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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)

Sure, but so is "folks," so a singular word "folk" could hypothetically be derived from it in some dialect or another. It hasn't been, to my knowledge, but it's not out of the question. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 11:40, 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/sis, 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)

Person as a thesaurus entry has some related terms. Bus stop (talk) 10:18, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

• Mentsh? Angr (talk) 11:41, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Best I can do is bod. --Nicknack009 (talk) 12:01, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

There's chap, but that's rather British-sounding and possibly a bit dated. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 12:20, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

and usually understood (at least by this Brit) to refer to males only. Rojomoke (talk) 12:39, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Having been called "mate" more times than I care to remember,I can only conclude that it is a unisex epithet. --TammyMoet (talk) 14:12, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

But one relatively new epithet is "peep", as popularised by Stavros in the 80s/90s and which seems to be making a comeback. --TammyMoet (talk) 14:14, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Wasn't that plural only, though - 'peeps' = 'people', I mean? KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:25, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that there is a noun that fits your parameters in widespread use. One option is to go for plural solutions, as suggested above ("folks", "peeps"). Another might be to use some kind of synechdoche, such as "a soul" or "a mind", "a voice", or even "a mouth" (if, say, you were marketing a food product). Marco polo (talk) 15:05, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Soul, as in: some poor soul? 93.95.251.162 (talk) 15:18, 3 April 2013 (UTC) Martin

In the Midwest U.S. at least, "guys" as a plural nowadays seems to mean any group of people, regardless of gender (one young girl to her four peers: "Hey, guys, let's go"); but doesn't seem to work the same way as a singular. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:10, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Old saying or new?

I once came up with a saying, and it dawned on me I had probably just remembered it from somewhere, and forgotten where I had heard it. Googling doesn't help. It happens occasionally that a politician or similar person has been dishonest or equivocal with the truth, and eventually they cross the line, and do something that really exposes them. Usually it isn't something illegal, but it exposes them in some memorable way. To use a fictitious example, imagine a devious politician saying "well, that depends on what the word "truth" really means". There is nothing illegal in the saying, but the media would have a field day with it. Then my saying is: "a whale has to come up for air." In other words, a fish can stay underwater, but a whale is a mammal, so it eventually has to surface, and then it gives itself away. I'm sure I must have heard it somewhere, but I can't find it. Can anyone point me to where it has been used? IBE (talk) 16:42, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Arthur C Clarke uses that exact phrase in Islands in the Sky, Gregg Press 1979 (p.148) "Even so, it can't stay in the night land indefinitely, but has to return to the twilight zone at intervals, just as on our own world a whale has to come up for air." However, it seems to be an analogy used to describe an alien life form, rather than the political metaphore that you describe. Alansplodge (talk) 18:05, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

The Free Dictionary has two figurative senses: "to stop what one is doing for a different activity or rest", and "to stop kissing for a moment and breathe". The expression has been used in the literal sense (of whales, seals etc) for hundreds of years, but earliest figurative usages I can find are in Thackeray and Harper's Magazine in the mid-1800s. Dbfirs 12:00, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Standard English

Hello there, English is my second language. I want to update a post from here. It looks like:
Linden Wolbert, this woman's just inspired us. Do what you love to do.....she's proved it. After leaving 9 am to 5 pm job that she's been doing for three years, she eventually got involved in her dream job - a professional mermaid. She's always dreamed of becoming a mermaid, always wanted to get in touch with water. It was her childhood dream. A Dream that she wished comes true. Water fascinates her like nothing else.We people are so crippled by society's stupid structure that forces us to do things that we don't like. Always running after money simply destroys our mind and body, always showing off people that what material things we have makes braggart, always hearing naysayers bullshit pollutes our soul and we forget what we want to become. We just become slave of surrounding environment that destroys our peace in mind and passion. And when we realize it, it's too late for us to recover. Linden Wolbert knows how to enjoy life through her work. Makes her dream come into reality that she fostered in her heart. A freedom that she always want, a passion that she proves through her will power. Because freedom breeds creativity and passion.Find a Job You Love and You’ll Never Work a Day in Your Life."

Is it in correct form? I want to make it more standard in English language and thought provoking. Can anyone help. Thanks--180.234.50.212 (talk) 18:52, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

It looks like you are trying to create an advertisement, and I don't think we should help you with that. In the USA it would be illegal to use somebody's name in this way in an ad without getting permission, but I suppose in Bangladesh you can get away with a lot. Looie496 (talk) 19:16, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

• You have misunderstood me. It's not advertisement. I want to update my Facebook status by this inspirational story.--180.234.50.212 (talk) 19:20, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I would make the following changes:

Linden Wolbert, this woman's just inspires us. Do what you love to do.....she's exemplified it. After leaving the 9 am to 5 pm job that she'd been doing for three years, she eventually got involved in her dream job - as a professional mermaid. She's always dreamed of becoming a mermaid, always wanted to get in touch with water. It was her childhood dream. A dream that she wished has come [or would come, depending on your meaning] true. Water fascinates her like nothing else. We people are so crippled by society's stupid structure that forces us to do things that we don't like. Always running after money simply destroys our minds and bodies, always showing off people that what the material things we have makes us braggarts, always hearing naysayers' bullshit pollutes our souls and we forget what we want to become. We just become slaves to the surrounding environment that destroys our peace of mind and passion. And when we realize it, it's too late for us to recover. Linden Wolbert knows how to enjoy life through her work. She's made the dream that she'd fostered in her heart into reality. A freedom that she had always wanted, a passion that she has proven through her willpower. Because freedom breeds creativity and passion. Find a Job You Love and You’ll Never Work a Day in Your Life."

-Elmer Clark (talk) 21:34, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Penge/Pinezhi/Peniaze

It has come to my attention that the Danish word for money is penge. In Rusyn we would say pinezhi. (My grandmother would always say "Masz pinezhi?" and offer me a twenty.) I see the Slovak for money is peniaze. Can anyone point to an etymology for these words? Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 19:09, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

It seems likely to me that they all derive, or at least relate to, the Proto-Germanic panningaz, the precursor of the English word penny. Looie496 (talk) 19:23, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that's right. The change of Proto-Germanic -ing- to Proto-Slavic -ędz- happened in *kuningaz > *kъnędzь (whence Russian князь and many other Slavic words) as well. Angr (talk) 20:02, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Although some linguists think it came from Latin pondus.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 14:45, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

The Russian is деньги (dengi). -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:03, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Which isn't from Proto-Slavic *pěnędzь. According to Wiktionary, деньги is from Turkic. Angr (talk) 20:13, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

In Old Russian there was also пѣнязь "money".--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 14:45, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

