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May 31

squameus, omnisciens ac benevolus

What does "squameus, omnisciens ac benevolus" mean?68.148.164.166 (talk) 04:33, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

"squamous, omniscient, and kind". It's a reference to Rupert Brooke's poem "Heaven":

"Immense, of fishy form and mind,

Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;"

See the discussion here. ---Sluzzelin talk 05:42, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Quelle collection

In the book after the article describing the wine there are words in italics "Quelle collection". Is it the name of some French magazine, book or what? Thank you.--88.84.200.1 (talk) 06:21, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Which article is that?  --Lambiam 08:48, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I tried several wikis, but didn't find that article either, nor did I find a wine journal by the name of Quelle Collection or anything related.

In French, "quelle collection" could mean "which collection" and "Quelle collection!" translates to "What a collection!". Since you seem to be referring to sources:, "Quelle" means "source" in German, and a German footnote reference might start with "Quelle: Collection XYZ" ("Source: Collection XYZ"). Example: "Quelle: Collection Gremaud" in the German article on Niederernen which has nothing to do with wine though. ---Sluzzelin talk 12:13, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

The French is more likely, of course, although without any context I'm not sure why they would use "collection". Adam Bishop (talk) 12:27, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

English, "bother", meanings

Hello. If I am to say that "I am a bit skint, I hope nobody bothers.", will the meaning change in an undesirable way if I pronounce "Bothers" with a very lazy-like substitution of "-th-" with "-vw-" or "-fw-"? I can't help but think that "don't bother" is something one might tell someone else with its meaning unambiguous, while a much more informal "bofwah" (as it would be pronounced) would hint that oneself is not going to bother. An expression of own laziness and intent on not bothering. Am I derailing? 81.93.102.185 (talk) 11:39, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

The sentence doesn't make sense to me as it stands. I would replace "I hope nobody bothers" by either "I hope nobody is bothered" or "I hope nobody minds". To many British listeners, "bothered" - with any pronunciation - would immediately bring to mind Catherine Tate's catchphrase "Am I bovvered?". AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:40, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

The sentence seems fine as it is, but I would discourage people using the debased Cockney form with "-vv-" or "-fw-" as it does sound very impudent, hence the usage by Catherine Tate's hellish schoolgirl character that makes you want to make sure she is definitley 'bovvered'.--ChokinBako (talk) 18:54, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Voiced '-th-' (/ð/) is often pronounced /v/ by many people from London and surrounding areas, though this is frowned on by the sort of people who choose to frown on other people's speech. (I find its application too general in the future 'Mokni' in Will Self's novel Dave's BookThe Book of Dave, however). I don't recognise a pronunciation with '-fw-' at all, unless you are trying to use that to indicate /v/ somehow. However, with the word 'bother' there are two particular connotations which have arisen for the pronunciation /'bɔvə/: one is the catch-phrase ChokinBako mentions above; the other is the word 'bovver', first recorded in 1969 according to the OED, which means, roughly, 'violence'. --ColinFine (talk) 20:10, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

The Self novel is called The Book of Dave. Algebraist 09:54, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

True. Corrected above. --ColinFine (talk) 21:32, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Noun phrases without a determiner

What is the grammatical term, if there is one, for a noun phrase without a determiner, like the one in the example below?

The house has a deck built of pressure-treated timber.

In the example, "pressure-treated timber" refers generically to a type of material. Is it just an indefinite noun phrase with a mass noun as the based noun, or is there a special term for it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.78.237.206 (talk) 23:13, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not aware of a special term for it, and the lack of answers up to now suggests that nobody else is either.

Humorists have been known to use this construction for comic effect: I'm particularly thinking of the line in The Thirteen Clocks by James Thurber, describing the Todal: "It's made of lip". --ColinFine (talk) 21:38, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

June 1

reëxamining

Is it a spell or an alternative spell for reexamining? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.168.0.151 (talk) 03:57, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

The correct spelling is "re-examining".--Shantavira|^{feed me} 07:01, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

See also Umlaut_(diacritic)#In_English:

"The diaeresis mark has also been occasionally applied to English words of Latin origin (e.g., coöperate, reënact), as well as native English words (e.g., noöne), but this usage had become extremely rare by the 1940s. The New Yorker and MIT's Technology Review can be noted as some of the few publications that still spell coöperate with a diaeresis"

---Sluzzelin talk 07:02, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

The diaeresis mark is/was used in English to indicate that 2 vowels are to be pronounced separately (noöne is like no-one, not like noon) or that the one with the diaeresis is where the stress is put if it's in a syllable that one usually wouldn't put stress on. (e.g. Motörhead has the stress on the second o, where usually one would stress the first o). Leastways that's what they used to tell us at school (way back when). --76.111.32.200 (talk) 11:31, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Motörhead uses the heavy metal umlaut, which has no effect on pronunciation at all. —Angr 11:35, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Oops wrong example, then. The explanation I was given predates heavy metal by several decades, though. It may now be utterly outdated. --76.111.32.200 (talk) 15:05, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I can only think of one marginal case where that symbol indicates emphasis: in Russian, the letter 'е' is sometimes pronounced /jo/ but only in stressed syllables, and when so pronounced is written 'ё' in dictionaries (not in normal text). You may have been thinking of the grave accent in words like learnèd, marking that an 'e' which would otherwise be silent is pronounced. —Tamfang (talk) 22:47, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Some of us may have become acquainted with the English diaeresis through Tolkien's use of it in Quenya, to mark that certain juxtaposed vowels are not diphthongs, or as a reminder that final 'e' is not silent. —Tamfang (talk) 22:47, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

wait until next shoe drop

dear sirs

i would like to know the origin of 'wait until next shoe drop'. whose shoe and why... thank you

my email address is [removed for privacy] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bedepoon (talk • contribs) 05:41, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

The idea is that when you live in an apartment house, you can hear the person who lives above you take his shoes off before going to bed. Every night you hear first one Thud! and then a few seconds later a second Thud! and you know he's taken his shoes off. The point is that once you've gotten accustomed to hearing this every night, then after the first Thud! there are a few seconds of suspense where you know the second Thud! is coming, and you can't do anything until you hear it and the suspense is resolved. So "waiting for the shoe to drop" or "waiting for the other shoe to drop" has become a metaphor for waiting for something that you know is coming any second now. —Angr 05:57, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

As a loaded term about inevitability, it means to wait for something bad to happen, example here[1] Once a company starts laying off employees, those who are still working feel they are waiting for the other shoe to drop. Julia Rossi (talk) 08:05, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Not the source, but many people became familiar with the expression on "Sesame Street" in an "Ernie and Bert" sketch (on TV a couple of decades back). The saying was known before that, but I don't recall it being that popular. BTW I had never heard of "the next shoe" I'm more familiar with "the other shoe". --76.111.32.200 (talk) 11:20, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Feldherrnhalle

The page starts thus: "The Feldherrnhalle (sometimes also written Feldherrenhalle, "Field Marshall's Hall")..." My query: is "Field Marshall's Hall" the translation of Feldherr[e]nhall regardless of the German spelling? Alternatively, does each spelling have a different translation in English? -- Thanks, Deborahjay (talk) 12:06, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

The article is wrong on two counts: first, "Feldherr" is not a field marshal (which is a clearly defined military rank) but the commanding officer of an army in the field, regardless of his rank (the Feldherr might be a field marshal, a general or the country's king who doesn't carry any military rank at all, as long as he's in charge of the army in the field). And second, while "Feldherrnhalle" and "Feldherrenhalle" both mean the same, the contracted form is a proper name - it's always spelled that way when referring to the building in Munich, a "Feldherrenhalle" would be some generic hall-like building where army leaders meet. -- Ferkelparade π 12:37, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

So might we correct this to "field commander's [sing.] hall"? -- Deborahjay (talk) 13:07, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd stick with the plural in that case (German is a bit ambiguous in that respect, the contracted form can go both ways...and even a non-contracted form could implicate a singular meaning, cf. "Frauenkirche" or "Fürstenhof"). The statues of Tilly and Wrede seem to imply that the hall was built to honour more than one specific army leader, so I'd guess that plural is correct. -- Ferkelparade π 13:17, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

