Anyway here is my question: I have stumbled over the following 

Quote

The suspects behind the latest plot communicated in a chat group called Vereinte Patrioten, German for United Patriots

It describes what some Germans do in Germany using the German language. So the "German for..." feels strange to me. Shouldn't it read "translates to..." or something similar. The way it is written feels like there is something English that the Germans in question translated to German. As if United Patriots is the source and Vereinigte Patrioten not. Not sure if I'm right but for me it feels different to what they intended to write 

Edited April 14, 2022 by kiko

[Ormond]

16 minutes ago, kiko said:

Sorry for the threadjack but I believe it's a place where I can find people interested in language details. I'm afraid it won't be read in an extra thread.

Anyway here is my question: I have stumbled over the following 

It describes what some Germans do in Germany using the German language. So the "German for..." feels strange to me. Shouldn't it read "translates to..." or something similar. The way it is written feels like there is something English that the Germans in question translated to German. As if United Patriots is the source and Vereinigte Patrioten not. Not sure if I'm right but for me it feels different to what they intended to write 

How would this be written in German the other way? If you wanted to say that "United Patriots" meant in English what "Vereinigte Patrioten" did in German?

I am not an expert on language structure, but I do seem to remember that what preposition is put into a phrase can be very idiomatic and varies a great deal from language to language. In English the construction "X is (foreign language name) for Y" is completely normal as an equivalent for "X translates to Y" and does NOT imply that one or the other came first. It just means they have equivalent meanings. 

Here are a bunch of other examples of the "X is (language name) for Y" randomly selected from the web. Since I am giving them as examples of the English construction, I am not guaranteeting that the translations mentioned are fully correct.

Quote

 

Coup d'état is French for “stroke of the state” or “blow to the government.”

Dzie dobry” is Polish for “Good morning” or “Good afternoon”. 

Ji (字) is Japanese for "symbol" or "character". 

Mapenzi mubashara is Swahili for 'love is beautiful'.

aloha is Hawaiian for “hello,” “goodbye” and “love,” 

The new version of his moral philosophy was named. Homaranismo, which is Esperanto for “a brotherhood of humanity”,

 

 

[Ormond]

3 hours ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Wasn’t Evelyn Waugh’s wife’s name also Evelyn?

Yup.

https://lithub.com/fun-fact-evelyn-waughs-first-wife-was-also-named-evelyn/

[Ormond]

11 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

And if posters want to pay you in like buttons for their short stories? 

Does this belong in a thread on cryptocurrency?

[Larry of the Lawn]

On 4/10/2022 at 1:49 PM, Ormond said:

Here's the link to today's column. Sorry I did not have enough room to mention Jonas Salk.

https://omaha.com/cleveland-evans-old-testament-or-modern-use-jonas-continues-to-give/article_fef59868-b5de-11ec-abd5-23194df93272.html

Cool read!  A friend of mine named his 2 year old son Jonah because of the 1995 Weezer song "My name is Jonas" but didn't want to have the association with the Jonas brothers.  And then another friend named her son Jonas for the Giver character and the Weezer song.  

[kiko]

1 hour ago, Ormond said:

How would this be written in German the other way? If you wanted to say that "United Patriots" meant in English what "Vereinigte Patrioten" did in German?

I am not an expert on language structure, but I do seem to remember that what preposition is put into a phrase can be very idiomatic and varies a great deal from language to language. In English the construction "X is (foreign language name) for Y" is completely normal as an equivalent for "X translates to Y" and does NOT imply that one or the other came first. It just means they have equivalent meanings. 

Here are a bunch of other examples of the "X is (language name) for Y" randomly selected from the web. Since I am giving them as examples of the English construction, I am not guaranteeting that the translations mentioned are fully correct.

 

It's a literal translation, so that's fine and understandable. I'm just stumbling over how it is constructed. You take an original phrase in a foreign language and then explain to your audience that it is a foreign language term for something in your local language. So far so good, you can find this construction in our language too - obviously. 

It just feels odd within the context. You start (mentally, not by word order) with the English phrase and arrive at the foreign language term, explaining it's  the same thing. But in reality you are talking about something from that foreign environment with no local relationship. So it would feel more correct to mirror that in the language by mentally starting with the foreign term and than show how it would translate into local language. Otherwise it feels for me, as if there is an implication that the local term is well understood and probably something similar exists in the local environment.

 

Maybe it's just me going crazy after 11 days of quarantine 

[Ormond]

Here is the link to today's column:

https://omaha.com/cleveland-evans-goldwaters-loss-sends-barry-on-downhill-slope/article_8ccf3ae0-c16f-11ec-b86b-db2d0f82e92a.html

[mcbigski]

The two Barrys I know personally are both in their sixties.  Kind of sounds like a name that should be short for something, but apparently not the case apart from Baruch. 

Is Barack the same root as Baruch?  Other than BHO, I can't recall a Barack I know about, so maybe too small a sample size to say for sure.

[Ormond]

Barack (or Barak) is Arabic and Baruch is Hebrew, but those are both Semitic languages and the two names are cognates close in meaning. Barack is from a word meaning "Blessing" and Baruch is from a word meaning "Blessed".  So one is a noun and the other a verb/adjective, but basically the same concept. 

[Ormond]

Here is the link to today's column. I always learn things about pop culture I didn't know before while writing these columns. I don't listen to pop music much and had actually never heard of the song "Iris" before researching this column and was amazed to see how popular it was and how many different artists have recorded it since the Goo Goo Dolls original version was a hit.

https://omaha.com/lifestyles/cleveland-evans-iris-loved-as-a-flower-worshipped-as-a-goddess/article_512c3968-cbe5-11ec-a87e-5b5b21c86a85.html

[Jaxom 1974]

Interesting. 

Went to college in the early/mid 90s with an Iris.  Though I do think her name was derived from the flower, not the goddess...