The subtitled Danish dramas are going well then? :-) - Cucumber Mike (talk) 21:17, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

French questions

How would one render "And the thing was" in the sentence "And the thing was a lot of these kids are just some folder somewhere."? Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 19:32, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, literal translation does obviously not work here....if I see this as something bad being piled on another bad thing, a good rendering would be: "Et pour rendre la chose encore pire.....". But I must admit I would need a bit more context here. Lectonar (talk) 19:38, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

For context, the original English is located here: Commons:TimedText:Sextortionagent_interview.ogg.en.srt - The draft French is located at Commons:File talk:Sextortionagent interview.ogg/French WhisperToMe (talk) 19:40, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Then my translation can stand, although one might use "Et pour rendre les choses encore pires...". IMHO this catches the indended meaning quite accurately, although I would bow to a native French speaker, as usual. Lectonar (talk) 19:43, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! When I've gone through the subtitles I'll ask a native French speaker to proofread it. Then it will be moved into a .srt file WhisperToMe (talk) 19:52, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Also what is "This is what I have over you" (as in "this is what I can use to extort you, or to punish you if you don't do what I say) ? WhisperToMe (talk) 20:01, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I daresay this is typical American English, a bit colloquial, perhaps? Has it the meaning as "having control over somebody", like: "You are in my hands now"?Lectonar (talk) 21:22, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the original English is often-colloquial American English from an FBI agent. It means "this is what I have that I can control you with" or "this is the negative material I have on you" WhisperToMe (talk) 22:43, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

There is really no way to say this with anything too literal. If "this" is information, then something like: "J'ai ces informations incriminantes sur toi / vous". Or if you want the full meaning to be very explicit: "Ces informations incriminantes me donnent un pouvoir sur toi / vous." Not a very satisfactory translation. --85.119.27.27 (talk) 07:31, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! I'm using the second one WhisperToMe (talk) 07:50, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

After thinking this through, I would use: "Je te tiens (...dans mes mains)..", literally "I have you in my hands", means I can do with you what I want. This should be readily understandable by French speakers. Lectonar (talk) 07:55, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll try that out! WhisperToMe (talk) 08:17, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Je te tiens, avec ça ! --Lgriot (talk) 08:52, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I think The thing is/was... can be rendered as Ce qu'il y a, c'est que.... That's how I usually say it in French, anyway.64.140.121.87 (talk) 06:34, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

April 4

Punjabi Sindhi Urdu Pashto Baloch Hindko Saraiki grammar and words comparison website

Is there a website that shows the comparison of oral grammar and words of Languages spoken in Pakistan: Baloch, Pashto, Urdu, Sindhi, Hindko, Saraiki, and Punjabi?--Donmust90 (talk) 02:42, 4 April 2013 (UTC)Donmust90

Is there a term for this?

Let's say I enter a building. Instead of the inside of the building, there is a completely different environment, like for example the inside of a spaceship. So I'm inside a building but once I enter it, the environment changes into a spaceship. It's not a hallucination. It looks real, but it's a different kind of real. It's a real that's experienced only inside the building. Is there a term for this? Like is it called fake realness? Artificial realness? Mattdillon87 (talk) 03:16, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Shall I be the first to say TARDIS? HiLo48 (talk) 03:24, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Not sure if there's a word for it, but there's a common device in architecture, to have someone pass through a narrow entrance into a surprisingly open environment, such as an atrium filled with plants and perhaps birds and butterflies. I'm also reminded of Shangri-La, which was so described, when emerging from the tunnel to get there. The Pantheon is an interesting early example of this, from ancient Rome (perhaps with less wildlife). StuRat (talk) 03:36, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

In Star Trek: The Next Generation they had the Holodeck. StuRat (talk) 03:39, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Reality distortion field? Suspension of disbelief? Bus stop (talk) 04:19, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I think StuRat has an idea of what I'm trying to say. If I go into a building and discover another environment instead. It looks real, but it can't possibly be. Like if I go inside a building and then suddenly it looks like I'm in the woods. Mattdillon87 (talk) 04:40, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Trompe-l'œil perhaps? Clarityfiend (talk) 05:07, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Camera obscura presents a view of outside onto the interior walls of a room. But, it doesn't have to be what is outside of the building, just whatever the optical device is looking at. Astronaut (talk) 19:43, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Chinese help: side of Best Western hotel

What are the Chinese characters on the side of this File:Best Western Bowery Grand jeh.JPG hotel? Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 05:34, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

潢璧大厦 and 潢璧酒店. See [1]. Oda Mari (talk) 06:24, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! WhisperToMe (talk) 06:37, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Greek Name Question: Patronymic Family Name meaning "Daughter of a Naiad?"

I am trying to name a character for a short story I'm working on in my spare time. The character is the descendant of a Naiad -- freshwater nymph, if I'm getting my mythology correct -- and I wanted to allude to this with her last name. However, I haven't the foggiest how to properly use the patronymic endings / the rules for grammar to make it work right. I presume that you'd start with Naiad or Naiades and then conjugate it with the proper patronymic ending -- am I on the right track? KiTA (talk) 11:02, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

See Patronymic Greek here for answers. I do not think the Greeks had a matronym. Females might have feminine variants of the male name. Sneazy (talk) 14:58, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I have no idea if I am doing it correctly, but all I have done is take the ancient Greek name and attach "poulos" in Greek after it: Ναϊάδεςπουλος. I can't say much for accuracy, since the πουλος part was copied from Google Translate. If I were expressing in English, I would probably write "Naiadopoulos". Your character's full name would be WhateverFirstNameHere Naiadopoulos. I would expect that your nymph's father is also a nymph, since the last name is passed down from father to child. Since nymphs are not human, I wouldn't expect them to have last names. You may just call the little nymph by her given name. Asking for the last name of a deity is like asking God whether or not he has a last name. Sneazy (talk) 15:11, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

"Your nymph's father is also a nymph"... therein lies the problem. Nymphs (including Naiads) are by definition female, so unless they had a sex change (like Caeneus who was born female) they couldn't be anyone's father. (And in Ancient Greece, not even humans had last names!) Angr (talk) 15:26, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, I was thinking direct female descendant, so I imagine it would be technically a "Matronymic" name, not a Patronymic name, which isn't terribly common (but not unheard of). And reading up on Greek Surnames, apparently women would, until very recently, take their husband's surname only putting it in the Genitive case -- so to take Sneazy's suggestion and go with it, Naiadopoulos would become Naiadopoúlou? But based on Greek Names the -Poulos suffix isn't the only one used? KiTA (talk) 21:39, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Naiadopoulou would be better for a female character than Naiadopoulos. Or if you literally want "Daughter of a Naiad": Naiadokori. I don't see why you can't use such a name: So the naming does not follow actual Greek practice. If that's not a concern and you just want such a name for symbolic-aesthetic reasons, go for it.--Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 21:44, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Why do parochial school and Christian school have their own Wiki pages here?

