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May 3

what is difference between "would you?" and "will you?"

Hi!
I got a doubt on "would you" and "will you?"
Requests can be expressed by using “Will you? “ and ” would you?”
Examples:
1)will you post this letter?
2)would you post this letter?
My doubts:
1)In my book The difference between the above two sentences explained like below.
“Would you?”is less authoritative so more polite than “will you? “
Can you explain the word “less authoritative “with some other sentences?
2)What is time difference between “will you?” And” would you” in above two sentences?
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Phanihup (talk • contribs) 00:43, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

• Would is conditional, will indicative. You can say "I would do that if I could, but I can't." You cannot say "I will do that but I can't." μηδείς (talk) 01:16, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

That's the grammatical difference, but, in terms of polite requests, "would you" tends to be more polite and less imperative, along the lines of "would you be willing to". "Will you" tends to be used where there is an understood right for the request to be made. This difference may vary by culture. Dbfirs 06:18, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't say there's much or any difference between "would" and "will" in the instances given, except that "will" might be slightly more forceful, like a teacher asking a student and it's expected the student will say yes. But among peers, at least in my dialect (Midwest American, college/post-college age group) there's no real difference. In everyday speech, I'd also extend that to include "can" and "could." In formal speech "can/could" would elicit an answer of "yes [it's possible]" or "no [it's not]", without stating whether they will, but in everyday speech "Would/will/can/could you send this letter?" would all be answered "Yes [I can and will]." The negative is different, where a "Can/could you?" "No" entails there's something stopping you from carrying out the request, while "Would/will you?" "No" just means they won't (and without further explanation, might come across as a bit rude). Lsfreak (talk) 06:25, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

I think "less authoritative" is not a very clear phrase, though I think I see what they are getting at. They are suggesting that will you is definitely asking you to do something, and hence implying that they have authority to do so, whereas would you is asking less directly. For your second question: in some contexts, would functions as the past of will, but in this use there is no difference in time. --ColinFine (talk) 07:13, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Different Arabs with different varieties tell apart

How can I tell the differences between different Arab people of the Arab World with their varieties? Is there a website that shows the differences between grammars of the different Arabic speakers?--Donmust90 (talk) 03:21, 3 May 2013 (UTC)Donmust90

There's a website called Wikipedia that does. See Varieties of Arabic for an overview. --Jayron32 03:35, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Of course that will tell you about varieties of Arabic language. It won't tell you anything about the people. --ColinFine (talk) 07:14, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Donmust90 -- It strongly depends at what level they're speaking (see article Diglossia etc.). At the "basilectal" level, speakers of one dialect can be basically incomprehensible to speakers of geographically distant dialects. When trying to speak an approximation of "Modern Standard Arabic", the dialectal peculiarities are greatly reduced (though Egyptian speakers may still pronounce ج as [g], and Syrians would often pronounce it as [ʒ] / "ž", while the most theoretically "correct" would be [dʒ] / "j" etc.). AnonMoos (talk) 07:46, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

German translation

Could someone translate this:

Die weltgewandte Marie interessierte sich vor allem für Literatur, Musik, Theater und Kunst. Das neu erbaute Coburger Hoftheater wurde an ihrem 41. Geburtstag eröffnet. Franz Liszt war ab 1842 bei ihr öfters zu Besuch. Sie kümmerte sich persönlich um die Dienerschaft. 1836 übernahm sie das Protektorat für das Gothaer Marien-Institut, eine private Unterrichtsanstalt für Mädchen. Am 3. Mai 1842 stiftete sie in Coburg 2000 Taler zur Gründung einer „Bewahranstalt für kleine Kinder hiesiger Stadt nach dem Vorbild eines gleichen Instituts der Residenzstadt Gotha“. Die Marienschulstiftung wurde noch im selben Jahr tätig und betreibt bis heute als selbständige Stiftung in Coburg einen Kindergarten und seit einigen Jahren auch eine Kinderkrippe. Untergebracht ist sie seit 1869 in dem ihr gehörenden Anwesen Park 1 in Coburg.

Nachdem ihr Mann Ernst I. 1844 gestorben war, wählte Marie als Witwensitz das Herzogtum Gotha mit Schloss Reinhardsbrunn, Schloss Friedrichsthal und Schloss Friedenstein, wo sie am 24. September 1860 um 7:45 Uhr starb. Sie hat im herzoglichen Mausoleum auf dem Coburger Friedhof am Glockenberg ihre letzte Ruhestätte.

--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 04:27, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Here's my take:

The urbane Marie was particularly interested in literature, music, theatre and art. The newly built Coburg Court Theater was opened on her 41st birthday. Franz Liszt often visited her in 1842. She personally looked after her servants. In 1836 she assumed the protectorate of the Gotha Mary Institute, a private educational institution for girls. On 3 May 1842 she founded in Coburg with a starting amount of 2000 Taler a "refuge kindergarten for small children in this town modelled after a similar institute in the capital Gotha". The Mary School Foundation became active in the same year and today, as an independent foundation in Coburg, operates a nursery and for some years also a creche. Since 1869 it is housed in Park 1, property owned by it in Coburg.

