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January 30

Auderiense

What could the name Leptictidium auderiense refer to? I have though of the possibility of it being a reference to the Aude department in France, but it's highly improbable due to the fact that this animal has been found only in Germany. Also, if it was the Aude, it would be something more like "audiensis", wouldn't it? What could it be? Thanks. -- Leptictidium (mammal talk!) 19:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Auderath? Just a guess from looking at the pages here. Recury (talk) 20:40, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't read German very well, but from this link it looks like there was a Roman site called "Auderia" near what is now Dieburg in the Odenwald. This may be the origin. --Cam (talk) 20:46, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

And I see that the Messel shales are in that district so that must be it. Unfortunately I can't find anything about Auderia in English on the web.--Cam (talk) 20:54, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

The articles on Germania Superior and Groß-Gerau mention Civitas Auderiensium . Maybe that will help as a keyword. ---Sluzzelin talk 22:41, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. -- Leptictidium (mammal talk!) 22:59, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

See w:de:Civitas Auderiensium for more. DuncanHill (talk) 23:28, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Spanish

Does anyone know the Spanish word for "Chorus" ... that is, the repeated chorus that is sung between the different verses (or stanzas) in a song? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 23:25, 30 January 2008 (UTC))

estribillo means chorus in the sense of refrain. ---Sluzzelin talk 23:29, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 14:57, 31 January 2008 (UTC))

January 31

Adverb of "Hard"

Quick->Quickly Slow->Slowly Hard->??? Not hardly, what would be the word? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kuanche (talk • contribs) 05:42, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Usually we just use the word 'hard' as an adverb, as in "He hit the table hard with his hand." Many adjectives in English can be used with their root form, without a derivative suffix like '-ly'. Steewi (talk) 05:56, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Sure, Steewi. Sometimes an adjective has no obvious adverb associated with it because the property it denotes cannot be applied to actions, even metaphorically. Yellowly? I don't think so! Blackly? Yes, because there is a metaphorical sense: "He looked blackly at his companions, and wondered who would be the next one hanged." And yes, both hard and hardly are adverbs from the adjective hard, but with different applications. Consider also the interesting case of fast (adjective and adverb). There is no "fastly", though many children apply the general rule and attach -ly to the adjective, just as they pass through a phase of saying goed instead of went.

– Noetica^♬♩ Talk 07:10, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

For the sake of annoyance: What time the sick moon looks up yellowly / Out of the pillowed sky, ... (Muriel Stuart, The Dead Moment) ---Sluzzelin talk 07:45, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Keylet. In poetry, as in love and war, all is fairly fair. (If we are to make our comments littlely.)– Noetica^♬♩ Talk 08:57, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Or we can just use a synonym of "hard" - "forcefully" for example. Adam Bishop (talk) 07:48, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Fun question, Kuanch. On the subject of weird adverbs, I noticed that biglyis a legitimate word - Adambrowne666 (talk) 09:15, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

According to the OED, 'hardly' was once used as the adverbal form of hard in all its senses. Algebraist 10:14, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

If you want to catch me, this is the bait you should use. I can't resist commenting about adverbs. "Quick" and "slow" are adverbs. "Come quick" and "Drive slow" are good, plain English and are more correct than "come quickly" and "drive slowly" in their ordinary meanings. It is mere hypercorrection to tack an "-ly" on the end. Why are we still so afraid of our third-grade teachers? --Milkbreath (talk) 11:22, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Huh? An adverb describes a verb, while an adjective describes a noun. Hence "a quick dog" but "the dog runs quickly". "Come quick" and "drive slow" are incorrect. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 11:40, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Ah! Caught one, sorry it was you. They are correct. See here and here. The hypercorrection has become the norm to some extent, it seems. --Milkbreath (talk) 11:57, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Both of them sound like exclusively American usages to me. 80.254.147.52 (talk) 13:56, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Those links don't support your position at all. "Come, quick!" is not a verb plus an adverb, it's an imperative. The only online dictionary I trust is the OED, which says that this usage of quick "represents the adjective in the phrase 'be quick'" --Richardrj ^{talk email} 15:05, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

If you look just above the OED entry you mention, you'll see the entry for the adverb ("=quickly"). The imperative "quick" you mention is like "hark" or "lo", an old-fashioned single-word interjection, not the adverb we see in "Come quick." If we make it "Come here quick", we can see that it is an adverb in "Come quick". The OED says the adverb is "now usually considered less formal than 'quickly'", the operative words being "usually considered". I consider it plain English in settings where "quickly" is over-formal. If you trust any dictionary at all, we're going to have a hard time communicating, but the OED calls it an adverb. QED. --Milkbreath (talk) 16:25, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

What's difficult is forming adverbs from adjectives that already end in -ly, like friendly. In Texas, you can see signs on the road that say "Drive Friendly", which sounds bad to non-Texans, but there's not really an alternative. "Drive Friendlily" sounds even worse. —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 12:05, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

To me, quick and quickly as adverbs have subtly different meanings, which I can't even really put into words. "Quick" would mean do it fast, "quickly" would mean, in a quick manner. Like I said, it's hard to explain. Drive slow and Drive slowly are not even subtly different, but majorly (majorlily ?) different. "Drive slow" is how fast the car goes, "Drive slowly" is how fast you move within the car. Corvus cornix_talk 19:16, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Huh? Are you saying that "drive slowly" means "drive the car (at an unspecified speed) while moving slowly in your seat"? -- JackofOz (talk) 23:35, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

That's sort of how I interpreted it, implying slow movements of your extremities while steering, shifting, and hitting the pedals. A Communicative Grammar of English (by Geoffrey Leech and Jan Svartvik) states: "There is no difference in meaning between drive slow and drive slowly or buy cheap and buy cheaply, but the adjective form tends to be more informal." ---Sluzzelin talk 23:44, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm looking at Modern English Usage, second edition, Gowers' revision of Fowler's work. They mention under the entry "slow(ly)" that the comparative and superlative are more common than the forms with "more" and "most". "Drive slower" won't raise the same eyebrows as "drive slow", which isn't fair to the plain adverb in my book. Enough people have reported that they sense a semantic difference between forms like "drive slow" and "drive slowly" that we must al least entertain the possibility that there is one even if we don't hear it ourselves (I do). Our boys explain it saying that "the adverb, and not the verb etc., should contain the real point." They compare "we forged slowly ahead" with "drive as slow as you can." They also note that "go slow" (in the US, "run slow") for clocks is the only idiomatic form (but I think a case could be made for that being a predicate adjective). --Milkbreath (talk) 00:13, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Heh, I hear a difference too, though mainly when I think about it. If my front-seat passenger said "Please drive slowly.", I certainly wouldn't assume they are referring to my jerky hand- and footwork. (Nor would I think about their usage of an adverb.) As always, I'm just fascinated and happily confused by all the experts disagreeing over English grammar and semantics. ---Sluzzelin talk 00:25, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

We are as one on this, Sluzz. -- JackofOz (talk) 00:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