The German WP article on the building does say "fälschlicherweise oft Feldherrenhalle genannt". Is that incorrect? Deor (talk) 12:45, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

What does that mean in English, please and what conclusion might we draw from it in correcting the translation of Feldherrnhalle? -- Deborahjay (talk) 12:54, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

It means "often wrongly called Feldherrenhalle". I'm not so sure about "often"; I've done a quick Googlefight which indicates that the misspelling appears quite frequently; however, a detailed look at the search results seems to indicate that many sites list it as a common misspelling, so I'm not sure how many people who spell it "Feldherrenhalle" actually think they are correct. By the way, I'm from Munich myself, so I'm maybe more inclined than other people to regard the second spelling not as a legitimate variant but as a stupid misspelling by clueless non-natives :P -- Ferkelparade π 13:04, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

As for Field Marshal's Hall, it is also the official site's English translation. And I found this translation as well as "Hall of the Field Marshals" given in various books on Munich and architecture [2]. Nevertheless, Ferkelparade is correct of course. Another WP:V challenge brought to us by Deborahjay. ---Sluzzelin talk 13:37, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

• 65 Google book hits for "Feldherrnhalle" + "Hall of". You will notice a couple of field-marshal translations, but these are clearly wrong.
• 25 hits for "Feldhernnhalle" + "Hall of the Generals". Among them, Nazi Language and Terminology by Richard Wires, a paper on museology, and many travel publications. Google books winner by numbers.
• The Dictionary of Architecture by James Stevens Curl translates it as "commanders' hall". Christoph Hackelsberger's Subway Architecture in Munich has "military commanders' hall" which is perhaps more precise, but duller too. [3]
• Only Norman Goda's Tales from Spandau: Nazi Criminals and the Cold War gives "Hall of the Commanders" [4].
• My dictionary (PONS Großwörterbuch, Ernst Klett Sprachen, 2005) translates Feldherr with "general, strategist". ---Sluzzelin talk 17:16, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Ferkelparade is clearly savvy, and Sluzzelin raises pertinent considerations of verifiability and a synthesized (contrived? bastardized?!) conclusion. What, my fellow editors, do you advise as an improvement on the present "Field Marshal's Hall"? My preference for "_[Field] Commanders'_ Hall" is based on its descriptive nature rather than a bona fide :de:en: translation of the word feldherr. I hesitate to make the edit without some consensus, or at least further guidance. And I intend to post this discussion on the Talk page for Feldherrnhalle for good measure. -- Deborahjay (talk) 20:36, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Retro-translating for context: German also has "General" for "general" and "Befehlshaber" for "commander".

Carl von Clausewitz (who died ten years before the Feldherrnhalle was built) specified Feldherr with the words "d.h. einem entweder an der Spitze eines ganzen Krieges oder eines Kriegstheaters stehenden General" ("that is (between) a general at the head of either a whole War, or of a theatre of War". It's in this awkward dative form because of its position in the sentence). (On War, Book 1 - On the Nature of War, Chapter III, "The Genius for War")

The full clause is: "Eine sehr große Kluft liegt zwischen einem Feldherrn, d. h. einem entweder an der Spitze eines ganzen Krieges oder eines Kriegstheaters stehenden General, und der nächsten Befehlshaberstufe unter ihm". Colonel J.J. Graham's translation has: "An immense space lies between a General—that is, one at the head of a whole War, or of a theatre of War—and his Second in Command". You see the problem. Clausewitz uses the word "General" in his explanation of what defines a Feldherr, while Graham translates Feldherr directly with general and doesn't use "general" at all anymore in his explanation. (It would be circular: "a general—that is a general at the head of a whole War, or of a theatre of War".)

Long story short: Personally I like "Commanders' Hall", but the data gathered sofar seem to favor "Hall of the Generals". Both could be mentioned (e.g. "The Feldherrnhalle (Commanders' Hall or Hall of the Generals)", with the former referring to the Dictionary of Architecture and the latter perhaps to the terminology book and also to dictionary definitions. The fact that it is often falsely translated as "Field Marhal's Hall" can probably only be mentioned if referenced; otherwise I'd just remove it without further ado, and maybe leave a hidden comment so no one changes it back after having seen Bavaria's official site. ---Sluzzelin talk 03:47, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure that any evidence has been presented here that "Field Marshal" is incorrect. The fact the there website uses it and the state of our confused articles on marshal and field marshal rather argues for leaving in place the only translation which is actually source-able. Rmhermen (talk) 13:53, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

The other translations are sourceable and have been sourced, though not comprehensively cited, something I can still do later if requested. I just wasn't able to link directly to all the pages in google books. Field Marshal and also Field Marshal General are military ranks (see template:Military ranks or Category:Military ranks). A Feldherr is a general more in the sense of commander-in-chief (and strategist), not a defined rank of a particular army. But you're right, I haven't been able to verify that "Field Marshal" is incorrect yet. Negative proof is often difficult to find. ---Sluzzelin talk 14:10, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

May I add that all along I've sensed that the "Field" part is a faux ami (with Feld). Otherwise I (= OP) am duly inclined to follow Sluzzelin's trail in tracking the matter thus far. -- Deborahjay (talk) 14:17, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Learning a language online

Is it possible to learn a language through Livemocha? Are there other similar sites out there?217.168.0.192 (talk) 16:50, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about Livemocha, but I do know that people have taught themselves languages using a grammar book, a dictionary, and a text. It wouldn't be easy, but it's definitely possible. How much easier do websites make it? I don't know; I have never tried, but be careful of a couple of things. 1. Not all websites are good; I doubt that you'd find one to try to steer you wrong, but you may find one that has very wrong information and 2. Not having a native teacher can lead to problems. In a dictionary, for example, it will tell you what a word means, but English has a lot of words that mean multiple things, and you may end up translating the wrong intent, but a native speaker will catch that. Also, some languages, I believe, such as Japanese, have social things with them that require a proficient speaker to teach you about so that you don't end up insulting someone. Falconus^{p t c} 20:40, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Phrases sharing initials

Is there a term for two phrases or names that share the same initials? As in "Very Fancy Doilies is an X of Volunteer Fire Department", or "John Smith and Jerome Salinger are X's". The most relevant terms I can think of are "backronym" and "snowclone", neither of which fits. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.111.189.55 (talk) 18:46, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

There isn't even a word for the opposite of an acronym, let alone what you're asking. I mean, Anzac is an acronym for "Australian and New Zealand Army Corps", but there's no word for what "Australian and New Zealand Army Corps" is in relation to "Anzac". Sorry. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:29, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that's what the anon was asking about, Jack; I think what he means is a special case of alliteration where there are several words in sequence sharing their initial letters. However, I also think there is no special word for that :P -- Ferkelparade π 22:48, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't quite see it that way, Ferkelparade. Except for the above example, you'd hardly be likely to find "Very Fancy Doilies" juxtaposed with "Volunteer Fire Department" in the same sentence. I think 69.111 was using these as examples of two unrelated terms that just happen to have the same abbreviation or acronym, and trying to find a word that describes that connection. He could just as well have asked about Central Intelligence Agency, Culinary Institute of America, Cleveland Institute of Art and Canadian Institute of Actuaries, all of which can be referred to as "CIA". -- JackofOz (talk) 23:06, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

For the record, the VFD examples come from the A Series of Unfortunate Events books, which also contain several other examples of phrases with the same initials. 207.233.86.25 (talk) 17:30, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Mnemonic? Sort of? Adam Bishop (talk) 00:58, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I guess they would be homonymic acronyms, so you could call them homacronyms (or homocronyms?)--Shantavira|^{feed me} 06:32, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Nice try, Shantavira. That might describe the relationship between the VFD that stands for Very Fancy Doilies and the VFD that stands for Volunteer Fire Department. But it doesn't describe the relationship between Very Fancy Doilies and Volunteer Fire Department. This problem is a little like the lack of a word to describe the relationship between the 2 sets of parents of a married couple. In some languages there is such a word, but in English there isn't. (Don't ask me how I came up with that analogy, but they don't call me the Analogy King of Australia for nothing.) -- JackofOz (talk) 13:18, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Meaning of word 'skin horse'

