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April 24

simple french

I just recently received a beautiful watch from my new uncle: the only problem is, I've never met him and he's french. And I don't speak french. So all I'm asking for, is for a simple translation. How do you say "Hello, nice to meet you", and "Thank you (so much) for the watch, I love it." in french? And some pronouciation tips?? Merci!! Johnnyboi7 (talk) 04:25, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Hello, nice to meet you: Bonjour, enchanté. (bone-zhoohr, ahn-shahn-tay)

Thank you (so much) for the watch, I love it. : Merci (beaucoup) pour la montre, je l'aime. (mayr-see (bow-coo) poohr la moan-truh, juh lemm)

Those pronunciations are very basic--just enough to be understood. If you're daring enough, you can ask for the IPA ones.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 04:32, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Bonjour, enchanté is [bɔ̃.ʒuʁ ɑ̃ʃɑ̃t.e]

Merci beaucoup pour la montre, je l'aime bien is [mɛʁ.si bo.ku puʁ la mɔ̃tʁ, ʒə lɛm bjɛ̃]

See Help:IPA for French for details. rʨanaɢ (talk)

"Facts Of Interest"

Is this a compound word? If so, what does it mean?174.3.123.220 (talk) 06:06, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

No, not a compound word. Without any context, I would say it means "facts that pertain to this conversation". Can you provide the entire sentence that you found "facts of interest" in? Comet Tuttle (talk) 06:26, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

"Interesting facts" would be more colloquial.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 15:38, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Depends on the context. For example, in "The only facts of interest to him were..." that change wouldn't work. --Anonymous, 17:20 UTC, April 24, 2010.

Domain specificity

Could anyone help me with a good definition of domain specificity? Yes of course, I did read the article Domain specificity, but I notice this concept is used in a slightly different way as it is explained in the wikipedia article. For instance, I read the following line in a scientific article: "The empirical evidence available so far does not allow a rejection of any of the above hypotheses, and the matter of the domain-specificity of face recognition is as yet unresolved." In this case, as far as I understand, it means that we don't know yet if the theories of face recognition are only valid for face recognition or if they are also valid for other types of recognition. But what would be a nice definition of domain specificity? Anyone? Lova Falk (talk) 13:52, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Applied to language, it roughly means that a given aspect of processing is specialized for language processing and nothing else. For instance, the group of neurons that gets excited when it sees vertical lines as opposed to horizontal lines is recruited for reading orthography but is not specific to language--it responds no matter what kind of lines it sees. Further forward in the visual cortex are groups of neurons that get excited when they see alphabetic letters rather than random shapes, and groups of neurons that get excited when they see arrangements of letters that could be words rather than random jumbles of consonants. Such areas might be called domain-specific, since they are especially geared towards processing language. rʨanaɢ (talk) 14:35, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

The basic insight comes from the practical observation that many specific concrete real-world tasks are easy for humans (people often do them many times a day without thinking about them) but are extremely hard for computers -- while conversely, many basic general abstract problems (such as mathematical calculations, data tabulations, etc.) are very easy for computers, but not too easy for humans. So for example, it has been deduced that since visually recognizing various other individual members of one's own species has often been important to the survival of animals for probably almost the last 500 million years, therefore there are highly specialized systems for visually recognizing other members of one's own species (in humans, "face recognition"), which are separate from so-called "general cognition". If that's the case, then face recognition in humans would be domain-specific... AnonMoos (talk) 14:56, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

So, a definition of "domain specificity" would be: a given aspect of processing that is specialized for a certain type of processing and not for other types of processing? Lova Falk (talk) 15:59, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

That can be compared with computer chess and dedicated consoles. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:28, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Your paraphrase sounds good to me. (Any other opinions?) Of course, the exact phrase "domain specificity" refers not to the processing itself, but to that characteristic of processing (i.e., you wouldn't say "X is a domain specificity", you'd say "X exhibits domain specificity") but that's just dotting the ɪ's :P rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:55, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm all in favor of dotting the i's!
Domain = a sphere of activity, concern, or function; a field.
Domain specificity = a characteristic of processing that is unique for this domain.
Face recognition exhibits domain specificity, that is: face recognition exhibits a characteristic of processing that is unique for face recognition.
What about that? Lova Falk (talk) 09:08, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

IPA software

Is there a software out there that would give pronunciation when input a single word or even a sentence in IPA transcription? Also the software would give IPA transcription when input a voice recording or a voice file. Thx. --Kvasir (talk) 16:18, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

My Google search led me to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 February 11#Real-time feedback on vowel production.

-- Wavelength (talk) 16:43, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Take a look at Praat for a start. 124.214.131.55 (talk) 17:29, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Hmm Praat looks really complicated and after an hour I still haven't figured out how to input IPA and get the program to pronounce it. I have a feeling that's not what the program does. --Kvasir (talk) 00:20, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

As far as I know, Praat can't create transcriptions or create sound from a transcription. Praat is a program used for analyzing sound files (creating spectograms and LPC spectra, measuring intensity and formant frequencies, etc.) and can also modify them and can create some synthetic sounds (such as sinusoidal tones, or speech sounds if you specifically tell it what to do), but I don't think it knows or cares about any particular transcription system. rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:25, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I found http://www.archive.org/details/software-wanted, which might be helpful. -- Wavelength (talk) 17:54, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

No, Praat can't do that. I've looked for software like this before and haven't found it. If you just want to say a vowel and get an IPA symbol back, you may have some success finding a program like that, since vowels are easily programmatically identified from their first and second formants (well, [+/- round] is a bit harder, but horizontal and vertical tongue positions are easy). Consonant identification, however, probably doesn't exist as a free, stand-alone program, and from what I know about speech-to-text applications, a good number of them use decision trees for the whole utterance to determine what is the most likely ID of questionable sounds so that the utterance makes sense.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 19:43, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I get the idea that we don't have the technology to accurately transcribe IPA symbols from speech. However, there must be some application that would read out a string of IPA transcription. I don't think that is particularly difficult to put together? --Kvasir (talk) 22:55, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

To be honest, if technology for transcribing IPA from a speech stream existed, one of the primary research topics of phonetics and language perception would be solved--speech segmentation, mapping a variable acoustic signal onto invariant abstract categories, etc. These are all incredibly difficult issues to solve computationally (although, as someone astutely pointed out in another thread here, human beings can do it effortlessly). For some good background (and an idea just how long this problem has been around), a nice reading is this controversial but informative article by Al Liberman:

• Liberman, AM; Cooper, FS; Shankweiler, DP; Studdert-Kennedy, M (1967). "Perception of the speech code". Papers in Speech Communication. Acoustical Society of America. pp. 75–105.

rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:03, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

And as for your second suggestion (that there is an application to pronounce IPA that you input), it's a good deal harder than you think. Because of coarticulation and prosody, a speech signal is much more than a simple concatenation of phonemes. Again, that Liberman article is a good starting point to get a feel for how complicated this all is :) rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:37, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

That's a good point. However sentences in IPA transcription do not usually take into account of coarticulation anyway, but rather present words as separate and not attempt to make it sound "natural". What's the point of having IPA transcription of sentences when we can't expect computer to be able to pronunce it, let alone a human to be able to read and articulate. For example, see this text sample here. The idea of IPA is such that anyone can articulate any language given the knowledge to read and pronounce the alphabet (it's phonetic, afterall!). I would never sound like the native speaker, but given the IPA even I should be, in theory, able to say that Danish paragraph. --Kvasir (talk) 19:26, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but like I said, there's a lot of information that gets left out in any transcription. The earliest text-to-speech programs, which essentially just concatenated phonemes, sounded like incomprehensible gibberish. Only when a lot of prosodic information is added (specifically timing and intonation) does the output start to become intelligible. Humans don't have such a problem because timing and intonation come naturally to us without having to think about it (our timing and intonation might sound non-native, but it would be nearly impossible for us to produce that whole paragraph with, say, every single syllable spoken with a 100Hz fundamental frequency and every phoneme spoken with the same length in every context); computers, on the other hand, can't do any of that stuff unless they are explicitly told to, and figuring out what to tell the computer is quite difficult. rʨanaɢ (talk) 21:21, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

"No problem"

Anyone know the history of "no problem" as a (particularly annoying) substitute for "you're welcome"? --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 16:56, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Just curious why you consider that annoying? It's merely a short-hand version for "it's not a problem, don't even mention it". Seems rather cordial to me. No? (64.252.65.146 (talk) 20:18, 24 April 2010 (UTC))

Some people do get rather annoyed at it (see, for instance, prescriptivist Lynne Truss' Talk to the Hand), although I'm not one of them. Several other languages use something like this widely and no one seems to mind (for instance, French de rien! and Spanish de nada!, both of which mean "it's nothing!"). As for the history of "no problem", I don't know when it was first attested if that's what you're looking for....but based on the fact that it's common in similar languages I imagine it's probably been around a while. rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:46, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

In German, people say Nichts zu danken (lit. "nothing to thank" i.e. "nothing to say thank you for"), but I'm pretty sure I've heard kein Problem (lit. "no problem") as a response to danke too. Whether it's a translation of the English or an independent invention, I can't say. +Angr 21:05, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Uyghur uses چاتاق يوق (also "no problem"), and is quite distant from English and the Romance languages, so there's another example. But it does, like English, have a more common alternative ئەرزىمەيدۇ ("you're welcome", but literally "it's not worthy of mention" or something like that), whereas in French and Spanish the de riens are the most common. rʨanaɢ (talk) 21:19, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, its seems "you're welcome" is the odd ball among world's languages. Chinese has 沒問題 or 沒關係 in Mandarin; and 無問題 or 唔緊要 in Cantonese. Both literally mean "no problem" and "no concern" respectively. Translated back to Chinese, "you're welcome" is an odd response to a statement of gratitude. The closest expression is 不客氣 / 唔駛客氣 (No need to be gracious (like a guest)). --Kvasir (talk) 00:18, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

(I was gonna say the same...although in my experience, I hear 不（用）客气/不（用）谢 more often than 没问题 in this context, so I wasn't sure whether or not to use 没问题 as an example.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:54, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

It annoys the heck out of me, I have to report. That, or "Not a problem". I hear it a lot in situations where a staff member is asked to do some task by their boss, or by a customer/client. They want to appear ready, willing and able - which is a good thing in itself. Typically, it's something routine, not particularly challenging, and certainly not a "problem"; so there's no need to refer to the hypothetical possibility of it being a problem, only to deny that that is the case in this particular case. But even if the task really was a problem, the staff member would still be expected to sort it out and get it done. That's what they're being paid for. And so, whether it's a problem or not is not something the boss wants to know about. Therefore, going to the point of denying there'll be any issue in getting the task done is as necessary and useful as telling the boss you'll be breathing air today. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:43, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

That's not actually the use of "no problem" under discussion here, though. Algebraist 21:45, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

No worries :) --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 22:28, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