After her husband Ernst I died in 1844, Marie chose as her dowager's estate the Duchy of Gotha with Schloss Reinhardsbrunn, Schloss Friedrichsthal and Schloss Friedenstein, where she died on 24 September 1860 at 7:45. Her final resting place is the ducal mausoleum on the Coburg Friedhof am Glockenberg.

You might want to look over my translations of the proper nouns (das Gothaer Marien-Institut, die Marienschulstiftung, and so on) if you're going to use it in an article. Gabbe (talk) 07:51, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

On second thought, I think a better translation for Bewahranstalt is kindergarten, so I've changed my translation accordingly. Gabbe (talk) 08:06, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Shelter would be adequate too, I think. Difficult to translate and still confer the intended meaning. Lectonar (talk) 09:12, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

The urbane Marie was particularly interested in literature, music, theatre and art. The newly built Coburg Court Theater was opened on her 41st birthday. From 1842 onward, Franz Liszt often visited her. She personally took charge of the servants. In 1836, she took over the protectorate of the Gotha Mary Institute, a private educational institution for girls. On 3 May 1842 she endowed, with a starting amount of 2000 taler, a "refuge for small children in this town modelled after a similar institute in the capital Gotha" in Coburg. The Mary School Foundation became active in the same year, and until today, as an independent foundation in Coburg, operates a nursery and since some years also a creche. It is housed in a selfowned estate in Park 1 in Coburg since 1869. After her husband Ernst I died in 1844, Marie chose as her dowager's estate the Duchy of Gotha with Schloss Reinhardsbrunn, Schloss Friedrichsthal and Schloss Friedenstein, where she died on 24 September 1860 at 7:45. Her final resting place is the ducal mausoleum on the Coburg Friedhof am Glockenberg.

Lectonar (talk) 08:00, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Just to make the English slightly more idiomatic:

The urbane Marie was particularly interested in literature, music, theatre drama[1] and art. The newly built Coburg Court Theater was opened on her 41st birthday. From 1842 onward, Franz Liszt often visited her. She personally took charge of the her servants personally. In 1836, she took over the protectorate management[2] of the Gotha Mary Institute, a private educational institution for girls. On 3 May 1842 she endowed, with a starting amount the sum of 2000 taler, a "refuge for small children in this town, modelled after on a similar institute in the capital, Gotha" in Coburg. The Mary School Foundation became active in the same year, and until today[3] , to this day, operates, as an independent foundation in Coburg, operates a nursery, and since for some years has also operated a creche.[4] It is has been housed in a selfowned privately owned estate in Park 1 in Coburg since 1869. After her husband Ernst I died in 1844, Marie chose as her dowager's estate the Duchy of Gotha, together with Schloss Reinhardsbrunn, Schloss Friedrichsthal and Schloss Friedenstein, where she died on 24 September 1860 at 7:45 am[5]. Her final resting place is the ducal mausoleum on in the Coburg Friedhof am Glockenberg Glockenberg Cemetery[6].

[1] Or "the theatre".

[2] Or "became the Protector". "Protectorate" is normally used to refer to states, rather than institutions.

[3] It might be a good idea to say when "today" is.

[4] This whole sentence really needs to be split into two (or three) to make it readable in English, although that's moving away from a literal translation.

[5] "7:45" on its own is ambiguous.

[6] I think it's better to translate "Friedhof" here, as it's not obvious to someone who doesn't know the German.

Tevildo (talk) 22:59, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

What is the name of this news article in Arabic?

I found a Rose al-Yūsuf article http://maraiafilm.com/eufs/Rose_el_yousef.pdf - https://www.webcitation.org/6GKerEP0o?url=http://maraiafilm.com/eufs/Rose_el_yousef.pdf - I cannot copy and paste the Arabic text that is the title of the article. What is the title? Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 05:50, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

The small black text below the red navigation bar reads روز اليوسف, though I don't think it's the article title... AnonMoos (talk) 07:54, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

The part in blue? That's "مشاكل المثليين في فيلم سينماءى على أغنية عبد الوهاد". I'm not quite sure what it says, but something about "The problem of homosexuality in the movie about the song of Abdel Wahad", I guess. The last line in blue says "Tariq Mustafa" but I assume that's the name of the author of the article. The text mentions Mohammed Abdel Wahab, so I guess there is a movie about his music and it has a homosexual theme and someone thinks this is a problem. Adam Bishop (talk) 10:45, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! What is the Arabic for "Tariq Mustapha"? WhisperToMe (talk) 12:46, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

طارق مصطفي Wrad (talk) 19:41, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

