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#Post#: 16258--------------------------------------------------
Adding or Removing?
By: Nikola Date: May 28, 2019, 2:14 pm
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There's a thing called verbing where you use a noun as a verb.
It's quite common in English. I've been thinking about
expressions that refer to adding something. You can butter your
toast by adding butter, stamp a letter by adding a stamp... but
when you bone chicken, you're not adding bones to it. When you
weed your vegetable patch, you're not adding weed to it. You're
removing it.
More verbs like this: stone (a peach), skin/gut (a rabbit), milk
(a cow).
In my language, we would either add a prefix to create a word
like de-stone or de-weed, or in most cases use a completely
different word.
How is it in your language? Do you know any language that works
on the same principle as English (in that you have to know the
context because the form is the same in both cases)?
#Post#: 16259--------------------------------------------------
Re: Adding or Removing?
By: Alharacas Date: May 28, 2019, 2:45 pm
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Well, in written German, the noun is distinguished by a capital
letter. But in theory, you could Essen essen (eat food), ein
Schreiben schreiben (write a formal letter) and Tragen tragen
(carry stretchers). I've cheated on the last one, though, as the
singular of "stretcher" is Trage. ;) In practice, you don't,
because it just sounds really silly.
Anyway, the number of nouns which also work as a verb is quite
limited*. Usually, it's the same as in Czech: the verbs will
either get a prefix (etwas mit Decken bedecken - to cover
something with blankets), a vowel change (Milch -> melken -
milk, to milk), or the verb's got nothing to do with the noun
(Unkraut jäten - to pull weeds)
*That's as long as you exclude activities, signalled in English
by -ing, in German by an article and a capital letter:
rauchen (to smoke) - das Rauchen (the activity of smoking)
lesen (to read) - das Lesen (the activity of reading)
jäten (to weed) - das Jäten (the activity of weeding)
That works for every single German verb.
Side note: I've just come up with Sie band ein Band um den Band
(She tied a ribbon round the tome) and am sharing it with you
for curiosity's sake. :D
#Post#: 16261--------------------------------------------------
Re: Adding or Removing?
By: Nikola Date: May 28, 2019, 4:15 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Thanks Alharacas. I didn't know melken. It sounds close enough
to "milk" (verb). Sie band ein Band um den Band sounds
hilarious.
I wonder how it is in languages that have less inflection than
Czech or German.
#Post#: 16271--------------------------------------------------
Re: Adding or Removing?
By: SHL Date: May 28, 2019, 10:54 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Alharacas link=topic=1111.msg16259#msg16259
date=1559072720]
Well, in written German, the noun is distinguished by a capital
letter. But in theory, you could Essen essen (eat food), ein
Schreiben schreiben (write a formal letter) and Tragen tragen
(carry stretchers). I've cheated on the last one, though, as the
singular of "stretcher" is Trage. ;) In practice, you don't,
because it just sounds really silly.
Anyway, the number of nouns which also work as a verb is quite
limited*. Usually, it's the same as in Czech: the verbs will
either get a prefix (etwas mit Decken bedecken - to cover
something with blankets), a vowel change (Milch -> melken -
milk, to milk), or the verb's got nothing to do with the noun
(Unkraut jäten - to pull weeds)
*That's as long as you exclude activities, signalled in English
by -ing, in German by an article and a capital letter:
rauchen (to smoke) - das Rauchen (the activity of smoking)
lesen (to read) - das Lesen (the activity of reading)
jäten (to weed) - das Jäten (the activity of weeding)
That works for every single German verb.
Side note: I've just come up with Sie band ein Band um den Band
(She tied a ribbon round the tome) and am sharing it with you
for curiosity's sake. :D
[/quote]
Yes, I was taught that old trick in German 40 years ago, or
more, that you could always take a verb and make a noun into it
by just capitalizing it, since all nouns are capitalized in
German (a rule I really like, because English drives me nuts
trying to recall which nouns are capitalized and which are not.
