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March 28

Legal Latin term

There is a term in legal Latin, meaning (approximately) "Offences to the gods will be dealt with by the gods", which was used recently (well, at some point in the 20th century) to clarify the status of blasphemous libel as an offence against the State, rather than against God. It's not in Legal Latin or Blasphemy law in the United Kingdom. Does anyone know what it is? Tevildo (talk) 00:22, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

According to http://www.ferriolus.info, Emperor Tiberius said "Deorum injuriae diis curae" ("The gods take care of injuries to the gods").

—Wavelength (talk) 00:46, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

That's it, thanks. And the case was Bowman v Secular Society [1917] AC 406, per Lord Sumner, if anyone's interested. Tevildo (talk) 00:59, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

2. — SMUconlaw (talk) 19:13, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I have to agree, great! μηδείς (talk) 20:26, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I am this and am that

Is there a certain stylistic point in "I am a [sportsman] and am [a dogowner]? I have on occasion seen this kind of use of "am" by seemingly native English speakers. The lack of a second "I" is understandable, but why is the second "am" there? How is the clause different from "I am A and also B"? --Pxos (talk) 00:55, 28 March 2013 (UTC) Add: In writing that is, of course. --Pxos (talk) 01:00, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Just another example of the poor state of education these days is my guess. Either that or an oblique reference to Eminem or M&Ms. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:35, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Your implication is that there is something wrong with the sentence. What? --ColinFine (talk) 13:39, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

There's absolutely nothing wrong with that sort of ellipsis and simply an option one faces that may make more or less sense stylistically or for clarity in various contexts. You give me the full page of text before and after that statement and I can give a more definitive and well argued reason than "it depends". μηδείς (talk) 10:21, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree with μηδείς that the context matters, but would add that I would be most likely to use this construction (to avoid unnecessary repetition) where the two subjacts are not grammatically congruent such as your two noun phrases, or are congruent but are very contrasting. Examples:

I am a sportsman and I am a dog owner - correct but clumsy;

I am a sportsman and am a dog owner - a little odd but not wrong;

I am a sportsman and a dog owner - more elegant;

I am a sportsman and [I] am reading theology at Oxford - normal in my idiolect [NB: neither statement is actually true!].

I am a sportsman and reading theology . . . - would seem wrong to most BrE speakers.

{The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 14:27, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

"I am a sportsman and reading theology" sounds wrong because it's a violation of the rules of Parallelism (grammar). Nyttend (talk) 15:07, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Zeugma? "She left in a huff and a bathchair" --TammyMoet (talk) 18:50, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

The construction just grates on my ears, but now that you mention it, I agree there are certain situations where it would be necessary. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:58, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Coniuncturalist

What's a coniuncturalist? It appears in our Edward Ochab article (added here), which describes him as being a "Political coniuncturalist with a Stalinist past". It's not in the OED, and a Google search for <coniuncturalist -ochab> returns exactly one result, so I'm guessing that it's some sort of misspelling; "conventionalist" would make sense by the context, but the arrangement of letters on my keyboard means that I can't imagine someone accidentally typing "coniuncturalist" while meaning "conventionalist". Nyttend (talk) 01:59, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Should start by assuming i=j. "Conjuncturalist" does get some definite Google hits (though not too many)... AnonMoos (talk) 02:02, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

As in Conjuncture (international relations). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:04, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Spelling changed and link added. Thanks; I figured that it couldn't be a single-letter typo, since Google didn't give me a "Did you mean...?" message. Nyttend (talk) 02:12, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

This is an obvious calque from the Polish koniunkturalista, which Słownik języka polskiego PWN defines as "a person who is guided by their self-interest in their life".[1] In the article, I think it would be best to replace the word with "opportunist", unless someone suggests better words to express the same meaning in English. — Kpalion^(talk) 12:26, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Münchener or Münchner?

I am drinking Keisari Münchener beer right now, and the name caught my attention. Having actually visited Munich, I am fairly sure Munich natives spell it Münchner without the "e" in between. Am I correct? Or can it be spelled both ways? JIP | Talk 19:15, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Münchner is more common, but Münchener is correct as well. Angr (talk) 19:17, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

For a concrete example, the band is Münchener Freiheit, the U-Bahn station is Münchner Freiheit. Tevildo (talk) 19:54, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

March 29

Out of print books

The website MovieHunter.tv accesses rare, out of print or presumed-lost VHS and DVDs for customers. Is there a similar site for books? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Theskinnytypist (talk • contribs) 04:16, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Note: added a header This google search has several good leads. --Jayron32 04:22, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Abebooks is very comprehensive. --Viennese Waltz 08:33, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

