Did you mean | Travel | Economics | Finance | Marketing | Business | Culture | Geography | History | Life | Mathematics | Science | Society | Technology | New site added |
A placeholder name occupies a syntactic space between nouns and pronouns. They typically function grammatically as nouns; their referents, however, must be supplied by context, like pronouns. They serve as placeholders for names of objects that are otherwise unknown or unspecified.
KadigansWillard Richardson Espy, David Annis and some others have given the name kadigans (or cadigans) to this class of words. The word is of obscure origin. Stuart Berg Flexner and Harold Wentworth's 1960 Dictionary of American Slang contains the word kadigin, and defines it merely as a synonym for thingamajig; if so, then kadigin is itself a kadigan. Its use as a label for these words as a class may be original with Espy. Its etymology is also obscure. It may relate to the Irish surname Cadigan. The 1960 spelling suggests that Flexner and Wentworth related it to the element gin, in this context likely a clipped form of engine, as in the cotton gin. Kadigans in the English language for inanimate objectsCommon kadigans in the English language include:
Thingamajigs are typically specialized devices which have a limited number of uses or a single specific use. The term is typically employed by one whose experience with the use of the object is nonexistent or very limited. Regular users of such devices would never refer to them as thingamajigs or any of the related terms listed below. A thingamajig is different from a widget, in that a widget is an actual, but not yet named or constructed, mechanical component. It is also different from a gadget, in that "gadget" is the generic term for a superfluously useful device, such as a remote garage door opener, whose name is easily remembered. Thingamajigs are of such a nature that they are also typically referred to by location: "The doofunny on the kitchen counter", "the geemie beside the couch", or "that thing on top of the fridge". It is assumed by the listener that anything else on top of the fridge, such as the box of tissues, the pictures of the kids, or the can of air freshener, which are more ordinary and thus more nameable than the "thing" for which one is looking, are not the requested object. Where one might request a hammer with no reference to location, one would not similarly request a doohickey. Even among the world of otherwise nameless things referred to by kadigans, there is a hierarchy of specificity. "Thing", as its name implies, is universally applicable. It is likely, however, that a "gizmo" involves some minor degree of technological sophistication, connoting as it does some mechanical or electronic aspect. "Crap", "stuff", "junk", and "shit" are mass noun kadigans in English. Most of these words exist in the less formal register of the English language. In more formal speech and writing, words like paraphernalia, artifact, or utensil are called into play; these words also refer to things made by human hands without getting specific about their form or function. These words also differ slightly in usage: artifacts are usually found objects of indeterminate age and purpose, while utensil suggests cutlery. These words have been in regular use since at least the nineteenth century. Edgar Allan Poe wrote a short story entitled The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq., showing that particular form to be in familiar use in the United States of America in the 1840s. In Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado, W. S. Gilbert makes the Lord High Executioner sing of a "little list" which includes:
The need for such words increases as technology advances. Indeed, kadigans have a grand future, if the Star Trek television franchise predicts accurately: many of the show's "scientific explanations" of their futuristic technology have a curious placeholder quality to them, causing fans of the show to speak of Treknobabble. Kadigans in computingIn computing, kadigans also exist.
Hacker slang includes a number of placeholders, such as frob, which may stand for any small piece of equipment. To frob, likewise, means to adjust (a device) in an aimless way, or to toggle a value between alternate states. Other words used as kadigansOther words that may have specific technical meanings are occasionally used as kadigans as well. Some words that are so used in English include:
Vulgar placeholder namesAny number of English swear words can be used as placeholders. The word fuck is noted for being used in many roles and parts of speech, both with and without derogatory intent: a fucker may be any thing or person whatsoever, while fucking with something is equivalent to fooling with or messing with it and denotes no particular action. English is hardly unique in this regard; see below for similar uses in Russian and Spanish. The words shit and, more rarely, crap are used as mass noun placeholders, cruder equivalents to stuff. Kadigans in the English language for peopleKadigan-like expressions can refer to people as well. Among words or phrases used in English to refer to people of unknown or irrelevant name are:
Certain fixed expressions are used as placeholder names in a number of specialized contexts. In formal legal contexts, John Does are sometimes mentioned; in more informal English, people sometimes need to speak of Old So-and-so or What's-'is-name or What's-'is-face (cruder) or Miss Thing. Tommy Atkins is a mythical Briton who filled out all his forms correctly, and as such lent his name to British soldiers generally. John Smith, often from "Anytown, U.S.A.," and John Q. Public are also used as placeholder names for unnamed citizens, and similarly in Britain one might refer to Joe or Fred Bloggs. In Australia, the name John Citizen is used in a similar capacity on samples of forms or cards. In America, Joe or Jane Sixpack refers to the perceived average middle or lower class person. In theatre, television and motion pictures, the great actors Walter Plinge, David Agnew, and George Spelvin are pseudonyms used for cast members who prefer to go unnamed. The name Alan Smithee is similarly used by film directors who wish to remain anonymous (often because their film did not turn out well). Conversely, placeholders can be used to conceal identity, as seen in the above Gilbert and Sullivan lyrics. Movies and theatre also give rise to another specific type of kadigan, the MacGuffin. This is any object or person used to drive a plot or as the goal of a quest, but which otherwise has no relevance to the action, and thus could be replaced in the script with another similar item with no loss of sense. A foozle is a generic enemy or group of enemies that must be defeated for the plot to move on in a game. Kadigans in the English language for placesIn some forms of English, kadigans exist to represent places, particularly the stereotypical backward, insignificant or isolated town in the middle of nowhere. These include:
Common components of placeholders for places are -town, -ville, -hampton (in the United Kingdom), -vale, Big-, Mid-, Middle-, Little-, Small-, Bally- (in Ireland), and Any-. The National Health Service of the UK, as well as the Department for Transport, use a large variety of placeholders as examples, including:
Kadigans in the English language for numbersEnglish employs a number of kadigans to refer to unspecified quantity:
The following particles likewise to unspecified quantity, but are not placeholder names as defined in this article:
Kadigans in the English language for dates
Kadigans in other languagesMost other languages have kadigans of some sort in their vocabulary. Arabic uses Fulan / Fulanah فلان / فلانة and when a last name is needed it becomes Fulan AlFulani / Fulanah AlFulaniyyah فلان الفلاني / فلانة الفلانية. When a second person is needed, ʿillan / ʿillanah علان / علانة is used. The use of Fulan has been borrowed into Spanish and Portuguese as shown below. The Chinese term is shenma shenma (Simplified Chinese: 什么什么; Traditional Chinese: 什麼什麼) and its usage is analogous to that of the Japanese explained below. Esperanto has an all-purpose kadigan suffix um, which has no fixed meaning and simply tells that an object or action has something to do with some purpose or object, for instance butonumi ("to button up" or "to press a button"). It can be used as a root and inflected in various forms, umi, umilo, umeca#0135;o etc. In French, an unspecified artifact can be le bidule; this is from military slang for something in disarray; the word machin, derived from machine, is also used as a kadigan. truc can also be used for some random object. Quebec French also has patente, gogosse and such (most of which have verb forms meaning "to fiddle with"). For places, the classic French kadigan is Trifouilly-les-Oies; in French-speaking Belgium, Outsiplou or even Outsiplou-les-Bains-de-Pieds (Outsiplou-the-footbath) is used for a generic village of Wallonia; among French people of North African origin ("pieds-noirs"), Foun-Tataouine is the generic village, although a small village by that name actually does exist in Tunisia, lending its name. German also sports a variety of kadigans; some, as in English, contain the element Dings, Dingsda, Dingsbums (thingy), cognate with English thing. Also, Krimskrams suggests a random heap of small items, e.g. an unsorted drawerful of memorabilia or souvenirs. In a slightly higher register, Gerät represents a miscellaneous artifact or utensil, or, in casual German, may also refer to an item of remarkable size. The use of the word Teil (part) is a relatively recent kadigan in German that has gained great popularity since the late 1980s. Initially a very generic kadigan, it has obtained specific meaning in certain contexts. For example, to buy ecstasy customers usually simply ask for parts (Teile) without danger of ambiguation. Zeug oder Zeugs (compare Dings, can be loosely translated as stuff) usually refers to either a heap of random items that is a nuisance to the user of the kadigan, or an uncountable substance or material, often a drug. Finally, Sache, as a placeholder, loosely corresponding to Latin res, describes an event or a condition. Recently, the kadigan Nupsi for something small