I can never remember if it‘s supposed to be monday, or Monday
(the auto-correct just gave me the answer)). But, I was frankly
always a little suspicious of taking a German verb and just
making a noun out of it anytime I wanted, and am somewhat
hesitant to do that now, unless I hear a native speaker doing
it. It‘s just that German has so many synonyms and such a rich
and broad vocabulary, it just seemed sort of a cheap shot of
sorts, and maybe a bit lazy, to take a verb and make a noun out
of it like that. I can‘t say I‘ve noticed an overuse of it, but
once my friend in Germany did it, and she’s highly educated, and
wrote, „vielen Dank für Dein Schreiben ....“ then I felt ok with
it.
My favorite German Professor from Hamburg, probably taught me
more than anyone. But, that was back in the 80s. I recall asking
her if a certain word in English existed in German (and I only
spoke German with her. I have no idea how she even sounded
speaking English) and she said, „Steven, we have all the same
words in German as in English.“ I never believed her, because it
sounded too simple to be true. Sure, it was a generalization,
but in some ways I have found it to be surprisingly true more
often than I would have thought. There are many „false friends“
out there, so you have to be a bit careful, more nuanced and not
assume too much. Then I‘d encounter verbs like „suggerieren“ ,
to suggest, „akzeptieren“, to accept, and on and on. Things like
that made me think what she told me wasn’t too far from the
truth. Maybe they all come from French or something. But, there
are so many alternatives too. And the actual use these sorts of
verbs really might be limited.
But, then Frau Dr. Stock had a rather interesting German
vocabulary. Coming from Hamburg, she must have picked it up
there, but she did use a lot of nouns which were a bit dated (at
least according to Duden).
Like she would rarely say „das Wörterbuch“, instead preferring
„das Diktionär.“ (My spell-checker is flagging this in red like
it‘s not a real German word.) Der Wortschatz was always, das
Vokabular, but that later word is not archaic and Duden states
it has a more specialized meaning to it. Nonetheless, it is a
word, even if Duden lists it as veraltend, but it does have a
specialized meaning, „(fremdsprachliches Wörterbuch)“. So, it‘s
a translating dictionary, not just a Duden or Websters. To me it
sounds like a useful word, so why it’s old-fashioned I have no
idea. But, in that sense, it‘s probably a better or more
specific word if you are talking about a translating dictionary.
I still use the word occasionally if I want to raise a few
eyebrows. And, with her it was always, „die Bücherei“ and never
„die Bibliothek.“ According to my word usage frequency chart
from DWDS, die Bücherei scores only a 1 and is currently falling
off in usage while die Bibliothek scores a 10. I never could
figure out with her if it was just a regional thing with her,
the words she used, or she was just speaking 1920s and 1930s era
German. But, I always noticed the words she used more closely
appeared English-like than the alternatives.
My all-time favorite German expression, which Frau Dr. Stock
always used with us, was „zum Exempel“ as opposed to the
familiar „zum Beispiel.“ Duden lists this as „(bildungsspr.
veraltend) (Lehr)Beispiel: nimm dir an deinem Bruder, an seinem
Vorgehen ein Exempel; etwas zum Exempel nehmen.“ A modern
exception where Exempel is not dead, is „ein Exempel an jemandem
statuieren.“
I was heartbroken when I found out that „zum Exempel“ was out,
since I loved that alternative to zum Beispiel, since it was
just like English. Sort of like with das Diktionär.
I asked my German friend about „zum Exempel“ a few summers ago,
and she said, „You can forget that one Steve.“ What a
heartbreak! Maybe if you walked around Berlin and tossed out a
„zum Exempel“ once in a while you‘d probably get some odd looks.
It would be an interesting experiment. I did, however, see this
written once in a really old German text, I think one dating to
the late 1700s or something.
