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September 14

Diminutives of Russian given names

Is there a difference between different diminutive endings for a given name? (E.g., for Aleksey, there're Alyosha, Lyosha, Alyoshka, Lyoshka, Alyoshenka, and Alyoshechka) The only mention in the article on Russian names is an unsourced comment that the -enka ending is a superlative. – Psyche825 (talk) 08:11, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Да, there is a difference. The ones ending in -sha (Sasha, Vanyusha), -shenka (Mashenka), -ushka/yushka (Yegorushka, Vanyushka), -shechka (Sashechka), -ochka (Valerochka), and -ik (Tolik), are generally endearing forms (there are others). The ones ending in -ka (Vanka, Vovka, Vaska, Olka, Petka ...) are usually pejorative forms. But there's an overlap, and there's no precise one-to-one correspondence between the form and the meaning. For the example you give:

• Alyosha and Lyosha are non-specific general diminutives
• Alyoshka, Lyoshka, Alyokha and Lyokha are pejorative
• Alyoshenka, Alyoshechka and Lyoshenka are endearing. -- JackofOz (talk) 08:34, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

My Russian teacher's rule of thumb was that the longer the nickname, the more endearing it is. Steewi (talk) 00:19, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah, that helps. Thanks for the info! – Psyche825 (talk) 04:34, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Information on a- prefixed to verbs

I would like to know the origin of (and possibly a name for?) the practice of prefixing a verb with a-. It shows up in songs ("A-hunting we will go…") and in films, very often by rural and/or country folks (Alvin York in Sergeant York paraphrasing Matthew 26:52: "Those that shall be a-livin' by the sword, shall be a-perishin' by the sword"). — Bellhalla (talk) 14:49, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

You guessed the name correctly. Apparently it's referred to by most linguists as "a- prefixing". There's some info here for instance. Seems like it's a bit of a topic of study and debate where it actually came from! --Pykk (talk) 15:38, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the info! — Bellhalla (talk) 16:00, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Kanji question: Is it upside down?

A picture of Murakami Haruki's signature used in his article has had its description edited by two IP's, who claim that it is upside down. Is it? decltype (talk) 15:16, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I have since removed the comments from the description. I noticed it was also on ja.wiki, so I figure someone would have corrected it if it was really upside down. decltype (talk) 15:28, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's upside down. Unless, of course, it's a jokey signature. -- Hoary (talk) 17:08, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay, thanks, I have now rotated it. Any further comments should take that fact into consideration. decltype (talk) 17:46, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

September 15

Ruby

What is red heat?174.3.110.93 (talk) 00:26, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

It's a temperature range. See red hot. Dismas|^(talk) 00:49, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

What is curved striae?174.3.110.93 (talk) 00:33, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

There should have been a comma in between the words "curves" and "striae". I've added one and now the sentence makes more sense. The word striae is linked in that sentence, so you can follow the link. Dismas|^(talk) 00:51, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

What is stylii material? It seems kind of confusing because stylii is a plural, and it means writing tool. But we use singular lexemes adjectivals in compounds.174.3.110.93 (talk) 00:56, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. It wasn't even a correct plural, by the way. --Anonymous, 05:12 UTC, September 15, 2009.

Classics

What does editiones principes mean?174.3.110.93 (talk) 05:58, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

You have linked to the page where the singular is defined, so I'm guessing that you are not aware that editiones principes is simple the Latin plural of editio princeps. I've added a parenthesis to the article specifying this.

If that's not the burden of your question, you'll need to be more specific about what you are asking. --ColinFine (talk) 07:14, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Did you mean simply?174.3.110.93 (talk) 01:35, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Japanese translation

We have this Japanese text, and I'm very proud that I have been able to type it, but we still don't understand it:

焼き物

田舎の最高のおもてなしは

採れたて海の幸と山の幸を

そのまんまいただくこと

みんなで囲炉裏を囲む

気取らない食事が田舎流です

Could anybody help us with it? Many thanks, MuDavid (talk) 13:04, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Grilled and pan-fried dishes
The best treat in the country is
Fresh delicacies from land and sea
And have them in a simple way
Sitting around the fire with friends
And enjoying the meal informally
That's the way of the country Oda Mari (talk) 14:21, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay, thanks a lot! MuDavid (talk) 08:44, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Chinese translation desired, please

Chinese bomb #1

Chinese bomb #2

What do the plaques in these pictures say, in English? I understand, of course, that one of the characters is somewhat obscured. Thank you much. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:36, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I can't make out the 5th and 6th characters very well, but directly translated it seems to say "Our country's first 'egg bomb'". Maybe the translation 'egg bomb' is wrong, or it's a nickname for the bomb. I am preparing myself to be very embarrassed here as I may end up with egg on my face.... <- Based on looking at the 2nd picture only. After looking at the 1st picture, I can say the characters are '颗原' which means something like 'elementary particle' and therefore 'atom'. "Our country's first atom bomb.":) --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 16:51, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand the letter '颗'. But #1's 原子 might be 原子弾/atomic bomb and #2's 氢弹 means hydrogen bomb. Oda Mari (talk) 18:09, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

(ec) 颗 is a classifier for bombs (among other things), and 原子弹 is (quite literally) "atom bomb". So the first plaque is "our country's first atom bomb" (the final character is cut off); the second plaque is something similar, but the first hydrogen bomb. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 18:10, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

chinese	我国	第一	颗	原子弹 氢弹
pinyin	wǒguó	dìyī	kè	yuánzǐdàn qīngdàn
gloss	'our country'	first	CL	atom bomb hydrogen bomb
translation	China's first atom bomb/hydrogen bomb.

Yup, not thinking straight today (sun's in my eyes!). I was thinking they were the same picture and wondered why I was finding it difficult to reconcile the two signs (thinking they were one and the same....Time for a break, I think.... --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 18:21, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Huh, that's pretty interesting. The second one is impressively small for a first-generation hydrogen bomb. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 01:41, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

These might just be scale model representations of the original bombs - judging by the stands they are on, they don't look much bigger than hand-grenades. Besides looking impressively small, they also look impressively clean for bombs which have been knocking around since the mid 60s. Alternatively, it may just be a matter of perspective - we don't know how big the signs are :) .--KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 08:52, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Is there a red button at the bottom, with a caption "Don't push this?" No such user (talk) 07:05, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

They certainly look a lot bigger than hand grenades, though I agree the scale is hard. I was assuming the floor tiles are probably about 2 feet across. This picture of what appears to be a similar model to the first one (though it differs slightly in the geometry) is more about the size I assumed it would be (e.g. something comparable to the Fat Man bomb). This one seems to be the same scale as the photos above, e.g. somewhat smaller than real life. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 12:09, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, both of those look FAR bigger than I could make out from the OP's pictures, leading me to understand now that the signs must be pretty big, as well as the metal stands that the bombs are resting on. I was using those two as my point of reference. In the two pictures that you have just supplied, I now can see the cordon, which makes the bombs look much bigger to me, now. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 13:27, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Bi-Bi Pedagogical Method Historical Origins

Where and when did "bi-bi", the bi cultural bi-lingual method for teaching English to the deaf, originate? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.246.9.103 (talk) 19:26, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

It looks like we have a small article about this: Bilingual-bicultural education. Have you checked the sources that are linked in that article? Particularly, the second one (here) looks like it might have the answer. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 05:29, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Pronunciation

How does one pronounce "depot" in the medical sense, as in Depo-Provera? Does the pronounciation vary (like "depot" in the non-medical sense) between British (/dɛ'poʊ/) and American (/'diːpɵ/) English? Tevildo (talk) 20:50, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

From television commercials in America I recall it as being pronounced "deh-poh" where deh sounds like wet and poh sounds like dough or flow. 218.25.32.210 (talk) 05:24, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

That's the /dɛ'poʊ/. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 05:26, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the American pronunciation of this component in a medical context stresses the first syllable, so /'dɛpoʊ/. Marco polo (talk) 14:22, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I can't read IPA, but isn't the depot in "Home Depot" pronounced "DEE-poh" in the US? 80.123.210.172 (talk) 14:48, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but "Depo" in "Depo-Provera" is pronounced differently. Marco polo (talk) 17:28, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

September 16

Any other persons

Is this gramatically correct "any other persons" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.54.22.130 (talk) 06:45, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Not by itself. But depending on context, it can work. Can you use it in a sentence? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 07:28, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

If the question is whether the plural of "person" can be "persons" instead of "people", the answer is yes. "Persons" is generally a more formal usage. --Anonymous, 08:13 UTC, September 16, 2009.

