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March 2

A few things I want to know how to say in chinese.

How do you say "that's all right", "sports", "busy", "do not like", "sorry", and "not going". Also, how do you respond when someone says 对不起。? Also, how would you say things for the following situations: "you would like to invite a friend to go swimming", "you accept your friend's invitation to play tennis", "as you don't like playing cricket you decline your friend's invitation", "how do you say that you are in year seven at school?", "how do you say that you and Robert are in the same class?", "how do you say 'let's go!'". THANK YOU SO MUCH if you can answer these for me. This isn't homework...but I really just need to know how to say these things and phrases. Yakeyglee (talk) 02:49, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, if they are homework, it would be a lot faster and more accurate to look them up in your dictionary or textbook. But I'll do the easy ones for you. "busy" is máng, "do not like" is bù xĭhuān, "sorry" is duìbuqĭ (which is what you've written in Hànzì up there), and "not going" is bù qù. "Sports" is apparently yùndònghuì, and "that's all right" (which is probably how you'd respond to duìbuqĭ) is méi(yŏu) guānxi. Ah... I'm still not very comfortable with Chinese, so that's all the translating I'm doing today. Indeterminate (talk) 20:48, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Bathroom / Restroom

What, if anything, is the distinction between the terms bathroom, restroom, men's room, etc.? Are there any times when it would be incorrect (as opposed to just odd) to use one rather than another? 98.228.74.177 (talk) 04:23, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

It would be incorrect to refer to a toilet in a private home as a restroom, men's room, or women's room. As far as I am aware, those terms refer only to public toilets. Even if a private toilet is used only by people of one sex, it would not be called a men's room or women's room. However, you might speak jocosely of using the little boys' room, even in reference to a private commode. The term washroom also strikes my ear as inappropriate for a private toilet, as does lavatory, to a slightly lesser extent. On the other hand, a public toilet can be called almost anything - bathroom, washroom, lavatory, men's room, water closet, john, can, head, etc. And there's nothing wrong with calling a toilet a bathroom even if it doesn't contain a bath, though some people might take issue with that. In the United States, it's considered crude to use the term toilet for the room, as opposed to the receptacle, but it's not wrong per se. Also, you would never use the term 'throne' for a public john. LANTZY^TALK 04:27, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

In North America, calling any sort of room a "toilet" is incorrect, not crude; here the word only refers to the device. "Bathroom" is commonly used to refer to the room whether it contains a bath or not. In real estate jargon it may be more specifically called a "half bath(room)" if it contains only a toilet and washbasin, a "3/4 bath(room)" if it contains a shower in addition, and a full bathroom if it contains a bathtub. I believe "restroom" is mostly a US term while "washroom" is more common here in Canada. I have a "1¾ bath" house, but how I refer to it myself is that it has two washrooms: the bathroom and the other one. "Lavatory" is not an everyday word here, although airlines sometimes use it; "water closet" is not used at all. "John", "can", and "throne", are vulgar terms and I take them "throne" as referring to the device, not the room. --Anonymous, 05:36 UTC, March 2, 2009, corrected later.

No indeed. While "throne" refers unambiguously to the receptacle, "john" and "can" may be used for the room. Consider the expressions "in the john" and "in the can", which certainly don't refer to splashing about in a toilet bowl. I agree that "lavatory" is less commonly used, but I heard it all the time in grade school. LANTZY^TALK 06:03, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree, I was wrong about "john" and "can". --Anon, 06:33 UTC, March 4.

The answer depends crucially on where you are talking about. None of the terms the OP used, and few of those in subsequent replies, are generally used in the UK (though all are recognised, like much American vocabulary). I guess that the OP is asking about NAm, but I'll answer for the UK for completeness. The normal term both for the device and the room is 'loo'. This is often felt to be informal, and 'toilet' used in more formal situations - but when I was growing up, 'toilet' was non-U, and our family said 'lavatory' - still in use, but rather old-fashioned. When I first came across a reference in American writing to a 'bathroom' that didn't contain a bath, I thought this must be a mistake.

For public facilities, in normal use 'loo' or 'public loos', usually 'toilets' on signage, and 'public conveniences' from officialdom. We also say 'the gents' and 'the ladies' rather than 'mens room' etc. The UK equivalent of 'john' I think is 'bog' (though that might be a little bit more vulgar - I'm not clear how vulgar 'john' is). --ColinFine (talk) 08:45, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I think 'bog' is approximately as vulgar as 'can' or 'john'. I wish the word 'bog' were used in the United States, along with the terms 'bog roll' and 'bog breath' - they're so expressive and succinct. LANTZY^TALK 09:43, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Adding a couple more US options you can go to/ ask for/ use "the facilities" (private or public). Ladies may ask for "the powder room" (privat or hotel/restaurant/bar). This could also describe a half-bath or guest-bathroom (only sink and commode). Guys may say that they would like to "take a leak" when they need to "step out". In the South you may still encounter people who say they are "going to use the out-house". A "commode" describes the device just like "toilet" does. (This can result in misunderstandings if someone was referring to the furniture piece.) "John" is acceptable for a men's room, "can" is more for conversations among friends. For a public facility look for a "restroom" sign. Cat owners may jokingly refer to using "the litterbox". 76.97.245.5 (talk) 10:05, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I think most English people would expect one of these if offered a commode. DuncanHill (talk) 14:48, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

"Usual offices" is sometimes used for the toilets in Britain. DuncanHill (talk) 14:50, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

And guess what, we have a lengthy discussion of various terms in the relevant article, see Toilet#Etymology. BrainyBabe (talk) 20:13, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I sometimes euphemise "I'm just going outside, and may be some time" (but unlike the originator of that quote, I always come back).  :) -- JackofOz (talk) 20:28, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Alemannic Kraut

What is the Alemannic equivalent of the standard German Kraut? LANTZY^TALK 04:40, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Kohl, Salat/Kopfsalat, Sirup/Kuchensirup=Zuckerrübenkraut, Grünzeug (among others). 76.97.245.5 (talk) 10:17, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

(ec) The Swiss / Schwytzerdütsch term seems to be "Chruut", if measly 3 Ghits can be trusted. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 10:19, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

BTW. "Kraut" without any compound noun is only "standard" in the South. Northern Germany uses terms like Sauerkraut, Unkraut, Küchenkraut. Without compound it is only used in the idiom "Kraut und Rüben" (=chaos).76.97.245.5 (talk) 10:36, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

On an amusing kraut-idiom related note, the German expression "Unkraut vergeht nicht" (idiomatically: "Bad weeds grow tall") was mistranslated into the Swedish expression "Ont krut förgås inte lätt" (literally: "Bad gunpowder doesn't pass away lightly") --Pykk (talk) 13:45, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Which translates as "Chruut & Rübli" in the Alemannic version of chaos theory. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 10:56, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks all! LANTZY^TALK 12:10, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Just a tiny nitpick: the Alemannic version of "Rüben" is "Rüebli" (diphtong, just like we say "Müesli" for muesli while "Müsli" means "little mouse"). Pronouncing it "Rübli" is usually a giveaway that you're German.

Otherwise I agree with Cookatoo; Chruut is the Alemannic equivalent of Kraut, though it is usually specified as Suurchruut, Rotchruut, Uchruut etc. in Swiss German as well. More generally, it can mean any type of herb and weed (e.g. "Was rauchsch für es Chruut?" = "What kind of herb/weed are you smoking?"). Another idiomatic usage is "im Chruut usse" for a remote location. I guess you translate it as "out in the sticks". ---Sluzzelin talk 04:05, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Egg-ague merger

I can't find any mention of this in our category of Splits and mergers in English phonology. I've long noticed the tendency of some people to pronounce egg, leg, keg, beg, dreg, Greg, Meg, peg, etc. with the vowel /eɪ/ rather than /ɛ/. I've noticed it in speakers of various American dialects. Stephen Colbert does it. I'm interested in how widespread this phenomenon is. Has anyone outside the United States noticed it? LANTZY^TALK 05:08, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

It isn't one I've heard people using here, but it is an easily expected change, given the following velar consonant. A degree of palatalisation can be expected on front vowels, especially in casual speech. I have a friend who consistently produces /æg/ sequences as [æ:jg]. Steewi (talk) 02:08, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Extra - I'm Australian. Steewi (talk) 02:08, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

brain tweezer

Which among the following sentences is true? Why?

• only 1 sentence is false
• only 2 sentences are false
• " 3 " " "

     4
     :
     :

• all the 10 sentences are false —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sriraga (talk • contribs) 14:16, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

If n is the number of false sentences, then sentence n is true, and all the others are false. Thus there are 9 false sentences, hence sentence number 9 is true, and all others are false. — Emil J. 14:41, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

This is a math question, not a language question. When you have a set of statements that refer to their own truth-values, it is not correct that they must be either true or false. (What if one of them read "This sentence is false"?) Emil's solution is valid but not necessarily the only solution.) --Anonymous, 05:32 UTC, March 3, 2009.

BTW, did you mean to say brain teaser ? Or is something jammed into your gray matter, which you are trying to extract ? :-) StuRat (talk) 15:25, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Now that was a language question! :-) --Anon, 05:32 UTC, March 3.

This may be too nitpicky and local usage at that, but I'd say a statement could be false, a sentence can be wrong. So one might interpret that to say that only one sentence is false, because they are all wrong. (..and I need an Aspirin!) 76.97.245.5 (talk) 17:13, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Origins of the last name Boxerbaum

I have been trying to find out more about the origins of our family name. Boxerbaum is jewish in origin. My great grand parents came over from somewhere in eastern Europe or what was then the USSR, possibly Chech. They spoke Hebrew and Yiddish. I know 'baum' means tree in german, and is incorporated into many jewish last names. Boxer may just mean boxwood, meaning my last name means boxwood tree. However, I ran into someone randomly who told me that my name meant 'cherub' tree in yiddish. I learned that the cherub tree has a lot of symbolism in the jewish faith, literally meaning a tree full of angels. It might represent the tree of life in the garden of eden. However, the yiddish translators online do not reference any similarity between the word 'boxer' and 'cherub. Any ideas?173.88.157.242 (talk) 17:04, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

In the Weinreich dictionary, bokser is listed as meaning "Carob pod, St. John's bread" (whatever that means). AnonMoos (talk) 19:02, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Well if 'bokser' means a pod from a Carob tree then, it would seem to stand to reason that 'bokserbaum/boxerbaum' would mean the tree. The article states it's named "חרוב" -charuv in Hebrew. Which I gather is cognate with "כרוב" - kerubh (cherub). As for the etymology of 'bokser' Google books gave a hit from Goodman's "Teaching Jewish Holidays", that states its "a corruption of boihshorn meaning "ram's horn" — the long, curved shape of the carob being reminiscent of the shofar" --Pykk (talk) 19:40, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I would be very surprised if "חרוב" and "כרוב" were cognate. In modern, Europeanised, Hebrew the initial consonants may be pronounced alike, but historically they are utterly different. See heth and kaph. --ColinFine (talk) 20:04, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

See carob tree. —Angr 21:41, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I think it's pretty clear that Boxerbaum means carob tree in Yiddish. There is quite a lot of symbolism to the carob tree: they symbolize longevity (since they take 70 years to bear fruit) and endurance - their dried pods last for years. There's a famous story about Honi HaM'agel and a carob tree that you can look up. Googling 'Jewish symbolism carob tree' will get you lots, I'm sure.

About the etymology, I can understand why someone would draw a comparison to cherubs - as Pykk pointed out, the words look very similar. However, ColinFine is correct - cherub (kərubh) and carob (h̬arubh) are technically spelt and pronounced differently, and have different etymologies. The etymology of cherub is uncertain; BDB and Klein suggest a relationship to the Assyrian kirabu (the winged bull-guardians), from the verb karabu (to bless). The etymology of carob appears to be a loanword from the Aramaic, related to the Arabic harruba. So, no relationship, as far as I know. But there is a lot of symbolism to the carob tree, so you've got a lead there. Etymology is fun! СПУТНИК^{CCC P} 03:01, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

It might also be that the family was renamed when immigrating into the US. There is a name "Buchsbaum" which would translate to "boxwood". The family name might have been derived from that. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 17:25, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Note from Jeremy Boxerbaum (10/22/18): Our last name does mean "carob tree." I don't know what branch of the family you're from but my grandparents came from the city of Letichev in Ukraine. I've previously traced the family name as far back as the mid-1700s to a man who was living in Warsaw. I don't know if he's a direct ancestor or just a distant relative. The spelling of Boxerbaum might have changed when the family came here but the name itself did not, although some of the Boxerbaums later changed their name to Boxer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:2000:e8cb:ca00:6142:2130:9307:1de1 (talk) 08:22, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

"Joe the Plumber"-type names

Is there a special term for a kind of nickname consisting of a single name plus a job title, like "Joe the Plumber" or Bob the Builder? 69.224.37.48 (talk) 17:16, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, they're a kind of appositive; I don't know if there's a more specific term for nicknames including a job title, though. —Angr 18:10, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Stereotypically Welsh: "Jones the Post" "Evans the Pub" Rhinoracer (talk) 11:07, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Placeholder name is the Wiki article on it. - X201 (talk) 11:16, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

That seems to be different. Joe the Plumber is a plumber whose name is Joe; Bob the Builder is a builder whose name is Bob. These aren't like "Joe Blow"/"Jane Doe". —Angr 11:28, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

How about, Generic Name? Emblematic Name? - X201 (talk) 11:47, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

They're a specific example of an epithet or byname[1][2], but these aren't restricted to "the X". --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 12:01, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Lots of surnames originally were created that way. See Family name#By language.76.97.245.5 (talk) 17:31, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Linguistics Careers

Hi there. I live in the UK, and am currently learning French, Spanish, Psychology, and Biology to A Level standard, and Italian to GCSE standard. I have a keen interest in Linguistics - particularly Psycho-, Euro-, and Socio- linguistics (and if it helps, I'm also interested in EU affairs). However, I am really not sure of the jobs available in "linguistics" at all, let alone these specific areas. Yes, there is Speech therapy, Translation, Interpreting, and teaching a language - but is that all?

