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December 29

Japanese video game screenshot

It's very hard to read, [1], but I'd like to know what they're saying in this game screen shot. Thanks! 69.207.132.170 (talk) 02:47, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

あんただけは.../only you ゆるせない/are unforgivable. I have no idea about ヘニヘ...!/henihe...! Oda Mari (talk) 04:08, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The first ヘ and second へ look different. Maybe it's "ヘニへ⋯！！", "to Heni...!", whatever that might mean. -- BenRG (talk) 05:52, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's quite possible it's a name, "Henihe" or however the game designers would render that in English. Also, I think the text would best be translated as "I can never forgive you" or even "I can't stand you" - Mari's translation is a tad too literal. TomorrowTime (talk) 15:35, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Russian translation

Could somebody doublecheck the translations from Russian in Roza Shanina#Personal life, particularly "is hammering into the head that loves"? Clarityfiend (talk) 03:51, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, anonymous IP person, whoever you are. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:02, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Pedagogs and Teachers

It's time for me to come to terms with these terms.

In the US, one rarely hears the term Pedagog even in educational institutions, and never in day-to-day speech. When encountered at all, I've always taken it to have a fairly narrow or specialized meaning -- I'm not sure what that is exactly -- but not at all as a general synonom of Teacher.

(I did get over the negative connotations when I realized that pedagogic was not pedantic, which we use here as a criticism.)

In German I run across the term Pädagog/in much more frequently, although I admit I'm reading mostly church sites of late, so there's room for observer bias.

What do the more educated here have to say on the subject? Any native German speakers reading here this week? Am I correct in my "specialized" connotations, or do I just have a pedestrian vocabulary in this area? DaHorsesMouth (talk) 04:20, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The term pedagogy is used in English to refer to the practical study of education. It is basically the applied science of teaching. I have never seen the "pedagog" form used in English. Pedagogy is what teachers study to become better teachers. --Jayron32 04:29, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Should have included an example: [2] Observe five lines down, Ms. Schicketanz' job title is Gemeindepädagogin, that is, Congregational Pedagog. What do you suppose she actually does for them? DaHorsesMouth (talk) 04:43, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My guess is that he is either a sunday school teacher OR a "Minister (pastor) in charge of education". Something like that. --Jayron32 05:20, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

dictionary.com says that in English "pedagog" is an alternative form of "pedagogue". Based on a few google searches, both words seem to be used by non-native English speakers, academics in the field of pedagogy, and music teachers. 130.188.8.12 (talk) 12:48, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect that those who could call themselves paedagogues often avoid doing so to escape the sad fate of Dr. Yvette Cloete. Marnanel (talk) 19:21, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding of the words "pedagogue" and "pedagogical" is that the words have the negative connotation of a teacher who teaches by rote, who's very strict and doesn't allow for original thought. Corvus cornix_talk 19:26, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As for the German usage DHM was referring to: In some German-speaking countries ("Diplom-") "Pädagoge"/"Pädagogin" can also be academic titles for professions that teach outside academia and schools, or complementary to schools. For example, A "Sozialpädagoge is a type of social worker. A "Heilpädagoge" is responsible for remedial education. a "Sonderpädagoge" deals with special needs or special education needs, while a "Berufspädagoge" is a vocational trainer. ---Sluzzelin talk 02:18, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding "Gemeindepädagogin", Jayron is on the right religious track, though, again, the "Gemeindepädagogen" don't interact only with young people. The German WP's article on de:Gemeindepädagogik also mentions adult education, consulting families and the elderly, pastoral care, organizing extracurricular activities, and others things more. ---Sluzzelin talk 02:41, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There is a native German speaker reading here this week, I am German. In German, a Pädagoge / Pädagogin is a pedagogue (Pedagog is a different article), that is a person who is either a teacher (usually one who has had some education in pedagogy) or a scientist of pedagogy. There is no connotation of pedantry in the German words Pädagoge / Pädagogin. But there is a German word with such a connotation: A Schulmeister – or Schulmeisterin – is a person who is eager to correct other people and tell them in which way things should be done. The adjective schulmeisterlich means like a Schulmeister. -- Irene1949 (talk) 16:01, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Latin text on Spinoza's tomb

Any Latin speakers out there? I am wondering whether I translated the Latin inscription on the tomb of Spinoza into English correctly (see "File:Graf Baruch Spinoza, Nieuwe Kerk, Den Haag, Nederland - 20080906.jpg"). Does "Terra hic Benedicti de Spinoza in Ecclesia Nova olim sepulti ossa tegit" mean "In times past, the earth here covered the buried bones of Benedict de Spinoza in the New Church"? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 10:41, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The word sepulti would appear to be in the genitive case, agreeing with Benedicti rather than Ossa. Also tegit seems to be the present rather than the past tense. I think a more literal translation would be something like. "The earth here covers the bones of Benedict de Spinoza [who was] formerly buried in the New Church." --rossb (talk) 11:17, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Olim[3] is an adverb and must agree with a verb. Because tegit is in the present tense, the only logical alternative is sepulti[4], which is in fact a genetive singular past participle. Indeed, the syntax supports this because sepulti immediately follows olim. The translation is "The earth here covers the bones of Benedict de Spinoza, long interred in/at[5] the New Church." The inscription and Spinoza are both at New Church. It wouldn't make any sense if he had been "formerly burried" there, an inscription stating he was formerly burried there was subsequently made, and both Spinoza and his inscription were moved back to New Church. I do agree with the use of the genetive agreeing with Benedicti rather than ossa[6]. Sepulti would have been sepultos to agree with ossa, the only other thing which could be burried there. Gx872op (talk) 15:32, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for these responses. I hope the question has provided you with hours of fun and entertainment! — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:49, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Adverbs don't actually "agree" with verbs, but in some cases they modify them... AnonMoos (talk) 20:02, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't very clear, but I used "and" to refer to olim above, but not adverbs in general. Olim is an adverb denoting past time and necessarily requires the past tense. Therefore, a present tense verb such as tegit does not "agree" with the tense/time aspect of an adverb olim. My use of "agree", I admit, is imprecise, but I do not recall the technical term for the grammatical principle I was trying to highlight. If someone does know the technical term for required agreement between a verb and an adverb with temporal connotations, I would be most interested. We used the word "agree" when describing the requirement that nouns and adjectives share gender, number and case back in university. Gx872op (talk) 22:26, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The "agreement" you are talking about is semantic, not grammatical, and I am not aware of a technical term for it: I would probably use "consistent". Incidentally, ossa is neuter, so if sepulti were to be made to agree with it, it would be sepulta. --ColinFine (talk) 23:52, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally also, "olim" can mean "in the future", but that would be kind of weird here. Adam Bishop (talk) 01:05, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Latin is not my strong point, but clearly "olim" here modifies "sepulti", not "tegit". "Sepulti" is a past participle, so it is entirely consistent with the "past" meaning of "olim". Marco polo (talk) 02:45, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think some of the above misses the point that Spinoza is no longer buried in the church - the new grave is clearly outside the church. So I would content that my previous translation is correct: "The earth here covers the bones of Benedict de Spinoza [who was] formerly buried in the New Church." --rossb (talk) 22:17, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The 1927 stone marker with the Latin inscription was placed on the existing grave, not on a "new grave." Spinoza was never moved. Gx872op (talk) 18:15, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"open source license" or "open-source license"?

Consider (from this article):

An open source license is a copyright license for computer software.

Is that correct, considering the context? Is open source license a noun consisting of those three words? Or should it be open-source license, adjective open-source and noun license?

--Mortense (talk) 12:57, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is a matter of style rather than correctness. Some publications (and editors) would use the hyphen, some wouldn't. Pick your favorite style guide and look up its advice. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:00, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Is it a license of the open-source type, or is it a source license which is open? —Tamfang (talk) 17:56, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The former. "Open source" is a collocation. Marnanel (talk) 18:16, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"A haircut you can set your watch to"

What does the expression mean and what are its origins? --Endlessdan (talk) 15:25, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If it's describing a man's appearance over a longer period of time, maybe what's meant is that the guy regularly gets his hair cut? TomorrowTime (talk) 15:37, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

These are Google images for "A haircut you can set your watch to". There is precision conveyed in a freshly trimmed, short, men's haircut, and it is precision that is required of something by which one can set one's watch. Bus stop (talk) 15:46, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It originates from Mother Simpson, a seventh-season episode of The Simpsons. In a flashback to January 12, 1969 (the date of Super Bowl III), Grampa uses these words in praise of the crew-cut of Johnny Unitas, which he greatly prefers to the unkempt locks of Joe Namath ("He looks like a girl!"). It's not a real idiomatic expression, although perhaps it has become one, what with Simpsons fans quoting the episode. I figure it was just the spontaneous invention of the Simpsons writing staff - a humorous way of referring to an extremely straight, "square" hairstyle. Such a hairstyle is associated (or was associated in the late 60's) with dependability, wholesomeness, responsibility, regularity, and therefore (metaphorically) with horological accuracy. LANTZY ^TALK 08:59, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

which language is this

hu ba huu geange suue shnuu lu weeh ho hey knoo tzegne laribu--91.14.182.171 (talk) 15:59, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is the language of the Halloween merry-makers in the 1946 movie about extraterrestrial life. It was originally released under the title "knew tzegne laribu" but the title was changed after taffy-makers protested. It was changed to "hu ba huu geange suue shun" which is the name that most people know it by. Here is an example. Bus stop (talk) 16:09, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How is that photo montage an example ? Can you provide a link to the movie ? StuRat (talk) 21:56, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I made it up. It is a series of fictitious assertions. Bus stop (talk) 23:52, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Tamil language translation

i can see few articles has also displayed in the language Tamil , but not many. so i feel i can translate those articles to Tamil from English. is this possible? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Himaninath (talk • contribs) 17:26, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You sure are welcome to. You may join the Tamil Wikipedia and begin posting new articles there and/or translating articles on EN to the Tamil one. WhisperToMe (talk) 17:47, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Yes, but you need to create the articles at the Tamil Wikipedia. It's just like writing any other article, except you have to remember to make a note somewhere saying that it was translated from the English Wikipedia article. Pais (talk) 17:50, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I sometimes translate articles from both my native Finnish, and from Swedish and German, which I know fairly well. I just include "translated from [[fi:Plii plöö]]" in the edit summary and include all the interwiki links that the original article had. JIP | Talk 18:28, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Finnish has long fascinated me, and neither Wikipedia nor Google Translate is helping: does plii plöö mean anything interesting? I was prepared for another expedition to gather together the whole bonfire… Marnanel (talk) 18:34, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Plii plöö" is just nonsense text, to use as a placeholder name for text that does not have to have meaning. JIP | Talk 18:39, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ahh, thank you. That makes sense. I had seen Finns use retu and tahvo, which aren't listed there, but not that before. Marnanel (talk) 18:44, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Retu" and "Tahvo" are the Finnish translations for Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble. I didn't even know they were used as placeholder names. JIP | Talk 19:02, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Are plii and plöö even possible words of Finnish? I thought Finnish didn't allow word-initial consonant clusters. —Angr (talk) 06:57, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's right, the Finnish grammar doesn't allow word-initial consonant clusters. We Finns are still capable of pronouncing them, so they are sometimes used in nonsense language like this. JIP | Talk 12:42, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hilavitkutin is great, I want to import it into English. Perhaps trellisfiddler. 213.122.40.52 (talk) 08:39, 30 December 2010 (UTC) [reply]

Wossname, narmean?