On the book cover, it just says "مشاكل المثليين على أغنية عبد الوهاد" -- "The Problems of Gays [or Male Homosexuals, take your pick] in the Music of Abd Al-Wahaad" Wrad (talk) 19:41, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Looking deeper, the article is very positive. It talks about the first Egyptian film to deal with male homosexuality and the problems that that community faces. Wrad (talk) 19:46, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

2 shots at 2 targets

Is there a specific name for shooting technique when two shots are fired in quick succession at two separate targets so that each target is hit once (similar to double tap)? I know that in Russian it's called a doublet, but English doesn't seem to use that word. --Brandmeister^talk 19:02, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

"Doublet" is an English word. What's the Russian word? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 19:48, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Is it too? I googled "doublet shot" some time ago and tried other combinations, but it brought nothing definitive. Brandmeister^talk 21:14, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

I think Jack is saying only that "doublet" is an English word; I don't think he's saying that the phrase "doublet shot" exists. (I have no idea whether or not it exists). --ColinFine (talk) 22:44, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that's right. There is a Russian word дублет, pronounced like "doob-lyet", which means a duplicate, and it may have other meanings. That may be the "doublet" Brandmeister refers to. The English word 'doublet' has various meanings, but not, apparently, the one the OP's talking about. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 00:05, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Russian Wikipedia has a disambiguation page for дублет and дуплет, but with a meaning given that is slightly different from Brandmeister's: "Выстрел из двух стволов двустволки сразу" (shot from both barrels of a double-barreled shotgun at once). The OED actually does list one of the meanings of doublet as "Two birds killed at once with a double-barrelled gun", but I can't guarantee that's still in use (the quotations are from 1816 and 1837). When I hear doublet, I think of the garment. Lesgles (talk) 06:02, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Me too. The garment that keeps on giving: If you cut it in half, you get two singlets. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 07:49, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

See Great Britain Shooting - Men's Running Target, Double Shot Results. The event seems to have been discontinued and I can't find any details of what it actually entails. Alansplodge (talk) 19:40, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

In skeet shooting, two clay pigeons that are launched simultaneously (which the shooter is supposed to hit with two shots) are called a double. Deor (talk) 22:01, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

If both barrels unintentionally fire when only the first shot is intended the gun is said to be doubling, it is usually due to a faulty trigger mechanism. My brother once had this problem during a competition. <Warning the following is OR> According to my brother (who competes at a national level in South Africa) the word "pigeon" is officially deprecated - it is called "clay target shooting" or "clay shooting". Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:02, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Anyone read Azerbaijani?

There have been a number of edits to the Aylar Lie article over the last few months dealing with her ethnicity and origins. The sources that are being used are generally Azerbaijani and I can't speak or read that language. It seems to always be anon IPs that are doing the changes. I'm not sure if it's some sort of British vs. English dispute or just what is going on. Is there someone here who can help sort this out? Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 22:12, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

The latest reference removed (along with the word "Azeri" which it supported, is not Azerbaijani but Russian. The headline is "Norwegian singer: 'I spoke Azerbaijani when I was little'", and the article starts "My father is from Azerbaijan by birth, he speaks Turkish." (I'm guessing that this means Azerbaijani rather than Turkish of Turkey, though I confess I'm a bit unsure, because she does refer to Azerbaijani in the next sentence). I haven't gone further back in the history. --ColinFine (talk) 22:59, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Why is Arabic not used in aircraft crash accident reports?

I wonder why no countries (that I know of) write aircraft crash/accident/incident reports in Arabic. I found that Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Egypt, and Libya publish their aircraft accident reports in the English language. Algeria publishes its reports in the French language, with translations into English.

Is there a structural issue with Arabic that prevents it from being a good language to use in such a report? Or are there other reasons?

The languages which I have seen original/binding versions are aside from English: Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish. The Thai and Indonesian authorities also post their reports in English with no translations in their native languages.

Thanks, WhisperToMe (talk) 23:44, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

For a very long time, the lingua franca of the airline industry was French. That's why a plane in distress broadcasts "m'aidez" (you thought they were saying "May Day" didn't you?). M'aidez is French for "Help Me!". Over time, the lingua franca of the airline industry has transitioned to English. With pilots flying all over the world, it helps to have a single language the entire industry speaks, to ease communication and prevent misunderstandings where split-second decisions matter. That's probably why these reports are in a limited number of languages. --Jayron32 01:48, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Pretty much what Jayron said. There's a whole chapter on this in Outliers where Malcolm Gladwell discusses the benefits of English as a universal language for air travel and how it came to be adopted. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:53, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Actually, "help me!" in French is Aidez-moi. "Mayday" has to come from (Venez) m'aider to be grammatical French. Angr (talk) 05:17, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

How easy is Norwegian for you guys to understand? I don't think the difference between Norway and Thailand is that Norwegian is going to be more widely understood than Thai. I think it's that Norway has the confidence to use its own language in these kinds of settings, while European colonialism/U.S. hegemony has brainwashed some other countries into thinking they have to use a foreign language to be modern. Good on Norway. 96.46.198.58 (talk) 05:40, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Oh, so this is the "I think" desk now. Great. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 05:48, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

How does your referencing a journalist's opinion about the "benefits of English" even begin to answer a question about why Norwegian is used but not Arabic? If you could provide some insight into that you might come closer to answering the OP's question. In the absence of actual relevant facts, the OP might consider an opinion on the matter better than nothing.