And on further reflection, it seems to me that if the passenger wanted the driver to increase the speed of the car while continuing to use non-jerky hand and foot movements, they'd have to say something like "Could you please drive faster but still drive slowly". That might be enough to cause the driver to either veer off the road into a ditch, have a heart attack, or smash the passenger's face in. (I know which option I'd prefer. But then, I've always had a strong over-reaction to contradictory commands.) -- JackofOz (talk) 06:14, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Me again. Thanks for the input. This was my first time posting a question and I'm delightfully surprised at the response. @Milkbreath. I get what you're saying; quick and slow are legitimate adverbs. (I actually just picked the first two examples off the top of my head.) But I still would use quickly and slowly. I don't consider this "hypercorrection". After all, as you've said, the -ly forms are perfectly okay also. I choose to use the -ly forms mostly out of habit. But also, a part of it is that I understand that the way you speak gives a message about you. Most people associate the non-ly forms with poor grammar. The irony is that someone like you who uses them understands the grammar of it better than they do. Perhaps this is one of those cases where I choose to go with the norm instead of insisting on sticking with my esoteric ways. Another example would be the word "forte" as in "Public speaking isn't my forte." From what I understand, the proper way to pronounce it would be "fort", similar to the English word. But I got so many funny looks about it that I gave up trying and now use "for-tay."

Perhaps some would say that I shouldn't do this, and maybe they are right. But I think of it like this: Language is for communication, and I communicate better with others when we don't have to take 2 minute detours to explain why my prounounciation actually is correct and then engage in another 30 minute debate in which they will never concede defeat. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.143.83.113 (talk) 05:58, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

... the proper way to pronounce it would be "fort" .... I've never heard anyone say "fort" for forte, in the sense of a personal strength or expertise. It's a borrowing from the Italian word for strong, loud. Its antonym is piano, hence the word pianoforte (soft-loud), so called to distinguish it from the harpsichord, on which it's apparently impossible to regulate the volume (I don't know this from personal experience, though; the piano is my forte). But people, even pianists, tend to say "fort" when it comes to Panadeine Forte. -- JackofOz (talk) 06:14, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I, too, learned it as "fort". It's a French word in English, and there is no justification for the "ay" sound at the end in either language. In fact, if you want to wax infuriatingly pedantic, the OED notes that the original form was the masculine fort, for which the feminine was "ignorantly substituted". The OED also says of our pronunciation "formerly", which would seem to sound the death knell for it. The AHD has an interesting note here. I think you're right that communication trumps "correctness", and this one was a losing battle from the start, considering that we need another homonym like we need another hole in our heads. Anglo-Saxon to the rescue with "strength". --Milkbreath (talk) 12:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I have vague memories of seeing "hardly" as an adverb for hard in the James Bond books (one of the originals by Ian Fleming, not the newer ones). Bond must be recuperating or something because there is a question about retaining his "00" licence. And Fleming has something like "the licence to kill had been earned hardly". Which confused me greatly. Had he barely earned it, or had he earned it with difficulty? Can't remember the book, though, sorry. Telsa (talk) 11:18, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

@Telsa: hmm... that's interesting. The Bond books weren't so long ago, I wonder if "hardly" feel out of usage recently.

Actually, the odd thing this (and why there is so much confusion) is that the music-forte is from Italian, while the expertise-forte is from French. That's why they are pronounced differently. Though it seems the French have yet again lost a battle :). For-tay has won out. 75.143.83.113 (talk) 01:13, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Let's all sip a latté latte to that - and while we're doing it, we can discuss whether it's LAH-tay (as most aficionados seem to say it), or with a stronger accent on the second syllable (la-TAY), as I presume the French would have it. Those poor French persons, how they've suffered at the hands of the English. -- JackofOz (talk) 04:35, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

So if I said the adverb of leisurely was leisurelyly, would that be an example of hypercorrection? Adambrowne666 (talk) 01:45, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Latte being an Italian word, I don't see why the French should get to determine its pronunciation. And before we all rage, rage against the dying of the -ly adverb, let us remember not to go gentle (not "gently"!) into that good night. —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 12:01, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

The things you learn. Thanks, Angr. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:01, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Usage: cost and costs

When do you use the term costs and when do you use the term cost? What is the exact difference? Is there a "rule" for it? 195.243.0.5 (talk) 10:26, 31 January 2008 (UTC)annabell

You'd need to be a bit more specific as to the contexts in which you want to use those words. In accounting terminology, for example, you might talk about a fixed cost and also about fixed costs. In a more general sense you would refer to the cost of something. Give some examples of what you want to say and we can help you more. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 10:30, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

"At all costs" is the correct form of the expression, not "at all cost". I can't prove that, but a search of the corpus will bear it out. Now watch someone disagree. --Milkbreath (talk) 11:26, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you'll get anyone disagreeing with you on that. "All" indicates the plural, so obviously it would be "costs". Alternatively you could say "at any cost", which would mean the same thing. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 11:37, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Plural as in All the worlds are a stage, and Abandon all hopes, ye who enter here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lambiam (talk • contribs) 15:21, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't saying that the word "all" can only refer to the plural. I was referring to the specific phrase quoted by Milkbreath. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 15:26, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

The Shakespearian quote is "All the world's a stage ...", meaning "the whole world is a stage". So "all" in that case is not denoting a plural. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Lambiam knows that; he was intentionally misquoting it to illustrate exactly the point that "all" does not have to be followed by a plural. —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 23:35, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh, well, obviously I knew that. But just in case I didn't, maybe this is National Obtuse Day. :) -- JackofOz (talk) 00:34, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

In our controlling department there is debate about the general usage of the terms cost and costs. We refer to all kinds of costs, i. e. distribution costs, variable costs, packing costs are increasing, decreasing etc.....I was hoping there was a (grammatical/idiomatic?) rule for when to use the plural word and when to use the singular word. 195.243.0.5 (talk) 12:16, 31 January 2008 (UTC)annabell

In those usages you give, costs is fine since you are talking about a number of costs. If you are only talking about one cost, it would be correct to use cost. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 14:58, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

spelling translation

On an Irish flag I saw the motto

        "Erin Ga Bragh"

However I am not sure of the spelling. I was told it meant "Ireland Forever" Can you help me with the correct spelling with any accent marks or whatever??? Thank you 64.22.197.113 (talk) 22:55, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

You probably saw the anglicized spelling "Erin Go Bragh". The correct Irish Gaelic spelling is Éire go brách; however, as our article says, the familiar English spelling may come not from Irish but from Scottish Gaelic, where the spelling is Èireann gu bràth. —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 23:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

See Erin Go Bragh. --169.230.94.28 (talk) 23:05, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Communicating with few words

Dr John John claimed that all communication in English could be carried out in 20 words. What are they? 23:10, 31 January 2008 (UTC)1022wcharles (talk)

I don't know, but Basic English has a list of 850 words. Twenty words are required just to cover the prepositions (or "directives"). ---Sluzzelin talk 23:19, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Apparently, Edward de Bono once formulated a challenge of designing a language with no more than 20 words.