In the computer game Jinxter, there is an accompanying instruction booklet masquerading as a newspaper. It contains citations from "guardians", who speak a form of colloquial English. One word they use is "narmean", which I had never encountered before, but picked up from context that it means "do you know what I mean?". Is this word actually used in real life? Another word they use is "wossname", which is a placeholder name for just about anything that they can't remember the word for. Such as this wossname I'm writing right now. Message, that's it. Is this word actually used in real life? JIP | Talk 18:04, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Narmean" is just "know what I mean" pronounced quickly, and "wossname" is just "what's-his-name" (or "what's-its-name") pronounced quickly. Pais (talk) 18:12, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OR: I can attest to the usage of "wossname" in speech and print. (I associate it with the south of London, for whatever that's worth.) "Narmean" I would recognise as a clipped version of "know what I mean?", but I've never seen it in print. (Edit: Some instances of "wossname" from the work of Sir Terry Pratchett.) Marnanel (talk) 18:12, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I should have mentioned, to save the reader wondering where the "r" is in "know what I", that the vowel in the first syllable of "narmean" is /ɑː/ as in the first syllable of "father", and there is no r-colouring. "Ar" is simply the usual way of writing this in non-rhotic English. I have a rhotic friend who read in a book as a child that milieu was pronounced "MIL-yer", and spent years wondering about this until he realised that the book was written in southern England. Marnanel (talk) 18:27, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To an American, the spelling "Narmean" would most naturally suggest the pronunciation [ˈnɑrmiən] (trisyllabic), and it's doubtful whether the vowel of "father" would be used in a fast-speech simplification of "know what I mean"... AnonMoos (talk) 10:52, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed; this is why I took the time to mention it explicitly. (I'm married to an American.) Marnanel (talk) 22:01, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In transcriptions of African American Vernacular English, it tends to be rendered knaamean or similar. Among youth it's probably diffused outside the black community, along with aight. --Trovatore (talk) 03:27, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Both "wossname" and "narmean" were enthusiastically used (and quite possibly coined, though I can supply no confirmation) by the late Alan Coren. We own some of his humorous writings, going back several decades, and they are liberally peppered with both words. Here's a piece by his son Giles, about a 2008 collection published by him and his sister as a tribute to their father, which references both words in relation to Coren's work. Ka renjc 18:57, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This reminds me of involuntarily eavesdropping on someone who ended every sentence with "Noam sane?". —Tamfang (talk) 02:05, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That sort of cemented-in abbreviated language is immortalised in expressions like "Carn the mighty Blues" (= "Come on the mighty Blues"), an oft-heard rallying cry at football matches. Is there a name for these types of expressions? -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 09:56, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if there's a name for them, but some other common examples are "wanna" (want to), "gotta" ((have) got to) and "innit" (isn't it). AndrewWTaylor (talk) 11:45, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The basic linguistic term is "fast-speech form", but while wanna and gotta probably originated as fast speech forms, they are now used in many other contexts... AnonMoos (talk) 12:14, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See Relaxed pronunciation. -- Wavelength (talk) 02:18, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Good sleuthing, Wavelength. Tks. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 21:19, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Picking up Latin again

Salvete. The A grade I received in GCSE Latin was quite a few years ago now. But I still frequently run into situations where I need to read (and occasionally write in) Latin, and I am frustrated by my rustiness. One of my resolutions for the New Year is to get back up to the level where I can, let's say, contribute at least in a small way to the Latin Wikipedia. I have two ideas about how to do this. Firstly, reading Latin textbooks. The trouble with this is that I doze through the first five to ten chapters because it's all stuff I remember, and it's hard to know when to start paying attention again. Secondly, reading through the Psalms and the Acts of the Apostles both in English and the Vulgate, since I know both these texts rather well, and noting the constructions used in the latter. But this doesn't help much with producing the language. My question: does anyone have either recommendations for textbooks or other hints on picking up my Latin once more? Marnanel (talk) 18:10, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes: Bradley's Arnold Latin Prose Composition is a classic textbook. It's been recently reprinted and updated (a bit) too. Pais (talk) 18:15, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A more recent book is Conversational Latin for Oral Proficiency by John C. Traupman. It's designed to teach you spoken Latin (!), but once you've mastered that, writing articles at Latin Wikipedia should be a breeze. Pais (talk) 18:18, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I second the Bradley-Arnold book (although it can be hard to do the exercises by yourself, since there is no answer key). Adam Bishop (talk) 19:25, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The key is sold separately. I don't know if the key fits with the most recent edition of the textbook, though. Pais (talk) 06:51, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What! So it's possible that my professor was not as erudite as I assumed! (Nah...I don't think he was using the key either...) Adam Bishop (talk) 21:49, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I recommend the Perseus[7] website and the Textkit[8] website. Textkit is very good for self-study of ancient Greek as well. Perseus will generate a vocabulary list for you from their classics collection based on the frequency at which they appear. Gx872op (talk) 22:33, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, all of you. Looks like I have interesting times ahead. Marnanel (talk) 21:59, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"From the get-go"

Where does the expression "from the get-go" come from? It isn't an obvious construction. An example would be something like "I disliked him from the get-go", meaning from the first time they met. Corvus cornix_talk 19:29, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Word Detective pegs its origin to the 1960s, and offers an unsourced explanation. --LarryMac | Talk 19:55, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ah. Derived from "get going". That makes sense. Thanks, Larry. Corvus cornix_talk 20:18, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

SOED also says:

noun. colloq. (chiefly N. Amer.). M20.
[ORIGIN from get going s.v. get verb.]
The very beginning.

and cites the example "I told her from the get-go that I meant it." from (something written by) Norman, Michael, 1947–. Mitch Ames (talk) 00:57, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

downloading books

where can I download free-of-charge electronic versions of contemporary British fiction books? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.178.48.40 (talk) 21:05, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Our article on E-books gives a number of links, though not necessarily for specifically British books. Other than this, Google is your friend. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 21:33, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

By contemporary I assume you mean modern. This is a great question and if you get a good answer then it will answer the mirror question; "Why would publishing houses give away their books instead of charging for them?" Richard Avery (talk) 23:02, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Richard, there are a huge number of books that would not sell if they had a price. Sticking them on a website full of adverts with the word 'free' plastered all over generally more than compensates. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 00:00, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK, thanks for that KT. I guess downloaders pay for them indirectly by responding to the adverts. HNY! Richard Avery (talk) 08:44, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Writing Discovered or Invented

Was writing (in the form of written language) discovered or invented?Smallman12q (talk) 22:07, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In order to have been discovered, it would have need to have existed outside of humans. Unless you're an Erich von Däniken disciple, one would have to say that writing was invented. It was probably invented only 2-3 times in history, however. Most writing systems are descendents of these seminal systems. See History of writing. --Jayron32 22:13, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That article doesn't mention (at least I don't see it on a quick look) cases where illiterates, aware of the concept of writing but not the details, invented their own systems; the best-documented examples being Cherokee script and Pahawh Hmong. —Tamfang (talk) 02:00, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't mention the case where literates invented their own system either, one example being Hangul. --Kjoonlee 23:24, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely invented. Writing didn't exist somewhere and then humans happened to find it; it's basically a tool, and you wouldn't say any other tool was "discovered". Adam Bishop (talk) 22:16, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, fire is a tool which was discovered. I suppose you could also say that they discovered that writing (pictograms, initially) would allow the reader to communicate with an author who wasn't present, and could even be dead. You could even argue that writing existed in some limited form for some animals, such as big cats scratching up a tree to mark their territory. This has many of the characteristics of writing, although the message is rather limited. StuRat (talk) 06:39, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Natural fire always existed, but the deliberate use of fire by humans, to achieve a purpose, was invented. Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:02, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(Sorry, deleted Jayron's answer by accident! Adam Bishop (talk) 22:20, 29 December 2010 (UTC))[reply]

It is of course possible for, say, an archaeologist to discover a form of writing previously unknown to science, but the people who first start using a form of writing invented it. —Angr (talk) 06:44, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There's often no clear distinction. I'm fairly sure that Neptune was discovered and typewriters were invented, but when it comes to, say, quicksort, it could be either. Jayron's idea of "existed outside of humans" is actually a can of worms. 213.122.40.52 (talk) 10:01, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't that what Jayron was saying? I agree that there are some borderline areas that are open to argument (such as the whole of mathematics). Dbfirs 20:17, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

correct form

They should have asked him why you were there?
They should have asked him why were you there?

which one is correct and why?--180.234.52.218 (talk) 22:45, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

- It depends on the punctuation. You can say "They should have asked him 'Why were you there?'" (if the speaker asking for a direct quote of what they should have asked) or "They should have asked him why you were there" if talking in general terms. --Jayron32 22:52, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Jayron. This is what I was looking for.--180.234.44.28 (talk) 15:25, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See also indirect speech. Note, however, that the person behind "you" changes when you switch from direct to indirect speech in Jayron's examples. In direct speech, "you" and "him" are the same (masculine) person. In indirect speech, "you" is the person addressed by the whole phrase, the audience ("you to whom I am telling this"), "you"'s gender is unknown, and "you" is not identical with "him" (a different person, whom "they" should have asked regarding "your" presence there).