I mostly use BookFinder, which aggregates search results from many other sites (including Abebooks). Deor (talk) 12:25, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Deor, good to know. — SMUconlaw (talk) 13:42, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Soledad Pastorutti

I'm a bit confused about the last line of Soledad Pastorutti's entry - Mariage's fruit with Jeremias Audoglio [sic]. I think it's referring to the fact that she and her husband had a daughter, but in English it doesn't mean anything. I don't want to correct it as I don't know what the original intent/meaning was, so it wouldn't be fair. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soledad_Pastorutti 86.184.89.208 (talk) 23:23, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

I think you're right. According to the scantily referenced article in the Spanish Wikipedia, Pastorutti is married to Jeremias Audoglio and has two daughters, Antonia and Regina (the latter was just born last month).--Cam (talk) 02:03, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

It's obviously a bad machine translation from the Spanish. μηδείς (talk) 02:07, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I fixed the wording. We still need sources, though. StuRat (talk) 14:11, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

March 30

doubt

what is the meaning of "i sware on my throat"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.242.175.225 (talk) 05:16, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

If you would deign to tell us where you saw that, you might actually get an intelligent answer. Looie496 (talk) 05:58, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

What Louie means is: Would you please tell us where you heard that? We would love to help you, but we need more information. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 06:58, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

No matches found for any spelling of swear. Common expressions are "swear on oath", "swear on [someone's] life", and "swear on a stack of bibles". I suppose one can swear on anything, but, as others have pointed out above, the context is important to shades of meaning. Dbfirs 08:04, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

It means (for example):

Did you kill the lamb? No I didn't! I swear on my throat! So if you are guilty... I shall take your throat and feed it to the lambs!

You could swear on your life, or your pig's, or your lamb's... You could swear on anything. ☯ Bonkers The Clown \(^_^)/ Nonsensical Babble ☯ 10:11, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

It sounds like it means "I swear on my life". That is, "If I'm proven wrong, you can kill me". StuRat (talk) 14:06, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

As in the old kids' saying, "Cross my heart and hope to die" if not telling the truth. And the line from The Godfather, "I swear, on the lives of my grandchildren..." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:11, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

And by the way, "sware" is an archaic spelling of "swear".[2] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:13, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Right, because assuming the OP is a time traveler and not merely a poor typist is the correct interpretation of the situation. --Jayron32 15:36, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I think the most likely scenario is that the OP has encountered this phrase, spelled the way he wrote it, in his reading and doesn't understand it, perhaps precisely because he doesn't know that sware is an archaic past tense of swear. Angr (talk) 11:52, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Er, no. 'Sware' is an archaic form of 'swore', eg Psalms 95:11: "Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest." Your reference clearly shows that. And what Jayron said. AlexTiefling (talk) 17:19, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Oops, you're right, it's past tense. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:36, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

March 31

Name of Japanese house style

What is the name for the style of Japanese houses where the walls are made of paper and the doors are sliding panels? What it the best Anglisized rendering of that name?

SteveBaker (talk) 02:15, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

It is 和室, washitsu, literally "Japanese-style room". The paper walls are called shoji, or in English, er, paper walls. 72.128.82.131 (talk) 04:27, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Not exactly. 和室 refers to a single room (or multiple rooms) set up in Japanese style within a house or apartment, and not to the whole house (which would include the exterior walls, roof, garden, etc.). There may be a generic architectural term (as opposed to the many specific terms for specific styles within that genre) for the traditional Japanese style of housing, and I would settle for 和式の家 ('washiki no ie' - 'Japanese-style house'), but in older Japan, I am pretty sure it just would have been called 'house' by most people, as there would not have been a distinction. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 07:56, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

The thread at http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110425182611AAJOtLP may also be of interest. 86.160.217.209 (talk) 11:47, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

πολύκερων

I looked for the causes of the word πολύκερων [ἔνθ’ ἐσπεσὼν ἔκειρε πολύκερων φόνον] and found it's sg.m.acc (persus) [3]. does is? Why in wikidictory it's wrote as gen? [4]. And if it's not acc what is the verb\ptcp needs gen? thank you.--82.81.24.161 (talk) 14:23, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

It is accusative singular (either masculine or feminine). It's not in Wiktionary at all; the word you linked to is ἔρως, which is a different word with a different declension. Angr (talk) 17:34, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

sorry but it's shouldnt look like ἔρως? cause they both has gen ωτος:

πολύ-κερως, ωτος, ὁ, ἡ,

ἔρως , ωτος, ὁ,

or i wrong? like which word it's should look like? --82.81.24.161 (talk) 19:04, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

It is the same as ἔρως. ἔρων also occurs for acc. sg. of ἔρως, along with ἔρωτα. Alternative forms. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 20:09, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

List of uncommon words?