"Suppose your vocabulary was to be limited to 20 unalterable words. These words would have to suffice for ordinary day to day living, not for technological communication. They could not be supplemented by facial expression, tone, gesture, or sign language. Nor is picture material allowed but simple indicative pointing is allowed. The words do not have to exist at present. You can invent any words with which you would like to communicate particular meanings. The words could be used separately or in any sequential manner. What are your 20?" [1]

Answers? :-) ---Sluzzelin talk 23:29, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Try Natural Semantic Metalanguage for a start. It's not intended as a useful lagnuage, but rather as a language to talk about meanings (thus METAlanguage). Steewi (talk) 23:46, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Well you could just assign dozens of meanings to each word, differentiating them with some linguistic trick (repeating the word, placing it in a different grammatical position, making it 20 syllables long and stressing a different one for each distinct word), but the language would sure be a headache to understand. -Elmer Clark (talk) 01:50, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you should ask Dr John John. Who on earth is he and where does he make this ridiculous claim?--Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:55, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I remember reading something like this. The basic list was just about enough to communicate your intentions (sort of), but you couldn't understand anyone else... I think I read it in a Bill Bryson book, so it's not that reliable. 130.88.140.119 (talk) 16:43, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Who needs 20 words? Start with smurf and you're already halfway.  --Lambiam 10:39, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

One more word and you can start talking in morse code. Algebraist 11:42, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

No doubt there was a time at the dawn of "language" when only 20 "words" existed and were sufficient.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 17:06, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Good point. Then perhaps Anthony Burgess wins the prize, for having created the language of the Ulam in Quest for Fire. I believe he wanted the sound of each word to reflect its meaning. I don't know how many words he created though; the only one I remember sounded something like "atchr" for fire. ---Sluzzelin talk 17:18, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

"Rhubarb, rhubarb ..." repeated endlessly wins, I think. It means everything (but also nothing), and has the advantage of being 19 words shorter than 20. What a boon for those with short-term memory loss (What? No article? Someone obviously intended to write it, but forgot ...). -- JackofOz (talk) 04:22, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Poking around that link Sluzzelin provided, yields this [2]. A reasonable looking attempt. APL (talk) 06:56, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

February 1

"The" before expressions including personal names

It's very common to see/hear statements from the media like "The death of British film star Nigel Smythe has been announced. His widow, Slovak gymnast Marina Kasarova, said he would hardly be missed and she would be marrying her long-time boyfriend, German novelist Gunther Brandenburg, next week".

Yet, in conversation, we'd prefer "The death of the British film star Nigel Smythe has been announced. His widow, the Slovak gymnast Marina Kasarova, said ...", and " ... her long-time boyfriend, the German novelist Gunther ...".

Ok, poor example; I can't imagine anyone uttering those exact sentences in conversation, but I hope you understand what I'm on about. It'd probably be more like:

Me: I just heard that Nigel Smythe is dead.

Him: Really? What a shock! Now, he was married to some semi-obscure Eastern European, wasn't he?

Me: Yes, he married the Slovak gymnast Marina Kasarova.

Him: Poor thing. What's she going to do now?

Me: Oh, she's happy. She's marrying the German novelist Gunther Brandenburg without delay. They've been shacking up for years, apparently

Why has the "the" been dropped by the media? And is it appropriate to use this media-style in encyclopedia articles? Whenever I see such an example in our articles, I correct it, but I fear I'm losing the battle. -- JackofOz (talk) 01:28, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

This is one of my bêtes noires, too. I think the dropping of the the is usually traced to the practice of Time magazine, which used to treat such generic identifiers as quasi-titles, as in "the ex-wife of Actor William Holden" or "the latest book by French Novelist Albert Camus." (I have no idea whether Time still does this; I don't read it.) The idiosyncrasy of capping the identifying expressions apparently never caught on elsewhere, but the dropping of the sure did. Deor (talk) 01:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Time magazine gave up the annoying practice of capitalizing all occupations before proper names around 1988 or so. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 05:47, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Jack, you should have a column of your own, mate. I think you'd be a sight more diverting than some of the current contributors to The Australian. But, to your point, I agree that "the" should be preserved (or "a" as appropriate) in any formal writing. As to the media usage, who gives...? They've lost the plot long ago across such a broad spectrum. (The use of colons and attributive hyphens is one that grates on me. They've got it back-to-front! E.g. "Inflation the main enemy : Rudd. ; Doctors - Hospitals facing crisis.) Retarius | Talk 02:12, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Eh?? I think that may be exclusive to Australia...I've certainly never seen that, and I would be dumbfounded by it if I ever did... -Elmer Clark (talk) 04:15, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Retarius. I gave up reading the Australian a long time ago. But that column idea sounds alright. They seem to be a great way of getting paid well for spouting their opinions about whatever their current gripe is on the day of the deadline, and usually about some personal issue that's none of anyone else's business. Hmm, on second thought, I don't think I'll bother. -- JackofOz (talk) 04:14, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

What if there are only adjectives before proper names, but no nouns? Is the definite article appropriate in such case or not? Example: The death of (the) famous Nigel Smythe has been announced. His widow, (the) semi-obscure Marina Kasarova, said he would hardly be missed and she would be marrying her long-time boyfriend, (the) handsome Gunther Brandenburg, next week. I've always had problems with that. By the way, I know it was just an eample, but is it typical to refer to people from Central Europe as "obscure East Europeans"? — Kpalion^(talk) 10:08, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

No offence was intended to any Eastern or Central Europeans. My example was contrived to make Ms Kasarova an obscure person of deliberately vague origin, so the response would have to specify her name, her occupation, and where exactly she was from, which turned out not to be from Eastern Europe but Central Europe. If "Him" had known all this about her, or if Kasarova were a household name, he wouldn't have asked the question, and any reference "Me" made to her would not have required any explanation of who she was.

One wouldn't say "The death of (the) famous Nigel Smythe has been announced", with or without the "the". It would be "(the) famous <something>", not just "(the) famous". Same for "(the) semi-obscure <something> Marina K.", and "(the) handsome <something> Gunther Brandenburg". -- JackofOz (talk) 00:25, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