Strictly speaking, "persons" is the plural of "person," while "people" is a collective noun, but most of the usage guides seem to agree at this point that the distinction has largely faded. Myself, I think it's a useful one to have; if I say "persons who appreciate fine wine and literary conversion should consider joining my book club," I'm implying that there are individuals among those I'm addressing who may in fact have the interests I describe, and that I'm speaking specifically to them. If I say "people who enjoy arguing without the threat of physical violence often turn to the Internet," the actual people I'm talking about could be in Mexico City, Guam, Seattle, Mars, all of the above, or nowhere, and I'm not speaking to them, I'm speaking about them. But I'm not the author of any usage guides, so the value of my feelings on the subject ain't probably the highest. Some jerk on the Internet (talk) 16:05, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

"Persons who appreciate fine wine and literary convers[at]ion should consider joining my book club" doesn't sound at all natural to me, I must say. I'd use "People who appreciate ..." or "Those who appreciate ..." or "Anyone who appreciates ...", before I'd consider "Persons who appreciate ...". -- JackofOz (talk) 22:50, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I doubt you're in the minority on that; after all, most of the print and online usage guides I looked at were either lamenting the blurring of distinction between the words (Wilson Follett), cheerily noting the blurring was already happening in Chaucer's time (Merriam-Webster's), or declaring the distiction utterly archaeic and dead (American Heritage, I think). My example was possibly not the greatest, especially since "persons" or "people" could be used equally correctly, but within two different context: "persons (in this room) who are interested..." vs. "people (in general) who..." where either word would be acceptable in the first case, but only "people" in the second. "Persons" does sound a little stodgy, in either event. I was trying to think of a better example, and came up with "Police have apprehended three persons of interest in the Green St. shooting investigation," to make clear that it's three specific individuals, all of whom bear some relevance to the investigation, who were apprehended, rather than simply three arrests made in a general sweep, but even there, I suppose you could just say "police arrested three people..." and be done with it. Maybe it's more of an interesting distinction than a useful one.

By the way, in my book club, I get you loaded and then browbeat you into liking my favorite books and authors, so "literary conversion" is appropriate. Some jerk on the Internet (talk) 17:09, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Name For The Phenomenon Where.....?

This is something we all do from time to time and it happens to me quite often, just as often as anyone else. I was in the kitchen today making tea and coffee, and went to put the lid of the teapot onto the coffee jar. Simple mistake which we all do - nothing special about it. But it got me thinking about why I had done that. Obviously one part of my brain had the idea of putting the lid back onto the coffee jar, and another part of my brain was identifying the lid of the teapot as, simply, 'lid'. Somewhere along the way, this all got put together and I ended up trying to fit the (obviously smaller and completely dissimilar) lid of the teapot onto the coffee jar for a split-second. Now, is there a name for this phenomenon, as I would like to read a bit more about it? TIA! --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 09:12, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Not sure about that exact example, but the classic phenomenon of going to your bedroom to change your socks, and then ending up taking off your clothes and going to bed, since that's what you most often do when you go into your bedroom, is known as a "capture error" (though we don't seem to have anything on it at Wikipedia) -- see http://www.usabilityfirst.com/glossary/term_654.txl , The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman etc. -- AnonMoos (talk) 10:06, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Cheers, AnonMoos. Maybe my example would fall under that heading, judging by the examples the author of that link gave. It'd be nice to find an article about it (either here or on another site) which gives some more detail about the brain processes involved. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 10:39, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Hangover? TomorrowTime (talk) 10:08, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Unmindfulness (spelled with a double L in the US). You will become more familiar with this as you get older. Buddhism has quite a lot to say about mindfulness and the lack thereof.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 12:47, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Thinking is not linear. It is more complex than that. Universes of thought progress simultaneously. We have no trouble doing that, if we are healthy. I think the example you give is just a case of something not being important enough to monitor all the way through, to a point of conclusion. Or you got distracted, paying more attention to another thought, and also with a mindfulness that there were no potentially dire consequences to abandoning the particular line of thought that would have led to the correct lid being put on the correct container. I think that the absence of mindfulness in the example you gave seems to imply as well a presence of the mindfulness that the task at hand was not particularly important. Bus stop (talk) 13:07, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Like the story about the woman who was ironing clothes, the phone rang, and she "answered" the iron. Ouch! It's not just from old age, but maybe we become more aware of it as we get older. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 12:52, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

"Unmindfulness" isn't spelled with a double L in the US, but I'd call it absent-mindedness anyway. My sister once drew a cartoon called "The Lifecycle of Absent-mindedness". Childhood: Puts on two pairs of underpants. Adulthood: Drives to work instead of to Blockbuster. Old age: Leaves glasses in the fridge. +Angr 13:05, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Driving to work still gets me...and pouring orange juice in my breakfast cereal. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:37, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I resent the implication that short term memory fails in old people. I am old but assure you that there is nothing wrong with my short term memory nor is there anything wrong with my short term memory. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 14:29, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

My short term memory is on hold while my long term memory catches up. Bus stop (talk) 15:45, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

So the oldest member of the church is the last one out that Sunday and the preacher starts talking to him about aging, and whether he thinks about The Hereafter. The old man says he thinks about it all the time: Whenever he goes into a room, he asks himself, "What am I here after?" Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 11:06, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

T & D sound

I'm a non-native speaker of English. Now, hearing American people talking, I've noticed that, in some words, the letter T has the same sound of english CH (like in chocolate). This happens particulary in terms like traffic, transform, transport. A similar thing happens about letter D, for example in drink. To my ears, it sometimes sounds like a J (like in jaguar). I can't find any reference in English orthography table. So, is it a known phenomenon? Is it just my foreign ears? Is it something related to the letter r after t and d? Does it depend on one's dialect? --151.51.24.225 (talk) 14:07, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

This is indeed a fairly common pronunciation in American English. It has been noted by phonologists, for example in this paper. Marco polo (talk) 14:19, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

It's a phenomenon similar to what happens with the letter "p". There are actually two different "p" sounds in english, an aspirated p (like in the word "pig") and an unaspirated P (as in the the word "play"). Native speakers will have no idea what you are talking about as, to English-speaking-ears, the two sounds are identical, but for languages that use both sounds as seperate phonemes, they will notice the difference. Its the same with the two "T" sounds you note. The way that "tr" becomes more like "tchr" will not be noticed at all by an English speaker even if it becomes very obvious to a non-native speaker. This sort of thing is covered in various parts of the Wikipedia article Phonological change. --Jayron32 14:56, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't say the "p" in "play" is unaspirated; it's just that its aspiration is simultaneous with the following "l" (which is therefore voiceless). However, the "p" sounds in "spy" and "stop" are unaspirated. +Angr 15:03, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Angr is correct, you see unaspirated /p, t, k/ after an /s/, not necessarily before an /l/. This is evident because there are still perceptible aspiration differences--for example, the words "plight" and "blight", or "plume" and "bloom" (although, admittedly, in the latter pair the vowels are a bit different as well, at least for me). The place where you lose the aspiration is after /s/... in words like "stop", "spot", "skid", etc., if you record those words and then use a sound editor to cut out just the stop, a listener will tell you they're hearing [d, b, k]. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:48, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

(addendum) I guess technically the difference between the stops in "plight" and "blight" is one of voicing, not aspiration. But of course, in English those are confounded. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:39, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Which, by the way, is why Pinyin uses b for unaspirated /p/. —Tamfang (talk) 01:14, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

I think it's a matter of palatalization, more than anything. The case of /t/ or /d/ in front of /r/ is fairly common across dialects, but it's very noticeable especially in Hawaii. --Kjoonlee 15:15, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to know in what part of the U.S. they say "chraffic" instead of "traffic". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 18:04, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Probably most of it, probably including you; as Jayron says, you just don't notice because you think you are saying "t". Adam Bishop (talk) 18:24, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Yep, everyone says "chraffic", "chruck", "chree", etc. If you try to literally pronounce [tri], it's actually quite difficult. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 18:37, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Not everyone says "chraffic", etc.  I don't – and I've taken enough university-level phonetics courses to know the difference between how I actually pronounce things and how I think I pronounce things. Saying [tɹ̥i] without affrication – or at least without complete affrication all the way to [tʃɹi] – isn't actually hard at all, and saying [dɹaɪ] with no affrication is even easier since there's no voiceless approximant trying to become a fricative. +Angr 19:30, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I've never heard anyone say "chraffic", that I can think of; and certainly not "jrink". But I wonder what country the OP comes from, because he might be related our "t" to a sound he knows. It reminds me of the way a "th" sound is used in an Indian word. It doesn't sound exactly like "th" to me, the way they say it - yet with I say it my normal Engllish way, they think it sounds right, even though to me it doesn't. Go figure. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 22:01, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Where I typically hear the "t" become a "ch" is when it's followed by "y", specifically in something like "got you" being slurred into "gotcha", as it's normally spelled, although phonetically it could just about be represented as "gah-chuh". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 22:03, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree with Bugs here. Ain't nobody pronounces those sounds like a ch except in the example he gave. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 22:15, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