I am looking for uncommon words to use in my (fiction) writing. Words like dilapidated, aestival, mabsoot, etc. Is there a website or a page on Wikipedia with a list of them? --24.145.65.56 (talk) 19:15, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

There's a few words here. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 19:23, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't think delapidated dilapidated is that uncommon. — SMUconlaw (talk) 19:53, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Unless you're looking for really obscure words, Thesaurus.com will help you to find alternatives. For less mainstream words, try Luciferous Logolepsy "Dragging obscure words into the light of day". Alansplodge (talk) 20:15, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the Logolepsy site, it is great. And SMUconlaw, "dilapidated" is the proper spelling of the word. --24.145.65.56 (talk) 21:04, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Whoops. I knew that. — SMUconlaw (talk) 21:30, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Can you please form a longer sentence consisting of uncommon words? --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 22:18, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. Now go check a vocabulary-builder out of the library. μηδείς (talk) 22:59, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

"An entablature of salamanders performed a myoclonic can-can". (Alan Moore, 1981-ish). Tevildo (talk) 00:02, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Check out Edelweiss. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:30, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

My all-time favourite book for uncommon words is "Mrs Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure and Preposterous Words". It's full of gems such as:

• perissotomist: a knife-happy surgeon
• redargution: refutation
• saprostomous: having bad breath
• transfeminate: change from woman to man
• deboswellize: to deprecate in a biography. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 01:10, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

"The scribe deboswellized the saprostomous perissotomist after his redargution of having transfeminated." If anyone wrote a full novel like this, it would be a wonderful vocabulary builder (even for the author, I suspect), but it would take ages to read. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 08:25, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Did I ever mention my favourite definition? It's one that Nicolas Slonimsky came up with:

• Sesquipedelian macropolysyllabification is defined as: Quaquaversal lucubration about pervicacious torosity and diverticular prosiliency in diatonic formication and chromatic papulation, engendering carotic carmination and decubital nyctalopia, causing borborygmic susurration, teratological urticulation, macroptic dysmimia, bregmatic obstipation, crassamental quisquiliousness, hircinous olophonia and unflexanimous luxation, often produce volmerine cacumination and mitotic ramuliferousness leading to operculate onagerosity and testaceous favillousness, as well as faucal obsonation, paralellepipedal psellismus, pigritudinous mysophia, cimicidal conspurcation, mollitious deglutition and cephalotripsical stultitiousness, resulting despite hesychastic omphaloskepsis, in epenetic opisthography, boustrophedonic malacology, lampadodromic evagination, chartulary cadastration, merognostic heautotimerousness, favaginous moliminosity, fatiscent operosity, temulencious libration and otological oscininity, aggravated by tardigrade inturgescence, nucamentacious oliguria, emunctory sternutation, veneficial pediculation, fremescent dyskinesia, hispidinous cynanthropy, torminal opitulation, crapulous vellication, hippuric rhinodynia, dyspneic nimiety and favillous erethism, and culminating in opisthographic inconcinnity, scotophiliac lipothymia, banausic rhinorrhea, dehiscent fasciculation, oncological vomiturition, nevoid paludality, exomphalic invultuation, mysophiliac excrementatiousness, flagitious dysphoria, lipogrammatic bradygraphy, orectic aprosexia, parataxic parorexia, lucubicidal notation, permutational paronomasia, rhonchial fremitus, specular subsaltation, crapulous crepitation, ithyphallic acervation, procephalic dyscrasia, volitional volitation, piscine dermatology, proleptic pistology, verrucous alopecia, hendecaphonic combinatoriality, microaerophilic pandiculation and quasihemidemisemibreviate illation. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 11:43, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

A couple of questions - should "opisthographic" go to Mirror writing, and should "onagerous" go to Onager? And I'm surprised we don't have an article on scotophilia... Tevildo (talk) 19:08, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

It was in wiktionary but was deleted only 2 weeks ago. Richard Avery (talk) 07:32, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

You did not mention that to us, no. Interestingly, of the 30 hits that Google gives for this phrase, your 'Favourites' page is the top hit. This possibly means you have the proud honour of being the most prolific disseminator of this phrase. You must be great at staff parties. :) KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 11:58, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

What does "at" mean?  :) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 13:38, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Too short for you, is it? :) KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:20, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

"...often produce..."? Surely ".....often produces....." or ".....producing......" ? doktorb _words^deeds 13:54, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