• "Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind". DuncanHill (talk) 14:41, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I wonder if this may date from the time when correspondents often sent their copy in by telegram, so were ordered to cut out as many extraneous words as possible? In theory, that shouldn't affect the final copy, but the habit of losing words runs deep. Alternatively, journalists (quite rightly) are encouraged to write tight prose, and from a literary point of view their economy with words does get overdone in some ways. Xn4 21:21, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the absence of "the" makes perfect sense to me. In the example above, the nouns (film star, gymnast) are being used as adjectives, at which point the "the" is not required (if we said "the black-haired Nigel Smythe" we would ask ourselves what colour hair the other Nigel Smythe had). To add "the" to "british filmstar Nigel Smythe" is like saying "The Nigel Smythe". Whether we think loading adjectives in such manner is good sentence construction or not is another matter. It's just another example of "thirty-year-old mother-of-two Mary Jones" style news-speak, and not a problem with a missing "the". Gwinva (talk) 01:02, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about that, Gwinva. British is certainly an adjective, but one that qualifies film star (and only indirectly relates to Nigel Smythe). In "film star", film is an adjective that qualifies star. "Film star" as a discrete term is not an adjective but an attributive noun. Let's leave out British, and replace film star with actor. So, would it be "The death of the actor Nigel Smythe has been announced", or just "The death of actor Nigel Smythe has been announced"? Or, if you rearranged the wording, would it be "The death of Nigel Smythe, the actor, has been announced", or "The death of Nigel Smythe, actor, has been announced"? It's not a question of disambiguating names, because even where no other notable person has the same name (e.g. Gough Whitlam), the announcement would still refer to the reason for the person's notability. I know which versions I prefer, but obviously others differ, as is their right. There's still my basic point that these forms of language appear in some written contexts, and in spoken contexts by the media, but not in spoken contexts by ordinary people in everyday conversation. I guess there are many ways in which colloquial expression differs from "professional" expression, and this is one of them. I seem to have the answer I was after, so thanks particularly to Deor for the Time magazine source, but also to everyone else for taking the time. -- JackofOz (talk) 04:14, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't disagree with you, Jack. I'm just suggesting the rationale for dropping 'the' is that the newspaper uses "British film star" as a stack of adjectives. You're quite right when you say we wouldn't do that in speech; we don't tend to stack adjectives and would continue to use the noun. And good on us for resisting the news-speak jargon of turning every noun we can into an adjective. It's a shocking, sensationalist, clumsy, confusing and unnecessary habit.  ! Gwinva (talk) 19:36, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Could it not be argued that an article, definite or indefinite, is redundant in most sentences ? What, if anything, is the semantic value of "The" death of British film star blah blah.

"Cat sits on table" may grate on the linguistic sensibilities for one or two generations, but it says exactly the same as does "The cat sits on a table".

The Roman Empire seems to have lasted quite a while without anybody missing an article in the Latin language. I find no hypothesis which blames the absence of an article before the subject or object for the eventual demise of the Empire. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 12:33, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Ah, but there you have it. The Empire never existed. Perhaps the Barbarians realised that, and lo, it fell. Gwinva (talk) 19:41, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

One could argue that we can do without articles entirely, and various languages do just that. But since we have them, you can't get away from the fact that "the" and "a" serve different purposes, and those purposes are useful. "The death of Nigel Smythe, the British film actor, has been announced" says something rather different from "The death of Nigel Smythe, a British film actor ...". In the first case, it's confirming what most people are assumed to already know about Nigel; in the latter, it's providing additional information that's assumed not to be already known by the majority of the readership/listernership, but still by a sufficiently large minority to warrant news of his death being of some interest to the media. It's a neat way of denoting where the person falls on the "Relative Obscurity-Notability Spectrum" (RONS) - [Legal note: I just made up this term and acronym and I claim copyright]. -- JackofOz (talk) 00:08, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

If Nigel Smythe has risen from humble obscurity to thespian notability, then why is he a red link:) --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 02:28, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

by a semi-obscured Central European... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk • contribs) 02:33, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Because the haughtily handsome Gunther Brandenburg (please note the use of the word "the"), besides being a 20-books-a-year novelist, is also an arch-Wikipedian (his user name must remain secret), but he's been too busy having fun with Marina Kasarova lately to have enough time to get around to creating a stub for Nigel Smythe. well, you did ask ... :) . -- JackofOz (talk) 06:13, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

This thread interests me because I (born in California in the mid-Seventies) see nothing wrong with a construct like "MIT student Dave Barker". I never realized before now that anyone objects to it. Furthermore, "MIT student Dave Barker" and "the MIT student Dave Barker" mean subtly different things to me. With the article it sounds like one is mentioning in passing (for purposes of identification) something about the person. Without the article it sounds more like an integral part of the person's identity, a defining characteristic instead of a disambiguating characteristic. It's like the difference between "Squadron Commander Dave Barker" (or "Dave Barker, Squadron Commander") on the one hand and "Dave Barker, the squadron commander" on the other. I realize that capitalization is arguing against me here, but nevertheless that's how it feels to me. I also associate this distinction for some reason with the practice of referring to prominent figures with a bare last name. I personally might talk about the films of Alfred Hitchcock or the films of Hitchcock, but never the films of Mr. Hitchcock. This last would sound more natural to me if he were less famous or still alive. The choice between "Hitchcock" and "Mr. Hitchcock" seems similar to the choice between "director Alfred Hitchcock" and "the director Alfred Hitchcock". If I'm right then I'd expect the article (and the "Mr.") to be omitted more commonly in obituaries and retrospectives than in, say, interviews or profiles. -- BenRG (talk) 13:43, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that input, BenRG. I've heard that point of view before - the view that claims "British film star" plays exactly the same role in "British film star Nigel Smythe" as "President" does in "President Nixon", ie. it's a title, effectively. I've never seen it that way, I have to say. "President" is a recognised title for presidents, just as "Squadron Commander" is for squadron commanders, "King" is for kings and "Detective Chief Inspector" is for DCIs, etc. But "film star", "novelist", "politician", "composer", whether preceded by adjectives or not, are not titles but attributive nouns. Yet they get used as if they were titles, and people have become used to hearing it that way despite never emulating that usage in speech. Americans seem to have a propensity for titles in cases that don't apply in other countries: Fire Chief Smith, Principal Skinner, Police Chief Wiggum, Mayor Quimby, etc. British/Australian usage differs. It's enough to know that Mr Skinner is the Principal; he's just called Mr Skinner. Mayors are sometimes addressed as "Mr Mayor", but never referred to as Mayor Smith; it would be "The Mayor, Fred Smith, said today ...". So maybe those immersed in US-speak are perfectly OK with the "the" thing; and those at some remove tend to notice it. Maybe it's also an age thing - you were born at a time when this usage was becoming common, and I guess it sounds perfectly normal and natural to you; whereas I was born over 20 years earlier, and I've witnessed its impertinent arrival. :) -- JackofOz (talk) 21:28, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

lao kung

What does it mean in Chinese, despite of its being a proper or a common noun? --Omidinist (talk) 12:07, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The question can't really be answered unless you or somebody associates these syllables with specific written Chinese characters. However, Lao in certain semi-famous names can be 老 "old"... AnonMoos (talk) 17:37, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

That kind of guessing is problematic as well, because "ma" pronounced with five different tones can mean five different things. I think "lao" and "kung" would be similar. --Kjoonlee 09:03, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

This seems to be Wade-Giles for what in pinyin would be spelled "lao gong". Could mean anything from "husband (colloquial)" to "labour". Either tonal marks or some context would be needed to work out exactly what characters this relates to, and thus what it actually means. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 13:37, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

The "old laborer" maybe? --Omidinist (talk) 16:00, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

An unlikely construction, but you never know... What is the context? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 00:50, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

That is definitely what is deduced from its context, in light of the above comments. Thanks for your care. --Omidinist (talk) 05:31, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Punctuation with links

Which version should be used in websites?

1. This is a link.
2. This is a link.

that is, should the punctuation be included in the <a> tag?

and...