Translation/Interpreting is firstly only a good thing to do if you can speak three, four, or more languages fluently - as competition from more competant areas of the world is fierce otherwise.

Speech therapy is more medicinally than linguistically centred, and I don't much fancy that.

I've tried looking on the internet, but still there isn't that much out there. I just don't know what to do, and I'm feeling time ticking on. Please help me. Thank you! 78.146.219.221 (talk) 18:13, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

You can become a professor, to do research and teach linguistics. And if you become a phoneticist/phonetican, you can go into speech synthesis or speech recognition. Speech therapy might be related to medicine, yes, but it requires knowledge of articulatory phonetics as well.

I'm not sure about other paths, but here are a few guesses: I think natural language processing and artificial intelligence needs semanticists, syntacticians, and morphologists too. If you go into historical linguistics I think you can have ties with archaeology. If you're a general linguist you can have ties with cultural anthropology. If you're interested in the brain or if you're interested in language acquisition, you can have ties with psychology.

BTW, if you're interested in sociolinguistics, have you looked at Sociolinguistic Patterns by William Labov? I think that book has a chapter titled "The Social Stratification of English in New York City", which is definitely worth checking out. (I know it's a bit old, and I know I'm not very knowledgeable about sociolinguistics. But that doesn't stop the paper from being remarkable, IMHO.) --Kjoonlee 18:59, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

A bit out of the field, but maybe more up you alley: Some consulting companies offer services under a variety of flowery names like "culture coaching", "integration management", "globalization training", "international merger preparation training" and the like. It basically tells business people what to expect when dealing with someone from another country. With a nice degree to hang on the wall you should be able to find something there. It would improve your employment opportunity for this kind of thing if you had a bit of BA or Law in your coursework. "Real world" job experience would be a plus. ( - as a temp or management trainee will do.)76.97.245.5 (talk) 17:56, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Unusual library

There is a library, in Europe, I think, that is housed in the home of its former owner, who is now dead. It is run as a public service IIRC. The books are arranged into four sections, not by the dewey system, but by an obscure schema that the owner came up with ...

This is not a language question. I've moved the thread over to the Humanities Desk, where perhaps someone will be familiar with the place. --Anonymous, 06:27 UTC, March 3, 2009.

Spanish: Difference between hambre & hambruna.

--190.49.100.214 (talk) 21:39, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

To judge from hambre and hambruna, hambre is hunger (i.e. at the level of an individual person), while hambruna is famine (i.e. widespread across a community). —Angr 23:10, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Quotations and punctuation

Are there any "hard and fast" rules about whether and when to include (or exclude) the final punctuation mark in a sentence that ends with a direct quotation? It is understood that a sentence can always be reworded to avoid punctuation problems or issues. Nonetheless, I am not concerned with rewriting the sentences as much as I am concerned with what the correct punctuation would be in these circumstances. In examples such as these below, what is the correct way to end the sentence ... that is, what is the correct punctuation? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 23:28, 2 March 2009 (UTC))

• John said, "I am going to Hawaii.".
• John said, "I am going to Hawaii!".
• John asked, "Did you go to the supermarket?".
• Did John say "Today is Friday."?
• Did John ask "What time is it?"?
• Did John yell "Fire!"?

American newspaper style is not to use any punctuation after the second quotation mark. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:37, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. So, doesn't that leave the "original sentence" (not the imbedded quotation sentence) without an end punctuation? If so, how does the reader know if the "original sentence" is a statement versus a question versus an exclamation? Merely a reliance on context? Also ... by the way ... what does "newspaper style" mean?

Example 1: I want to assert that John yelled out the word "fire" ... John yelled "Fire!".

Example 2: I want to ask incredulously whether John yelled the word "fire" ... John yelled "Fire!"?

According to your stated rule, they would both be reduced to ... John yelled "Fire!"

Is that correct? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 23:54, 2 March 2009 (UTC))

I don't think any of the first three examples is correct. As per Mwalcoff's statement, it should be John said, "I am going to Hawaii." Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 01:21, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Some styles make a logical distinction between "I said, 'I'm getting stuff.'" and "I said 'stuff'."

I don't think the !"? formation is widely considered acceptable. In the case of "John yelled 'Fire!'", that is clear. If you want to ask whether John yelled 'fire', simply ask: "Did John just yell 'fire'?"

Ah, and there I hesitated about whether I should put a full stop at the end of that sentence. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 01:41, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Yes, but ... as my original post stated ... It is understood that a sentence can always be reworded to avoid punctuation problems or issues. Nonetheless, I am not concerned with rewriting the sentences as much as I am concerned with what the correct punctuation would be in these circumstances. Thus: What is the difference in punctuation between the question (John yelled "Fire!"?) ... and the declaration (John yelled "Fire!".) ...? Or is there none at all? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 02:32, 3 March 2009 (UTC))

This always bothered me, but I was taught in school to always place the final punctuation mark inside the quotes, and that (Did John yell "Fire!") was the correct punctuation style. Indeterminate (talk) 04:40, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd put it this way. First, you never use two closing marks if one of them would be a period. If both are periods, put one inside the quotes and omit the other. If one is a period and the other is ! or ?, then use only the other mark. Second, ! and ? marks go inside the quotes if they belong to the quoted text and outside if they belong to the outer sentence. This much, pretty much all publishers agree on, even if some schools teach a simplified rule. In cases where there both the quoted sentence and the outside sentence would require ! or ?, there is disagreement. I believe the only sensible thing is to use both marks, but other styles exist.

If the quoted text does not end with any punctuation but comes at the end of a sentence whose normal end punctuation would be a period, there is disagreement. The traditional usage still usual in North America is to move the period inside the quotes, as in: he said it was "good." "Logical" usage, which is now common in Britain, preferred by some people, and correct Wikipedia style, leaves the period outside since it belongs to the outer sentence.

The other punctuation mark where similar disagreement exists is a comma, which won't occur at the end of a sentence, but does commonly occur where words like "he said" follow a quotation. Again, the traditional usage still usual in North America moves the comma inside the quotes: "Good," he said. In "logical" usage, it goes outside. Note that if the quoted passage would have ended with a period, it is omitted and only the comma is used. If the quoted passage ends with a ! or ? mark, then that mark stays in place and there is no comma.

--Anonymous, 05:57 UTC, March 3, 2009.

Thanks, Anonymous. So, you are saying ...

The declaration is: John yelled "Fire!" --- with only one end punctuation (namely, the exclamation point)

The question is: John yelled "Fire!"? --- with two end punctuations (namely, the exclamation point and the question mark)

Is that what you are saying? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 06:10, 3 March 2009 (UTC))

That's what I'd write, but people do disagree on the second one. --Anon, 06:28, March 3.

I have major issues with the "last punctuation inside quote" "rule". (For example, are you supposed to write "rule." in this instance?) Only a sentence should have a sentence-ending punctuation, and unless what is inside the quote is intended to be a sentence ("Fire!", "I'm getting stuff." "What are you doing?" as opposed to "rule", "are", or "example"), the punctuation does not belong with the quote and should stay outside. Perhaps I'm being too logical for my own grammatical good. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 06:24, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you and Anonymous are correct, of course. I wrote that in haste; it isn't right. If the part in quotes doesn't have punctuation, the sentence punctuation goes outside the quotes. Indeterminate (talk) 08:27, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Does anyone know what "newspaper style" (from the very first reply above) means? ... Or is it just the obvious (i.e., the manner in which a newspaper editor would write for his paper) ...? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:40, 3 March 2009 (UTC))

Most newspapers make their writers and editors use a consistent, documented writing and punctuation style. See AP Stylebook. Indeterminate (talk) 22:09, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

March 3

What is a "killing oak"?

In studying Icelandic magical traditions, I have frequently come across instructions to carve the magical sigil or runes on a piece of "killing oak", which I assume is a type of oak. 4.158.3.154 (talk) 02:15, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I have no idea. But I do know they don't have oak trees on Iceland. Not many trees in general. --Pykk (talk) 03:30, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

From a brief internet search, apparently oak trees were introduced to Iceland by the Vikings, but there were so few other trees there that "oak" became the generic word for tree. Not sure if that's relevant. Indeterminate (talk) 07:51, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

In the absense of an immediate answer, it might be helpful to include the original Icelandic words, and maybe a link to the text it appears in (the sagas are available on line I think)

Assuming the intention is to harm, then perhaps looking at poppet or sympaphetic magic might help understanding the prectice. The term 'killing' might be an adjective to describe a particularily suitable piece of wood for the act (rather than a species of tree) - eg having associations with the recipient, or having some infered powers through its own history (ie the handle of an axe that was used to kill someone)FengRail (talk) 12:45, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

(It's possible that it's a kenning)FengRail (talk) 12:58, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes the original language or context would be very helpful here but the oak tree has long been associated with lightning, detailed in great length in The Golden Bough. It may be an overly poetic way of suggesting lightning or fire scorched wood from a dead tree. meltBanana 19:01, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

That's sympathetic magic.  :) Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 19:26, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Acorns have varying degrees of toxic tannins in them. If they were more common in Iceland than indicated above then one species or individual tree might have been called that because their fruit are more harmful when consumed than the others. But I don't even know if the Vikings did leech acorns (would be surprised if they didn't, though.) 76.97.245.5 (talk) 00:55, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

That sounds like a long shot (pun - see later). Don't a lot of plants have tannins in - most plant things except apples and carrots are harmful.

My guess is Yew - if it is a kenning related to 'bow' (as in longbow) - ie "killing oak" = "bow (weapon)" = "yew" - oak being taken as generic for wood.

(still could be the wood giant 'cluesticks' are made out either...)FengRail (talk) 01:20, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't ring a bell. Is this from the Galdrabók? Haukur (talk) 16:54, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Shoot 'em Up

• Shoot 'Em Up

Image:Shoot em up ver2.jpg

I think the capitalization of the title words are right. 'Em shall be set in lowercase. However, do you guys find the use of contraction incorrect? I think they should use an apostrophe rather than using the left quotation mark. Am I right? -- Toytoy (talk) 02:34, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

'Em is short for Them, which normally in a title, would be capitalized, therefore making 'Em capitalized. Also, the punctuation is not a left quotation mark, it, in fact, is an apostrophe. A quotation mark looks like two apostrophes. Yakeyglee (talk) 02:53, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

It could be argued that the capital T is part of what's omitted. – Some British publishers use a single mark for quotation, and double for nested quotation. – For elision, use ’ (’) not a left single quote mark. —Tamfang (talk) 03:29, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I inlined the image since it's non-free and so can't be shown on this page directly. I agree it should be an apostrophe, not a lefthand single quote. As for capitalization, I've always found the rules for "title case" in English to be completely impenetrable. I don't see why we can't be like virtually every other language and use the same capitalization for titles as we do in sentences. Why not just call the film Shoot ’em up? —Angr 07:07, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Because me British and read it as command to commit drive-by. ;-) Julia Rossi (talk) 07:35, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

You know, I'd never given it much thought. I'd always assumed it was just an extension of the capitalization of proper names. Indeterminate (talk) 09:04, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

BTW, some people view "em" as a direct descendant of Middle English "hem" (Middle English#Pronouns), not necessarily a contraction of "them". --Kjoonlee 16:28, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I should capitalize all three words, because there are no articles, conjunctions, or prepositions. You have a verb, a contracted pronoun, and an adverb.71.30.254.216 (talk) 03:20, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Latin paradigm populations

Any idea how many roots belong to each of the major Latin conjugations and declensions? Is there perhaps an exhaustive list of fifth-declension nouns? —Tamfang (talk) 03:43, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

It would be easy to create a list of fifth-declension nouns, there are only a handful of them. This may be exhaustive, although you should note that not all possible forms actually appear in Latin literature (except for dies and res). As for roots, well, what do you mean by roots? Adam Bishop (talk) 05:35, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

By specifying roots I mean to avoid the problem of counting verbs that differ only by a prefix. —Tamfang (talk) 18:11, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I read this question to mean:

How many nouns belong to the 1st/.../5th declension?