"No problem" in the sense Jack is describing is shorthand for "I can handle it", describing some future activity, and it's certainly something a boss likes to hear, assuming it's actually true, otherwise you can get yourself into hot water. That's the usage in the 1980 Blues Brothers film, where Carrie Fisher is firing a machine gun at Jake and Elwood, and Jake assures Elwood, "No problem." In the case of the waitress, when saying it in response to "Thank you," it's often used after the fact, a substitute for "You're welcome", and seems subtly arrogant to me sometimes: "You're welcome" sounds like "I am happy to serve you", while "No problem" sounds like "Your request did not incovenience me." However, I don't think they really mean it that way, it's just a habit that's been picked up over time. I wouldn't be surprised if it's a phrase that was used frequently in TV shows, like maybe Seinfeld. Now, if the waitress is asked to do something and says "No problem", that's like what Jack is describing. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:40, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

"I can handle it", "Consider it done", "OK", "Easy", or some similar expression that's couched in positive terms is what's optimal if you want to inspire confidence in another. "No problem" is a very roundabout way of getting to that same point; the very mention of the word "problem", even if only to deny such a beast exists, suggests you're admitting the possibility of problems occurring, and that can only undermine the very confidence you're wanting to inspire. This is analogous to being told "not" to do something undesirable that may never have even occurred to you before being told not to do it - rather than being told to "do" something desirable. Like, "Don't forget your keys"; well, that kinda assumes the worst at the outset, and it actually increases the possibility of the person forgetting them, rather than reducing it; I'd much rather be asked "Please remember your keys". -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 02:01, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

"It is nothing" (de nada) is different from "no problem." "De nada" happens to be a gracious expression. It negates or minimizes an act done by one person for another. But when you say "no problem" you are not negating the act that you are doing for another person; you are merely eliminating the possibility of it being a "problem." There is a lesser degree of making oneself inconspicuous when one says "no problem." Bus stop (talk) 03:21, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

All of which discussion ignores the fact that idioms, almost all the time, are unanalysed and the literal meaning of the words is irrelevant (as are matters like the polarity of the phrase). --ColinFine (talk) 09:37, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Ironic "manage"

In English it's common to use the verb "manage" to ironically suggest that an inadvertent act was intentional, as in "I managed to get marinara sauce on my shirt" or "He managed to shoot himself in the foot with that last answer," both implying that the event was easily avoidable. My question is whether other languages have a similar construct. In particular, is it possible to use the Spanish "lograr" to convey this ironic sense, or would it be understood differently? 166.137.11.226 (talk) 21:11, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Well I would say it's the use of sarcasm and not just the use of a particular verb. This of course is not restricted to English. Here's an example in Cantonese: 佢叻到連一加一都加錯。(He's smart enough to get 1 plus 1 wrong.) --Kvasir (talk) 00:35, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

In Swedish we can say: "He succeeded with ...." when he has done something really stupid. Han lyckades med att radera hela artikeln i Wikipedia = He succeeded with erasing the whole Wikipedia article.Lova Falk (talk) 09:18, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Japanese has an auxiliary modal verb "shimau" that can be added to any action to give that sense of chagrin, as well as the "adversarial passive", in which even an intransitive verb can be passive to indicate a negative event. Paul Davidson (talk) 12:55, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

French: Il s'est debrouille pour se tirer dans le pied which means just the same as he managed to shoot himself in the foot. --Lgriot (talk) 04:35, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

In German, possible translations of "she managed to ..." are:

• "sie brachte es fertig, zu ..."
• "sie schaffte es, zu ..."

They can also be used ironically, in the sense you are asking about. (I googled for the phrases in combination with "Fettnäpfchen"; "ins Fettnäpfchen treten" means something like "to put one's foot in one's mouth").

• [Er] brachte es fertig, in beinahe jedes Fettnäpfchen hinab zu treten [...]" [1].
• "schaffte es [...], sozusagen kein einziges der obligaten Fettnäpfchen auszulassen." [2]

Though I didn't find any corresponding google hits for another possible translation, "brachte es zustande, zu ...", it too could be used in the same ironic sense: "Sie brachte es zustande, in jedes Fettnäpfchen zu treten ..." ---Sluzzelin talk 11:21, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

How about Es ist ihr gelungen, in fast jedes Fettnäpfchen zu treten (she succeeded in putting her foot in her mouth at every opportunity)? +Angr 11:42, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely! Given all these answers, I suspect this ironic usage is a widespread phenomenon, not connected to specific lexical definitions of translations of "managed to". Are there languages where this kind of usage of "managed to" would not be understood? ---Sluzzelin talk 13:14, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

In Dutch: hij speelde het klaar om (he managed to) is ironic more often than not. 195.35.160.133 (talk) 11:23, 27 April 2010 (UTC) Martin.

April 25

Etymology

What is the etymology of pissing contest?174.3.123.220 (talk) 03:55, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

What etymology? The two words perfectly describe the first meaning given there. --Anonymous, 05:28 UTC, April 25, 2010.

I think they're asking about when and where it was first used in it's more figurative usage. StuRat (talk) 06:51, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Dictionary.com gives the first recorded use as 1970s. Similarly it records pissing as an adjective "This pissing weather" from 1937. Pissingly as an adverb "this pissingly awful weather" at 1971. Caesar's Daddy (talk) 07:22, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I've no doubt that schoolkids have been holding pissing contests for at least hundreds of years. For some reason none of them thought to publish the details.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 16:27, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

monospace (fixed-width) East Asian characters same as Latin width?

Is there a font that provides both East Asian characters and Latin letters that are all exactly the same width? For instance, I would want these three examples to be the same width:

• 漢字
• ii
• 齉W

Alternatively, I'd also be happy with one that consistently maps Latin characters as half the width of a Chinese one. This is the only one I found so far: http://www.ascenderfonts.com/font/mingliu-traditional-chinese.aspx but it doesn't seem to be free.

--69.165.131.155 (talk) 06:50, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

In East Asian input methods there's often a little switch that toggles between full/half width characters, or between ａｂｃｄｅｆｇ and abcdefg. Full width form is the same width as Asian characters so it would be like "漢字ｉｉ齉Ｗ". --antilived^{T | C | G} 10:40, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

MingLiu used to be given out by Microsoft when you browsed a Chinese-language web-page in MSIE 5.5 running under non-Chinese Windows ME, and a little box popped up asking you if you want to download the Chinese-language browser support package (that's how I got it). The version I have is oriented towards traditional Chinese, and has only limited support for simplified characters... AnonMoos (talk) 12:28, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

PMingLiU has good support for simplified characters (although it looks like the OP is using traditional characters anyway), and I believe it comes already installed if you download OpenOffice. rʨanaɢ (talk) 13:58, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

'Correct' English

Is it grammatically correct to spell things like carpet's with an apostrophe? I have seen signs and menus where the plural has been given an apostrophe, such as chair's, menu's....I always used to think that this meant it belonged to whatever the thing is...for example Bob's would be mean it would belong to Bob...Am I right? Chevymontecarlo. 10:16, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

You are correct. An apostrophe to signify a plural is incorrect. Now we sit back and await the exceptions - if there are any. An associated mistake I have seen is paninis as a plural for panini. Panino is singular, panini is plural. Graffito is singular, graffiti is plural. Richard Avery (talk) 10:47, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Quite right. But see Earl's_Court_tube_station#Name. Kittybrewster ☎ 10:52, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

See also this[3] about the the so-called "greengrocers apostrophe". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:46, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Panini is plural of panino in Italian. In English, paninis is plural of panini. Woogee (talk) 21:29, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Then there are the so-called 'pirozhkis', which is wrong in 2 ways (double plural; wrong stress if pronounced pi-ROZH-kis). Maybe it's different in Polish, but in Russian one of them is a пирожок (pron. piro-ZHOK), and many are пирожки (piro-SHKI). -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 17:26, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's different in Polish – the stress is almost invariably on the penultimate syllable (sing. pieróg, pl. pierogi; diminutive sing. pierożek, pl. pierożki). But the sin of depluralization of foreign words is not restricted to English. In Polish, we typically add the "-y" or "-i" plural suffix to English words that already end in "-s": dżinsy (jeans), bryczesy (breeches), Beatelsi (the Beatles), etc. — Kpalion^(talk) 09:22, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Welsh has a different way of depluralizing English words. Most Welsh nouns are like nouns in any other European language: they're morphologically unmarked in the singular but take a suffix in the plural. But there are a few nouns, mostly referring to things that are small or tend to occur in groups (trees, leaves, flowers, mice, children, etc.) that are unmarked in the plural and take a suffix in the singular (-yn for masculine nouns, -en for feminine nouns). Welsh borrowed the English word "rags" as rhacs, which is plural. But the singular of rhacs is rhecsyn ("a rag"), with the singular suffix -yn and with the umlaut-like vowel mutation that suffix triggers. +Angr 09:42, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

You can stop waiting, Richard; I'm here with some exceptions. :-) In what is perhaps now a somewhat old-fashioned convention intended to prevent misreading, apostrophes have been used in forming the plurals of individual letters ("What river's name contains four s's and four i's?") and numbers ("I could barely tell the difference between his 1's and his 7's"). There are a couple of other similar cases, but they're too minor to go into in detail. Deor (talk) 15:30, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

The reverse side of the coin is that an apostrophe is always required with a possessive of a noun (Wikipedia's policies, Mary's husband, the chair's colour, the twins' names, etc). The only exception I can think of is geographic names in possessive form, such as Pikes Peak, the Princes Highway, etc, where the (often government-decreed) convention is to do without apostrophes. In general language, however, a peak belonging to Pike would be Pike's peak, and a highway owned by a prince would be the prince's highway. Yet, possessive apostrophes are becoming a thing of the past for many younger people. To compensate, they'll add them into plurals, where they're almost always out of place. Modern language education, hah! -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:55, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Ah, yes, "modern language education". For further information, see oxymoron. Meanwhile, it's nearing supper, so I'm heading out for some Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:00, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks everyone...this has been really bugging me... Chevymontecarlo. 17:17, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Just while I'm here: Something that continues to mystify me is lists of plural things where some items are given apostrophes and some aren't. Putting aside the rules for a moment, I'd have thought it'd be an all or nothing thing in the mind of the writer. I mean, why would certain plural words qualify for an apostrophe but others not? The common example is restaurants or cafes that offer: "sandwiches, pies, hamburger's [sic], pizza's [sic], drinks, ...". I know I've harped on this before, but as I say it still amazes me. I'm all for consistency, and I'm on record as saying that if you're going to misspell things, you can be forgiven if you at least always misspell them the same way, in the fervent belief that your principle is sound. But this blows that theory out of the water. I'm tempted to conclude that these people have no principles; but there must be something else that explains this apparently irrational behaviour. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 17:46, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Most people who use an apostrophe plus the letter s to make a singular noun plural are simply ignorant (or forgetful) of the rules of English grammar. That useage is incorrect. The increasing presence of that incorrect useage seems to give some people the impression that it is becoming acceptable. This is somewhat similar to people believing that something is true because they saw it on the Internet, or heard it on a television news program. --Thomprod (talk) 17:18, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree. But how can someone remember the rules for the first few words in a list, then forget the rules for the next few, then remember them again ... I just don't get what's going on there. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:20, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Language identification

