Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language

Welcome to the language section
of the Wikipedia reference desk.

skip to bottom

Select a section:

• Computing
• Entertainment
• Humanities
• Language
• Mathematics
• Science
• Miscellaneous
• Archives

Want a faster answer?

Main page: Help searching Wikipedia

   

How can I get my question answered?

• Select the section of the desk that best fits the general topic of your question (see the navigation column to the right).
• Post your question to only one section, providing a short header that gives the topic of your question.
• Type '~~~~' (that is, four tilde characters) at the end – this signs and dates your contribution so we know who wrote what and when.
• Don't post personal contact information – it will be removed. Any answers will be provided here.
• Please be as specific as possible, and include all relevant context – the usefulness of answers may depend on the context.
• Note:
  • We don't answer (and may remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or legal advice.
  • We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate.
  • We don't do your homework for you, though we'll help you past the stuck point.
  • We don't conduct original research or provide a free source of ideas, but we'll help you find information you need.

Ready? Ask a new question!

How do I answer a question?

Main page: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines

• The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.

See also:

• Teahouse
• Help desk
• Village pump
• Help manual

February 3

Aboriginal language

Hello, my name is Ann and I would like to know if you are able to tell me what these names mean, who speaks this language eg:what tribe and where do they come from. Here are the names:bunda, dumbye, wangai, marung, buru, milbi, dilal, gunggarnbil, gehgre and mabin. Are all these numbers or animals. Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Ann —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.177.157.239 (talk) 11:07, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Where did you hear them? rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 18:24, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

The meaning of "bunda" is given in the Bundaberg article and we have an entry on wangai. Others may be available after some diligent search. As there are numerous Aboriginal languages only an expert in these may be able to give a full answer. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:54, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Considering that the two names discussed by Cookatoo come from opposite ends of Australia and from two very different languages and peoples, clearly the list does not come from a single language or tribe. Marco polo (talk) 21:27, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

'Artists'

In the UK an artist is someone involved in painting or sculpture only. In the US it apparantly has a looser less precise meaning and includes musicians, writers, etc etc, people that British people would not think of as artists. When and why did the two meanings diverge? Is it something to do with "artistes" - sometimes used to describe down-market entertainers. 78.146.251.66 (talk) 11:56, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

You state "In the UK an artist is someone involved in painting or sculpture only." This is simply not true. The OED defines an artist as "one who practises or is skilled in any art." Although a British musician or composer is more likely to describe themself as a musician or a composer in some contexts, they would certainly use the word artist in the context of their creativity.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 12:41, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I think that would be rare. Only in a theorectical sense perhaps, since music is part of the "arts", hence by extension. 78.146.77.179 (talk) 17:31, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I've noticed a similar thing with the US use of 'Athlete' to refer to any sporting person and not just those who compete in athletic events. e.g. Tiger Woods is apparently an 'athlete' according to the news reports surrounding his recent hoo-ha. Maybe it's just one of those cultural differences people keep talking about. Nanonic (talk) 15:11, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

That's like Americans refering to for example being a cook as a "profession", or a hamburger stand operator as an "entrepreneur". 78.146.77.179 (talk) 17:31, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I think (IMO) it has something to do with the peculiar form of semi-egalitarianism practiced in the US. Painters, sculptors, musicians, dancers, and etc. are all 'artists' because they all fit in a particular class - those who provide culture - and Americans are uncomfortable with intra-class distinctions. same with athletes, same with employees, same with races (though the latter is tempered by discomfort about racism). In the American mindset, members of a particular class of people should all be essentially equal, if not actually interchangeable. --Ludwigs2 15:28, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Now that I think really is true - in the UK, "athletes" are people who participate in "athletics", which in the US is called "track and field". In the US, "athletes" are all people who participate in any kind of sport, so football players, baseball players, basketball players, hockey players (i.e. ice hockey players!), tennis players, etc., etc., etc., are all athletes. But the bit about "artist" being more general in the US than in the UK is nonsense, I'm pretty sure. The whole thing reminds me of a friend of mine, a professional singer, who gets very upset when people distinguish "musicians" from "singers" (i.e. when they use "musician" to mean "instrumentalist"). +Angr 15:33, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think anyone in the UK would raise their eyebrows when reading about a 'recording artist' or 'performance artist', or even when in conversation when somebody says that they are such. But if a person said to me 'I am an artist' in response to the question 'What do you do?', I would immediately assume they meant visual arts, painting or sculpting. If they then went on to elaborate that they were a musician or a dancer, I would then reach the conclusion that they were a bit of a tit. FreeMorpheme (talk) 17:41, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

"Recording artist" may in origin be an Americanism, or could have originally been "recording artiste". As far as I understand, a performance artist is a visual artist whose work includes themselves (or sometimes others). 78.146.77.179 (talk) 17:43, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually here in the US, I would reach the same conclusion, but if they instead said first they were a musician or dancer and then said they were part of an "artists' cooperative" or they gave a talk about "artists' rights" or something, that would seem perfectly appropriate to me, and I wouldn't think twice about it. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:48, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

What that boils down to, is that it's ok for a non-visual artist to refer to themselves as an "artist", as long as they first clarify that their art is non-visual. From then on, it's a sort of abbreviation. That seems to place visual artists in a sort of special category, with a more superior claim to the word "artist". But that's probably the way it is. What amuses me is the (spoken) reference to "ardists". I've always wondered what "ard" is. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:12, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps prototype theory may be of help in describing this. When one hears the word bird, they do not usually think of an ostrich even though an ostrich is technically a bird. Similarly, musicians and writers are part of the larger group artists, though they are apparantly less central than the group consisting of sculptors and painters. While it's possible for people to function normally in western society while excluding writers and musicians from the group artists, I'm not aware of any British-American divide on the matter. I suspect that one's exposure to the arts may have more to do with how they categorize. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 12:13, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

From my perspective in the UK, it would only otherwise describe a band or solo artist, where one wanted a catch-all term. In that case, I'd spell it artiste. Performing artist is another acceptable phrase, but one for the corporate title-building people and not me. - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 19:06, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

When notorious Brit Roger Waters sang, "The bleeding hearts and the artists make their stand", did you Brits really think he was just talking about painters and sculptors? Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:04, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I've never heard of him, but the article says he was part of Pink Floyd. Since many musicians and other cultural-product-producers get most of their income from the United States, they are quite prepared to tailor their product to the American audience's understandings. I have also seen this in things like films for example. (Pretending to be Cockney, Mockney, or exaggeratedly British for the benefit of Americans was a rather feeble joke in Britain. You did know that Austin Powers was a parody of Britishness, didnt you?) Many British musicians are much better known in the US than they are in the UK. Sorry to break the illusion, but its a contrived in-character knowing performance for their audience. See Divergent Speech in Communication Accommodation Theory. Edit: I've just looked up the lyrics, and my interpretion would be that it could be shorthand for con-artists or piss-artists, or referring to artists (ie painters or sculptors) as slackers. Its deliberately ambiguous, it could mean anything. Many Lyrics sung by singers are nonsensical - didnt Elvis say something about a rabbit in one of his songs? 78.146.77.179 (talk) 17:49, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

@Jack of Oz: Is that because they are "'ard" at work? (You knew someting like that was coming, did you not?) Bielle (talk) 19:18, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

No, not really, but tks anyway, Bielle. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 18:32, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Technically, "art" is anything that's made with skill or craft. Those who making something are kind of separated into "artisans", who provide things that are "practically" useful; and "artists", who provide things that are "culturally" useful. Recording artests create recordings. Artisans create the devices that record and play back. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:14, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Engineers make things with skill or craft. Ergo, engineers are artists. Those guys down at the garage, they're "artists", that's their "profession". LOL. 78.146.77.179 (talk) 17:43, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

actually, they would be 'artisans' - skilled practitioners of an art - as opposed to 'artists'. there's an element of creativity in artistry that's absent from artisanship. --Ludwigs2 02:02, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I've always thought it was the element of usefulness that was present in artisanship and absent from art. Artisans can be very creative too. — Kpalion^(talk) 10:46, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

what is correct pronunciation of St. Donat's?

I put a query on the discussion page, but not surprisingly have not yet received a response. Does anyone know the correct pronunciation of St Donat's Castle in Wales?--Eriastrum (talk) 21:09, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Mmmmmm, St Donat's. Homer Simpson (talk) 21:17, 3 February 2010 (UTC) [Sorry, I couldn't resist. Deor (talk) 21:17, 3 February 2010 (UTC)]

Jokes on the ref desk are frowned upon, ironically enough, and if this kind of thing continues, I'll be forced to try and top you. :) For example, what sign did he have on his door, Deor? :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:13, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

According to John C. Wells's Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, "Donat" is pronounced /ˈdoʊnæt/, i.e. "DOE-nat". So just like "doughnut" except that the second syllable is homophonous with "gnat" rather than with "nut". +Angr 21:24, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Or rhyme with Robert Donat? Richard Avery (talk) 11:08, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

The best way to use Tengwar in English

Perhaps someone here can explain something to me.

I've been working in odd moments on a transliteration of Mozilla Firefox into the Shavian alphabet. Not surprisingly, there wasn't a huge amount of interest, but several people suddenly became interested when I mentioned that it ought to be possible without much trouble to transliterate Firefox mechanistically into tengwar as well.