In the book, The Velveteen Rabbit, one of the toys is called a 'skin horse'. What does 'skin horse' mean? There are other literary references also. And how is the word 'skin' pronounced? Is it pronounced like skin as in epidermis reference? Thanks, just1mtJust1mt (talk) 21:07, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I sort of assumed it was a toy horse made of some kind of leather. Was I wrong? -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 22:10, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

This is a quotation from the story: He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath... I guess it is a sort of nickname based on these skinny patches. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 22:20, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Looks like the horse was just "skin and bones". (And maybe not a lot of the latter either?)Lisa4edit (talk) 18:05, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

In mid-1950s Brooklyn (three decades after the book's initial publication), I had a toy of this sort, a stuffed donkey covered with what seemed to be horse hide, i.e. short, coarse, smooth, hair. I don't recall having rubbed any patches smooth (though I vaguely recall its having split its seams in a few spots and lost stuffing as a result), but later on when I encountered the book, I imagined the "skin horse" to be just like my donkey. -- Deborahjay (talk) 21:04, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

June 2

Plural vs Singular

I've been looking online, and most dictionaries have usage notes that state "none" requires a singular verb, as in None was qualified. This sounds odd to my ear. Are there any cases in which none should use a plural verb? Are there any other words that are colloquially used with a plural verb, but should be singular?
Also, media, as in mass media, is technically the plural of medium. Therefore, one would think it should be followed by a plural verb. However, our wiktionary article states that it should be followed by a plural verb in this sense; this is supported by encarta and the American Heritage dictionary, but they state that there are instances in which media can be followed by a plural verb, depending on the context. Merriam-Webster (the second definition — I can't link it for some reason) states that using media with a singular verb might incur criticism. So, what are your opinions?
While I'm here, I have a question about the singular they. I was taught that one should use "he" when referring to one person whose gender is not known. I often hear "they" being used, and find it incorrect. However, I've looked, and using "he" is attacked as sexist. I personally think using things such as s/he, he or she, xe etc. is poor form, and don't use it. Which is the most "correct" way to write this? Thanks. seresin ( ¡? ) 04:39, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Using singular verbs with "none" sounds find to me. To me, it's like using singular verbs with "no one", where both "none" and "no one" are not plural. I can't think of any cases where you would use a plural verb with "none" either. I might be wrong, so someone feel free to correct me. But for the second question, the grammatical way is to use "he" if the gender isn't known, and using "they" is incorrect but politically correct, the problem brought about by not having a gender-neutral term for he/she unlike in some other languages. I find myself using grammatically incorrect "they" when I'm trying to hide the gender of the subject, but that's because the alternative is saying stuff like "this person", etc. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 04:50, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

None is a contraction of "not one", so it should be treated in the same way. A lot of people don't like singular they (I don't), but the OED has citations going back to the 18th century, so it is well established. See singular they.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 06:51, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Please don't post answers when you don't know what you're talking about. None is not a contraction of "not one", and is either singular or plural. This is easily confirmed in the online Merriam-Webster, American Heritage, Infoplease, or Compact Oxford dictionaries, all of which can be searched simultaneously via www.onelook.com.

In practice "none" is often treated as a plural when you might expect there to be many of whatever it is that there are none of.

--Anonymous, 07:44 UTC, June 2, 2008.

Well I'm sorry but that is what I was taught, and the OED confirms that "none" is derived from not one (Old English ne = not + an = one). FWIW, I have been a professional editor for 25 years, so I do have some inkling what I'm talking about.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 17:01, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

"Is derived from ne+an" is not the same as "is a contraction of not one". --Anon, 20:45 UTC, June 2 (copyedited later).

In particular, when the expression "none of …" is used, none is usually construed as plural when the object of of is plural ("None of them are going on the trip") and as singular when the object of of is singular ("None of the milk was spoiled"). When none is used alone, the number assigned to it varies, as Anonymous said, depending on what the writer or speaker has in mind. Deor (talk) 08:23, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

"I think the phrase none was qualified may seem strange to you because you are previously assuming that "none" signifies plurality, as in, why would you use this phrase if you weren't talking about two or more people/things? If you were talking about just one person/thing, you would probably say he/she/it was not qualified more often than none was qualified. Anyway, I too feel none was qualified sounds strange, but that's because (as I suggested) I have a previous bias which makes me assume "none" signifies plurality; chalk it up to language upbringing.--十八 09:26, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

As for gender-neutrality, I'm against it on principle. (Keep 'em separated, I say. Vive la difference, too.) "He" is the traditional gender-neutral pronoun and is still the usual word. There has grown up a taboo, a remarkably persistent one, around "singular they". It is indeed considered incorrect, but in reality it is not. It is a part of many dialects, mine included. There is an in-depth treatment of the subject of the "singular they" here. One amusing absurdity mentioned there is "'I believe it's strictly a matter between the patient and his doctor.' -- senator Hayakawa opines upon the subject of abortion." --Milkbreath (talk) 10:41, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Whether 'none' is a contraction of 'no one' or not is a complete irrelevancy. It tells you nothing at all about whether it is construed with a singular or plural verb. Language doesn't work that way, and people who believe that you can settle matters of linguistic usage by an appeal to historical development are out of touch with how language actually works. I too was taught that 'none' should take a singular verb, with the same rationalisation, and like most English speakers I use plural more often, but singular when there is a presumption that only one of the set might have done whatever it was. --ColinFine (talk) 23:05, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Unless you're talking about uncountable nouns such as milk, what's an example of a set that might have contained only one element, Colin? -- JackofOz (talk) 09:12, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

E.g.: None of the days he was absent at was a Friday. but None of the workers were absent on a Friday. 76.111.32.200 (talk) 14:07, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

That works for me. Nice example. Thanks. -- JackofOz (talk) 00:19, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Loser's folly

I was just commenting on a talk page when this phrase popped in my head and I used it, and I'm pretty sure I'm know what it means, but I am surprised how it appears to be used very little in common speech. However, even the LA Times used the phrase in the second sentence of this article. Is using the phrase "loser's folly" to describe a hopeless venture really that rare of a phrase, and does anyone know where it originates from?--十八 09:14, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

The phrase as used in the LA Times article seems related to the gambler's fallacy. (It's a fallacy even when you're experiencing a winning streak). There is also an article on illusion of control. ---Sluzzelin talk 09:56, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

You think you know what it means? I don't, and I don't think you do, either. In the sentence you cite, the gambling is described as such, but also the "master-planned excess of Summerlin" and "the cookie-cutter streets of Green Valley and Henderson". I don't think it means anything except loose writing and looser editing. Don't look to journalists for usage tips; they'll toss in a whole mule to give it kick and an anvil for iron. --Milkbreath (talk) 10:57, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Verkündung der Wehrfreiheit (Germany, 1935)

I've queried this and a related term (? "'Verkündung der Wehrge*ekes". ) on the Talk page for Treaty of Versailles. Since they're quite context-dependent, please see the details there. --Thanks, Deborahjay (talk) 12:54, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Resolved thanks to stalwart RefDesk editors Angr, Lisa4edit, and Lambiam. -- Deborahjay (talk) 11:12, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Linguistic content (possibly of interest here):

I think there must be another mistake in the second version. I can't think of any feminine or plural noun in German that ends in -ekes (and it would have to be a feminine or plural noun because of the definite article der in the genitive before it). Do you have a scan of the document? (If you can't upload it here for copyright reasons, let me know and I'll send you an e-mail so you can send it to me as an attachment.) —Angr 16:35, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

The second could be "des Wehrgesetzes" if its a scanned document. has a quote for 1935. [5]] There was however an earlier law [6] that might be viewed as violation. The term "Verkündung der Wehrfreiheit" only got 3 ghits (6 yahoos), so the actual law was called something else. --Lisa4edit (talk) 17:52, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

"Verkündung des Wehrgesetzes" itself only gets 2 ghits, but I suspect you're right that that's what it says. I can see how a Fraktur "tz" ligature would look like a "k". Take a look at Commons:Image:Deutsches Reichsgesetzblatt 1871 000 000.jpg; the title says "Reichs-Gesetzblatt" but someone unfamiliar with Fraktur could easily think it said "Reichs-Gefekblatt". —Angr 18:31, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Usage of word "aspect"

Quotes by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) English writer: "Aspect are within us, and who seems most kingly is king."