Hi, can I get an identification of the languages of the greetings spoken at 3:28 in this youtube? thanks. 121.72.182.113 (talk) 11:47, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

They're all dialects of Mandarin, possible exepting one or two. 76.230.148.6 (talk) 16:33, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

What are you talking about? They are dialects of Chinese. Mandarin (a dialect of Chinese) is in there, as well as Cantonese. The others I don't know which dialects they are. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 17:12, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I beg to differ. Mandarin Chinese is a branch of Chinese, comprising many dialects. You are probably thinking of Standard Mandarin, a dialect of Mandarin Chinese. See Mandarin_dialects. 76.230.148.6 (talk) 17:16, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that is indeed what Wikipedia says. However, Mandarin variously gets called a dialect, a branch, and even a separate language, depending on who is saying it (this topic comes up every so often here on the RefDesk - feel free to look through the archives for the relevant discussions). In any case, the 'languages' in those greetings are not dialects of Mandarin. They are dialects, or 'branches' if you so prefer, of Chinese. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 17:40, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

(Obligatory mention of this article, the same one I always cite when this issue comes up.) FWIW KageTora is correct here; regardless of what you call Mandarin, the greetings on the video linked are from various varieties of Chinese, not from various varieties of Mandarin (most of them are not Mandarin). rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:29, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

If you actually listen to what the announcer says at the beginning of the video, she clearly states that the signal from the debate is being simultaneously broadcast on all channels in order to let the greatest number of people experience the historic debate between a sitting president and a leader of the opposition party. She specifically mention that the Hakka channel and the Aboriginal channel, as well as CTS, are broadcasting the debate. President Ma greeted the audience first in Mandarin, then Taiwanese, then Hakka, then Cantonese (?), then something aboriginal (Amei? Paiwanese??? good luck finding out which). If you understand contemporary Taiwanese identity politics, this sort of linguistic pluralism has become de rigeur for almost all public occasions and and in all public venues 96.232.190.148 (talk) 23:52, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

President Ma mixed in a few phrases of Taiwanese during the debate as well. Why doesn't Tsai Ing-wen feel the need to do this? 121.72.217.70 (talk) 07:11, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the 4th is Cantonese. --Kvasir (talk) 07:41, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Malayalam bot message

Hello Language Reference Desk. I have a strange request. User:Jotterbot left me a message on my Malayalam talk page. (I didn't even know I had one, but thanks to unified accounts, I do!) In any case, I can't read any of this, because I have never actually learned to speak or read Malayalam; and I need help translating this message so I can decide whether I need to respond. Any Malayalam speakers want to help translate this into English for me? Nimur (talk) 19:23, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

It's just ml:ഫലകം:സ്വാഗതം, the Malayalam equivalent of {{welcome}}. Algebraist 19:57, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I get messages like this all the time in obscure languages I don't know, because of unified accounts and because at smaller wikis just automatically welcome everyone who registers an account - even when that's done automatically because of unified accounts. Now whenever I visit a new language's Wikipedia for the first time, the first thing I do is go to my preferences and switch the interface language to English (so I can see what I'm doing) and turn off "Notify me when my talk page is changed" so that I at least don't also get e-mail in obscure languages informing me that I have talk page messages in obscure languages. +Angr 09:52, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I never got a Wikipedia welcome message, on any of my accounts. In fact, Angr, the only welcome message I ever got was from you. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:28, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, I haven't regretted that yet! But do you have single user log-in? If not, sign up for it, and then just start visiting random pages at random Wikipedias. You don't even have to edit – just viewing a page when you're logged in here will be sufficient for your account to be automatically created, and then you'll start getting welcome messages from bots. And if your preferences are set to "Notify me when my talk page is changed" (and if you have registered your e-mail address), you'll also start getting e-mails in random languages informing you that you have messages on your talk pages. +Angr 14:37, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

IPA

This wasn't answered on the misc desk (Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous#IPA) so I thought I'd try here: Hi, I've googled but can't find an answer so I hope you can help. How do you write the Asian sirname Advani (pronounced Ad-var-nee - that's the best I can do to write it phonetically) in IPA. Thanks. 86.180.29.26 (talk) 22:39, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

It would help to know what language it is. rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:17, 25 April 2010 (UTC) I suppose it's Hindi? rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:19, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

According to this article, there exists the Sindhi name आडवाणी, the romanisation of which would give Advani, and according to the same article, the IPA transcription of that name is [aˑᶑʋaˑɳiˑ]. By the way, I can't view the letter ᶑ that has been used in the transcription. Does anyone know a font that supports it? --Магьосник (talk) 01:42, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

D with hook and tail mentions Charis SIL and Doulos SIL. Algebraist 01:47, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I have misread the text there. It reads: "Those that do include Charis SIL and Doulos SIL", and I erroneously read it as "Those do not include Charis SIL and Doulos SIL." It's 5 in the morning where I am, therefore such mistakes can happen sometimes. :P Thanks! --Магьосник (talk) 02:05, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you all very very much! Really, thanks. I couldn't find it with an extensive Google and Bing search, I should have really thought of checking Wikipedia's articles beyong the disambig page. 86.180.29.26 (talk) 19:58, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, it was exactly Google that I used and the very first hit gave me the result you needed. :P --Магьосник (talk) 22:13, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

April 26

Double possessives and relative clauses

OK, here's a dilemma I encountered today. I started out writing:

• The second movement was a favourite of Lady Elgar's.

Then I wanted to append:

• , who described it as "captured sunshine".

But then I reasoned that "who" refers to Lady Elgar, not to Lady Elgar's.

What’s the solution? Is it ok to write:

• The piece was a favourite of Lady Elgar, who described it as "captured sunshine",

even though without the dependent clause it would have to end with a double possessive?

It's easy enough to rearrange the sentence to avoid the problem, but I want to confront the technical issue. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 02:29, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Your last example is the way I write it when this issue comes up for me, although there are some subtle differences. There is no hard-and-fast rule in English that we have to use 'double possessives', but there are discourse-related issues... my intuition is that the double possessive is used when the "possessor" (Lady Elgar in this case) is already given (i.e., has already been mentioned in the discourse), whereas the non-double one is used when you're introducing a new person as the "possessor" (i.e., "not only was this movement super-famous, but it was even a favorite of the king of England!"). rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:41, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Another solution would be The second movement was a favorite of Lady Elgar's; she described it as "captured sunshine". Marco polo (talk) 18:31, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

@ Rjanag. Thank you. I'm not sure your example works well, though. Assuming we were talking about England, I'd normally just refer to "the king". Then it'd come out as "not only was this movement super-famous, but it was even a favorite of the king". That's a problem because the expression "favo(u)rite of the king" is already in my brain as referring to a human being. To make this sentence work, it would have to be "... it was even a favorite of the king's".

But if it was necessary to state which realm the king belonged to, I'm not sure we could ever write "... it was even a favorite of the king of England's", much less "... it was even a favorite of the king of the United Kingdom's", much, much less "... it was even a favorite of the king of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland's".

This discussion about when the double possessive is appropriate or not, while useful in itself, does not help me to resolve what happens when something tries to follow a double possessive, as in my original question. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 18:48, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

@ Marco Polo. Thank you. That's pretty much what I'd write, I guess. What I'm wanting to know is whether it's always necessary to come up with such an alternative solution, or whether it's ever acceptable to write " ... a favourite of Lady Elgar's, who described it as ...". -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 18:48, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

To me, that construction sounds wrong. I just don't think that a possessive works as an antecedent for a relative pronoun. Marco polo (talk) 19:58, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Marco polo. That confirms what I thought at the start. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:04, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I have no problem with a possessive as antecendent. --ColinFine (talk) 22:46, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

A. That book on the table is Mary's, who's coming to pick it up today.

B. That book on the table belongs to Mary, who's coming to pick it up today.

Is there a preference? I might say either of them in colloquial speech, but I think I'd prefer B in formal contexts. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:30, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

What's kimbling?

I found this on a screen-printer's website:

We can offer a full Quality Controlled garment steaming and pressing service. We can then hang, label or re-label and kimble for retail point of sale.

The only definition I can find is from Urban Dictionary, which says to kimble is to defeat your opponent in a sporting event despite having only one arm. 81.131.26.26 (talk) 11:22, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

We used to have an article on Kimble tag. A google image search gives you an idea of the tag and corresponding tag gun your website must be referring to. ---Sluzzelin talk 11:39, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh, those things! So that's what they're called. Thanks. 81.131.26.26 (talk) 11:59, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Hyphens in organizations and place names

For joining two names in an organization or place, should you use a hyphen or an ndash? In the titles of your articles, like Kitchener-Waterloo and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, you use hyphens, but I've heard that this is wrong. --198.103.172.9 (talk) 14:35, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I would say that our Manual of Style calls for n-dashes. -- Coneslayer (talk) 14:41, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

(ec) The guidelines WP:NDASH and WP:HYPHEN have extensive discussion of this sort of thing. My feeling is that the hyphens in the examples you cited are indicating conjunction rather than disjunction, and are therefore appropriate. rʨanaɢ (talk) 14:42, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

But WP:DASH says to use ndash to mean "and". I think in both of my examples the hyphen implies the word "and", so it looks like your style guide recommends renaming the pages. --198.103.172.9 (talk) 17:29, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 108#En dashes vs. hyphens. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:17, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Whatever else you decide, it's ridiculous that Kitchener—Waterloo and Kitchener-Waterloo are currently distinct articles. -- Coneslayer (talk) 19:19, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

The one with the m-dash should be the electoral district, the one with the n-dash should be the twin city, and there shouldn't be one with a hyphen (unless it redirects to the n-dash one). --198.103.172.9 (talk) 19:32, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Elections Canada always uses long dashes between the names of different communities in a riding name so they are not confused with hyphens, which are common in French-language place names, thus Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 22:35, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Some people consider the en dash in such constructs to be just a typographical variant of the hyphen, and consider Kitchener-Waterloo with a hyphen the normal spelling. As noted above, WP policy is that the characters are distinct and the article title should be "Kitchener–Waterloo" with an en dash, with "Kitchener-Waterloo" as a redirect. In fact "Kitchener–Waterloo" was redirecting to "Kitchener—Waterloo" with an em dash, which, as noted above, is correctly a separate article because it has a different meaning.

I've added some clarification distinguishing between the two articles in the form of hatnotes, and I've corrected the redirect of "Kitchener–Waterloo" with an en dash, to go to "Kitchener-Waterloo" with a hyphen. But as an unregistered user, I can't rename an article. If someone else would please rename "Kitchener-Waterloo" with a hyphen to become "Kitchener–Waterloo" with an en dash, which will automatically reverse the redirect, citing the MOS as the reason, then things will then be as they should be. --Anonymous, 20:30 UTC, April 27, 2010.