Would it not make sense to combine them into one? What is the difference between a parochial school and a Christian school/academy? In my own words, a parochial school is a school affiliated with a parish or located within the vicinity of a parish. A Christian school/academy is a school/academy/educational building that is affiliated with a church/parish/cathedral. Typically, it's a private school, if the government wants to keep the public schools nonreligious or multi-faith/ecumenical. I also assume that Christian schools or private schools tend to be smaller than public schools intended for everybody, though when I asked a classmate about whether or not he attended a parochial school, he replied that he actually intended a "non-denominational Christian academy". Eh? Sneazy (talk) 14:38, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Parochial school typically refers to a privately-run Roman Catholic school. The so-called Christian schools could be most anything else, but typically considered Protestant. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:11, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, Parochial school actually includes Protestant-affiliated schools. Presbyterian, Lutheran, Calvinist, Methodist, Catholic, Episcopal/Anglican, etc. etc. etc. Reading the article closely brings me to the conclusion that my classmate could have attended a privately run Christian fundamentalist school, which is marked by his resentful attitude of the school. He adds that he's still a Christian, though, even though he cares less about the school. Sneazy (talk) 15:26, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

There's no requirement for a school run according to Christian (or allegedly-Christian) principles to be run by any given parish, or even by a church which has parishes at all. I'd definitely understand a parochial school as being specifically one which was operated at least partly by the (usually Anglican or RC) parish in which it was located. Whereabouts are you, Sneazy? 'Academy' means different things in different places. AlexTiefling (talk) 15:35, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

United States. I presume it means "private school". Sneazy (talk) 15:40, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

That would be my assumption. (Here in the UK, we have religious state schools, and all schools are supposed to include a short act of Christian worship in their curricula; nevertheless, the teaching of evolution, world religion, etc, are mandatory.) AlexTiefling (talk) 15:45, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I wonder if that would count as a "moment of silence" for nonreligious students. Good time to pause and reflect what you did and contemplate what you are going to do, and give thanks to the people in the world who have been thoughtful and think about what you should do in return for the community. Sneazy (talk) 16:05, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I believe that in many cases that's almost all there is anyway; but there's a well-established right for non-Christian pupils to absent themselves from acts of worship. AlexTiefling (talk) 16:10, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

In other words, non-Christian pupils are not required to worship. Though, non-Christian pupils may voluntarily express their gratitude as a nonreligious ritual - a ritual in a sense that the habit is repeated everyday to remind oneself of humility, generosity, and kindness. Sneazy (talk) 16:34, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

There may also be several slight differences in meanings. I would expect a parochial school to be linked to a single denomination and probably to be at least partly funded by that group. A Christian school might be nondenominational (multi-denominational) and might be parent-funded (private). The question of whether they need separate Wikipedia articles is a good one but should be discussed on their talk pages. Rmhermen (talk) 15:54, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I concur. A "parochial school" is denominational in affiliation, funding and governance, whether it is the Catholic schools most Americans think of, or the Lutheran parochial schools here in Milwaukee. A "Christian school", on the other hand, is not necessarily run or funded by a single denomination. --Orange Mike | Talk 21:48, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Lolita

Can someone point me to the specific lines or chapter where Humbert Humbert has sex with Lolita for the first time in Nabokov's novel Lolita? Acceptable (talk) 17:54, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Maybe "Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities" would be a better place to ask this question. (Also, wouldn't it depend on which edition of the book you were referring to?) — SMUconlaw (talk) 19:02, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Part One, chapter 29. John M Baker (talk) 20:50, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

If you get the book from the library, it's probably the first page in the section that has dirt markings on the outside in the middle - you know, where the thumb usually goes... --TammyMoet (talk) 18:07, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Let's just hope the pages aren't stuck together. StuRat (talk) 05:09, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

That's just not Acceptable. — SMUconlaw (talk) 09:17, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Reminds me of my life. It's an open book, but readers will discover some pages are ripped out and others are stuck together.  :) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 22:11, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Can you advise on the correct wording of:

When you talk about size in acres, it is called "Acreage".....but what is the correct term when referring to Hectares?

Is it Total Area? Or 'Hectareage'?

Johnny-Mac — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.172.85.76 (talk) 18:50, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Hectarage can be used. Looie496 (talk) 19:34, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I suppose it can, but the OP geolocates to Australia. I'm Australian too. We metricated 40 years ago. I have never heard the word Hectarage. (In fact some of our real estate agents still try to get away with using acres in ads. They're smaller, so there's more of them in a given chunk of land, so maybe they hope that dumb buyers will think the property is bigger.) HiLo48 (talk) 03:23, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

So if not "hectarage", what do you call it? Just "land area"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:13, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

What do we call what? (I think the answer's "land area"?) HiLo48 (talk) 06:09, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I'd just say 'area', in the same way that I feel 'distance' is preferable to 'mileage'. We wouldn't speak of volume as 'pintage' or 'litrage', after all. AlexTiefling (talk) 11:24, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I have quite routinely come across the word hectarage in the UK, in talking about areas of land, and not thought there was anything odd or difficult to understand about it. Ghmyrtle (talk) 16:47, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

It sounds like folks who used to say "acreage" switched to "hectarage" out of habit. It sounds like a real estate term. Typically you would talk about your home's floor space as some number of square feet or square meters. For your lot, you could say, "I've got 21,780 square feet", but it makes more sense to say "I've got half an acre". Likewise for hectares vs. square meters. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:21, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Do people in Australia talk about what petrol kilometrage their cars get? Angr (talk) 22:56, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

No. Our "mileage may vary", but not that much. The closest we get to kilomet-rage is road-rage. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 23:42, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I will admit total defeat to the metric system only when soccer hooligans order liters of beer instead of pints. :-) StuRat (talk) 00:33, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

The British politician who even suggests that change will be out of a job before he's even finished speaking. Some things are truly sacred, and the horrid warning of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four shows all too clearly the inevitable consequence of selling beer in metric glasses. Next stop, Newspeak and the Thought Police. (Actually, canned beer already comes in metric sizes, but that's beside the point.) Alansplodge (talk) 01:22, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

In other words, you accept it when it suits you, but otherwise ....  :) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 01:45, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Ah, the leaden hand of the Brussels Eurocrats who tell us what can be sold and what can't. Still, some Johnny Foreigner called Günter Verheugen has said that we can carry on buying beer in pints.[2] How are the mighty fallen. Alansplodge (talk) 01:59, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

This is an interesting and pertinent read. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 11:40, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Capital letters in the African reference alphabet

When printing something in the African reference alphabet, is there typically a distinction between E and Ɛ, or are they normally printed alike? For background notes — I'm in the middle of putting a bunch of Kpelle books into Endnote, and I'm experiencing some confusion with the capital letters. It's easy to tell Ɣ and Ɔ and Ŋ and ̃Ɔ apart from each other and from the traditional Latin letters, and I expect that Ɓ will likewise be easy when I run into it, but KPƐLƐƐ ("Kpelle") looks like KPELEE in the titles I'm looking at; I had to look until I found the word in lower-case letters, since the Kpɛlɛɛ and Kpelee are printed differently. Of course I'm not asking you to tell me anything about these specific books; I'm simply mentioning the situation as an illustration for the question in my first sentence. Nyttend (talk) 19:11, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

What do you call one of these, turned upside down? The answer is Gamma.