I am trying to understand what Hardy is saying in this quote where he uses the word "aspect" as singular, yet treats it as plural.

Can anyone help me out here? Thank you SunnyErn (talk) 13:05, 2 June 2008 (UTC) SunnyErn

• Is that just a misprint?

 A young man's exhortation

   Call off your eyes from care
 By some determined deftness; put forth joys
 Dear as excess without the core that cloys,
   And charm Life's lourings fair.

   Exalt and crown the hour
 That girdles us, and fill it with glee,
 Blind glee, excelling aught could ever be,
   Were heedfulness in power.

   Send up such touching strains
 That limitless recruits from Fancy's pack
 Shall rush upon your tongue, and tender back
   All that your soul contains.

   For what do we know best?
 That a fresh love-leaf crumpled soon will dry,
 And that men moment after moment die,
   Of all scope dispossest.

   If I have seen one thing
 It is the passing preciousness of dreams;
 That aspects are within us; and who seems
   Most kingly is the King.

--jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 14:14, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

"mille e tre" in Leporello's catalogue aria (Don Giovanni)

In Leporello's catalogue song, he sings of the number of his master's conquests, giving actual totals to date. I once heard a discussion in which a speaker said the the figure 1003 ("Ma in Ispagna son gia mille e tre.") was not to be taken as a literal figure, but that it was an expression for "incalculable." The Wikipedia article entitled "Madamina, il catalogo è questo" brings to the attention an opera also concerning Don Giovanni (1787) by Giuseppe Gazzaniga. In this version, the servant Pasquariello sings: "Della Francia e della Spagna ve ne sono non so quante." This is Englished as "From France and from Spain there are more than I know." When Mozart's librettist wrote "mille e tre" was he expressing the same? LShecut2nd (talk) 19:05, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like the modern 'This device has a thousand and one uses', based of course on The Thousand and One Nights-- but here meant simply as a metaphor for 'very many'.

However, in the case of Leporello's claim, he so insistently repeats it that I believe we're meant to take it quite literally. This serves to build up the Don's mythic figure.

Besides, what's a mere thousand and three women bedded? Georges Simenon claimed twenty thousand. Ah, these sluggish Spaniards--how can they hope to compete with the hot-blooded Belgians? Rhinoracer (talk) 18:12, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Latvian question

Does anyone here speak Latvian? What does this headline I found in a Latvian newspaper mean?

Par garo brīvlaiku Elza saka - fooorši. Tiešām? JIP | Talk 19:40, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I've been trying to find this all day! No luck. An idea would be to post the question on the Latvian wikipedia's help desk/reference desk (there would be many who speak at least basic English) but I can't tell if they have one! Fribbler (talk) 23:55, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I did post it at the Latvian Wikipedia. I couldn't find a reference desk so I posted it on the main page's talk page. I already got a reply: it means Of the long holidays Elza says - coool. Really?. JIP | Talk 05:00, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

On the left in languages the link is Latviešu. Where you go from there, I don't know. Julia Rossi (talk) 03:59, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Have you asked any of these people? Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 04:51, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Catcher in the Rye

Moved to humanities desk -Elmer Clark (talk) 21:42, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

June 3

Orwell

The inflated style itself is a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as "keeping out of politics." All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer. I should expect to find—this is a guess which I have not sufficient knowledge to verify—that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years, as a result of dictatorship.

Does anyone here have "sufficient knowledge to verify" this?--Goon Noot (talk) 06:28, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Just to be clear, you're asking whether anyone here can verify that German, Russian, and Italian deteriorated between 1930 and 1946 as a result of dictatorship? Personally, I have no idea. I think 15 years is a pretty short period of time to analyze from a historical linguistics perspective... and "deterioration" can be awfully subjective.

On the other hand, maybe you're asking about whether dictatorship has a stifling influence on language growth in general. That, I think, is a fascinating question, but I don't know the answer to that either. I wonder if there have been any studies on Korea, for instance, and the changes between the dialects spoken in North and South Korea over the last 60 years. Indeterminate (talk) 07:08, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

No one would have sufficient knowledge to verify this because it is not true: languages simply do not "suffer" from politics or individuals, they slowly evolve on their own path, as and when a large number of its speakers feel it is appropriate to change little aspects of their language. The idea that a language "suffers" or "impoverishes" is ludicrous, it evolves, that's it. Saying that the result of the evolution is an impoverishement or an enrichement is not objective. My view is that people claiming to have sufficient knowledge to prove Orwell's statement would instead have imcomplete knowledge that would lead them to the above wrong conclusion. --Lgriot (talk) 07:18, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I suspect that the "language" being referred to above as "suffering" is not so much the language itself, but rather the culture of communication the language is used in. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 08:19, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

We have to remember the quote above is by the same person who believed an authoritarian dictatorship could actually change the way people think by imposing restrictions on language – in 1984, the ultimate goal of Newspeak was to make it impossible for people to even think of illicit things like freedom. Fortunately, in the real world, there's no evidence that would work, and examples like creolization and Nicaraguan Sign Language suggest that when children are presented with an impoverished language to learn, they don't grow up to be intellectually impoverished at all, but rather that they enrich the language they're learning so that it can accommodate their thoughts. —Angr 18:48, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

On the other hand, literature generally deteriorates heavily under a dictatorship. With free expression restricted, the production of prose, poetry, etc. quickly becomes derivative and soulless. There are exceptions, of course, but generally, the 90%-of-everything-is-crap Sturgeon Principle quickly becomes 99% of everything is crap. Steewi (talk) 02:53, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I would agree that published literature may have been impoversihed, but I am pretty sure that behind closed doors, authors still enjoyed the same quality of expressiveness. even though their audience would be seriously reduced. --Lgriot (talk) 07:23, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Just one instance of this trend in Russian (and one which Orwell probably knew about) is the word likvidirovat, which means to settle affairs or debts. It gained the further meaning of 'kill' or 'eliminate' at about the time of the October Revolution, and it's even possible that Lenin himself was the first to use it in that sense. Xn4 00:47, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Hang on, Angr. Do you have evidence that Orwell believed that "an authoritarian dictatorship could actually change the way people think by imposing restrictions on lanaguage"? That was the plan in the book indeed, but you could say that the book itself illustrates the failure of this thesis: i.e. the need for more conventional forms of coercion. And just because an author puts a thesis in a work of fiction doesn't necessarily mean he believes or accepts it. --ColinFine (talk) 18:46, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

who and whom

can u plz explain the difference between 'who' and 'whom' in a precise manner? regrding that issue, who did u contact to? regrding that issue, whom did u contact to? which 1 is correct and why?Lovindhawan (talk) 08:38, 3 June 2008 (UTC)lovindhawan

Use whom rather than who exactly where you'd use him rather than he. Did you contact he? No, you contacted him; thus the question wants whom. (On another hand, some people find any use of whom unnatural, archaic, stilted; 1 wd have thot that any1 who rites like this, when not paying by the ltr, wd be among them.) —Tamfang (talk) 08:54, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Um, they're both wrong :) Actually, the 'to' in both phrases is grammatically incorrect and unnecessary. Removing these, the second one is correct, although using the first one is common in everyday life, precisely because many people like you don't know when to use who and whom. Kreachure (talk) 13:24, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd go so far as to say that practically nobody knows when to use which, and that's why "whom" is moribund. I know, but half the time I have to think about it, and that's too much like work for just talking. It does have a little life in it, though, when it immediately follows "to"; it's actually hard to pronounce "to who did you give it". See our article Who (pronoun). --Milkbreath (talk) 13:45, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

For me it's a question of register. I always (attempt to) use "whom" correctly in writing (although I don't necessarily always use pied-piping in writing), but in speech I probably use it very rarely. —Angr 17:38, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Moribund? I don't know...when a preposition precedes the word, my experience is that everybody automatically use 'whom'.

