AI Overview: bits and pieces (German "ich" and Starbuck WA)

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Things are happening very fast with this "experimental" internet search tool.  I realize that it is a new technology, so naturally there are bugs and kinks that have to be worked out, and I don't want to be too harsh with it.  Moreover, at a certain level, it is already serving a yeomanly purpose.

For instance, I asked Google, "should ich be capitalized in the middle of a sentence".  AI Overview (henceforth AIO) promptly stepped in and provided the following straightforward response:

No, ich should not be capitalized in the middle of a sentence in German. In German, the first-person singular pronoun ich (I) is only capitalized when it is the first word in a sentence.

In English, the singular “I” is always capitalized when used as a first-person personal pronoun. This includes all contractions of “I”, such as “I'm” and “I'll”.

Other things to capitalize in the middle of a sentence include…. [details omitted here]

I checked AIO's reply against the following conventional resource:

Here's another way that German differs from English: You don't capitalize the personal pronoun ich (I), unless it is the first word in the sentence.

From: 

"German Capitalization Rules" | FluentU Language Learning (Dec 14, 2023)

Fair enough.  AIO quickly and serviceably answered my somewhat arcane question about German punctuation.

Nonetheless, AIO sometimes gets in the way.  For example, it is now firmly fixed at the top of a large proportion of the searches that I do.  Sometimes I specifically want to ask Wiktionary a question (e.g., part of speech; definition; etymology; etc.), but AIO will cannibalize Wiktionary and explicitly quote / summarize / paraphrase the latter, usually giving only the gist of Wiktionary's co-opted reply.  Some recent searches that yielded such AIO results:  "cathartic", "agonistes", and "inalienable".

Here's how Google, i.e., AIO, swiftly responded to the latter query:

According to Wiktionary, you can look up inalienable, inaliénable, or inalienability in the free dictionary.

Inalienable means something is impossible to take away or transfer, or that it is incapable of being surrendered. For example, you might describe someone's right to something as inalienable if it cannot be changed or taken away.

Here are some synonyms for inalienable: inviolable, absolute, unassailable, and inherent.

The word inalienable comes from the prefix "in-" and the word "alienable". The word "alienable" comes from the Latin verb aliēnāre, which means "to transfer by sale". The earliest known use of the word "inalienable" was in 1647 by historian and political writer James Howell.

The Declaration of Independence used the word "unalienable" to describe life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Not bad, randomly informative, but — in light of my specific query directed to Wiktionary — the first paragraph is tantamount to obtuseness.

Incidentally, as AIO was preparing its response, instead of the frantic whirling and twirling of previous days, now it just informs me politely that it is "generating", which I thought was neat, especially considering the fact that it is all done in a fraction of a second.

Now I really wanted to put AIO's quality and trustworthiness to the test.  I decided to give it something hard and substantial to gnaw on.

In my romp through the northwest, I stumbled upon the tiny town of Starbuck, Washington (46°31′7″N 118°7′36W).  Wouldn't you know it, the snaky, sneaky Snake River runs nearby!

"Ah hah!", I thought, "perhaps I know something that AIO doesn't!"

I was in Seattle around the time when Starbucks was founded (March 30, 1971 at Pike Place Market.  Consequently, I knew quite a bit about the legend and lore of this little company that would one day become a global commercial giant.  For example, I was familiar with the original logo, which some squeamish folks were scandalized by:

Starbucks | Description, History, & Facts | Britannica Money
 
 
Miriam Robbins Dexter and I did a deep dive into the history and prehistory of this figure in Sacred Display: Divine and Magical Female Figures of Eurasia (Cambria, 2010).
 
One thing I did not know about Starbucks was the origin of its name.  Maybe, just maybe, the young Washington entrepreneurs picked up their tantalizing, quaint name from that remote, little town in the southeastern corner of their state.  Let's see what Google (and its doppelganger AIO) have to say on this matter.
 
The name Starbucks comes from a man's fondness for watching deer and the way the larger males moved around, which he called his "star bucks". His wife suggested the name for the coffee chain when he opened his first store, and he thought it was a good fit for a place where people could relax.
 