On the way home today, fittingly while stuck in rush hour, I vocalized "traffic", "chraffic" and "jraffic" a number of times, and remarkably they sound almost identical, and are made with similar positioning of the tongue. If you artificially put a vowel in front of the "r", they become distinctive again. However, to my ear it seemed more like the "ch" and "j" sounds were getting lost and they all sounded like "traffic". So, again, it would be interesting to know what the OP's language is, as maybe those sounds are more acute in his language, i.e. he hears them better than we Americans do. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 23:03, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with several people that this pronunciation is nothing like universal in American English. I don't think that it is my own pronunciation, though it's hard to be sure what my unselfconscious pronunciation would be! However, it is certainly a common variant. I think the variation is more idiosyncratic than regional, though I suspect that it may be especially common in Midland accents. Marco polo (talk) 23:57, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, transcriptions of any sort (even IPA) are just approximation, so to get more real let's have some sound samples. Here is myself pronouncing the words in the way that is natural for me, with the "ch"—so this is what I, and probably the OP, am referring to when I say I affricate them. The second sample is my attempt at pronouncing them /tr/ and /dr/, which for me is nearly impossible. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:38, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually, now I can get "drink" without affrication pretty well...but I don't feel like going to the trouble to make another recording. And "truck"/"tree" without affrication are still beyond me. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:44, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

It's not only so common in American English as to be unnoticeable, the same is true of British English pronunciation. It actually takes some effort for most Anglophones studying another language like Spanish to separate the "t" and "r" sounds in a word like "triste" or "contra". When one does it in most English accents, it just sounds rather artificial ("AR-ti-FI-see-ul" as vs "AHtuhFISHul") and affected. When an English or American child is learning to read aloud, he or she may in fact learn the common pronunciation of "tr" and "dr", just as he or she learns that "th" isn't pronounced "tuh-huh" or that "gh" in "through" is unpronounced. In the 16th Century the "-tion" at the end of many words (such as "Pronunciation") was not telescoped into "shun", but articulated as separate syllables. Similarly for the "d" and "r" in "drink"; an Anglophone has to learn how to separate the "d" and "r" sounds into a different diphthong in the Spanish or Greek pronunciations of "Andreas". ¶ However what may sound like "ch" today at the beginning of "traffic" sounds a bit different to my unschooled ears from the "ch" in "chaff", with my tongue starting and ending a little bit lower in "chaff" than in "traffic". But that could well vary among accents, mine being an amalgam of London, California and New England. ¶ Yet another, but rather distinct, issue, is the tendency of most Britons, Canadians and South Africans to pronounce "t" more sharply (and thus less similarly to "d") than Americans and many Australians do. In this American pronunciation is a little closer to Spanish, and British pronunciation a little further from it. —— Shakescene (talk) 04:01, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Indians really emphasize the "t" sound in words, especially at the end. I don't know if that is influence from England, South Africa, et al, or if it just comes naturally. That crossed my mind, along with the fact that Indians tend to trill the "r". So here's something I was just trying: If you trill that "r" in "traffic", as an Indian would, it's nearly impossible to say it as "chraffic", unless you've got a really talented tongue. The tendency in English to not trill the "r" nowadays (we used to do it a lot more, at least in acting and singing), maybe leads to that "chraffic" thing, and is also what led Ricardo Montalban to make a funny comment once on the Johnny Carson show. We have a sense of what Spanish sounds like. Johnny asked Ricardo what English sounds like to a native Spanish speaker. Ricardo said because of the rounded "r", English sounds like "barking dogs", as in "rowr-rowr-rowr" or whatever. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 04:33, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Indians pronounce t and d as retroflex [ʈ ɖ], under influence of Hindi and other local languages. — Emil J. 11:39, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Having written all that above, I realize that (for me at least), this kind of tch or dj pronunciation doesn't happen so often when the "t" or "d" comes at the end of a perceived word or part of a compound word, so I pronounce the t/d + r in "Cartwright" differently from that in "cartridge", "pet rock" differently from "Petrov", "heated rink" differently from "cola drink", and "Richard Rodgers" differently from "aerodrome". There's a grey area of compound words or phrases where I don't know how frequently I separate the sounds, such as in "cardroom" and "hot rod". Cockneys and some others who don't use Received Pronunciation are more likely, I think, to run the sounds between words together as in "Dontcha know?", but that's also becoming true, I think, of the classless amalgam called Estuary English (pron. "ESStchuhry Inglish"). But I'm no linguist and haven't been back to England for four decades. —— Shakescene (talk) 04:28, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

In the various examples you gave in the beginning of your message, the ones without affrication ("pet rock", "cartwright", etc.) are all words where there is a syllable boundary between the t/d and r. So, for example, the syllabification of "pet rock" is /pɛt.rɑk/ , whereas for "Petrov" it's /pɛ.trɑv/ . Phonological alternations (such as affrication) often do not happen across syllable boundaries. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 04:36, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

IPA request

I would like to add the pronunciation (International Phonetic Alphabet) of periodate to the article, but I can't figure out the symbols myself. Can anyone please help out? (It is pronounced like the words purr-eye-owe-date, not period-ate).ChemNerd (talk) 16:59, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Where is the stress? rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:38, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

If i'm understanding your description right, it might be {{IPA|/pɜri'joʊdət/}}. But without knowing where the stress is I'm not really sure. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:41, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

The stress is on the "eye". ChemNerd (talk) 17:43, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Then it's probably {{IPA|/pɜr'aɪjədɨt/}}. "purr-EYE-uh-dit". rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:51, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. ChemNerd (talk) 17:53, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Not so fast! My Random House Unabridged puts a schwa in the first syllable as well as the third, and agrees with the original poster (and me) that the ending sounds like "date" (which in IPA looks something like "de:t", I believe), not "dit". --Anonymous, 19:08 UTC, September 16, 2009.

dictionary.com has /pəˈraɪəˌdeɪt/. Because of the spelling, I suspect our in-house transcription would be /pəˈraɪɵˌdeɪt/. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:50, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I changed the first syllable to schwa in the article itself a long time ago, and have now changed the last syllable as well. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 20:55, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I advocate erring on the side of fewer schwas. If you're speaking a dialect that reduces most unstressed vowels, then you'll reduce the /ɜ/ whatever is written; if you're speaking a dialect that does not, then /ə/ is wrong. (This is why I like the first OED's pronunciations better than the second's.) —Tamfang (talk) 01:20, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

This is some wording in a poster, I have a question on which is correct or the better to use

which is correct: Starts at Fort Washington, ends at Dana Park. or Starts at Fort Washington - ends at Dana Park. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.31.29.7 (talk) 19:05, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

The first one (with the comma) is better. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 19:09, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

It's a poster. Posters don't have to be punctuated like sentences in running text. Either one is fine, except that the second version should use a proper dash (em dash "—" or en dash "–", depending on your typographical style) and not a hyphen. --Anonymous, 19:11 UTC, September 16, 2009.

Though he is right that the comma looks better. It makes it a nice parallel construction, whereas the dash is, in my view, a little confusing. Nothin' wrong with some good punctuation... --98.217.14.211 (talk) 21:24, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

They're sentence fragments, so their punctuation is a matter of taste and need. If they were complete clauses with a subject, then I'd suggest a semi-colon or colon. A colon would still work, but I'd recommend against a semi-colon. You could also experiment with the dividing slashes (or virgules): / , | and \ . Of course, no law prevents you from using the word "and" or an ampersand ["&"] if either of them would fit your style, idiom and purpose better. —— Shakescene (talk) 04:16, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Or even bullet points. Posters aren't so much about normal grammar as about visual impact. I have seldom if ever seen posters with semicolons. Although, in the old-old days, posters and signs and newspaper headlines often had periods at the end. This [1] is a painting, but it's based on a photo from opening day at Comiskey Park, 1910: "COMISKEY PARK" as its title, and underneath, its function: "HOME OF THE WHITE SOX." with a period at the end. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 05:06, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Here's a photo: [2] Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 05:08, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

The period at the end of SOX is to balance the word against the longer word HOME. I have heard similar argument on balance by using IIII instead of IV on clock faces with Roman numerals, Cuddlyable3 (talk) 14:17, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Here's a semi-famous poster from the 19th century, whose words were worked into a song by the Beatles: [3] Note all the punctuation. I'm not saying to do your poster that way, these are just ideas. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 05:24, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I like the em dash better, myself, for a poster; from a distance, the em dash is a much clearer separator of the two clauses. Tempshill (talk) 05:07, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

September 17

Hell -Underworld

Hell different Underworld? I can't distinguish them--Lê (talk) 00:12, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Have you seen the articles Hell and Underworld? Anyway, 'underworld' is really the more generic term. But since 'hell' is the more common expression, its often used interchangably. 'Underworld' is neutral, but 'hell' has strong negative connotations (and is a curse in many languages including English). The etymological orgin, the Germanic/Norse Hel, wasn't originally negative though. --Pykk (talk) 00:29, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