1. This is (unrelated) link.
2. This is (unrelated) link.

should braces be included? --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 14:22, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I would always exclude punctuation from links. It's certainly the default way links appear in Wikipedia, unless you give them "special treatment". AndrewWTaylor (talk) 14:31, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks :) I was already afraid of a huge search/replace. --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 14:43, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

February 2

Need some help on classical Japanese/Chinese

We have a source listed on the An_Jung-geun article that is written in classical Japanese/Chinese without a translation and being used to back a claim. Specifically, that An Jung-geun worshiped the Emperor Meiji. The reference link is here: http://www.ndl.go.jp/site_nippon/kensei/shiryou/limage/Gazou_40_3.html Anyone feeling nice enough to help us out and prevent another fire from flaming up? Thanks in advance. --Jusenkyoguide (talk) 15:18, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Firstly, how can someone's handwritten notes be used as a reference? Surely it does not fulfill "reliable sources".

Secondly, it is written in Japanese-style classical Chinese (using Kanji, but the grammar and word construction are often very Japanese). I might have a go at translating it, but it might be better to find someone well versed in classical Japanese. Strike that, it's just the title, --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 00:49, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

To answer your first question, this was written by the subject of the article himself and supposedly expresses his views on pan-Asianism, which is the topic of debate. Although An did not know Japanese so I am now forced to wonder about how much weight we should give it.--Jusenkyoguide (talk) 03:16, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

On East Ocean Peace: Preface

Success-unification and loss-breaking apart are eternal rules of change. In today's world, the East and West hemispheres are separated, and the different races are all different. They compete with each other, as if it was a daily meal. They research into dangerous weapons, above agriculture and commerce. New inventions such as electric cannons, flying boats or submarines are all machines that maim people and destroy life. The youths are trained to fight in fields of battle, many valuable lives are thrown away like sacrificial animals. So much so that we have rivers of blood and fields of flesh, which never ends. Naturally, humans value their lives and abhor death. What would a peaceful and orderly world look like? This thought chills my heart and bones. Fundamentally, from ancient times, the East Ocean people focus on literature and keep to their own country, and have never invaded Europe. On the five continents, man and beast, plant and water all know this. However, in the last few centuries, the European powers have forgotten their morals, and dedicate their time to violence, so as to create a spirit of competition and lose all inhibition. Among these, Russia takes it to the extreme. Their violence kills everywhere, in both Europe in the west and Asian in the east. Their evil fills up and their crime overflows. Gods and men are all angry.

Sorry for the shoddy expressions, but I think the meaning should be all there. Don't see anything about Meiji. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 00:59, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

That answers that question then, I'll make sure to remove that specific claim. Thanks for your help!--Jusenkyoguide (talk) 03:16, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Ah, my mistake to assume that it was a Japanese source simply because it came from the Diet Library! The title used a construction found in modern Japanese but not Chinese - but I guess could just as easily be classical Korean-Chinese grammar, or simply unusual classical Chinese grammar. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 03:32, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

'East Ocean' is 東洋/Asia. Oda Mari (talk) 14:03, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

In modern Chinese 東洋 is Japan, though it is also understood as "East Asia" in the appropriate context. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 00:11, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Really? I didn't know. I'm glad to know that. BTW, according to this (Sorry it's Japanese), what An Jung-geun thought as 東洋 is China, Korea, Thai, Burma and Japan. So as User:PalaceGuard008 wrote above, I think East Asia is the right translation of this 東洋. Oda Mari (talk) 05:54, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that information Oda Mari - I wasn't sure exactly what countries the source was referring to: I'd assumed Japan at first, but the rest of the passage seemed to encompasse at least Korea and China as well. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 06:43, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Feminin Ships

Why are ships usually refered to in English as she's ? Keria (talk) 17:56, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

According to gender-specific pronoun#Ships and countries, this is unknown (and in decline in any case). Algebraist 18:00, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Ships are referred as she due to Navy tradition, as the navy regards ships possessing souls. Also, it is tradition, to refer to ships, countries, and some other entities in the female form. Yeltsinfan (talk) 00:49, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I assume the tradition arose because the sailors' lives depended on their taking care to maintain the vessel properly. If they regarded it as a woman, they would look after it with greater respect than if they regarded it as a mere machine.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:51, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Odd. My experience of many men's relationship with machines vs. women suggests exactly the opposite level of care/respect would apply. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:43, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, times have changed.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:21, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Maybe because they had female figureheads? hotclaws 07:47, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your answers. After following the links provided by Algebraist I arrived on an article discussing why Lloyd's had to revert its decision to refer to a ship as 'it' instead of 'she'. Captian Fred Boer e-mailed the paper from his vessel, saying: "As long as ships of every size and type require lots of paint to look good they will be referred to as a 'she', at least by me." Hmmm ... I think the soul idea sounds better. Keria (talk) 11:23, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

OED: Used (instead of it) of things to which female sex is conventionally attributed. a. Of a ship or boat. Also (now chiefly in colloquial and dialect use), often said of a carriage, a cannon or gun, a tool or utensil of any kind; occas. of other things.

The use dates back to the 14th C, and the OED suggests it might arise from the early translations from the French, where the words were grammatically feminine. I guess the tradition stuck. Gwinva (talk) 08:26, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

The representative that vs the representative who

Is "the representative that made the suggestion" incorrect? What if the representative is an automaton? ----Seans Potato Business 18:53, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

It's not incorrect. Many people, however, prefer to use who/whom as a relative pronoun when the antecedent denotes one or more human beings. With regard to an automaton, I suppose it depends on how human you want to consider him/her/it. I'd tend to use who for C-3PO, I think. Deor (talk) 19:24, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

You see it both ways. See the AHD usage note here. Me, I like to use "who" with people usually, but there's no "rule" for it. --Milkbreath (talk) 19:23, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

The AHD usage note that MB directs us to is buried in a lot of text about other matters (including who versus whom). Here is the relevant part, which along with the rest of the article puts things badly (note the distracting use of restriction!):

Some grammarians have argued that only who and not that should be used to introduce a restrictive relative clause that identifies a person. This restriction has no basis either in logic or in the usage of the best writers; it is entirely acceptable to write either the woman that wanted to talk to you or the woman who wanted to talk to you.

Other sources agree. To illustrate concerning restriction, compare these:

Restrictive (narrows down who is referred to by the student):

Sandy is the student who topped the class.

Or:

Sandy is the student that topped the class.

Unrestrictive (informs us about Sandy, but does not narrow down who is referred to):

Sandy, who topped the class, went to Oxford.

But never:

*Sandy, that topped the class, went to Oxford.

A parallel distinction is more frequently made between which and that. For all of this, see English_relative_clauses#Summary. Elsewhere in that article things are not so clear, unfortunately.

– Noetica^♬♩ Talk 20:21, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Adding an Acronym

I want to add the acronym: TEAM - Totally Engaged and Meaningful. I have completed an extensive search of the internet including acronym finder and have not found it anywhere. This is a term I created to use at work in our TEAM development approach. How do you add an acronym to Wikipedia? What else can you assist me with in submitting this acronym?

Carolrainey (talk) 19:06, 2 February 2008 (UTC)carolrainey

An acronym that you have made up yourself is not suitable as the subject of a Wikipedia article, since (as you have found out in your Web search) there are no reliable sources independent of yourself through which information about it can be verified. Deor (talk) 19:16, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I need help remembering the title of a short story.

