Terminology - What Does This Mean in English?

[Eleatic Guest]

I think we need a thread on English terminology. At least I need one. Not for everyday words, but for more complicated terms.

Any idea what (Dom)bauhütte means in English? English Gothic cathedrals still must have them for regular repairs and maintenance, so how do they call themselves? Cathedral building lodge, cathedral works, cathedral workshop, mason's workshop?

[Kegluneq]

I believe they are just Cathedral workshops. There's a Fellowship associated with them in the UK, which presumably indicates that that is the preferred label.

[Eleatic Guest]

Vogelschlinge - a kind of trap for birds with a noose which the hunter lays out on the ground (curiously, I could not find any pics of it in a quick search).

The literal translation leads to the false friend "bird sling" which, however, is a range weapon.

[M. Demetrius]

One word for a trap like that is "snare". That's a loop of one sort or another attached to a sensitive trigger, that pulls the standing part of the cord/wire/rope by dropping a weight or using a spring of one sort or another, thereby tightening the noose.

Here's some photos of bird snares, in case that is what you wanted to know:
https://www.google.com/search?q=bird+sna...66&bih=653

Does that help? Snare. Schlinge in German, if Google has it right.

[Eleatic Guest]

Does that help? Snare. Schlinge in German, if Google has it right.

Yes, it helps. I noticed, though, that in German loop, snare and sling all can be used interchangeably for "Schlinge".

[Flavivs Aetivs]

I have a whole chart of Latin Word Terminology for the Roman Military/Government/Economy, but it needs updating.

[Eleatic Guest]

Imagine there is a church with more than one portico.
Further imagine you need to describe in a caption rather succinctly the ornaments in the left spandrel of the principal arch of one of these porticos (which you, however, don't want to specify again as the north portico because this has already been done in the pictures above).
I put it "Ornaments in left spandrel of principal portico arch"
But then I noticed the meaning is ambiguous: it could mean either the principal arch of the depicted portico or an arch of the principal portico of the church. Two entirely different things.
Now in my crusade for semantic precision this bugged me a lot.
Do you think "Ornaments in left spandrel of principal portico's arch" is an adequate solution in English, grammatically and stylistically?

[Flavivs Aetivs]

add "the" before "left" and "principal"

[Crispvs]

Normally in English church terminology we don't refer to 'porticos'. The entrances are referred to as the 'west door', the 'south door' and the 'north door'. There are normally no main doors in the east end of a church, as this is where the sanctuary and altar are normally situated. If the are two doors in one side of the church (often the case with large churches and cathedrals), the larger one will generally be referred to as the 'main north/south door and the other as the north/south porch. Small doors not intended for regular use as thoroughfares are often referred to as 'porches' (a reference to the small porch in which one is often situated. Often one of the main doors (normally the one used as the principle entrance/exit) is set within a more generously sized porch and this is then referred to as the west/north/south porch. I hope that isn't too confusing.

I would probably describe your 'ornaments in left spandrel of principal portico arch' as ' the decoration in the left spandrel of the arch above the (for example) west door' or 'the decoration in the left spandrel of the west door arch' if the door is set into an arch as opposed to being surmounted by one (assuming I am correctly interpreting your meaning). If you were referring to the spandrels of arches in the walls of a porch, you would probably refer to 'the left spandrel of the arch in the east/west wall of the porch'.

I hope this makes sense.

Crispvs

[Renatus]

Do you think "Ornaments in left spandrel of principal portico's arch" is an adequate solution in English, grammatically and stylistically?

"Ornaments in the left spandrel of the principal arch of the portico" would be better, I think, but only if that was the only portico shown in the pictures. If the others were shown, you would probably have to refer to the North portico or, if the picture of that portico immediately preceded the picture of the ornaments, you might call it "the above portico" or perhaps "the same portico".

[Eleatic Guest]

Hilfswort = auxiliary word?

A word which is used for lack of a better one. For example, some motifs of Celtic art are called "yin yang" by Celtologists because they don't know how the Celts called these patterns, so they fall back on the Chinese term. In German one can also speak more generally of a Hilfskonstruktion (literally auxiliary construction), but this word seems even more alien to English.

[Cornelius A]

seems right (according to google)

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Hilfswort = auxiliary word?

A word which is used for lack of a better one. For example, some motifs of Celtic art are called "yin yang" by Celtologists because they don't know how the Celts called these patterns, so they fall back on the Chinese term. In German one can also speak more generally of a Hilfskonstruktion (literally auxiliary construction), but this word seems even more alien to English.

In that word I can see where both "Help" and "Construction" came from.

[Eleatic Guest]

I have a question concerning punctuation, specifically quotation marks. Which version is correct?

A. "I am not kidding", he said.
B. "I am not kidding," he said.

C. Smith called the battle in his 1958 article "a tactical masterpiece".
D. Smith called the battle in his 1958 article "a tactical masterpiece."

Comma and full stop within or outside the quotation marks?

[Athena Areias]

American usage (using a style sheet I have):

B. and D.