Underlying my opinion is the objective reality that European countries, no matter how small, are more likely to retain their own languages in education and other prestigious functions than are countries in Africa and Asia. My view is that this is closely related to colonialism and international power relations.

I'm not the first to express this view - a quick Google search turns up the following quote from a scholar of Arabic [1]: "Promoting one's language and culture above any other is directly linked to economically or militarily powerful regimes. [...] Writers who grew up in subjugated or recently independent countries have been immersed to different degrees in their colonizer's culture. Some of them even denounce their own language and adopt the Other's language, such as the case of many North African writers who express themselves in French rather than in Arabic, or other indigenous Berber languages."

Now aviation may not be wholly comparable to literature, but neither is a government report anything like an emergency air traffic control transmission between people of different nationalities. On a practical level, it must be remembered that these reports are also directed at a domestic audience (airline executives, etc.) who will have a much easier time reading their national language than English or French, not to mention the fact that relatively few people have the foreign-language proficiency needed to write in a way that fully expresses their ideas. To ignore these basic practical aspects and insist on writing directly in a foreign language requires a certain mindset that equates modernity with English and/or Europeanness.

Therefore my suggestion to the OP is that the answer is likely to be found in the general attitudes that Arabic-speakers hold towards the suitability of their language for prestigious scientific or technical functions, as influenced by their colonial past and views of their own culture, rather than in any practical aspects of the aviation field. 96.46.198.58 (talk) 07:14, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

The book Arabic, Self and Identity by Yasir Suleiman devotes considerable attention to subjective views of Arabic versus European languages in the Arab World. Here is a typical quote: "[T]hese days [...] studying and knowing English or French in most of the Middle East and North Africa have become a badge of sophistication and modernity and [...] feigning, or asserting, weakness or lack of facility in Arabic is sometimes paraded as a sign of status, class and, perversely, even education [...]" [2] 96.46.198.58 (talk) 07:44, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

And, so? You are a journalist? Most journalists can't even pronounce foreign names properly, never mind talk about the people and places they are referring to. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:05, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

The quote illustrates that in most of the Arab world Arabic would not be viewed as an appropriate medium for scientific and technical discourse, because European languages rather than Arabic are associated with modernity. These subjective beliefs are grounded in social factors rather than linguistic ones. And no, I'm not a journalist. 96.46.198.58 (talk) 05:30, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Um, guys it's not about anyone's delicate linguistic sensibilities or colonial history that nobody living now remembers - it's about preventing accidents and saving lives. But do not merely take my word for it: here is a link to an actual website that gives a quick summary of the ICAO use of English with links to primary and secondary sources. If anybody cares. Textorus (talk) 14:47, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't see anything in that link that would explain why Norway would publish crash reports in their own language and Arab countries wouldn't. Also, there is nothing to prevent an English translation of the report being published alongside it. What the OP said was that not even the original is in Arabic. Clearly Norway recognizes that Norwegian is the appropriate medium in which to communicate effectively with Norwegians.

The link you included is about air traffic communications, not accident reports that have the time to be translated. Also, while I agree that for international aviation the English ability of pilots is crucial, it is also extremely important that air traffic control and domestic pilots be able to communicate effectively in their national language. (For example, Russian pilots must be able to speak Russian with Russian air traffic controllers.) Since it is not feasible to expect pilots, no matter how well trained they are, to speak English as well as they do their native language, it can be anticipated that if communications between speakers of the same local language were required to be in English only, this too would lead to accidents. Analogously, do we really expect that all airline executives, engineers, mechanics, etc., in some country will really be able to understand a document in English as easily as they understand their own language? Such an expectation is entirely unrealistic. Could accidents not result from making the report more difficult to understand for those people most directly concerned by it? 96.46.198.58 (talk) 05:25, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

"it can be anticipated that if communications between speakers of the same local language were required to be in English only, this too would lead to accidents" — Well, where English has been implemented as the universal aviation language, this has not proven to be the case. In fact, when Korean Air switched to English, they experienced an improvement from what was an abysmal safety record to one that is on par with the safest airlines in the world. I strongly urge you to check out the source I mentioned. While you're correct that no one has yet given an adequate explanation for why some countries would use English and others their native language, the issue of language versus safety is not as clear cut as you're making it out to be. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:58, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Nothing proves that the change for Korean Air was related to the switchover to English within Korea, rather than more of a focus on the quality of English for international aviation, or a broader safety focus generally, of which English was just one element of uncertain significance. Many examples have been given in the links and elsewhere of accidents that have happened because of non-native speakers' imperfect command of English. This includes pilots from such countries as the Netherlands, where you would expect a high standard of English. Of course, these mostly involved international flights. (Given that some low-cost airlines have started hiring crews composed of different nationalities, we can also expect to start having more accidents like Helios Airways Flight 522 resulting partly from lack of a common language among crew members.)