It's something about a sibling relationship where the older sibling is jealous of the younger (brother, I think). And the older sibling keeps abusing the younger sibling and then by accident the younger sibling is hurt really badly (or dead?) by the older. The younger brother had some sort of a disability (mental and physical, I think, maybe cerebral palsy?) and so the family devoted all their energy to him. His given name was someting very pretentious like Thomas Jefferson (I don't think it was that, it might have been something religious), but, when he was born and they saw that he had a disability, the older brother gave him a nickname that everyone was more comfortable with. I believe the story's title was the younger brother's nickname. The story was told from the point of view of the older brother. Does this ring a bell for anyone? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.139.219.105 (talk) 20:39, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Maybe it's The Scarlet Ibis, where the younger brother's name is Doodle. bibliomaniac15 03:19, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

That sounds entirely correct. Doodle's proper name is William Armstrong, which was only given to him at three months old. However, the title refers to the scarlet ibis (bird) cared for by Doodle, which is symbolic of his own disability. While I am pretty sure that Doodle was born with his disability, its true name is never revealed (or even known by the narrator/his family). Your recollection of abuse by the brother may actually be recalling Doodle's rides in a cart pulled by Brother and the occasional upsets. Brother does, however, strongly urge Doodle to accomplish physical activities that are very strenuous, but supposedly impossible according to medical authorities. Other themes you may recall are swimming lessons, exposing Doodle to his infant coffin as punishment, rowing lessons, and Doodle's death in the storm after being abandoned by Brother. Freedomlinux (talk) 22:44, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

February 3

Need help figuring out the name of a book

I think this is the right place to ask. If it's not, feel free to move. I read the book (series, actually) in the late 90s. I remember it involved genetic engineering of some sort and several teens who, somewhat predictably, ended up having to save the world. They each had different superpowers. One could travel through time. One could manipulate electricity (think Storm from the X-Men). One could talk to some sort of bug (ants maybe?). I believe it was 6 book series. It definitely did not last long. Dlong (talk) 04:22, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm drawing a blank on searching for this, as your description uses pretty common words. Can you think of any other details, like buildings, clothing, gadgets, or enemies? It usually helps to find some fairly rare word that would be used in a description. Also, this is a novel, and not a comic, right? Bovlb (talk) 06:01, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Was this series aimed at young adults? Tesseran (talk) 21:23, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it was aimed at young adults. To be quite honest, I can't remember much more about the series. Otherwise I'm sure I would have been able to find it with google. There was another series that I liked reading that was also 6 books long and I believe (although am not positive) that it was by the same author. Unfortunately, the stuff I remember about that series is fairly genetic as well. In the series, space travel was possible and the moon was colonized as well as another planet (Mars, or maybe one its moons?). Some genius kid turned out to be a clone and had two other duplicates running around, so there was one on each world. As is typical in these types of situations, one of the clones was the evil clone and tried to take over the world (or I guess the solar system in this case). Finally there was one final series (also 6 books, interestingly enough) but I remember so little about it that I doubt it'll help much. I know there was some magic involved and parallel universes, but that's really it. Dlong (talk) 16:31, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Yours is really more a question for the Humanities desk than for the Language desk. You may, however, want try posting a query to the Usenet group rec.arts.sf. written, which is really good with questions like yours. Title your post something like "YASID: six-book YA series" ("YASID stands for "yet another story ID"), and be sure to describe everything you remember about the books, as well as when you read them. (You may want to just paste the messages you posted here.) Deor (talk) 17:01, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Off of?

Is it grammatical to say "He got off of the ride"? Or should it be "He got off the ride"? I've always thought the former was correct, but someone recently changed a sentence to the latter, saying it wasn't grammatical. seresin | wasn't he just...? 19:31, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

According to the OED, 'off of' can be either archaic, colloquial or regional. 'Of' is modern standard English (whatever that means). Algebraist 20:00, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

It's one of the many idiosyncrasies of the English language that irritate simple-minded people with simple-minded notions about what constitutes 'good grammar'. They don't end sentences with prepositions, always ask for whom you're looking, and never begin a sentence with a conjunction. In this case, the reasoning (and I use the word 'reasoning' quite wrongly) is that redundancy is bad, and if "He got off the bus" is good enough, then "He got off of the bus" must be wrong. Of course, English has never worked this way and never will. Their rules are post-hoc rationalizations. Lantzy ^talk 20:28, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

It does appear to be a mainly North American usage, however. (Not that there's anything wrong with that). -- JackofOz (talk) 20:41, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

No, it is (or used to be when I was young) common in British colloquial use, particularly as a variant of the equally colloquial 'off' = 'from': I got it off of Cliff."". --ColinFine (talk) 21:01, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

In this colloquial use, is it "off of" or "off off"?  --Lambiam 22:51, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

'Off of', always. Algebraist 23:08, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

"Off of" is pretty much standard in speech around here (Middle Atlantic). "Get offa [off of] me", for instance, is invariable when somebody is on somebody else who objects to their being there. Standard English does exist, however, despite all our efforts to define it, and it demands "He got off the ride", which is what I would make it if I were copyediting and ran across "He got off of the ride". There is no perfect way to settle any disagreement about this locution, though: You can read all the great writers from Shakespeare on and internalize their English. Or, you can search the corpus for the two phrases and winnow by quality of source. Or you can take my word for it, which is what I recommend. --Milkbreath (talk) 23:24, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Searching Shakespeare will give you Henry VI part II II.i.98 'a fall off of a Tree'. As I said above, it's an archaism among other things. Algebraist 00:43, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

So are there any important voices on English grammar that have said something about this? seresin | wasn't he just...? 05:34, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Here is one. [Word for the Day: "williwaw"] --Milkbreath (talk) 12:11, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Partridge's Usage and Abusage states: "of in off of is a Cockneyism and incorrect. Off from may in certain cases be allowed, but away from, down from, would always be better." R L Trask suggests "Though it is common in vernacular speech, especially in the USA, the preposition off of is not acceptable in standard English." Gwinva (talk) 08:35, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

In that case I say Eric Partridge can't be trusted for his prescriptivist nonsense; he won't get anything off of me for sure. ;) I was willing to give Trask a little more respect, but it judging from the responses here from Americans, that quote doesn't quite seem to be reliable. --Kjoonlee 18:08, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

It's easy to say "prescriptivist" with disdain, and kind of fun, too. But not everyone who rcommends you actually learn the language you speak is a prescriptivist. It would be remarkable if, with no effort on your part, the blah-blah-blah you learned from your idiot friends on the street wherever you grew up or from your dim-witted teachers turned out to be sufficient for the purposes of creating literature or persuading the powerful. "Off of" is non-standard in the setting provided whether we like it or not. --Milkbreath (talk) 21:08, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

February 4

Verb placement in Sneewittchen

I found the full text of this story from http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/grimm/maerchen/sneewitt.htm (Sneewittchen).

In the middle of the story, there is:

Da erzählte es (Snow White) ihnen ([she told] the dwarfs), daß seine Stiefmutter es hätte wollen umbringen lassen [...]

And in this page: http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/sevendwarfs/index.html,

I found an English translation:

Then she told them that her step-mother had wished to have her killed [...]