"For whom is this letter?" "I asked him for whom the letter was."

Rhinoracer (talk) 18:16, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I guess I meant moribund in general speech. Nobody around here would say "For whom is this letter?" but "Who is this letter for?", which also technically demands "whom" but never, ever gets it. Same goes for "I asked him for whom the letter was.", which I'm not sure is even possible, decaying within nanoseconds as it does into "I asked him who the letter was for.", which again goes begging for an "m". Even when "whom" is strictly idiomatic, as in your examples (the examples were not idiomatic for my dialect, but the use of "whom" within them was), it sticks out like a sore thumb. Q: Whom shall I say is calling? A: Meem. --Milkbreath (talk) 19:05, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

There are certain standard phrases ("To whom it may concern") and well-known quotes and titles "Do not send to ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee", and "For Whom the Bell Tolls", where the use of "who" is just wrong. But you can get away without "whom" in many cases that would have been been considered mandatory in bygone days. The people for whom these old grammar texts were designed are themselves approaching moribundity. -- JackofOz (talk) 00:14, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Parenthesis in quotations

When someone says something that would be written in brackets, how can you prove it that the person is actually saying that and not addressing the audience? E. g. in this sentence: "The one that has MP2 (you know what I mean) on its front cover?". Interactive Fiction Expert/Talk to me 11:28, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Before we get started, I'd like to suggest we call these () "parentheses". I think of "brackets" as the general word for things of that kind, encompassing (), [], {}, etc. I'm not sure what you're asking, but the example you have provided, "The one that has MP2 (you know what I mean) on its front cover?", says to me that the speaker has said every word between the quotation marks but has said "you know what I mean" sotto voce. If you want a remark to stand outside the text as a direct comment from the writer to the reader, it should go inside square brackets: "The one that has MP2 [you know what I mean] on its front cover?". I think, though, that it's a bit awkward like that, asking punctuation to do so much; the quotation marks should be left alone to do their work without the square brackets muscling in and temporarily overriding their prerogative. ----Milkbreath (talk) 12:22, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Another way to write the same thing which might make it clearer that it's still the speaker talking would be with dashes: "The one that has MP2 – you know what I mean – on its front cover?". --Sean 13:02, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

That's all well and good, but that's not exactly what I mean. I meant if the person was saying that to another person in the story. Interactive Fiction Expert/Talk to me 13:19, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

In that case you can do it a million ways: "The one that has MP2," he said, pausing to murmur a conspiratorial "you know what I mean" to Tebra, "on its front cover." Don't use any kind of bracket. Punctuation has to be invisible in fiction. --Milkbreath (talk) 13:38, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I think I understand your question (but only after re-reading it a bunch of times). Your question being: how can you know if a part in parenthesis within quotation marks is meant to be heard by the one being talked to, or only the reader. Having a parenthesis within quotation marks, as in your example, most usually means that the person talking is saying that part in parenthesis to whomever the person is talking to (like the rest of the speech), not only to the reader. The difference would be that the person has said that part in a lower voice, or with a different tone to make it less important than the rest, or even in such a way that the person being talked to was barely able to hear it. Kreachure (talk) 13:40, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Also, unless the speaker is quoting his/her own words, he/she wouldn't say "you know what I mean" but "you know what he/she means/they mean". (If you know what I mean.)  :) -- JackofOz (talk) 00:05, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

German translation

An advertisement for a children's playground reads "Damit auch dein Geburtstag der Hit wird." I think this can roughly be translated as "With us, your birthday will be a hit". Is this reasonable? And if so, a few follow-up questions:

• What is the function of the auch?
• Why "der Hit" rather than "ein Hit"?
• With nouns such as "Hit" which have been borrowed from English, how is their gender determined?

Many thanks, --Richardrj ^{talk email} 17:38, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

That's a very rough translation; there's nothing in the German that directly corresponds to "with us". A more literal translation (for the purposes of discussing it linguistically) is "So that your birthday too will be a hit." The function of auch is to suggest that other people's birthdays have been hits in the past, and now yours can be one too. I don't know if I can explain why it's der Hit rather than ein Hit, but think of similar expressions in English like "That's the bomb!", "That's the shit!" and "You the man!" Many nouns borrowed from English take the gender of native German synonyms, so in this case it's probably "der Hit" because of "der Schlag". Other examples are "das Callgirl", neuter because of "das Mädchen"; "die E-Mail", feminine because of "die Post"; "die Band" (in the meaning "rock band" or the like), feminine because of "die Gruppe/Truppe". There are also exceptions, though, like "das Team", neuter in spite of "die Mannschaft". English nouns ending in -ing are always neuter in German (e.g. "das Meeting"), because they're felt to be equivalent to substantivized infinitives ("das Treffen"), even though -ing is etymologically cognate with the feminine suffix -ung. —Angr 18:35, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Angr, as always. I was confused by damit; I thought it could be translated as "with us". Clearly I was wrong. Of course I know that auch means "too" or "also", but for some reason I didn't connect it with dein Geburtstag, I assumed that it ran something like "also, your birthday will be a hit" and I couldn't see what the "also" might be referring back to. Thanks again. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 19:05, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Damit can mean "with it" but never "with us". The way to tell apart the "with it" meaning from the "so that" meaning is to see where the verb is. If I were selling a new product and wanted to say "With it, your birthday too will be a hit" I'd have to say Damit wird auch dein Geburtstag der Hit with the verb in the second position of the sentence. But when damit means "so that", it introduces a dependent clause, meaning the verb has to go to the end of the sentence, and that's what we have in your example: Damit auch dein Geburtstag der Hit wird. —Angr 19:51, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Funny anecdote: There is a German Beamter in a dark basement office somewhere in Berlin (Bonn), sitting at his desk looking at lists of new items musing "die Computer", "das Computer", "der Computer". He then issues an official statement in triplicate. :-)--76.111.32.200 (talk) 22:25, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

It's that simple: "You are THE Man!" -> "Du bist DER Hit!", "The Party 's gonna be THE Hit!"->"Die Party wird DER Hit!", but you can also say "Die Party wird EIN Hit!" - just depends on you, how you meant to say it... in german, BOTH ways can be used in many different other situations.

The German "auch" simply means "also" or "too", while in german "also" means the english "so".

Examples: German->English "Also, was machen wir heute, Heinrich?"->"So, what do we gonna do today, Henrik?" "Ich bin auch krank"->"I'm also sick (of this or that)", or "I'm sick, too (like with a headache)."

The word "Hit" in german is always "male" or how you call it in english, you can't say "Die Hit" or "Das Hit".

Hope it helps a bit, - "Auf geht's, Schnitzel essen!" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.177.189.93 (talk) 17:18, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

"Eitherly"

From page 116 of Iain Banks' novel 'Matter'(Orbit Books):

[...]Oramen often felt overwhelmed in complicated social environments and had at such times (so that they all cancelled each other out), or none at all.Eitherly, the result was that he would just stand there, or sit there [...] (bold letters mine)

Eitherly?

I don't recall encountering this absolute adverbial before, and yet-- I like it. Prettier and more concise than "In either case" or "Either way". Is this a neologism?

Banks is a Scot...is this word common in Scottish English?

Whatever the verdict, I believe I will adopt this word! Rhinoracer (talk) 18:25, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

A full-text search of the OED shows nothing for "eitherly". Too bad, I like it, though I don't remember having seen it before. --Milkbreath (talk) 20:49, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

220 ghits is better than I get for some dictionary terms. It'd be interesting to see if it comes from someone mistranslating some foreign language, it's an old term or local to some group. Meriam Webster didn't know it either (-ly:-). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.111.32.200 (talk) 22:34, 3 June 2008 (UTC) grrr I' going to get that bot --76.111.32.200 (talk) 22:36, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Google books gave 27 examples, some dating back quite a bit, none of them a dictionary definition, the first example even implying its non-existence (as if we said "bothly", "eitherly", "neitherly"). From what I could tell, the sense is usually that of either, not of either way as in Rhinoracer's example, and the usage wasn't particularly Scottish. Eitherly, see for yourself. ---Sluzzelin talk 03:30, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

If we all pledge to use the word in our Wikipedia writings, then the ghits will increase until they reach such a level, the dictionaries will be forced to acknowledge it. :) Gwinva (talk) 03:39, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

You are right,Gwinva (talk), and so shall I proceed.