Here's my question: I don't know much about tengwar other than what I know from the books themselves, and I don't know what the Tengwar-using community as a whole expects or what would be most useful to it. But I've received a lot of conflicting advice about the correct way to use tengwar to represent English. Can anyone suggest a direction for either of the following points?

1. sites like this one say that tehtar go on the tengwa of the following consonant where possible, and that "long vowels" go on long vowel carriers, whereas this page says that Tolkien used "full modes" for writing English, i.e. the tehtar appear on carriers of their own, and that the long vowel carrier is never used (so diphthongs should be written as pairs of short vowels).
2. there's also the issue of orthographic representation (the only one recommended by omniglot) versus phonemic (which a conversion from the existing Shavian transliteration would necessarily be).

Thanks. Marnanel (talk) 22:31, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Tolkien said that in general, the languages where most words end with vowel sounds are written such that a diacritic on a consonant letter is interpreted as representing a following vowel, while the languages where most words end in consonant sounds are written such that a diacritic on a consonant letter is interpreted as representing a preceding vowel. Tolkien's practices for writing English with Tengwar follow the latter or "Sindarin" convention, since consonant-final words predominate in English. For the details, you may find it helpful to download font zip file TengwarQuenya_v19E.zip and look at the PDF file TengwarQuenya_Help.pdf contained inside, which contains a nice capsule summary of some of Tolkien's different practices in writing English... AnonMoos (talk) 02:07, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

February 4

Comma placement

In the following sentence fragment:

including eight resupply missions to the International Space Station (ISS), and seven to the Russian space station Mir.

Should the comma be before the "(ISS)", where it is, or what? This is the second time in as many days that I've run across this rather quixotic issue, for crying out loud!
— V = I * R (Talk • Contribs) 01:23, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Looks fine where it it -- why should it be before the "(ISS)"? Formally, there might be a comma also placed between "station" and "Mir," because "Mir" describes "the Russian space station." DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 01:30, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Agreed: Keep the comma where it is. As for a comma after station, it depends on whether there is only one Russian space station or more than one. If it's just one, then Mir is providing additional, unnecessary information and should be preceded by a comma. If there's more than one, then Mir is providing disambiguating, necessary information and should not be preceded by a comma.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 01:43, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Yea, there's been several Russian space stations. That must be part of the reason why the comma "felt wrong" to me, since I've heard that sort of thing before. I appreciate your mentioning it, thanks!
— V = I * R (Talk • Contribs) 01:48, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

That's what I thought but I've been questioning it for some reason. I've probably just been staring at it too long; thinking about it too much, you know? I know what you mean about the comma between space station and Mir as well. I actually removed that comma though because the sentence already uses two other commas... the extra one there just "feels wrong" to me, for whatever reason.
— V = I * R (Talk • Contribs) 01:46, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

While there is no comma after "International Space Station," a reader of that sentence would pause before reading that which is found within the parentheses. A comma also injects a pause into a sentence, wherever it is placed, but I think a reader of a sentence containing parenthetical content also pauses before reading that which is contained within parentheses. Bus stop (talk) 01:53, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

That's a good point, and it's probably what started me questioning this in the first place (subconsciously). The only reason that the parenthetical with the abbreviation is there is because that's the first use, so that's really where it belongs. My immediate thought is that I should rework the sentence somehow, but... that'll be pretty tough in this particular instance. I don't know, barring a good suggestion I think that I'll simply leave it as is (the article is Astrotech Corporation by the way, so if anyone feels like jumping in please do so!).
— V = I * R (Talk • Contribs) 02:03, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Having read the whole sentence, I think there are good reasons for leaving the comma after (ISS), and good reasons to remove it. So your instinctual hesitation is perfectly natural and justified. The reason to omit it would be that the single remaining comma would more clearly govern the whole phrase beginning "including..." which itself would be more unified without a second confusing comma. The reason to keep the comma is that at least one phrase is unrepeated but understood ("resupply missions" and, perhaps, "including"). One common way of indicating this is with a comma or commas as in She voted Communist, and he, Democratic or He gave seven specially-wrapped Cadbury's chocolate caramel wafers to his daughter, and six to his son. In fact, the first sentence I wrote above is another example (the omitted repetitions being "I think there are"). —— Shakescene (talk) 09:03, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

*nods* Good explaination Shakescene, thank you. (ps.: thanks for using {{xt}} as well. I've been wondering about how that's done for a while now, aside form adding span/style tags inline, which would be a pain, and so the template will come in handy.)
— V = I * R (Talk • Contribs) 16:47, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Network S.P.A

What does s.p.a mean?174.3.98.236 (talk) 04:15, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

"Single-purpose account", more commonly abbreviated "SPA". A wikipedia account whose sole reason for being is to focus on one particular article or subject, which might be for spam or might be for vandalism. They are rightly looked upon with suspicion, as in many cases they are up to no good. But some SPA's are legitimate and are simply only interested in editing in their area of expertise. There's no rule against an SPA as such. As with any user, it depends on what they do. The "network" part I take to mean the network that carries the TV show in question, i.e. it's either someone working for the network or it's a fan or a relative - assuming that the comments in the discussion about it are true. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:21, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

S.p.A. is not a single-purpose abbreviation. In Italian it usually means Società per Azioni signifying a limited-liability corporation or joint stock company as in Fiat s.p.a., the equivalent in Italian of "Inc.", "Ltd", "PLC", "S.A.", "GmbH", "AG", "NV" or "Pty" in other countries. See it:Società per Azioni which shows a nice little box of equivalents. It would be my guess, not knowing the name or enough of the context that Network S.P.A. is an Italian firm. —— Shakescene (talk) 09:31, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Nah, BB is right. 174.3 linked to the Food and Drink project page, and the use of s.p.a. there (granted, the full stops are unnecessary and confusing) is meant to mean single purpose account and the network talked about is PBS. TomorrowTime (talk) 12:34, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Stars

What is Mstars?

What is NYTimes stars?174.3.98.236 (talk) 04:55, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if these are widely used terms, but the people on that talk page are clearly using them to talk about the star ratings awarded by the Michelin Guides and by the restaurant critic of the New York Times. --Anonymous, 08:00 UTC, February 4, 2010.

Devaluation of "snub"

It's film awards time again, and we're now getting our annual slew of reports about how certain people or even nations have been "snubbed" by the Academy, or whoever else.

In my day, to snub someone meant to deliberately exclude them from something or refuse to talk to them. It usually involved a dose of malice or vindictiveness, and it was generally considered poor form. It did not extend to situations where various people had rival claims, they were all considered, and a selection was made on merit. Or to circumstances where someone seeks some sort of recognition but, for whatever reason (which could be the best reason in the world), is denied it. But now, it does seem to extend to all these situations. I've even seen it used in situations where someone has applied for a position, gone through an interview and assessment process, but has not been successful. They said he'd been "snubbed" by the panel; whereas, to me that would normally mean the panel refused to even consider his application, and probably for irrelevant or inappropriate reasons.

Is my assessment correct, that "snub" has become rather devalued? -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 08:19, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

It's just media hype. The media, especially in the entertainment field, frequently exaggerate, in both the positive and the negative. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:28, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with your assessment, that the word has been devalued. It is but one example of sensationalism in the meda. There are many others. My current "favourite" is the Australian media's reference to any increase in the Reserve Bank of Australia's interest rate (which affects consumer mortgage rates) as a "hike". Mitch Ames (talk) 08:39, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

We see that term a lot in the USA also. Apparently "increase" has too many syllables. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:41, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

There should be entire Journalese-English dictionaries. In the media, nobody ever criticises anything, but they often "slam" things. Don't get me started. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 10:35, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Headlinese lists many of these. meltBanana 13:08, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

See Journalese-English Dictionary (first edition) (Journal Blog Central). -- Wavelength (talk) 15:51, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Heh. That's a good start. They should also include the "sex romps" in which celebrities are often accused of engaging. I always have highly undesirable mental images when I hear that expression. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 18:25, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Especially as some of us associate that term with the Romper Room TV show. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:33, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, my images do not involve children, but to each his own. (This is not a snub of your comment, btw - to return to the topic). -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:10, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Nor do mine. That's why I object to "romp". Why not say "frolic"? Too many syllables, again? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:16, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

See Frisky Frolics. -- Wavelength (talk) 01:26, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia has some articles whose names begin with "snub". Some of those articles are about animals and some of them are about polyhedra.

-- Wavelength (talk) 01:44, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

A bit like Tom Brown in the Reign of William IV

Having tried to look up a novel my father read when he was young, then recommended to me, I would like to ask if anyone else has heard of it, and knows who wrote it. The story is called " Burke's Chum ", and is about boys in an English Public School - what we in New Zealand and probably those in Australia and the United States would call a private school. It is along the same lines as Tom Brown's Schooldays, which I also enjoyed - but on both counts it has been many years. The story could also have been set as late as the 1950's, or at least even into the Twentieth Century, and involves a younger boy surnamed Burke, an older senior boy who sticks up for him, but who dies of a fever at the end of the story, in the chapter " After Life's fitful fever he sleeps well. " This occurred because the hero rescued the boy Burke after a bully had somehow tied him to a pier or something, and the tide came in. There was also a running race in the story. More dramatic than Billy Bunter or Just William. Thanks. The Russian Christopher Lilly 13:14, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Annie Forsyth Grant. Google Books. —Akrabbim^talk 13:30, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Published 1896. Mrs. Annie Gregory Forsyth Grant (1858-1928) wrote several other books including The Boys At Penrohn (1893), The Hero Of Crampton School (1895), Chums At Last (1899), The Beresford Boys (1906), Rosemary (1926), The Road To Tarfe (1928). Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:39, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Well thank You for that - all this time I forgot it had been written by a woman.--The Russian Christopher Lilly 08:23, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

French mot du jour services?