How many verbs belong to the 1st/.../4th conjugation? --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 23:09, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes. —Tamfang (talk) 18:11, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Correct use of comma

The article on Dan Orlovsky begins with the following sentence --> Daniel John Orlovsky (born August 18, 1983 in Shelton, Connecticut) is a quarterback for the Houston Texans of the National Football League. I added in a comma after the year "1983". It was reverted not once, but twice, by two different editors. I referred to the article comma. This article states: Additionally, most style manuals, including the Chicago Manual of Style [7] and the AP Stylebook,[8] recommend that the year be treated as a parenthetical, requiring a second comma after it: "Feb. 14, 1987, was the target date." However, an editor who reverted me stated that comma is not the controlling force here but, rather, that WP:MOS is. I looked at WP:MOS ... which simply states that commas must be used correctly ... and it directs the reader back to the comma link. The (reverting) editor's edit summary states: Comma is completely separate from WP:MOS; commas should be used in prose after dates, yes, but the standard for introductory sentences like this is to not use a comma between the date & place. So, my question ... is there a comma after the year "1983" or not in the introductory statement of the article? Why or why not? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 06:07, 3 March 2009 (UTC))

Joseph, I think you got everything right. --Anon, 06:31 UTC, March 3, 2009.

I agree. In the "month-day-year" format, the year is preceded and followed by a comma (unless it's followed by a period, of course), so "born August 18, 1983, in Shelton, Connecticut" is correct. In the "day-month-year" format, however, there are no commas, so the alternative is "born 18 August 1983 in Shelton, Connecticut". But "born August 18, 1983 in Shelton, Connecticut" does not follow the usual rules for commas. —Angr 07:13, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

It is correct usage. Maybe the editor should have said that such minor changes shouldn't be executed? - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 19:23, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, introductory sentances don't get a special sort of grammar. Commas there follow the same rules as everywhere else, there should be commas before AND after the year. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 20:01, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

But the comma before the year only in the "month-day-year" format. I'm forever correcting dates in the "day-month-year" format that appear as, e.g. "18 February, 1985". There's no comma needed there. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:26, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

You could avoid the problem by changing it to "(born in Shelton, Connecticut, on August 18, 1983)". :P —Tamfang (talk) 18:53, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Name for a person who makes excessive spoken use of a particular word?

What would you call such a (medical?) condition, and is there a name for a person who exhibits such behaviour, please? The word that a person I know uses a lot is 'so'. The word is used to start a lot of this person's speech. (It's not me, in case you were wondering!). Thanks in advance. Trafford09 (talk) 08:15, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Looking at Tic it's involuntary. But look at the way some people over-use "um" – "Um is an English exclamation or interjection expressing confusion or hesitancy in spoken conversation. It is often used compulsively and unintentionally as a space filler in an impromptu or unrehearsed discussion." Like Ah, Oh, Oh yes, it's also used to break into speech: So! there's a cab rank on the corner... So, they tell me you're looking for a taxi... So Trafford, howzit goin?... Or to keep a thought going so other people can't interrupt. People who have training for public speaking soon learn to overcome this kind of overuse problem. Julia Rossi (talk) 08:39, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

There are the German modal particles, which can be used repeatedly as fillers in sentences. There is a lengthy article on these "Modalpartikel" here [3].

Whilst I am aware that some people use these with a nauseating frequency I don´t know a term for such users. Poking around in WP I found the term discourse particle under the entry for "like". There is also speech disfluency, discourse marker and expletive, but, again, no term for the excessive use of these fillers is mentioned in any of these articles. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 10:29, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

"Uncritical" might cover it. ;) Julia Rossi (talk) 10:32, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Then there's Tourette's Syndrome, where people make weird noises and say random words, often swear words. StuRat (talk) 16:43, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, at the big end, Tourettes is not about starting every sentence with the same word but is marked by bizarre interjections, and at the mild end, "eye blinking, coughing, throat clearing, sniffing, and facial movements". Julia Rossi (talk) 23:50, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Could be worse. I once listened for an hour to someone whose hesitation-sound, emitted frequently, was: "Um. Ah. Then." – in unvarying staccato. —Tamfang (talk) 04:40, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

-tal vs. -thal (ending for surnames and place names)

The online German/English dictionary LEO gives "valley" for tal and no results for thal as an isolate. The meaning of the latter, when found in surnames and place names, is sometimes glossed as meaning "valley." What's the difference between the two spellings? (Regional? Historical? other?) Are they pronounced differently? (This affects their transliteration into Hebrew, at least according to a current discussion at my workplace). -- Deborahjay (talk) 12:50, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Speaking in sheer speculation here, but I'd guess it's a historical spelling issue, especially since there is the valey Neandertal in Germany, and the hominid first found there some 150 years ago was named Neanderthal, suggesting that that was the accepted spelling at the time. Also, the pronounciation is the same in German, as far as I know. TomorrowTime (talk) 12:57, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

According to talk origins, the "-tal"/"-thal" distinction is a matter of spelling reform. Neanderthal man was discovered and named in 1856; German spelling was reformed in 1904, and "-thal" became "-tal" to more accurately reflect pronunciation. - Nunh-huh 13:01, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

(e/c) I don't know about the origin of the variant spelling, but they are pronounced the same. I'd transliterate both as טל-. Isolated "thal" also appears in some placenames, cf. Thal. — Emil J. 13:03, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

tet (ט) and not tav (ת)? There's some rule of Hebrew orthography (of whose exact nature I'm guiltily ignorant)—though perhaps only relevant to words that entered Hebrew from Greek—that th (from theta) in the source name is represented by tav, rather than the t (from tau) with tet. The actual problem surfaced when we encountered an absolutely literal טהאל in transliterations of names ending in "-thal". -- Deborahjay (talk) 13:29, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Thal is an archaic spelling of Tal in German. There's no difference in pronunciation, so there shouldn't be a difference in Hebrew transliteration. —Angr 13:55, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, I don't really know enough of Hebrew orthography (less than you, I assume) to tell for sure whether to use ט or ת, but I would go with ט: the "h" in "thal" is just a spelling oddity, it does not really mean anything, whereas in Greek, "t" and "th" (i.e., τ and θ) represent different phonemes. The "th" in "thal" has exactly the same value as "t" in other German names like Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Trier, Göttingen, and as far as I can see these are all transliterated with ט in Hebrew. The transliteration טהאל looks very weird, as the "h" is silent in the original German. — Emil J. 14:12, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, Greek has nothing to do with anything. If -tal is normally transliterated טל-, -thal should be too, just as "Green" and "Greene" would presumably be transliterated the same way into Hebrew. —Angr 14:21, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

There was a German spelling reform in 1901 (as Nunh-huh states above), when words like "Thür", "Thor" and "Thal" were modified to Tür, Tor (both mean door) and Tal (valley). Proper nouns were excepted, as they were excepted in the last reform. The etymological Duden notes the spelling "tal" in the Old and Middle High German, as well as "dal" in the Gothic. As you mention Greek possibly being relevant in the transliteration to Hebrew, the further etymology is "tholos" (Greek, but there is no Greek alphabet used, so I don´t know if that is theta or tau) and "dhel-" (IE).. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 14:11, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

German Tal isn't derived from Greek tholos, but they could be etymologically related. However, the AHD entry for "dale" (the English word cognate with Tal) says nothing about its coming from an Indo-European root (and AHD is very good about Indo-European roots!), so I'm skeptical. —Angr 14:21, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

The Duden states: Tal: Das gemeingerm. Wort mhd. tal, ahd. tal, got. dal, engl. dale, schwed. dal is z.B. verwandt mit der slaw. Sippe von russ. dol "Tal" und griech. tholos "Kuppel" und geht zurück auf die idg. Wurzel *dhel- "Biegung, Höhlung; Wölbung". Sorry for my misleading translation. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 15:19, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

As an interesting aside, "-thal" is actually also the root of the word Dollar, which derives its name originally from a coin called "Joachimsthalers", literally "Coins from Joachim's Valley". The area today is in the Czech Republic area of Jáchymov. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 19:58, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

'Th' is just a fancy variant of 't'. It's not pronounced differently. AFAIK, using 'th' for the 'þ' sound is unique to English. Using 'th' as a fancy version of 't' in names is not unique to German though. It exists in Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Hungarian, to name those I can think of. Due to spelling reforms (also not unique to German), using 'th' spelling in words is usually no longer acceptable in these languages. --Pykk (talk) 20:02, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

'th' is used for /θ/ in English, Welsh, and Albanian at least. If Greek roots with 'θ' are indeed transliterated into Hebrew by 'ת' as opposed to 'ט', this is entertainingly ironic, because it is 'θ' which derives from (a Phoenician precursor of) 'ט'. --ColinFine (talk) 00:44, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Ironically entertaining as it may be ;-) I must reiterate that I don't know the origins of this practice (if indeed I understand it right; my acquired Hebrew has been a haphazard process characteristic of an adult immigrant; I'm still amazed and gratified that I can make my living translating from Hebrew, albeit thanks to a superior command of the target English). I believe it's intended to make some sort of distinction as to the Greek origin of a word, otherwise represented by [ tet ] in borrowings from other foreign languages. The actual th sound is unsuccessfuly treated in Modern Hebrew transcription, but that's another story for another time unless someone wishes to chime in here. -- Deborahjay (talk) 05:58, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

The transliteration of Greek τ and θ as ט and ת, respectively, makes perfect sense in view of historical Hebrew phonology. While ט and ת both denote [t] in modern Israeli Hebrew, ת without dagesh was traditionally pronounced as [θ] (or even [s] in Ashkenazi pronunciation) ever since the late Roman period, which agrees with the pronunciation of θ in post-classical Greek. — Emil J. 14:03, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I think it went both ways. I believe Hebrew and Aramaic names with ט were transliterated with τ in the Septuagint and New Testament, while those with ת were transliterated with θ. This is true even when the ת did have the dagesh, e.g. תום‎ = Θωμᾶς. —Angr 14:32, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

ColinFine, yes I was going to write 'unique to English among Germanic languages' but then I thought of Hungarian (which derived its orthography from German). Which is why I referred to the 'þ' character (Icelandic still uses it). I guess it's worth noting that English used a 'y'-like character for 'þ' too, before 'th' won out. Which is why you can see 'old' style spellings of 'the' as 'ye'. Important then to note that it's still pronounced as 'the', and not the same word or character as in the old pronoun 'ye'. --Pykk (talk) 16:23, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

No, it didn't. The use of 'Y' for 'Þ' was a device of printers, whose font lacked 'þ'. See Thorn. You're right that it is still the word 'the', and should be pronounced as such; but it was a 'y' used in place of 'þ', not a distinct character.

Of course it makes sense that 'θ' and 'ת' should correspond in post-classical Greek, now you explain it, Deborah. I have supposed that the reason for the original adoption of 'θ' from 'ט' was because 'ט' represented the marked ('emphatic' - probably velarised) consonant as opposed to 'ת', and so 'θ' was used to represent the marked variant, as against 'τ'; even though the distingishing feature in Greek was spiration rather than velarisation. --ColinFine (talk) 22:51, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, I don't see how there's a clear definition of what constitutes a 'different character'. Obviously I think 'y-for-þ' does and you don't. It's not very clear. E.g. in Dutch 'ij' is considered by some to be a single 'letter', and by others to be two. German doesn't consider 'ö' to be a distinct letter from 'o' (collating as o then ö in a dictionary), but Swedish does (where ö is the last letter of the alphabet). --Pykk (talk) 15:12, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Gay son

George said of John's father, Victor, that Victor never understood his son, John, being gay. Then he (G) said he (V) would of course have come across "homosexual" and "queer". What would George have meant by this? Kittybrewster ☎ 14:23, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

You might have to clarify your question. What do you mean by he would have come across "homosexual and "queer"? Do you mean that Victor would come across the words "homosexual" and "queer" or that he would come across the concepts? By the way, who is George? LANTZY^TALK 16:03, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

The Real Pink Panther: Lord Victor Hervey - a TV documentary aired on Channel 4 on March 2, 2009. I am confused by what George was saying. George was a friend of John and knew Victor. My own thought is that queer is derogatory, while homosexual is factual and gay is friendly. Kittybrewster ☎ 16:06, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

On the contrary, many find 'homosexual' to be clinical, cold, dehumanizing, and offensive, especially when used as a noun ('Ellen is a homosexual') and in formulations such as 'homosexual marriage' and 'homosexual agenda'. Almost no gay people describe themselves as homosexual, while homophobic organizations strongly favor the term. Many gay activists have raised this point. There's even a right-wing news website that automatically converts the word 'gay' to 'homosexual', resulting in an article about Tyson Homosexual. On the other hand, 'queer' has been largely reclaimed, and is generally understood by the LGBT community to be a positive term, especially when used as an adjective. In the context you mention it's being used as a derogatory epithet, but that function has largely been superceded by 'fag', at least where I come from. LANTZY^TALK 18:48, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I find that letter is extremely interesting. If gay people regard "homosexual" negatively then I must take that on board and avoid it. Having said which I would naturally use the word gay in preference, so I suppose at some level I had absorbed the point. Learning all the time. Thank you. Kittybrewster ☎ 18:59, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