They are both ancient ideas connected with the afterlife. The "Underworld" in Greek legend, for example, was everyone's destination, except the just went to its better neighborhood. "Hell" is now considered to be a place of eternal "punishment", the extent of which depends on who or what you believe. Some believe literally in eternal fire, which has got to hurt. Others believe it's simply eternal separation from God and hence eternal woe. As far as "Hell" being a curseword, it's relatively mild as cursewords go. For example, in the "Star Trek" episode, "The City on the Edge of Forever", at the end Kirk says, "Let's get the hell out of here", which was moderately strong for TV, but that was mid-1960s. 45 years later, that one's pretty common, but you still can't say most of George Carlin's "seven little words" on regular TV, for example. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 04:24, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

It's still more of a curse than Hel. Even today, Scandinavian "slå ihjel" ("beat to Hel" - to kill) remains a common neutral term. (so it's not quite 'kill', which is more negative) Whereas our curse "hell" is "helvede", which is really a formation of "hel" + "vede" (punishment). IOW: "The punishment in Hel". So the negative association there doesn't come from "Hel" itself. So English 'hell' is more christian-ized. --Pykk (talk) 16:52, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

As with Scandinavian, it depends how it's used. Just as a comment, like "get the hell out" or "what the hell" is pretty mild. Telling someone to "go to hell", is rather worse. I recall in the early 90s or so, some kid (under age 10) in Virginia or North Carolina or someplace, who was a self-styled "preacher". His young career came to an abrupt end when he told a reporter on-camera to "go to hell", and it got widespread coverage (and probably a mouthful of soap). Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 17:16, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

That wasn't the point. In any language, the strength of curses depends on context. The point was, their 'hel' is not a curse in any context, except for when compounded with something else that's negative. The fact that 'asshole' is a curse doesn't make 'hole' a curse. --Pykk (talk) 17:00, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

In the Judaism of the Old Testament period, there was an underworld, but not really a hell -- it was believed that souls went down to Sheol to lead a shadowy afterlife, but there originally wasn't any real notion of divine judgement or punishment (that came in later, probably at least partially under Persian influence). AnonMoos (talk) 04:54, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I would think the Revelation, with all its fiery imagery, was written well before any Persian influence came along. Or was it? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 04:59, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Not even close (remember, it's part of the New Testament). It was probably written during the first century AD, many centuries after Persia began to exert significant influence. See Book of Revelation#Dating. -Elmer Clark (talk) 05:15, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

As I recall from Sunday School, Jesus referred to what we typically call Hell as "Gehenna", which was an analogy to a real place that was essentially a dumping ground with fires burning perpetually to purge the trash. A pretty powerful image, extrapolated into the imagery connected with Revelation. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 05:19, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Really not sure what you mean -- the Persian period in the history of Judea was ca. 530 B.C. to ca. 332 B.C., while the Book of Revelation was written late in the 1st century A.D. By the way, the Persian (Achaemenid) empire is the only one of the many empires ruling over Jewish-populated territories (including the Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Macedonian, Ptolemaic, Seleucid, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, British etc.) which the Jews have an unequivocally positive historical memory of... AnonMoos (talk) 05:25, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

irrelevant and inappropriate personal religious rant removed

That would be the view that the Bible is essentially a random collection. The traditional Christian view is that the Bible a continuum and that it all ties together. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 14:09, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Note: My comment above was in response to a comment by User:Cuddlyable3 that, while written sarcastically, made the point that Jesus did not write Revelation. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 13:08, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Origin of phrase

What is the origin of the phrase "The only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys?" Did Benjamin Franklin say that or was it someone else? Does anyone know who? Keraunos (talk) 07:14, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Let's give you a hint: if you're R.B., then the adage you've cited is B.F.'s.

Now try to guess who's B.F.

HOOTmag (talk) 09:04, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

How is that in any way helpful? Vimescarrot (talk) 10:41, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't know, but this claims it's a paraphrase. Searching for Benjamin Franklin "the only difference" mostly gives matches to a speech on churches. In the absence of evidence that it actually is a Franklin quotation, I'd suspect it's the Matthew effect - false attribution to a famous source of quotations. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 12:27, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't really sound at all like either something Franklin would say, or how he would say it. You'd have to wonder if the idea it's a paraphrase is an attempt to reconcile the attribution to Franklin with the fact that it doesn't really sound like him? --Pykk (talk) 17:48, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

It is a paraphrase of "Old boys have their playthings as well as young ones; the difference is only in the price." from Poor Richard's Almanac. meltBanana 21:10, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Right, and "Poor Richard's Almanac" was written by B.F.

See my first response at the top of this thread.

HOOTmag (talk) 21:22, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Why so cryptic? And who is RB? Adam Bishop (talk) 01:01, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

The more cryptic the more romantic. R.B. is the OP's true name. I'll be glad to reveal it, provided he/she permits. HOOTmag (talk) 08:25, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Roast Beef. :) Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 18:44, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

It's not a very good paraphrase, is it then? They're not really saying the same thing. --Pykk (talk) 16:55, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Stress in German Compound Words

My mother has a plant in her front garden called a Monarda. On the little plastic card with its name on it, it says 'Monarda' followed by a German name 'Schneewittchen' and the translation 'Snow White'. This got me thinking. In English, the phrase 'Snow White' is generally stressed on the second word, and when I pronounced the German out loud it only felt natural for me to stress the second syllable of 'Schneewittchen'. I'm now wondering what the correct place for the stress would be, as in German it is usually on the first syllable. How is it with compound words? --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 11:07, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

In a compound the main stress is usually put on the first word/element. (or perhaps I should say the second word is less stressed? - the overall stress pattern is the same.) If you stress both words as they'd be otherwise, it'd be interpreted as two separate words, which could have unintentional effects on meaning ("rothaarig" is "red-haired" but if you stress both words it becomes "rot, haarig" - "red, hairy" - not the description you wanted!) Sometimes the stress is moved to indicate contrast: Putting "employer" and "employee" together: "Arbeitgeber und Arbeitnehmer" moves the stress to the second word in both compounds. Sometimes it's just on the second word for no apparent reason: "Travemünde" --Pykk (talk) 17:42, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

In the original nursery tale, "Snow White and Rose Red", the stress in English speech is usually on White and Red (I think because you're contrasting White with Red, rather than Snow with Rose, especially to small children), but if one were to refer to a "snow-white gown", it's equally (if not more) likely that an English-speaker would stress "snow", emphasizing how white the gown is. And I think that personally (as a native English-speaker born in London but living in the U.S.) I probably put about equal stress on both Snow and White if I'm talking about Snow White alone, or about Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Native German speaker here, although not a linguist. I would say it depends which bit of the compound you want to emphasize. In the "Arbeitnehmer/Arbeitgeber" example stress on the second word is natural, since that distinguishes the two words, but "Arbeitgeber" could be pronounced with stress on the first syllable given the right context. I would put the stress on the second syllable of "Schneewittchen", just as in 'Snow White'.195.128.250.123 (talk) 22:21, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I thought so. It felt more natural to me that way, but I was wondering whether that was just my own language (English) influencing my German. And thanks to everyone else for your comments. Very interesting! --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 23:54, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, Schneewittchen is stressed on the second syllable, but what that shows is that it is not felt as a compound in German. A true compound, like Schneemännchen, would be stressed on the first syllable. Placenames usually take the non-compound stress even when they look like compounds, e.g. Salzgitter is stressed on the second syllable, but if it were a regular noun meaning "salt grid" it would be stressed on the first syllable. Interestingly, Norwegen (the German name of Norway) is stressed on the first syllable, as if it were still felt to be a compound. +Angr 07:51, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Right, that's what I was saying, the stress moves from the first word to the second when put together, for contrast. I'm not sure I'd say it's natural - they don't normally do that in Swedish and Norwegian. (So if you did, you'd seem to be over-emphasizing that word, as if correcting someone) --Pykk (talk) 16:46, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

When does a romanisation become a word?