So imagine what would happen if the much larger number of domestic pilots, from all countries, had to speak English within their countries. In fact, the very same set of accidents leads to two different and complementary conclusions: 1) The standards of international pilots' English must be improved to avoid accidents in cases where using English is unavoidable; 2) It would be folly to impose English in cases where it is unnecessary (or only marginally useful, such as where foreign planes may be listening in but play a minor role in a situation). You can't really argue for point 1 without acknowledging that point 2 follows by the exact same logic, unless you believe that all the world's pilots can magically be turned into virtual native speakers. It is clear that there are situations where communication must go beyond a limited and formulaic vocabulary, useful though such a standardized vocabulary may be. In cases like these there is no conceivable way that two French people could communicate more effectively in English than in French.

Regardless, this is mostly unrelated to the OP's question about accident reports, whose domestic audience includes many people who are not international pilots and therefore may have little reason to be particularly proficient in English. 96.46.198.58 (talk) 10:00, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Whisper, we are unlikely to know for sure, but it is an interesting question, have you tried to contact those organisations who pulish these reports? I'd like to know if you get an answer. --Lgriot (talk) 08:17, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

May 4

Clusivity in the second person

Our article Clusivity explains that it is the presence of separate inclusive (I and you) and exclusive (I and others, but not you) forms of first-person pronouns. That's clear enough. It then goes on to talk about clusivity in the second person (you vs. you and them). I don't see the difference between this and number. Surely "you and them" is just the second person plural. Can anyone explain what I'm missing here? Rojomoke (talk) 12:22, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

If I'm addressing Jack and Jill, my use of "you" (or, let's say, a marked plural form like German ihr or AmE y'all) might mean Jack and Jill, or it might mean Jack and Jill and Bob, say. I guess these are the two different situations it's referring to. Victor Yus (talk) 12:37, 4 May 2013 (UTC).

Yes. There are potentially three distinct groups: the speaker(s), the person(s) addressed, and others, and it is possible for a language to distinguish all seven combinations of these, irrespective of number. Lojban does so: I don't know if any natural langauges do. --ColinFine (talk)

Free, extensively tagged corpora of contemporary English?

Are there free, extensively tagged corpora of contemporary English? What I'm hoping to find is a free corpus of mainstream English in which

• nouns and pronouns are tagged with such grammatical attributes as gender, number, person, and case; and
• verbs are tagged with their verb forms & valencies.

By "contemporary", I mean from recent decades, especially the last two.

Thanks. --108.2.210.141 (talk) 19:41, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Digitized? For what purpose? Given your location I suggest you try asking Labov's department. Native PA speakers shouldn't have a problem identifying such attributes for common English words--your purpose is obscure. μηδείς (talk) 07:00, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. I'm not a linguist, just someone with an intellectual curiosity about languages, particularly English. I want to know the relative prevalence of the variations in the way people use English. For example, how common is the singular "they" used? How common is "she" used as a pronoun for a person of unknown gender? How common are words like "police" and "government" treated as plural. The more extensively tagged a corpus is, the more kinds of statistics can be computed from it mechanically. For that purpose, it'd be ideal with the tags are easy to process by a computer program. There are a few other things that I'd like to try if I have a richly-tagged, computer-friendly corpus to play with. --108.2.210.141 (talk) 13:31, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Your choices will be limited because high-quality corpora of useful size are horribly expensive to create. If you want it big and free, then the WaCKy corpora are probably your best bet. http://wacky.sslmit.unibo.it/doku.php?id=corpora Note however that they have been annotated automatically. That means that the quality of the annotations is limited by the software used to create them. For many applications that won't matter at all, but you should be aware of it. If an older and much, much smaller corpus is acceptable, then you could check the manually annotated SUSANNE corpus. http://www.grsampson.net/Resources.html If you have never used a corpus before, be warned that they use their own proprietary formats and you will have to put in some work before you can access the information you are looking for. KarlLohmann (talk) 06:28, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

May 5

Flu

Flu here correctly redirects to Influenza. But around where I come from (Australia) it's pretty common for people to declare "I've got the flu" (sometimes "...a touch of the flu" or "...a dose of the flu") when all they have is the Common cold. There's a big difference, and being a pedantic old bastard, it annoys me. Does this happen elsewhere in the world? HiLo48 (talk) 03:39, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, Australians around here do that all the time. μηδείς (talk) 03:43, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you fellow pedant. (I could have said smart-a#%&, but that wouldn't be nice.) HiLo48 (talk) 03:56, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

