Potrassa....

[Jukka Aho]

Sanaa näytetään käyttävän yleiskielessä lähes yksinomaan pienistä lapsista ja erityisesti pojista.

Google says:

• näytetään käyttävän → 408 hits
• näytetään käytettävän → 1,280 hits

I’d go with the crowds and prefer the latter (it just feels more natural to me) but I have no idea what linguists “officially” prefer.

[Rob A.]

"Aina sanotaan,että syntyi potra poika,niin mitä se potra oikeastaan tarkoittaa ? Voisiko sitä käyttää myös jossain muussa yhteydessä ? "
( the second question from the bottom on this page : http://igs.kirjastot.fi/iGS/kysymykset/ ... d=Merkitys )

And from the link kalmisto provided, which mentions bódryj, here's a link to: Wiktionary on бодрый

Great!!! That will be it!!...it comes into Finnish from Russian...with the sense of "liveliness", "vigour", etc. I noticed variations of this word, with the same basic meaning of "power" ability", "vigour" appear in Czech, Italian, and Spanish.......the Spanish and Italian versions appear to come from the Latin word, "potens"

This suggests to me that its probably an old Proto Indo-European root word....I didn't check Greek, but I wouldn't be surprised to find some variation there to....

So...potra, therefore is almost certainly cognate with the English word, "potent"....and though it may not have the exact same meaning, it will have a similar sort of meaning or idea...

[AldenG]

Sanaa näytetään käyttävän yleiskielessä lähes yksinomaan pienistä lapsista ja erityisesti pojista.

Google says:

• näytetään käyttävän → 408 hits
• näytetään käytettävän → 1,280 hits

I’d go with the crowds and prefer the latter (it just feels more natural to me) but I have no idea what linguists “officially” prefer.

Well, and while we're on that track of investigation, Google finds 903,000 hits for näyttää-käytettävän, with a hyphen to reduce false hits. I suppose that means my intuition or logic was correct. I wouldn't have blinked an ear on hearing it, but such a construct probably wasn't something I would spontaneously say. At least not before today. An active form like näyttää käyttävän, sure, without even thinking about it.

But since the original phrase came from a librarian writing about language, I may have given it more weight than something I came across at random. I sort of assumed it implied that other formulations would be incorrect.

Those 408 hits are so few compared to 903,000 that they just about imply it's incorrect itself.

[Rob A.]

They flog children?!?

No, but check Breaking the Waves.

Actually, it's nowadays the most liberal thing next to Unitarian Universalism, except for a breakaway fundamentalist wing of it. But that wasn't always so.

Here's the wiki article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyterianism

This Protestant denomination has liberalized dramatically in recent years....though somehow when you scrap deep enough you can still feel the old "flavour"...and not too far beneath the surface either. It's origin is in Calvinism ....and they certainly used to be "Bible-thumpers" and "Jesus lovers"....and they were very dour...as in: 'This world was not meant to be enjoyed'. Well, almost all Presybterians have a Scottish connection...that's my excuse... Och, dinna be sae dreigh 'n sae dour!!!...

Nowadays they try to be tolerant and understanding....and they seem to get on well with Methodists, Congregationalists and even Lutherans... I guess all the modern "flower-hats".....

[Jukka Aho]

Well, and while we're on that track of investigation, Google finds 903,000 hits for näyttää-käytettävän, with a hyphen to reduce false hits.

Umm... How is the hyphen supposed to reduce false hits? ;) If you do a search like this, with the hyphen, you’ll get plenty of false hits a couple of pages forward in the results. (For example, this page, which doesn’t use that expression.) Both Google links I gave above in my previous post used quotes around the two-word phrase specifically to limit the search only to pages where those two words appear side by side.

[AldenG]

Oh, you're right. That reduces näyttää käytettävän to 208 hits, making it the least favored of the three.

I used to use the quotes years and years ago, and then, based on experimentation at the time, switched to hyphen because it was less trouble.

And yet the hyphen clearly does still have some effect, though I can't see by example what that would be. It cuts results by 1/3. None of the returned results actually have a hyphen between the two words.

[AldenG]

If you go through life thinking that sunny days and other happy states feel a little too good to be true, you were probably brought up Presbyterian. If you go through life thinking rainy days are a punishment, you were probably brought up Baptist.

[AldenG]

Speaking of Google evolving, here's a good clip.

Many of us probably know the facts behind it already, but it's still a good philosophical rumination.

Solip-Size Me: A Web Of One

[Rob A.]

If you go through life thinking that sunny days and other happy states feel a little too good to be true, you were probably brought up Presbyterian. If you go through life thinking rainy days are a punishment, you were probably brought up Baptist.

...I don't know about the Baptists....but you've got the Presbyterian psyche spot on....

[Jukka Aho]

Oh, you're right. That reduces näyttää käytettävän to 208 hits, making it the least favored of the three.

Even some of those hits are actually misses since the search finds sentences such as:

Mittari näyttää käytettävän puhalluspaineen.

But there’s näytetään käytettävän type usage in the results as well.

[skandagupta]

In my book "potra" is one of those age old aryan loanwords in finnic. Putra = son

[skandagupta]

They flog children?!?

No, but check Breaking the Waves.

Actually, it's nowadays the most liberal thing next to Unitarian Universalism, except for a breakaway fundamentalist wing of it. But that wasn't always so.

They give`m good old religion and that`s good for them.

[Rob A.]

In my book "potra" is one of those age old aryan loanwords in finnic. Putra = son

Good point....related to the Sanskrit word.... and it may still tie in with the discussion above, PIE being the proto aryan language. I suppose the word "son" could be viewed as having the sense of power, liveliness, potence, etc. The word, potro/potra means "colt"/"filly" in Spanish.....

It probably did not come directly from to Sanskrit....but rather is cognate with the word.

Though I suppose one has to remain open to all possiblities...the Finnish word, vasara apparently comes directly from an Indo-Iranian language and is cognate with the Sanskrit word for "hammer"....Hard to know why this might have happened....

[onkko]

In my book "potra" is one of those age old aryan loanwords in finnic. Putra = son

In my book Turkki what is "fur" in english comes from hairyness of turkish people