But, who can make sense of vocabulary in a language. It comes
and goes I suppose. What rather annoys me nowadays are the
overly frequent and totally unnecessary adoption into German of
English words like, „sorry, hi, Airport“ and so on. What in the
world do we need these words for when there are so many REAL
German words to use instead. I avoid these words in German, if I
can. Why say „der Airport“ when der Flughafen has been around
forever? I can understand the loan words for internet usage,
that I get. But, „sorry“???
And, how come „zum Exempel“ has gone the way of the dinosaur
when it looks just like the English, for example?
#Post#: 16274--------------------------------------------------
Re: Adding or Removing?
By: Nikola Date: May 29, 2019, 4:20 am
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=SHL link=topic=1111.msg16271#msg16271
date=1559102093]
[quote author=Alharacas link=topic=1111.msg16259#msg16259
date=1559072720]
Well, in written German, the noun is distinguished by a capital
letter. But in theory, you could Essen essen (eat food), ein
Schreiben schreiben (write a formal letter) and Tragen tragen
(carry stretchers). I've cheated on the last one, though, as the
singular of "stretcher" is Trage. ;) In practice, you don't,
because it just sounds really silly.
Anyway, the number of nouns which also work as a verb is quite
limited*. Usually, it's the same as in Czech: the verbs will
either get a prefix (etwas mit Decken bedecken - to cover
something with blankets), a vowel change (Milch -> melken -
milk, to milk), or the verb's got nothing to do with the noun
(Unkraut jäten - to pull weeds)
*That's as long as you exclude activities, signalled in English
by -ing, in German by an article and a capital letter:
rauchen (to smoke) - das Rauchen (the activity of smoking)
lesen (to read) - das Lesen (the activity of reading)
jäten (to weed) - das Jäten (the activity of weeding)
That works for every single German verb.
Side note: I've just come up with Sie band ein Band um den Band
(She tied a ribbon round the tome) and am sharing it with you
for curiosity's sake. :D
[/quote]
Yes, I was taught that old trick in German 40 years ago, or
more, that you could always take a verb and make a noun into it
by just capitalizing it, since all nouns are capitalized in
German (a rule I really like, because English drives me nuts
trying to recall which nouns are capitalized and which are not.
I can never remember if it‘s supposed to be monday, or
Monday (the auto-correct just gave me the answer)). But, I was
frankly always a little suspicious of taking a German verb and
just making a noun out of it anytime I wanted, and am somewhat
hesitant to do that now, unless I hear a native speaker doing
it. It‘s just that German has so many synonyms and such a
rich and broad vocabulary, it just seemed sort of a cheap shot
of sorts, and maybe a bit lazy, to take a verb and make a noun
out of it like that. I can‘t say I‘ve noticed an
overuse of it, but once my friend in Germany did it, and
she’s highly educated, and wrote, „vielen Dank für
Dein Schreiben ....“ then I felt ok with it.
[/quote]
I didn't comment on this part initially but I'd just like to
point out that making a verb out of a noun and making a noun out
of a verb are different things. I believe that many languages
have very consistent rules about how to make a noun out of a
verb (swim - swimming etc.) so this is not what I had in mind.
I'm only mentioning this because I wanted to discuss a very
specific situation where the verbs for adding or removing
something are formed the same way, using the name of the thing
you're adding or removing. You take the noun "milk" and make the
verb "milk" and it means removing milk from the cow, rather than
adding milk to your coffee, for example. But if you "water" your
plants, you are adding water. I would like to know if English is
unique in this respect.
The topic of false friends and loan words is very interesting,
don't get me wrong. I have a small book called "Deceiving Words
in English" (Zrádná slova v angličtině) and it's
basically a dictionary full of false friends between Czech and
English. And those are just individual words, think about the
times you add a preposition (one that would work in your
language) or create a phrase and the meaning suddenly takes an
unexpected direction. Maybe we could start a new discussion
about that.
#Post#: 16281--------------------------------------------------
Re: Adding or Removing?