In the U.S., people will sometimes use the phrase stomach flu to mean "gastroenteritis". --Jayron32 03:58, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

And even non-Australians will say flu when they mean nasty cold. I get colds twice a year and haven't had a flu since the mid 90's so far's I can remember. μηδείς (talk) 06:00, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Same thing here as well. But we also have the 40oz flu. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 06:17, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

People do tend to exaggerate and over-dramatise things. Miracles are a dime a dozen; everybody/thing is "awesome", "amazing", "mind-blowing", "stupendous", and usually with an "absolutely" tacked on to the front; every new movie that comes out has the critics clutching at superlatives; every Next Big Thing in music or movies is "taking the world by storm"; people are constantly being "gutted" and "devastated" by ordinary events; every car accident is a "horror crash". I've said this at least 40,000,000 times: "Don't exaggerate". -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 06:45, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

That would seem an exaggeration, Jack. μηδείς (talk) 06:56, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

That would seem to be the point, Medeis. My father says much the same thing, except it's only 1 million. Any more than that could be a gross exaggeration. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:18, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Wouldn't it have to be 144,000,000 to be a gross exaggeration? --Arwel Parry (talk) 00:44, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. If gross negligence is when you forget your wife's 144th birthday, then it stands to reason ... -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 01:11, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

In the UK we often say 'flu' instead of cold, but usually for a heavy cold. Basically we are tough and strong enough to not go the doctor's and find out what it actually is. We didn't build the biggest empire the world has ever seen by snivelling all the way to the doctor, you know. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 07:00, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

See m-w.com for verfication. It seems as if "flu" is indeed one of those words, like "million", that despite having a specific sense is nevertheless quite often used in an imprecise way (as in "I've got a million things to do"). Gabbe (talk) 08:11, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

I pity the poor chimney sweep who says he has 'a million flues to do' KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 08:28, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Here in the UK we have "man flu". Bird flu is the same except the sufferer has to get up to make tea, wash dishes, get the kids ready for school... --TammyMoet (talk) 16:59, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

One reason we exaggerate because if you phone in sick to work saying "I've got a cold" it sounds lame, whereas with "I've got the flu" your colleagues will understand that of course you can't come in. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:03, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

That's the old Protestant Work Ethic at play: Soldier on, even if if kills you, and even if it kills your colleagues. I exaggerate, of course; but OTOH I have no interest in catching anyone else's cold, so I'm more than happy for them to stay away from work. I think we're slowly getting around to the idea that having contagious people in the workplace is not a win for anyone. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 08:48, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

In North America, "flu" is also used as a kind of catch-all (sometimes it means "influenza", but usually means "common cold", and means tummy problems if it's "stomach flu" or "24-hour flu"). I have a bit of a pet theory that it's an extremely old habit dating back to the days when the causes of diseases were unknown and even different kinds of diseases were lumped together. What I mean is, "flu" in this context means, roughly, "something which makes you feel shitty for a few days and then you get better". Contrast with "plague" which means, roughly, "something which makes you feel worse and worse until you die horribly" or "pox", which means "something that makes bubbles to break out on your skin". In all those cases we've kind of retroactively given these things more specific meanings; plague now means the disease caused by Yersinia pestis, for example. 64.235.97.146 (talk) 15:05, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

In Liverpool in the 1970s and 1980s, we called any skin disease 'the lurgy' (with a hard 'g'), and the word (full phrase: (s)he's got the lurgy) was also used to refer to dirty people, or people who looked dirty, or just people we didn't like (or were told not to like, because other people didn't like them). Nowadays it is sometimes used when referring to one's own cold or flu symptoms. It just basically means 'stay away from me because you will catch something'. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 22:01, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Ah, the source of that one is well documented. On 9 November 1954, in the seventh programme of the fifth series of The Goon Show, the dreaded lurgy was believed to be going to sweep the British Isles. See here. HiLo48 (talk) 08:36, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Can you tell the difference? I mean the symptoms are just the same: headache, fever, running nose, sneezing etc. Unless I see a doctor, I never know which one I have. --Lgriot (talk) 08:24, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

"introduction to hebrew" "in the roman alphabet"

Can anyone suggest a good, comprehensive sketch or introduction of Hebrew that is fully romanized? I don't have time to take a course, which would be the only way I'd master the alphabet sufficiently. Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 16:01, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