Dear all,

I was wondering if anyone knew of a decent French word of the day website, or, preferably, email service. I have been studying French for many years now and would like to enrich my vocabulary before moving there. A service that dealt with more advanced vocabulary would be particularly useful, even if it is a site for Francophones themselves. Also, sites/services dealing with more familiar or colloquial words would be beneficial, because, after having studied the language formally, I find a gap when it comes to many lower register words.

All the best

E.M. --87.84.103.101 (talk) 15:02, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Not quite answering the question but, I subscribed to TV5MONDE[1] from my UK cable TV provider. I love French films but I struggle to understand what they're saying (nothing to do with my lack of French comprehension - obviously because they all have such poor diction across the Channel). I watch the films with the French sub-titles, which makes much more sense. You can pick some choice idioms, especially in those gritty social dramas. Alansplodge (talk) 18:00, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

http://french-word-a-day.typepad.com/ has a decent one. That site has other stuff along with it; if you just want the word-a-day you can get an RSS feed of it here or, if you use gmail, you can subscribe through that. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 18:04, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Not that I can speak French, but I can confirm what Alan said - TV5 has the same reputation here in Slovenia: if you're learning French at an advanced level, it's supposed to be an excellent tool at acquiring new vocabulary, what with its French and its subtitles and its vocabulary hoyvin glayvin! TomorrowTime (talk) 23:08, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

IPA for "L" in Church Slavonic/Russian

(I'm really asking about Church Slavonic, since I'm currently singing a work written in that language, but I think this involves a feature common to both languages)

For example, the word "Alliluyah" -- I'm sorry, I don't know the Cyrillic, but it's "Hallelujah" -- the "l" sound in the first syllable is different from the "l" sound in the second syllable, correct? My understanding, based on what our language coach has told us, is that the "l" in the second syllable is a "dark" sound. This is meant to be distinct from the "l" in the first syllable, which is similar to how a native English speaker would pronounce the "l"s in "Hallelujah".

Consulting the IPA for Russian article, I see there are two ways of transcribing "l" -- l and lʲ, the latter of these being a "palletized" l. Is it correct that this palletized l is how you would indicate the "dark l"? It seems like it is, but I was thrown off because the examples given in the article (l = "pill" / lʲ = "least") sound the same in my (Midwestern US) accent.

Thanks for the help. Dgcopter (talk) 21:16, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

No, the palatalized (not "palletized") L is the "light L", the one that occurs before "i" in Russian (and Church Slavonic). The "dark L", which is also transcribed ɫ, is velarized. In some accents of English, e.g. English English, L at the beginning of a word is light (e.g. least), while L at the end of a word is dark (e.g. pill), but in other accents (including yours), there's no difference. +Angr 21:30, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Holy hell, I can't believe I wrote "palletized"...several times. That's what I get for Wikipedia'ing at work (I work for a manufacturing company). Regardless, thanks for your help. Can you think of why the velarized l you mentioned isn't included in the IPA for Russian article? Dgcopter (talk) 21:47, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

P.S. I promise I really do know the difference between how boxes are stacked on wooden boards and how one's tongue is placed within one's mouth! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dgcopter (talk • contribs) 21:52, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

The velarized L is included in WP:IPA for Russian, it's just transcribed "l" rather than "ɫ", probably because (almost) all consonants in Russian occur in velarized/palatalized pairs, and the velarized ones are left unmarked while the palatalized ones are marked with ʲ. +Angr 22:14, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, pronunciation of "L" in various Slavic languages was the subject of a recent WordReference forums thread. OCS not mentioned, though; however, because it's sort of a constructed language, I don't think it really has a "canonic" pronunciation. For what it's worth, in both Russian and Bulgarian (which are sort of closest to OCS), "alliluyah" would be pronounced along the lines of /al[ʲ]iɫuːja/. No such user (talk) 09:36, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Native American Greetings

I remember from when I was a kid that native americans were always portrayed as saying 'How' when greeting somebody. At the time, I wondered whether this was a transliteration of a native word from one language or another, meaning 'hello', but, I found out today that the Cree word for 'hello' (tánsi) also means 'how'. Therefore my question is, was the word 'how' as used in the tv programs/films/comics I saw as a kid actually a translation of this Cree greeting, and used regardless of the nation in question? --KageTora - (影虎) (A word...?) 21:38, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Totally from memory, I think it was short for something pronounced "how chi". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:46, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

It's more likely to be from a word in a Siouan language; my Lakota dictionary includes the following entry: "hau \hau\ interj of greeting or approbation: Hello! Yes! Fine! Good!". Cecil Adams of "The Straight Dope" thinks so too. +Angr 22:21, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, to be honest, without knowing the actual word or what language it was, I actually assumed that in the first place (and in fact that it was Sioux - purely because they were the most known to me in those days). I just saw this website teaching Cree today and saw this on it and made my mistakened connection. Well, cheers, guys! --KageTora - (影虎) (A word...?) 22:28, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Over here in continental Europe it's common knowledge, as brought to us by the great anthropologist Karl May, that the standard Indian greeting is "Howgh!". TomorrowTime (talk) 22:35, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

...and with a pipe in your mouth. Now that takes me back!--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:33, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

See Howdy and Ni hao. -- Wavelength (talk) 01:30, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

See Setting the Record Straight: What Does "How How" Really Mean?. -- Wavelength (talk) 01:36, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

alternate definition for asynchronous learning

In circles that deal with learning disabilities, giftedness, and twice exceptionality, this terms is often used in the context of unven deevlopment of skill. This is seen when students can reach above/well above grade level on one skill, average on another skill and well below/below grade level on still other skills. An example might be an 8 y/o child who can tell you explicit details about how magnetism works to create anti-gravity, is is grade appropriate for reading and math but can not write or spell at a first grade level.

Having been around these circles, I had no idea about the context presented here. Yet, I can not find definitonal references for the context to which I have always heard the term used. Can You help find the appropraite references to this contextual use of the term?

--D4rittenberry (talk) 23:28, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

The article Asynchronous learning might be helpful. -- Wavelength (talk) 01:47, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

February 5

Etymology of Leir

Following a tangent from this thread (King Arthur and English royals) on the Humanities desk, I just added some references to Leir of Britain. However, there were two statements I couldn't easily source:

"It is often erroneously claimed that there is a link between Leir and the Welsh and Irish sea-gods Llyr and Ler (derived from Common Celtic *Leros "Sea"), but the names are not etymologically related."

"Leir is the eponymous founder of Leicester (Legra-ceaster or Ligora-ceaster in Anglo-Saxon), known as Cair Leir in Old Welsh, where Leir is a hydronym derived from Brittonic *Ligera."

Would anyone with better search skills (or needing less sleep) or etymology knowledge like to take a crack at this? Thank you, WikiJedits (talk) 01:32, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

User:Cagwinn has supplied the references – thank you! Best, WikiJedits (talk) 13:23, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

And Then There Were None

I've a very odd question. In the book And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, the murderer (whose name I'm not telling), hides his name under two pseudonyms. In the English version, they are:
Ulick Norman Owen & Una Nancy Owen => U. N. Owen => Unknown (very clever, isn't it?)
Now, considering that this book is: the world's best-selling mystery and the seventh most popular book of all time, I wondered how intenational translators managed to localize this wordplay. Looking at Wikipedias in other languages, I was able to collect a short list of them:

• Czech: Norman Zacharias Namy & Nancy Zasu Namyová
• Dutch: N. I. Manth & Nancy Isabelle Manth
• French: Algernon Norman O'Nyme & Alvina Nancy O’Nyme
• Hungarian: V. A. Lacky
• Russian: А. Н. Оним
• Slovak: N. E. Znamy

My questions are:

• Could someone explain to me the puns behind these names? (the French one should be "anonyme", thank you)
• Could someone complete these names? (giving the male and female given names)
• It would be amazing to find other translations of this world's best-selling mystery (German, Swedish, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Greek, Polish...).