What about Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation? Should Asia-Pacific be a hyphenated term, or does the hyphen stand for the word "and"? --198.103.172.9 (talk) 14:03, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

"Fast As I Can" or "Fast as I Can"

Resolved

 – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 18:34, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

This is the title of a song on an upcoming album. I can't wrap my head around whether the word "as" is being used as an adverb, a conjunction, or a preposition. If it's an adverb, then it's capitalized. Otherwise, not. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 17:56, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums#Capitalization. -- Wavelength (talk) 18:00, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I think it's an adverb modifying "fast". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.103.172.9 (talk) 18:08, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually, in this case, I think it's a subordinating conjunction, but according to the style Wavelength has linked, it should be capitalized anyway, since it is not on the list of conjunctions that are lower-cased. Marco polo (talk) 18:27, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like it's a tricky little devil, but at least the answer is simple: capitalized it is! Thank you guys, very much. (is {{resolved}} ever used on ref desk questions?) – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 19:00, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I saw it being used. Rimush (talk) 20:25, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Ok... but before I close the discussion, I just received "intel" from a non-Wikipedia source that the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition states that "as" should never be capitalized in a title, no matter what the use (excluding first/last word). Is this just another example of the English language changing to be more simple? I disagree completely, but I can't verify this at the moment (not near a library). – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 20:41, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

The Chicago Manual, 14th edition, clearly states (rule 7.127): "In regular title capitalization, also known as headline style, the first and last words and all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and subordinating conjunctions (if, because, as, that, etc.) are capitalized. . . ." The rule seems to have changed for the 15th edition (rule 8.167), which recommends lower-casing as no matter how it's used. These rules are obviously arbitrary and are merely the recommendation of the University of Chicago Press. It is perfectly acceptable for another publication (such as Wikipedia) to adopt a different style rule. Most publishing companies have style sheets, which depart from Chicago's rules in some ways and which may vary from publication to publication. Wikipedia existing rule on capitalization for the names of albums (which is more specific than Chicago's general rule for all titles of works) is clear. According to this rule, as should be capitalized. If you are unhappy with this rule, you can challenge and try to change it. Otherwise, the thing to do is to apply the rule. Marco polo (talk) 14:22, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Not at all, if anything, I'm unhappy with the Chicago Manual's 15th edition lazy-man's change. Thank you so very much for your referenced input, Marco polo. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 18:34, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I wish English would step into line with the other European languages and abandon the ridiculous custom of "title case", and just use sentence case in titles. +Angr 21:55, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

It's the differences that make languages interesting; it's what makes them what they are. Maybe we should start using the same words as other languages, that'd make things nice and convenient, wouldn't it. One problem, though: which language do we copy? I know, we'll copy all of them, a bit from here, a bit from there, all nice and non-discriminatory. What's that you say? Already done that? Get away with you!  :) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:23, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

avec versus en utilisant

Hello all. In the sentence (in French) "Je me brosse les dents <blank> le «Colgate». would it be more idiomatic to replace <blank> with avec or en utilisant. Tahnks in advance! --Peter aka Petey —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.230.149.101 (talk) 21:56, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Avec. and I wouldn't even say le Colgate, I would just say "avec Colgate". – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 22:08, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

According to wikt:avec, the word "avec" can be used to denote the instrument used. However, "en utilisant" is more precise, by indicating that "Colgate" is not your companion who is brushing his or her teeth at the same time with you. "Je me brosse les dents avec du (dentifrice) Colgate." "Je me brosse les dents en utilisant du (dentifrice) Colgate." -- Wavelength (talk) 22:54, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

April 27

"nearly avoiding crash"

Emirates aircraft nearly avoids major crash is a news headline seen here. Literally it would mean the plane was about to avoid crashing at some point but perished anyway. How idiomatic and acceptable is this "nearly avoiding crash" which one encounters in news papers? --117.204.80.252 (talk) 12:37, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Almost is one definition of "nearly". Another is closely [4]. Maybe that is the intended literal meaning, though I too stumbled over this headline. ---Sluzzelin talk 12:48, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Still, it sounds very bad. I would have written, "Emirates aircraft narrowly avoids major crash". +Angr 12:55, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Angr. At best, the headline is ambiguous as written. -- Coneslayer (talk) 12:57, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

The site it comes from appears to be Indian. Perhaps it's acceptable in Indian English. +Angr 12:58, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, "narrowly" is the term they're looking for. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:41, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

A similar expression is Near miss (safety). -- Wavelength (talk) 13:54, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

See Headlinese. Newspaper headlines are purposely written in a certain way. --Kvasir (talk) 18:19, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

But sometimes they really do say something other than what they mean. "Four patients critical after horror bus crash claims 17 lives" - suggests 4 people survived and are complaining about something: maybe their hospital treatment is inadequate, or maybe they weren't happy about the state of the road, or maybe the driver was under the weather. In fact, "critical" here refers not to the patients per se but to their condition. Being in a critical condition usually means they're in no state to be criticising anything or anyone, and are just grateful to be alive at all. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:01, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

You say that's not what it means, I say it's a natural extension of the previous meaning and this is the way the language grows. --Anonymous, 20:37 UTC, April 27, 2010.

Um, what? rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:48, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Anon, I can't accept that. This only ever appears in dumb headlines. People in critical conditions are not otherwise referred to as "critical patients". People in serious conditions are not referred to as "serious patients". Patients in excellent conditions are not referred to as "excellent patients". -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 09:29, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

"Four patients critical" is headline writing shorthand for "four patients in critical condition", and as written it's certainly ambiguous. I could see Jay Leno making the point Jack is making. Meanwhile, what's a "horror bus"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:43, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Headlines are infamous for these kinds of ambiguities. See [5]. rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:48, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

See Syntactic ambiguity for other examples, my favourite is "Monty flies back to front". Mikenorton (talk) 22:11, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

As to Jack's factual claim: people may not say "critical patients" yet, but if a patient is in critical condition, they certainly do say "He's critical". Fortunately not a conversational subject I've had experience with, but I've heard it said on TV. And if you'd like print-based evidence, try a Google Books search on the phrase plus additional words such as "hospital" or "stable" to rule out other meanings. --Anonymous, 04:12 UTC, April 29, 2010.

I think everyone is being too charitable to the awful editor and headline writer — "nearly avoids major crash" does literally mean that the aircraft crashed. There is no ambiguity about it. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:27, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

On the contrary. Since language is a device for communication, not a recondite game, it clearly means that it did not crash. There is, as you say, no ambiguity. See Gricean maxims. --ColinFine (talk) 22:53, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Comet Tuttle. The headline was not ambiguous: it clearly stated that the airplane crashed, and thus stated the opposite of what it meant. Even the Gricean maxims don't let you do that, unless you're being sarcastic. Who knows, maybe the headline writer was being sarcastic, although it seems an odd time to do it. +Angr 06:14, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes. If you "nearly" avoid a crash, then you failed to avoid the crash, hence you crashed. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:22, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Gay dog

In light of this incident, can anyone confirm if "gay" and "guide" are homophones in Australian English? thx --Kvasir (talk) 21:08, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Judging by the article, it seems likely that the waiter who was mishearing "guide" was a Vietnamese immigrant and not a native English speaker. rʨanaɢ (talk) 21:11, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Well yes obviously. How can someone grew up in Australian culture this day and age would conceive the idea of a gay dog AND refuse service. Here I'm suggesting perhaps Australian English may have something to do with it as well, assuming Mr. Jolly and his gf speak Australian English. (Even more bizarre was that they produced proof that fido is in fact a guide dog, and the owners still didn't get it.) --Kvasir (talk) 21:17, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

To this American, an Aussie would say "gay dog" as "guy dog", and "guide dog" as "goyd dog". But they could sound similar to someone who does not speak English natively. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:56, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

According to Australian English phonology, the vowel of gay is [æɪ] and that of guide is [ɑe]. So they're pretty different. But if a Vietnamese immigrant heard [gɑed], they would likely have difficulty with the coda consonant (as mentioned here). — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 23:05, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Kool thx. Wouldn't an AE speaker also link the [d] in guide and [d] in dog? as in [gɑedɔg] comparing with [gæɪdɔg]. --Kvasir (talk) 23:17, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that was the point. The words could run together and sound like different words. A common example is the term "a nickname" which supposedly was originally "an eke name". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:21, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I also recall some fast-talking guy on the radio with a promo to "meet head coach Smith" or whatever, and it sounded like "meathead coach Smith". A frequent oddity in English. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:22, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Mairzy Doats is another example of that. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 05:48, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Another way to approach this was that I considered this same sorry episode had it occurred in Canada, no one would confuse [geɪdɔg] with [gaɪdɔg], even for an immigrant. Not sure about other varieties of American English. --Kvasir (talk) 00:02, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

There's some evidence, given the pronunciations I hear from Vietnamese-speaking immigrants, that it's possible. The [æi]/[ai] distinction is sometimes unclear for Vietnamese ESL-ers. I would have thought that context would have made it clear, however. Steewi (talk) 01:14, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Extra: Given Australian English's reputation for pronouncing these two diphthongs oddly, it makes a bit of sense. I'm thinking of the stories I've heard about new arrivals mishearing "Where are you going today?" as "Where are you going to die?" Steewi (talk) 01:16, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

True enough. The first time we visited Australia some 15 years ago having never been exposed to Australian English we came out of the car rental office at the airport puzzled over what the clerk was on about "car case". Then as we opened the doors it finally darned on me that she was talking about returning the car keys. --Kvasir (talk) 02:33, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

No-one seems to have linked Language Log yet. Algebraist 02:43, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Excellent link. thx. --Kvasir (talk) 05:20, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

If I may address your original question directly, Kvasir: No, "gay" and "guide" are not homophones in Australian English, and couldn't be, because one ends in a "d" sound and the other doesn't. But even "gay" and "guy" are not homophones, even if a gay guy is another kind of homo. Aussie vowels are sometimes very easy to misinterpret, even for us locals. In some people's enunciation, "phone home" sounds like "fine hime", whatever that is. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 09:23, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I just happened to watch Muriel's Wedding for the millionth time last night and found the actor's pronunciation are quite varied as well. --Kvasir (talk) 16:53, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Another funny example here. --Магьосник (talk) 17:16, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Parts of a sentence

I will use this sentence as an example: John ate pizza. John is a noun; ate is a verb; pizza is a noun. These classifications (noun and verb) are called the "parts of speech". In the same sentence: John is the subject; ate is the predicate; pizza is the direct object. These classifications (subject, predicate, direct object) are called what? I assume that they are the "parts of the sentence" ... but is there an actual word to describe them? Thanks. (64.252.65.146 (talk) 22:15, 27 April 2010 (UTC))