It does vary between individuals, Kitty. I don't have the slightest problem with being referred to as a homosexual, whether adjective or noun. Gay is good, too. Queer - mostly OK, although it is sometimes used pejoratively. Fag - I use it jocularly, in private, among close gay friends, but never in other settings. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:18, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Personally I prefer queer, which is broad enough to include people of my persuasion. I dislike 'bisexual' for the very same reasons that John Aravosis dislikes 'homosexual'. But I tend to defer to gay men on the issue of nomenclature. For instance, I'd never presume to use the term 'fag', though as Jack points out, and as the gay linguist Arnold Zwicky discusses in this article, even that word is being reclaimed by the likes of Dan Savage. LANTZY^TALK 01:55, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, still confused. I've just looked up John and Victor. John was the homosexual one, and Victor his overbearing father. You report that George said something to this effect, "Victor would of course have come across homosexual and queer", The plain meaning of which is that Victor would have left the impression by his demeanor that he himself was homosexual. I can't make sense of that. "Come across" can also mean "encounter", but I can't make sense of that, either. I'm sure I'm just being thick and/or overliteral. --Milkbreath (talk) 16:43, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Maybe it just means that George thinks Victor was unable to relate to John because he disapproved of John's sexuality. Kittybrewster ☎ 16:45, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

This (above) is a confusing discussion. Since this was a TV show, can you give us the exact words (transcript) of this relevant portion? That will give us context, to make sense of the comment ... and will also remove any possible errors in your reporting of the exact comment. Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:51, 3 March 2009 (UTC))

For context, see Reappropriation and Reclaiming. BrainyBabe (talk) 18:58, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I can't help but think about this old Fry and Laurie sketch now..--Pykk (talk) 19:15, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't seem to be making myself clear: The question as stated by the OP is nonsense. I can't tell from the words it uses and the order it uses them in what is being asked. Please either explain or rephrase. --Milkbreath (talk) 19:24, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Regrettably I didn't record it. So it is not an exact quotation. Maybe I can contact George himself and ask him. Kittybrewster ☎ 22:41, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Ummm, what? I'm saying I don't understand what you wrote, not that I don't understand what George said. --Milkbreath (talk) 23:49, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Word choice

I am trying to find an appropriate word ... I don't care if it is a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, etc. The only word that comes to mind right now is "hypocritical" ... but I think that there must be a better word out there. This is what I am trying to describe. Say that a person (John) is a very strong advocate for some issue (let's just say, the death penalty). And if you ask John, who so strongly supports the death penalty, "Well, would you yourself go and perform the lethal injection?" ... and John would be horrified to actually do the lethal injection himself. So, John is "OK" with the death penalty, as long as someone else has to carry it out ... but he is not "OK" with the death penalty if he himself had to carry it out. Or, maybe another example: A person (John) supports abortion. Then when John's own daughter considers having an abortion, John is outraged and opposes it. As I said, I can only think of "hypocritical" ... or, on some level, "nimby" (not in my backyard). Is there a better word to capture this description? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:38, 3 March 2009 (UTC))

Not a single word, but "He can dish it out but he can't take it"? —Angr 17:40, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. But, that does not apply to either the death penalty or the abortion ... does it? Your suggested phrase implies "I will do something to others and that's OK ... but I am not OK with others doing that same thing back to me." That's not quite the same as what I was getting at in my original question. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:44, 3 March 2009 (UTC))

Actually, I think "hypocritical" probably is the best word for it. The only other phrase coming to mind is "He doesn't practice what he preaches". —Angr 17:56, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that "hypocritical" covers t best for a single word. For a phrase I like the colloquial "He talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk". -- Q Chris (talk) 09:20, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Only applies in a limited sphere, but Chickenhawk is similar... AnonMoos (talk) 18:57, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

There ought to be a term, but I haven't been able to come up with it yet. In the meantime, here are a couple of related terms: Thomas Paine's "sunshine patriot", a variety of "fair-weather friend" who is all for a cause as long as he doesn't have to suffer any personal inconvenience for it, and Pontius Pilate, whose personification will "wash his hands of [a thing or person]" thinking to absolve himself of tacit complicity in evildoing. --Milkbreath (talk) 19:37, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Those all seem on the negative side, but it doesn't have to be. Most people accept that a country must have a government and laws, and these are seen as good things, but only a tiny % of people ever consider a career as a politician or a legislator. We all want our countries to be well defended and we all expect our soldiers to go off and if necessary die on our behalf. Hence, being a soldier is an extremely honourable profession. So, why do so many countries have to resort to national service? It's because the bulk of people (myself included) expect nameless others to die for them, but are not prepared to do the same for them. I wouldn't call that hypocritical, except in a narrow, technical sense. It's in the nature of a life calling. Some are called to be soldiers, some are called to be entertainers, some are called to be tax accountants - and some are called to be executioners. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:09, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

There's the "lip service" we pay laudable ideals until we're asked to actually do something. We used to "let George do it". We can be two-faced or Janus-faced. --Milkbreath (talk) 21:30, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I think we need to clarify what the question is asking. Consider:

• Man A is strictly heterosexual and would never marry another man, but is in favor of same-sex marriage as a civil right issue: he believes that members of the same sex should be allowed to marry if they want, and says so.
• Woman B believes that a pregnant woman should have the right to an abortion and says so, but cannot imagine a situation where she would herself choose to have one.
• Man C believes that justice requires convicted murderers to be put to death, and says so, but would not accept a job as an executioner.
• Woman D believes that it's a person's responsibility to perform military service if called on, and says so, but when actually drafted herself, she tries to evade it.

Are A, B, C, and D all examples of what we're being asked about? Because I see two or more distinctly different categories here. --Anonymous, 03:27 UTC, March 4, 2009.

A and B are not inconsistent at all. They recognize that not all people are the same, that what is right for one person is not right for everyone else. C could also make this argument: he could claim that some people are suited to the job of executioner, but that he is not. There are many other examples of this, for example a person who eats meat but cannot imagine killing an animal. D could not justify her position: If she truly believes that a person must perform an action when called on, and refuses to perform that action when called on, then she is a hypocrite. LANTZY^TALK 04:32, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

It's a may and must distinction. Or may and should distinction. The OP was, I think, asking about the latter. Examples, A, B, and C are all examples of the former.

To add to the list of quips, a Chinese idiom comes to mind: "Ye Gong hao long": "Master Ye loves the dragon". The story is that Master Ye loves the Chinese dragon. He wears dragon robes, he has dragons painted on his walls, he buys matching dragon-pattern crockery. Then one day, a dragon shows up in his backyard and he is so scared that he runs and hides under the bed (more or less). The phrase is used for those who act differently when faced with a theoretical question in general, as against when faced with the real question in specific. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 04:52, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I believe the phrase paper tiger applies here. I had a great example when I was asked to check in on the pets of a family which was out of town. They had a cat and a dog (well, an ankle-biter, at any rate). I went over and was having some difficulty finding the right key to open the door. The dog ran up to the inside of the door and barked at me like it was going to rip my throat out. The cat sauntered up to the door and yawned. I then got the door open and the dog's expression changed immediately. It stopped barking, let out a yelp, ran upstairs, hid under the master's bedsheets, and peed there. Meanwhile, the cat rubbed against my leg as if to say "Did you bring me something ?". StuRat (talk) 16:54, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is hypocritical. Consider John and his daughter. He feels that a woman should be allowed to abort if she wants but is upset by his daughter's decision to abort. Is he still a hypocrite if he's only outraged at her decision but still believes that she should be allowed to abort if she wants? Zain Ebrahim (talk) 08:52, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

In addition to what everyone else has said, "inconsistent" or "contradictory" might apply. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:30, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Parents often have fond hopes for their children, and when they choose the "wrong" career or marry into the "wrong" religion or a person of the "wrong" race, it sometimes causes trouble. I've known my Mum .. well, all my life, and I've never seen any evidence that she's racist. Except for one thing she once said that really stuck in my mind: "I'm certainly not a racist, but I'd be very unhappy if either of my daughters announced she was marrying an aborigine". She went on to explain that it wasn't about their race per se, and therefore it wasn't, as far as she was concerned, a racist statement - but about the social implications for the daughter that she believed might ensue. We had quite a debate about it, and I think I got her to understand that it still amounted to a racist statement, even if she was speaking purely out wanting the best for her daughter in terms of social positioning, etc., and not speaking against aborigines as such (although, in effect, she was, because you can't have one side of a coin without the other.) So, at that time she was 99.99% a non-racist, but 0.01% a racist. Is this an example of hypocrisy, a double-standard, inconsistency, or just, as she would put it, putting practical considerations ahead of purist ideals? -- JackofOz (talk) 19:46, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Sexist, too, if she's only concerned about her daughters marrying an Aborigine and not her son(s). —Angr 05:46, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

OP, how about "Sunday Morning Christian? "http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Sunday-Morning-Christian-lyrics-Harlan-Howard/2F41ACE4BA4757C048256E2A00127135 DOR (HK) (talk) 04:08, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

what is this rhetorical tactic called?

When I want to make a particular controversial point, but I do not wish to make it appear I am sullying myself by making the point, I can say "I am not going to lower myself to discuss <a paraphrasing of the point>".

A typical example would be when a politician has been accused of some malfeasance, and their political adversary, when asked if they'd care to comment on the allegations, says "I don't think it proper for me to comment on <politician>'s indiscretions." They are having their cake and eating it too, rhetorically speaking, as they have implicitly supported the allegations while appearing to stay uninvolved.

Some time ago I saw an article about this type of tactic, but I cannot remember it. Any insight as to what this is called? Baccyak4H (Yak!) 19:29, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Though not an actual query, it is similar to a Loaded question, such as "When did you stop beating your wife?"; i.e. you can make an accusation without making it directly. Happens all the time in Yellow journalism, where a newspaper will run a headline "Governor Smith denies taking sexual indescretions with a minor!" The statement may be true, but it may also be quite true even if no one has seriously accused the Governor of such indiscretions. It allows the newspaper to be literally truthful "We asked the Governor if he ever had sex with a minor and he said "no"" even if there was no reason to suspect the Governor of those indiscretions, the "fact" that the Governor had sex with a minor now gets stuck in people's minds. Its a nasty rhetorical device, and has been shown to be quite effective from a pyschological point of view. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 19:38, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Ronald Reagan used it very effectively when he said he was not going to use his opponent's youth and inexperience to his political advantage (or words to that effect) - thus denying the opponent an opportunity to make any mention of Reagan's advanced age. -- JackofOz (talk) 19:50, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Poisoning the well is close, but also not quite what I think the OP is looking for. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 19:51, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Defamation tells me that "On Friday, February 13, 2009, the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the case of Noonan v. Staples, that even a true statement, if made with malicious intent, could stand as the basis of a defamation suit". Politicians are good at bringing up material about their opponents that may well be 100% factual, but is not relevant to the issue at hand, and is introduced solely to blacken their name and undermine their standing about whatever the issue is. -- JackofOz (talk) 19:56, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

That seems like a rather unwise ruling, as it makes the (nearly impossible to determine) intent of the speaker a matter for the court to determine, versus the actual truth of the statement. And I'll miss "His sister is a known thespian and his entire family frequently masticates together in public restaurants !". StuRat (talk) 16:41, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

(OD) Wow, I appreciate all the quick feedback. However, none of these is exactly what I was looking for. My concept hinges on the use/mention distinction: saying one will not mention X is still mentioning X.