My questions, then, are: how actually do I put the whole chunk of verb, hätte wollen umbringen lassen? To translate that into English, should I put it the order 1)hätte 2)lassen 3)umbringen 4)wollen? If I put the chunk in a main clause, how should it be? The difficulty is that it is in the subjunctive (the main verb) with 1 modal verb and lassen which can act like a modal verb. Is it a general rule that, when translating such a chunk in a subordinate clause, we should translate the (conjugated) main verb, followed by every verb behind in an "inverted" order?--Fitzwilliam (talk) 10:12, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

If we take the order from the English translation you are quoting and re-order the German verbs accordingly, we get hätte wollen lassen umbringen (which, of course, is not proper German). So the proposed rule is not the right one. What is strange to English ears here is most of all the inversion in umbringen lassen. When you go into the mode of these strings of infinitives in German, the originally active verb goes to the end: Sie läßt ihn gehen → Sie hat ihn gehen lassen. If there are more infinitives the "higher" ones can go in front or to the end: Sie hat ihn wollen gehen lassen or Sie hat ihn gehen lassen wollen. So there is no simple rule for sorting it out when translating to English. There is just only one interpretation that makes sense: had + wish + kill + have = had wished to have killed. With some contortion, it could theoretically also mean that the evil step-mother had let Snow White want to kill (with an elided direct object of the verb "to kill"), but no-one hearing the text will actually interpret it that way.  --Lambiam 12:28, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Does that mean "hätte wollen umbringen lassen" could have been "hätte lassen umbringen wollen", or are they just "very similar", if not the same? When it is put into a main clause, is it just

Seine Stiefmutter hätte es wollen umbringen lassen. ?--Fitzwilliam (talk) 13:40, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

This is one of those cases where I count myself really lucky to be native German; the correct order of infinitives feels totally natural to me, but I guess when learning German as a second language, it looks horribly convoluted and confusing. In the sentence you quoted (where there is no pronoun in between the verbs), the only possible word order is "hätte wollen umbringen lassen" - "Hätte lassen umbringen wollen" would mean "she would have let her want to be killed". If the sentence were phrased with the pronoun "es" (referring to Schneewittchen) in between the verbs, it can be phrased either as "hätte es umbringen lassen wollen" (the more recent, colloquial word order) or "hätte es lassen umbringen wollen" (a pretty archaic word order and today restricted to some dialects, but nonetheless correct), but not "hätte es wollen umbringen lassen", which was the only correct word order whern there is no pronoun (although this is also possible in some Southern German dialects - then you would treat the two infinitives "umbringen lassen" as one immutable phrase with a fixed word order, which is strictly speaking not correct German, but my native Swabian dialect thinks that way). -- Ferkelparade π 14:12, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I had thought of, exactly, "hätte es umbringen lassen wollen". I'm not even native in English, and though I have to think in English as a crutch, I sort of think that having "wollen" (1) before "lassen" (2) makes more sense to me. My reasoning is that, in regard to translation, it is "to want (1) to have sth. done (2)" (where the English construction corresponding to "lassen" complicates the picture, because it is a verb plus a participle).

My grammar books imply, if you translate "hätte es umbringen lassen wollen", the order would be "hätte (1) es umbringen (4) lassen (3) wollen (2)". It actually doesn't explain clearly this Sneewittchen scenario with 4 verbs and 2 of which can act as modal verbs. In the modern usage they describe, the infinitives would be translated in this inverted order, just like a combination of just two (like: ...haben (1) das sehen (3) können (2)).

Has the usage changed much enough in the past centuries that the "chunk" of verbs becomes...archaic or difficult to "analyze" like when it is presented in a grammar book? I posted this question just to look into some theoretical knowledge because I haven't yet seen this combination of verbs. In real terms, I'd just accept "had wished/wanted to have her killed" and... for the sake of originality, I'd just remember "ah, here it happens to be wollen umbringen lassen, but not any other combination".--Fitzwilliam (talk) 16:22, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Hätte has to come after es in the original sentence because it's a dependent clause (introduced by dass), and in a dependent clause, normally all the verbs pile up at the end, after everything else like direct objects (in this case es). Normally, the inflected verb comes last of all, after the nonfinite forms, but there's an exception in the case of inflected helping verbs like hätte in combination with modal verbs like lassen when there is more than one infinitive present: in this case, the inflected verb comes first in the string of verbs at the end of the clause. Hence

Da erzählte das Schneewittchen den Zwergen, daß seine Stiefmutter es [hätte wollen umbringen lassen].

If there were only one non-finite form, hätte would be at the very end:

Da erzählte das Schneewittchen den Zwergen, daß seine Stiefmutter es [umgebracht hätte].

If this were a main clause (or at least syntactically equivalent to a main clause), es would come after hätte:

Da erzählte das Schneewittchen den Zwergen, seine Stiefmutter hätte es wollen umbringen lassen.

Make sense now? ;-) —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 17:10, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Best defence

Who first said or where was the idea formulated that "the best defence is (to) attack"? I couldn't find references in either google or wikiquote. Thank you. 200.127.59.151 (talk) 11:13, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

"the best form of defense..." is a proverb - ... ?87.102.90.249 (talk) 14:57, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

This link might be useful. MalcolmSpudbury (talk) 15:01, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

According to Carom in this thread from last year, it goes as far back as Ovid. -- BenRG (talk) 19:26, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I posted the original question forgetting to sign in. Am I wrong in thinking that it is found in Sun Tzu's `Art of War? Keria (talk) 22:57, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I doubt that's where it comes from. In Korea, he's widely quoted as saying "Know yourself and know your enemy. Then in a hundred battles, you will have a hundred victories," which is a misquote, actually. He said "you will never be in peril." In Japan, he's widely quoted as saying "Wind, Forest, Fire, Mountain." Which means:

• When you move your troops you should be as swift as a tempest
• When you do not advance, as calm as a forest
• When you strike and plunder you should be as wild as a spreading fire
• When you defend against the enemy's attack you should be as still and massive as a mountain

I might be mistaken, but I've never heard he said that about the best defence.. --Kjoonlee 18:01, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Oops, while Sun Tzu wrote the original, the short version of "Wind, Forest, Fire, Mountain" seems to come from Takeda Shingen. --Kjoonlee 18:18, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Old Phrase

Where does the phrase "Shut 'er down, Clancy, she's pumping mud!" come from? It has been one of my favourite phrases for a long time, and I know it has to do with oil pumps exhausting a petrolium deposit. But has this line ever been uttered by anyone in the occupation? If so, by whom? Is it from a movie or a TV show? It has been bugging me for quite a while. 206.252.74.48 (talk) 15:02, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

As far as I can recall, it's the punchline to a vulgar joke, although I don't recall the specifics. Googling for the phrase revealed that it has been used as an error message in a couple of computer system implementations, thus making it a somewhat of a "meta" joke. If the phrase has been uttered by somebody in the occupation, I'd imagine it also would be at the meta level. --LarryMac | Talk 16:45, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Translation

Hi. I would like to incorporate this piece of text into en.wiki from de.wiki as there are no references in this article (Indira Radić). Could someone who can read German look over this excerpt and possible translate it if it's usuable?