On top of this, I've found a letter I've never seen before and can't find in Windows Character Map or in the list of Latin-script letters — it basically looks like an inverted version of the pink ribbons in the picture. Since I can't find it anywhere, I can't yet transcribe it. Nyttend (talk) 19:31, 4 April 2013 (UTC) Never mind; I just realised that it was a Ɣ in a funny typeface. Nyttend (talk) 19:34, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't have much experience with the alphabet, but I'll throw some things out there. The designers of the alphabet obviously intended them to be kept separate, so I imagine it is the fault of the publishers, or maybe it had something to do with the typesetting requirements for the covers. You may have noticed that in the 1982 revision didn't include capital letters at all. Maybe there is also some connection to the frequent French practice of omitting accents on capital letters (disapproved of by the Académie française). Lesgles (talk) 18:18, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

April 5

Chinese names of hotel chains

In http://www.grandmercurehotels.com.cn/images/common/footerImg.jpg http://www.webcitation.org/6FexVmDBg what are the Chinese names of the hotel chains? And please confirm the following:

• Sofitel is 索菲特
• Mercure is 美居 Mei Ju
• Novotel is 诺富特
• M Gallery is 美憬阁
• Grand Mercure is 美爵 Mei Jue
• Pullman is 铂尔曼
• Ibis is 宜必思
• The hotel company is 雅高酒店集团

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 20:07, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Identifying Japanese characters

Hi, please see http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/4497/55563252.png

Does this say 行かれる、来られる? (It is the れ that I am not 100% sure about.) 86.171.42.166 (talk) 23:02, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it does. Oda Mari (talk) 05:33, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Mari, does that れ look at all unusual or sloppy or idiosyncratic to you, or is it a normal way of writing it? 86.171.42.64 (talk) 11:03, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

It is totally normal. Seeing as you are so interested in Japanese handwriting, I would suggest reading about ペン字, which is handwriting using a pen (or pencil). KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:12, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Probably idiosyncratic, but it's also sloppy. It looks bit like cursive script, but it's inappropriate as the other characters are regular script. Oda Mari (talk) 16:50, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

April 6

What's this "to" doing

Listing nouns in Dutch you'd say "boom, roos, vis, vuur", which would be "tree, rose, fish, fire" in English. If you list verbs, you'd say "lopen, zeggen, horen", which is "to walk, to say, to hear" in English. Why not just "walk, say, hear"? Or, vice versa, why not "a tree, a rose, a fish, a fire". What's the use of the "to" here? Joepnl (talk) 03:39, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

That's the way English is. I suggest you read Infinitive. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:06, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

The English "walk, say, hear" without the "to" translates to "loop, zeg, hoor" in Dutch. Roger (talk) 08:13, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

The trouble with this argument is that "walk" also translates "lopen" in some contexts - the "to" is syntactic not inflectional. I suspect that the habit arose because in talking about English grammar they had to find something distinctive to translate the Latin infinitive, --ColinFine (talk) 11:36, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

All the West Germanic languages can combine "to" or its equivalent with infinitives: "to leap", "te lopen", "zu laufen", etc. I question the OP's premise that verbs are always cited with the "to" in English; there's nothing wrong with saying "walk, say, hear" in English without the "to". But if it is true that verbs are more often cited with the "to" in English than in Dutch and German, it may have to do with the fact that English verbs no longer have an explicit infinitive ending -en, so that outside of any context it may not be clear that the word we're citing is a verb. If someone with no knowledge of German points to the word laufen and asks me what it means and I say simply "walk", for all they know I mean the noun (as in "take the dog for a walk") whereas if I say to "to walk" they know I mean the verb. Angr (talk) 11:55, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

English does not have a single word full infinitive form present in many other languages, to make the full infinitive form of a verb in English you add the word "to" to the first person present form (except with a few irregular verbs). Other languages like French and other Romance languages form the infinitive with verb endings rather than an additional word to the front (in French, for example, these are the -er, -ir, and -re endings; each infinitive ending makes a class of verbs that determines how it is conjugated). I'm not familiar with Dutch or German, so I don't know how they form the infinitive. --Jayron32 16:05, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

But in English you can use the bare stem of the verb as an infinitive after auxiliary verbs, as in "I can walk", and even a few full verbs, as in "I don't dare ask him". After other verbs and after things other than verbs the infinitive is connected by to, as in "I would like to dance" and "I'm proud to serve my country" and "I bought a new car to impress my neighbors". This isn't really that different from using à or de or pour + infinitive in French, except English probably has more cases where the preposition has to be used than French does. The only real difference between English and the other Germanic and the Romance languages is that English doesn't have an ending like -er or -en the marks the infinitive, we just use the bare stem (as we do for all forms of the present tense other than the 3rd person singular). But the to isn't there to "make up for" the absence of an ending in any way, because the other languages also have prepositions (à/de/pour; zu; te) that they have to use with the infinitive in certain grammatical constructions. I don't think the to is an integral part of the English infinitive any more than à/de/pour are integral parts of the French infinitive. It's just grammatical "glue" that's required before the infinitive in certain constructions. Angr (talk) 18:58, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

The only place I find "te lopen" ("to walk") -without more complicated meanings than just the verb itself- being used is in signs, like "Verboden op het gras te lopen" (lit. "forbidden on the grass to walk"). I like Jayron32's answer. Joepnl (talk) 00:45, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Practically, it's there to show that the word in question is a verb, and not a noun, or anything else. For example, if I were to ask you what bear, lean or break mean, you could answer two ways for both of them, not knowing that a verb is meant. In German (and I presume Dutch), you do it the other way around by including the article before the nouns. The problem is bigger in English because we have no endings to distinguish potential verbs from nouns. Also, we cant mark nouns because we have no grammatical gender. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 19:14, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

French questions

"And they would tape that" as in "they would film those actions" - How would that be said in French? Also "And sometimes they would catch kids doing things or catch kids changing clothes." - How would that be said?