The indirect equivalent of "They should have asked him 'Why were you there?'" is "They should have asked him why he was there." The direct equivalent of "They should have asked him why you were there" would be "They should have asked him 'Why was (s)he there?'" or "They should have asked him 'Why were they there?'" ---Sluzzelin talk 23:03, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Is the word you're looking for "interlocutor"? Marnanel (talk) 04:20, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(Assuming you are responding to my edit summary, and happily coincidentally otherwise) Yes! Thanks :-) ---Sluzzelin talk 04:30, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

December 30

French direct objects

I know that in French the direct object pronouns are me, te, le, la, nous, vous, and les, and are placed before the verb. For example, to say 'she likes me' I would said 'elle m'aime'. However, what about direct objects that do not take an article? FOr example, would j'ai faim become je l'ai, je parle français -> je le parle? Thanks. 24.92.70.160 (talk) 15:16, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

These are clitics. They're not articles; rather, they can replace a noun that was already known in the conversation. For example, if someone asked you tu parles francais ? then you could respond oui, je le parle, but you wouldn't just say it out of the blue.

As for j'ai faim, this is really a set expression and isn't as flexible as those other examples. Also, I don't think faim is really an object here. I'm not a native speaker so my intuitions are not perfect, but I don't think you can say oui, je l'ai, even in a context where someone just asked if you're hungry (in that context you'd just say oui or some such). (This probably also has something to do with definiteness; usually a clitic like le is replacing something that's definite.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:44, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Faim is grammatically a direct object, but the whole phrase "avoir faim" is strongly idiomatic and probably not very divisible (just like "kick the bucket" in English -- you wouldn't normally ask "Did he kick it?" to inquire whether someone had died...). -- AnonMoos (talk) 15:54, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think the OP is aware that the object clitics are not articles, but is asking how to convert noun phrases that aren't explicitly marked with a definite article into object pronouns. If the noun is clearly definite even without an article (e.g. a personal name), the pronoun is definitely le/la/les, e.g. Est-ce que tu vois Jean? – Oui, je le vois. I'm not sure exactly what do with indefinite nouns, though. How do you answer questions like Est-ce que tu as un biro? or Est-ce que tu as du lait?? Do you say Oui, j'en ai un and Oui, j'en ai? Or something else? I don't know for sure if this is what the OP is driving at, though. Pais (talk) 16:12, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, en is exactly what you use for objects that are indefinite or quantified. rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:34, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, the French for a biro, a ballpoint pen, is "un bic". In France anyway. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:56, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Not "la plume de ma tante"?

-- AnonMoos (talk) 18:03, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We say: Parles-tu français ?, and: Oui, je le parle, because "le" is omitted in the question. We can say: Parles-tu le français ?. For: As-tu faim we cannot say: oui je l'ai. However, if someone ask: As-tu la faim au ventre ?, you can answer: Oui, je l'ai !; — AldoSyrt (talk) 19:29, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How do you answer "as-tu faim", then? Adam Bishop (talk) 21:53, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oui ! or Oui, j'ai trop faim ! ? rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:59, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure how related this is to the original question, but the object clitics can be used to refer to indefinite article-less nouns with the copula, where French allows some rather unusual constructions indeed. My French is very rusty, but I'm quite sure that the following exchanges are in correct French: "Êtes-vous américain? - Oui, je le suis." "Il est espion ! - Non, il ne l'est pas." (I copied these specific examples from the web). I think the explanation is that even an indefinite noun, once mentioned, becomes definite and can be anaphorically referred to with a pronoun meaning "it, that". But, strangely, I'm almost 100% sure that this never works in constructions with verbs other than the copula: you just can't have a conversation like *"Est-ce que tu as une voiture? - Oui, je l'ai." I'm not sure how to interpret this.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 03:26, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure it's too surprising that a partitive pronoun isn't used to refer to a predicative... AnonMoos (talk) 10:34, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

French question!

"La taille de son excellence étant de la hauteur que j'ai dite, tous nos sculpteurs et tous nos peintres conviendront sans peine que sa ceinture peut avoir cinquante mille pieds de roi de tour; ce qui fait une très jolie proportion." ...

Why is it que j'ai dite instead of que j'ai dit? Where did the "e" come from? I can't find that form in conjugation dictionaries. Or does the book I'm reading have a typo?71.179.23.174 (talk) 22:01, 30 December 2010 (UTC)Mme. Micromégas[reply]

The past participle has to agree in gender and number with the direct object if the latter precedes it. In this case, the direct object is the relative pronoun que which refers to la hauteur which is feminine. Hence dit takes the feminine ending, dite. --Wrongfilter (talk) 22:16, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

71.179.23.174 -- The officially "correct" rules about when participles agree and when they don't agree are rather complex, and can trip up native speakers (a frequent source of errors in dictée, etc.). AnonMoos (talk) 01:34, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Nothing happen unless first a dream"

(from Carl Sandburg). In what sense is this sentence awkward? Would "Nothing happens unless first a dream happens" be better? Or is simply "Nothing happens unless first a dream" better? Quest09 (talk) 22:24, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Who has suggested to you that it might be awkward - your teacher? Is this a homework question? -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 23:07, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Nothing" gets a singular verb, so "happens" is correct. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:58, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I find this sentence ungrammatical, and supposed there must be a typo in it. In the form "Nothing happens unless first a dream" I found it awkward, but on searching for it I find that it reads "Nothing happen unless first a dream is created", which makes the second half of it normal for me. --ColinFine (talk) 01:14, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, yeah, in prose, you'd need to say, "Nothing happens unless first there is a dream" or something. I was assuming Sandburg was using some kind of poetic license here, but even with poetic license, the verb should agree with the subject. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:17, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

~~Could "Nothing happen" be a subjunctive?~~ (Never mind then. See below)---Sluzzelin talk 01:23, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The line is, in fact, "Nothing happens unless first a dream". The whole poem can be seen here; the line in question is line 11. Deor (talk) 01:39, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I read it as "Nothing happens unless first (it is) a dream," which is alright, but a bit telegraphic (or twitteresque). It reminds me of cooking instructions. "Remove sleeve and film. Hold lid firmly, rotate 45 degrees. Throw away if depressed." That sort of thing. 213.122.44.106 (talk) 08:58, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Deor's link doesn't work for me - it gives me (the outside of) volume 144 of Harper's. But with "happens" it is grammatical, and with the sentence ending "unless first a dream" I find it acceptable as poetry, but not as prose. --ColinFine (talk) 11:27, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

December 31

Characters and caricatures

Do these two words come from different roots? I've looked them up at dictionary.com but I'm not familiar with the abbreviations and such that they use to describe a word's origin.

For instance, the entry for caricature reads: "1740–50; earlier caricatura < It, equiv. to caricat ( o ) loaded, i.e., distorted (ptp. of caricare; see charge) + -ura -ure" I have no idea what all that means though.

Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 09:03, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

From around 1740-50, originally "caricatura", from an Italian word, itself equivalent to the compound of 2 parts:

* caricato which means "loaded id est distorted". (past participle of caricare; see the word "charge" in this very same dictionary)

* to which is attached the suffix -ura (plural -ure), replacing the -o.

Did that help? --Lgriot (talk) 09:24, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I broke it all down into little chunks:

1740–50; is the date of the first recorded use of the word.

earlier caricatura < It Earlier than 1740, there was an Italian word "caricatura".

This actually means that caricature comes from an earlier (English) word caricatura, which in turn was derived from Italian. —Bkell (talk) 17:01, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

equiv. to caricat Caricatura was equivalent to the word caricat.

( o ) I guess this means caricat is only a word-stem and needs to be given an ending such as "o" to be valid Italian.

loaded, i.e., distorted Caricat means "loaded" in the sense of "distorted". (Bit of a stretch?)

(ptp. of caricare; Caricat is the past participle of caricare.

see charge) Follow the hyperlink to "charge" for information about "caricare".

+ -ura Caricat with -ura tacked on the end gives caricatura.

-ure Follow the hyperlink to "-ure" for information about -ura. -ure is the plural version of -ura.

The entry for charge says it's from Latin carrus, meaning wagon. So caricature has the same origin as car, as it turns out. It doesn't seem to have the same origin as character; looking that up on dictionary.com, it says the word comes from Middle English, from Old French, from Latin, from a Greek word for an engraving tool. Etymonline clarifies the connection between "charge" and "caricature" a bit - the key concept seems to be "overloading", hence "exaggeration", or "that face is like an elephant in a tata nano." Now I'm reading False cognate, which is entertaining. Apparently an old Japanese word for "mother" was "papa". 213.122.44.106 (talk) 09:48, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Good information on -ure, Lgriot, but you shouldn't mess around with other people's posts. 213.122.44.106 (talk) 10:33, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I meant to mention it, and only then correct it, but I was doing 3 other things at the same time and got confused! --Lgriot (talk) 12:39, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Latin pronunciation

When I have tried to correct the pronunciation of a person who was using a latin phrase and was trying to make it sound like a real latin pronunciation, (they were definitely not pronuncing it like most English speakers do) they have sometimes retaliated that we do not know how latin was pronunced since we have no recording, and therefore my correction is just as likely to be wrong than their original attempt pronunciation (my correction was using an italian pronunciation of the latin letters, which in at least one case was incorrect, since I had forgotten to use w for V). While we do not need to dwell on the unappropriateness of me correcting stupid (or otherwise) people, I have checked the article Latin spelling and pronunciation and I am wondering whether there is a complete consensus among linguists on the letter to phoneme equivalent presented there. Is reconstructive linguistics that powerful, that, no serious mind looking at the evidence gathered would disagree with these conclusions? It seems we even know around which time things started to change pronunciation, that is just amazingly precise! --Lgriot (talk) 10:54, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A classic book which gathers together a lot of stuff in one place is Vox Latina by W. Sidney Allen. There are some features of ancient Latin which are rarely emulated in any modern pronunciation (such as replacement of word-final m following an unstressed vowel by nasalization of the vowel), but we know quite a bit about ancient pronunciations. On the other hand, there's a conventional ecclesiastical pronunciation of Latin (used in singing etc.) which is customary in its own sphere (it would only be "wrong" if it was claimed to be authentically ancient, which is usually not the case). AnonMoos (talk) 11:25, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding your "word-final m" comment, something I've wondered about the text of Bayeaux Tapestry: In many or perhaps all situations where they have a word ending in what you would think should be "um", they instead have just a "u", with a horizontal bar over it. Are they trying to convey what you're talking about? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:18, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Looking through my copy of the text, I see there weren't actually all that many, but this one from early in the work caught my eye: HIC APPREHENDIT WIDO HAROLDV ET DVXIT EVM AD BELREM ET IBI EVM TENVIT which means, "Here Guy has seized Harold and has taken him to Beaurain and held him there." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:26, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bar for following nasal is an abbreviation. Portuguese uses tilde for a nasal vowel because (as in French) it was originally vowel+/n/ or +/m/, often written with a bar, which could be 'swashed'. —Tamfang (talk) 04:44, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And the tilde article expands on the subject further. Thank you! ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:21, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There are also various local traditional/conventional pronunciations of Latin, including a German one, an English one, etc.; the Italianate one is just another local pronunciation, although it has come to be something of a standard for church singing (and, in some institutions, even for mediaeval Latin in general!). None of these should be considered "wrong" as long as one is aware of the fact that they are all conventional/traditional rather than Classical. Any of them is, of course, superior to just pronouncing at random.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 04:16, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The abbreviated -um in the Bayeux tapestry is fairly typical, but that's not really why the words are abbreviated; writing materials were not as abundant and cheap back then, so they wanted to save space, and they abbreviated pretty much anything that could be abbreviated. For example, if that bit of the Tapestry, "hic apprehendit wido haroldum et duxit eum ad belrem et ibi eum tenuit" was in a manuscript, it might be abbreviated "H aphd W H e dux e a Br e i e tu" with all sorts of lines and squiggles...of course, certain lines and squiggles mean certain things, so you can usually tell what it says, especially if the syntax and grammar are also clear (but that is not always the case). Palaeography and scribal abbreviation go into this in more detail.