"...producing..." definitely. Well spotted! KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:09, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I disagree. I typed that out laboriously a few years ago, and I've now gone back and checked my source and confirmed it's "often produce". (The immediate source is "Webster's New World Dictionary of Music" (Slonimsky, edited posthumously by Richard Kassel; 1998), p. 481; but I had seen it previously in the 8th edition Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, which Slonimsky wrote alone, and while he was still alive). There's at least some ambiguity whether the subject is "Quaquaversal lucubration" or more things, so I think we must respect the writer's choice of words (and this particular writer was always exceedingly particular about his choice of words). But hey, this was obviously one of them joke things he was famous for, so let's not get all bitter, twisted and emotional about it. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:32, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

How can a definition of a word/phrase begin with a subject (different from the word being defined) and main verb then an object? That is not a definition. It is a sentence. Should this not be an encyclopaedia entry, rather than a definition? KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 22:00, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

It was an encyclopedia/dictionary entry, as I cited above. (It was I who chose to call it a definition. Do with me as you will, but please be gentle.) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 22:24, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

April 1

Why is there no DOGalog if there's a CATalog, no DOGegory if a CATegory, etc.?

So, why can't we shop items from a DOGalog if we can from a CATalog?

Why can't we file subjects in DOGegories if we can file them in CATegories?

We CATer meals, but why don't we DOGer them?

Why does English have to be a CATastrophe of a language, but not a DOGastrophe?

Did the original author of English love cats more than dogs? WHAT IS THE STORY BEHIND THESE WORDS BEING CAT-APULTED INTO the English Language with CAT- suffixes more than dogs?

Also, if the cannon came after the CATapult, why wasn't the cannon named the DOGapult instead, if dogs are mightier than cats?

Oh, and is there anything feline about bovines (i.e. CATtle)?

Thanks for CATching this string of questions and answering! --70.179.161.230 (talk) 06:49, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I know the date, but I'll give a serious answer. Greek κατάλογος (katalogos, "an enrollment, a register, a list, catalogue"), from καταλέγω (katalego, "to recount, to tell at length or in order, to make a list"); from Latin catapulta, from Ancient Greek καταπέλτης (katapeltēs); Ancient Greek καταστροφή (katastrophē), from καταστρέφω (katastrephō, "I overturn"); all from Greek: κατά (kata, "down, against") (no known connection with "kat" meaning "cat" in Dutch, Danish, Volapük, West Frisian & Afrikaans (all from Proto-Germanic "kattuz"). The exception is Old French achater ("to buy, to purchase") for the origin of "cater". Dog is (correction) might be from Proto-Germanic *dukkōn (“power, strength, muscle”). Cows, of course, are "caput", but not "kaput". (Sorry about the boring answer (and thanks, Wiktionary). I can recall some of my April 1st jokes from the past, including two occasions when teachers complained to the Headmaster, and one when the school was almost closed for the day, but I'll leave it to others to supply the humorous replies. "Kaput" describes the contents of my "caput" these days. ) Dbfirs 07:43, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

'Dog' is from Proto-Germanic *dukkōn? Has that been finalized? It has forever been one of the hardest words in the English language to pin down the etymology of. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 08:19, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

The source for this is apparently p. 207 of the (new) Kluge Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, revised by Seebold (2002). The claim is on the dog article here and the dog entry at Wiktionary. I would love to get a photocopy of that page: I very much suspect it is based on a misreading. I would bet that *dukkōn does not even occur in the Dogge entry. I think they saw the early form "docke" for "Dogge", then they went over to the entry for the modern word "Docke", which is just a homonym, and from there got *dukkön. Anyway, etymonline.com is just a blog by someone interested in etymology; Douglas Harper has no qualifications, as he makes clear in his statement on the site. www.oed.com has a large and interesting writeup on the etymology.--Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 11:02, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Is this the page you are referring to? I can find no mention of the word. Maybe this is the old version. Also, I know Harper is not qualified, but his work is pretty much spot-on most of the time, and very informative. Not having access to the OED, this is the only resource I use. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 11:26, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, apologies. I should have checked the OED before believing Wikipedia and Wiktionary on "dog". (I'll edit the entries to say "possibly"). The OED just says "origin unknown", adding "No likely cognates have been identified with a meaning at all close to that of the English word, and all attempted etymological explanations are extremely speculative." and "The word belongs to a set of words of uncertain or phonologically problematic etymology with a stem-final geminated "g" in Old English which is not due to West Germanic consonant gemination and therefore does not undergo assibilation. These words form both a morphological and a semantic group, as they are usually Old English weak masculine nouns and denote animals; compare frog, hog, pig, stag." Dbfirs 14:45, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, that's the 5th or 6th edition, from the 19th century. The 2002 is the 24th edition. The most recent is the 25th fifth, from 2011. If you're a Liverpool resident, you can register with the Public Library and log-in from home to get access to sources like Oxford English Dictionary: [5]. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 18:19, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