"Parts of speech", which is what we were taught to call them, redirects to Lexical category, which I suppose is the more formal terminology you're looking for. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:25, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

No, no, no! "Parts of speech" (or lexical category) refers to noun, verb, adjective, adverb, etc. That is not what my question was asking. I am asking about the overall "umbrella" category for things like subject, predicate, direct object, indirect object, etc. Thanks. (64.252.65.146 (talk) 23:00, 27 April 2010 (UTC))

How about "words" or "grammar"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:19, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

But 'predicate' is not lexical category. It's a sort of phrasal category, though I don't think any of the modern theories of grammar recognise use the term. 'Constituent' is a word that could be used for these, though it's a word with so many meanings that without context it would be too general. --ColinFine (talk) 22:58, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

See Grammatical relation. -- Wavelength (talk) 23:46, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Wavelength is right. Grammatical relations (alternatively grammatical categories) are what you want to talk about. Semantic relations are also important here. Steewi (talk) 01:20, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

"Parts of the sentence", what the OP suggested, seems most logical to me. That's what it's called Polish grammar books, too. Is there any reason not to use it in English? — Kpalion^(talk) 12:25, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Some googling gave me this and this and this in favour of "part of [the] sentence". Before reading the above discussion, I wouldn't have hesitated to use "part of the sentence" as the English term for what the OP is asking for. In Bulgarian we have част на речта, literally "part of the speech", for nouns, verbs, etc., and част на изречението, lit. "part of the sentence", for subject, predicate, object, etc. I have never presumed the English terms would be anyhow different from that. --Магьосник (talk) 13:04, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

The closest term is grammatical relation (as opposed to semantic relations—in terms of theta roles, there is not a one-to-one mapping between, for example, subjects and "doers" or between objects and "doees"). But how you construe subjects and objects largely depends on what theoretical framework you are working inside of, so different experts would answer this question in different ways. rʨanaɢ (talk) 13:26, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

April 28

Animal naming customs

I'm wondering about the way names are assigned to individual animals, as opposed to species. I am vaguely aware that there are cultural differences in the way animals are named. For instance, in one country (perhaps it is China), the names given to animals are not human names, because it is considered disrespectful to name an animal "for" a human being. In another culture, animals are not given names at all, or horses are given names but things like dogs and cats aren't. Livestock and show dogs are given names that follow a distinctive formula, and racing horses are known for having bizarre names that sometimes don't sound like names at all. I thought that Wikipedia had an article about this topic, but if so I can't find it. Can anyone point me to information, either on Wikipedia or elsewhere? 129.174.184.114 (talk) 01:57, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

That covers a lot of ground. I looked in Horse racing and didn't see anything about the naming rules for thoroughbreds, but I know there are rules - they are limited to 16 characters or some such, hence the creativity associated with naming them. Beyond that, I dunno. Have you looked in Google at all? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:05, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Say, you cover a lot of ground yourself, BB. Deor (talk) 03:29, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeh, I'd better beat it, I hear they're going to tear me down and put up an office building where I'm standing. Oops, sorry, channeling Margaret Dumont for a second there. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:59, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

The American Kennel Club has a limit of something like 16 characters as well. As far as dairy cows go, many farmers in my area (Vermont, US) will give a cow a barn name that starts with the same letter as their mother's name. Some will give the calf a name starting with a certain letter depending on the year. So 2010 might be all A names, 2011 will be all B names, and so on. Dismas|^(talk) 02:53, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I had some friends who bought an AKC registered dog and they had to name it something starting with an "E" because it was from the fifth generation since the last champion, or some such. Woogee (talk) 06:00, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I found a pretty good summary of the thoroughbred horse naming rules here. They remind me of the Wikipedia screen names rules - no disparaging, commercial or offensive names; no names of living people without permission; no names ending in "horse", "mare", "stallion" etc (but "bot" seems OK). At least we don't have to submit 6 possible screen names and abide by consensus as to which one we can have! Karenjc 15:50, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

WP:BEANS, Karen! +Angr 16:00, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

When we've bought a Burmese kitten in the UK, they've had 3-part names so they could be registered as non-active (not to be bred from, so any kittens they produce cannot be regarded as pure-bred Burmese. This is to avoid irresponsible breeding). The first part was the breeder's prefix, paid for from the General Council of Cat Fancy. The second part was a name chosen by the breeder for that litter or line. The third part was chosen by us, and had to be unique among cats with the first two names: essentially, the cat's everyday name. There's a little bit about the restrictions on page 2, here. 26 characters. 86.178.225.111 (talk) 14:19, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Claude Levi-Strauss discussed some of the peculiarities of naming animals in chapter seven of La pensée sauvage [6] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.171.56.13 (talk) 19:34, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

The Jockey Club used to tell the story of the horse name You Name It. It got its name when the club kept rejecting the owner's name submissions. Finally, in anger, the owner scrawled on the application "You name it!." The club replied with a letter stating the name "You Name It" had been approved. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 03:10, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

This reminds me of the story of Robert Barbour (not either of the men by that name who're in Wikipedia) and his personalized license plate, which you can find at snopes.com. --Anonymous, 04:15 UTC, April 29, 2010.

Ah yes, Mr. "NOPLATE." A favorite story of mine. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:04, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

English language help.

Hi! I love to read about criminology and criminals and now I watched an interview on YouTube with Jeffrey Dahmer. I can understand the whole video except one thing Stone Phillips says, could you help me?. Not watch the whole video, just from 0:43 to 0:48. Stone Phillips says "contribute you?" or that's what I can understand, but not what he says before "contribute you"... well, can anybody help me? Never asked on this Desk hehe. Thank you! Oh, I know the vid has subtitles, but believe me, they are horrible. - the vid. 1 --SouthAmerican (talk) 03:04, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

"Did I in some way create or contribute to the terrible acts my son committed?" Deor (talk) 03:12, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you Deor! I thought it was something like "they are in some way..." and stop there haha. Thanks! --SouthAmerican (talk) 03:20, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

This is very similar to my own experience when I listen to things in German. I'm following along and then I bump into something like this, and then if I figure it out or if someone points out to me what was said, it seems as if it should have been obvious. Michael Hardy (talk) 05:53, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Is "virtually" proper encyclopedic language?

I found the word "virtually" used in a Wikipedia article in a way that seemed to me quite wrong (given my understanding of the word.)

I searched the language archives for "virtually", and found a more than usually relevant discussion, titled "Virtual and Virtue", in this file: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Language/2006_October_29

My conclusion after reading this discussion is that modern use of the term "virtually" is so hopelessly imprecise and confusing that the word ought not to be used in an encyclopedia. I would appreciate hearing other opinions on this issue. Thanks. Wanderer57 (talk) 04:54, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

P.S. Based on previous experience I anticipate that I will be asked which Wikipedia article started this little quest for information and opinion. In my estimation that question is irrelevant; if the word is as ambiguous as it now seems to be it ought not to be used in any encyclopedia article. However if some editor thinks the question relevant, I will answer it. Wanderer57 (talk) 04:54, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

It's not irrelevant because it depends on context. The discussion you refer to simply indicates how the meaning has shifted over time. Contemporary meaning is pretty concrete as long as it's used correctly. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 05:43, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean anticipate or expect? Kittybrewster ☎ 09:21, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Anticipate or expect? Both, I think. I thought it likely that I would be asked. I also tried to deal with the expected question by saying I did not think it was relevant.

The word 'virtually' is used in the first sentence of the second paragraph of the article entitled Fuck.

To elaborate a bit, if 'virtually' means what I think it means, I believe it is misused in that sentence. On the other hand, if its meaning is as ambiguous as indicated by the discussion in the reference desk archives, I think 'virtually' muddies the meaning of the sentence. (I also disagree with the use of 'logically' in the same sentence, and with a bunch of other things about the Fuck article. For some reason, 'virtually' stood out as especially objectionable.) Wanderer57 (talk) 18:20, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

If virtually is an adverb that means "for the most part" (and nothing in the discussion you cite indicates otherwise), then you can't remove it from the phrase "Fuck can be used as virtually any word in a sentence" without changing the meaning. In this case, the example reenforces that the word in question is used as almost any word in the sentence but can only replace content words and not auxiliaries, determiners, etc. You can make a case for replacing "virtually" with "almost" but ambiguity or unencyclopedicity aren't valid justifications. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 22:15, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Not to argue but to encourage further discussion, I will say that to me "virtually" suggests near certainty. For example, "Virtually all English words contain one or more consonants" conveys that there are some exceptions but very few. Wanderer57 (talk) 03:26, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

What does the word "Macaulish" mean?

In the movie Braveheart after William Wallace killed the local lord, the father of Amish starts shouting "Macaulish!" before everyone starts to yell "Wallace!". It is even in the subtitles. What does this mean? 74.60.75.235 (talk) 08:32, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

According to Yahoo Answers, it's "Gallic" [sic] for Wallace more or less. Clarityfiend (talk) 08:36, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

That explanation is all over the web. Yet the article on Scottish Gaelic Wikipedia spells it "Uallas". (No idea how it is pronounced). I wasn't able to find any mentioning of "Aulish" for "Wallace" outside the Braveheart context. ---Sluzzelin talk 09:34, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

The article on Clan Wallace lists many alternative spellings, but none of them resemble "Aulish". The only Scottish Gaelic form it mentions is "Uallas". ---Sluzzelin talk 11:08, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

WAG here, but: if "Mac" prefix in Scots Gaelic means "son of", I would assume he is shouting "Sons of Wallace"? Sort of on the lines of "I am Spartacus"? --TammyMoet (talk) 09:54, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Now don't take this as gospel as I have no idea what the script writers were smoking ;) Wallace is not a native Gaelic name but rather goes back to Norman French "Waleis", a term for a Brythonic speaker. Because Gaelic disallowes most word initial fricatives, this turned into the Gaelic form Uallas. "Macaulish" sounds to me like someone decided the surname needed gaelicising a bit more and stuck the patronymic Mac in front, which triggers genitive case marking. This would make "Uallas > MacUallais" /maˈkuəlˠ̪ɪʃ/ which to an English speaker would sound fairly close to Macaulish. Hope that helps but please remember this is an educated deduction! Akerbeltz (talk) 11:30, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

"Sons of Wallace" would be mic Uallais, or a mhic Uallais in the vocative. I've never seen the movie (thank G-d), but I'd be surprised if there was an Amish person's father in it. +Angr 11:35, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Read Hamish for Amish I think ;). Akerbeltz (talk) 13:08, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

You wouldn't perhaps, possibly, be pre-judging the movie, would you, Angr? -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 13:54, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