Also, for pronunciation, in the medieval studies program where I am, people tend to pronounce Latin as if it is normal English, or they use the Italianate pronunciation. I guess some people might need to focus on pronunciation for metrical purposes, but it's not like we talk to each other in Latin or anything, so it usually doesn't matter. When I was doing Latin tutorials I just pronounced it like English, to make things easier. (It did matter once, when we were discussing rules for Latin Scrabble - should we acknowledge vowel length? We ended up not doing that...) Adam Bishop (talk) 03:54, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad to hear that at least some use the "normal English"-like pronunciation for mediaeval texts. Ideally, one may want to use the local pronunciation of the country that the text under discussion comes from, but an easier and equally logical approach is to stick to the traditional pronunciation of your own country/linguistic community, which is a natural continuation of the one used there in the Middle Ages. The idea that one should use the Italian pronunciation for any mediaeval Latin text of any provenance makes no sense to me, it is historically inaccurate and seems to suggest that the modern Vatican somehow retrospectively holds the copyright on the Middle Ages.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 21:34, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

91.148.159.4 -- As the "traditional" English pronunciation of Latin developed, it became subject to the Great Vowel Shift, and so was semi-incomprehensible to continental Europeans (and of course quite inaccurate to any authentic ancient pronunciation). For this reason, a number of people from the 16th century on have been extremely anxious to get rid of the traditional pronunciation (though it apparently lingered on in some limited contexts until the 19th century). AnonMoos (talk) 11:40, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's true that the English Latin changes are a little extreme, but: 1. I think continental Europeans who know English (i.e. almost all of them nowadays) would find it easy to understand, and people don't tend to speak a lot of Latin to each other anyway (somehow traditional pronunciation did survive until the 20th century without leading to catastrophies). 2. Other traditional pronunciations are not so divergent, so incomprehensibility is not an argument against them; 3. That is still not an argument for adopting an Italian-style pronunciation, of all things. If one must strive after international comprehensibility, it is better to stick to the neutral classical version. As for "inaccuracy" - again, all traditional pronunciations are pretty inaccurate with respect to the Classical one; we are talking about mediaeval Latin, in any case. For post-Chaucer English mediaeval Latin, Great Vowel Shift pronunciation is as accurate as it gets. --91.148.159.4 (talk) 12:11, 7 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have a little school Latin text from 1919 (in the UK), which comes with a foreword talking about encouraging classical pronunciation, and that 'many' have complained that this is silly because it means the boys (and it only refers to boys) will not say the phrases like everyone else in conversation, and they'll sound like they got it wrong. And they won't understand when other gentlemen use Latin phrases in conversation. I know, even today, I've been corrected because I unthinkingly used a classical pronunciation for a phrase, when the normal English pronunciation in conversation is quite different. 86.164.58.246 (talk) 13:04, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Again, I'm glad to hear that, although I understand you're not happy about it. :) The solution is to know and practice both pronunciations; it may require some versatility, but it's nothing compared to learning Latin in the first place. In practice, whenever one learns a new European language, one also learns a new traditional pronunciation of Latin to go with the Latin loanwords, whether one likes it or not. --91.148.159.4 (talk) 12:17, 7 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting how this question has triggered an awful lot of comments that do not even try to answer the question (except for AnonMoos'). So I'll assume that indeed we know A LOT about the classical pronunciation, and that the conclusions are not questioned. I don't think I'll have time to read Vox Latina --Lgriot (talk) 13:05, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, no need to be snippy...AnonMoos answered your question, so we didn't really need to try. And now you're going to ignore the answer anyway. Hooray for the Reference Desk. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:24, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was just noticing that people couldn't avoid going into irrelevant discussions, instead of focusing on the precise question, which is a recurring issue on this desk. I don't think the question was actually fully answered though, I was told to read a book, which is fine, but no one said yes / no to my question, which was is there a scientific consensus or not. So until I have bought that book for £18 on amazon and found the time to read it, I'll just have to make an assumption. I am not sure what snippy means, sorry English is not my mother tongue. --Lgriot (talk) 17:16, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, well, they weren't completely irrelevant, but to answer your question more directly, we can't know for sure what Latin sounded like because there are no recordings of native Latin speakers. But there is scientific consensus, and our Latin spelling and pronunciation article that you mentioned earlier explains the consensus. We know what the sounds must have been, because ancient authors sometimes describe the sounds. Poetry also depends on certain pronunciations, and some sounds can be reconstructed from the way they have evolved in the modern Romance languages. So, yes, we do know how ancient Romans probably pronounced Latin, but because Latin is so similar to so many modern languages, modern people tend to pronounce it in the way that is most familiar to us. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:52, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My post may have been irrelevant to the OP's question, but it was relevant to the specific incident he described - Italian pronunciation is not "original" Latin, and before one corrects another speaker's pronunciation that is not Italian, one should always be aware of the possibility that they may be using a traditional pronunciation different from the ones you're used to. As for the original question, I didn't think it needed answering any more than AnonMoos had already answered it: yes, historical linguistic is a science, and yes, there is a very stable scholarly consensus on what Classical Latin sounded like. --91.148.159.4 (talk) 12:11, 7 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

French Verb

I am just looking through some French verbs that follow the same pattern as commencer, in that the c just before the infinitive gains a cedilla in the first person plural to retain the soft pronunciation, and one such verb that is listed, in the first person plural, is 'nous façonnons' meaning 'we craft, manufacture' but I don't understand why this is 'façonnons' rather than 'façons'. Can someone explain? Thanks. asyndeton talk 18:23, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The infinitive is façonner, hence je façonne, tu façonnes etc. It does not follow the pattern you're looking for. My dictionnary doesn't list a verb *facer which would behave like that. --Wrongfilter (talk) 18:29, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) The verb is façonner (cf. English "fashion"), so nous façonnons is the regular form that one would expect. I don't think it really is of the type you're looking for, as the 'ç' is always followed by an 'o' in any form of the verb. The fact that the verb stem ends contains "on" is a bit of a red herring. As another example, the 1st person plural of donner (give) is not nous dons. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 18:35, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's some relief to find out that it's regular; I just couldn't fathom it otherwise. That verb can have a nice pencil line through it. Thank you both for your help. asyndeton talk 18:56, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A little bit late (edit conflict). The verbs that end with -cer take a cedilla under the c before "o" or "a". For example: Placer, je place/nous plaçons. (Others: amorcer, annoncer, avancer, cadencer, concurrencer, etc., etc.) But, façonner does not end with -cer. Façonner is a verb that derives from façon, the c with its cedilla is already there. It conjugates like aimer — AldoSyrt (talk) 19:07, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Façons" would be Haplology... AnonMoos (talk) 19:17, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

January 1

January 2

Por/Para vs. Pour/Par

How does the distinction between por and para (from Spanish) compare to the distinction between pour and par (from French)? — Trevor K. — 05:58, 2 January 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yakeyglee (talk • contribs)

Spanish por is like French par, Spanish para is like French pour, gets me every time. rʨanaɢ (talk) 06:05, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here are some examples comparing usage of por/par and para/pour, including some examples where you can't just replace one with the other when translating. ---Sluzzelin talk 11:56, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As noted here,[9] the Spanish por is connected with the Latin pro and per, whereas para is connected with pora.[10] That etymology perhaps also explains the French par and pour respectively. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:34, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Swedish surnames ending in -ius

Maybe my perception is selective here, but I've noticed that a number of famous academic Swedish people of the past had surnames ending in -ius: Arrhenius, Celsius, Chydenius, Retzius, Unonius. There is one German scientist: Clausius, but few other non-Swedish examples come to my mind. Was this form of latinized surname particular to Swedish academics? What's the story here? Do these names still exist in modern-day Sweden? (Retzius and Celsius, in particular, seem to have been names passed on for several generations). I found nothing under Scandinavian family name etymology. ---Sluzzelin talk 12:47, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

'...ius' sounds a bit fancy in Swedish, as opposed to more mundane names like Svensson and Karlsson. It is well possible that it was in fashion amongst certain sections of elites at some point. '...ius' is not Swedish language, but Latinized. --Soman (talk) 13:38, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is also the NHL player Kristian Huselius. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:03, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The latinised surname was not particular to Swedish academics, they can be found in all forms with academics in Europe throughout the 1500s, 1600s and 1700s (in Denmark for example we have the Pontoppidans, which came from Broby, literally Bridgetown). However it does seem particular that the names later stuck in Sweden as compared to most other European countries, and that it is especially the -ius names that did so. --Saddhiyama (talk) 15:12, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Jean Sibelius was Finnish, but Swedish-speaking. —Angr (talk) 16:07, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a list of some more academics with names ending in -ius. Most are German; the next most common nationality seems to be Dutch.