I was recently involved in a dispute and someone tried to establish the wikt:shaku to be an English word instead of being an English romaji of Japanese. This led me wondering: what is the criteria for a romanisation to become a normal word? The people on Wiktionary seem to think it is an English word from the book citations but in this day and age of Google Books it's trivially easy to find any random word within published works. --antilived^{T | C | G} 20:28, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd say your safest bet would be to check whether a word is included in general-purpose English dictionaries by reputable publishers. Oxford English Dictionary is always a great starting point.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 21:00, September 17, 2009 (UTC)

My 1965 Merriam-Webster Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary lists "romanize", with its two meanings (making more like the Romans, and converting to the Roman alphabet used on this page), so it's safe to consider it a word, although not one used very frequently in places that have always used the Roman alphabet. Before China embarked on her National Romanisation Project, I think many people associated the word with Kemal Atatürk and the modernization of Turkey in the 1920's, which included romanizing (romanising) the written language. There's an occasional very specialised use for "romanise" in typographical contexts: i.e. changing the italic forms of letters to upright (or Roman) ones, or creating a Roman font to match an existing italic or Black Letter one. —— Shakescene (talk) 21:23, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I think he's asking when a specific borrowing becomes accepted as an English word, not about the word "romanization" in particular. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 21:35, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I see. That possible meaning was in the back of my head, but I didn't look closely enough at that little indefinite article, "a". Or I could have looked up the wikilink that antilived provided. :-) —— Shakescene (talk) 22:13, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

(actually, I added the "a" after your message :) ) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 03:24, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Yea my thoughts get a bit incoherent when I'm sleep-deprived. I really need to sleep earlier... --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:01, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

As User:Ezhiki suggested, the word shaku is in the Oxford English Dictionary (Volume XV, page 148). As for inclusion, lexicography, like linguistics, is primarily concerned with being descriptive rather than prescriptive. Putting personal like or dislike aside, it relies on actual citations in various texts to determine usage and meaning. For English shaku, the OED has citations from early 18th century on up to the modern. Bendono (talk) 09:32, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

OMG.. are you.. stalking me? :p That aside this is quite contrary to your strict policy of having article discussions (and more) on the talk page. --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:03, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

We are now straying from the purpose of the help desk, but since you asked I will respond. I have been contributing to the Help Desk for years, as can be verified from my contributions. Both Language and Computers are on my watch list, and I occasionally check Mathematics. Bendono (talk) 09:00, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

"Taking part in a nature trail"?

Please see [4]. Is "taking part in a nature trail" a Britishism, or did the author mean "taking part in a nature hike"? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 21:46, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

As a native speaker of American English, in all my years of conversation and schooling, I've never heard anything like that. "Trail" is a noun describing a specific, concrete object, so I don't see how you can take part in it. Normally only an activity like cooking, boating, creating, etc. can be used with "taking part."--71.111.194.50 (talk) 23:31, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm British. We tend not to say "hike" here. But, yes, a "nature trail" is a mere walk through some wooded territory, a forest that type of thing. Many preserved nature places have "trails" that are marked out for visitors to walk through so nobody gets lost. --bodnotbod (talk) 23:36, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

["Trail" is a noun describing a specific, concrete object,] - never heard of someone trailing behind someone else? I guess it comes from that, when you walk through woodland through a narrow path, if there's a number of you, you would have to walk in single-file... so one trails behind the other. As such you may see a signpost saying "NATURE TRAIL" at the head of a path. --bodnotbod (talk) 23:39, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I would say "going on a nature trail" (I'm British). "Hike" is usually used for more energetic walks than I would expect from a nature trail. When I was a scout we went on hikes, for example. They were long walks ("long" is relative to the ages of those taking part) often through difficult terrain. "Rambling" is similar to "hiking". --Tango (talk) 23:44, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

(ec)To clarify, in the UK a nature trail is "a walk through a (probably wooded area) with the express intention of admiring, studying, or experiencing nature - specifically natural (non-domesticated) plants and animals" , it can also mean " a path set out with the intention of doing the above".

In the UK I'm not aware of a "nature hike" being in use.

So it's probably a britishism.83.100.251.196 (talk) 23:47, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

To me, a trail is a path on the ground, not an activity. Taking part in a nature trail sounds like he's lying on the ground and people are walking on him. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 01:28, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

So is it really true that nature trail is an activity in British English? Does the following sentence sound right in British English?

"As part of their ecology course, the students engaged in a nature trail."

In American English, that would be very wrong. It would have to be "...engaged in a nature walk" or "..made observations along a nature trail". I would be interested and surprised to hear that you can engage in a nature trail in British English. Marco polo (talk) 15:39, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

"Went on" or "took part in" (as per the OP) would be more natural than "engaged in", but all three are acceptable BrE. Tevildo (talk) 16:26, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Does this help :

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=%22went+on+a+nature+trail%22&btnG=Search&meta=

also http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=%22took+part+in+a+nature+trail%22&btnG=Search&meta= this would be standard usage.83.100.251.196 (talk) 17:01, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

It's an activity AND a type of path/walk. (verb/noun)83.100.251.196 (talk) 17:03, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Maybe it is just a deliberate misuse of language for its attention-getting qualities? Bus stop (talk) 17:10, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

And maybe it's not. Maybe it's just a dialect difference. Malcolm XIV (talk) 17:53, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, 83.100. I did a couple more searches and satisfied myself that a trail is, indeed, an activity for speakers of British English. For Americans it is no more than a footpath. This is yet another of those trans-Atlantic differences. Marco polo (talk) 17:28, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes we also have "history trails" too (google for examples) It is probable that the use as a noun is confined mostly to tourism and educational activities, specifically in promotional material (though it has caught on and been accepted) and I think may be a comparatively recent use of the word. Curiously I always assumed the usage was influenced by or inherited from a transatlantic term...83.100.251.196 (talk) 18:55, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

In the US, a history trail would be a visit to several different historical sites in a row. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 04:25, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

For example, the Freedom Trail, a historical walking tour of Boston, Massachusetts. —— Shakescene (talk) 20:05, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

But it would still sound odd to say something like, "I'm going to take part in a history trail", or "I'm going to take part in the Freedom Trail." Rather something more like, "I'm going to do the Freedom Trail", etc. I always like discovering these odd differences between US and British English. This is a new one for me. Pfly (talk) 05:34, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

September 18

I lost my grandmother's dictionary

Before I ever learned pronunciation in school, I learned pronunciation from a Winston Dictionary from the 1940s.

There was no schwa. The letters A, E, O and U each had one or two sounds differentiated by symbols on top that were simply called schwa when I first learned pronunciation in school.

There were also two different versions of o in dog. One was used in the words cord and law. That much I remember. So why is that not the o in dog? Both sounds had a pointy hat on top but one o (in dog) was italicized, and in my textbooks, the one sound had a dot.

Since my father moved out of the house I live in ten years ago, I haven't been able to find the dictionary. He might have taken it with him. When the house he lived in was being cleaned out after his death nine years ago, I didn't see it.

Does anyone know where I might find pronunciations that specific? Wikipedia seems to used the more simplified sounds I learned in school.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:11, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Pronunciations all depend on what accent you use. In my accent (Received Pronunciation) the o's in "cord" and "dog" are very similar, but not quite the same. I think the o is "dog" is more rounded. Wikipedia uses IPA, which is very specific, although the very precise notation isn't always used - see Phonetic transcription#Narrow versus broad transcription. --Tango (talk) 20:41, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

The o in RP can be pronounced in many different ways: oh (long), cot (short clipped), off (o as in awe, similar to orf)... -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 18:18, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

a manor in Central Park

Hello, I am making a painting of a manor in Central Park and I would like to write on it the following text: " in the heart of Central Park a manor is for rent for XXX a day or weekly". Would you please tell me if this text is correct in english language? I must say I am french. The sense of the text that I would like to write is that in the park is a manor that would be rented for a certain price for a day or for a week. Thank you. Francis Martin

"In the heart of Central Park is a manor which can be rented for XXX a day" would be the most natural way of putting it. Tevildo (talk) 21:54, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

To add the "weekly" part, I'd say, "In the heart of Central Park is a manor which can be rented for $20.00 per day, or $100.00 weekly." The text would change a little if the intent is that the person writing that text is the owner or an advertiser of the place. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:10, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. Francis Martin

¶ I'd prefer to keep the parallelism (and if possible avoid repeating "for"), so I'd write something like "...for rent at XXX per day or YYY per week" or "at XXX a day or YYY a week". Or else I'd recast it slightly (if you don't know the weekly rent) to "...rented weekly or for XXX a day." Think about how you'd compose it in French, whose style is usually not that different from English style.