No, just acting on the reviews I've read and responses I've heard from people who have seen it. I remember when Gladiator (which I did see) won the Oscar for Best Picture, somebody described it as "the worst movie to win Best Picture since Braveheart". That pretty much confirmed the opinion I had already formed 5 years earlier. +Angr 14:15, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I think Akerbeltz is spot on here. For another example the vocative of 'Seumas' (/ʃe:məs/) is 'A Sheumis' (/ə he:mɪʃ/ - 'Hamish' to you and me). --ColinFine (talk) 18:04, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, everyone's entitled to their opinion. But I should tell you that millions of people who did actually see that movie had a somewhat different opinion than you and your friend. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:11, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it was a friend of mine who said that, I think I read it in a review. And considering the interval between Braveheart and Gladiator contained such appalling Best Pictures as The English Patient, Titanic, and Shakespeare in Love, it was a very strong statement! +Angr 15:10, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

The film isn't over-burdened with historical accuracy; the Battle of Stirling Bridge is re-fought without the benefit of a bridge or even a river, Wallace has an affair with Isabella of France, despite her being actually only 13 when he died and Edward I of England dies two years early. The WP Braveheart page quotes historian Sharon Krossa; "The events aren't accurate, the dates aren't accurate, the characters aren't accurate, the names aren't accurate, the clothes aren't accurate -- in short, just about nothing is accurate". Alansplodge (talk) 17:49, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

And I suspect the real William Wallace wasn't a pompous, annoying, overacting git, either. +Angr 18:10, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

And I suspect you've all fallen into the trap of judging historical films by their historical content. On that basis, no historical film ever made will pass your test. None. Because they all at the very least contain some invented dialogue; most contain invented scenes and people, or leave out important events and people, or confuse timelines, the list goes on. Such films are not made for the benefit of historians, but for housewives and truckdrivers and addle-brained teenagers and office workers and the general population. Even if they were made for historians, the historians would argue among themselves about whether it gets the big tick or not. Some sort of try to get the events in roughly the right order and not leave out too much important stuff and not make up too many characters, but at the end of the day it's what going to get bums on seats that matters. Period. If you want history, look elsewhere. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:15, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Now then, I won't stand idly by while someone badmouths Shakespeare in Love: that is a fine, good-humoured film that takes about the same approach to history as Blackadder. And, like The Art of Coarse Acting, is very true to the experience of being in a play. It should not be spoken of in the same breath as Braveheart, which makes a pretence of being history. 86.178.225.111 (talk) 13:53, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Black Americans/African Americans

I believe that in the US "African Americans" (or African-Americans) is the preferred term, however is "black Americans" still perfectly acceptable? If yes, would black be Black? Thanks! Gandydancer (talk) 13:19, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think there's a single answer to that question. Some people strongly dislike "black" (whether capitalized or not), some people have no preference between "black" and "African American", and some people strongly prefer "black". The same is true of other comparatively recent politically correct terms like "Native American": depending on who you ask, you'll get widely different answers regarding whether or not that term is preferable to "(American) Indian". +Angr 13:29, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think anyone says "African-Americans" unless it is a formal situation that specifically calls for a politically correct term. I certainly can't imagine black people on The Wire or some other TV show calling each other African-Americans in colloquial English, regardless of register. Paul Davidson (talk) 14:13, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I hear African Americans in situations that are not formal. It is often used in professional settings that I would not call "formal". For example, "I wish we had more African Americans in our department." That sort of thing. The term is seldom hyphenated when written. The expression black Americans is perfectly acceptable and could be a nice compromise that would offend the minimum number of people. The term black is usually not capitalized even though it is the name of a racial group, and other such names are always capitalized. I guess an exception is made when the name is homphonous with a color. (To me, this is nonsensical, since black people aren't really the color black, nor are white people the color white.) Marco polo (talk) 14:29, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

A side note. I always thought that the terms Black and African-American were synonymous. Then, I read somewhere (I believe in a Wikipedia talk page) that in fact they are not. In other words, a person can be Black, yet not African-American (i.e., not of African lineage). And a person can be African-American, yet not Black (e.g., Charlize Theron). Thanks. (64.252.65.146 (talk) 14:36, 28 April 2010 (UTC))

This is the Wikipedia talk page to which my above post referred: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Black Academy Award winners and nominees. Thanks. (64.252.65.146 (talk) 14:40, 28 April 2010 (UTC))

I would use 'African-American' in an everyday conversation. I have never watched The Wire, though. Notably, initially 'Afro-American' was introduced as a more politically correct word than 'Black' or (far worse, but common in in first hafl of 20th century) 'Negro', but was later dropped in favour of 'African-American'. --Soman (talk) 14:53, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps I should have mentioned where I am using the term. The sentence is, " The work was extremely difficult and the pay was low, but it was one of the only jobs available for southern black men at that time, and railroad men were highly regarded in their communities." It is an entry here at the article "Gandy dancer". Thanks for all the answers so far! Gandydancer (talk) 15:07, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Soman, you say "far worse" about the use of "Negro". It doesn't do to take today's standards and apply them to the usages of yesteryear and come up with that sort of judgment. When I was growing up, "nigger" was offensive, but "Negro" was the polite way of referring to these people. It was widely used both by African Americans and others, in all registers including the most formal. Then, at some time and for some reason, it came to be regarded with disfavour. People who were previously not offended in the slightest by it learned to be offended by it; and their children never knew any different than that it was an offensive word. The same sort of thing has happened to other words: female thespians were always called "actresses", and the Academy to this day hands out an award for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, which female thespians are more than happy to be nominated for, and to accept if they win, and to be seen being extraordinarily grateful for, thanking everyone they've ever known. But outside of that circumstance, many of them consider being called an "actress" - rather than an "actor" - highly, highly offensive. Go figure. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:02, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I think "Negro" fell out of favor when US Southerners would both literally and figuratively slur it into something like "Niggra", which was entirely too close to "nigger". StuRat (talk) 23:31, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

That colloquial pronunciation, "Niggra", was around long before "Negro" fell out of favor, although it might have influenced it. I recall hearing an audio clip of the young Jackie Robinson being asked by a southern-sounding reporter for his thoughts on becoming "the first Niggra to play major league baseball", and Jackie went on to answer without missing a beat. Meanwhile, in the 60s, Jackie's book Baseball Has Done It used the term Negro countless times. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:03, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Jack, I'm not doubting you, but I am curious: How many African Americans did you know, growing up in Australia? +Angr 22:05, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

In this part of the world 1/2 way around the word from Australia, but just north of the border from the US. "Black" is more often used than the hyper PC noun "African-Canadian". Usages like "Black History", "Black loyalists" or "Black Canadians" are common [7]. "Black" is not preceived as offensive here in Canada as in the US. --Kvasir (talk) 23:00, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Maybe I'm naive, but hasn't Canada typically been more "black-friendly" historically? As I recall, Canada was the destination of the "Underground Railroad" that shuttled slaves northward, where they could be out of reach of the US law and consequences of abominations like the Dred Scott decision. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:11, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Angr, I did not need to personally know any such people while growing up in Australia, because I have access to references and knowledge such as these:

• The Journal of African American History was known as the Journal of Negro History until 2001.
• here's Martin Luther King Jr writing to Vice President Richard Nixon in 1957
• This is a quote from Robert F. Kennedy: At the University of Natal in Durban, I was told the church to which most of the white population belongs teaches apartheid as a moral necessity. A questioner declared that few churches allow black Africans to pray with the white because the Bible says that is the way it should be, because God created Negroes to serve. 'But suppose God is black', I replied. 'What if we go to Heaven and we, all our lives, have treated the Negro as an inferior, and God is there, and we look up and He is not white? What then is our response?' There was no answer. Only silence
• and read about "What Negroes can expect from President LBJ". -- (Jack of Oz =) 202.142.129.66 (talk) 02:01, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

"African-American" is a 1970s or later invention, kind of spun off from "Afro-American" which started turning up in the 70s. At the time of the MLK assassination, in 1968, "Negro" was the dominant term in US media. I've seen a youtube clip of Walter Cronkite reporting the assassination, and he referred to King as a "Negro leader" and reported on the protest activities of "Negroes" following the killing. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:58, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

This may be self-evident, but you can tell that the two words are not synonyms because a large majority of the population of Africa is black but not African-American. --198.103.172.9 (talk) 18:26, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

There is no "correct" answer, of course, but I generally see "black" and "African American" as referring to two different things. "African American" refers to a culture, just like "Italian American" or "Greek American." I would use the term "African American" when referring to a dialect or type of music, for example. "Black" refers to a so-called race, that is, one of the three or four appearance-based divisions into which people have historically been grouped. If a child was missing, I might say the police are looking for a 4-foot-tall black girl. I wouldn't use the term "African American" in that case because what we're talking about here is what she looks like, not what her cultural background is. Anyway, she might be Canadian or British or whatever. Nonetheless, I know there are a lot of people who use "African American" in all cases when referring to black people in America, thinking anything else would be politically incorrect. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 02:56, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

And they sometimes even extend "African American" to people such as Nelson Mandela. Then they realise what they've just said, and go "oops". -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 04:11, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the use of the word "Negro": This word appears on this year's census forms in the US. I've been doing a bit of work for the census and from memory of the form, it asks for a person's race and one possible answer is listed as "Black, African-American, or Negro". While recently going over forms received back from a local college, one respondent checked this box but also crossed out the word Negro. Another checked the box, crossed out Negro, and wrote in "Ignorance is not a bliss". So, using the term may offend or it may not... Dismas|^(talk) 04:31, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

That's right. There's no word that's inherently offensive. Some people get offended by a certain use of a certain word, others don't, that's all. -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 05:42, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

There were reports in March that older-generation blacks preferred "Negro" to either of the other two terms, a fact which that one editorialist was ironically ignorant of. Presumably the developers of the census form were trying to cover all the bases. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:06, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

The Canadian book The Book of Negroes, about an ex-slave who fights for the British in the American Revolutionary War, had to be retitled for sale in the U.S. out of fear people there would freak out at the word "Negro" in the title. The name of the book comes from a real Book of Negroes, an 18th-century document about blacks in the war. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:09, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Translation

Le donjon de Guise fut construit aux alentours de 950 par Gautier I^er, comte d'Amiens, de Vexin et de Valois.

Seigneurs non héréditaires

Les comtes de Valois confièrent la terre de Guise à des châtelains non héréditaires. Parmi ceux-ci, on trouve :

• en 1010 : René
• en 1048 : Bouchard
• en 1058 : Gautier Ier de Guise. Ce Gautier bénéficie d'un statut particulier : d'une part, il est le premier seigneur de Guise à transmettre la terre à ses descendants, d'autre part il y a également un Gautier de Vexin, fils de Raoul III de Vexin, comte de Valois, qui recevra Guise de son frère Raoul IV de Crépy. On peut supposer que ces deux Gautier soient une même personne qui reçut Guise à titre viager comme ses prédécesseurs, et qui profita des querelles pour la succession de Simon de Vexin (1077) pour conserver Guise et la transmettre à son fils.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk • contribs) 19:36, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Have you compared it with the English article? These passages were taken from http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_des_seigneurs_de_la_terre_de_Guise . Of course the English and French versions are not organised the same way. I also reformated the OP's text so it resembles our wiki format. --Kvasir (talk) 20:41, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I also reformatted the OP's text so the linked words link to the correspondent French Wikipedia articles rather than to nonexistent English Wikipedia pages. --Магьосник (talk) 22:37, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

The keep of Guise was constructed around 950 by Gautier I, count of Amiens, Vexin and Valois.