Collapsed list

Erik Acharius, Swedish
Adam Afzelius, Swedish
Jacobus Arminius, Dutch
Per Olof Christopher Aurivillius, Swedish
Caesar Baronius, Italian
Friedrich Bergius, German
Jöns Jacob Berzelius, Swedish
August Wilhelm Heinrich Blasius, German
Johann Heinrich Blasius, German
Rudolf Jakob Camerarius, German
Georg Ludwig Carius, German
Andreas Cellarius, Dutch–German
Rudolf Clausius, German
Christopher Clavius, German
John Amos Comenius, Czech
Ernst Curtius, German
Ernst Robert Curtius, German
Georg Curtius, German
Theodor Curtius, German
Conrad Dasypodius, Swiss
Lloyd Demetrius, Jamaican-born, U.S.–German
Johann Jacob Dillenius, German
David Fabricius, German
Georg Fabricius, German
Johan Christian Fabricius, German
Johann Albert Fabricius, German
Johannes Fabricius, German
Otto Fabricius, Danish
Carl Remigius Fresenius, German
Gemma Frisius, Dutch
Johannes Acronius Frisius, Dutch
Ferdinand Georg Frobenius, German
Jacobus Golius, Dutch
Jan Frederik Gronovius, Dutch
Walter Gropius, German
Hugo Grotius, Dutch
Wilhelm Gueinzius, German
Claude Adrien Helvétius, French
Max Henius, Danish–American
Johannes Hevelius, Polish
Hendrik Hondius I, Dutch
Henricus Hondius II, Dutch
Jodocus Hondius, Flemish
Willem Hondius, Dutch
Jan Janssonius, Dutch
Kazimieras Jaunius, Lithuanian
Joachim Jungius, German
Jonas Kubilius, Lithuanian
Lars Levi Læstadius, Swedish
Karl Richard Lepsius, Prussian
Andreas Libavius, German
Aldus Manutius, Italian
Simon Marius, German
Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius, German
Vilém Mathesius, Czech
August Ferdinand Möbius, German
Karl Möbius, German
Paul Julius Möbius, German
Oscar Montelius, Swedish
Adam Olearius, German
Abraham Ortelius, Flemish
Franciscus Patricius, Venetian
Albert Pighius, Dutch
Petrus Plancius, Dutch
Anton Praetorius, German
Johannes Praetorius, Bohemian German
Georg Eberhard Rumphius, German-born
Rudolph Snellius, Dutch
Willebrord Snellius, Dutch
Hermann Friedrich Stannius, German
Lars Svenonius, Swedish
Simon Syrenius, Polish
Arne Tiselius, Swedish
Johann Daniel Titius, German
Zachris Topelius, Finnish, spoke Swedish
Johannes Trithemius, German
Justus Velsius, Dutch
Hermann Witsius, Dutch

—Bkell (talk) 18:35, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that clinches my selective perception. The German examples are more than quadruple the number of Swedish ones on that list. Thanks, Bkell! And thank you, all, for your replies! ---Sluzzelin talk 22:05, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Swedish book title

What does "Chefer från helvetet" (book title by Anna Troberg) mean in English? Thanks. 67.122.209.190 (talk) 20:03, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It literally means "Bosses from Hell", apparently. Rimush (talk) 20:33, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed it does. DuncanHill (talk) 20:34, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for confirming, since I don't speak Swedish I had to use some Google-skills to find out :P Rimush (talk) 20:47, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I thought it might have been something like "Cooks from Switzerland" ;-). I added a gloss to the author's biography. 67.122.209.190 (talk) 00:37, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's what it means in Swedish, but the OP asked what it means in English. —Tamfang (talk) 02:13, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Word for the pre-sunrise counterpart of afterglow

Is there a word in English for the pre-sunrise sky, which looks similar to the post-sunset afterglow? --108.16.33.185 (talk) 20:15, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Twilight is the time between dawn and sunrise, and between sunset and dusk. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 20:33, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Twilight, gloaming and dusk all refer to the midway period between night and day, however all three of them refer especially to the one in the evening near sunset. I don't know of a word that explicitly refers to the one in the morning. Lexicografía (talk) 20:40, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is a Wiktionary entry dawnlight. The online OED doesn't list it as a separate word, but has a citation under dawn saying "1850 E. B. Browning Poems II. 326, I oft had seen the *dawnlight run As red wine, through the hills." The OED also has a citations for "dawn-lit", "dawn-illumined", "dawn-streaks", and "dawn-flush" (1906 Daily Chron. 30 June 4/6 A painter‥saw a sunrise and put the *dawn-flush into a picture.). The French word fr:Crépuscule might be close to what you want; the English cognate crepuscular rays can occur at any time of day. Twilight refers to the blue hour, which designates the time of day rather than the sky itself, so I don't know if that helps. [[67.122.209.190 (talk) 20:57, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My first instinct is to call it first light, but Wiktionary defines that as "Dawn; sunrise; the moment at which the sun can first be seen on the horizon". It seems that there is such a word as foreglow, often in the phrase foreglow of dawn, which has no entry in Wiktionary or in the OED. Google Books shows it to have kept up a tenuous existence since the 19th century. --Antiquary (talk) 22:38, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Lexicografía, I may be misreading what you are saying but twilight refers to both morning and evening. Of course right now all we have is twilight and night, with nothing else. Enter CBW, waits for audience applause, not a sausage. 14:58, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This http://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/astronomical-applications/astronomical-information-center/rise-set-twi-defs says that twilight also occurs in the early morning. In naval warfare in pre-radar times, twilight must have been a vital period as you would see for the first time if any enemy ships were near you. 92.28.242.164 (talk) 14:26, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes and you needed to avoid being caught in silhouette on the eastern horizon. Bad mistake. Alansplodge (talk) 19:11, 7 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

January 3

______ with a human face

what is the origin of this contruction? as seen in "socialism with a human face". 86.41.82.227 (talk) 11:03, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Was associated with Alexander Dubček... AnonMoos (talk) 11:30, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. The concepts of God with a human face, or a monster with a human face, go back centuries. But a quick search finds no references to an abstraction with a human face prior to Dubček. Looie496 (talk) 20:03, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And then there was this, which we have an article about: 1984 (advertisement) Bus stop (talk) 05:43, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Translation - Latin into English.

DEUS NOBLIS HAEC OTIA FECIT - Please —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.159.202.92 (talk) 12:03, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Noblis" isn't a Latin word (do you mean Nobis or Nobilis?), but Deus haec otia fecit means "God has made these times of leisure/rest/peace..." AnonMoos (talk) 12:22, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's "deus nobis haec otia fecit", and it's from Virgil (Eclogues I, l.6) and is often translated "God has given us this tranquillity". It's the motto of Liverpool and appeared on the original official seal of the U.S. state of Georgia, among other places. Deor (talk) 12:49, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Gnome

Dictionaries say that "gnome" is from a Greek word genomos, meaning earth-dweller. Is it possible to divide that word into two parts meaning earth and dweller, or is it not a compound word? Why doesn't it start with geo-? 213.122.7.184 (talk) 12:22, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What dictionary are you using? Mine says that the word was invented by Paracelsus, possibly influenced by Greek words derived from a root with basic meaning "to know"... AnonMoos (talk) 12:36, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The OED expands on that, stating "Paracelsus (De Nymphis etc. Wks. 1658 II. 391, and elsewhere) uses Gnomi as a synonym of Pygmæi, and says that the beings so called have earth as their element (or, as he calls it, their chaos: cf. etymological note on gas), through which they move unobstructed as fish do through water, or birds and land animals through air. The context in the passage above referred to suggests that the name was not invented by Paracelsus himself, and that it means 'earth-dweller'; possibly it may be a blunder for genomus, representing a Gr. type γηνόμος (for which cf. θαλασσονόμος dwelling in the sea). The term, however, may possibly be a mere arbitrary invention, like many others found in Paracelsus. The connexion commonly assumed with Gr. γνώμη (see prec.) or γνώμων (cf. gnomon) seems unlikely." ("prec." refers to the other word "gnome" meaning aphorism.)--Shantavira|^{feed me} 13:26, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

EtymOnline and Merriam-Webster agree. It's either a word Paracelsus made up, or he might have borrowed it from Greek. Lexicografía (talk) 13:47, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Genomos was the word that bothered me, really, not gnome. I should have made it the title of the question. Looks like genomos is a word the OED made up. 213.122.59.84 (talk) 14:11, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh OK, I think I see how it goes. Paracelsus wrote Gnomi, and then the OED speculated that the word genomos existed, similar to thalassonomos. I still wonder why they didn't put an o in - why not geonomos? Also, nomos means law, custom, managing, usage, rule, and things like that, so adding "dwelling" to that list surprises me. Thalassonomy gets three google hits and whatever it is, it isn't seasteading. It might be the science of growing sea vegetables, or sea-management. Thanks for the OED quote, anyway. 213.122.59.84 (talk) 14:11, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Genomos is not a word in the OED, or in any language that I know. I think the OED is suggesting that it is invented Greek. Dbfirs 22:29, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

[Incidentally, gnome (wikt:gnome) is not to be confused with genome (wikt:genome).

—Wavelength (talk) 16:48, 4 January 2011 (UTC)][reply]

Is text amended or emended?

Is text amended or emended?Smallman12q (talk) 13:42, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Both. Amend and emend are basically synonyms (although emend does refer more specifically to text). Lexicografía (talk) 13:44, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, both. If I had to make a distinction, I would say that "amending" involves some improvement other than just the spelling and grammar corrections that seem implicit in "emending" (i.e. emend = make corrections; amend = improve in any way, including emending), but I'm not sure that others will share this view of the difference. Dbfirs 22:17, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Emen to that, brother, emen. Clarityfiend (talk) 04:49, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

January 4

In the three-thirty?

Hi,

While tralslating Dick Francis' Under Orders, I encountered the sentence as follows:

"Gone is the time when you could sidle up to a bookie with a hundred thousand in readies to stick on number two at Cartmel in the three-thirty."

It's about horse-racing, and the speaker tries to say that to bet in large cash is no longer possible.

I don't understand what 'in the three-thirty' means.