Some very minor points: Many people would either put a comma (virgule) after "Park" to read "In the heart of Central Park, a manor is for rent" or change the word order (and perhaps your preferred emphasis) to "A manor in the heart of Central Park is being rented out by the week or for XXX a day." These are all suggestions and hints; there are no purely grammatical errors in your original wording, just questions of style: how smoothly and easily an English-speaker could read it. —— Shakescene (talk) 20:31, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Not sher

Is Sherpa a title or a name (e.g. Apa Sherpa, Babu Chiri Sherpa)? Clarityfiend (talk) 22:58, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I think it can be either. For the people you identify, it seems to be their name. For others, it's a "title" of sorts, but it really just refers to their ethnicity, in the same sense as "the Gurkha <name>" or "the Spaniard Pablo Picasso". It's also synonymous for "guide" when referring to a guide who happens to be of Sherpa origin. When I was a kid, I was taught that the person who accompanied Hillary to Everest was "Sherpa Tensing", i.e. I thought his given name was Sherpa and his surname was Tensing. I now know that Tenzing was his given name, his surname was Norgay, and "Sherpa" was a patronistic title. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:16, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

The article says "Sherpa" comes from two words meaning "east people", and has come to stand for the mountain guides. It definitely suggests a title held in high esteem. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 00:14, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm interested only in the instances where it's attached to somebody's name. My suspicion is that it's a title bestowed on outstanding mountaineers (here Norgay is referred to as Tenzing Norgay Sherpa), but I can't find anything to back that up. Clarityfiend (talk) 10:33, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

It was originally a term for an ethnic group who were good at climbing mountains and subsisting at high elevations, and has evolved into a title of honor. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 11:26, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

September 19

Standards

Ok, here's the thing. We have come to expect high standards in all things:

• customer service - a restaurant that is untidy or unclean will fail; a waiter who provides bad service to a customer will be reported, disciplined, or even sacked; a sales assistant who does not know the products they're trying to sell will not achieve their sales targets, or sell the wrong things, resulting in customer complaints
• work performance - an employee who fails to meet standards will suffer a similar fate
• construction - buildings are expected to be properly constructed, safe, habitable, professionally finished etc; a brick wall that has thousands of red bricks but a few stray white ones - or a wall that has sloppy cementing - would be regarded as sub-standard
• entertainment – a singer who consistently sings off key or forgets their words is destined for the scrapheap; a comedian who fails to make people laugh very much will not get gigs
• sport – a player who consistently loses will not advance in their career
• and the list goes on ad infinitum.

But when it comes to written English, there’s a definite trend in the opposite direction. Of recent years, there's been a burgeoning of material about style, grammar, punctuation, spelling and so on – but it mainly seems to be preaching to the converted. All the while, people are coming up through the "education system" without being told about nouns, verbs, adjectives and the rest, and the results speak for themselves. This is analagous to an electrician who knows nothing about volts, amps, resistance, or the risks of electrocution. People are not being held to the sorts of standards that were once taken for granted with English; further, they seem to be encouraged to write any way they like, as long as their intended meaning gets through. It's generally considered ill-mannered to correct anything anymore. That seems to also apply to teachers. I cite as evidence the fact that, with a few notable exceptions, most questions we receive on the Ref Desk contain egregious spelling, grammar and punctuation errors. I acknowledge that our questioners do not all come from English-speaking backgrounds, but my observations still appy to the ones who do.

So, to my question: Why have standards in most areas of life risen noticeably, while those in the area of the language we all use have dropped so markedly? Can anything be done about this, and does anyone in a position to do something about it care enough to change it? -- JackofOz (talk) 00:05, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Jack, my answer would be that, with the possible exception of entertainment (including sports), standards have not in fact risen in the past 40 or 50 years. They've been on a plateau at best. If anything, customer service has deteriorated. The bottom line is the bottom line. The only thing that matters any more to the corporate chiefs who rule our world is profit. In other areas of life, I think we are succumbing to cultural decadence and creeping barbarism. Obviously this is my POV. Marco polo (talk) 01:02, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Alternatively, the standards of English usage are no worse than they ever were, among people who are not professional editors. But now that the Internet exists, a great deal more of the writing that you see is not professionally edited. (Even print publications in some cases are less well edited than they used to be, because Internet competition has cut into their profitability.) Wikipedia, of course, is a proud to be a major part of the problem. --Anonymous, 02:06 UTC, September 19, 2009.

I don't agree. Before the emergence of the Internet, ordinary people used to write each other letters. As I recall, 30–40 years ago nearly everyone made an effort to conform to standards for spelling, grammar, and punctuation, even if less educated people did not always succeed in conforming to those standards. I think Jack is talking about a growing indifference to or willful disregard for standards, at least in written English. This disregard, I think, is something relatively new. I don't think this is entirely due to the Internet, though chat rooms have contributed to it. I think that the root cause is a mix of anti-intellectualism and the rejection of certain kinds of discipline. Marco polo (talk) 03:10, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

It is possibly not accurate to say that standards among non-professionals are no worse than they've been previously. The reason for this (i.e. the reason why standards may in fact have been higher in the future) is that since the 1970s, the study of language has leaned against prescriptivism. That means, at least in the United States and probably most English speaking countries, those in authority -- scholars and teachers -- are less willing to impose the same strict standards as they were before, when children were chastised publicly for "poor" grammar. This is also true in literature and poetry -- students are taught to use their "authentic" voice, regardless of whether they are following the "standard." My perception, with a certain amount of experience/exposure to back it up, is that things are somewhat--but not completely--different in countries such as France or China. France is certainly proud of its strict tradition in matters linguistic and surely likes to maintain them. In China (much of the reason being that Mandarin is not most peoples' mother tongue hence it has to be learned exogenously at school), a high emphasis is placed on using language according to the standard. Ordinary Chinese (Han) who want to be teachers have to take proficiency certification in Mandarin (even when they've spoken it fluently since the age of 7 or so), and there is extremely rigorous supervision of television and radio journalists to ensure they have a "standard" accent, and non-standard accents (for broadcasters) are very much frowned on.

I think Marco Polo has hit on something central to the answer to your question -- in the past (e.g. early 20th century), in the United States at least -- people of all levels of education had a strong awareness of "the standard" and believed that they were obligated to follow it as much as possible, even relatively minor things like personal letters.--71.111.194.50 (talk) 03:14, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

JackofOz, what you call "standards" other people call prescriptivism. Just because people aren't using the grammar you and I learned in outdated schoolbooks doesn't mean that their language is "worse"; it's just different. Keep in mind that French (one of the most staunchly defended languages today) was originally nothing more than "bad Latin", and lovely proper BBC English likewise used to be just a vulgar tongue. Languages don't get better or worse, they just change with use.

And, on a side note, it's quite silly to think that we can "change" the language of millions of people through nothing but a quick round-table discussion in a dark corner of the Internet. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 03:31, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Marco Polo hit a chord: "growing indifference to or willful disregard for standards" - to which I would add ignorance of standards. It's one thing to spurn standards and speak with one's own authentic voice, and that may have a certain merit; but it's quite another not to know what the standards one is spurning are in the first place. That's where the education system comes in. There's a great tension between prescriptivism and descriptivism, and both certainly have their role to play. But we cannot do without the teaching of fundamentals, and if that comes under the heading of prescriptivism, so be it. A person who wants to build a new type of machine must first know how existing machines are built. I realise that people acquire their language skills and habits from many sources other than dry academic tomes. But those books are still the basis of style guides and the like. Yes, they need to be regularly updated as the language changes, certain forms of expression become outdated, and new ones come into vogue. I'm not at all arguing against language change, because that would really be silly. But we see, for example, words ending in -ant often spelled as -ent, and vice-versa. These are still considered errors; no dictionary worth its salt would acknowledge "precedant" as a word, or even as a legitimate alternative spelling of "precedent". So what! - you might say. If the meaning is clear, what difference does it make how a word is spelled? - you might ask. To which I would ask, why bother having dictionaries and grammar books at all? -- JackofOz (talk) 06:18, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

No evidence is presented above to back up the assertion that standards of writing English have fallen. If the evidence is that a given set of discrete solecisms have become more commonplace, yes of course one can come up with such a set. One always could. Languages change; the contributory changes routinely infuriate those who aren't at the forefront of those changes.

As for spelling, I can't manage to work up even a microtizzy over the misspelling "precedant". It's a very understandable misspelling and I'd be surprised if it weren't common, either now or fifty years ago.

Most people's writing skills are mediocre. Nothing new here, as you'll see if you examine what's written on the back of decades-old postcards in junk stores. What's new is that subjects of particular interest to you are written up on this website (and elsewhere) by anyone, whereas decades ago writing on those subjects would have reached you via a set of filters -- higher education, professional copyeditors and proofreaders, and so forth.