Non-hereditary lords

The counts of Valois entrusted the land of Guise to non-hereditary lords. Among them, one can find:

• in 1010: Rene
• in 1048: Bouchard
• in 1058: Gautier. This Gautier benefitted from a particular status: on the one hand, he was the first master of Guise to pass the land down to his descendants, and on the other hand he was still a Gautier of Vexin, son of Raoul 3rd of Vexin, count of Valois, who had received Guise from his brother Raoul 4th of Crepy. One can suppose that these two Gautiers were the same person who received Guise à titre viager (?) from their predecessors, and who benefitted from the quarrels over the succession of Simon of Vexin, [which he used] to keep hold of Guise and pass it down to his son.

rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:50, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

"à titre viager" means "for life" (that is, for his life, not to be passed down to his own heirs). By the way, is this Queen Elizabeth's Little Spy again? As we keep saying, most of this stuff is pretty basic, and it would help if you studied a bit of French. Just a little bit! It would save you tons of time, having to wait around here for an answer. (Maybe it's just me but it would also be nice if you signed your posts, and perhaps even thanked us for our efforts once in awhile...) Adam Bishop (talk) 04:59, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Hindi Language

Hi I am using often this wikipedia for many references realted to my work, education and social

I have seen you have materials available in many languages but HINDI(Indian National Language) which is spoken by same number of people as Chinese and many more times than other small populated countries. So, is there a perticular reason you don't have Hindi language available?

If you please add a HINDI language may use many Indian people who don't know English.

Thank you Haresh Chotaliya [Email address removed to prevent spam] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.81.166.225 (talk) 21:14, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Try Hindi Wikipedia. rʨanaɢ (talk) 21:28, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

That particular link will take you to Hindi Wikipedia's article about the Hindi language. For the Main Page, just go to hi:. +Angr 22:03, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Makes me wonder why an important language like Hindi is not listed among the interwiki links on our main page.—Emil J. 10:10, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

I removed the email address. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 22:06, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I think the criterion for appearing in the list on the main page (rather than in the "complete list" linked at the bottom of that list) is the number of articles in that language's Wikipedia. Hindi has just over 54,000 articles, fewer than Basque or Estonian. Marco polo (talk) 14:26, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Just as a not to OP, Hindi is spoken by far less number of people than Chinese is. - DSachan (talk) 14:37, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Apparently Greek has even fewer articles than Hindi, but it appears in the main list. I've placed a request on the Main Page talk page to add Hindi to the main list. Marco polo (talk) 14:46, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

The reasons Hindi Wikipedia isn't listed on the main page, despite having more articles than Greek Wikipedia, have been discussed at Template talk:Wikipedialang#Hindi Wikipedia and Template talk:Wikipedialang#Hindi Wikipedia Redux. Haresh, you can help improve Hindi Wikipedia by going to hi:, signing up for an account, and working to expand Hindi Wikipedia's articles so they're not just stubs and placeholders, and translating the English content there into Hindi. +Angr 15:03, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

You may be interested in Wikipedia:WikiProject India and Wikipedia:Noticeboard for India-related topics and Category:Indian Wikipedians and Category:User hi (Wikipedians who speak Hindi). -- Wavelength (talk) 17:07, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

French dog names

What are some common French dog names? I Googled "French dog names", but all of the pages I found listed several hundred, with no indication of which ones are more common. --75.33.219.230 (talk) 22:34, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

See http://www.noms-de-chiens.com/ and choose "Top 100". -- Wavelength (talk) 23:04, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Most of those don't look French. For example, the top name is Snoopy, and many of the others are American names as well. --75.33.219.230 (talk) 23:13, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you need to be more specific. Which do you mean:

1) Names of dogs within France. Many of those names might well be borrowed from other languages, like the list you got.

2) French names which are applied to dogs. "Fifi" comes to mind.

3) Names given to historically French breeds of dogs. StuRat (talk) 23:23, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

"Fido" and "Mirza" used to be the cliché names for dogs in French fiction, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s. I doubt they're much used anymore, though. --Xuxl (talk) 15:31, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

In many cases people tend to give petsnames that they wouldn´t give to humans. It might very well be that many French parents would give their child a brazenly American/English name, but they are still living in an increasingly Anglophone world and when naming a pet there is more freedom to experiment beyond traditional cultural boundaries. Just a guess, though. --Soman (talk) 17:49, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

April 29

Am I dumb? English as a second language

I've been living in Canada since I was in grade 3. I'm now 22 in university. Though I lived here for over 10 years, I still have difficulty with English, both spoken and written. All the people I know who came to an English-speaking country at a young age like grade 3 or below now use English naturally and easily. But why am I an exception? I always have to do translations in my head (writing this right now, I'm doing translations) as if I were someone who just came to Canada. In fact, people sometimes ask me if I'm new to Canada, and if I tell them I've lived here for over 10 years, they get surprised. I hate myself. I want to be able to naturally use English. I have no friends and I can't make any friends because English is such a big barrier for me. I'm unable to dialogue like a normal English-speaking person and this puts me at a serious disadvantage in many occasions. Please help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.68.120.162 (talk • contribs) 03:29, 29 April 2010

Some people are better than others in learning new languages. It also depends how much you immerse yourself in the new language. Do you watch English language television or do you stick to the variety of multicultural channels we have offered here in Canada. Do you speak English with your friends, or do you mostly hang out with friends who speak your language? --Kvasir (talk) 03:30, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

I speak my native language at home, and I have no English-speaking friends at all, as I said above. I watch English language television, of course, but I tend to miss many of what's said and my listening ability seems to have reached its limit, unable to improve. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.68.120.162 (talk • contribs) 03:38, 29 April 2010

Unfortunately, after 10 years it's a bit late to start making English-speaking friends. It would probably have been easy when you were in elementary school. But, it's not too late. I'm sure there are many foreign students at your university who have made great progress even if they have just come here to study. Find a club on your campus and join their activities, mingle, make new friends which will force yourself to speak English. The best place to start is probably around other new Canadians, where their English ability is similar to yours and you wouldn't feel as intimidated. Slowly you would improve your confidence and be able to converse comfortably with others. You'll find if you don't improve by the time you finish university, you'll be pigeon-hole into the sort of working environment where you still won't be speaking English, and that will unfortunately limit your career opportunity. --Kvasir (talk) 04:49, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

If it's any consolation, you have better grammar than many native speakers. As for making friends, follow Kvasir's advice and join some English-speaking university clubs. --198.103.172.9 (talk) 13:45, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

You might have a Specific language impairment, or suffer from Speech and language pathology. I have only experience with specific language impairment in children, and I don't know about adults, but if I were you, I would contact a speech therapist and ask for an assessment. If your problems with friends goes any deeper than being shy because of your language problems, I would ask for a neuropsychiatric evaluation. Sometimes language problems and social problems can co-occur in certain neuropsychiatric conditions.

By the way, if you've managed to get accepted at a university in spite of your language problems, you can't be stupid. My guess is that you have a high non-verbal intelligence. Lova Falk (talk) 15:13, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

It's perfectly possible to not acquire a second language well but still be intelligent and not have any language impairment; some people just don't have much talent for acquiring new languages. It's not even only a matter of how much effort you make to get exposure; for instance, I have a friend who is originally from Hong Kong but has been living here since he was quite young, and all through middle and high school he hung out pretty much exclusively with American friends (we're from a small, non-diverse town) but he still has a noticeable accent and his grammar is not perfect. That doesn't mean he's stupid and doesn't mean he was too lazy to try; some people just have more difficulty acquiring new languages than others do. rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:20, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

[I am revising the section heading from "Am I dumb?" to "Am I dumb? English as a second language", to facilitate watchlist alerts and archive searches, and to apply search engine optimization. I am adding two "unsigned" templates, of which the first represents the fifth of five consecutive revisions without any intervening ones by any other editor. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:47, 29 April 2010 (UTC)]

If you say what your first language is, I might be able to provide specific links to help you in learning English.

-- Wavelength (talk) 16:54, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Learning a foreign language is difficult for most people and can be a slow process. For example: I lived and worked in France for over 2 years and although my French improved a lot I am still far from fluent. I put this down to the environment I was in: the working environment was English, all of my work colleagues spoke English very well, and when not at work we all socialised together speaking English. The few times I did have to speak French was when shopping, ordering drinks in bars and dealing with officialdom, and even then the French people I was delaing with picked up on my strong English accent and "helpfully" tried to speak English.

I think if you were to immerse yourself in an English speaking environment, seek out English speaking friends, and don't take the easy option of continuing in your native language when people try to help by speaking it to you, then I think you'll find your English would improve immesurably. Astronaut (talk) 22:03, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

On the question "Am I dumb", you only have writen a couple of small paragraphs here above, but just from reading them, I can assure you they are fully grammatical, they are explaining logically an issue with accurate level of details etc. So the answer is clearly: you are NOT dumb. However, it seems indeed you are one of these people who find spoken foreign languages very difficult to learn. It seems you are fully able to learn anything else, though, so I wouldn't be too hard on myself in your position. On the question of helping you, I second the club idea --Lgriot (talk) 00:52, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Russian

I opened a game room in a game I play online and a Russian player (whom I've played before) joined the room, said, "да ты монстр" and left. I understood this to mean "Yes, you're a monster", but checked on Google Translate just to make sure (as it was lacking a comma), and the translation given was "Do monster". Which one is correct and if the latter, what would 'do monster' mean? (Side question - "monster"!? It's a WW2 game...). --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 11:33, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

I would understand it as somethling like "Oh, you monster!" No idea why they would call you that, though. — Kpalion^(talk) 13:48, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Could he have said "даты монстр"? That sort of means "dates are a monster" ('dates' here referring to the time things, not the edible things), but that makes even less sense ... -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:59, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Cheers. I was wondering if it was some sort of idiom or something still in current use. I guess he was saying that he was scared of me (because I'm pretty high up on the leaderboard), but I thought it may be some sort of insult because he beat me last time I played him. Anyway, thanks, both of you. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 01:46, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

My knowledge of Russian is indecently poor, but I did some searching right now. In advance, I apologise for uploading so much original research. I'm just trying to help. Google.ru gives as much as 127 results for "да ты монстр", only a couple of which have a comma between да and ты. About the comma itself, I can remember once reading a children's poem about Santa Claus by Agniya Barto in my Russian classes many years back in time. I found it halfway down this page. It contains the line "Да это наш сосед!", without a comma.

click on the "show" button to view it →

Here's the text (my bolding): А старший брат Твердит тайком: - Да это наш сосед! Как ты не видишь: нос похож! И руки, и спина! - Я отвечаю: - Ну и что ж! А ты на бабушку похож, Но ты же не она!