Please help. --Analphil (talk) 12:26, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The race at 3.30pm I think, but I'm not an expert on horseracing. 95.150.24.247 (talk) 12:32, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. They just omitted the word "race", at the end of the sentence. StuRat (talk) 18:02, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm almost certain that that is the case. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 13:17, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And I'm completely certain. A typical race meeting in the UK (whether at Cartmel Racecourse or elsewhere) will have a race every half hour, identified by the time at which it starts.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 13:46, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Generally, however, the time comes first, followed by 'at' + [race course]. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:47, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"The 3:30 [race] at Ascot" is no different from modern-day corporate-speak: "I have my regular 9:30 [meeting] with George, then a 10:30 [meeting] with the IT guys. After that, I'll be free to see you". -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 18:42, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Out of my brain on the 5:15". Mod, perhaps, but not necessarily modern. --LarryMac | Talk 18:59, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Tangential: In the United States, on the other hand, we refer to races by their ordinal positions in the day's program—"the third at Aqueduct", "the ninth at Hialeah", etc. Deor (talk) 20:11, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Dem Deutschen Volke"

This inscription can be found on the Reichstag (building) in Berlin. But I'm unsure about the first part. As the caption to the photo in the linked article states, the slogan can be translated To the German people or For the German people. Presumably, therefore, there is an implied Zu before the "Dem". But if that's the case, why did they leave out the Zu? Why not just say Zu Dem Deutschen Volke? --Viennese Waltz 20:35, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is an implied part, but it's not "zu". "Gewidmet" ("dedicated") would be a likely candidate. "Dedicated to the German people" uses the dative case in German, without the preposition "zu": "dem Deutschen Volke gewidmet"---Sluzzelin talk 20:46, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) So you are asking "Why not insert an unnecessary word into our German because English speakers don't have a dative case, and so cannot conceive of using it?" I don't quite grasp the significance of "just" in your question. --ColinFine (talk) 20:51, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There's an entire article on the inscription's history on German WP by the way (de:Dem deutschen Volke). When the text had been decided on, the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger apparently made fun of it, because the German people supposedly already were the contractors and owners of the building, and the newspaper thought it was odd for the contractors and owners to dedicate the building to themselves. ---Sluzzelin talk 21:06, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

German works differently from English. The way to say "the German people" in German is das deutsche Volk. German has what is called grammatical case, which exists in English only for some pronouns (such as he versus him). The expression dem deutschen Volke is das deutsche Volk recast in the dative case. When translating a dative phrase such as this into English, we often insert a preposition such as to or for. These prepositions are not needed in German because the change in case does the same job that the prepositions do in English. Marco polo (talk) 21:53, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Marco polo has explained it very well, and see also German grammar#cases. The (confusing) example there, "Der Tisch gab dem Tisch(e) den Tisch des Tisch(e)s", would be "The table gave the table the table's table" in that word order, using an indirect object without preposition, but it would require the preposition "to" in English if the word order were changed to "The table gave the table's table to the table", while the German dative still wouldn't have a preposition, even if positioned at the end: "Der Tisch gab den Tisch des Tisch(e)s dem Tisch(e)." (which is odd but, not incorrect). But I guess you could never say "We dedicate you this building" in English. ---Sluzzelin talk 03:43, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, see the previous question about this Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Language/2010 October 25#Dem Deutschen Volke. DuncanHill (talk) 21:59, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

January 5

Asore watasha?

In an anime (Otome Youkai Zakuro, in case you're curious) the main characters' battle song starts: "A-sore watasha: hana ka? Chouchou ka? Oni ka?" I guess this means "What am I? A flower? A moth? A daemon?". This makes sense, as the said characters are half-daemons. The question -- actually, two -- is (1) how does "watasha" works grammatically? How is it derived from "watashi"? And (2) what does it mean in this context and in general? I tried to look for 私しゃ but the dictionaries don't seem to recognize it. I'm not even sure I spelled it right. Any ideas? --08147A01270 (talk) 02:54, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Watasha is an another colloquial form of "watashi wa". Sorry that I cannot explain it well. Think it as the difference of "I am" and "I'm" or "I'm not" and "I ain't". It's a simple phonological change and it is often used by older people, especially in fiction. The meaning of the words is "There, am I a flower? A butterfly? A demon?". Chouchou is a butterfly, not a moth. Moth is ga/蛾. Oda Mari (talk) 06:48, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea what the song in question sounds like, but consider also it could be a reference to hayashi kotoba in folk songs like the ones at the Awa Odori. TomorrowTime (talk) 08:30, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Oda Mari and TomorrowTime! --08147A01270 (talk) 20:56, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Linguistics meta-question

A while ago I read about a (rather small) linguistic school of thought that espoused a strict definition of native speaker. Under this definition one's native language is the first language one learns to communicate in, and to have two native languages one must learn them simulataneously, not one after the other; beyond basic proficiency ability in the language is not considered. Under this definition I would be a native speaker of French but not English, even though my French is not very good as I moved to the US when I was only 4 (just after I learned to talk) and haven't kept it up since (although I can still speak some and understand most). Can anyone tell me more about this group? Thanks. 24.92.70.160 (talk) 04:13, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure how soundly this is based in reality. My father's first language was also French (though he was born in the United States), though he learned English by the time he was 6-7, and probably started using English almost exclusively by his teens, today he can barely speak French at all. He's as close to a "native English" speaker as you can get. I believe the difference you are referring to is that people learn a first language, as a toddler and young child, very differently than one learns a second language as an older child or an adult. Compare the articles Language acquisition and First language with Second language acquisition and Second language. --Jayron32 05:16, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think the OP is asking for identification of the linguists or linguistic school of thought described, rather than any specific linguistic concepts. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 14:20, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Jayron, how can a person who did not start to speak English till he was 6-7 but spoke another language till then, be described as "as close to a native English speaker as you can get"? Surely the millions of people who have only ever spoken English from the time they started speaking at all are closer than your father, with all due respect. He's in the same boat as my ex-wife, who was born in Sydney of Russian(-ish) parents and only spoke Russian till she went to school. She then picked up English very quickly, and is now totally fluent in both languages. But there's no way she would ever describe herself as a "native English speaker", because there's no getting away from the fact that it was not her first language. People can become as fluent in a language as native speakers, and have no discernible accent from their first language - but that still doesn't mean they are native speakers. Maybe your father (and my ex) could best be described as "as close to a native English speaker as you can get, without actually being a native speaker". -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 18:38, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The point is, my dad doesn't speak anything EXCEPT english. He has no fluency in French any more. English is his first and only fluent language. --Jayron32 19:55, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, I got that, but he's still not a native speaker of English. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 20:02, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Meh. What is "native"? --Jayron32 20:05, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think most linguists would say it's a matter of linguistic competence - anyone with the same level of competence as an unambiguous native speaker (not that it's straightforward to measure competence) can be considered a native speaker of the language. If Jack's ex-wife and Jayron's father have all the same linguistic intuitions about English as Jack and Jayron do, then as far as linguists are concerned, they're native speakers. People like Jayron's father show that the terms "first language" and "native language" are not perfect synonyms, though of course for most people they're the same language. To get back to the OP's actual question, I've never heard of a school of linguistics that defines "native speaker" the way he says, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. —Angr (talk) 20:25, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Kaspersky Antivirus Services Could Not Start

Question transferred to Computing Desk. Richard Avery (talk) 08:06, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Chinese name with possible Arabic origin

The Tang Dynasty tale "Kunlun Nu" tells the story of a negrito slave with supernatural abilities that helps his master retrieve his love from a government official. The slave's name is Mo le, the Chinese characters for which I believe are 磨勒. According to Prof. James J.Y. Liu, Mo le was most likely pronounced Mau lak during the Tang dynasty (I'm not sure what the correct pinyin is for this) and was based on an Arab name. I have seen some translations spell the Tang-era name as Melek. What Arabic / Islamic name sounds similar to this? I was thinking Malik.

I would have thought the most natural association would be with the fairly common name Malak, on which we have an article. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:45, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I found a link between Melek and the Turkish pronunciation of angel (Melek) after posting this. I couldn't find an article on here under that name, however. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 09:59, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is also an Arabic/Islamic Maula with two conflicting meanings of 'slave' and 'slave owner'.--Omidinist (talk) 15:39, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Mawla -- The most literal meaning is "near one", and it means more "patron"/"client" in the original ancient Roman meaning, than "master"/"slave"... AnonMoos (talk) 16:36, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Question about Russian word

Why is gasoline in Russia called Benzine? Is it because gasoline production requires benzine? What do they call benzine itself? Googlemeister (talk) 17:06, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Benzine appears to be бензин, while gasoline is either бензин or газолин, according to Google. Try looking up 'petrol' and you will see керосин in addition to бензин and газолин. Not sure how reliable that is, because 'kerosine' is given as керосина. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 17:12, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please be careful about using Google Translate for these things... Russian uses бензин for "gasoline/petrol" (газолин is really more of a technical term). This usage comes (I believe) from German, which also uses "Benzin" for gas/petrol. Benzine in Russian is also often called бензин, though benzene is called бензол. Voikya (talk) 17:30, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Don't worry - I know only too well about Google Translate's shortcomings - which is why I checked up the word 'kerosine' and stated I was unsure of its relaibility. Thanks for the answer, though - this was interesting to me, too. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 17:37, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Try looking up naphta as well - don't know about Russian, but in South Slavic languages (which follow the pattern described for Russian so far to an extent), crude oil is nafta, and naphta is.. hm, I'm not sure. Anyway, yes, the different demarcations for different oil products are all over the place when compared in English and Slavic languages. TomorrowTime (talk) 17:47, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Even within English, benzene, benzine, and benzyne are all different things. And translating between German and English is a pain - petrol/gasoline is Benzin, benzene is Benzol, jet fuel is Kerosin, kerosene is Petroleum, and petroleum is Erdöl. —Angr (talk) 19:08, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In Romanian, gasoline/petrol is benzină, benzene is benzen (it's also called benzol, but only rarely), jet fuel is cherosen, kerosene is petrol lampant or simply gaz, while petroleum is petrol or ţiţei. This has always bugged me. Rimush (talk) 20:13, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's also benzina in Italian, I believe. —Tamfang (talk) 18:50, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the British call it "petrol," even though it's not petroleum but a refined product. And Americans call it "gas," even though it's usually a liquid. So who's right? -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:50, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Jed Clampett called it black gold or Texas tea.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:27, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Tintin called it Black Gold, too. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:07, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Everyday-everday?