[W]hy bother having dictionaries and grammar books at all? I do have an E-E dictionary, because it came as a package with the bilingual dictionaries that were my reason for buying an electronic gadget. I very rarely use the E-E dictionary, and certainly never for spelling. The grammar book is different: I have CGEL because I'm intrigued by certain apparent oddities in English and am curious about the patterns underlying them. But perhaps you're asking why schoolkids should have dictionaries and grammar books. On the former, I've no opinion. I've no reason to think that grammar books would be of any interest or use to them, unless those grammar books were conceived very differently from the soporific prescriptivist guides for the linguistically (and socially?) insecure. And may the gods protect both children and adults from such charlatans as "Strunk and White". -- Hoary (talk) 10:07, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

The average citizen is not all that good with spelling and usage, nor does the average citizen think spelling and usage are particularly important. The internet is used by the average citizen. Need I say more? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 10:13, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, I could say a lot more, because you've hit exactly the point I'm wanting clarity about. When a guy buys a car, he wants it free from mechanical faults, with the duco gleaming brilliantly and without any imperfections. When we order a meal at a restaurant, we want it properly cooked, beautifully presented, and tasting great. When we pay good money to go the movies, we're upset when it turns out to involve less than good acting, or has a crap story, or whatever. We care about these things, and so many other things. They matter to us. We expect high standards. So why do so many people not care about the language they use all day, every day? My experience, for what it's worth, is that they used to care more than they do these days, mainly because they were taught the basics, and were taught they were important things to know; just as important as how many horsepower a certain car has, or how many goals some football team kicked in 1997, or where the fish are biting tomorrow. They may have never particularly cared, but they could not avoid knowing, because it was more or less drummed into them. Nowadays, it's not. The message from above is: it doesn't matter all that much, so just more or less make it up as you go along. Who decided it no longer matters, and how did they arrive at that conclusion? And why do many linguists, who do care about language, defend this system where many people who've gone through 12 years of school still need to do remedial English classes before being allowed to enter university? (Because that's the reality of what happens these days, and it's a relatively recent thing.) -- JackofOz (talk) 11:15, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

They don't care because they don't think it's important. A car free of mechanical faults is important. Writing "are" instead of "our", for example, they not only don't think is important, they'll criticize someone who criticizes it. Maybe it's just a passive-aggressive type of rebellion. I don't know. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 11:24, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd welcome some input from someone who does know. -- JackofOz (talk) 11:45, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm speaking from anecdotal experience here. Someone posted a sign, "Help keep are office clean." I commented on it out loud. I was told I was being "picky". I printed the word "our" on paper in the same font, trimmed it, and pasted it over the "are". By the next day, the sign had been taken down anonymously, never to be seen again. But that's the kind of thing we're up against. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 13:24, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

[5] rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 13:37, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Messing with public property that's alleged to be of historical value is different from messing with an internal office printout on plain paper and having no value at all. Although the fact that the government would see fit to immortalize a word like "emense" just goes to show that bad spelling is nothing new after all. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 14:06, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Jack, are you sure you're not just being an old fuddy-duddy? In 50 years I'm sure I'll be complaining that the youth of 2060 have such terrible habits compared to the golden age of the early 2000s... Adam Bishop (talk) 13:14, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Reminds me of something Larry Miller (actor) said in his HBO special a couple of decades ago: "My father held three jobs and went to school at night. If I go to the bank and the cleaners in the same day, I need a nap. If that laziness trend continues, I'll be telling my kids, 'In my day, we didn't have jet-packs; we had to drive to school!'" Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 13:20, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

But where would innovations and the convenience of new technology come from if each generation was stupider than the last? Adam Bishop (talk) 13:40, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

From the desire to be lazy, apparently. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 14:03, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

For those of you who can read French, Mort aux Jeunes is a good blurb about "old fuddy-duddiness". rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 13:37, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

So why do so many people not care about the language they use all day, every day? My experience, for what it's worth, is that they used to care more than they do these days, mainly because they were taught the basics, and were taught they were important things to know [...]. They may have never particularly cared, but they could not avoid knowing, because it was more or less drummed into them.

People generally don't care much about the walking or sitting they do every day. First-language use usually isn't so very conscious, unless of course you're trying to do something like deflate a misunderstanding.

People could not avoid knowing what? If you mean morphosyntax, yes, you're right: that's the nature of normal first language acquisition. If you mean spelling, you're wrong; as you'll see on old postcards and the like. (Have you still not taken a look?) If you mean metalinguistic knowledge such which parts of speech are which; I doubt that too, given the disparity in other subjects (mathematics, second languages, etc) between (a) the amount of stuff that used to be "drummed in" back in the good old days and (b) the amount that was actually acquired, let alone retained.

When we order a meal at a restaurant, we want it properly cooked, beautifully presented, and tasting great. Speak for yourself. Me, I don't give much of a damn about the presentation; what pisses me off is muzak. As for the masses, they want Mcfood.

When we pay good money to go the movies, we're upset when it turns out to involve less than good acting, or has a crap story, or whatever. Again, speak for yourself. Little though I relish speaking ill of the recently deceased, Patrick Swayze got through the maudlin story Ghost with a fixed facial expression suggesting that he was trying hard to suppress an intense urge to fart. Audiences lapped it up. True, it didn't win an Oscar for "Best Picture"; that's an honor that goes to such horrors as the emetic Forrest Gump. Incidentally, if I may quote Wikipedia (not a RS, of course), this flick had gross receipts of $329,694,499 in the U.S. and Canada and $347,693,217 in international markets for a total of $677,387,716 worldwide. I'm far more troubled by the innumeracy of Wikipedia editors who'd solemnly perpetrate such pseudoprecision than I am by easily fixed (because fully comprehensible) gaffes of spelling and so forth. -- Hoary (talk) 15:42, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Art is subjective. I liked Forrest Gump. I didn't love it, but I liked it. I went to see another Oscar winner called No Country for Old Men and thought it was one of the lamest movies I'd seen in years, largely due to what Siskel & Ebert used to call the "idiot plot". Nearly everyone in the film who got shot pretty much deserved it, for being idiots. The acting was OK, but that's about it. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 15:52, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Sadly Jack, I feel that Hoary has summed up my feelings on the matter: the Internet is to a carefully edited work as McDonald's is to a three-star Michelin restaurant. -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 18:12, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't focussing on the internet, although I did draw on Ref Desk questions to illustrate my point. The issues that concern me occur in far more places than the web.

So, "old fuddy-duddy", eh, Adam and Rjanag? That's a first for me, I must say. I'm not sure whether to laugh or get very offended. :) But seriously, does this mean that the next time anyone suggests to an OP that they've misspelled a word, or used non-optimal grammar - and it happens regularly on these pages, as we all know - they should be tarred with such an epithet? I certainly hope not.

It's easy to spot errors, and if I were paid for it, I'd be a millionaire many times over by now. But that's never been my focus here. My interest has been in the bigger picture: the general diminution of standards in English teaching, which has lead directly to a general diminution of standards in English usage, particularly in the written word. It's easy to find examples of these things from any era, Hoary, but isolated examples are missing my point. If others cannot see what I see happening out there, and are not the teeniest bit concerned about it, maybe I'm talking to the wrong audience. I never wanted this to veer into soapbox territory, so I'll leave it now and move on. Thanks for all your inputs. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:38, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I see language change happening out there, and I rejoice. Language change is as natural as living and dying. Keep in mind that human language has a history of several thousand years, whereas standardized language has only been around a couple hundred—the assumption that there is one "right" form of language, and that it must not change, is a relatively new assumption and it's far from being the natural way of things. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 20:48, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I've never assumed that. I did say above that I don't argue with language change. What I do take issue with is the apparent position that educators seem to have adopted, one of "Well, since the language is going to change whether we like it or not, and change more rapidly than it did in the past, there's no point in teaching our kids even the way it is at the moment, because by the time they graduate, much of it will be redundant". No matter how much or how quickly language will change, there will always be nouns and verbs and other basic building blocks of language. Yet these terms are as foreign to some graduates as words from a Martian dictionary. That scares the hell out of me. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:02, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Evolution of language is one thing. Butchery is another. In this day and age, clear communication is more important than ever, and if the kids don't know how to communicate clearly, they're going to find themselves at an ever-increasing competitive disadvantage in the world. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 05:42, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps this example pre-dates "standards", but even in the early 1800s most writers wrote better than this:

after the Council was over we Shot the air guns which astonished them much, the then Departed and we rested Secure all night, Those Indians wer much astonished at my Servent, they never Saw a black man before, all flocked around him & examind him from top to toe, he Carried on the joke and made himself more turribal than we wished him to doe. Those Indians are not fond of Spirts Licquer. Of any kind.

—William Clark, October 10, 1804. Note that the problems are not just spelling, which would be understandable given the era, even though many other contemporary writers, such as Meriwether Lewis, write basically like we do (where "we" means "us good modern writturs"). Here's another example. Butchery?

The Souex is a Stout bold looking people, & well made, the greater part of make use of Bows & arrows, Some fiew fusees I observe among them, notwith standing they live by the Bow and arrow, they do not Shoot So Well as the Northern Indians the Warriers are Verry much deckerated with Paint Porcupine quils & feathers, large leagins and mockersons, all with buffalow roabs of Different Colours. the Squars wore Peticoats & a White Buffalow roabe with the black hare turned back over their necks and Shoulders.

And I can't help adding one more:

One evidence which the Inds give for believing this place to be the residence of some unusial Sperits is that they frequently discover a large assemblage of Birds about this Mound is in my opinion a Sufficent proof to produce in the Savage Mind a Confident belief of all the properties which they ascribe it.

I'm not disagreeing with the idea that there's a trend toward butchery of words lately. Just that it's not hard to find turribal writing from the past (though Clark's poor writing is one of the more enjoyable things about the journals of Lewis and Clark). Pfly (talk) 05:53, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Yep, I acknowledged that earlier. So, why isn't there an "immensely popular explanatory dictionary" of the English language? -- JackofOz (talk) 07:08, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

There are such things. Books like The Elements of Style and Eats, Shoots, and Leaves are widely read, even though they're hated by many linguists. I don't see what you're complaining about. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 07:17, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Wrestling Fora

What is caw?