A mediocre translation by me. And my elder brother Claimed this: - This is surely our neighbour! Can't you see it: his nose looks like our neighbour's! And his arms, and his back, too! I answered to him: - So what? You look like a granny, But you're not one!

Analogously, да ты монстр could mean "You're surely a monster!".

About the meaning of the word монстр itself, ru:wikt:монстр doesn't help much, but ru:Монстр contains the following sentence:

Иносказательно как метафора может относиться к объекту физического или психологического доминирования со сверхъестественными силами (властителю, хищнику), а также реальному или вымышленному объекту природы или техническому устройству с выдающимися, в том числе надприродными качествами размера, силы, власти и т. п.

I can understand this, but I'm not sure how to translate it in English, since I'm just a learner of both English and Russian. Roughly, it tells that монстр could be a metaphor referring to something that dominates physically or psychologically by means of supernatural powers, and also to a real or invented natural object or technological device with outstanding/remarkable, or supernatural, size, strength, power, etc. Any corrections to this attempt of translation will be welcome!

Also, I googled монстр интернет сленг OR слэнг and found a page that is a glossary of the Russian language library of World of Warcraft. Here's that glossary. There монстр is given as a synonym of моб; моб is explained as "NPC, враждебно настроенный к персонажу" (NPC that is hostile to the character); and NPC is explained as "non-player character — персонаж, управляемый компьютером" (a character controlled by the computer).

I very much apologise for uploading such a lengthy amount of original research and I very much hope it would be of any help! --Магьосник (talk) 02:21, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Ah, cheers. So, he was basically referring to me as being a hard player to beat? Makes sense. Cheers. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 15:30, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Is there a word meaning "What there is and how much there is of it"?

Is there an English word used for expressing, or whose use encompasses, the idea of "what is present in (location, time period, etc.), and how much of it is present there"? Basically for "type and quantity" of something? I'm asking because for the Dinosaurs of the Morrison Formation article I'm considering renaming the tables' Abundance column, since it both includes how common a species is and what fossils represent them in the formation. Abyssal (talk) 16:43, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Evidence? 86.21.204.137 (talk) 18:10, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

It's difficult to think of a catch-all term covering the information given in the three entries currently in that column. Might Characteristics work? Deor (talk) 18:49, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Population? --TammyMoet (talk) 18:59, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

If it helps any, I've used "Presence" in other tables for a column detailing geographic location, stratigraphic position, and abundance. Abyssal (talk) 19:09, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Quantity or inventory? Astronaut (talk) 21:47, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

For the particular article you linked, I would use "occurrence". rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:49, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

If it wasn't for an article, I would make up my own word for it and tell everyone I know about it and maybe it would spread. After all the English language is one of the most flexible languages in the world and definitions of words are based much more on usage than actual people sitting around in a room, deciding what certain words would mean and how they should be used, and saying that if their way isn't used then it is not propper and thus not permitted. This word could be anything along the lines of "whow" to something much more complex like "typuantity". Filosojia X Non(Philosophia X Known) 00:43, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

(In that case, you could try Frindle. rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:25, 30 April 2010 (UTC))

You could rename the column "Materials and quantity"; or you could split the column into two new columns, "Materials" and "Quantity", either similar to the other columns, or shown as subcolumns of the original column, renamed "Materials and quantity".

-- Wavelength (talk) 00:46, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

manifestation ? Bazza (talk) 13:26, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Nepali translation help

Hi, any help at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Nepal#Nepali_translation_help would be highly appreciated. --Soman (talk) 20:29, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

You can use Category:User ne to find Wikipedians who speak Nepali. -- Wavelength (talk) 21:02, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

science

discoveries and histories —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.157.128.119 (talk) 20:46, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

The science reference desk is that way. Xenon54 / talk / 20:49, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

List of discoveries. Clarityfiend (talk) 01:08, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

April 30

Would be

I'm trying to find the form of "desu" that would be the equivalent of English "would be", e.g. "Who would he be if he were a fictional character?", "He would be the Cheshire cat." I have a book on Japanese, but it doesn't mention many forms of "desu", and the page on Japanese verb conjugation doesn't seem to have a form for "would VERB" listed. Filosojia X Non(Philosophia X Known) 00:34, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

You can use the so-called volitional form (だろう, でしょう, etc.) for that kind of expression. "チェシャ猫でしょう" Paul Davidson (talk) 00:48, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

thank youu! Filosojia X Non(Philosophia X Known) 00:54, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Translate the Latin Phrase: "Turn Quantity Into Quality"

One day, I will catalyze the process to found the Kansas Institute of Technology in Chapman and Lindsborg, KS. Tentatively, the motto will be: Turn Quantity into Quality

The reason why I chose this motto is because these two university campuses will have an open-admissions policy. The aim will be to turn the abundant quantity of students into quality graduates. In short, K.I.T. will turn quantity into quality.

Now as most university mottos are also said in Latin, how will this motto be said? (Google Translate does not have a Latin language option, and machine translating doesn't always return accurate results.) --70.179.176.30 (talk) 05:47, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Literally Converte quantitatem in qualitatem. More elegant in Latin would be ex quantitate qualitas "from quantity, quality". --Ioscius ^∞ 11:40, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I think the more classical style would be "E quantitate qualitas". Marco polo (talk) 13:51, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

USA and Canada

A Brit asks... Are there any common informal/slang terms in use that a US citizen would use to refer to a Canadian, and vice versa? Terms that would be generally understood in North America, I mean? If so, what are they? --Hence Piano (talk) 09:17, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

A Brit replies...Canuck? Also, Yankee can apparently be used as a general term for U.S. citizens (not necessarily from New England). AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 10:53, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Canuck is a somewhat comical term that is used in the United States. (I once knew a guy who referred to himself as a "Canuckistani," which reliably brought chuckles.) That said, we normally don't use slang terms but refer to our northern neighbors simply as Canadians. I've never heard a Canadian refer to an American as a Yankee or a Yank, though I don't doubt that a Canadian has occasionally used the expression. Normally, they call us Americans. (One point about the expression Yankee or Yank as used within North America. Its most common use within the United States is by Southerners referring to Northerners. I think that this is a leftover from the American Civil War. I think that a Southerner might be offended or at least amused if he were referred to as a Yankee, particularly in a Canadian accent, which sounds like a Yankee accent to Southerners.) Marco polo (talk) 13:57, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

As a Canadian, I'd say "American" is the most common term for Americans here (Toronto area). You don't really hear "Yank" or "Yankee", although most people would know what you meant. -- Flyguy649 ^talk 13:56, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Having grown up in Texas, I'd definitely be offended (or at least pretend to be) if anyone called me a Yankee. Canuck is supposed to be offensive, except that I doubt anyone would seriously be offended by it; more likely amused. You can also refer to Canadians as a group euphemistically as "Our Neighbors to the North", but really the only common term is Canadian. +Angr 14:16, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Some refer to us as residents of Soviet Canuckistan. -- Flyguy649 ^talk 14:35, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

On a talk show once, Dave Foley said, "We're so liberal we make Castro look like a Republican!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:24, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

This is going a bit in the opposite direction, but you can also comically call their country Canadia. I've heard that, but it seems to get on Canadians' nerves more than Canuck does. Like the latter, it's "marked" and not normally used, it's playfully derogatory. rʨanaɢ (talk) 14:31, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

That like calling Americans "United Statians" or some such. I've honestly never heard that one, but it comes across as ignorant -- which is why it can probably be amusing. -- Flyguy649 ^talk 14:35, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

(A friend of mine insists on "United Statesian", and corrects me if I say "American", because she spent some time in South America where they use the equivalent term in Spanish, estadounidense. There are some political issues behind that term... rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:12, 30 April 2010 (UTC))

WHAAOE - Names for U.S. citizens. Gandalf61 (talk) 15:08, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Yep we use "Yanks" and "'mericans", but usually that's in a demeaning way, ex: "those stupid/ignorant 'mericans." --Kvasir (talk) 15:13, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Words spelled exactly the same way in different languages, but with entirely different meanings

This is somewhat related to false friends and false cognates, but here is what I am actually looking for:

A string of letters which exists as a word in various languages using the Latin alphabet, but has an entirely different meaning and, if possible, different etymology, in each language. Specifically, I'm looking for examples exceeding three different languages.

Example for three languages: "rot" (can mean purefaction (noun) in English, red (adjective) in German, or burp (noun) in French).

I don't care about capital letters (so, it can be a noun in German, e.g.), but it shouldn't use diacritics in any of the foreign languages. Thank you very much in advance! ---Sluzzelin talk 11:22, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Wiktionary is organized well for checking candidates. For example, it tells me that rot has different meanings again in Norwegian, Swedish, and Tok Pisin. Algebraist 11:26, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that, Algebraist! (no idea why I didn't think of it). I'm happy to see that "rot" seems to be a good choice. I will check more candidates on wiktionary. Still, if anyone happens to think of other examples, I'd really appreciate it! ---Sluzzelin talk 12:46, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

However, Wiktionary does care about capital letters, even if you don't: wikt:rot and wikt:Rot are different entries. +Angr 13:43, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Car means "car" in English, "cart" in Romanian, "because" in French, "dear" or "expensive" in Catalan, and "tsar" in several Slavic languages (e.g., Polish). — Kpalion^(talk) 14:23, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Only 2 languages, but dick means, well, dick in English and thick in German. Cracks me up. Aaadddaaammm (talk) 14:27, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Cap means "cap" in English, "head" in some Romance languages (e.g., Catalan, Romanian), "male goat" in some Slavic languages (e.g., Polish, Slovak), and "seal" or "stamp" in Indonesian. — Kpalion^(talk) 14:36, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Pies means "pies" in English, "feet" in Spanish, "magpies" in French, "dog" in Polish, and "(I) piss" in Dutch. — Kpalion^(talk) 14:44, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Pole means "pole" in English, "field" in Polish, "he polishes" in Spanish, "isn't" in Estonian, and "slowly" in Swahili. — Kpalion^(talk) 15:01, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I think it would more fun to try and find the longest word of this kind. So far I couldn't come up with anything longer than four letters. — Kpalion^(talk) 15:03, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

grammar

Is the sentence "The river runs deeply" grammatically correct?

It could be, but wouldn't make much sense. What you probably want is "the river runs deep". rʨanaɢ (talk) 14:28, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

The reason being that "deep" modifies "river", not "runs", correct? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:11, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I'd have said 'the river gets deep', because the actual flow of the water is not what determines the depth of the river. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 15:26, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I'd have simply said, "The river is deep." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:29, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Using a rivery verb like "runs" makes it a bit more poetic-sounding, even though the technical meaning is just "the river is deep". Compare to (pardon my nerdiness) "the trees are strong, my lord; their roots grow deep", which means the same as "their roots are really deep". Or something like "the water there flows cold" or whatever, which means the same as "is cold". rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:38, 30 April 2010 (UTC)