I recall my mother who was from Texas always pronounced everyday as everday. If one listens carefully to Mick Jagger in Paint it Black he also says everday. Do you think it was deliberate or do some English people say everday, hence its arrival in the southern US from early English immigrants? It must be noted that Jagger is a very well-educated, middle-class Londoner. Thanks for whatever light can be shed on this interesting matter.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 18:25, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I know, it is not at all normal in British English. Bear in mind, Jagger sang/sings with an American accent. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 18:41, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(EC)I was going to suggest maybe it was just a necessity due to the rhythm of the song, but then I went and listened to it, and I can fairly clearly hear him say "every day" - it's at around the 0:55 point in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BhHTA6Gzn0, if anyone else wants to listen in and weigh in. TomorrowTime (talk) 18:42, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I can vouch for that. He does indeed pronounce 'every' in the normal way. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 18:45, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly, even when I was young I always thought he was singing everday. It must be pointed out that Jagger does not sing with an American accent in Paint it Black which is why I was astounded. Now had he sang everday in Faraway Eyes that would have been normal as he puts on an excellent Texan accent in that, even down to the "wail" (well)!--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 18:51, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Even Paint It Black is a decidedly American accent, heard from this side of the pond, Jeanne. Seriously, most rock stars sing/sang with (what we would consider to be) American accents, possibly in part because it's more authentic to the origins of rock music, and partly because a British accent would sound ridiculous. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 22:13, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For me, British pop singers attempting to sing in fake American accents is what's ridiculous! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.135.30.197 (talk) 23:08, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know, some of them seem to pull it off. Maybe The Troggs, The Small Faces, or Blur? Thing is, though, most rock and pop singers adopt an accent while singing which differs from their accent while talking (Sting's singing accent has always struck me as particularly strange), and from the viewpoint of a British accent, there might be similarities between an accent suitable for singing and an American accent - flattened vowels being the obvious feature. The American accent is generally a bit more lazy than the British, and that's a desirable way to sing, too, because excessively clear consonants and diverse vowels get in the way of clear notes. 213.122.26.117 (talk) 12:22, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In "Waiting on a Friend" he uses not only a Texas accent but also Texas syntax (most of the rest of the English-speaking world would say "I'm not waiting for a lady, I'm just waiting for a friend"). —Angr (talk) 18:56, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Those songs were all obviously influenced by Jerry Hall. She claimed in a 1980s interview that Mick always took the p.ss out of her Texan drawl. I must needs point out that my mother would have said "waiting for" rather than "waiting on".--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 19:09, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, whether it was taking the piss or not, the major British acts of the 1960's were heavily influenced by a wide range of American music, both black and white, northern and southern. The Stones had several songs which were obviously country influenced, and the Beatles had a strong foundation in country music, consider that Help (album), about half of the songs have a distinctive Southern U.S. twang to them. I'm not sure it was taking the piss as much as a genuine attempt at homage to an influencial music. --Jayron32 19:14, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If Jerry Hall used the expression "taking the piss", she's as guilty of dialect appropriation as he is! —Angr (talk) 20:26, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Unless she was into golden showers...--Jayron32 20:34, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, she has a right to take the mickey. —Tamfang (talk) 21:21, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was born and I live in Texas. I say it "evruhday." schyler (talk) 21:24, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As an American, I would not have said that Mick Jagger sings in an American accent. Dusty Springfield and Eric Burdon sound American. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:48, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Have you never tried singing "I can't get no satisfaction" in a British accent? --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 02:07, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As an aside, though it is claimed that Mick Jagger was trying to sound "Texan" when saying "Everday", actual Texan Buddy Holly (one of whose songs was a major early hit for the Stones) wrote and sang the song "Everyday", which he CLEARLY enunciates "everyday." Just saying... --Jayron32 02:11, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Taking the piss is my expression, not Jerry's. I think she might have said Mick always makes fun of my Texan drawl. After all, I read it back in the 80s. As for Paint it Black, his accent is not overtly American. David Bowie was one English rock singer who always sang in a pronounced English accent using slang as well (Falls wanking to the floor) is a perfect example.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:23, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, but even David Bowie sings "Let's [dæns]" and not "Let's [dɑːns]". The thickness of his London accent when singing decreased over the years, though he brought it back for "The Buddha of Suburbia", presumably because that song is explicitly about London. The thickness of the Beatles' Liverpool accent when singing also decreased over the years: in "I've Just Seen a Face" they pronounce aware [əˈwɜː] to make it rhyme with her, which I bet they wouldn't have done 3 or 4 years later. —Angr (talk) 12:09, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would exclude Octopus's Garden (1969) from that. Mind you, it was Ringo Starr singing. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:01, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fantastic - the areas where Sting and Eric Burdon grew up are just four minutes apart on the number 12 bus route. Similarities in accent: not much. 213.122.26.117 (talk) 12:35, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody could ever mistake Steve Marriott's origins in Lazy Sunday Afternoon! Absolutely no attempt at an American accent there. I had another listen to Paint it Black. Jagger appears to sing everuhday, and he uses the US southern haid for head; as for the rest, it sounds neutral, mid-Atlantic. Strange, from the first time I heard Paint it Black in 1966 up to now I was convinced Jagger sang everday. Bowie's London accent is very strong from 1971-1974. In Big Brother he says capers as capahs with the British soft R, whereas an American would say caperrrrs. John Lennon's accent was less Scouse than George Harrison's, BTW.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 15:52, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Even most American singers go non-rhotic when singing, though, except maybe in country music. Trained classical singers are specifically taught to drop their Rs before consonants and at the end of a word (heck, even in my 3rd grade music class in Rochester, NY, we were taught to do that), and a lot of rock singers do too, maybe because it sounds more black (AAVE being non-rhotic). At any rate, even I as a fully rhotic American notice (and cringe) when singers don't drop their Rs (e.g. Bette Midler singing "riverrrrr", "razorrrrr", "hungerrrrr", and "flowerrrrr" in "The Rose"). —Angr (talk) 23:01, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Terms like "Victorian"

Prompted by this thread where the OP used the term "Victorian" but whose location in not clear, I was wondering if the term "Victorian" (and further "Tudor", "Georgian" etc.) are used outside the United Kingdom and/or Commonwealth, and if not then what other terms are used to replace them – similar monarchical terms, where they exist, or something altogether different?. [For those not aware, the term "Victorian" represents not only a historic time period but also features of that time period.] Thanks Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 19:36, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Tudor and Georgian are used in the rebellious colonies for architectural styles, Victorian for mores. See also Victorian architecture#North America. —Tamfang (talk) 19:45, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say all three terms are used in the United States to refer to the culture of the corresponding period. Where US usage differs is that we would not use the term Victorian to refer to U.S. politics during the period when Victoria was on the British throne, whereas I think you would use the term to refer to British politics during that period (e.g., "Victorian Liberals" or "Victorian poor laws"). Likewise, we would not use the term Georgian to refer to the internal policies of the colonies that became the United States, but we might refer to Georgian taxation policies, i.e., taxation policies emanating from the Westminster government under one of the Georges. While the "Victorian period" might be a commonly accepted historical period in British history, it is not an accepted period in U.S. history, except maybe for cultural history. Whereas the Victorian period is somewhat cohesive in British history, the corresponding timespan in the United States was broken up by the pivotal event of the American Civil War, so that American historians break that timespan into an "antebellum period" (roughly 1820-1860) before the war, the period of the civil war itself (1860-1865), the Reconstruction period, and the Gilded Age that followed it. Marco polo (talk) 19:50, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Its not just British terms either, architectural styles from other countries are named for the period that produced them, even in the United States. See Second_Empire_(architecture)#Second_Empire_in_the_United_States for another example. --Jayron32 19:54, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Still, I think that the Second Empire style would be broadly considered one of several Victorian-era architectural styles. Marco polo (talk) 20:01, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In Denmark, and I would guess in Europe in general, it seems only "Victorian" can be used as a general term applicable even for things outside Great Britain, while "Tudor" and "Georgian" is only used for things specifically British. A person from Denmark could easily be said to have a "Victorian mindset" or live in "Victorian times" (it seems often used to stress prudish or colonialist behaviour, but not exclusively so). --Saddhiyama (talk) 20:00, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

However, in Germany, Victorian is not a commonly used term for 19th-century architecture. The corresponding terms would be Biedermeier for what in Britain (and the United States) was the early Victorian period, and Gründerzeit for the later period. Marco polo (talk) 20:04, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Victorian" is fairly commonly used when talking about 19th century Britain (obviously not when talking about Germany, and we wouldn't use "Biedermeier" to talk about Britain). "Tudor" might be used occasionally due to the fame of Henry VIII. , but "Georgian" is pretty much unknown outside specialist circles, I guess. --Wrongfilter (talk) 20:36, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Don't forget that once Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden joins the choir invisible and becomes an ex-king, the Swedes will start assuming "Victorian" means the current times. JIP | Talk 22:58, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Shuffling off his mortal coil would not make him an ex-king, but a former king. Only abdication, deposition or abolition can produce ex-kings. -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 00:15, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, you missed the joke. --Anonymous, 04:25 UTC, January 6, 2011.

Here in the state of Victoria, Australia we are very confused. We do use Victorian for architectural style and mores, but there's more. I am Victorian, because I live here. Our representative sports teams are Victorian. Our government is Victorian (although the building in which parliament meets is Romanesque Revival, not Victorian, in style), etc, etc, etc... I wonder if the people of Victoria, British Columbia in Canada have similar problems? HiLo48 (talk) 00:24, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For example: "Craigdarroch Castle in Victoria, British Columbia, is a historic, Victorian-era Châteauesque mansion". The Rough Guide to Vancouver even calls it "a typical upper-class Victorian Victoria home". Victor Victoria, a confusing name! ---Sluzzelin talk 00:44, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note that as usual in North America for things smaller than countries, the place name is used as an adjective rather than being inflected, so it's not a "Victorian Victorian home", but a "Victorian Victoria home". I believe residents of the city are Victorians, though. --Anonymous, 04:27 UTC, January 6, 2011.

They have other problems, like being on Vancouver Island when Vancouver isn't. —Tamfang (talk) 00:55, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, well, you just have to remember that Vancouver was so named because it was near Vancouver Island. --Anonymous, 04:28 UTC, January 6, 2011.