"A Textbook of Israeli Hebrew with an Introduction to the Classical Language" by Haiim B. Rosén (2nd. corrected edition), ISBN 0-226-72603-7 is fully romanized in all the explanations and vocabulary items (not in all the exercises and sample texts). Be aware that it's kind of grammar-heavy, and not suitable for all learners... AnonMoos (talk) 17:06, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, that's exactly what I am looking for, I want a conceptual overview, not spoken or reading proficiency. A more classical work would be good to if there is a significant difference in grammar. μηδείς (talk) 02:02, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, I hope it meets your needs, but I'm looking through it more, and some of the smaller-text explanations (about niggling little details) and explanations about syntax (i.e. not involving issues of inflection or newly-introduced vocabulary) are also not romanized. Biblical Hebrew is not totally different from modern Israeli, but Biblical involves paying attention to minor vowel distinctions which are basically irrelevant for modern Israeli, and Biblical also has some very common constructions (such as the infamous "wayyiqtol") which don't occur in modern Israeli. I doubt that you'll find a completely romanized introduction to Biblical Hebrew, since the goal of such books is to set people on the path to reading the Biblical text as it has been handed down. Some Biblical Hebrew reference grammars use a large amount of romanization, but also assume familiarity with the Hebrew alphabet... AnonMoos (talk) 16:33, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the sort of sketch I am looking for would ideally be along the lines of the Summer Institute of Linguistics sketches of comparative Uto-Aztecan and its dialects. But you can see how ironic such a work would be in Hebrew. μηδείς (talk) 04:42, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

May 6

Pronunciation of the indefinite article 'a'

Is the pronunciation of the indefinite article 'a' always short (like in 'bar'), or are there cases where it is appropriate to use the diphthong (like in 'say')? If so, when would you use either? Gil_mo (talk) 04:55, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

There are two pronunciations of the article, but the most usual one is not the vowel of bar, but rather a schwa, /ə/, like the a in about. If you want to emphasize the article for whatever reason, you can use /eɪ/ (as in say), but in general, I recommend you use the schwa. A parallel situation exists with the two pronunciations of the, /ðə/ and /ðiː/ ("thee"). Lesgles (talk) 05:10, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, is there an official (i.e. academic) reference to these pronunciations? Gil_mo (talk) 05:15, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Any good dictionary, e.g. Oxford Dictionaries (see the note at the bottom). Or for more comprehensive pronunciation guidance, you can try the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary or the Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary. Lesgles (talk) 05:24, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

In most American accents, the difference between "/ə/" and "/eɪ/" for the indefinite article "a" and between "/ðə/" and "/ðiː/" for the definite article "the" is one of emphasis. If one is particularly emphasizing something, you use the stressed vowel "/eɪ/" or "/ðiː/". If one is speaking normally, without putting emphasis on the term, you use the reduced "schwa" forms "/ə/" and "/ðə/". Thus, if you say "I want a hot dog for lunch", you'd probably use "/ə/". If someone asks you "Do you want two hot dogs for lunch?" and you want to emphasize that no, you only want one, you might say "I only want a hot dog for lunch" and use the "/eɪ/" pronunciation. --Jayron32 15:04, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Traditionally, unstressed "the" was [ðə] before words beginning with consonants and [ðɪ] before words beginning with vowels. This pattern has been disrupted in many types of American English, because the old system of two clearly-distinguished unstressed vowels, [ə] vs. [ɪ] (which survives in many British dialects) has changed. In most types of American English, unstressed [ɪ] has become [iː] at the end of a word, before noun and verb inflectional endings, and before vowels. Where [ɪ] did not become [iː], it became something like [ɨ], not always clearly distinguished from [ə]... AnonMoos (talk) 16:12, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

In English, What is the word with the most synonyms?

192.114.23.209 (talk) 06:20, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

This is rather difficult to answer exactly, since you can debate which words are actually synonyms. For instance, 'bad' could be a synonym of 'good' ("He's a baaaad mutha") or an antonym ("She's a bad mother"). Still, I found a couple of possibilities: 'good', which is said to have either 308 synonyms or 'about 380', or 'drunk', which apparently has 380. That kinda says something, doesn't it? Eskimos have 50 words for snow, we have 380 words for waking up in a wheelie bin with our pants on our head. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 07:27, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

I would have thought it would be "sex". Clarityfiend (talk) 10:47, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Or a four-letter variant. ☯ Bonkers The Clown \(^_^)/ Nonsensical Babble ☯ 11:18, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

See http://www.alternativerecords.co.uk/recorddetails.asp?recid=403&page=cat.