I assume you are referring to "Kluge"?. The OED I cited is the current on-line addition, and neither I nor Kage Tora are currently Liverpool residents, but the same applies in Cumbria. The full on-line OED edition is completely up to date (in so far as the OED ever is). Dbfirs 20:40, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

I am a Liverpool resident..... I just never go to the library because I am never here long enough for it to be worth it. I don't think that Atethnekos was insinuating that only scousers have privileged and exclusive access to the OED online. :) KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 21:00, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I was responding to KägeTorä's link to the older Kluge. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 04:29, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry — my misunderstanding of you both. (I thought from a previous comment about the centre of the UK that KT had moved north, but it depends how you define centre.) Apologies for being confused.

Can we find evidence that the "dukkön" theory is considered wrong by experts? Dbfirs 06:52, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Probably not: Seemingly the only source which supposedly mentions *dukkön in relation to dog, is p. 207 of Kluge-Seebold (2002). That's partly what makes me think it's just a misreading. I'm going to ask on REX if anyone can send me a facsimile of the page. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 07:43, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

The word origin of the animal we call the "cat" is unrelated to the prefix "cata-" which means "down from" or "down to" and appears in "catalogue", "catapult", "cataclysm", "cataract", and a host of others.[6] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:41, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Skinning a cat

Is it "How many ways of skinning a cat are there?" or "How many ways are there of skinning a cat?" --Carnildo (talk) 09:50, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Both sentences are correct. The original version of the phrase is "There are more ways than one to skin a cat", from the 1840 short story The Money Diggers by Seba Smith. See this very informative forum thread. Tevildo (talk) 10:21, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Might anyone know what is the meaning of the phrase?--MarshalN20 | ^Talk 02:40, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

It means "there is more than one way of accomplishing a task". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:24, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Translation of Latin phrase on gravestone

What does this Latin phrase mean in English?

Can someone help to translate this Latin phrase on a gravestone into English? It appears to say "JUSTUM ET TENACEM PROPOSITI VIRUM". Thanks. — SMUconlaw (talk) 18:13, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

I am not sure what propositi is doing there, which looks like the genitive of propositus, "declared" or "planned" (i.e., put forth). "Justum et tenacem virum" is "a just and tenacious man" in the accusative case, as if he were being called just and dedicated. Someone better than I at Latin will have to fill in the implied words here. The machine translation from google is hilarious: "sticky and just a project". μηδείς (talk) 19:25, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Funny, Google Translate gave me "just and tenacious project man" rather than what you got. I note that an alternative translation of propositi is "resolve"; I wonder if the phrase therefore means "a man of justice and tenacious resolve"? The gravestone was that of one of the Chief Justices of the Straits Settlements. — SMUconlaw (talk) 19:36, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

It's a quote from Horace, Odes III.3. See here. Iblardi (talk) 19:44, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

This is taken from a quote by Horace. The full quote is Justum et tenacem propositi virum Non civium ardor prava jubentium, Non vultus instantis tyranni, Mente quatit solida, which is translated as "The man who is just and resolute will not be moved from his settled purpose, either by the misdirected rage of his fellow citizens, or by the threats of an imperious tyrant." Looie496 (talk) 19:41, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Great, thanks! So can the phrase on the gravestone be translated as "The man who is just and of resolute purpose"? Ah, I just noticed that the website that Iblardi referred to translates it as "The man of firm and righteous will", which is rather nice, though this may not be a precise translation as the translator's aim was to render the passage into verse. Any thoughts on whether the latter is a good translation of the phrase? — SMUconlaw (talk) 20:00, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

A more literal translation would be "a man [who is] just and steadfast in purpose". See Lewis and Short, tenax (propositi). Iblardi (talk) 20:13, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone, for the useful responses. I'll update the relevant file description pages on the Wikimedia Commons. — SMUconlaw (talk) 10:20, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

If we BUILD a BUILDing, why don't we PUDD a PUDDing?

We can build buildings, so why don't we pudd puddings?