--151.51.62.164 (talk) 18:43, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

The Russian one is also roughly "anonyme", just in Cyrillic. Russian has borrowed a lot of words from French, so that's not too surprising. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 19:28, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Here's another one... in Chinese, the pun is lost. According to zh:无人生还, the name is translated as "U·N·欧文", which is a direct phonetic transliteration (the characters are pronounced like "oh-wen" and mean nothing in particular). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 19:30, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

The German article suggests "Mr. Unknown" (I'm pretty sure this choice of "Mr" over "Herr" is deliberate). Bit boring. Good book though. - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 19:56, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

What a waste! They could have chosen: Ulick Norman Backhunt => U.N.Backhunt => Unbekannt! --151.51.62.164 (talk) 12:47, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

The Dutch name works much like the English: The initials "spell" Nimanth, which is pronounced the same in Dutch as niemand, meaning "no one". Marco polo (talk) 20:11, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't speak the languages, but Czech and Slovak N.E. Znamy and N.Z. Namy sound like they also refer to a word such as "neznamy" or "niznamy" or "nznamy" which would mean "no one" Rimush (talk) 22:31, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, neznamý means "unknown". Marco polo (talk) 02:37, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

The Polish translator apparently didn't attempt to render the name in Polish and left it as "U.N. Owen". I didn't read the book, but I'd guess the game of words is explained in some footnote. — Kpalion^(talk) 10:16, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

As for Hungarian, V. A. Lacky refers to "valaki" meaning "someone" or "anyone", the prefix "vala-" corresponds to the English prefix "some-" or "any-" ("valahol" means "somewhere", "valahogy" means "somehow", etc.). ---Sluzzelin talk 11:59, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Although I haven't read the Japanese version, the Japanese wikipedia page lists the killer's pseudonyms as オーエン夫妻, i.e. "Mr. and Mrs. Owen". As with the Chinese, the pun is ignored. I suspect that with both languages, translators are frequently not all that competent in their source languages and completely miss puns and wordplay. (The bungling in Mandarin of the stalactite/stalagmite quip in Harry Potter is a good example.) 220.29.16.77 (talk) 13:28, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I've read the Japanese translation. If I remember correctly, the pun was explained in somewhere in the book. Probably in the translator's notes. In the ja article , it is explained too. Oda Mari (talk) 13:42, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it's a matter of competence, it may just be that they believe (or are taught, or what have you) that getting a phonetic translation is more important than preserving the pun. When Chinese people want to translate something with a pun they can do a great job of it (see, for example, 黑客, which both preserves the sound of "hacker" and creates a nice pun where there was none before). Also, in popular culture, while the vast majority of foreign names get translated phonetically, some are a bit of a mix (for example, Tiger Woods is more often called 老虎·伍兹, Tiger Wusi). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 13:45, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

The Mandarin translations of Harry Potter were terrible (the mainland and Taiwanese versions both). The Japanese ones were very clever in a number of ways. See here for a good analysis. Steewi (talk) 04:49, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Hatmep

What is a girlie bar?174.3.98.236 (talk) 19:48, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

What has that link got to do with your question? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:49, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

A strip club. Rimush (talk) 23:19, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Although it could be a Baby Ruth. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:57, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

What is "hatmep"? Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:57, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Bugs: I think the connection in the OP's piped link is at Bottoms Up Club. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 07:01, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Babe Ruth?

What is a Baby Ruth?174.3.98.236 (talk) 19:32, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

A candy bar. You asked something about a "girlie bar", with a link to an unrelated article. I was trying to think of a candy bar with a girl's name, and Baby Ruth came to mind immediately. It was not named for Babe Ruth. Its name was a happy coincidence with the Babe's rise to baseball stardom. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:35, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

English AO words

I am trying to assemble a list of English words (not including proper nouns) that have the vowel combination ao, and so far, all I have thought up is aorta (which sounds like it was borrowed from Greek). Any other 'ao' words? Note that the word does not have to start with ao. Googlemeister (talk) 20:25, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Aorist, baobab, kaolin, laotian.--151.51.62.164 (talk) 20:27, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
(:-) ==> [2] --151.51.62.164 (talk) 20:32, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

http://www.morewords.com/contains/ao/ ny156uk (talk) 20:52, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

How could Laotian not be a proper name? I would have included Maori but for this condition. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:55, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Laotian is an adjective, not a proper noun. Laos is a proper noun. Maori is both an adjective and a noun. --151.51.62.164 (talk) 21:00, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Laotian, like Maori, is both a proper adjective and a proper noun. "The Laotian ambassador was unaware that the president had told his staff not to have any contact with the Laotian." Marco polo (talk) 21:31, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

CHAOS. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:57, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

The OED also has aodai, aorn as an obsolete form of adorn, aoudad,

aoul, aoure as an obsolete form of adore, bacallao, balao, baobab, cacao, caouine, caoutchin, caoutchouc, capitao, chaodical, chaogenous, chaology, chaomancy, chaos (and other derivatins of chaos, chaotic etc), ciao, curacao, dhao, extraordinary, feijao, gaol, gaocracy, gaon, gherao, giaour, hao, haole, haoma, haori, jiao, kareao, kaolin, kaon, karaoke, lycaon, macao, mangeao, manoao, maomao, metaoleic, miaow, mormaor, naology etc, naos, naow, niaouli, ongaonga, paolo, pardao, phaometer, pharaoh, pingao, qipao, sabaoth, saouari, sertao, tao, taotai, tetraonid etc, tiao, urao, yao, yaourt. Obviously some of these are Chinese or Portuguese and probably rarely if ever used in English. Extraordinary, chaos, karaoke, and pharaoh are regular words though. Adam Bishop (talk) 22:05, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

The only really English word in that lot appears to be gaol. Alansplodge (talk) 01:05, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Are you saying "chaos" isn't English? If by that you mean it's not of Germanic origin, then over half of the English language is not "really English". rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:47, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I was also going to object to Alan's extraordinary claim. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 02:04, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

"Chaos" is from Greek via Latin. There are countless Greek and Latin words and roots in English. Regarding that British oddity "gaol", which to me always looks like it should be followed by "time", as the Flintstones might sing, "We'll have a ga-ol time!" Are there any other English words that start with "ga" and are pronounced as if they started with "ja"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:56, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes alright, point taken. I was trying to point out that "ao" mainly appears in loan words like "ciao". Alansplodge (talk) 18:42, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

G says: Generally, G is soft before E, I, and Y, and hard otherwise, but there are many English words of non-Romance origin where G is soft or hard regardless of position (e.g. "get"), and three (gaol, margarine, algae) in which it is soft even before an A. The only one of those latter three words that starts with g is gaol, so it looks like it's the only one. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:35, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

See mortgagor. -- Wavelength (talk) 22:24, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Words where the root is naturally a soft "g" (as with mortgage) make some sense. "Algae" and "margarine" are less clear, because their roots, "alga" and "margaric" are pronounced with a hard "g". "Get" comes from a Nordic language, and German itself is loaded with words starting with "ge" which are pronounced with a hard "g". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:17, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

"Algae" contains the digraph -ae, which until the traditional English pronunciation of Latin fell out of use in the twentieth century was pronounced /-i/, and so palatalised the preceding consonant. 'G' in Germanic roots (both Anglo-Saxon and Norse) is usually /g/: "get", "give", "begin". (They generally were palatalised in A-S, but to /j/ not to /dʒ/: in some cases such words are now written with 'y'). The pronunciation /mɑ:gə'rijn/ is known in the UK, though it is now rare. --ColinFine (talk) 21:12, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. Seems there are only a few commonly used words with the ao letter combo. Googlemeister (talk) 15:57, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Metroad

What is the etymology of metroad?174.3.98.236 (talk) 22:12, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

It's probably a portmanteau of metropolitan and road. Bʌsʌwʌʟʌ ^{Speak up!} 22:35, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

It might be confused with metro ad (subway advertisement). -- Wavelength (talk) 01:42, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

That's exactly how I pronounced it. But if it's a portmanteau, then it would be pronounced different.174.3.98.236 (talk) 03:34, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

The article would indicate that the "portmanteau" answer is on the money. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:52, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Stress in single-syllable words

Maybe this should go to Humanities section, if so, please move it.

I was taught that single-syllable words always have a stressed vowel. It seems, however, that for the purposes of meter in poetry, one can arbitrarily treat each one-syllable word as either stressed or not, e.g. in Meter (poetry) there is this example of iambic pentameter:

So	long	as	men	can	breathe,	or	eyes	can	see,
So	long	lives	this,	and	this	gives	life	to	thee.
da	DUM	da	DUM	da	DUM	da	DUM	da	DUM

In this example, all the words are of one syllable, so perhaps this could equally be trochaic pentameter, or even a trisyllable-foot meter with an extra syllable? Or is the idea that the words chosen to be stressed are usually content words, and unstressed ones are function words? If so, there are some violations of this in this verse. Is there no formal criterion for this sort of thing? --216.239.45.4 (talk) 23:42, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

This is one of the distinctions between grammatical words (function words) and lexical words. Grammatical words such as so, as, can, or, can in the first line are frequently unstressed. (Can there is an auxiliary verb, not a lexical verb.) The second line doesn't fit this pattern, though, as lexical "lives, gives" are also unstressed. I think this might be a difference between lexical stress and prosodic stress. In English, a word like arachnophobia said in isolation seems to have greater stress on the phob than on the rach, whereas lexically both syllables are simply stressed, because of extra prosodic stress on the phob. So the destressing of 'live, give' above might be due to metrical prosody rather than the words themselves. It seems to me that 'lives, gives' aren't nearly as destressed as the 'as, or' in the preceding line: The second line feels more like da DUM DEE DUM da DUM DEE DUM da DUM to me. I'm curious as to what others think here. kwami (talk) 23:52, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

It is simply false that "single-syllable words always have a stressed vowel". --ColinFine (talk) 23:59, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