Jorge Luis Borges, in an interview, lamented the lack of invention of new words. (He was not speaking of nonce-words such as, say, Obama-ness.) An example he cited from a British author was "everness"-- which strikes me as a useful and beautiful new word.

I'm rather conservative in my language, but it were foolish to frown on every neologism. Rhinoracer (talk) 16:53, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

It might work, or it might not. The OED adds words every year. Eitherly, it would be worth a try. Fribbler (talk) 23:03, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

June 4

Poss ess

There's a trend towards using apostrophe "s" in plural words on websites and in personal writing (example: workshop's, weekend's, car's). Looks odd, but does it mean something more than a typo? Given it might be getting past spellcheck, it's a kind of style-creep, so does this mean it's becoming acceptable? Just curious, Julia Rossi (talk) 00:57, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Your write too bee consurned. Its juzt plane lazinuss. Peeple knead to lurn propr grammer. --Nricardo (talk) 01:34, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

There's a name for tho'se: Greengrocer's apostrophe --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 02:42, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Yup, what Nricardo wrote. Oddly enough, it takes more work to put in the incorrect apostrophe than it does to leave it out, so I don't know if "lazy" would be the correct word...silly grammar-challenged people. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 02:44, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

No, such misuse of the apostrophe is not acceptable. Astronaut (talk) 02:46, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

My "Yup" was more of an agreement with Nricardo. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 04:10, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Ye's! that's it: the creeping anarchi'stic Greengrocers' apostrophe's it i's, and a's Nricardo and Nihonjoe, no-ones bothering to check because they don't even know -- thank's all Julia Rossi (talk) 03:48, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

You might enjoy this cartoon. I also liked the exclamation I read somewhere "an apostrophe doesn't mean 'look out! here comes an s!!'". --LarryMac | Talk 14:48, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Confusing the issue is that it was standard until quite recently to use apostrophes to pluralize things not considered as normal words. The example "VCR's" in the cartoon would be correct by that standard. Now that style is mostly confined to plurals of single characters (e.g. there are two capital N's in this sentence) or other cases where confusion might result (we bought two model 3's, one 3r, one 3s, and two 3t's). But some people still adhere to the older style. See Apostrophe#Use in forming certain plurals, although I don't think that section gives a complete picture. --Anonymous, 20:39 UTC, June 4, 2008.

It's also an example of hypercorrection. Indeterminate (talk) 22:32, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

ORIGIONAL SCRIPTURES OF INDIA

WHERE THE ORIGIONAL COPIES OF THE SCRIPTURES OF INDIAN ORIGIN (VEDAS,etc)ARE PLACED ? 59.95.192.222 (talk) 04:44, 4 June 2008 (UTC)MAYUR

I'm not sure what you mean by "original copies", which is surely a contradiction. I suggest you read our article on the Vedas which will tell you that "The Vedas are arguably the oldest sacred texts that are still used. Most Indologists agree that an oral tradition existed long before a literary tradition gradually sets in from about the 2nd century BCE. Due to the ephemeral nature of the manuscript material (birch bark or palm leaves), surviving manuscripts rarely surpass an age of a few hundred years. The oldest surviving manuscripts of the Rigveda are dated to the 11th century CE.[citation needed]. The Benares Sanskrit University has a manuscript of the mid-14th century....."--Shantavira|^{feed me} 06:14, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Please interpret this sentence

The following is a quote from Water of Life (a treatise on urine therapy) by John W. Armstrong.

If this treatment is carried out, the old will disappear, in the case of otherwise healthy individuals in about twelve hours or less. Doubtless the reader would say “but this is quite contrary to the old adage” ‘feed a cold and starve a fever’. Yet was that the original adage? I have heard it said that such is merely a perversion of the original saying which is “if you feed a cold you will have to starve a fever”.

What does the author mean by what he claims to be the original version of the adage? In other words, what does “if you feed a cold you will have to starve a fever” mean? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Elixira (talk • contribs) 14:23, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

It means that feeding a cold may make it worse, i.e. it may escalate into a fever. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 14:25, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Or more specifically -- the original saying means that if you have a cold, you should eat, whereas if you have a fever, you should fast. Therefore, the "original" version means that if you eat when you have a cold, you will get a fever. (I'm clarifying this because the meaning of the phrase "feeding a cold" may not be obvious to the original poster. Also, as a point if interest, this New Scientist article suggest that the idea of eating when you have a cold and fasting when you have a fever may have some basis in reality.) -- Captain Disdain (talk) 20:14, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

As Captain Disdain rightly guessed I never guessed the eating involved. By 'feeding a cold' I understood, merely allowing a cold to take its course (without trying remedies). Still, I am not clear if the author really had food in mind. Any more light? Elixira (talk) 04:13, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

See also this article from the New Scientist.  --Lambiam 08:34, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Meaning

What does "debris pipe" mean? Thanks.68.148.164.166 (talk) 20:59, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Can you provide a context? —Angr 21:25, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

It could have a couple meanings I can think of:

• pipe that has become debris
• a pipe used to hold or transport debris.

Depending on context, there may be other meanings. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 01:13, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Searching Google images for "debris pipe" suggests that it's a sediment trap, but I'm not conifident enough to create a redirect.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 06:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

A rubbish or rubble chute? Both red links, but WP references in: rubbish chute and rubble chute. See also (googled) [7], [8]. Gwinva (talk) 07:02, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Anything like a "grease trap"? Intercepts solids and grease before it enters oops, they enter the sewer sysem. Julia Rossi (talk) 08:47, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Skuta

What exactly is what the Slovenes call "skuta" (pusti sveži sir)? Is there an English equivalent for that thing? I can't figure out what kind of dairy product it is. Húsönd 23:49, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

As far as I can see from the Slovene Wikipedia, this is a mountain!? Can you throw us a link as to what dairy product is involved? Fribbler (talk) 00:24, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the disambiguation page for "Skuta" at the Slovenian Wikipedia [9] provides both the mountain and a red link for the main (?) meaning of that word. Húsönd 00:57, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Aye, I seen that too. Just wonder what the main meaning is! The OP mentioned "sir", which rings bells in my head as being the word for cheese in several slavic languages (often as ser) but I still need more info. Fribbler (talk) 01:02, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

"Sir" is the only of those words I know the meaning. I have no clue about the others, but "pusti sveži sir" is written next to "skuta" on this can of skuta that I bought in the market today (believing that "skuta" was just a brand of normal cream cheese). Húsönd 01:18, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I'd reckon the name of a well-known mountain was appended to create a notion of purity. Fribbler (talk) 01:23, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

In Croatian skuta means quark (curd cheese).[10] I bet it is the same in Slovenian.  --Lambiam 08:27, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Heh heh. James Joyce knew a thing or two about words, and I wonder if he wasn't aware of this substance when he supposedly coined "quark" in FW. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:46, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

June 5

Section8

To the honorable Michelle R. Bloomberg, I am a resident of the Bronx, Ny.I recived a vocher from Nyc housing of October of 2007. The experation date for the vocher was Apirl,2008, in the process of having this vocher i then found housing before my experation date but ther was a change in my budget. Therefor the rental/transfer office then informed me that my applications would have to go back to applications for a budget resessment due to a 17% budget change therefore i am now without a vocher, and now listed to be a catagory 9 when i have already recived a vocher.My vocher # is 0593591. I am now trying to find out why my vocher was took away from me and given to someone else, they now have my lease from the apartment that i found,along with other doucments. So, my question is why do i not have a section8 vocher because of the lact of business admintration. Now i am trying to fight for what i feel is righfully mine...Where do i go from here?? I need assistance to find out what happpen from the month of october 'till now. Knowing that the apartment was found in the month of December,2007.That is my question. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.119.85.222 (talk) 00:19, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Who is Michelle R. Bloomberg? Adam Bishop (talk) 00:48, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Michael Bloomberg's wife? Nope, his wife is Susan. Not sure. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 01:16, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

It is amazing what people think we can do: the language reference desk can solve any problem! Need a girlfriend? Ask the LRD! Need a flat? Ask the LRD! Need to settle a dispute with an administration? Ask the LRD! :-) --Lgriot (talk) 06:50, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

We are an encyclopedia, not New York City Hall. It is not very likely that Mr. Bloomberg, or someone who acts on his behalf, will see your posting. Here is a link to a contact webpage for the New York City Government.  --Lambiam 08:16, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I suspect, based on your question, that you found one of our over two million articles, and thought that we were directly affiliated in some way with that subject. Please note that you are at Wikipedia, the online free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and this page is "Language Reference Desk" of the English Wikipedia. We have no inside track on the subject of your question. You can, however, search our vast catalogue of articles by typing a subject into the search field on the left hand side of your screen.