Oh, and by the way, that was some PHENOMENAL kiwi pudding that you pudded this evening! --70.179.161.230 (talk) 19:14, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

If you can find the book Driving on Parkways, Parking on Driveways by Loo F. Lirpa, you might find the answer to this question.--Cam (talk) 19:26, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

It's called backformation, feel free. μηδείς (talk) 19:27, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

It's because "building" is a noun derived from a verb, while "pudding" always was just a noun. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:14, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

That's easily demonstrably false, Bugs. μηδείς (talk) 01:49, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Depends whether you believe Etymology Online or not. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:16, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't think so. Let's consider the morphology of the words. Building has two Morphemes while pudding only has one. In forming the worm building, you begin with the verb build and add the bound morpheme -ing to the end turning the verb into a noun (or another verb depending on the context). Pudding cannot be broken down because it is already one morpheme. To continue on, if backformation is required to create pudd as a phoneme, Baseball Bugs is correct. Ryan Vesey 01:58, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

French gulls...

In French, what is the difference between a 'goéland' and a 'mouette'? As far as I can ascertain, both mean '(sea)gull', but both are used together in sentences, as though they refer to two different, but closely related things. Similar to how the term Lories and lorikeets is used in English, I guess... --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 21:40, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

From the French Wikipedia for Goéland:"En réalité, il n'y a guère que la langue française à faire cette distinction de nomenclature entre « mouettes » et « goélands » : pour simplifier, dans la nomenclature normalisée, un goéland est une grosse mouette, et inversement." See also Mouette for comparison. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 21:48, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Sure, I could translate that using Google, but could you confirm for me what that actually says? :) --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 00:12, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I assumed from your original post that you could speak French. It says, "In reality, French does not really make this distinction in name between "mouettes" and "goélands"; to simplify, in general nomenclature, a goéland is a large mouette, and vice-versa." ('vice-versa' here probably means that mouettes are small goélands). KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 00:26, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, Kage, your first part was wrong: Here is what the first sentence means: "In reality, French is the only language to make this distinction in name between "mouettes" and "goélands";" --Lgriot (talk) 09:57, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I knew there was something wrong there - the two phrases I wrote were slightly contradictory. Still, not bad for A-Level French taken 22 years ago. :) Thanks for the correction! KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 10:22, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

The article also says that goéland derives from the same root as gull, while mouette is presumably related to English mew. --Sussexonian (talk) 22:00, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I do know that an alternate name for the Common Gull is the Sea Mew. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 23:05, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

April 2

Why are grammars of ancient languages more complex than those of modern languages

Latin has a more complex grammar than modern Latino languages, Sanskrit a more complex grammar than Hindi, and the Wikipedia articles show that the same holds true for Ancient Chinese, Ancient Greek, and possibly Arabic. Why are languages getting simpler. Naively I assume that languages must have evolved along with humans and would have spent a lot of time getting more complex. Is this right? If so why and when did the process start reversing? -- Q Chris (talk) 09:55, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

2 potential reasons: Many modern languages are creoles that have become mainstream (French is latin spoken by a Celt people with a strong Germanic influence. English is a Germanic language mixed up with loads of French/Norman vocabulary), and creole grammars tends to be far simpler. They would become more complex over time, given 2 or 3 millenia. The second reason which I find less compelling is that modern languages are not spoken by a small tribe, but by a very large population. So you don't just interact with people who are related to you in this language. This means you have to be able to understand and assimilate different accents etc. and some linguists think that a complexe Grammar makes this more difficult, so the language's grammar gets dumbed down to ease the communication. My reference for this is only the book "The Unfolding Of Language: The Evolution of Mankind`s greatest Invention" by Guy Deutscher--Lgriot (talk) 10:08, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Is this really true, though? Ancient languages seem a lot more foreign because they are different from modern languages, but that doesn't necessarily mean they were more complicated. Why is Latin complicated? Because of the declensions and conjugations? The syntax? The vocabulary? But all that would have been natural for the people who spoke it, not unusually complicated. (Also, I can't speak to the other languages, but at least for Latin, what we learn today is a somewhat artificial literary language, different from what people actually spoke.) What about French? If you transplanted someone from classical Rome to modern France, would they find French easy to learn? It's not simpler, it's just different. Adam Bishop (talk) 10:43, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. Modern Indo-European languages are just different from older ones. Latin used endings to clarify the meaning, with the word order being essentially quite free (especially in poetry), but modern languages rely more upon word order, which is just as complex a device as endings. A roman in modern London would be completely misunderstood if he translated 'te amat puella' as 'you loves girl, [sic]' when it actually means 'the girl loves you.' Plus, we have things that Latin did not have. We have definite and indefinite articles, which must be used, whereas although Latin did have these words, using them multiple times in a sentence would have been excessive to Roman ears. So, where and when do I use them, a Roman might ask himself. What about the use of modal verbs in modern languages? Compound tenses? "Ego habeo paratus cena" would be gibberish to a Roman (should be 'cenam paravi'), but "J'ai préparé le dîner" would be fine in French, as would "I have prepared the dinner" in English. We have everything Latin had. We just do it a different way. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 11:11, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