In den Nachfolgestaaten Jugoslawiens war die bosnische Serbin zunächst vor allem in Bosnien und Herzegowina, Serbien und Montenegro erfolgreich, aber gibt seit 2004 auch in Kroatien Konzerte und etablierte sich auf dem dortigen Markt ohne größere massenmediale Kontroversen auszulösen.

Thanks kindly. Seraphim♥ ^Whipp 15:25, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

"In the successor states of Yugoslavia, Radić, who is a Bosnian Serb, was initially successful especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, but has also given concerts in Croatia since 2004 and has established herself on the market there without triggering great controversy in the mass media." —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 17:02, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank-you :D Seraphim♥ ^Whipp 17:24, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Conventions used with Roman alphabet

It seems that languages that use the Roman alphabet seem to share some conventions that they use with it, such as:

• Words are separated by spaces (though if I am not mistaken, Vietnamese goes a step further and separates syllables by spaces)
• Sentences begin with a capital letter
• Personal names begin with a capital letter
• Numbers, when not written out in words, are written in Arabic numerals (or occasionally in Roman numerals), never in (say) Chinese characters

Have I made any errors? Do we have a list of such conventions here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.13.229.34 (talk) 16:46, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, Latin originally had no lower case, so points two and three didn't apply, and they didn't separate words with spaces either. It's sometimes conventional to write Latin without capitalizing the first letter of sentence now (at least it was in the textbook I used in school). -Elmer Clark (talk) 18:28, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I think he was asking about conventions commonly used in writing modern languages with the modern Latin alphabet, and not actually about what the ancient Romans did (however, the Romans did in fact indicate word-divisions more often than the ancient Greeks).

The list seems reasonable -- except that in most European languages other than English, adjectives derived from proper names are not usually capitalized... AnonMoos (talk) 19:42, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

A comment: separation by syllable in Vietnamese is due to the fact that it was previously written using Chinese characters, where each character is pronounced with one syllable. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 21:48, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

All languages that use the Latin alphabet are written from left to right, right? They all share similar punctuation -- commas, periods, question marks, exclamation points. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:58, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Partially, but Spanish has prefixed "upside down" question marks and exclamation points (¡¿) which are not used in most other languages, and the punctuation conventions used for quotations of various types differ strongly between different languages. Also, examining the rules governing the use of commas in German, for example, would reveal that some of the same punctuation marks can be used in rather different ways in different languages. AnonMoos (talk) 04:53, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

If you are counting pinyin for Chinese, there are these considerations: often "words" are not separated by spaces, and often "words" have spaces within them. It depends what is understood by "word". Also, proper nouns may not be capitalised.

French uses guillemets, which we hardly see in English. Spacing around punctuation marks varies a great deal, too: in French and in other European languages.

– Noetica^♬♩ Talk 06:00, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

As to pinyin, it depends on how you define "words". A "single concept", consisting or one or many syllables, is regarded as one "word", and therefore written without spaces. Proper nouns, in the sense of names of people and places, are always capitalised.

These are the "official" rules as set down by the National Language Committee in China. Some organisations, e.g. the Library of Congress, use slightly different pinyin rules. Interestingly, under the official rules, foreign, Latin alphabet names translated into Chinese are still transliterated by their original spelling: e.g. Clinton translated into Chinese and transcribed using pinyin would still be "Clinton", not "Kelingdun". This rule does not seem to be followed by some other organisations, possibly because the original spelling is "lost" when the name is translated into Chinese. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 21:44, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

"That will help my English"

What's the best way to say the above in French? I'm saying that studying foreign languages helps to improve your English grammar as well. Thanks in advance --Bearbear (talk) 19:18, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Cela me permettra (également) d'améliorer mon anglais. "That will allow me to improve my english (as well)." You can replace Cela with Ça the longer form is more literary but it would usually be spoken with the shorter form. I`m pretty sure you don't need to capitalize the first letter of a language in French.

Ça améliorera mon anglais. "It/this will improve my English."

Keria (talk) 22:54, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

That is certainly correct, though I think that the future tense sounds a bit formal in French. For a more conversational tone, you might try Ça va améliorer mon anglais. Marco polo (talk) 01:34, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

February 5

Full Stops and Direct Speech

Hi, just wondering if someone would be able to tell me which of the following sentences is correct:

"Are you going to the movies tomorrow?" asked Bob, "Remember the money is due tomorrow."

"Are you going to the movies tomorrow?" asked Bob. "Remember the money is due tomorrow."

I know that normally there is a comma/quotation mark used (someone said, "blah blah") but the capital R seems to indicate that there is a new sentence, which would warrant a full stop. I came across this question in a quiz and have been told that there is only one correct answer (which I do not know yet) and it's been on my mind ever since. Can someone give me a hand figuring it out. Thanks Guycalledryan (talk) 00:08, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Your analysis is correct. Since remember begins a new sentence, it is capitalized, and a full stop is needed after Bob. Deor (talk) 00:23, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Written Okinawan

Before Japanese annexation of Okinawa, Okinawan was written in Shuri (the Shuri dialect). I was wondering since Okinwan now and past is phonlogically different from Japanese, what was the kana they used for their nonjapanese Shuri consants? (I was wondering both hiragana and katagana, even though katagana was hardly used).68.148.164.166 (talk) 23:41, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

According to Ryukyuan languages#Writing system, in classical times Ryukyuan was written with a mix of Kanji and Hiragana, in contrast to Japanese which was written mostly with Kanji in formal contexts. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 00:26, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes thank you, but what would have been the frequency of the indiviual hiragana and katagana?68.148.164.166 (talk) 05:35, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

There are a couple of sounds it mentions as not having a standard representation, such as a glottal stop, plus there are a few older (now otherwise disused) hiragana that represent some of the other syllables, such as we, wi, ye, etc. Some modern sounds are written with standard hiragana/katakana but are read with non-standard pronunciation. 130.56.65.24 (talk) 05:54, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Why are they disused?68.148.164.166 (talk) 01:44, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Because the standard Japanese language no longer uses those syllables. Some of them (I think) were never really used in official Japanese style, but were created somewhat ad hoc for dialects. Steewi (talk) 05:10, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

See ゐ (wi) and ゑ (we) for some modern use. Steewi (talk) 05:16, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Additional - Okinawan writing system seems to have a lot of the information you are after. It could do with a bit of clean up and expansion, though. Steewi (talk) 05:24, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Yoshiko

What is the most common kanji spelling for the Japanese female name Yoshiko? --Candy-Panda (talk) 08:38, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

吉子? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:01, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

美子 or 良子? Here is the top 10 names for girls by year. Oda Mari (talk) 10:35, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Enlglish language/influence of pidgin english on student's performance

82.128.18.158 (talk) 21:31, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Do you have a question? The reference desk is not a search engine. Pidgin English might have some information that would help you. -Elmer Clark (talk) 22:30, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

A or An

For the sentence:

"A HFH team" (HFH = Habitat for Humanity"

Should it be "A" or "an"

"An HFH team"

99.240.177.206 (talk) 01:05, 6 February 2008 (UTC)