Kanji variants

Hi, are the following kanji interchangeable and equally acceptable in Japanese?

http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/9305/k12q.jpg

If so, are there any other kanji where the "containing" element can take either of these two forms? 86.135.30.197 (talk) 23:05, 5 January 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Can't directly answer your question, but the left-bottom element is radical 162. See entry on character at http://www.edrdg.org/cgi-bin/wwwjdic/wwwjdic?1MUJ%E8%BE%BB ... AnonMoos (talk) 01:43, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. commons:Category:Radical 162... -- AnonMoos (talk) 03:51, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, they are. They are called shin'nyō/しんにょう/之繞/辵 or shin'nyū/しんにゅう. The one with two dots is Kyūjitai. See also the last paragraph of Japanese script reform#Gaiji. Interestingly, because of the difference of the font system, Windows XP has only the double-dotted/niten shin'nyō/二点しんにょう kanji and Windows 7 has only the single-dotted/itten shin'nyō/一点しんにょう kanji. See this. Oda Mari (talk) 05:30, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Mari (I hope I am correct in addressing you that way). Are there other kanji that can allow either form of shin'nyō? The other common ones that I know, like 通, 連, 選, 近, 道 and 進, I think I've only seen written with the single dot. 86.184.236.91 (talk) 19:15, 6 January 2011 (UTC). (PS: I'm assuming that your answer "Yes, they are" is to my first question, not my second.)[reply]

January 6

A N P

Is there a mythological figure (a god/goddess, hero, creature...) from any source (Egyptian, Ancient Greek, Roman, Slavic, Norse...) whose name contains the lettes A, N and P in this order? Something like Hercules contains H, C and U, or Anubis contains N, B, S. The only one I was able to find is Anput, but she is too obscure. Thanks. --151.51.26.64 (talk) 01:17, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, Antiope is one, as is the other Antiope. Is this for a crossword puzzle? How many letters? In what positions do the letters in question occur? What's the exact wording of the clue? Deor (talk) 01:33, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, that's a very good and fast suggestion! Thanks! It's actually for a game/riddle I'm creating. The number and position of the letters doesn't really matter. In order to create it, I had to find mythological figures with ANP (Antiope!), OUN and IAS. For OUN I found Jötunn and for IAS Pietas and Felicitas. If you have any other, probably better, suggestion for any of these trigraphs, feel free to post it! --151.51.26.64 (talk) 01:47, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Our articles List of deities, List of Greek mythological figures, and List of legendary creatures by type may be of help. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 02:03, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Things you might consider for A N P: Aganippe, Aladdin's lamp, Amenhotep, Annapurna, Antiope, Brahmanaspati, Canopus, Castor and Pollux, Damon and Pythias, Daphnephoria, Ganapati, Melanippe, Melanippus, Parthenopeus, Parthenope, Pierian Spring, Sancho Panza, Xanthippe. —Bkell (talk) 03:33, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OUN: Ouranos, Jormungand
IAS: There are too many to count, but my favorites are Iaso, Icarus, Iapetos/Iapetus, Pleiades, Naiades, Priapus, and Midas. --Kjoonlee 03:08, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, if I found Jötunn was the answer to the OUN puzzle, I'd grumble about ö not being the same as o. (Ö is kind of like a tweety oo sound, and comes at the end of the alphabet.) 213.122.26.117 (talk) 13:10, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Do everything before the Shang Dynasty in China count? Kayau Voting IS evil HI AGAIN 05:43, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Mandarin

are [v] and [w] allophones in mandarin? What is the difference between the slashes (/v/) and brackets ([v]). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.92.70.160 (talk) 01:34, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Traditionally [...] indicates a phonetic transcription, while /.../ indicates a phonemic analysis, but they're not really used consistently... AnonMoos (talk) 01:49, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

They can be allophones depending on the exact dialect of Mandarin spoken. Standard Mandarin always uses [w], but native speakers of some Mandarin dialects alternate between [v] and [w]. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:05, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Use of 'besides' at the beginning of a sentence

In my science and computer literacy textbooks, 'besides' is often used at the beginning of a sentence, as in 'To avoid overloading, we should not connect too many appliances to one mains socket. Besides, some electrical appliances, such as electric heaters, hair dryers and electric irons, draw a large circuit'. I think it sounds funny. I checked the CALD, the OALD and Wiktionary but was unable to find out why, although none of the example sentences (unless you count #2 and extra #5 of CALD, which look similar) seem to be used in the same way. Can a Wikipedian demystify the use of 'besides' for me? Kayau Voting IS evil HI AGAIN 05:38, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Besides, in this usage, is idiomatic and usually reserved for spoken English in most dialects where it appears. I find it somewhat odd to see that usage in any book for formal publication, which had been presumably proofread. It is a synonym for "In addition". So one may say something like "I'm too tired to go to that party. Besides, I'm not really friends with anyone else that's going". Meaning, not only am I too tired, but in addition to that, I don't have any friends that are going. In spoken English, it usually means you are adding additional reasons to justify an earlier statement. However, as I said, I rarely see the usage in formal, written language this way... --Jayron32 05:59, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks :) In the cases I saw, the use of 'besides' is not to justify an earlier sentence, but used to add information to it. I'm not surprised that the English in our textbooks may not be standard... I've spotted typos, grammatical mistakes, comma splices, and logical errors.) Kayau Voting IS evil HI AGAIN 06:19, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This "besides" is an adverb. See these dictionaries. [11], [12], and [13]. Oda Mari (talk) 06:29, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Jayron32, and am writing merely to add that in more formal English besides may be used as a preposition where it's used as an adverb in informal English, by adding the foregoing or which.—msh210℠ 08:49, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for all the replies. :) Kayau Voting IS evil HI AGAIN 12:01, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is nothing wrong with the instances of besides that you cite. That usage is somewhat informal and conversational, but not necessarily a usage that a copy editor or proofreader would want to change. These textbooks often aim for an informal, conversational tone so that they are accessible to native English speakers who lack a good formal education. Marco polo (talk) 14:32, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Copulae and predicates

The first sentence of the article Copula (linguistics) states that "In linguistics, a copula (plural: copulae) is a word used to link the subject of a sentence with a predicate (a subject complement)." Ordinarily, the thing that links is not part of the things that are being linked, so this would, taken at face value, imply that the copula is not part of the predicate. Which, according to my understanding (and the article predicate (grammar)), is false.

I tried to replace "predicate" with "predicative" to correct this, but the change was reverted. Also, I checked the corresponding German articles, and they have exactly the same problem. Based on that, the most likely explanation I can think of is that one or more of the terms are ambiguous enough to reconcile the apparent contradiction (but I don't know which or why). Or I'm still missing something, and the contradiction exists only in my head.

Help? - 212.23.105.178 (talk) 13:48, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you read the article Predicate (grammar) you would observe the following:

A predicate nominal is a noun phrase that functions as the main predicate of a sentence, such as "George III is the king of England", the king of England being the predicate nominal. The subject and predicate nominal must be connected by a linking verb, also called a copula.

A predicate adjective is an adjective that functions as a predicate, such as "Jessica is attractive", attractive being the predicate adjective. The subject and predicate adjective must be connected by a linking verb, also called copula.

Hopefully this should clear up your confusion, but if you have further problems with the article Predicate (grammar), this should be discussed at Talk:Predicate (grammar). --Colapeninsula (talk) 18:00, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, that doesn't help. As the word order suggests (a "cart horse" is a type of horse, not a type of cart), a predicate adjective is an adjective, not a predicate. Note the requirement that a "predicate must contain a verb" earlier in the article, and compare the article on predicatives, which I suggested as an alternative above.

I'm sorry if this is the wrong place for this discussion, but my confusion does not arise from any one article, but from what looks like a contradiction between articles. - (new IP) 212.23.105.179 (talk) 18:33, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am not the world's greatest expert, but my understanding is that the predicate includes the copula, and that the opening sentence of Copula (linguistics) is therefore, as you say, technically incorrect. 86.184.236.91 (talk) 19:36, 6 January 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Not an expert here, either, but it's clear that there's a confusion going there on predicate. A way of solving the confusion is to understand that predicate nominal implies the predicate less the verb (just covering the predicative). For what it's worth, the example She is in the park makes it clear that the verb belongs in the predicate. Pallida Mors 19:55, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The term predicate is used differently by different authorities and in different contexts. As far as I'm aware, both the usage that applies the term to the whole syntactic verb phrase consisting of the copula and the nominal/adjectival complement, and the usage that applies it to the NP/AdjP alone, can be found in the literature, but I'd have to dig for references. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:50, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Right, that's the sort of ambiguity I suspected might be at the root of the matter. But if that ambiguity exists, the term has no place in a sentence which constitutes the primary definition of another term, surely. - 212.23.105.179 (talk) 22:25, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

According to that usage, would "I caught a fish" and "I am a fish" have the same predicate, then? That doesn't seem right ... ? 86.184.236.91 (talk) 22:52, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In my personal terminology, I would call fish in "I am a fish" a predicative, but fish in "I caught a fish" a direct object. In Latin, they would be PISCIS SUM and PISCEM CEPI (note the difference between nominative and accusative case endings). AnonMoos (talk) 23:14, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Don's Plum's meaning

What does that mean? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.169.188.37 (talk) 23:27, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say it is the name of a diner (ps: I corrected your title, since I thought you wanted to link to the film). Quest09 (talk) 23:37, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps inspired by Maxwell's Plum? Or is "___'s Plum" a common name for a diner? Are there Peaches too?---Sluzzelin talk 23:50, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not a back-formation?

In the 1960s there was a folk-rock band, Eclection, who were given their name by Joni Mitchell to describe the "eclectic" nature of their music. I would have termed the formation of the word "eclection" as a back-formation from "eclectic", but it seems from that article that that would be incorrect, as a back-formation refers to a shortening, not a lengthening, of a word. Is there an alternative, correct, term for the process of word formation in this case? Ghmyrtle (talk) 23:57, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know whether it applies completely to "eclection", but it follows the pattern of "normal" derivation. In back-formation, the new word looks like the root word (thus it is usually shorter, though see ideologue from ideology and injure from injury}, even though it was invented later. Back-formation is sometimes called "inverse derivation" too. ---Sluzzelin talk 00:12, 7 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Some might say that it's a portmanteau ("eclectic collection")... AnonMoos (talk) 00:16, 7 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

January 7

Not quite homonyms, homophones or homographs

I’ve been reading Homonym and refreshing my memory about the various related terms.

There’s a tiny little bell tinkling at the back of my head that tells me there are some words that are pronounced one way in a certain context, and a different way in another context, but are spelt identically and have identical meanings in both contexts. Not just related, but identical. I’m not talking about the different pronunciations that apply to the same word in different countries, but precisely the same linguistic environment. I can only imagine that a special pronunciation might apply to some stock phrase or fossilised expression, and the usual pronunciation applies in all other cases.

Can I think of any examples of what I’m talking about? You guessed it. No. Does this ring any other bells out there? -- (Jack of Oz ) 202.142.129.66 (talk) 01:37, 7 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 316: / Line 316: @@
 = January 7 =
+== Not quite homonyms, homophones or homographs ==
+I’ve been reading [[Homonym]] and refreshing my memory about the various related terms.
+There’s a tiny little bell tinkling at the back of my head that tells me there are some words that are pronounced one way in a certain context, and a different way in another context, but are spelt identically and have identical meanings in both contexts.  Not just related, but identical.  I’m not talking about the different pronunciations that apply to the same word in different countries, but precisely the same linguistic environment.  I can only imagine that a special pronunciation might apply to some stock phrase or fossilised expression, and the usual pronunciation applies in all other cases.
+Can I think of any examples of what I’m talking about?  You guessed it.  No.  Does this ring any other bells out there?  --  (Jack of Oz ) [[Special:Contributions/202.142.129.66|202.142.129.66]] ([[User talk:202.142.129.66|talk]]) 01:37, 7 January 2011 (UTC)