See also Deflexion (linguistics). Deor (talk) 11:22, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I was reading once about two conflicting assumptions about language evolution: the first is that languages get "simpler" over time (the premise of the OP's question), and the second is that the earliest stage of language (the language of the Neanderthals if they had one, or the Cro-Magnons, or whoever) must have been an extremely "simple" form of language. The proponents of neither of these hypotheses ever bother to define what precisely they mean by "simple", and in order to believe them both, you have to believe that language evolution looks something like a bell curve: it started out very "simple", evolved to become more "complex", peaking out at about the time of Proto-Indo-European (or any other proto-language you care to mention), and then become increasingly "simple" ever since. As it happens, though, neither of these hypotheses has any evidence to support it. As others have said above, as languages evolve, they become simpler in some ways (e.g. losing inflection) but become more complex in other ways (e.g. requiring strict word order, acquiring modal verbs, acquiring politeness forms, and so on), not only in morphology and syntax but also in phonology. For example, a language may "simplify" a consonant cluster by reducing it to a single sound, but that single sound may be very difficult to pronounce, as happened in Czech, where the cluster /rj/ "simplified" by becoming the infamous Czech alveolar fricative trill ř. So languages don't really become simpler over time, they just shift their complexities from one area to another. Angr (talk) 12:17, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

The OP is not assuming that the modern languages are simpler, only that their grammar is. Complexity may very well be much higher in the vocabulary, morphology, semantics etc. --Lgriot (talk) 13:53, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, it stands to reason that vocabulary will be much richer in more modern languages, as we have more things to talk about, plus we can borrow from other languages now that we have more access to more of them. A Roman (who also speaks Greek) may be forgiven for thinking that a 'mobile phone' meant the sound coming from a ventriloquist's dummy. As for grammar, it is just as complex, but done in a different way - less endings, yet different ways to express them, including the implentation of new tenses which were not present before (present perfect vs. preterite, for example), or compulsory use of pronouns (in most, but by no means all, modern IE languages). KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:17, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

The viewpoint of Jehovah's Witnesses is at http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200002680?q=complex+languages&p=par.

—Wavelength (talk) 15:04, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

But why has there been a trend in most (all?) Romance languages to lose inflection and fix the word order? Has a similar change occurred in other Indo-European languages? Aa77zz (talk) 16:21, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

All of the Germanic languages (with the exception of Icelandic) lost their endings and moved to relying on word order. Icelandic has kept its endings, but also has a strict word order. The Slavic languages have also retained their endings, and have strict rules on word order. Same with Farsi. Modern Greek has also retained its endings, but word order is free-ish. With verbs, the endings are retained in most languages. It's not really as common as you may think. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:53, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Farsi has no declension. Structurally it's much closer to English than to Slavic or Icelandic.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 06:04, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, my post was not clear. I was talking about endings in general - both for verbs and nouns. Some languages have retained verbal endings, I should have said. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 07:54, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

It has been pointed out by some linguists that your point about Romance languages may not be true. French is an excellent example of this. Consider the sentence "Moi, j'pense", for example. Ordinary personal pronouns are already quite far in the process of becoming verb prefixes indicating person, genus and number (something currently only rudimentarily indicated by verb endings in French); at the same time, emphatic personal pronouns are slowly taking over the role of ordinary personal pronouns. This process is of course not reflected in standard French orthography, which is very conservative. To see what's going on, you must ignore the spelling.

However, there seems to be a general global trend recently that new types of inflections are produced more slowly than old ones disappear. I believe someone once proposed that this could be an effect of writing. In fact, looking at the example of French this does look plausible to me. Hans Adler 18:51, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Slight correction to KageTora: Icelandic is not the only Germanic language to retain "endings". Of course, English has a few, almost every other Germanic language has more than English (the North Germanic languages other than Icelandic or Faroese only slightly so), and modern German still retains quite a few.