protruding from something larger has become somewhat popular (via TV comedy, it is believed). The German equivalent to the English John Doe for males and Jane Doe for females would be Hans Mustermann and Erika Mustermann, respectively. For many years, Erika Mustermann was used on the sample picture of German id-cards ("Personalausweis").2 In Austria, Max Mustermann is used instead. In Cologne, Otto and Gerdi are popular used names for men/boys and women/girls with unknown firstname. Bert also had some popularity as a placeholder for names in the past. For remote or exotic locations, the Germans also use Timbuktu, as is common in the English language; for places in the German-speaking world, Kleinkleckersdorf is in usage. Other kadigans such as Bad Sonstwo an der Irgend have been suggested. Otto Normalverbraucher ("Otto Average-Consumer"; this is taken from bureaucratic jargon of post-WW2 food rationing via the name of a 1948 film character played by Gert Fröbe) corresponds to the american "The Joneses". In Hebrew, the most popular personal name placeholders are מֹשֶׁה (Moshe = Moses) and יוֹסִי (Yossi, diminutive form of Joseph) for first name, and כֹהֵן (Cohen, the most popular last name in Israel) for last name. However, in ID and cr card samples, the usual name is Israel Israeli for a man and Israela Israeli for a woman (these are actual first and last names). The traditional terms are Ploni פלוני and his party Almoni אלמוני. A vulgar kadigan for a place mostly popular in the army is פִיזְדֶלוֹך (pizdelokh, formed from the Russian pizda, pussy, and the German and Yiddish Loch = hole). Also quite common is תיז (א)נביא (Tiz (e)Nabi "the prophet's ass", from Arabic), and again Timbuktu. A kadigan for a time in the far past is תרפפ"ו (pronounced Tarapapu, which somewhat resembles a year in the Hebrew calendar but is not quite one). In Hungarian the word izé (a stem of ancient Finno-Ugric heritage) is used, referring primarily to inanimate objects but sometimes also to people, places, concepts, or even adjectives. Hungarian is very hospitable to derivational processes and the izé- stem can be further extended to fit virtually any grammatical category, naturally forming a rich family of derivatives: e.g. izé whatchamacallit (noun), izés whatchamacallit-ish (adjective), izébb or izésebb more whatchamacallit(ish) (comparative adjective), izésen in a whatchamacallitish manner (adverb), izél to whatchamacallit (often meaning: screw up) something (transitive verb), izéltet to cause someone to whatchamacallit (transitive verb), izélget to whatchamacallit continually (often meaning: pester, bother -- frequentative verb), izélődik to whatchamacallit (fool, mess) around (durative verb). (In slang izé and its verbal and nominal derivatives often take on sexual meanings). In addition to its placeholder function, izé is an all-purpose hesitation word, like ah, er, um in English. In Italian the standard kadigan is roba, stuff; the word coso is used, apparently related to cosa, "thing". In Japanese, naninani (なになに, a doubled form of the word nani, meaning what) is often used as a kadigan. It does not necessarily mean a physical object; for example, it is often used to stand in for an omitted word when discussing grammar. In Latin the word res (thing) is used. Some Latin legal writers used the name Numerius Negidius as a John Doe placeholder name; this name was chosen in part because it shares its initials with the Latin phrases (often abbreviated in manuscripts to NN) nomen nescio, "I don't know the name"; nomen nominandum, "name to be named" (used when the name of an appointee was as yet unknown); and non nominatus/nominata, "not named". In Malay the word anu which may be prefixed with si can be used to refer to a person whose name has eluded the speaker. It can also be used for a generic person as in Mr/Ms So-and-so. In Maori the word taru, literally meaning "long grass" or "weeds" is used. In Polish most popular kadigans are dynks (see German Dings) and wihajster (equals to German wie heisst er? - how do you call this?). Others like elemelek or pipsztok are probably not so well known. Also used are dzyngiel (equvalent to dynks) and knefel (similar to frob, unknown object that can be adjusted or manipulated). In Portuguese, common kadigans are treco and negócio, among others. Kadigans for people are usually Fulano/Fulana (optionally surnamed de Tal), Sicrano/Sicrana and Beltrano/Beltrana. João das Couves or José da Silva are also used. In Quechua, there is a noun radical na (whatever) to which verbal (nay = to do whatever), agentive (naq = the doer of whatever), or affective (nacha = cute little thing) suffixes may be added. In Russian, among the common kadigans are это самое (this particular object), штука (thing; diminutive forms also exist), and хуйня (in mat slang; roughly translatable as something dickish) together with its minced forms such as хрен (horseradish). A kadigan for something awkward and useless is бандура (bandura, an old Russian musical instrument). A kadigan for a monetary unit is тугрик(tugrik, the monetary unit of Mongolia; as is the case with Timbucktoo, most speakers