For context see Commons:TimedText:Sextortionagent_interview.ogg.en.srt in English

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 03:47, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't know about the vocabulary, but for the grammar I'm pretty sure you would just use the normal passé composé with ils ont quelquefois.... Angr (talk) 06:56, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I'd use the imperfect. I'm Italian, and I'd use the imperfect in Italian. «Et alors ils enregistraient cela» or «Et parfois …», and «Et parfois ils parvenaient des enfants qui faisaient des choses ou des enfants qui changaient vêtements». Because it sounds like a customary action in the past, and in Italian that's the meaning of the Imperfect, and I think it's the same in French. In Italian you could use "solere" in the imperfect, which does mean "to have the habit of", but it's a weak stress on the "habit" part, it's more like a repeated action than a habitual action, at least in the way it sounds to me. In French there is apparently no such "weak" expression, being there only "être habitué à" and "avoir l'habitude de", so I advise a plain Imperfect. The vocabulary is either from my knowledge or from the Wiktionary. There might be better choices possible, but I don't know. Hope I've been helpful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MGorrone (talk • contribs) 08:10, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

In French we use, in this case, the imparfait to translate "would". Here "would" is used to describe a characteristic, a will, an habit that belongs to the past (La grammaire anglaise. Collection Bescherelle. Hatier pub., page 93.) In French: Et ils enregistraient ça/cela., ils filmaient ces actes/actions, Et parfois ils prenaient [en vidéo/en photo] les enfants faisant des choses ou en train de se changer. A better translation of "kids" would be "gosses" but it means "testicles" in Canadian French. — AldoSyrt (talk) 11:56, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

MGorrone, French used to have an equivalent word, souloir, but it went out of usage a few centuries ago. Lesgles (talk) 16:42, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you very much! I'll try to finish up the draft so a French speaker can take a look at it and do any necessary changes: Commons:File_talk:Sextortionagent_interview.ogg/French WhisperToMe (talk) 01:29, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

As mentioned above the word gosses is acceptable only in European French. In any event, I actually think enfants would be better, because gosses is more informal than kids, even if you are concerned only with European French. If you want an informal word that is acceptable both in Europe and in Canada, you can use gamins. Mousses would be a word you could use in Canadian, but not European French. If reference is being made to younger children, the words bambins, marmots or mômes (the last one in Europe only) can also be used.64.140.121.87 (talk) 06:31, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Problem deciding where to place some information in Wikipedia

Can someone help me sort out where to put the information I submitted as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/Kwa, whether in Kwa' language, Kwa languages or Baa language, and maybe point to a better source of information? MGorrone (talk) 07:59, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

It looks like everything you have is based on original research, which isn't allowed at Wikipedia. I would recommend submitting your work to a linguistics journal such as the Journal of African Languages and Linguistics or the Journal of West African Languages for peer review and publication. This is actually much better for you, too, since it allows you to take full credit for your work and it prevents other people from altering your work (here at Wikipedia everything is a collaborative effort and you have to accept that others will come along and change what you say). Angr (talk) 08:12, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

give the last button off one's coat for a chance to do

Would you please teach me the meaning of "give the last button off my coat for a chance to do" in the following passage? Many thanks in advance.123.227.223.236 (talk) 08:09, 6 April 2013 (UTC)denken

 Well, I just got here a little while ago, and I was saying to Ash that I’d give the last  
 button off my coat for a chance to see you tonight. It was a sort of sudden notion on my  
 part not to wait and make a date with you, but to come to see you right away.--Erskine 
 Caldwell,Episode in Palmetto, p.90.

I've never heard the expression, but I would interpret it as meaning "I'd give anything for a chance..." or simply "I really really want a chance...". Angr (talk) 08:14, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

It's a common idiom to say that you would give up something valuable e.g. "my right arm", "my eye teeth" in exchange for something, although I've not heard that particular version. Mikenorton (talk) 08:18, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The narrator is expressing his desire to see the person he is talking to in an illustrative way. It's somewhat similar to the expression "I would give anything to...". He is expressing the fact that he wants to see the other person so much that he would give up something very valuable to him -- in this case his last button, but he could just as easily refer to his "last breath," his right arm, or his last dime. While those things may be valuable to them, he doesn't value them as much as time spent with the other person. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 08:27, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

123.227.223.236 -- In the eighteenth century, sometimes coat-buttons could be silver (occasionally even actual coins)... AnonMoos (talk) 09:15, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine: Volume 53, January to June 1843 (p.577) says of an army officer being held to ransom; "I know for him the soldiers would give the last button on their uniforms.". Alansplodge (talk) 17:40, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it's similar to the modern "I'd give my last dollar to...". Giving one's last button seems a bit odd, today, since most are incredible cheap, these days. But, back when the expression was used, buttons were far more valuable. StuRat (talk) 19:38, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. They were once so valuable, that until today, the Amish are forbidden to wear clothes with buttons, because it is unspeakably sinful to walk around publicly displaying such wealth. Sounds like they were once the equivalent of Rolexes. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 20:44, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Ironically, the hook and eye closure they use on many of their clothes is more valuable and ostentatious than the cheap plastic buttons most of the rest of the world uses. The Amish might want to get with the times, at least in this respect. StuRat (talk) 02:37, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

There's a modern clothing analogy: "He'd give you the shirt off his back". -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:15, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

"Ewwww, can't you just lend me the money to buy a new, clean shirt ?" :-) StuRat (talk) 02:29, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Etymology of the feminine name Tula

The name "Tula" is apparently used more or less everywhere in the world, both for women, maybe especially in Spain, and for places (e.g. those listed here). I'm mostly curious about the origin of it as a feminine name. The origin and meaning of personal names is quite a popular topic on the Internet; unfortunately, the sites devoted to that do not always seem reliable enough, and sometimes the explications given seem just the result of a free imagination. I found "mountain peak", "leaping water", "little hill", "cat", "able with spear", "taken" etc., with little or no reference to the original language. So I only understand that there could be many of them. Does anybody have a clue? Thanks. --pma 10:35, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

The most reliable source for first names I know of is A Dictionary of First Names by Patrick Hanks and Flavia Hodges, which is refreshingly free of bullshit when it comes to the origins of first names. Unfortunately, the name Tula is not listed in the book, either in the main body of the text or in either of the supplements (first names in the Arab world and first names of the Indian subcontinent). Angr (talk) 11:14, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Certainly not a common name in the English-speaking world. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:11, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Any connection to Tallulah, I wonder? Also spelt 'Talulah': we have examples of both as first names, as well as Talula as a song title, but I can't see anything about the origin. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 14:06, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