What Kwami and Colin said. See also Stress (linguistics) and Prosody. In languages (like English) that have stress-based poetic meters, it's poets' subtle manipulation of the differences between ideal metrical rhythms and the actual prosodic rhythms of speech that gives life to verse. (No one with a sense of normal speech patterns could possibly read your [216.239.45.4] example as trochaic, by the way.) Deor (talk) 00:16, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

The stress comes not from the individual words, but from which ones have focus within the sentence. This involves issues of discourse, new/old information, and prosody. Put those same words in a different context, or mix them around somehow, and they would have a different stress pattern. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:53, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

February 6

Latin "re-"

Do you guys know the etymology of Latin "re-"? Or is that to old?174.3.98.236 (talk) 04:33, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, my old Webster's only covers the Latin as a root. It's such a basic, I wouldn't be surprised if it goes back to Sanskrit. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:48, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

This link[3] doesn't exactly answer the question, but it's of some interest. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:51, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

It can't possibly go back to Sanskrit, since Latin is not descended from it. Maybe you mean Indo-European? --216.239.45.130 (talk) 04:55, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

They could have a common root. English is not descended from Chinese, either, yet "ma" means "mother" in both. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:32, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I really don't think that the Sanskrit word given at the linked page is etymologically relevant. The Indo-European root appendix of the American Heritage Dictionary connects it with the Latin word retro "backwards", and more speculatively with Latin vertere, verto "to turn" and its cognates. AnonMoos (talk) 09:33, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm. Neither of the sources I turned to - Pokorny's Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch nor Philip Baldi's Foundations of Latin - mentions the prefix; So that AHD reference above may be the best we can find.

The Sanskrit site that Bugs mentions is very nearly worthless: besides using an idiosyncratic transliteration, it perpetuates the outdated nonsense that English and other European languages "derive from" Sanskrit, and many of its etymologies are plain wrong. --ColinFine (talk) 10:49, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Lewis and Short sometimes has etymologies, but not for re-. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:14, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Meillet's etymological dictionary (1951 ed.) says re(d)- is unknown outside the Italic languages ("on ne connaît ailleurs aucun correspondant").--Cam (talk) 18:47, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Then the apparent answer to the OP's question is that as far as is known, it originated with Latin. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:32, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

as far as is known: that's a good example of the use of the passive to conceal something (remember we discussed this recently?). It may be that some scholars out there know differently, but people responding to the Wikipedia Language reference desk have concluded, from the references available to them, that it originated with Latin. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:29, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Don't hold back. In plain English it's "weasel words". But if the farthest back it can be traced is Latin, then that's all we know about it. For a loose comparison, I don't know who my great-great-great-grandfather is in my Mom's side, but I am confident that there was one. Likewise "re-" may well have originated in whatever Latin evolved from, but that doesn't mean we know what and when. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:47, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Spanish "re-"

What is the etymology of Spanish "re-"?174.3.98.236 (talk) 04:37, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

From its Latin root, naturalmente. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:46, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Does it have all three meanings in Latin? If not, how did it acquire the added meanings? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 08:10, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

The Latin prefix was "red-" ("re-" before consonants), which was basically a prefix to verbs (though it could appear in other parts of speech if these are derived from a basic verb), and according my dictionary could mean "back", "against", or "again"... AnonMoos (talk) 09:21, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I am told that the original form is re; in some forms before consonants, reduplication can occur and hence after syncopation the form red appears; for instance, re+do->redido->reddo. Also, repperi, etc. Pallida  Mors 16:08, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

That does not explain cases such as redeo, redire "to go back" and just about every other case where the prefix is added to a vowel initial verb (with the dubious exception of reicio, where the prefix is added to iacio, which would have originally been pronounced with a [y] consonant sound). AnonMoos (talk) 16:34, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

That's a good point. All I can say in my ignorance is that, according to the OLD, the form red in those cases was formed by analogy with pro/prod. Pallida  Mors 16:54, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

If you read Refried beans, the "re" comes from Mexican Spanish "very". Woogee (talk) 06:42, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

My OLD marks the following 7 Latin senses for the prefix: movement back or in reverse, withdrawal, reversal of previous processes, restoration, response or opposition, separation, and repetition. All of them are present in the Spanish counterpart.
The third meaning in the wiki Spanish definition [intensification] has two implementations, one with verbs and one with adjectives. The former is more idiomatic, while the latter is very productive, though very informal. As far as I know, this meaning [intensification] is not present in Latin re; this language uses for that effect the prefix per (e.g. pergaudeo, perdoleo, perabsurdus. Pallida  Mors 16:35, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Do you Brits say "emphasise"?

I'm trying to correct an article that's supposed to be in British English, but being an American I don't know. "Emphasise" in particular looks funny to me, I just wanted to check to make sure it's right. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 06:13, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean spelt with an s as opposed to a z? Yes. FiggyBee (talk) 08:23, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Brits don't say "emphasise", they say [ˈɛmfəsaɪz]. But they do spell [ˈɛmfəsaɪz] ‹emphasise›, unless they're using Oxford spelling, in which case they spell it ‹emphasize›. +Angr 09:04, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

(e/c)In British English either is acceptable. There is a lengthy discussion at American and British English spelling differences.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:05, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

You very rarely see it with "ize" here. Alansplodge (talk) 18:28, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

When writing, I would always use "ise" and only if it looked really odd would I consider changing the "s" to "z" - that's with a "zed" not a "zee" :-) The "ize" spelling nearly always looks American to me. Astronaut (talk) 05:27, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Colon and dash

Is there a difference between the use of a colon and the use of a colon and a dash at the same time, like ":" and ":–"?--Mikespedia (talk) 14:15, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I thought that the colon + dash is becoming more widely used in place of a plain colon, probably because it is then more clearly distinguishable from a semi-colon. However, this suggests differently, and also states that the colon and dash together are known to printers as a "full set". Ghmyrtle (talk) 14:37, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Is it an urban myth then, that London printers call :- "the dog's bollocks"? Alansplodge (talk) 15:49, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

No professional typesetter would use a colon-dash combination (even a comma-dash combination is frowned upon). It isn't even mentioned in the colon article. The dash is superfluous. I can only think it's used in handwritten work to make it more easily visible.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 15:59, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Maybe not nowadays, but I've often seen it in professionally typeset older works. Including this page I'm formatting right now for Wikisource (see the end of §74). +Angr 16:39, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Following my own rather vulgar link above, I see that the OED considers the colon/hyphen sequence is "obsolete". Maybe, but I see it often enough and use it myself; perhaps I read too many obsolete books! Alansplodge (talk) 18:20, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree that colon-dash is largely obsolete, but returning to the original question, I'd also say that there is a difference. The colon-dash combination is only possible, if that style is being used, in a position where what would otherwise be a colon is followed by a line break because the thing that it introduces is a table, a list laid out vertically (one item per line), or perhaps a diagram or something. So you might have...

• They had facilities in three cities: Toronto, Montreal, and Punkeydoodles Corners.

But:

• They had facilities in three cities:—
  • New York, New York
  • Chicago, Illinois
  • Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania

--Anonymous, 07:35 UTC, February 7, 2010.

Please help me translating this "diplomatic English" into layman's terms. Thanks.

Hy there, could someone help me? I'm trying to understand the precise meaning of a sentence (Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles). I like to think that my knowledge of the English language is adequate, but not being a native English-speaker I wish to be sure that I'm not making a mistake. I'm not interested a precise word for word translation, I'm interested in the meaning of the whole sentence.

The sentence is as follows:

• "The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies."

Now I believe that in layman's terms this translates into the following (I do NOT claim that this translation is accurate, but this is how I understand it; if I'm wrong please explain my mistake):

• "The Allies & Co hold Germany responsible, and Germany accepts this responsibility, for losses and damages inflicted by Germany and its allies upon the governments and nationals of Allies and Co. Said losses and damages are a consequence of the war imposed upon Allies & Co by the aggression of Germany and her allies."

I believe that the "as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies" is the tricky part of the whole translation. I choose to separate the original sentence for an easier understanding, did I do wrong? Flamarande (talk) 16:57, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it means that the Germans and their allies started the war and are responsible for all the damage; and (because they lost the war) they accept this responsibility (and will have to pay). — Kpalion^(talk) 17:28, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree that it means the same as the OP's paraphrasing. However, I would disagree with Kpalion's addition of 'because they lost the war', as this is not mentioned nor implied in the original. In fact, it wouldn't have to be mentioned or implied, as without Germany and her Allies losing the war, this treaty would not have been written. --KageTora - (影虎) (A word...?) 17:54, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, perhaps I should have been clearer: the bits in parentheses are my own additions, not mentioned directly in the original text. — Kpalion^(talk) 19:39, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I also agree that Flamarande's rephrasing preserves the meaning. Marco polo (talk) 21:04, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Not quite. The original is about losses/damages as a result of the war, but does not say that those are the only losses/damages. If France suffered damages as a result of some other incident in 1911, they would not be covered by the treaty. Flamarande's version states that all losses/damages are due to the war. Try this further rearrangement:

• "The Allies & Co hold Germany responsible for losses and damages to their governments and nationals, inflicted by Germany & Co in consequence of the war. Said war was imposed upon Allies & Co by the aggression of Germany & Co. Germany accepts this responsibility.

