"I prefer modern silverware."
Translation:Mi preferas modernan manĝilaron.
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Is "silverware" the US-English for "cutlery"? I was thinking it was great silver platters from a bygone era.
American here, we do indeed use "silverware" as a generic term for eating utensils, even though they're typically made from stainless steel. I've even heard people use the term "plastic silverware" when talking about the disposable stuff.
Edit: I think my favorite term for cutlery is "eatin' irons".
I believe that some US English speakers call it "silverware", some call it "flatware" and many simply lack a vocabulary word that encompasses knives, spoons, forks, etc.
(For example, there's a story told in my family about how one of my cousins there, in grade school, talked about "helping her parents by putting away the Besteck" -- they used the German word in their family because there was no good English one available to them but the child did not realise that that word was not English.)
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"Mangxilaron" = "silverware" only in the USA. I have never heard it call silverware in Australia, only cutlery, and one of my Esperanto dictionarys has it defined as "eating utensils". That is probably a better universal translation.
We in England use "silverware" but only if we mean "silverware", otherwise if it is not silver it it cutlery.
Is this the only way you can construct the word silverware?
Would mangxarilo mean like a tool for a group of meals?
"Denki" ne estas Esperanto-vorto. Ĉu eble "pensi"?
Kaj jes, "manĝilarojn" eble estas pli bona, ĉar "manĝilaron" tradukiĝus kiel "a silverware".
Laŭ mi, "a silverware" ne eblas en la angla - "silverware" estas kolektiva vorto por tuta aro de manĝiloj, kaj gramatike simila al ekz. "water" aŭ "rice" (aroj de akveroj aŭ rizeroj, respektive). Oni ne diras "a rice" aŭ "two rices" kaj ankaŭ ne "a silverware" aŭ "two silverwares".
Okay, let’s call it "a set of silverware." If you think of all sets of silverware in the world in ĝeneral you can use "manĝilarojn", if only of the one you use say "manĝilaron." :-) A little bit of context would help.
Mi ankaŭ. En mia "silverware drawer" mi havas silverware. Unu peco de tio estas "a piece of silverware." Simile "cutlery" aŭ "flatware" aŭ "stainlessware". (Mi estas de Nova Anglio.)
I think that would refer to several sets of silverware.
Remember that -ar- already carries in it the connotation of a group of things -- a manĝilaro is a group of eating-tools.
Most people these days only have cutlery, made from stainless steel! Silverware should be made only from silver!
Sounds like an etymological fallacy. (You don't say "it's now six o'smartphone" if you read the time off your phone rather than off a clock, do you? And do you still say "hang up" when pressing the red key on your phone, even though you're not hanging a physical receiver on a cradle?)
Dictionaries say that silverware can now also mean "articles, especially eating and serving utensils, made of silver, silver-plated metals, stainless steel, etc." ( http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/silverware ) or "forks, knives, and spoons that are made of stainless steel, plastic, etc." ( http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/silverware )
That boat has sailed; the word now no longer necessarily refers to silver.
Sorry I considered silverware as something made by silver, and can't understand why it is translated as manĝilaron... I am not an native English speaker.
As you will see by reading the other comments, some English speakers use "silverware" to refer to eating utensils such as forks, knives, and spoons, regardless of which material they are made of. Other English speakers use different words or may not even have a collective word for those tools together.