However, you might have more luck visiting New York City Housing Authority (Official site) or calling 3-1-1 toll free. If you really think Mayor Michael Bloomberg is the best person to solve your issue, he can be contacted here. Astronaut (talk) 08:43, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

3-1-1 is definitely the way to go here. - Nunh-huh 11:08, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Translation of text on an image

Hello. Can someone please translate the text on the image at this page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:GriechTheater2.PNG. It is stated that the terms are in Greek language and Latin letters. Not sure what the means, but hopefully you'll understand, lol. I would like the terms translated into English please. Many Thanks, POKEMON RULES (talk) 03:33, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

It means they've been transliterated from the Greek alphabet into the Latin alphabet. Since they're all rather specific technical terms, they probably don't have different English translations. Rather, the Greek words (transliterated into the Latin alphabet) would be used in English. —Angr 06:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia has articles and definitions for some of the terms: diazomata, skene, proskenion, pinakes, parodoi. This site gives definitions for the other words. DAVID ŠENEK 10:24, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Words ending in Z

I have noticed a recurrence of words ending in Z on the net recently, in deliberate misspellings such as "haz". Iz thiz some kind of internet meme, and if so where did it originate from? --Richardrj ^{talk email} 13:59, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I think it's of feline origin. DAVID ŠENEK 14:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Wow, is there anything at all that Wikipedia doesn't have an article on? Many thankz. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 14:26, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Well... hiphop culture does it too (e.g. Boyz n the Hood), and that's older than the lolcats. —Angr 16:03, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Heck, I ain't no damn lolcat, and I've around longer than most of those boyz. (You cannot imagine what it took for me to write that last "word". What sacrifices one makes for humanity.) -- JackofOz (talk) 20:39, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Jeez haz been roun' longr dan dat. (No, no Richardrj, "thanx", aight?) Julia Rossi (talk) 08:35, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, but I was definitely thinking of the lolcats thing, which is a recent internet phenomenon and distinct from boyz, jeez etc. Thanks all. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 09:14, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Auxiliary verbs in English

There seems to be auxiliary verbs in Finnish (and Swedish too) that I can't translate to English directly. These include:

• jaksaa (sv. orka): have the energy to
• ehtiä (sv. hinna): have the time to
• viitsiä: can be bothered to

Also, I am confused by the English auxiliary verb "may", because it can mean either "be allowed to" or "be possible to". The first meaning is saada in Finnish and få in Swedish. The second meaning is voida in Finnish and kunna in Swedish.

Finnish also has two separate verbs for "can":

• osata: know how to do
• voida: be possible to

Can some explain to me if these can be translated to English more succintly than what I have written here? JIP | Talk 17:14, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

"Five years of fighting"

I heard a report on the radio this morning about Darfur, in which the correspondent started a sentence with "Five years of fighting have led to..." I would have said "Five years of fighting has led to ..." But as I got to thinking about it, it's possible that we're both right. Opinions? Corvus cornix_talk 17:49, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

"Has" is right. Don't listen to all those others who say the other thing. It's not the same thing as "five dogs have peed on my azalea", where "has" would be impossible. --Milkbreath (talk) 18:04, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Well you can carefully say 'has' if you like, Milkbreath, but I will continue to use either depending on whether I have the years or the fighting as salient in my mind when I say it. --ColinFine (talk) 18:57, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Milkbreath, I was taught years ago that the verb should agree in number with the word (or words) before the "of". Waz I taught wrong, or have the rules changed?--Eriastrum (talk) 19:00, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

You were taught wrong, and there are no rules. (Actually, I don't think I'm getting what you were taught.) Grammatically or logically speaking, it can go either way. "Years" is the subject, "years" is plural, therefore the conjugation is "have". "Five years" is a block of time whose overall effect has culminated in whatever, so "five years" is to be construed as singular, making it "has". (I don't understand Mr. Fine. The years considered individually are not what is meant.) The trouble is, when we actually go to write it, we have to pick one, and we should use the one that makes the sentence make sense, the right one. --Milkbreath (talk) 19:11, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I think in this case it makes more sense to choose "have"; otherwise the listener might be confused as to whether the subject of the sentence was "years" or "fighting". When people aren't paying attention to what they're saying, it's a common error to simply conjugate a verb based on the word directly before the verb, rather than the actual subject of the phrase. Indeterminate (talk) 19:23, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think we should consider the sensibilities of a listener who starts out that confused. We should write for sane people of at least average intelligence. It would not make sense if "fighting" was the subject. The listener is perfectly capable of understanding that it was the five fighting years that led to the deplorable state of affairs we're faced with today, I guess. --Milkbreath (talk) 19:58, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Was it the five years, or the fighting, that "led to..." (whatever it was that 'it' led to)? It was the fighting, which is the subject. The simple sentence "fighting _has_ led to..." was expanded with a modifier about how much fighting to get "Five years of fighting _has_ led to..." Okay, I'll shut up and listen, now. -SandyJax (talk) 21:03, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

This also seems like a case where national/regional dialects come into play, much as how American and British English differ in the treatment of sports teams -- Americans tend towards the plural (The Colts have won 5 NFL championships) vs the British singular (The only major honour that Manchester United F.C. has never won is the UEFA Cup). As such, there is not necessarily a universally correct answer. — Lomn 19:30, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

We Americans would indeed say that the Colts have won it, "colts" being plural, but Indianapolis has, where Manchester have. --Milkbreath (talk) 19:58, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Show of hands: who would write "Five years are a long time"? --Milkbreath (talk) 20:17, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Ah, but that's a different case, mate. (this is where the ec happened) Logically, I'd be inclined to agree with my esteemed lactohalic colleague about his first response. But logic is not the thing. It all depends on how the speaker is conceptualising the situation. Maybe from a johnny-come-lately journalist's frame of reference, the 5 years of fighting is a single entity. Darfur used to be a nice place, then this "thing" happened, and now it's hell on earth. Thus "5 years of fighting has led ...". But from a local's perspective, it would not be one "thing" but a long series of separate, individually ghastly events, which have culminated in whatever. And if they say "five years of fighting ..." they may have all those separate bloody events in mind, not some disconnected thought about the time period. So I can't support the view that it's always wrong to say "have". In other words, what Colin said. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:33, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Can't agree, dude, I mean mate. Whatever a local might think, that's not what the sentence means. It doesn't make sense to arbitrarily divide the time up into years. If it had been one-and-a-half years, would we say "Eighteen months of fighting have led to...."? It is the span of time, not some arbitrary units, that is, not are, the subject of the sentence. Isn't English a glorious mess? --Milkbreath (talk) 21:31, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Not sure we're on quite the same wavelength. To some speakers, "five years of fighting have led to" is shorthand for "many horrible events that took place over a five-year period have led to". Just as "the group went their separate ways" is shorthand for "the members of the group went their separate ways". I can see where you're coming from, though. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:32, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Poem analysis...?

Hello everyone. Would it be okay (and helpful to me :) if I put up a poem here for analysis? It's not homework or anything, I just want to know what it's about ^^. (If this is absolutely not the place for such a thing, please tell me where I can go to get some help!) Thanks in advance, Kreachure (talk) 20:48, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

You'd probably get better responses at the Humanities Desk. --Milkbreath (talk) 21:22, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Really? Well okay... if you ask me, there's a little bit of ambiguity between the two desks regarding this subject (not that such a thing has been asked for in either according to Google), but thanks anyway. Kreachure (talk) 21:34, 5 June 2008 (UTC) PS. I don't have to remove the question from here in order to ask at the other desk, right??