--Anonymous, 07:43 UTC, February 7, 2010.

A bit late for me to be jumping in here, but I think there's a subtlety that everyone's missing. The original phrasing includes mention of "loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war". I think this holds Germany and its allies responsible for loss and damage caused as a result of the war, but not directly inflicted by Germany. This would include, for example, reductions in Britain's peaceful industrial productivity caused by diverting production to the war effort. --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 18:32, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

February 7

verbs used as nouns

I've just heard a radio announcer say that some communities affected by the Black Saturday bushfires are "getting together this morning for breakfast and a remember".

What's this called, when a verb is used as if it were a noun? I don't think it fits into the definition of gerund.

Other examples include:

• Let me have a go
• I think I'll give it a try
• Why don't you have a think about it and let me know how you feel
• Let him have a play
• I have an invite to the party
• That cafe serves eats

I guess some of these could be classified as nouns in their own right, but not all of them. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 00:24, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to meet the criteria for verbal noun either. Mitch Ames (talk) 02:23, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I have no idea what it's called, but I think it would be classed as a form of grammatical conjugation in English. Basically what's happening is that an article is being attached to intransitive, temporally continuous verb to create a instance of an action (thus, 'to walk' becomes 'a walk') which can be referred to as an object noun. it might be a remnant of grammatical case from old English and Germanic word forms (latinate derivatives usually form nouns by a straight inflection by adding an 'ion' suffix - e.g. separate -> separation). I think you'd need a real lingusitics expert to answer this, though. --Ludwigs2 05:55, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

It's called conversion (linguistics). When people convert a noun to a verb in this way, it's sometimes informally called "verbing", so you could verb "noun" and say that the original examples are examples of "nouning". --Anonymous, 07:45 UTC, February 7, 2010.

It's nothing to do with either 'conjugation' (which is to do with varying the form of something which is already a verb) or 'case' (which is to do with the grammatical role and/or form of a word which is already a substantive). And its not exclusively done with intransitives, (though there are perhaps more examples of those): "have your say", "make one's needs known". --ColinFine (talk) 11:45, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

There's also "kill" (as in 'road kill') and some culinary examples (bake, slice, roast, fries ...). Thanks for the answer, Anonymous, and everybody else for your ideas. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 07:01, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

logical consequences

I have been using the term "logical consequences" to describe what schooling does not do. I maintain that issuing "grades" to a learner is not a "logical consequence" of learning.

After having perused the definitions here of my typed search term, "logical consequences", I begin to see the error of my ways.

What I am seeking is a term to describe and differentiate the consequences one experiences in moving through actions, activities, real life, and attributing the consequences, or "success" of one's attempts. Some counter-examples to those of "grades" used in schooling:

learning to hit a ball with a bat; working a math problem and arriving at the correct answer (OK, this may not apply well to calculus, but 4² is 16)...you really do not need someone to "grade" you on these, either you connect the bat with the ball, either your math problem is worked correctly or not. (If you have not learned your times tables, and assume 4² to be 8, plugging your answer back into the terms of the problem will result in an inequality.) Importantly, one does not necessarily need another to "grade" them on these results because the consequences are obvious; however, that is not to say that one cannot use another's instruction to help them achieve the desired consequence, e.g. in learning to hit a ball with a bat (then hit it farther or direct it specifically to left field or avoid a fly ball).

What term can I use to differentiate this kind of experience--the "grading" in schooling vs. your practice shooting hoops results in your getting the ball in more often? S h a r o n z t h o t s (talk) 13:19, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm. You mean success in some activity for its own sake, as opposed to meeting some essentially arbitrary criterion? I can't think of a particular phrase (but "logical consequences" certainly doesn't suggest to me anything to do with this question). --ColinFine (talk) 15:35, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

We do have an article on logical consequences, but it makes no mention of how that term is used in education and discipline, where it basically means "letting the punishment fit the crime". +Angr 15:51, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the OP was suggesting that the term was used in education, just that that was how she had referred to it. --ColinFine (talk) 16:13, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know about education per se, but it's definitely used to refer to a type of discipline: if a child abuses a privilege, the logical consequence is that that privilege is revoked (at least temporarily). Other punishments such as spanking or sending the child to bed without any dinner are not logical consequences because they're unrelated to the misbehavior itself. I assumed that the OP was extending this meaning of "logical consequence" to education, and that maybe she wasn't the only person who had ever extended the meaning in this way. +Angr 16:20, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

How can i add new language?

how can i add new language for article already on Wikipedia —Preceding unsigned comment added by Haitham.alazab (talk • contribs) 14:25, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

If you mean adding a link to a new non-English article on the equivalent English article, you add [[xx:Article name]] at the bottom of the respective English article, where xx refers to a language code (2 or 3 characters) and the article name is its name of the non-English article. WP:MI -- the Great Gavini 14:44, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Maybe that should actually refer to WP:IL. -- the Great Gavini 14:45, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

English to Spanish

How would 'the strum' as say a title for a movie be translated into Spanish? Thanks a lot 87.111.102.155 (talk) 14:43, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

As in, a literal guitar strumming? Maybe El rasgueado from rasgueado but that seems to be a particular strum technique. If there is an English film called The Strum, it may be called something very different in Spain or Latin America or both. -- the Great Gavini 14:51, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

The DRAE seems to apply it generically, so maybe El rasgueado. -- the Great Gavini 14:57, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorted then, thanks for your prompt replies 87.111.102.155 (talk) 15:04, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

The word "segregation"

Does it imply that the separation of people of different groups is intentionally planned and malicious? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.186.8.243 (talk) 17:48, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Planned probably, but not necessarily malicious. Many religious groups segregate men and women, for example. In some cultures different racial or caste groups have chosen segregation themselves to some extent.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 18:21, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Separating oneself voluntary is not usually called segregation. Segregation is more like involuntary. Basically a synonym for apartheid. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:19, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Our article at Segregation lists many types, from race to gender, to bicycles and cells. Most would not appear to be, prima facie, malicious. BrainyBabe (talk) 19:45, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

correction: segregation in the US is equivalent to apartheid in South Africa; the term segregation may be used differently in other countries that lack US political history.

That being said, there are only two common forms of political/social separation: cases where a group self-isolates in order to preserve their internal status quo (common with religious groups), and cases where a group is isolated by a more powerful group (through implicit or explicit use of force) to preserve a status quo that disadvantages the less powerful group. That's why American Indians were put on reservations, why Jews were clustered in ghettos long before the Nazis, and why people of color have found themselves with political restrictions in many places in the world. the idea of 'mutual' segregation (were both sides agree to it as a matter of collective preference) is largely a fiction promoted by the more powerful group in the second case; I cannot think of a single example in history where two groups actually decided to live in the same space but have nothing to do with each other. --Ludwigs2 20:02, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

In the context of US experience, de jure and de facto can also be important distinctions (though admitted in terms of schools not residential patterns).--71.111.229.19 (talk) 02:51, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

that's true, yes, and I think it can be extended to other contexts as well. For instance, I don't think there was any overt ghetto-ization of Jews prior to the 1930's, and I know for a fact that asian districts in western US cities arose informally rather than through explicit zoning practices. --Ludwigs2 03:07, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

If you mean by "overt" that they are kept in a ghetto as prisoners by a hostile host nation, then maybe not, but the Jews lived in ghettos in the Middle Ages. (Nothing along the lines of a Warsaw Ghetto, but still segregated.) Adam Bishop (talk) 06:11, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

"I cannot think of a single example in history where two groups actually decided to live in the same space but have nothing to do with each other." – well, here's one example: [4]. It generally happens when a third, stronger party, comes to rule over communities with a long-standing feud. No such user (talk) 08:44, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I've heard the term "self-segregation" used to describe some African-American students' tendency to hang out mostly with other black students on diverse campuses. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:50, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

That is covered briefly under Racial segregation, with regards to home ownership. But yoru comment reminds me of the related concept of Separatism. BrainyBabe (talk) 08:41, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Hebrew Translation

Could someone who is native speaker of Hebrew translate this for me?

Which war between Israel, Syria and Egypt first enabled Israel to extend its borders into the West Bank?

Could you also either transliterate your translation into the Latin alphabet or, better still, add the massoretic vowel signs? I am capable of reading Hebrew when they are present.

Thank you! Luthinya (talk) 20:45, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

?איזו מלחמה בין ישראל, סוריה ומצרים הראשונה איפשרה ישראל להרחיב את גבולותיה אל תוך הגדה המערבית

Eizo milchama bein yisrael, suria v'mitzrayim harishona ifshara yisrael l'harchiv et gevuloteha el toch hagada hama'arvit?

However, Israelis refer to the West Bank as shtachim (territories), as the term 'West Bank' refers to the plot of land in relation to Jordon (and, for obvious reasons, they do not refer to this last as having anything to do with Jordon).