As for the original question, grammar is not just a matter of endings, or inflection. It also includes other elements of morphology and syntax (as well as phonology and even semantics depending on the definition). As others have pointed out, many modern European languages replace the complex morphology of ancient European languages with complex syntax. Total grammatical complexity probably hasn't changed. Looking outside of Europe, even Old Chinese, a language more ancient than Latin, lacked inflection for case, gender, number, or person, just like its modern descendants, the Chinese languages. So there has been little or no change over time in grammatical complexity in China. In fact, to the extent that there has been change, there has been a change toward greater morphological complexity from the extremely isolating Middle Chinese to modern descendants such as Mandarin Chinese, in which sememes may no longer be able to stand alone as their parent forms did in Middle Chinese. In many cases, they must be combined to form compounds in Mandarin Chinese. Apparently, Egyptian also went through a process of increasing morphological complexity from the mildly synthetic Old Egyptian to the polysynthetic Coptic. In the case of Mandarin, one could posit that the language is evolving from the radically isolating stage of Middle Chinese through the very mildly synthetic Mandarin to a possible future agglutinating language in which the various particles and compounding sememes of Mandarin become agglutinating morphemes. Marco polo (talk) 19:07, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Guy Deutscher in The Unfolding of Language formulates the thesis that language evolution is mostly guided by erosion (simplification of words) and accumulation (when common prefix and postfix prepositions fuse into the stem word. The overall tendency to simplification is only perceived. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:59, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Stack Exchange Network has a related discussion at http://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/315/why-did-early-indo-european-languages-seem-to-be-morphologically-complex.

—Wavelength (talk) 23:50, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

All these similar discussions about language "simplification" or the decline of the modern languages in comparison with the ancient ones always remind me of August Schleicher and his naturalistic theory of language development.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 06:04, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

For Aa77zz: It is generally believed that some phonetic developments in Vulgar Latin had led to the confusion of morphological endings, and grammatical relation between words became to be expressed with syntax rather than with morphology. The same is true for English where Old English endings simply became phonetically indistinguishable.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 06:17, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Etymology of "Miacoidea"

I'm interested in etymology of the word "Miacoidea". 193.189.166.94 (talk) 12:14, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, the -oidea part is very common in taxonomy; like the common suffix -oid, it comes from a Greek suffix related to εἶδος (eidos, "form, likeness"). The miac- part comes from Miacis, but I don't know the origin of that word. I can't find any Latin or Ancient Greek word that looks like that. The infobox on that page says the genus was first described by Edward Drinker Cope in 1872; maybe if you track down the original publication he says how he came up with the word. Angr (talk) 12:29, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

This page claims it come from a Greek word for "mother animal", but I can't find any word in Liddell and Scott that looks like that and has that meaning. Angr (talk) 12:36, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Here is Cope's 1872 announcement of the genus in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society (top of p. 470). He doesn't say what the source of the name is. Deor (talk) 13:35, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

μαῖα with meaning of mother. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 01:48, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Cope's description focuses on the difference in dental features between this species and Stypolophus. ("The structure of that tooth is approximately that of Stypolophus, i.e., with three trihedral cusps in front and a heel behind, but the cusps are of equal height, and their point of union is not raised above the surface of the heel.") Perhaps the name is a combination of μείων, "lesser", and ἀκίς, "point", referring to the lesser height, either of the cusps themselves or of their point of union in relation to Stypolophus? Iblardi (talk) 09:11, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

That strikes me as more likely than μαῖα "mother". Angr (talk) 09:27, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

April 3

one syllable word meaning "person"

Hey,

So I'm trying to come up with a catchy name for something, and the sentence refers to a generic person. I've come up with lots of words that are catchy and one syllable, like "a man and", "a guy and", "a dude and", "a bro and", in the sentence, but I would really like to have a generic word so that it applies to everyone, and "a person and" just isn't as catchy.

are there any good one-syllable words I can use to refer to a person in general? it can be completely (even ridiculously) slangy, it just has to apply to everyone. 91.120.48.242 (talk) 07:48, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

There's the plural "folks," but I'm not sure "folk" is a regular singular noun of any sort. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 07:59, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

"Folk" is plural anyway. --TammyMoet (talk) 09:39, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

y'all? 196.214.78.114 (talk) 09:29, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Bloke? Apparently the word "skate" means "a person; fellow: He's a good skate." Although it also means "a contemptible person." Bus stop (talk) 09:52, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm an American so I don't use "bloke" but that entry says, "man; fellow; guy." Maybe I wasn't clear but this whole question is about a word like guy/bloke/man/dude/bro that can apply to either gender. I suppose at a stretch you can address a girl as "Dude," but you definitely can't refer to a girl as a "a dude". But if you say "a person" sure you can. The problem is only that "person" is too long for me, I'd like one syllable and maybe a bit slangy. (For comparison, I've only listed words that apply to men, but there are words that apply to women: girl/gal/chick/miss, which are no worse than 'bro', not a word I like. The point is these words exist). What can I call a guy or a gal, without having to specify which one? --91.120.48.242 (talk) 10:06, 3 April 2013 (UTC)