are unaware of its actual existence). Kadigans for personal names include variations on names Иван (Ivan), Пётр (Pyotr/Peter), and Сидор (Sidor), such as Иван Петрович Сидоров (Ivan Petrovich Sidorov) for a full name, or Иванов (Ivanov) for a last name. Spanish tends to use fairly self-explanatory phrases as kadigans: el como-se-llama ("what's-it-called"), el que-te-dije ("what-I-said-to-you"), el no-sé-que ("I-don't-know-what") ; they also reach for Latin, and borrow quídam as a word for something or another. Chisme is generally used for any object, whereas a tapa would refer to any sort of food. Both placeholders are often heard, and there are countless restaurants in Spain and other countries that include the word Tapa or Tapas in their name. Mexican Spanish adds chingadera ("fucker"), not to be used in polite circumstances. Kadigans for unspecified persons include Don Fulano/Doña Fulana and Fulano/Fulana de Tal; if a second or third person is needed, they are Mengano and Zutano. Swedish has a large, but fairly unimaginative vocabulary of kadigans: Sak, grej, pryl, mojäng/moj (from French moyen) and grunka are the neutral words for thing. "Pryl" is also a small sharp tool used to make holes in tough materials, but this usage is less common. An older word for thing is ting, which is common in idioms, and a pretty much obsolete one is tingest. Some plural nouns are grejsimojs, grunkimojs, grejs and tjofräs, which correspond to thingamabob, and the youth loan word stuff, which is pronounced with the Swedish u. Apparat (or, more slangy, mackapär) more specifically refers to a complex appliance of some kind, much like the German Gerät. More familiarly or when openly expressing low interest, people use tjafs or trams (drivel) and skräp or krams (rubbish). Like in English, various words for feces can be used: skit (shit) and bajs (poop - often anglified by youth into bice) are standard, well known local variations are mög and dret. Vadhannuhette and vaddetnuhette correspond to "whatshisname" and whatchamacallit respectively, except that they for some reason use the past tense. Det där du vet means "that thing you know. Den och den (that and that) corresponds to so and so. Place names in Swedish are more colorful: Someplace far away can be called Tjotaheiti (which is derived from Tahiti) or Långtbortistan, Farawaystan, a play on names like Pakistan. Häcklefjäll is a commonly used as a name for a generic remote village, inspired by the barely populated mountainous (fjäll) regions of the north. Common names used as placeholders are Anna and Maria for women, Johan and Anders for men and Svensson, Karlsson and Andersson for surnames. Turkish has many colorful kadigans. "Falan" seems to be borrowed from Arabic, and comes in variations like "filanca" (what's his name) and "falan filan" (stuff, etc.). "Ivir zivir" is a common kadigan for "various stuff". Kadigans for persons exist in abundance, one example being "Sari Cizmeli Mehmet Aga" ("Mehmet Aga with yellow boots") which generally is used to mean "unknown person". In Welsh, the word bechingalw has been used, literally whatdyoucallit. One of the kadigans in Ubykh, zamsjada, may be related to another word meaning useless. In Yiddish, der zach is often used, similar to the German die Sache above. Stand-up comic David Steinberg did a routine about his attempt to identify an object, based only on his father's description of it as "In Yiddish, we used to call it "Der zach". In Yoruba, Lagbaja and Temedu are the most common placeholder names. See alsoReferences
What does Placeholder mean ? Search with Google !Article on Placeholder, category, different spelling or sense |
|
Did you mean: Culture | Geography | History | Life | Mathematics | Science | Society | Technology Economy finance business money economy: Economics | Finance | Marketing | Business | Money | Real Estate | Insurance | Retirement | Microeconomics | Economics Top Search: Kazaa | Sex | Pornography | Games | MySpace | Google | Ebay | Paris Hilton | Carmen Electra | Jessica Simpson | Eminem | MapQuest | Dogs | Jokes | Obituaries | MSN Messenger | Splogs | Ringtones | Casino | Poker | Gambling | Lyrics | Anime | Continents and countries in the world: Japan | United Kingdom | Canada | France | Amsterdam | Monaco | Spain | Capitals Cities | Continents | World | Americas | North America | South America | Europe | Africa | Eurasia | Oceania | Antarctica | Asia | Australia A web travel guide for your holidays, hotel and plane tickets: Travel guide and holidays French Version, guide de voyage dans le monde: Voyage et vacances Visit partners of Did you mean Travel: Partners Site Map articles begining from 0 to 9 and A to Z: Site Map 0 to A | Site Map B to C | Site Map D to Z Cours d'anglais, cours de langues pour debutant: Cours d'anglais Annuaire france regions et tourisme: Annuaire OuiX Sexe sur AbSexe, videos porno et annuaire sexe: Ab Sexe Url Rewriting by Atuvu Referencement This work is licensed under a GNU Free Documentation License. Texts derived from WikiPedia Placeholder ©2006 Did you mean Copyright Notice Page Placeholder cached on Friday 05th of September 2008 08:02:14 AM |