See also the sorry case of a little girl named Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii. Alansplodge (talk) 17:31, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

The personal name of Greek origin is perhaps better known under the Toula spelling. Most Aussies know of Con the Fruiterer, whose daughters are named Roula, Toula, Soula, Voula, Foula and Agape, plus "the two little gentlemens", Nic and Ric. See also Toula in the Urban Dictionary. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:13, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

The most plausible explanation I found is that -oula is a hypocoristic suffix (Anna → Annoula etc.), so if you add -oula to a name ending in -ta it ends in -toula, which can then be taken to be a nickname in itself (the only thing left from the original name is the "t"). AnonMoos (talk) 02:54, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

That sounds very plausible. That's the origin of the girl's name Nina, too: it's the Italian diminutive ending -ina added to any name whose stem ends in n, like Antonina or Giannina. Angr (talk) 19:02, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

comprehension word of 'apple'

what is the comprehension word for 'apple' for example comprehension word for 'boat' is goat , coat and for word 'old' is sold, gold, hold etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.205.37.129 (talk) 17:52, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

From the examples you give I assume you're asking for words that rhyme with "apple". I've never heard the term "comprehension word" before. The only ones I can think of are "dapple" and "grapple". Rojomoke (talk) 18:58, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

And, if we can use name brands, there's always Snapple. StuRat (talk) 19:34, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Let's not forget about Scrapple from the Apple -- Ferkelparade π 19:36, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

'Chapel'. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 19:55, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

And then you could add various prefixes to "apple", to get words like pineapple and crabapple. StuRat (talk) 19:59, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Is a rhyming word really called a "comprehension" word? This sounds more like phonics, i.e. learning how groups of similarly-structured words are reasonably likely to be pronounced. It's easy enough to test each consonant prefix and see what works, as shown by the various editors. Unless that term "comprehension" word is in fact a phonics term (it's been a while since first grade). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:12, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't think it's a general term, just what they used for it on a homework assignment (perhaps an ESL class). That is, to increase the student's comprehension of the spelling of a word, they ask them to find rhyming words. StuRat (talk) 02:27, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Lasagne/lasagna

When googling 'elk lasagne recipe', Google shows results for ' elk lasagna recipe ', and I get 91,500 results. However, I actually wanted to search using the spelling I originally input, so clicking 'search instead for elk lasagne recipe', I get 25,700,000 results, and a message asking me if I meant 'elk lasagna recipe'. So, I have two questions:

1) Which is correct/more common here? Spelling in -e or in -a?

2) Why is Google favouring the spelling with the least hits? KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 19:50, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

1) I think the "e" ending is more Italian, and the "a" ending is more of the English translation (although if I translated it to English, it would be "lazanya"). StuRat (talk) 20:09, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

2) We can't know for sure, but I suspect that they think the more common spelling is "lasagna", in English. (They must have determined that you speak English from your previous interactions, so now look for the English version of words.) It probably would be better if they just left your search alone, in this case. Perhaps a future upgrade will fix this. StuRat (talk) 20:06, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

From what little I know of Italian, lasagna is singular and lasagne is plural. --Nicknack009 (talk) 20:08, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Does this refer to a single or multiple noodle(s), or a single or multiple dish(es) ? StuRat (talk) 20:10, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

(EC) Our article Lasagne (which uses that spelling - Lasagna redirects there), has a few theories of its etymology. I had my own, thinking until now that it meant 'layers' or something (completely made up etymology with no basis on fact, but which happens to be in the article too), and therefore should be plural, like 'spaghetti'. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 20:21, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, regardless of the etymology, lasagne is indeed plural in Italian, like spaghetti, and singular lasagna usually refers to a single noodle/leaf. See it:Lasagne (gastronomia), it:Lasagne al forno. In English, though, I think it is usually perceived as singular, and pronounced more like lasagna than lasagne. Lesgles (talk) 20:43, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

However, in English, both would be pronounced the same, further complicating this matter. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 20:53, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

In Italian for these pasta dishes it is always plural when referring to the dish; the singular refers exclusively to the specific type of pasta (as an aside in Italian, we don't say usually pasta when talking about noodles and such but paste; pasta is more commonly pastry). Spaghetto, tagliatella, and vermicello are ridiculous. I don't see why lasagna must be the exception. 72.128.82.131 (talk) 23:28, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't know what you did to get the results you did, but I got 199 hits for "elk lasagna recipe", and 8 for "elk lasagne recipe". Ths jives with my experience that lasagna is the more common spelling. It pretty much jives with my expectation of the number of hits. Tens of thousands or millions of hits for this rather uncommon dish is ridiculously high. Perhaps you searched without the quotation marks? Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 20:23, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I figured out why you got misled. Your results for elk lasagne almost all derive from a single incident. Ikea made a product that they labeled "elk lasagne", and it was found to contain pork, which caused a scandal with A LOT of coverage, which amounts to a lot of Google hits. That is why you got a lot more hits for "lasagne" when you searched without the quote marks. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 20:32, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

It was indded the scandal that caused me to do the search. I just tried your method. However, would that not make your search give similar results, then, if you used the quotes? I thought quotes meant 'search for exact phrase' or does it mean 'search for exact phrase without IKEA' :) I am getting more and more confused. Searching for 'lasagna' on its own, gives 25,000,000 hits, and searching for 'lasagne' on its own gives 223,000,000 hits, and a message asking if I meant 'lasagna'. Same problem. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 20:48, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

If you search for -- elk lasagne recipe -- without the quotes, you end up (presumably) with the number of web pages that contain those three words, the vast majority of which have nothing to do with recipes for elk lasagne. If you search for -- "Elk lasagna recipe" -- with the quotes, all of the hits you get are recipes for elk lasagna, or at least pages discussing such recipes. "elk lasagna/e" is not a common dish, and would expect few hits for it under either spelling. HOWEVER, because of a single incident, "elk lasagne" gets a rather large number of Google hits, almost all due to the massive coverage of the Ikea scandal. The hits from that incident are so great in proportion to all the rest of the other uses of the term that they poison your results, giving you the false impression that the spelling "lasagne" was more common, rather than the unique whim of a single label writer at Ikea. In other words, 99% percent plus of the pages containing references to "elk lasagna/e" are references to only a single use of the word by a single person (who, by the way, was probably not an English speaker, hence the spelling). You have a hopelessly unrepresentative sample base to work with.