The name Starbuck may also refer to:
    • An Old English name that means "from the river where stakes were got"
    • A variant of the name Tarbuck with a prosthetic "S-"
    • A founding family of Nantucket who became a whaling dynasty
The first Starbucks store opened in 1971 near Pike Place Market in Seattle, and was founded by Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker, and Zev Siegl.

The Washington town, by the way, was named after railroad official W. H. Starbuck.

Here's what is claimed about the firm's name in Starbucks Archive:

In 1971, our founders got together with artist Terry Heckler to define their new brand. They wanted the company’s name to suggest a sense of adventure, a connection to the Northwest and a link to the seafaring tradition of the early coffee traders. Co-founder Gordon Bowker, a writer, initially proposed calling the company “Pequod,” after the ship in Herman Melville‘s classic novel “Moby-Dick.” But Terry objected – would a cup of “Pee-kwod” appeal to anyone?

The brainstorming continued. While researching names of mining camps on Mt. Rainier, one of the best known landmarks near Seattle, Terry came across “Starbo,” which eventually led the team back to where they’d started. In “Moby-Dick,” the name of the first mate on the Pequod was, you guessed it, Starbuck. A brand was born.

Under "Starbo", here's what The Etymology Nerd has to say about the origin of the name:

On the Starbucks website, it says that the name of their company was inspired by Starbuck, the First Mate of the Pequod in Moby Dick. This was meant to evoke "the romance of the high seas and the seafaring tradition of the early coffee traders", but apparently there's more to the story. According to Starbucks co-founder Gordon Bowker, the idea came to him when he and some others were brainstorming potential brand names starting with st- (because an advertising executive thought those were more powerful) and somebody pulled out a mining map of the Cascade range. They pointed out a town named Starbo, and that reminded Bowker of the literary reference. The name worked perfectly for another reason, too: Starbuck Island is a coral atoll in the Pacific known for its shipwrecks, and the company's logo is a siren, which lures sailors toward shipwrecks.

For more information on the Starbucks name, see this Independent article (they almost called it Cargo House, which would have been a horrible mistake).

Wanting to go one step further, I asked Google > AIO what the origin of the Starbuck surname was, and the following response popped up instantaneously:

The surname Starbuck is of Old English origin and means "from the river where stakes were got". The name originated in the Middle Ages when people were often named after their place of residence or occupation.

The Starbuck family was prominent in the history of whaling in the United States from the 17th to the 19th centuries. The family was based in Nantucket, Massachusetts and some members became well-known for discovering islands in the Pacific Ocean.

In "Digging History" (3/22/14), a genealogical research website, there is an elaborate treatment of the surname Starbuck,

The surname  Starbuck is believed to have Scandinavian origins.  Norsemen (Vikings) came down to Scotland and Iceland between 800 and 1100 A.D. to plunder and terrorize.  After a time these Vikings intermarried with women of the villages and later plundered along the coast of England.

According to Alexander Starbuck's History of Nantucket, “the name Starbuck is Scandinavian and signifies a person of imposing appearance, great or grand bearing.” In the Patronomyca Britannica there is a Norse name which is pronounced “Stor bokki”.  "Stor" means great (body, soul and spirit) and "bokki" means great ;man (one with higher status and ranking).  The spelling variations for this surname include "Starbocki", "Starbock", "Stirbock," "Stalbrook", "Sturbock", Styrbuck", just to name a few.  One family historian suggested that "Starbuck" was finally settle[d] upon because it was easier to pronounce "Stahbuck".

I don't quite understand that last sentence.

In the end, it all boils down to Nantucket, whaling, clipper ships for the tea trade, and the sirens beguiling the sailors who traversed the seas to bring back the coffee, tea, and spices so much desired by Europeans and Americans.  Plus, you see how important it is when choosing a brand name to take into account the greater power of initial st- over c-, even though the following two letters of both names (Starbucks and Cargo House) are -ar.  As for the final -s, well….

Selected readings

 



8 Comments

  1. AG said,

    October 11, 2024 @ 7:55 pm

    re: that weird "stahbuck" sentence – no idea what they meant, but it puts me in mind of the fact that here in Thailand it's definitely easier for Thai speakers to call the coffee chain "stah-bahk" or "suh-tah-bahk". (I think Thai words don't normally ever end with an "s" sound when spoken)

    P.S.: It would probably just be the most sensible course to never use or trust AI.