I think my original example was unideal: I should have said "I don't think it proper for me to comment on <politician>'s tribulations." Thus the complex question issue is quite tempered, as I note many posters picked up on that issue or some variant of it. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 20:13, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Another example might be "I rise to honour my esteemed colleague <name>. As this is a time for putting our political differences to one side, I'll make no mention of his encounters with <name of issue/prostitute/ whatever> but speak only of happier things ...". You can't say you're not going to mention or refer to X, without actually mentioning or referring to X. Now, what's this called? Linguistically, it might be something like self-negation. Like saying "I know nothing whatsoever about how to write a sentence" (I just did, so I know at least how to write that sentence, thus negating "nothing whatsover"). -- JackofOz (talk) 20:40, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

The technical name for this rhetorical device, at least in Classical rhetoric, is paralipsis, that is, mention by omission. Saying "I won't mention the numerous reports of my opponent's drunkenness" serves your purpose of mentioning it. СПУТНИК^{CCC P} 20:44, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

That's it! Paralipsis. Thank you, Sputnik. (I do recall the word "apophasis", now that I looked at that page.) Baccyak4H (Yak!) 21:06, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

---

It's not the same thing, but my favorite along these general lines is a certain style of 19th-century supposedly "outraged" journalism, which went something like this: "How long will Mademoiselle Fifi be permitted to continue to perpetrate her debauched exhibitions of terpsichorean lewdness which are corrupting the very moral fabric of this community, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evening at 7 o'clock in the second-story rooms at 123 State Street, admission price fifty cents? How long?" (I'm exaggerating, but not by all that much...) -- AnonMoos (talk) 12:49, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Literary Awards

I am a big science fiction and mystery fan. And of course the Hugo award winners and Nebula award winners are some of the best science fiction books and stories written. My questions is that is there something analogous for mystery books every year? Is there such an award for mystery books/stories which is given every year to the best mystery fiction of the year? Maybe, if readers and fans have gotten together and voted for the best mystery novels or something, that would work too. Is there a list on Wikipedia perhaps just like how there is one for Nebula and Hugo winners? Thanks!-Looking for Wisdom and Insight! (talk) 19:57, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

The Edgar Awards (named for Poe) are given yearly by the Mystery Writers of America. - Nunh-huh 20:04, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

The Gold Dagger Award was an award given annually by the Crime Writers' Association for best crime novel of the year. BrainyBabe (talk)

It's still given: just renamed as the "Duncan Lawrie Dagger". Gwinva (talk) 00:58, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

There's also the Shamus Award for those who would be famus. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:38, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

One of the smaller ones is the Scarlet Stiletto Award for Australian female crime authors. I like the title. Steewi (talk) 01:59, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Some more: Agatha Award, Anthony Award, Arthur Ellis Awards, the Best Swedish Crime Novel Award and the Glass Key Award (sadly, neither were established until after legendary Sjöwall and Wahlöö had written their last novel, but hey, there is an award named after S&W's protagonist: the Martin Beck Award!). Moreover: Dilys Award (for a bookseller's take), Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, Gumshoe Awards, Macavity Awards, Nero Award, Riverton Prize, and Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. There are also more CWA Dagger awards: Dagger in the Library for a librarian's take, CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for thrillers, CWA New Blood Dagger for newbies, Cartier Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievements, and in 2005 there was a Dagger of Daggers (won by John Le Carré). ---Sluzzelin talk 05:00, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

March 4

Hungarian references: 19th century electrical inventions by Jedlik

Assistance is needed by editors who can make sense of references in Hungarian regarding the inventions of Ányos Jedlik. Hungarian sources are claimed to state that he invented the electric motor and the electric car in 1828, including motors with two sets of electromagnetic coils and a commutator, and that he invented the dynamo. Most histories of electric motors and generators, from the 19th century to the present, credit others with these discoveries. The few English language sources giving Jedlik any credit for these inventions just cite Hungarian sources. Assistance appreciated. Was he an early experimenter who did not publish, patent, or widely demonstrate his devices? Is he the "true inventor?" Or did he duplicate published inventions after the fact? Did his work advance the art? Edison (talk) 04:37, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Name origin for D'elormie

I was wonderi ng about the name of the dead love in Poe's poem, Bridal Ballad.

I know it's just there as a rhyme, but is it a real name? What might be it's origin? I know Delorme is an actual name... 128.239.177.28 (talk) 05:05, 4 March 2009 (UTC)WildernessOfMonkeys

Several books suggest Poe took the name from De L'Orme; Or, The Comte de Soissons a book by G. P. R. James which is about Marion Delorme. This suggests Delorme (without the I) means 'one who lives by an elm tree'. Not having read that poem until today I am inclined to agree with Aldous Huxley that it is a "poetical disaster". meltBanana 15:16, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

More literally, de l'orme = of (or from) the elm. —Tamfang (talk) 05:30, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Word for the animal vs. the word for the meat

If you speak a language other than English, Polish, or Mandarin, do you mind letting me know if the language you speak uses different words for the animal and the meat? Like in English, there is "cow" and "beef". I know in English, the animal uses the word from Old English (and thus likely has Anglo-Saxon roots) whereas the meat uses the word from the French spoken by the Norman conquerors. I am trying to judge whether this author's claim is almost wholly wrong or just overstated.--droptone (talk) 14:54, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

The English beef article has a long list of links to other languages down the left-hand side. It is possible to glean meaning even if one's language skills are rusty, as the basics are all in the intro para, and common nouns have nice links to their own articles and photos to check if you're not sure. I went first to the French article and it says "boeuf" is the vernacular name for the animal and for the meat (and also there are names for bull, cow, and calf). BrainyBabe (talk) 15:05, 4 March 2009 (UTC) PS I'm not suggesting that we won't get fantastically erudite answers here from our multilingual refdesk crew, but just to point out that there are literally dozens of non-English "beef" articles linked to our English one, many of which might be quite straightforward to figure out (and fun!). BrainyBabe (talk) 15:12, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

In both Irish and German, the names for various types of meat are usually compounds of the form "animal name" + "meat", i.e. "cow-meat", "pig-meat", "lamb-meat", etc. In German at least (not sure about Irish) you can usually drop the "meat" part from the name if it's clear from context and just refer to the meat by the name of the animal. Although people are fond of pointing out the Anglo-Saxon = animal / French = meat relationship in English, it doesn't always hold. The meat of fish is called fish and the meat of turkeys is called turkey; the meat of chickens is called chicken, while the French loanword pullet does not refer to the meat specifically but to a certain sex and age of chicken. —Angr 15:22, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Since you didn't exclude dialects, let me add two observations on animals and their meat in Swiss German. The compound rules laid out by Angr apply for the most part in this dialect too, with two exceptions:

• For chicken (and as far I can tell, only for chicken) people retain the Germanic word for the animal and borrow the French word for the meat (Poulet or even the franco-germanic compound Pouletfleisch, i.e Poulet-meat).
• For pork, you can form the compound "Schwiifleisch" (pig meat), but "Schwiinigs" is correct too (It would be "Schweiniges" in German: neutral substantivized adjective meaning "porcine" or "belonging to the pig"). For some reason, you can't use these adjectival forms for any other types of meat; you have to say "Lammfleisch" instead of "Lammigs" for lamb or "Chalbfleisch" instead of "Chalbigs" for veal. ---Sluzzelin talk 15:48, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I mentioned in a thread above that 'cow', 'beef' and 'moo' have the same origin, actually. But anyway, I don't know any language that consistently distinguishes either, including English. (E.g. While 'cow' and 'beef' are distinguished, 'chicken' is not.) Words come from necessity, so I think it's more a question of what you eat on the particular animal. Chicken meat is essentially 'dark meat' and 'light meat' but without any really big difference in taste. Whereas say, pigs, have pork, bacon, ribs, which all taste different and are prepared and eaten differently. Wherever there's that kind of difference in how it's eaten, I'd expect separate terms. --Pykk (talk) 16:16, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

It's true that "cow" and "beef" are cognates, as both derive from Proto-Indo-European *gʷōu-. But "moo" is just an onomatopoeia; it isn't related. —Angr 17:33, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's related in the sense that the original PIE word is believed to be an onomatopoeic for the sound a cow makes. Which would essentially mean being the same 'word' as 'moo'. --Pykk (talk) 15:05, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Korean uses animal name + meat for the meat of livestock and game, but not for fish or seafood. With fish or seafood, you just use the name of the animal. --Kjoonlee 16:43, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Hm, for fish, you can say fish name + flesh in Korean. --Kjoonlee 16:44, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

And for both animals and fish, you can say body part + flesh. --Kjoonlee 16:45, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

The word for fish in general is roughly watermeat, BTW. --Kjoonlee 16:47, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the first chapter of Robert Burchfields The English Language (p. 18-19) ends with a discussion of one enduring myth about French loanwords of the medieval period that needs to be discounted because it is merely a half-truth, i.e. precisely the Germanic-animal-words vs. Romance-meat-words distinction, because the restriction of these French words to the sense 'flesh of an animal eaten as food' did not become general before the eighteenth century and goes on to explain that Samuel Johnson referred to 'a beef' being killed in his Journey to the Western Isles and William Cowper to A mutton, statelier than the rest etc. --Janneman (talk) 17:28, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Cattle are still occasionally referred to as "beeves". Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 00:38, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

In Slovene, the words for "animal" and "meat of the animal" are roughly different. For instance, (a female) cow would be krava, whereas beef is govedina. Of course, it needs to be said at this point that govedo is a plural noun similar to cattle in English, and the "+ina" could probably be roughly said to mean "coming from sth", so govedina could be roughly broken down to mean "that which comes from cattle". Pig is a bit different: prašič (animal) vs. svinjina (meat). Again, the "+ina" part is roughly "coming from", while svinja is not a plural noun, but rather the word for "sow" (as in, female pig). Mutton: this time, the words in question are ovca (sheep), jagnjetina (mutton) and jagnje (meaning lamb) as the forming word for the name of the meat. Chicken, other fowl and fish mainly just use the same word for animal and meat (chicken, for instance gets a separate word in some dialects, but not in official Slovene). So, basically, there's no real rule here, but the main meats do get their own separate names, which can, however, be traced back to some name of the animal. TomorrowTime (talk) 08:27, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Turkey in German is bred as "Truthahn" or "Truthenne" and eaten as "Pute" or "Puter". Chicken is often identified by the way it's prepared e.g. broiler (more common in the East), "poularde", "Grillhaehnchen" (which can be a chicken). When they first tried to introduce ostrich in the US they were casting around for names to call the meat that would be "palatable". I think they settled for leaving it as it was. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 08:33, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

In Portuguese, every meat usually (possibly every time, I can't recall any exception) shares the name of the animal it comes from, however, when one is refering to pig (porco) or cow (vaca) it is common to say that one is eating pig meat or cow meat (carne de porco/vaca). Instead, when refering to rabbit (coelho) or chicken (galinha/frango) one just says "I'm eating chicken/rabbit". When eating fish it usual to say that one is eating fish (peixe) or the specific kind of fish (mackerel, sardines, whatever...), it depends on the context. 213.13.148.4 (talk) 11:06, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

In Hungarian, I think there's no word that refers to the meat from a particular animal. There is a generic name for cattle: marha (or szarvasmarha), and gender-specific names for the same species: tehén means calf, ökör means ox, and bika means bull, and of these a particular living animal is more likely called a gender-specific name, whereas meat is almost always just cattle meat (marhahús) or calf meat (borjúhús), but that doesn't actually make any of these words specific to food. Variations of this applies to some animals other than cattle.

There are a few words that refer to meat from a certain part of an animal, and some of these are specific to one kind of animal because that particular meal is made from only that animal: examples are bélszín, hátszín, felsál, which are all some parts of a cattle. Obviously there are lots of dishes that can only be made from one kind of animal but whose name does not refer to that animal, eg. any egg dish is likely made of chicken's egg, and while shops do sell goat milk or goat cheese or sheep cottage cheese, unqualified milk will usually imply it's made from cows, and particular kinds of cheese (there are a lot of these) unanimously refer to one animal. This happens with meat too: gulyásleves (goulash soup) can only be made of cattle, though its drier counterpart pörkölt (goulash) can be any of beef, pork, or chicken. Similarly, hurka is a kind of sausage made of pig meat, and there are other such examples as well.

Finally, for people like me who grow up in the city and barely even see live cattle, there are some names of dishes such that I know the meal it refers to, but have never actually seen the animal it comes from: in particular, for all I know hekk might not be a real fish but could be entirely synthetic with the fishbone there only for confusing us.

By the way, what other such words are there in English other than beef–cow, veal–calf, pork–pig? – b_jonas 11:36, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Update: there are a few other cases similar to dairy products: grapes are szőlő and wine is bor, and obviously wine is supposed to be only made of grapes; also caviar which is the edible eggs of some kinds of fish is kaviár, and honey (méz) is not the same as the bees (méhek) that make it. – b_jonas 11:41, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

name for a concept

What do we call a word or expression which falls into disuse, and then comes back as the name for something utterly different? To wit, "wireless" used to be the standard British English word for a radio receiver, and then became old fashioned and faded away in that meaning. Now "wireless" has new life as the method of transferring data between router and laptop. One was a machine and one is a technology, not strictly something one can touch, but still. Is there a name for this phenomenon? You could think of it as a zombie word, something coming back to life from the undead, but that doesn't quite cover the situation, because that meaning has gone forever. It is not a gradual evolution to deal with technological advances, as with carriage --> car. What is it? BusinessAsUnusual (talk) 14:58, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Not an answer to your question, but your suggestion of the term "zombie" reminded me that I sometimes refer to revived languages like Manx and Cornish as "zombie languages", not just because they've been brought back from the dead, but also because they have to "feed" on living languages to get new vocabulary. —Angr 15:31, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

And so far only one zombie has eaten enough brains to grow up big and strong. Say, if Manx is a zombie, does that make Esperanto Frankenstein's monster? LANTZY^TALK 17:19, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Another such word is "earthling"... AnonMoos (talk) 17:30, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

And "computer". LANTZY^TALK 17:57, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

• Not an example: it was in still use referring to people when it began to be used referring to machines. As to the question, I don't think there is a term for it. --Anonymous, 05:21 UTC, March 5, 2009.

Lazarus language -_- --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 21:57, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Anachronism? --Rixxin (talk) 17:31, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

How would it be an anachronism? Referring to my car as a "horseless carriage" might be a linguistic anachronism, I suppose; showing up at work in an actual horsed carriage would be an attempt at a visual anachronism; putting a car in a historical novel would be an anachronism. Lazarus rose from the dead, but he was the same as he had ever been -- not the case with these words, that keep only their shell of sound and spelling, and hold a new content of meaning. Zombies differ by culture, I guess: if they are seen as NOT the same person they once were (such that it is OK to kill them on sight), then perhaps that is the closest we have come. But it is not a solution that pleases me. BrainyBabe (talk) 08:45, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, with respect, of course it is a lingustic anachronism! That is what the OP requested help on, and, oh look! This the language desk!