Now, the brutal truth. NOBODY in the world knows what the reported number of Google hits represents, including anyone at Google. Its just a number that some computer algorithm spits out, and it has only a sorta kinda, but certainly not always, weak correlation with the number of pages containing the phrase on the internet. Nobody at Google has the slightest idea of how the algorith works, or what the number is supposed to mean. It was written long ago by a programmer that has long sinced moved on and didn't leave any documentation. It seems to work better with low numbers that with high ones. It's certainly to be used "at your own risk", with a very, very large grain of salt. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 21:16, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure that "lasagne" is the predominant spelling in the UK, and can't recall ever seeing it spelt "lasagna" which looks very odd to me. To add substance to my hypothesis, I Googled the names of some well known British TV chefs and found; Delia Smith - Lasagne al Forno, Jamie Oliver - Simple baked lasagne and Gordon Ramsay - Classic lasagne al forno recipe. Also Stores withdraw bolognese and lasagne after French supplier issues and Tesco Lasagne 600G (Tesco is the UK's largest supermarket chain). In all of these searches, Google insisted that it was ignoring my search for "lasagne" and was showing results for "lasagna" instead, although it clearly was doing no such thing. Alansplodge (talk) 23:09, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, this is it, you see. The spelling ending in -a looks odd to me, too, which is why I thought Google was acting a little strange.... KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 23:19, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

You metioned above that "both would be pronounced the same". I've found some dictionary entries that seem to indicate that Brits pronouce it with the /ae/ vowel, whereas Americans pronounce it with the /a/ vowel (I'm American, by the way, and never heard the /ae/ pronunciation except perhaps as a joke. Also, the dictionaries say that the Brits pronounce it with an /s/ consonant, whereas Americans pronounce it with a /z/ consonant. Can you confirm the British pronunciation? If true, it would be a good example of AE vs BE pronunciation of foreign words, like baton, ballet and garage.

Another thing to consider is that the dish, and the name for it, entered the American diet and language long before it entered the British diet and language. From what I'm seeing, it appears that lasagne is still considered a "foreign" food there with at least a trace of novelty and exoticness. In the US, it has been more thoroughly assimilated. My guess is that the difference in spelling can be traced back to the fact that Americans got the term from poor peasants from southern Italy in the late 1800s, who probably did call the dish "lasagna" in their Italian dialect of the time, and Brits picked it up more recently from Italians speaking a different dialect. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 23:47, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Pronunciation of "lasagne" (in England at least) is rather variable, most educated people aim for an approximation of the Italian with a "z". The first Italian restaurants opened in London in the 1950s, at least some of them by ex-POWs who returned here after finding that there was no work for them at home in Italy. Alansplodge (talk) 00:59, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I watched a few cooking videos from the UK on YouTube, and see that the pronunciation is quite variable. Italian food came to the States with the great wave of immigration in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and was largely assimilated by the 1950s and 60s, earlier in the Northeast, and maybe a little later in the Midwest and South. I'm loving in Poland now, and it's still sort of new and exotic here, but rapidly becoming more popular. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 01:16, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

What I meant by 'pronounced the same' was that the two words, 'lasagna' and 'lasagne' are pronounced the same, regardless of the -a and -e difference at the end, and was not commenting on different dialects. However, it is true, as said above, that there are different pronunciations in the UK depending on the dialect, as indicated in our article (but each dialect would only have one pronunciation for both words). Mine, for example, has /lə'zænjə/ (though stronger scouse would have /lə'zænjɛ/). KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 02:09, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

KageTora -- Google is doing automated "stemming" for you, whether you want it to or not. Not sure how to turn it off... AnonMoos (talk) 03:00, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

To add another AE/BE wrinkle the story here is about Ikea's [moose lasagna]. Elk being a completely different animal. Rmhermen (talk) 03:22, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Except that that animal has always been known as an elk in Europe. Lesgles (talk) 06:59, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

And as moose in America. The American elk is a another animal altogether, different species, even different genus. It's related to the European red deer. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 09:31, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

But this is specifically about the animal found in Sweden, which is a European elk. Alansplodge (talk) 23:57, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

The animal in Sweden is actually called the "møøse" and is heavily involved in filmmaking. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:50, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

And, as has already been pointed out, that very same animal exists in America as well, where it is called the moose. For an American to refer to Ikea's product as "moose lasagna" is a perfect translation. For them to call it "elk lasagna" would be a typical false-friend translation error.

Now as to Clarity's observation, it is indeed interesting that a British comedy troupe would call the animal a "møøse". However, øne has tø remember that the directør, and persøn respønsible før a løt øf the møre surrealistic material in the film, was an Åmericån. Frøm Minnesøtå, which is cråwling with møøses. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 01:01, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

In the UK, we call generally call the north American ones "moose" and the European ones "elks", rather like we have North American "buffalo" (which aren't really buffalo) and European "bison". Actually, some believe that moose and Eurasian elk are separate species.[3] Alansplodge (talk) 01:44, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

The meaning of "species" in biology depends on what kind of question you are trying to answer. There are several definitions, none of which is universally valid, or even meaningful. Classifications using different definitions often yield conflicting results. That's all fine as long as you remember to fit the right definition with the kind of question at hand. See Species problem. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 01:57, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for that link. Our own Moose article lists several subspecies, Eastern Moose, Western Moose, Alaska Moose, Shiras Moose, Eurasian Elk and so on. I would only call the Eurasion Elk "an elk", all the others are clearly "moose", although some pedants might argue the toss. Alansplodge (talk) 10:17, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

April 7

Kanji help on Japanese book

What is the kanji of the title, author, and publishing house. and other info ("Kanji"?) of:

• Itō, Mikiharu (Kanji), 1958: Amami no kami-matsuri, Kakeroma-tō noro-shinji chōsa-hōkoku (Festivals of Amami, Fieldreport on the Noro-Cult of Kakeroma Island), Kokugakuin-daigaku Nippon-bunka-kenkyūsho kiyo 3: 53-139.

That way it will be easier for Wikipedians to find the book

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 06:42, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

• 國學院大學日本文化研究所 is the name of the publishing company. 奄美の神祭、加計呂麻島祝女神事調査報告 would be the title, and 伊藤幹治 is the author. Without having access to the book, I cannot be sure if there should be a katakana 'ri' in there after matsu(ri), or whether 'noro' should be in kanji or in katakana. I have looked for the book, but to no avail. If you can find it, I can correct this post if needed. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 08:53, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Kagetora! I found the university page which mentions the book. It writes the title as "奄美の神祭 : 加計呂麻島ノロ神事調査報告" WhisperToMe (talk) 15:27, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Arabic names for characters in Egyptian films

What are the Arabic names for the characters mentioned in the cast lists of the following films?