  2. Gregory Kusnick said,

    October 11, 2024 @ 11:28 pm

    I take the "Stahbuck" comment to mean that for non-rhotic speakers of modern UK English, "Sturbock", "Styrbuck", and other such variants feel awkward in the mouth. So selection pressure pushed the default pronunciation toward something like "Stahbuck", which non-rhotic speakers transcribe as "Starbuck".

    Whether this is an accurate account of the actual history I have no idea.

  3. Bybo said,

    October 12, 2024 @ 9:09 am

    I understand this is about testing a Google product, but why would anyone, under real-world circumstances, want to use Google to look up something in Wiktionary, instead of … just Wiktionary?

  4. Victor Mair said,

    October 12, 2024 @ 10:06 am

    I search for almost everything by going through Google, because it almost always suggests ancillary sources that may turn out to be of great value in my research.

    It reminds me of the old days when I would spend hours browsing in libraries. I would go looking for a certain book in the stacks, but some of my greatest discoveries were made by looking at the books on either side, above and below the one that brought me to that part of the library.

    I think I'll get used to AIO and learn how to use it productively to my advantage. Moreover, AIO is rapidly getting better and better. My efforts, including writing these posts about AIO, are probably helping to train it.

  5. Bybo said,

    October 12, 2024 @ 11:49 am

    @VM

    Thank you for explaining. Wouldn't have occurred to me. I hardly ever use Google Search for anything, but I understand your use case, which is just different from mine.

  6. katarina said,

    October 12, 2024 @ 12:31 pm

    No wonder you are interested in the name “Starbucks”, Victor. After all you are
    co-author of the volume _The True History of Tea_, whose title is a tongue-in-cheek allusion to your favorite work of Chinese fiction, “The True History of Ah Q” by Lu Xun, and its opening riff on the varieties of biographies /histories in China—official history, self-history, unauthorized history , legendary history, supplementary history….Your post could well be an addendum to your __The True History…
    Many thanks for the post. I didn't know anything about the name "Starbucks" and its allusion to the Pequot, Moby Dick, " Nantucket, whaling, clipper ships for the tea trade, and the sirens beguiling the sailors." So much in one word.

  7. Chester Draws said,

    October 12, 2024 @ 2:56 pm

    my somewhat arcane question about German punctuation.

    Yet one that would be answered directly many times on the web, so easy for AI to find and answer.

    I tried Chat GPT on "What does the "tsy" ending in Russian signify?"

    It gave "In Russian, the ending "tsy" (цы) often denotes a plural form of nouns, particularly for words related to people or groups. It can indicate a collective or a diminutive form. For example, "девочка" (girl) becomes "девочки" (girls) in the plural. This ending is commonly used in various contexts, including informal or affectionate references."

    So a vague, but not entirely incorrect start. Then a reference to how to make the plural for a word that doesn't take -цы at all. Completely hopeless.

    Because, as I had already discovered, the internet doesn't have very much useful about the tsy ending, so the AI couldn't paraphrase. Instead it randomly put in the bit about how to make the pural debochka — because that is on the web a lot.

    So much A, very little I.

  8. Yves Rehbein said,

    October 12, 2024 @ 3:36 pm

    To be fair, the Digging History etymology doesn't sound any less insane than the AIO one, excuse my French.

    The first mate "Starbuck" must be a based on steer as in starboard which I recognize as German Steuerbord, Dutch stuurboord, also seen in Old Norse stȳri. Pfeifer reports that French tribord was rebracketed with the prefix (e)s-, assumed borrowing from Dutch. However, the by-sense of Steuer "tax" can be no coincidence with tribute itself of ultimately uncertain origin; Steuer isn't well explained, it's just assumed. Further considerations inevitably ensue in hilarity.

    Besides, the rubber duck intelligence only follows suit, seeing that citations are rare in etymological dictionaries. It follows etymologica in being subject to humans making up stuff.

    The online translation I get on etymologiebank is passable but then it prefers literal translation over context, it formats weirdly and deletes information. Suffice to say that the word is supposed to be distantly related to stuur as in Old Norse stuur or as the case may be stor bokki https://etymologiebank.nl/trefwoord/stuur

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