From the first paragraph of anachronism (emphasis mine):

_{An anachronism (from the Greek "ana" "ανά", "against, anti-", and "chronos" "χρόνος", "time") is an error in chronology, especially a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other. The item is often an object, but may be a verbal expression, a technology, a philosophical idea, a musical style, a material, a custom, or anything else so closely associated with a particular period in time that it seems odd when placed outside its origins.}

So, to take the OP's example of "wireless" being used in the past, falling into disuse, and the re-use for a conceptually similar but altogether different technology, I think this word fits. --Rixxin (talk) 09:36, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

No, sorry, I, the OP, still don't see it. My understanding of the word "anachronism" is of an error, a word that appears in the first sentence of the definition. I don't see the new use of "wireless" as an error. I would be interested to know of its coinage, but I imagine that whatever engineers or marketers came up with the word were simply creating a description of the new technology, something that works without wires, hence wireless. They were not referring to the radio receiver of yore, and were therefore not, in my estimation, making an error. My understanding of an anachronism would include both the "verbal expression" (e.g. a child in 2009 reads a book written in 1940 that uses the word "wireless", and mistakenly assumes that internet technologies existed back then) or of the technology itself (e.g. an adult in 2009 writes a novel set in 1840, and mistakenly includes a radio in the domestic set-up). The phenomenon of unconsciously recycling a word is something altogether different. "Wireless" is just one example; it would be good to come up with more examples, as well as a satisfactory term for the phenomenon. BrainyBabe (talk) 21:08, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree with that. Referring to a 2009-built radio as a "wireless" would indeed be an anachronism. But referring to an internet connection that does not depend on wires as "wireless internet" is a completely accurate decription, and the adjective "wireless" here has nothing to do with the noun "wireless" as applied to early-model radios. Just because a word was coined to refer to a particular thing way back when, does not mean the word can't be applied to later, unrelated things, because words often acquire many meanings over the course of their lifetimes, and can occur in various parts of speech. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:53, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

What are you disagreeing with, Jack? I like your grammatical dissection, but an addition to it is the common use of "wireless" now as a noun, as in "Do you have wireless at home?" (cf "Do you have running water/electricity at home?"). So what can we call this phenomenon, of a second, mostly unrelated, definition developing for a word? BrainyBabe (talk) 21:34, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

My post (at 20:53) was disagreeing with Rixxin. Yours came along later, at 21:08, but you placed it before mine, making it look like I'm disagreeing with you, but that's not the case. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:39, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

From such technological kafuffles do human misunderstandings spring. Thanks for clarifying, Jack! (I could have sworn I began to write what I eventually posted at 21:08 before anything from you was visible, but no Edit Conflict templates came up when I pressed Save Page.) Thanks also for demonstrating that I'm not the only one who doesn't see an anachronism here. BrainyBabe (talk) 22:49, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Maybe Jack posted after you loaded the page and before you clicked 'edit'. You might well scroll down to "Rixxin" and begin writing, without looking again at what might be below that. (If I were responding to the last item in a block, I'd jump to the bottom with one keystroke and then would notice the addition. But I know that not everyone uses the keys as I do, or even has the same cursor movements available.) —Tamfang (talk) 05:38, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Use of "only" in sentence structure

OK, so I'm writing a webpage for this automotive site that I'm the co-owner of, but I'm not sure what the correct sentence structure for only is.

Basically, I am trying to say that the Ford Focus is offered as a hatchback and sedan in one country, with only those two bodystyles offered.

These are my current sentences: The Ford Focus is sold here as a hatchback and sedan only. It is available with 1.6, 1.8 and 2.0 petrol engines only here.

The GLX trim level is offered with the 1.8 and 2.0 engines only; Style trim has the 1.8 engine only.

What's the correct way to phrase this?? Sorry if it sounds unclear and the post is rushed... I'm just trying to get this done (posting from Internet cafe's public terminal here!) --84.45.219.185 (talk) 15:34, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

None of your sentences is incorrect, but a clearer way to write them is like this:

The Ford Focus is sold here only as a hatchback and sedan only.

It is available only with 1.6, 1.8 and 2.0 petrol engines only here.

The GLX trim level is offered only with the 1.8 and 2.0 engines only; Style trim has only the 1.8 engine only.

Incidentally, one of the signature quirks of Indian English is the ability of the word 'only' to migrate to almost any position in the sentence. You'll hear things like "Only I'm kidding", "There's one only way to do it properly", etc. LANTZY^TALK 16:32, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I would consider moving the "only": "The GLX trim level is only offered with the 1.8 and 2.0 engines; Style trim is only available with the 1.8 engine. cheers, 10draftsdeep (talk) 20:08, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Nah. The literal-minded will read "The GLX trim level is only offered with the 1.8 and 2.0 engines" to mean that offered is the only thing the GLX trim level is. For that reason it's better the way 10draftsdeep Lantzy had it. A sentence should yield its meaning upon careful analysis (Fowler), and never is that more true than when deciding where to put an "only". --Milkbreath (talk) 20:29, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

There are some cases where the position of "only" matters greatly. "Only I am a human being" means something rather different from "I am only a human being". The surefire method is to attach "only" to the thing it's referring to. But it can be taken to extremes, because there are many sentences where the meaning is clear regardless: "We will allow you to borrow books from the library only if you are a paid-up member" and "We will only allow you to borrow books from the library if you are a paid-up member" mean the same thing, to all but rigid pedants, so insisting on the 1st version is unnecessary. But the case in question is one where it could go either way (although I suspect 10draftsdeep's version is the version most people would naturally favour, and would not misinterpret), so if there's any doubt, it's best to be safe and put "only" where it cannot be misinterpreted, even by a small minority. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:29, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

But these examples are about logic rather than English grammar; of course the position matters, you are moving "only" from a clause to another! I mean, that's not a peculiarity of "only" only, nor of English grammar only. (PS: should I say ""only" only" or "only "only"" ?)--pma (talk) 19:58, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd say That's not a peculiarity only of "only". Some would say That's not only a peculiarity of "only", but that could be misinterpreted to mean that whatever "that's" is referring to is not the only interesting feature of the word "only". For example, "That's not only a peculiarity of "only", but it's one of its defining characteristics". I generally don't see a case for putting "only" after the thing it's referring to. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:54, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

To clarify, I think that JackofOz and Milkbreath endorse Lantzy's wording, as do I. Marco polo (talk) 23:32, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Right. Oops. I could add that in speech we all put "only" wherever it feels right, and its placement rarely causes problems, but speech and writing are two different things. --Milkbreath (talk) 01:39, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

From my experience I'd say people put words wherever they feel right in speech as well as in writing. --Kjoonlee 16:32, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Considering a simple sentence like "We have been sitting here for three hours," English Syntax by C. L. Baker notes the following:

Positions

	S-initial	Before finite V	After finite V	Before action V	End of VP
now	yes	yes	yes	no	yes
only	yes	yes	yes	no	no

However, your mileage may vary. --Kjoonlee 16:41, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

If not too late… there are ways to reword it without using the word "only".

Example 1 (you could omit the phrases in parantheses):

(Here in __name of country__) The Ford Focus is available as a hatchback or as a sedan. (We regret that other bodystyles are not available.) You can choose from three sizes of petrol engine: 1.6, 1.8 or 2.0. Buyers of the 1.8 and 2.0 engines have the option of the GLX trim level. Style trim is available for the 1.8 engine.

Example 2 (create a table):

Available bodystyles, engines and trims for the Ford Focus

Bodystyles	Engines	Trims
Hatchback	1.6	(none)
	1.8	GLX, Style
	2.0	GLX
Sedan	1.6	(none)
	1.8	GLX, Style
	2.0	GLX

Best, WikiJedits (talk) 19:47, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

An archaic culinary name for gull meat?

A couple of decades ago, I saw the old English (poss. Scottish?) culinary name for gull meat stated in a newspaper article (IIRC, it was in a Q+A column where someone had written in to ask whether gulls were ever eaten by people). Unfortunately, I can no longer remember the word. I'm almost certain that it wasn't scorrie (as has been suggested to me). Does anyone know/have any likely suggestions as to what it might be? --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 23:05, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

In days of yore, restaurants would often serve seagull to patrons who thought they were ordering squab. The deception rarely succeeded, because the seagull's diet of garbage and rotting fish imparts an unmistakable flavor to the flesh. LANTZY^TALK 01:11, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Is the word scrabe or scraber? The OED marks both as Scottish, and the citations indicate that the terms were applied to various edible sea fowls. LANTZY^TALK 01:22, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it was either of those. The word may have sounded slightly French, now that I sit and think about it. I'm sorry that I can't remember any more than this. It was a long time ago now... --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 02:21, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I've had a thought. Alan Davidson's The Oxford Companion to Food lists gull. Apparantly they were "kept in poultry-yards and fattened for consumption". Robert May explains this husbandry, of "herns, puets [...], gulls, and bitterns". No special name is stated for the meat. There is a cross-reference to the entry for May, professional cook and author of The Accomplisht Cook (with a comprehensive 1000 + recipes), which says that he worked in France for years, so that may account for any French names. His magnum opus was first published in 1660 (hey ho! for the fancy cooking of the Restoration, after a Lenten inter-regnum of metaphorical gruel), reprinted in 1685, and reissued in facsimile of the latter in 1994. If you can get hold of one of these facsimiles, it should tell you much more about cooking gulls. (And possibly even four-and-twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie.) BrainyBabe (talk) 01:20, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

March 5

spanish translation, ribbed condoms

what do you call ribbed condoms in spanish? how would you say "ribbed for this generations numbness" in spanish? con lomitos para acalambramento de ésta generación maybeTroyster87 (talk) 12:28, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Ribbed condoms would be preservativos (or condones) texturados. I quite don't get the meaning of your last sentence, I'm sorry to say. Pallida  Mors 15:52, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

If by "numbness" you mean to refer humorously to youthful detachment and alienation, I would translate the sentence as condones texturados para ésta generación entumecida. LANTZY^TALK 00:41, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

• so it would be texturado para ésta generación acalambrada —Preceding unsigned comment added by Troyster87 (talk • contribs) 00:48, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

General foreign accent

The article Kissinger that "I watched myself on German television, so that I could finally speak without an accent. And I heard myself speaking with a Swedish accent!" let me thinking - do some people have a foreign accent in all languages that they speak? Does this phenomenon has a name? Under what conditions does it happen?--Mr.K. (talk) 12:51, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

You could say that everyone speaks their own ideolect. To someone from Boston, a US English speaker from Texas has an accent. Also, if (say) an English speaker hears (say) a French person speaking Russian, the French accent is easy to recognize even though the English speaker doesn't understand French or Russian. 207.241.239.70 (talk) 13:32, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

It's fairly normal for people who speak their non-native language fluently for an extended period of time, although the extent to which people are affected varies, just as the amount of accent varies. It's essentially a matter of the fact that you use different muscles and movements with different languages. They've been 'out of training'. If a native speaker returns to speaking his native language most of the time, then they'll usually revert to accent-free speech fairly quickly. I can speak a few languages with virtually no (foreign) accent. But I can't do so simultaneously. --Pykk (talk) 15:19, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I can speak english and spanish simultaneously, ha haTroyster87 (talk) 01:45, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Japanese pronunciation

Moved from Humanities Desk

Please: I need the correct pronunciation for Tanaka Shozo, a 19th Century Japanese conservationist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.83.133.250 (talk) 14:16, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Exactly how it's written - TA-NA-KA-SHO (like English 'show')-ZO (like the '-zo' in the Greek drink 'Ouzo', or English 'zone'). (The 'stress' is on the 'TA' and the 'SHO').--92.41.122.215 (talk) 19:46, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

The name is spelled wrong; it should be Tanaka Shōzō (ja:田中正造). Pronunciation is /tanaka ɕoːzoː/. Bendono (talk) 23:21, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't mention that because English language conventions usually do not use the bar over the vowel to indicate length, just as we write Tokyo and not Tōkyō, or Osaka and not Ōsaka, and the pronunciations I gave ('show' and 'zo-' in 'zone') are long, anyway.--KageTora (talk) 11:03, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Straying from the original topic, but FYI:

• Britannica: Ōsaka (Japan)
• Britannica: Ōsaka (prefecture, Japan)
• Encarta: Ōsaka

Bendono (talk) 14:15, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Language proficiency displayed on one's person

Is there an officially recognized international standard for displaying, on one's person, information about one's proficiency in various languages? I am envisaging something somewhat equivalent to Wikipedia:Babel, and also somewhat equivalent to commercial signs such as the following.

English is spoken here.

On parle français ici.

Aquí se habla español.

Hier spricht man Deutsch.

Si parla italiano qui.

Oni parolas esperante ĉi tie.

Hominēs hīc Latīnē loquuntur.