And I got that from here. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 22:08, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

On second thought, the placement of the word "harishona" (first, as in 'initially') may not be placed properly with this translator. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 22:13, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I can understand Israel wanting to ignore the nation of Jordan, but the term "West Bank" refers to the west bank of the Jordan River, doesn't it? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:28, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

The West Bank is hardly referring to the west bank of the Jordan River as much as it refers to that portion previously administered by Jordan that exists as a west bank of the Jordon. North and south of the West Bank are still the west bank but are not called the West Bank -- wow...does any of that make sense to anyone but me? DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 02:39, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I follow. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:53, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

English word stress

English changes the stress of many, if not most borrowed words. As an example, here's a list of some Greek words with their stress marked both in Greek and English (with an accent "´").

Greek	English (UK)	comments
ἀδάμας	ádamant
ἁδρόν	hádron
ἀθλητής	áthlete
αἰθήρ	éther
αἰών	éon
ἀκακία	acácia
ἄκανθος	acánthus
ἀκμή	ácme
ἄλυσση	Alýssa
ἀμάρανθος	amaránth
Ἀμαρυλλίς	amarýllis
ἀμφιθέατρον	ámphitheatre
ἀνάλειμμα	analémma
ἀναλογία	análogy
ἀνάμνησις	anamnesis
ἀναρχία	ánarchy
ἀνατομία	anátomy
Ἀνδρομέδα	Andrómeda
ἀνεμώνη	anémone
ἀνεύρυσμα	áneurysm
ἀνορεξία	anoréxia
ἀντί	ánti-	in most words
ἀντιπάθεια	antípathy
ἀνωφελής	anópheles
ἀόριστος	áorist
ἀορτή	aórta
ἀποθέωσις	apotheósis	(UK)
Ἀποκάλυψις	Apócalypse
ἀρχιτέκτων	árchitect
ἄρωμα	aróma
ἄσυλον	asýlum
ἀτμόσφαιρα	átmosphere
Ἀττική	Áttica
αὐτός	áuto-
Ἀφροδίτη	Áphrodite
διάλογος	díälogue
διοίκησις	díöcese
εἰκών	ícon
ἔκλειψις	eclípse
θερμός	thérmos
κιθάρα	guítar
ὄραμα	panoráma
παιδεία	Wikipédia
παρά	pára-
συνεκδοχή	synécdoche
Ὑπατία	Hypátia
ὕπέρ	hýper-
χαρακτήρ	cháracter
χορός	chórus

Some of these, such as "chorus", seem to have received the stress on the second last syllable by way of Latin, but there are also many cases in which the stress was moved away from the second last syllable, as in ánarchy and Andrómeda. Given that Greek has a long tradition of marking accents, why did the scholars not simply stick with those? Who defines where a word is to be stressed, anyway? — Sebastian 23:44, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

First off, what is marked by accent diacritics in ancient Greek (Alexandrian orthography) is tonal pitch accent, and not "stress" in the English sense at all. In traditional grammars of ancient Greek, stress is known as ictus (a Latin word), and has little correlation with the accent diacritics. The ancient Romans already basically ignored Greek accents when pronouncing words that had been borrowed from Greek into Latin, so it's unrealistic to expect such pitch accent patterns to persist into modern English... AnonMoos (talk) 01:59, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

English phonology has a pretty complicated system for determining where accents fall; if I remember correctly, a very oversimplified rule is that words often want to be stressed on the antepentult (3rd-to-last syllable) if they can, but if a word is shorter than that (as in "chorus") the stress will have to fall elsewhere. Of course, there are lots of other things that can change this. Bruce Hayes' book Introductory Phonology has a chapter on stress rules.

As for "who defines where a word is to be stressed, anyway"...well, no one does. Or everyone does, take your pick. Just like most things about language, stress just ends up where it is because that's how people in the past started saying it, for whatever reason. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 02:11, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to you both for your excellent replies. AnonMoos's explanation goes a long way at explaining why the correlation between Greek accents and English stress is low. Still, one might expect that in those cases that were not shaped by Latin, such as 19th century coinages, scholars would simply default to stressing the words where the Greek accented them. I presume the principles Bruce Hayes describes must have won over. I apologize for wording the question "who defines this anyway" in such casual way. I know that language in general is (most of the time) defined by no one or everyone. But that's easier to understand when there's either more time involved, or when there's more interaction. It's harder to imagine that a word like "synecdoche" has had enough oral tradition for one pronunciation to become cemented in common knowledge. The canonization must have happened within a very small group. For the same reason, though, the question becomes probably less interesting. — Sebastian 03:26, 8 February 2010 (UTC) (Changed the word marked in red. — Sebastian 01:57, 9 February 2010 (UTC))

Of course, stress is not fixed even if the language stays the same: consider controversy vs controversy, harrass vs harass, and many others. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:15, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, there are many words where the stress changes the meaning, as in cónvict vs convíct. Often, these can be traced back to different stress in Latin, as in cŏnvĭctŭs vs cŏnvīctŭs, according to the rules Deor cites below. (I'm taking the diacritics from my Langenscheidts Großes Schulwörterbuch; although according to our article in both words the "vic" would be heavy, which is another contradiction I don't understand.) But what do you mean by "controversy"? — Sebastian 01:51, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Latin vowel length alternations in that position would not affect the position of Latin stress at all, and I don't think that English noun vs. verb stress alternations go back to Latin. AnonMoos (talk) 06:34, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

The traditional method of stressing syllables in ancient Greek words has been to (mentally) transliterate them into the Roman alphabet and pronounce them as if they were Latin words, stressing syllables as described at Latin spelling and pronunciation#Syllables and stress. That works for the personal names in your list and for most of the the direct adoptions, such as synecdoche, but not always for words that have reached English by a more circuitous route or have been naturalized more fully (like apocalypse rather than apocalypsis). Deor (talk) 19:20, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

That probably explains a good many words. But if I understand the rule correctly, shouldn't áthlete (< ăthlētă), análogy (< ănălŏgĭă), and díalogue (dĭălŏgŭs) be stressed on the vowels I marked in bold? And what explains that the stress for ámphitheatre is all the way at the front? — Sebastian 01:51, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Standing on the shoulders of giants - Latin

How do you say "Standing on the shoulders of giants knowing I shall never be one." in Latin? It's my motto and I think I'd prefer it in Latin. Thanks. 86.139.93.74 (talk) 23:48, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

"Superstes in umerus humerus of giants gnarus EGO vadum nunquam exsisto unus." DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 00:33, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

You're joking, right? Please be joking. Marnanel (talk) 00:44, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

If you don't get an answer here, the Latin community on LiveJournal likes to debate these things. Marnanel (talk) 00:46, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

This question is of course about the addition to the phrase "nanos gigantium humeris insidentes"; that wasn't so clear and led to a misunderstanding. My Latin isn't so good, but I'll try an answer anyway. First off, you can't just add the second part, you need to adjust the first part, too. The words "nanos ... insidientes" are "dwarves ... sitting" in plural (and accusative!), which isn't what you want. So you'd have to say "nanus ... insidiens". And then you can put the giants and the shoulders into singular, too, because you're probably not straddling several shoulders: "gigantis humero". At least, as a consolation for all that business with singular and plural, you don't need to translate the "I". For "knowing I shall never be one", I would replace "one" with "a giant", to be safe, and write "sapiens numquam gigantum futurus esse" for the addition. OK, that's just my stab at it.

BTW, we have a Latin Wikipedia, where there are a number of people whose Latin is better than mine, and who speak English, too. You might want to ask there at la:Vicipaedia:Taberna. If you do, please let them know about the discussion here — even giants can see farther when they stand on the shoulders of dwarves. — Sebastian 03:36, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

The original phrase (by Bernard of Chartres, at least according to John of Salisbury) has "nanos" because of the Latin grammar, but it would just be "nani" in a standalone phrase. And of course if you want to leave out the dwarves, and it is a motto for one person, then it is just "gigantium humeris insidens", although that still means more than one giant, so "gigantis humeris insidens" for just one giant. For "knowing I shall never be one" I suppose you could say "me numquam futurum illum sapiens". That sounds very clumsy though. "Humeris gigantis quod me numquam futurum scio insidens"? It's not the most elegant thing to say in English, which is part of the problem. Adam Bishop (talk) 06:08, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the English is cumbersome, and it is difficult to make it pithy in Latin. If you are content to lose some of the original sense you could try something like 'Numquam aequabor gigantibus quorum umeris insido', literally 'I will never equal (passive aequabor in middle sense) the giants on whose shoulders I sit'. BTW, sorry to nitpick, but if the OP prefers to go with one of the earlier suggestions, it's worth pointing out that it should be 'insidens/insidentes' rather than 'insidiens/insidientes', the genitive plural of giants is 'gigantum' rather than 'gigantium', and Adam, I'm guessing you intended 'sciens' rather than 'sapiens' and something like 'talem' rather than 'illum'. Similar nitpicking welcome if there are any blunders in my own suggestion! Maid Marion (talk) 14:18, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Right, sciens...I was trying to think of how to say "never be one of them" without resorting to the Biblical/medieval "unus ex eis", but "talem" is much better. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:19, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

February 8

Quicken?