I just answered you, I'm not the guy to see about this. That said, if I were you, I'd go ahead and post away and let the devil take the hindmost, whatever that means. It's happened before that someone has slapped a bit of poetry up and asked for analysis. Watch the copyright thing is all. --Milkbreath (talk) 22:48, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Copyright is okay for purposes of study or teaching, no? Julia Rossi (talk) 08:51, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't know. My eyes start to swim around like a couple of goldfish about three sentences in whenever I try to read up on the matter. Common sense tells me, though, that whatever your intention, to post a piece on the internet for anyone to read or copy violates copyright. To quote one stanza in an academic work is fair use, I guess, or even to include the entire poem in a critique of that poem, but on paper. But I am not a lawyer. --Milkbreath (talk) 10:01, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Examples of languages with pre-noun and post-noun placement of adjectives

Hello, I'm looking for a very short list of a few examples of languages that place the noun after the adjective (e.g. casa verde), and a few that place it before (e.g. green house). If you can find a link to a list I'd really appreciate it, but just listing a few examples would work just as well. If possible, I'm also especially interested in Russian. I tried searching through the archives but couldn't find much, and our articles surprisingly don't seem to cover this. Thanks in advance for your efforts! --Ybbor^Talk 21:34, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not having much luck finding a list either. Many languages allow them in either position, and many have exceptions to the usual placement (e.g. French, where adjectives normally follow the noun but certain adjectives can precede the noun under certain circumstances). For European languages, I'd say adjectives typically follow the noun in Romance and Celtic languages and precede the noun in Germanic languages. I don't know enough about Slavic languages to generalize, but I notice that Russian for Red Square is Красная площадь (red square), not Площадь красная (square red). —Angr 21:58, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

The absence of the present tense of the verb "to be" in modern Russian means that, context-free, Площадь красная would be interpreted as "The square is red". It's not that you can never put the adjective after the noun, and literature is full of counter-examples, but generally speaking it goes before just as it does in English. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:21, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I thought there might be a list at Head directionality parameter, but there isn't. It mentions Japanese as a language that is pretty strictly head-final (as with German, quite long phrases can occur as modifiers in a noun phrase, preceding the head noun). Hebrew is an example of noun-adjective, and is the converse of JackOfOz's observation about Russian, in that there is no copula and 'adjective noun' would tend to be a sentence, not a phrase. --ColinFine (talk) 23:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

June 6

Plural of Destruction

Is the following usage of the word "destructions" grammatically correct?

"While they are very similar, only the latter is able to cause epic, city-scale destructions."

Should "destructions" be singular instead? Applefungus (talk) 00:47, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

It's a little strange, but I'd let it stand. It's better than "depredations", it's concise, and we know what it means. The dictionaries I looked at were mute about whether "destruction" can be a count noun. --Milkbreath (talk) 01:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Most dictionaries don't distinguish mass nouns from count nouns. I'd say that "destruction" in normal use is always a mass noun, and this dictionary entry agrees (it uses U = uncountable = mass noun). So you want the singular "destruction" or else a completely different construct like "the epic destruction of cities". --Anonymous, 01:54 UTC, June 6, 2008.

I'm gonna have to agree with singular. The meaning of the sentence is the same if you put destruction rather than destructions (so using the latter isn't going to affect it other than making it seem 'uglier'). Kreachure (talk) 02:31, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

What Kreachure said. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 07:43, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Chinese Written Standards

Modern Chinese has to2 Standards, Cantonese and Mandarin.

I believe that the reason this is so is because Hong Kong is an SAR. The Chinese govenment included in the political provisions for a separate written standard for the lingua franca that was and still is spoken in Hong Kong SAR. But most importantly, compared to some other places that are more rural than Hong Kong, the Cantonese written standard first started off in Cantonese opera; as playwrights wrote scripts for their actors and actresses, they wanted to incorporate the vernacular so they used characters not found in Classical Chinese. Are there any dialects that have these written traditions?68.148.164.166 (talk) 02:45, 6 June 2008 (UTC)68.148.164.166 (talk) 02:45, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

The background cited above contains significant mis-information. Although various spoken Chinese dialects can be very different, written Chinese remains rather homogenous across the whole China in the last two thousand years or so -- especially after Qin Shi Huangdi -- and remains so. Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong (and Macau) and Singapore are the four main regions with significant different Chinese cultures. Having said that -- to answer your question -- "the" modern written Chinese language is essentially one, except [not so] trivial differences in choice of word, vocabulary, slang usage, etc; and other superficial variations, e.g. traditional vs simplified characters, vertical vs horizontal writing. --Chan Tai Man 14:54, 6 June 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chantaiman (talk • contribs)

Latin Check

I'm doing a translation for one of my friends, but my Latin is somewhat impoverished by my never having taken a class. Can I have some corrections?

"Mercuri ter Maxime, adjutame, Alipes! Dona tutamen caducei sancti tui a socio vehendi."

"O Hermes Trismegistos, Aid me Wing-Footed one! Offer the protection of your sacred caduceus to a fellow traveller."

You can be merciless if I've completely bunged it up. :) Steewi (talk) 03:27, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Additional: I also wouldn't mind it being made a more elegant translation, if it's not difficult. Steewi (talk) 03:28, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Which way are you translating it? From English to Latin? (I thought the other way around at first.) If E-L, then "adjuta me" is two words. The end right now says "the protection of your sacred caduceus to be carried by a friend", so I think you want simply "...sancti tui conviatori". Adam Bishop (talk) 04:35, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, now that I've had a chance to put some more thought into it: "O Mercurii ter Maxime, adjuta me, Alipes! Dona caduceum sanctum arma mihi conviatori" The "O" more definitely indicates the vocative, and -ius names take -ii in the vocative. You don't need a possessive "tuum" - it's more natural to use it in English, but unnecessary in Latin, since it's obviously not your caduceus! "Tutamen" does mean "protection" but it's not the most usual word, and it seems odd to me to use it with a genitive. I used "arma", which is weapons but also abstract protection, with another accusative in apposition, "grant [your] sacred caduceus [as] protection to me, a fellow traveller." Adam Bishop (talk) 07:57, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Feminine endings in English

Here's a couple that I've been meaning to ask for a long while:

1.I've noticed the forms "or" and "rix" in Latin-origin terms. I'm wondering what the English/Anglisc parallel is. For words ending in "er", is there a disused female form with "rine"? (I've noticed in German the pair Kaiser and Kaiserin).

2.What would be the plural for sisters in the old forms to match "brethren"? (Sestren?) Retarius | Talk 06:20, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

The wife of a viceroy is a vicereine. That's probably from French, though. Only example I can think of right now. -- JackofOz (talk) 06:23, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

(1). AFAIK the feminine ending corresponding to German -in is present in Modern English only in vixen, which is etymologically identical to German Füchsin. (2). It's just "sisters". —Angr 06:31, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

For Retarius, the archaic plural form of sisters is "sisteren"; used inclusively, brethren means members of the same kind or group, as well as kin which does for both mostly. Julia Rossi (talk) 07:07, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

The English suffix -ess comes from Latin -ix, through French. For example "actor" is directly from Latin, and "actress" evolved from the feminine form "actrix". The suffix -er is the Germanic cognate of Latin -or, I think. There was also an -ina suffix in Latin, although maybe it only appears in "regina", the feminine form of "rex". "Rex" and "regina" turned into "roi" and "reine" in French, hence Jack's example of "vicereine", which is really two words "vice reine", so it does not really have an "-ine" ending in the way you meant. Adam Bishop (talk) 07:39, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Jack, Angr, Julia and Adam. I gather the modern feminine form would be "ess" then, as in deprecated words like actress, waitress, etc. Retarius | Talk 08:20, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome. (Sequenced the Q & A after getting lost).  : ) Julia Rossi (talk) 08:29, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

When it suits, "actress" is not entirely deprecated. -- JackofOz (talk) 12:53, 6 June 2008 (UTC)