Aqui se fala português.

Здесь говорят по-русски.

Such a system can be used by tourists meeting local residents and/or vice versa, by doctors meeting patients and/or vice versa, and by many other categories of people. The system might involve letter codes, number codes, color codes, and/or other codes for identifying various languages, and a method for indicating levels of proficiency. It might even distinguish proficiencies in speaking, listening, reading, and writing. (The use of flag icons for symbolizing languages, as practiced by some websites, is less than optimal, because a flag is associated with a country, and not every country is uniquely associated with one language.) The information might be displayed on buttons, on ribbons, on patches sewn onto clothing, and/or in some other way. (There might be less conspicuous versions for wristbands and wallet cards.) There might be an "introductory symbol" (a "heading symbol") to indicate the topic of all the other symbols. There might be an organization for testing, certifying, and updating one's language proficiencies specifically for such display. See Category:Language certification.
-- Wavelength (talk) 17:29, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Another common system I see on websites is the name of the language in the language itself. For example. If you were organizing a conference, for example, I could imagine a similar code system on everyone's name tag. As for an international standard – here's one example: the EU uses the two-letter country codes. Best, WikiJedits (talk) 19:51, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Those codes on that EU website are language codes. See User:Wavelength/Global data/Languages, countries, and codes#Analysis of codes. -- Wavelength (talk) 20:18, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

For the first system, List of names of the official languages of the European Union in the official languages is useful. -- Wavelength (talk) 21:19, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Exactly how do you suggest that a person's proficiency in languages would be measured? A self-apointed scale is virtually useless (which is why I don't use W:Babel - a realistic person might say they speak a language to a medium degree and speak it almost fluently, while an optimistic person could likewise apoint themselves a medium degree speaker and yet know little more than basics; and an outside observer can't tell the difference), and the international language tests can have different results regarding proficiency levels from one culture/nation to another as well. Again, what is professional proficiency? I've seen hawkers on streets who could speak no more than three or four phrases of a foreign language, but that was enough to close the deal they were looking to make. Surely, those people were sufficiently proficient as far as their profession required it? Would you have different ribbons for more and less (linguistically) demanding proffesions? TomorrowTime (talk) 22:28, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Two more things that make an "easy" system unreliable would be that certain local languages don't have a "country code" associated with them. Another is that local dialects can be mutually unintelligible. I lived in Germany and speak a moderate amount of Low German. (Self assessment, but a heck of a lot more idiomatic than some school taught "experts" do.) OR has proven that trying to understand a conversation between two Bavarians while they are not trying to communicate with someone speaking their dialect is hopeless, although they'd be considered to speak German. Communicating with people from countries neighboring Northern Germany worked a lot better despite them speaking a different "official language". I once attended a conference where a Japanese guy could make out more of what a Scottish attendant was saying than either me or a guy from Kent were able to. Our movers here in the US and my hubby both hail from Atlanta. That should make one hopeful that mutual communication would be assured. I ended up having to translate, because their different cultural background made it hard for the two to understand each other. At a computer networking conference participants from different countries are likely to have more luck understanding each other than they would, talking about the subject with someone from their own country who's not familiar with the subject. Language is just a nasty can of worms. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 00:09, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I've noticed airline flight attendants often have flags on their name badges. I assumed those flags were to do with the languages they can speak rather then their country of origin. Astronaut (talk) 03:18, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Pre-handover, Hong Kong police had either a black or red (bilingually qualified) backing to their individual identity badge numbers. DOR (HK) (talk) 04:13, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

In Europe I've often seen folks at information kiosks (etc.) wearing lapel pins of national flags, used for this purpose. It is very common. They usually use a British flag to designate an English speaker. I don't remember seeing US flags used that way in Europe, but come to think of it I vaguely remember seeing information booth clerks South Korea's Seoul-Incheon airport with US flag pins to signify that they spoke English. I've also seen such flag decals on the windows of taxicabs, indicating that the driver speaks the corresponding language. As for proficiency, it really only takes basic skill in a language for (say) a taxi driver to take you where you want to go. Wearing a language pin doesn't indicate that the person is fluent enough to carry on erudite literary discourse. 76.195.10.34 (talk) 12:44, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you all for your comments. Here is my composite reply to some of the points which have been expressed so far. Additional comments are still welcome.

• A self-assessment is not perfect, and even a score from an international language test has limitations, but some information is better than none, as a guideline. (An amateur weather forecast is not perfect, and even a professional weather forecast has limitations, but some information is better than none, as a guideline.)
• There might be a way of indicating whether a score is to be understood as applying to a language in general, or to a specific area of use. If a specific area of use is not indicated, a viewer might assume that the wearer should have a level of proficiency at least sufficient for the usual requirements of the job being performed when the device is being worn.
• Even if a worker (for example, a hawker on the street or a taxi driver) can perform a job with a basic level of language proficiency most of the time, there are many ways in which a simple situation can become more complicated and require a more advanced level of proficiency. Knowing about the extra leeway can be of some re-assurance to all concerned.
• There might be a way of indicating a specific dialect (for example, en-gb or en-us), and there might be a way of indicating a specific speech register.
• If there is an officially recognized international standard, and especially if it is taught in schools and publicized by the media, wearers and viewers can proceed with some reference on which to base their decisions. If that standard does not exist, they might try to improvise as they best know how.

-- Wavelength (talk) 19:09, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Besides the points which I mentioned about flag icons in my original post, flags have other disadvantages.

• A letter code is easier to learn, to remember, and to reproduce than are most national flags. Many flags are highly detailed, and some are only subtly different from certain others. Without consulting a reference work about flags, how many flags does the average person know? How many flags in a display of unidentified flags (not in any special order, for example, alphabetical order) can the average person identify? Also, there might be legal restrictions in regards to the use of images of national flags.

-- Wavelength (talk) 20:15, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I did some searching with Google Image Search, and I found the following links, the best that I could find.

• National Park Service: Uniforms (Badges/Insignia) (bottom of page)
• Personalized Gifts for Every Occasion! Home Page (bottom of page)
• The Virtual Cub Leader's Insignia Guide (section "INTERPRETER STRIPS" with additional links)

-- Wavelength (talk) 20:22, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

The following images are from the article Esperanto symbols.

• 
  The Esperanto flag
• 
  Jubilee symbol
• 
  A stylized green star

-- Wavelength (talk) 20:28, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

The article Esperanto symbols is in Category:International flags, which has some flags of language organizations.

-- Wavelength (talk) 21:41, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

The first result of my Google search for "language flag" (which I performed after all of my preceding postings)
is Why you should not use a flag as a symbol of language. -- Wavelength (talk) 21:59, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

At some international gatherings (for example, Earth Summit (1992)), attendees might wish to identify languages as well as countries. Therefore, a national flag might identify a delegation from a particular country, while another kind of item might be used to identify speakers of a particular language. -- Wavelength (talk) 17:52, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Russian dates

I'm working blind on a Russian page and am wondering what the additional text is after the year in Russian dates. For example, see ru:Радваньска, Уршула. Both the years 1990 and 2008 have "год" after them, and are wiki-linked. Does this have something to do with the Orthodox church? If I'm going to be working with dates, when will I need to change "год" to something else? Thank you! Maedin\^talk 19:28, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

According to wikt:год, it's the Russian word for year. Algebraist 19:37, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Heh. Should have thought to look! Thank you for doing the obvious for me, :-) Maedin\^talk 19:39, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Did you think it meant 'God'? As in 'the Year of Our Lord'? Easy mistake to make!--92.41.122.215 (talk) 19:43, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Either that, or something like AD or BC. I wondered if they always made it specific. Anyway, I certainly didn't think it would be quite as simple as "year"! Maedin\^talk 19:50, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

In English, we cut to the chase and just say "eighteen ninety-two" (5 syllables), no matter whether it's nominative or an oblique case. The Russian formal rules may have relaxed somewhat in recent years, but traditionally they made very heavy weather of dates, and of numbers generally. They would write "1892", but when reading it aloud they had to say their equivalent of "the one thousand eight hundred and ninety-second year" - which, for those who may be interested, is "тысяча восемьсот девяносто второй год" (týsyacha vosemsót devyanósto vtoróy god - 13 syllables). Hence, most Russian citations of years end with the word "год". That's just a simple reference to the year. But when it was in the context of a sentence like "<Something happened> in 1892", the preposition "в" (in) takes the prepositional case, which converts "второй год" to "втором году" (vtoróm godú); so we see examples such as " ..... в 1892-ом году". And when such a reference is part of a complete date ("Alexandrov was born on 13 November 1892"), the date 13 November 1892 is put into genitive case without a preposition (except that only the last word of a year is genitivised), so it appears on the page as "13-ого ноября 1892-го года" and is spoken as "тринадцатого ноября тысяча восемьсот девяносто второго года" (trinádtsatovo noyabryá týsyacha vosemsót devyanósto vtoróvo góda - 23 syllables compared to our maximum 13 syllables in "on the thirteenth of November eighteen ninety-two"). They usually dispense with the endings in shortened forms such as 13.11.1892 or 13.XI.1892. Another, real-life, example is the 1812 Overture. In Russian, it's "Торжественная увертюра 1812 гoда", which they have to pronounce as torzhéstvennaya uvertyúra týsyacha vosemsót dvadtsátovo góda ("Festival Overture of the One Thousand, Eight Hundred and Twelfth Year"). It's terribly complicated for outsiders (and no wonder Russians speak so quickly - they have a lot of ground to cover). -- JackofOz (talk) 22:25, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Swedish song title

In Christina Charlotta Cederström, it says "Välkommen, o måne, min åldrige vän" translates into "Welcome oh Moon, my agening friend". Should that be "aging" (or is there a new kind of friend out there)? Clarityfiend (talk) 19:51, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

For what it's worth, Google translates it as "Welcome, o moon, my older friend". I think "agening" must be a typo. --LarryMac | Talk 19:59, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it simply means "my (very) old friend". --NorwegianBlue ^talk 20:40, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

(ec) The editor, user:Aciram states on the user page that s/he is not a native speaker, so this may be the reason. It is also possible that s/he wanted to maintain some verse foot (a-gen-ing / ål-dri-ge = dactyl). According to the Wiktionary stuff on Swedish adjectives "åldrige" is the absolute definitive (positive ?) form and not the comparative (which would be åldrigare). Oops, I forgot to sign. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 21:18, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

To keep the same rhythm, would elderly work? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 06:52, 6 March 2009 (UTC).

Hang the rhythm - I've gone with "old friend". (I absolutely definitely positively have no clue what Cookatoo said.) Clarityfiend (talk) 07:50, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

"Aged" or "Elderly" is much better as than ageing (which isn't a typo but British English), which would translate in Swedish to "åldrande" ch¹⁰ · 08:52, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

"Agening" isn't a proper word, is it? Anyway, Chandler is right. "åldrige" translates best as "aged". "Old friend" is correct in the sense of "old" as in "aged", but it's a bad translation since the usual interpretation of "old friend" is "long-term friend". At best it's ambiguous, whereas the original has no ambiguity since the root of the word is "ålder" (age). --Pykk (talk) 09:18, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Prepositions

Prepositions tend to be difficult for us non-natives. Which sentence is correct, "The frequency of <symptom> in young adults who smoke is rising." or "The frequency of <symptom> among young adults who smoke is rising."? And should "who" be replaced with "that"? The MS Word grammar checker seems to think so (in some similar cases). Thanks, --NorwegianBlue ^talk 20:36, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

IMHO, all four combinations you suggest are fine, I'm sure if anyone wants to add anything more subtle to this answer, they will. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 20:39, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I think either "in" or "among" is fine. The hardcore grammar people might have a reason for one or the other, but either one should be generally understood. I would use "who" instead of "that" because it is people you're talking about. It's just because you use a common noun to describe them, MS Word doesn't recognize the noun refers to people. Cherry Red Toenails (talk) 20:52, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Who refers to people. That and which refer to groups or things. As "adults" are both people and a group, this handy rule should remove all confusing clarity. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 21:17, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Your example may just be made up, but if it were a sentence you want to use in real life, you might want to think about using a verb other than "rising". There would be absolutely nothing wrong with it if you'd been talking about drinking or some other activity. It's just that the juxtaposition of smoke with "rising" automatically gives me a mental image of smoke rising, e.g. from a cigarette into the surrounding air, which momentarily distracts me from focussing on what the sentence is actually about. Maybe "increasing" would solve this little problem. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:25, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Good point. However, the example was made up to illustrate the point without revealing too much of the real context. And hopefully, I'd have caught that one when re-reading the manuscript :-) --NorwegianBlue ^talk 21:59, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that either preposition is okay. "Among" sounds a little more correct and formal than "in" to my ears. When you are referring to people, I think you have to use "who". Some native speakers would use "that", but using "that" for people is nonstandard and frankly suggests a lack of education. Marco polo (talk) 01:40, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

As to "in" vs. "among", I expect technical writing by doctors to use "in", while other people might use either one.