What is t2?174.3.110.93 (talk) 01:17, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I think CAW means "Create A Wrestler" and refers to computer games where you can create a custom character.83.100.251.196 (talk) 01:35, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Possibly "I thought t2" means "I thought that too" but I'm not sure.83.100.251.196 (talk) 01:37, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Assassination

Comparing the two versions here, which is more appropriate to say? I wouldn't think it makes sense to say that somebody died after being assassinated - they died because they were assassinated. I don't really know! Grsz¹¹ 03:48, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, the second version is better. Once you're assassinated, you're already dead. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 03:58, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

If we said somebody was assasinated and then died, we would say Reagan was assassinated but didn't die, and that doesn't happen. Grsz¹¹ 04:02, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Letters of marque

Would I be issued "a letter of marque" or "(a) letters of marque"? I thought it was the latter—that "letters of marque" referred to one or many—on analogy with letters patent (which I may also be wrong about). Our article seems to indicate I am incorrect. ÷seresin 04:10, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Must resist temptation... I've always heard/read 'letter of marque' when talking about one document. For what it's worth, the entry in my Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea has it as singular, and one of Patrick O'Brian's books was entitled The Letter of Marque, which I suppose would have been changed if it had been wrong. AlexiusHoratius 04:40, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

The expression in Article One of the United States Constitution is "letters of marque and reprisal", which suggests plural usage in that context - that is, Congress wouldn't be restricted to issue just one such letter. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 09:00, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

It can certainly be used as plural, neither one is really wrong - just depends on the situation. You could say 'Captain so-and-so was granted a letter of marque' or 'during the war, the king granted letters of marque' or even 'Captain so-and-so held letters of marque' even if only speaking about one person. What I think would be wrong would be 'a letters of marque' and the idea that it can't be used in the singular. AlexiusHoratius 16:23, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Ç

Are there any languages which have both the letter “ç” and the sound [ç]? --88.76.254.9 (talk) 06:20, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, French has the letter "ç" and colloquial French often puts a [ç] sound at the ends of words ending in /i/ (e.g. oui as [wiç]. Or did you mean, are there any languages where the letter "ç" stands for the sound [ç]? I don't know of any languages where it does. +Angr 08:58, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

It occurs to me Manx has both the letter "ç" and the sound [ç] as a full-fledged phoneme (unlike French), but <ç> is not the letter that corresponds to /ç/. <ç> is used only in the digraph <çh>, which stands for /tʃ/, while /ç/ is spelled <ch> or <gh>. +Angr 10:00, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Unusual palatalized consonants

Are there any languages which have the sound [hʲ]? --88.76.254.9 (talk) 09:32, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

There are dialects of Irish that have been analyzed as having it, but it isn't clear to me that it's really phonetically distinct from [h] in some environments and from [ç] in others (and both /h/ and /ç/ are definitely phonemes of Irish). Put another way, Irish might have /hʲ/ as a phoneme distinct from /h/ and /ç/, but if so, its surface realizations seem to always overlap with those of /h/ and /ç/. +Angr 09:57, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I wonder if this and the one above are related to the "why can't x be a y word?" questions? --TammyMoet (talk) 16:02, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd AGF in the absence of evidence. +Angr 19:59, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

FWIW: IPs (as all previous questions mentioned by Tammy) are all Nordrhein Westfalen / Germany based. The last two questions seem valid. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 20:02, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Also consider what [hʲ] means phonetically and how it's distinct from [ç] or [j̊] (a voiceless [j]).

Often, [h] is articulatorily placeless (rather than pronounced with restriction at the glottis). If we consider [ʲ] to mean a secondary articulation (i.e. one weaker than another "primary" articulation) at the hard palate then [hʲ] is nonsensical and [j̊] would be more accurate.

However, there are languages where [h] is regularly pronounced with real glottal frication. If there is simultaneous weaker articulation at the hard palate, then [hʲ] would be accurate over [j̊] or [ç]. Because the distinction is subtle, possibly too subtle for the human ear to perceive, it's possible that some language or language or dialect has [hʲ] and [j̊] in free variation but, as Angr implied above, phonological concerns can easily take over so that the sound is considered a palatalized /h/ or a voiceless /j/ because of its relationship to other sounds and not because of its phonetic reality. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 01:39, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Are there any languages which have the sound [wʲ]? --88.77.234.55 (talk) 07:06, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I've been told Polish has it in loanwords. The difference between [wʲ] and [ɥ] is the same as the difference between [kʲ] and [c]. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 08:27, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

September 20

Translations

French
Ayant irrité [[Lothaire Ier|Lothaire ITemplate:Er]] en faisant rendre la liberté à Judith de Bavière, femme de Louis le Débonnaire, il fut obligé de se retirer en France auprès de ce prince. Il est le père d'[[Adalbert Ier de Toscane|Adalbert Template:Ier]].

Having annoyed LI by setting free JdeB, wife of LleD, he was forced to withdraw to France near to this prince. He is the father of A I de T. Tinfoilcat (talk) 10:29, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Italian
Non è noto l'anno di nascita, qualcuno lo pone nel 788, altri nell'800. Lo stesso anno di morte non è certo, potrebbe essere l'846.

Era figlio di Bonifacio I di Toscana di cui divenne erede, e discendente di una famiglia di origine bavarese . Divenne signore di Lucca, e poi prefetto di Corsica dall'828 quando occupò l'isola in seguito ad una spedizione contro i pirati che infestavano il Tirreno. Fu anche margravio di Toscana dall'828 fino alla morte.

(ec) The date of his birth is not known, some put it in 788 ant others in 800. The date of death is also uncertain, it could be 846. He was the son of BIdiT, whose heir he became, and he was the descendent of a Baverian family. He became Marca di Tuscia, then prefect of Corsica from 828 when he occupied the island following an expedition against the pirates infesting the Tirenno. He was also Margravio of Tuscany from 828 until his death. Tinfoilcat (talk) 10:29, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

151's translation below will be better than anything I can do as the ip is in Italy.Tinfoilcat (talk) 10:31, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Probabilmente era sposato con Bertha da cui, sembra che ebbe Adalberto I di Toscana, che fu anch'egli margravio.

Secondo la tradizione, nell'833 rifondò la cittadina romana di Calcosalto in Corsica per difendersi dagli attacchi dei saraceni; e la cittá prese il nome di Bonifacio in suo onore. Essa venne abitata da coloni toscani provenienti soprattutto dalla provincia di Lucca, che poi verranno espulsi dai genovesi nel 1490.

Nelle lotte tra Ludovico il Pio e Lotario, il marchese Bonifacio si schierò con il primo, concedendo la libertà all'imprigionata moglie di Ludovico, Giuditta di Baviera reclusa a Tortona; ma essendo Ludovico il Pio sconfitto e nominato Lotario re d'Italia, questi lo privò del feudo. Trascorse gli ultimi anni della sua vita in esilio in Francia.

The Italian translation: (sorry for the bad English):

The year of birth is unknown, for someone is 788, for others is 800. Even the year of death is uncertain, maybe 846.
He was the son of Boniface I of Tuscany, of which he became the heir, and he was the descendant of a family native of Bavaria. He became the lord of Lucca and then the prefect of Corsica from 828, when he occupied the island following an expedition against pirates, who where infesting the Tyrrhenian sea. He was also a margrave of Tuscany from 828 until his death.
He was probably married to Bertha, and it seems he had a son from her: Adalbert I of Tuscany, who was a margrave too.
According to the tradition, in 833 he re-founded the roman city of Calcosalto in Corsica to defend himself from the attacks of the Saracens. The city took the name of Boniface (Bonifacio) to honour him. It was populated by tuscan settlers coming from the Lucca province, but they where later expelled by people from Genoa in 1490.
In the fights between Louis the Pious and Lothair, marquis Boniface took the parts of the first, freeing Louis’ captive wife, Judith of Bavaria, imprisoned at Tortona. But, being Luois defeated and being Lothair crowned King of Italy, the latter deprived him of his feud (fief). He lived his last years in exile in France.--151.51.24.225 (talk) 10:24, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Rhetorical device involving repetition for contrast

In this rhetorical device, one contrasts a compounded or modified form of some word with the uncompounded version, and the latter is repeated twice as though modifying itself, to indicate that it's a more authentic version of whatever's being discussed. This is best shown by example(I made these up): "The aquarium had both jellyfish and fish fish(meaning: actual fish)"; "I wasn't homeschooled-- I went to school school(meaning: an "actual" public school)"; "He doesn't consider himself German American, but American American(meaning: purely/completely American)". Is there a term for this? 69.224.112.30 (talk) 15:19, 20 September 2009 (UTC)