• Thieves in KG2
• Thieves in Thailand
• Kimo wi Antimo
• Malatily Bathhouse (also the name of the author of the original novel and Yusuf Shaban)
• Pleasure and Suffering (as well as the director's name and the other actors)

Thank you WhisperToMe (talk) 07:33, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Meaning of wlp

Came to our article wlp from a question posted on Yahoo! Answers on the same and saw this edit:[4]. Urban Dictionary has got a slightly similar entry [5]. Does such a slang exist and is it relevant enough to include here? ···Vanischenu^「m/_Talk」 09:32, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

NHOI. IMHO you can make up any anagram/abbreviation to mean a commonly used phrase. Only some are well-known, like 'IMHO' I just used, but many aren't, like the 'NHOI' I just made up. If you have heard 'wlp' before, then go and add it. If it is decided that it is not notable, then it will either be deleted or a discussion on the relevent talk page will be opened. It does loook like something you'd expect to see on a MMORPG chat log, however. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 10:36, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

But without a reliable source (and that doesn't include Urban Dictionary) IWBR (It Will Be Reverted), and just was. Rojomoke (talk) 11:39, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you! My question should have been: What should be done with the sentence ""WLP" stands for "f*** this s***" in text lingo" in the page WLP. (That edit got buried under another edit within three mins, so it was likely to stay there forever.) Now you removed it. Thanks···Vanischenu^「m/_Talk」 12:03, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Frequency of kana in Japanese

Dear reference desk,

Could you point me to a table giving the frequency of each kana in written Japanese?

I tried to search but all I found was on frequency of kanji. This should count only the kana that are actually written, not the unwritten transcription of words written in kanji. Ideally this should be based on informal modern Japanese text (not high literature), and should include each hiragana, katakana, and associated punctuation. – b_jonas 17:36, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Hiragana Frequency Table has a link to Hiragana Frequency Table.

—Wavelength (talk) 18:42, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Those two pages are strange. Why do they have latin letters among the hiragana? – b_jonas 19:01, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

That page also specifically says that it's tabulating the frequency of all syllables, not only those written in hiragana. – b_jonas 19:11, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Also, despite being titled "Hiragana Frequency Table" it actually includes both hiragana and katakana, which is not exactly confidence-inspiring. 86.176.213.160 (talk) 01:59, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

April 8

British colony and British accent

Why do Australian and South African accents (at least to me) sound more British than Canada and America? OsmanRF34 (talk) 16:15, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Because U.S. accents are more or less based on 17th-century and 18th-century dialects from various regions of the British isles, subject to a process of koine-ization and centuries of further independent development, while Australian accents are more or less based on 19th-century forms of British English (more closely focused on working-class London than was the case for the early settlement of British North America). A more recent split-off point plus less time for independent divergence means more similarity. By the way, the twentieth-century "Received Pronunciation" type of prestigious British English doesn't seem to have existed in any form that would be very recognizable to twentieth-century ears until well into the nineteenth century... AnonMoos (talk) 17:41, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I can hear a few points of similarity between Australian and my own London accent, but with South African, I can only hear the Afrikaans influence. Perhaps it sounds different to Americans. Alansplodge (talk) 22:39, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

To my North American ears, South African English sounds like Australian English spoken with a German accent. Adam Bishop (talk) 00:38, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Chinz?

A very funny Donald Duck story, which I have only ever read in German, concerns Gus Goose and a famous fashion designer ending up at each other's parties and being mistaken for each other. One of the guys at the fashion party asks Gus:

• Und Chinz? Was denken Sie davon?

Gus replies:

• Chinz? Darüber habe ich nie gehört!

All the others think Gus is being sarcastic and think this "Chinz" thing is on its way out, but Gus was being serious, he really has never heard of it.

My question is, what the heck is "Chinz"? I have even asked my sister, who speaks German at a near-native level, but she didn't know it either. JIP | Talk 17:42, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Maybe chintz...? AnonMoos (talk) 17:45, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that seems to be it. I have a hard time distinguishing between z and tz endings in German, especially since they are pronounced pretty much identically. I note there is no Finnish article about this cloth, so I'm not sure what it would be called in Finland. JIP | Talk 17:48, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

See http://en.organisasi.org/translation/chintz-in-other-languages.

—Wavelength (talk) 18:22, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Google Translate gives 'sintsi', but the Finnish Wikipedia merely has that down as a town in North Karelia. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 18:26, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

And google Translate agrees with Wavelength's link. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 18:27, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Chintz shares the record (with almost, abhors, begins, biopsy and chimps) as the longest non-proper English word in which the letters are in alphabetical order and there are no repeated letters. Aegilops is the longest at 8 letters, but it's a proper noun and its status as an English word is not secure. Beefily and billowy have 7 letters but they contain repeated letters. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 01:17, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Ikea in the UK about 5 years ago had an advertising campaign called Chuck Out Your Chintz. Perhaps they've already done that in Germany. Alansplodge (talk) 00:33, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Proto-Nubian

Hello,

does somebody know the Proto-Nubian terms for:

• bread
• water
• woman
• chiefess
• home, land, homeland
• good
• father
• city
• chief
• mother
• dog
• meal

Greetings HeliosX (talk) 19:06, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Do you mean the Old Nubian language? --Jayron32 19:59, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

You could also mean Meriotic? It comes up when I google for "Proto-Nubian". There's a word list here which gives you some of your words:

• woman - kdi, glossed as "lady"
• good - ne OR ñ1 OR -ne
• father - ab (also means "ancestor")
• city - ri
• chief - ene
• mother - ste
• meal - ek, glossed as "nourishment"

The article also has a long list of references. 184.147.116.201 (talk) 00:22, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

April 9

French Bible

Is there a standard French translation of the Bible? I know that there isn't really one in English, but, for example, the King James Version was influential on the language itself and English speakers frequently quote it (whether they realize it or not). Does French have a Bible like that? Wikipedia suggests the Bible de Jérusalem is the one most often used in France, but when French people mention "the Bible", what Bible would they mean? Adam Bishop (talk) 01:41, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

The Bible de Port-Royal. The Jerusalem Bible wasn't published until the 1950's. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 01:53, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Arabic help: Israeli train stations

What is the Arabic seen in the pictures of these Israeli train stations?

• File:Rakevet Merkaz.jpg
• File:Haifa Ha'shmona.jpg

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 08:50, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

is President Obama fluent in African American Vernacular English?

I ask this with the understanding that as any vernacular, anyone can be fluent who has learned it. My question is whether President Obama is fluent in African American Vernacular English? Are there any examples of him using it (when he wants to)? This is not to imply in any way that this would be a first or primary language for him, just curious if he can even speak it. --91.120.48.242 (talk) 09:13, 9 April 2013 (UTC)