As to "that" vs. "who", both are correct, and interchangeable in this context. Marco and Cockatoo don't know what they're talking about, and here are the cites to prove it. All of these were found online using www.onelook.com:

Compact Oxford English Dictionary, sense 5 under that:

as pronoun (pl. that) used instead of which, who, when, etc. to introduce a defining clause.

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, from the usage note under that:

In current usage that refers to persons or things, which chiefly to things and rarely to subhuman entities, who chiefly to persons and sometimes to animals. The notion that that should not be used to refer to persons is without foundation; such use is entirely standard.

And the American Heritage Dictionary, from the usage note under who'':

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.

Will that do? --Anonymous, 05:38 UTC, March 6, 2009.

Well, no, actually. It is acceptable, but not "entirely acceptable". Some use "that" in relation to people without giving it a second thought; others cringe whenever they hear it, and edit it out of the writing of others, such as in high-quality WP articles. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:19, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, everyone. I'll use "The frequency of <symptom> in young adults who smoke is increasing." --NorwegianBlue ^talk 09:58, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

March 6

Latin: pecatoribus or peccatoribus?

In Latin, is pecatoribus spelled with one C or two? NeonMerlin 00:29, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Two, normally, although some medieval manuscripts may offer an alternative spelling. Iblardi (talk) 00:31, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Thought-terminating clichés

Do "So's your mother", "That's what your mother said last night" and similar count as Thought-terminating clichés? --90.240.8.194 (talk) 03:56, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes. But there should probably be a separate section for inane non-sequiturs, as opposed to platitudes. LANTZY^TALK 05:42, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I have only recently discovered the rich seam of mother insults. Your mom! BrainyBabe (talk) 06:53, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

The dozens is an enlightening read, for more on this topic. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 19:39, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Dangling superlative on CNN

How come I find the CNN slogan "The most news in the morning." so grammatically unsatisfactory. My mid keeps screaming for an adjective or defining phrase. "The most informative news..." would sound better. Even "The most news you can find on TV in the morning," doesn't cause the same discomfort. "In the morning" just isn't a satisfactory phrase to go with "most". Is that just me, and what's the cause? 76.97.245.5 (talk) 04:28, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

It's perfectly satisfactory if you infer "Of all news channels, CNN has..." They leave that part unsaid, because if they didn't, it would be a pretty lousy slogan. The meaning seems perfectly clear to me. LANTZY^TALK 05:38, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I never normally pay any attention to CNN so I hadn't noticed this phrase, but I have to say my first thought on reading the slogan was exactly the same as the OP - my brain parsed it as a sentence with a missing word; and while on a second reading it does make perfect sense, for some reason it does sound wrong to me too. It may just be because I think the slogan's a fairly vacuous one, so my brain went looking for a less-stupid meaning. ~ mazca ^t|c 11:20, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I think it could equally be taken to mean that the majority of news on CNN is in the morning, as opposed to the afternoon, evening or night. -- Q Chris (talk) 13:37, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Which in many cases may be true, because news stories from overseas would generally break in the US in the morning, and later bulletins would be "updates" of the same story (which often means no additional information whatsoever). -- JackofOz (talk) 17:08, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not looking for an interpretation, I'd like to know why it feels as though it's wrong grammar. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 17:50, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I think it's simply because 'the most x' as a superlative is far more common - particularly in advertising - than 'the most' as a quantity. It's almost a garden path sentence. --ColinFine (talk) 17:52, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Colin! I can almost smell the fish pond. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 22:00, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

And I've just realized a further point: people who are discriminating about their news sources are likely to care more about quality than quantity. So if that's how you feel, you don't expect them to want to advertise that they have "the most news"; you expect them to want to advertise that they have "the most accurate news" or "the most up-to-the-minute news". When they talk about quantity, it seems wrong to you because that isn't much of a virtue, so it wasn't what you expected. But, of course, if that is the way you feel, then you're not the sort of person they're advertising to. --Anonymous, 02:53 UTC, March 7, 2009.

In many cases I'd settle for quantity. Take CNN Headline News, which (at one time) was on 24 hours a day. That meant 24 hours of news, right ? No, because they repeat it every half hour. Then 10 minutes is ads, 5 minutes is weather, 5 minutes is sports, and 5 minutes is fluff. So, you're lucky to get 5 minutes worth of hard news out of it each day. StuRat (talk) 15:53, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

To me the problem is that they used a comparison term, "most", without listing what they're comparing. Are they including newspapers, radio, or the Internet ? StuRat (talk) 15:53, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Latin>English translation to verify, please

This Latin epigram, from a Crusader-era text, discusses the identity of Acre in relation to another Eastern Mediterranean city:

Non est urbs Accaron

quam quilibet estimat

Accon illa Philistea

Ptolemaida dicitur ista.

If the following English translation is inaccurate (particularly estimat in this context), I'd appreciate corrections:

It is not the city of Accaron

that is recognized [?or valued]

It is Accon of Philistea

That is called Ptolemaida.

Thanks, Deborahjay (talk) 21:20, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Pretty much; I might say "It is not the city of Accaron that anyone thinks is Palestinian Accon; that city is called the Ptolemaidan city." (i.e. Ptolemais) Where is this from, by the way? Adam Bishop (talk) 04:09, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

The author of the translated text I'm editing gave no more detailed citation than what I provided above. "Accaron" is a putative reference to Ekron, if that's relevant. As for your wording (which makes better sense than what I started with, translated by a Franciscan monk (!): Now I'm confused again about the antecedents Accaron vs. Accon! If punctuated, would there be a semicolon at the end of the third line, and that city in the last line refers back to Accaron (and not Acco[n] in Philistea/Palestine) being the Ptolemaidan city? -- Deborahjay (talk) 08:34, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

No, it refers to Acco - Ptolemais was one of the crusader names for it (well, it's a Hellenistic name, really). I should have Googled, apparently the epigram comes from Thietmar of Merseburg and was quoted in some pilgrim texts. Adam Bishop (talk) 10:44, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Need quote attribution

Hi sir or ma'am, Do you know who said: Health is wealth. I found a reference to Virgil, but that seems unlikely since it rhymes in English. Perhaps he said something close to that. If you have an idea of the correct source, please let me know. Thank you for your time and attention to this. -Connee —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.175.110.44 (talk) 21:34, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, 'The first wealth is health,' if that helps. Here is the link.--KageTora (talk) 10:51, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

The Virgil guy might be the one who said "A healthy mind in a healthy body" (I don't dare trying my Greek on you) That has been translated, shortened, modified etc. but may still be credited to the original author. (Especially when the one saying the modified quote isn't well-known.)76.97.245.5 (talk) 11:25, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Firstly, "that Virgil guy" was Roman, not Greek. Secondly, mens sana in corpore sano (a healthy mind in a healthy body) is a quote from Juvenal. Malcolm XIV (talk) 11:55, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Mens sana in corpore sano... AnonMoos (talk) 11:57, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Spanish

I believe "dios" is spelled correctly and means like "I am" or something. Now "dios lepake", what does that mean? I'm using "romanji" for "lepake", in that this is the word it sounded like.96.53.149.117 (talk) 22:23, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Dios means "God". I'm not sure what you're hearing, but my guess is Dios le pague, which means "May God pay you (for it)". It's another way of saying thank you. —Angr 22:43, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

March 7

Synonym

Are there grades of synonyms? Are there dictionaries or at least lists of perfect synonyms?--Mr.K. (talk) 11:47, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Are you referring to a thesaurus / Roget's Thesaurus? This [4] is an online tool which you may want to check. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 12:01, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I think what you might want to check out is visualthesaurus. While it may not indicate perfect synonyms, it does show relative closenesses of words. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:37, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Typing Korean on Windows PC

How is it possible to type Korean on a Windows PC? I have installed the language bar and have the Microsoft IME input method, but it doesn't work the way I want it to, i.e. properly. I try to type 'hanguk', and get ㅗ무혀ㅏ, which is obviously wrong. What is the point in this IME, anyway? It works perfectly well for Chinese and Japanese, but not Korean. Can anyone help me here?--KageTora (talk) 19:46, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Korean is not typed in romanization. Each phoneme is mapped to a key. You need to learn this layout. For example, 한국 (hanguk) is gksrnr. See here. Regards, Bendono (talk) 23:28, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

arabic word noor

what is the meaning of arabic word 'noor', light or reflected light

My Arabic dictionary defines نور nūr as "light, ray of light, light beam, brightness, gleam, glow, illumination, lamp" (with further meanings in combination). However, the main word for "light" in the abstract (as opposed to light in specific manifestations) is probably ضوء AnonMoos (talk) 23:02, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I've heard نور in the abstract quite a bit, though. Wrad (talk) 23:07, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Horse sense

As far as I know, the term "horse sense" is a synonym for "common sense". Is that correct? If so, what exactly is the connection with horses? I can't seem to find anything good on-line about this. Does anyone have any ideas? Does the term refer to the sense of a horse (i.e., that a horse himself has good "common sense")? Or does the term refer to the sense of a human (i.e., in dealing with a horse or any horse-related matters ... similar to, say, "fashion sense")? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:15, 7 March 2009 (UTC))

Yes, it's a near-synonym. Wiktionary gives the definition 'Common sense, especially with a connotation of folk wisdom independent from, and trumping, formal education'. I can't find an authoritative etymology. Google gives a number of possibilities, such as it being related to the perceived shrewdness of horse-traders, or being 'from the same association of "strong, large, coarse" found in horseradish' (Online Etymology Dictionary). Algebraist 20:23, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, I was not able to find anything decent on-line ... hence, I posted here. I also found that comment about the "strong, large, coarse found in horseradish" ... and I have no idea what that statement is even trying to say. Any help? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 21:53, 7 March 2009 (UTC))

I think what it means is that in horseradish, horse means strong, large, coarse, and this may be the case in horse-sense. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 22:18, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Subject verb agreement

This sentence comes from the Michelangelo article: It was the attempts of subsequent artists to imitate Michelangelo's impassioned and highly personal style that resulted in the next major movement in Western art. I am confused about the subject / verb agreement. If you remove all of the "extraneous" (descriptive) words, this sentence is simplified to "It was the attempts." The pronoun "it" is singular, the verb "was" is singular, and the noun "attempts" is plural. Something seems not quite right here. But, the alternatives also don't seem right.

• It were the attempts. - This sounds awful and can't be correct, I think?
• They were the attempts. - This also sounds bad and doesn't accurately get across the concept of the sentence.
• It was the attempt. - This also seems wrong, since it was not one attempt (but many attempts) that resulted in the next art movement.

So, can anyone explain if the original sentence is correct ... and why exactly? I understand that the original question can be re-worded in style and structure to avoid this problem ... but that is not what I am asking about here. Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 21:49, 7 March 2009 (UTC))

It was is correct usage as far as I know as a native speaker, but I don't know why specifically, I'm sure someone else may be able to help. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 22:16, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

This may be an expletive it, which does not refer to any specific entity (there is no antecedent to the pronoun). PS: I am not a native speaker, so wait for the gurus. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 22:23, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

(after ec) 'It' is an expletive subject: syntactically it is the subject, and the verb agrees with it, even though semantically 'attempts' is the subject. (Actually, I suspect that it would be more accurate to say 'the verb is in the unmarked form, which is singular', rather than talking about agreement, but that would be OR, including my assumption that the (morphologically more complex) singular is the syntactically unmarked form). --ColinFine (talk) 22:31, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

PS2: "It" may also be a cataphoric it, representing the subordinate clause "the attempts of artists to imitate". Same proviso as in my posting above.--Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 22:34, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, at a purely syntactic level the subject of the sentence is "it", so the verb is in the singular in agreement with it; "attempts" is a predicate nominative. German syntax works differently: a verb agrees with a plural predicate nominative, so the translation would be Es waren die Versuche (lit. "It were the attempts"). This difference between English and German constantly trips up speakers of one language trying to speak the other one. (Incidentally, this "It was X that did Y" construction meaning "X did Y" is called a cleft sentence in syntax, not that anyone asked.) —Angr 22:38, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Angr, thank you for the additional information, about German syntax and about the expression cleft sentence. -- Wavelength (talk) 00:14, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

---

Reminds me of Alice in Wonderland: AnonMoos (talk) 23:13, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Mouse

I proceed. "Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him: and even Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found it advisable—"

Duck

Found what?

Mouse ("rather crossly")

Found it, of course you know what "it" means.

Duck

I know what "it" means well enough, when I find a thing, it's generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find?

March 8

Amanda Strang

What is her biology, i.e.: is she half chinese, half french?70.73.145.207 (talk) 00:01, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Communicating meaning with distant space aliens - no pictures allowed

Imagine that the two-way communication of signals between us and some space-aliens orbiting a distant star has been established. They are blind and immoblie and cannot use pictures or diagrams of any kind. There is no pre-established code or alphabet. While I can imagine that eventually the meaning of mathematical or logical symbols might eventually be established (for example tranmitting many messages such as "..+..=...." would give meaning to + and =), would it be possible to eventually build up enough meaning from a zero base so that in time they would understand what was meant by the message "Last thursday my Uncle Bill went to the supermarket"? Helen Keller springs to mind. 89.240.206.60 (talk) 02:01, 8 March 2009 (UTC)