By: SHL Date: May 29, 2019, 11:28 am
---------------------------------------------------------
I‘m not entirely sure what you are asking Nikola. I have never
thought of taking a noun and making it into a verb, because
there would be just to many (likely the majority) where that
would‘t work. Sometimes it does, like it your water/water
variety, milk /milk examples. You can drink water from a cup or
water your plants and it‘s the same word. You can drink milk
from a cup and milk a cow. Same thing. But, since English as all
these complex verb case forms ( progressive- „I‘ve been milking
this cows for an hour and it‘s tiring“ ) there‘s too much
variation to draw consistent rules from it. It that what you
were getting at?
#Post#: 16283--------------------------------------------------
Re: Adding or Removing?
By: Susan Date: May 29, 2019, 1:49 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
SHL-- English takes nouns and converts them to equivalent verbs
all the time, especially regarding technology. Google (noun).
To Google something (verb.) Fax (noun) to fax something
(verb). Vacuum cleaner (noun). To vacuum (verb).
#Post#: 16285--------------------------------------------------
Re: Adding or Removing?
By: Nikola Date: May 29, 2019, 4:50 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Thank you, Susan. Yes, that's exactly what it is. Steve. It
doesn't work with every noun but there are plenty in English
that can be used that way: to pen, to chair, to elbow someone,
to cloud, to glaze, to wax, to glue, to house, to foam, to
mirror, to farm, to brush, to bleach, to grease, to wheel, to
hammer, to nap, to number, to sprout, to blossom, to bottle and
at least a couple more that a lady should keep to herself.
I am not looking for a rule, I just want to know if this is a
thing in any other language and how such a language would deal
with the add/remove issue. So my question is not about English.
Alharacas wrote a bit about German. I don't know how you're
getting on with your Dutch but that could be an interesting one.
What about Japanese or Chinese?
I know that many languages add a verb-specific ending. That's
not really a problem. If, for example, Italian had the verb
"acquare" for "to water" and "lattere" for "to milk" I'd still
like to know because this is very close to my original idea.
Those words are completely made-up, by the way :)
#Post#: 16286--------------------------------------------------
Re: Adding or Removing?
By: SHL Date: May 29, 2019, 5:00 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Susan link=topic=1111.msg16283#msg16283
date=1559155749]
SHL-- English takes nouns and converts them to equivalent verbs
all the time, especially regarding technology. Google (noun).
To Google something (verb.) Fax (noun) to fax something
(verb). Vacuum cleaner (noun). To vacuum (verb).
[/quote]
That is true Susan, but I‘ve never really thought about it in
that way.
You‘re the Spanish speaker here, and maybe you looked at my
comments about the kid who is now a paraplegic because of a
misdiagnosis in a Emergency Room in South Florida, all over the
confusion of the meaning in Spanish of „intoxicado“. Of course,
that would never happen today, and certainly never in the
hospital group I belong to, since everything in California is
bilingual English/Spanish. And at hospitals they have certified
translators in Spanish available in an instant.
But, what I wrote I sort of quoted from an article, and it said
the word in Spanish „intoxicado“ just means anything you put in
your body that could have made you sick. I don‘t know about how
it is in Kansas, but in California if you said „intoxicado“ in
Spanish just meant „intoxicated“ in English, there is ONLY one
the thing that means- drunk. You can‘t be „intoxicated“ on
heroin, or any drug other than alcohol in our vernacular. You‘d
say someone were „under the influence“ of heroin, or another
drug, which could include Alkohol. But an „intoxicated“ person
is only someone who is drunk. At least out here anyway, so you
can see how false cognates can lead to pretty awful results if
improperly translated.
Most fasle cognates (that‘s what we called them at University)
are normally benign. I also use this one in German as an
example. The German word „eventuell“ looks just like the English
„eventually“, but that‘s not what it means. It means „possibly
or potentially, perhaps.“ Really easy for the unfamiliar.
Eventually in German is „schlussendlich, and several other
possibilities. This is where translation can get tricky.
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