What is qif?174.3.98.236 (talk) 07:06, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Looks like it's Quicken Interchange Format. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:14, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

In the TV series Highlander, they used a variation on this software, call Quickening ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:17, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

But that makes no sense in the context quoted, which appears to be a comment about template syntax to me (something about attempting to reduce dependency on qif by something or other.) 128.232.241.211 (talk) 12:47, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

From the top of this page:

Is there any way I can get a faster answer? Yes, you can search first. Please do this. Entering search terms in the box to the left may locate useful articles in Wikipedia.

rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 07:22, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I should have mentioned that. I typed qif in the search box, it appeared in the dropdown, and when I selected it, it took me straight to the Quicken Interchange Format page. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:04, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

qif seems to be some obsolete MediaWiki template[5]. qif appears to have been used for conditional components of a template, though it seems to have been replaced by "#if" in more recent versions of the software. Maybe some wiki guru knows more (try the Computing ref desk). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.172.19.20 (talk) 13:11, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

3 types of ironys

I have larnt they have 3 types of ironys one is dramatic, verbal and what is the other one. One of them means the way opposite one of them means I know something autor have no idea on. Which one is which?--209.129.85.4 (talk) 17:21, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Our article Irony lists dramatic, verbal, and situational as the three types. Deor (talk) 17:36, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Asking about Spanish homework

I want to know how to ask if any homework was assigned for Wednesday. I have managed to smush this sentence together: "Usted asigna tarea por el clase en Miercoles?" but I am fairly sure that's not right. Can someone help me fix this? 174.20.67.206 (talk) 21:27, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

• Informally: Hay tarea para miercoles? (or para la clase de miercoles) [that's "Is there homework for Wednesday"]--or Tenemos tarea para miercoles? ["Do we have homework for Wednesday?"]
• More formally: Asignó usted tarea para miercoles? or Había usted asignado tarea para miercoles? ["Have you assigned homework for Wednesday"] --71.111.229.19 (talk) 22:29, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

So why is it the "yo" form of haber and asignar? 174.20.67.206 (talk) 22:35, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Unaccented o usually indicates a verb conjugated in the first-person singular present indicative active. An ó with an acute accent usually indicates a verb conjugated in the third-person singular preterite indicative active. In this context, the third person is used to represent the polite form (Usted) of you (second person). See Spanish conjugation. -- Wavelength (talk) 22:51, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

[I am inserting the underlined words and hyphenating "first-person" and "third-person". -- Wavelength (talk) 23:26, 8 February 2010 (UTC)]

There is an acute accent on the first e in wikt:miércoles. -- Wavelength (talk) 22:33, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Also, for an idiomatic reason, these examples usually carry the definite article accompaning the day of the week. Hence, I would say Tenemos tarea para el miércoles, etc. For the very special case of hay, it is worth noticing that the verb is constructed impersonally, carrying the third-person form. Pallida  Mors 00:05, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

February 9

Chinese-English transliteration: Jiang Jieshi and the Qing Dynasty

When I was taking high school world history and learning about China, I remember being puzzled about the names I was learning and their transliteration and pronunciation in English. There were a few questions I had:

1. I was taught that the Jiang Jieshi I was learning about was known to my parents as Chiang Kai-Shek, and that the former name was more accurate to the Chinese pronunciation or something. How could something roughly pronounced "jee-shee" be mistakenly transliterated as something pronounced "kie-shek"? I have trouble believing that it was simply an issue of an ignorance of Chinese phonemes.
2. Also, I was taught that Qing was pronounced "Ching". I was told that what used to be transliterated with a ch was now being rendered with a q, to more closely match the Chinese alphabet from which it came. This did not make sense to me, as I reasoned that the purpose for transliteration was to use the target language's alphabet accurately, original alphabet be damned. Just because English doesn't have a letter to represent the first phoneme in Qing doesn't mean that we should completely redefine an unrelated letter, especially when we are only expected to pronounce it with the English ch phoneme.

I understand that I am most likely tragically misinformed and shamefully ignorant of all the linguistics involved, so feel free to completely and callously undermine my undoubtedly incorrect base assumptions behind my questions. I am just trying to rectify what I was taught six years ago with what is actually going on. Thanks —Akrabbim^talk 03:54, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

"Jieshi" is not pronounced "jee-shee", it is pronounced more like "jye-shi" (ye as in "yep", sh as in "shred"). Standard Mandarin does not have an alphabet, but a system has been developed by the Chinese government to transliterate Chinese, pinyin, in which "q" represents the voiceless palato-alveolar affricate. "Chiang Kai-Shek" is an example of a transliteration in the older Wade-Giles system, now somewhat obsolescent. One must remember that when transliterating from Mandarin tones into Wade-Giles, the letters do not make the same sounds as they would in normal English. For a more thorough treatment of the odd behaviour of the Latin alphabet in Wade-Giles transliteration, see Wade-Giles#Technical_aspects. However, if you do not speak Mandarin, it is not likely to be of much help. Intelligentsium 04:11, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

(ec) In response to your first question, Jiang Jieshi is the Mandarin pronunciation of the characters 蒋介石 (his name); Chiang Kai-Shek is the Cantonese pronunciation. (Chinese characters have different pronunciations in different Chinese languages. A comparable example is this: two is the English pronunciation for the symbol "2", and dos is the Spanish pronunciation for the same symbol.) He was famous before Mandarin had become the national language of China, so the Cantonese transliteration was the one more commonly used for him at the time (and is still more commonly used in most Western countries). And, for what it's worth, "chiang" and "jiang" are roughly the same pronunciation, it's just that ch and j are two different ways for transcribing the sound sound ʨ (ch is how that sound is transcribed in Wade-Giles and the older Cantonese romanization, j is how it's transcribed in pinyin). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 04:12, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

As for your second question, q is what is used in pinyin to represent the sound ʨ^h, which sounds similar to <ch> to English speakers. This letter was chosen because ch was already being used in pinyin to represent a different sound ʈ͡ʂ, which to English speakers sounds more or less the same. So anyway, nowadays we use Q because that's what pinyin uses. (Using the 'native' spelling or transliteration is not all that common—for example, we don't respell French borrowings, we still write savoir-faire instead of savwar-fair.) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 04:16, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

That was a stunningly accurate and complete answer; well done! However, a student encountering Jiang Jieshi / Chiang Kai-shek for the first time really just needs to know that there are several systems for rendering Chinese characters into alphabetic symbols, and that most publications will use the most common version. Hence, Chiang Kai-shek for a well-known historical figure, but Beijing (not Peking, Peiking or other variations) for the capital city. DOR (HK) (talk) 09:16, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Am I right in thinking that Peking / Beijing is another Cantonese / Mandarin equivelent? Alansplodge (talk) 09:34, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Beijing vs. Peking is a slightly more complex issue. No it's not directly due to the Cantonese-Mandarin divide. The first factor at play is transliteration: the "b" is Beijing is the same sound as the "P" in Peking, using the now-obsolescent Wade-Giles romanization...technically Chinese doesn't have a voiced "b", so the first letter of Peking and Beijing should be pronounced the same. (The old spelling "Tao" as in "Taoism" is an example--pronunced "d", now spelling "Dao" in the pinyin system. Second, the "king" part comes from an archaic dialect of Mandarin used by nobles in Beijing several hundred years ago -- see Mandarin_phonology#The_.22ki-.22_sequence (the "ki" sequence).--71.111.229.19 (talk) 12:04, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

"Brinjal" and "jackal"

What is the correct pronunciation of the word brinjal and jackal as per British English —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.99.85.69 (talk) 07:26, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

According to the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary by John C. Wells, brinjal is /ˈbrɪndʒəl/ and jackal is /ˈdʒækɔːl/ (i.e. "jack all") in RP. The second pronunciation surprises me, as I (an American) pronounce it /ˈdʒækl̩/ to rhyme with "hackle", which LPD suggests is less well received in Britain than "jack all". (I don't have any intuitions about "brinjal", as I never heard the word before reading this thread.) +Angr 08:46, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Just confirming that /ˈdʒækɔːl/ ("jack all") is the British English pronunciation. Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:19, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

According to the horse's mouth - or, to be strictly correct, a horse's mouth (I refer to my Sri Lankan partner) - brinjal is pronounced /ˈbrɪndʒɔːl/ - bringe-all. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 09:10, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

I, as a Brit, have only ever heard /ˈdʒækl̩/ to rhyme with "hackle". --Frumpo (talk) 09:19, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm amazed. Perhaps that's an age-related thing? The usual British pronunciation is in my view undoubtedly "jack all" (with the emphasis on the first syllable). Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:24, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Oops. I was mid-reading the pronunciation as having a long second syllable. Having thought more about the shapes that my mouth is forming I agree with Ghmyrtle. Sorry about that.--Frumpo (talk) 10:00, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps it's my London accent, but "jack-all" and "hackle" pretty much rhyme when I say them! Alansplodge (talk) 09:30, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

That's curious. Do you say "crackle" and "crack-all" the same way, Alan? -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 09:33, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

UK native here - I thought jackal was said as seen, with both a's pronounced as in "apple". I've never heard it pronounced in any other way! --TammyMoet (talk) 09:55, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Ditto UK native. I would never say jackle as in jack-all - the second a is far too long. It's much closer to jack-ul - rhyming, as others say, with hackle and apple. (Phil Holmes) --205.168.109.130 (talk) 12:25, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Adjectival Form

What is the adjective form of platitude?174.3.98.236 (talk) 08:18, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Platitudinous. Collins Concise Dict. (2008)Richard Avery (talk) 08:26, 9 February 2010 (UTC)