—Wavelength (talk) 15:53, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Spanish translation jigger

this kind

How do you say jigger in Spanish? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.212.70.237 (talk) 07:52, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

The English word "jigger" can mean a number of different things, see [3] and [4]. Which sense of the word do you want translated? Gabbe (talk) 08:25, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

• The kind you use to measure a shot or a double shot in the making of cocktails. All I can think of saying is medidor or ésa cosa para medir los cóctels y chupitos but those are vague and verbose respectively.108.212.70.237 (talk) 20:52, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

It's a copa de medida, and it contains a trago. See shot glass. μηδείς (talk) 04:36, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Chinese transliteration

I was wondering if someone familiar with Chinese script could provide me a transliteration of the characters on this plaque. It's the name of the gravesite which I'd like to add on the Wikipedia article I've created on it: Chinese cemetery, Gilgit. Mar4d (talk) 09:18, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

It's a bit hard to read. I see "work", "grandfather", and "country". The rest are a bit too muffled to see. If only it were clearer and less slanted. ☯ Bonkers The Clown \(^_^)/ Nonsensical Babble ☯ 11:20, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

The characters are pretty impossible to see at that angle and at that resolution. (Why would "grandfather" be on the foundation stone of a cemetary for Chinese workers who died in the line of duty?) OP, do you just want the name of the cemetary? In the Chinese press it is referred to as the "吉尔吉特中国烈士陵园", "Gilgit Chinese martyrs' cemetary". A plaque at the cemetary itself calls it the "Pakistan Chinese martyrs' cemetary" "巴基斯坦中国烈士陵园". Googling these terms will bring up more pictures. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 17:53, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, that's what I was looking for. The Chinese translation above seems correct as I remember (while looking up sources) a source that was calling it the 'Chinese martyrs cemetery.' Thanks again! Much appreciated. Cheers, Mar4d (talk) 09:35, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Nick needs Polishing

I've tidied up Nicholas the Small as best I could. However, the cash amount in the Polish article (1000 grzywien srebra okręgu Sobótki) isn't cooperating with translation. Help. Clarityfiend (talk) 10:45, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

He sold the Sobótka district (okręg) to Bolko II the Small for 1000 grzywnas of silver (I don't think there's any mention of silver mines). According to our article on that unit of measurement, that would be about 200 kg or 430 lb of silver. Interestingly, Ukraine now uses the hryvnia as currency, though at current prices one of those could only buy you 0.16 g of silver (if I calculated that right). I guess old Nick did well to sell when he did. Lesgles (talk) 17:54, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:40, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Cream of Leek Soup

In the name "cream of leek soup", what is the word 'of' doing there? There's no cream from a leek involved? What's going on? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.144.202.9 (talk) 16:35, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

There's a vaguely enlightening snippet at Creaming_(food)#In_cooking. The name implies that it is a leek soup made into a culinary cream, rather than a soup made from the (nonexistent) cream extracted from leeks. The same naming convention is applied to cream of tomato, cream of chicken and cream of mushroom soup. Sure, it's a little odd, but that's language for you. - Karenjc 17:07, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

I see it now; thanks a lot! xx 78.144.202.9 (talk) 18:41, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

It is an odd construction, though. I feel better about it if I parse it as cream of (leek soup) rather than (cream of leek) soup, if that makes sense to you. Whatever you do, avoid the "leak of cream" soup, though. :-P 64.235.97.146 (talk) 19:48, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Pity the chicken is not a mammal. They have breasts but no boobies. Otherwise, we could have Cream of Chicken Soup made with cream from chicken milk. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 22:34, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Just hope it's not a Welshman cooking for you.... KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 00:46, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Cream of mushroom, cream of tomato, cream of broccoli, etc. Not at all unusual terminology for various soups. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:28, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Would not the correct grammar be to hyphenate the latter words to produce 'leek-soup'? I was taught such in 'Communication in the the Sciences'. Plasmic Physics (talk) 02:46, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

That would be "the-the".  :) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 05:46, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

"Creamed [whatever] soup" would make better sense, as with creamed corn. But this is not science, it's English - where we drive on the parkway, and park on the driveway; and where "cleave" means both to separate and to bring together. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:05, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

'Communication in the Sciences' is no different to Communication (English), besides that it specialises in the scientific domain. It does not use distinct grammar. Which means that, if it is correct according to CS to hyphenate as I propose, then it is correct according to general english grammar. Example, if Texas and the USA both use the same alphabet, and Texas asserts that 'b' follows 'a', then the USA must logically also assert that 'b' follows 'a'. Plasmic Physics (talk) 03:31, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Product manufacturers are not bound by anyone's idea of what is "correct" English usage. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:53, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm speaking in a general sense, with no regard to manufacturers. Plasmic Physics (talk) 04:31, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Regardless of its name, one particular course you may have undertaken somewhere at some time cannot purport to represent the immutable rules of English for any particular target group even in one country, let alone world wide. Good luck with convincing anyone to write "chicken-soup". -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 05:46, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Hyphenation depends strongly on the context, egro, it may be 'chicken soup' on one occassion, and 'chicken-soup' on another.

2.9 The Hyphen

This small punctuation mark can be very useful to tie together two words and avoid confusion.

• A Dutch-cheese importer is anyone who imports Dutch cheese; a Dutch cheese-importer is a Dutch person who imports any sort of cheese.
• A small-arms retailer will sell you a handgun; a small arms-retailer is a short person who sells a wide range of guns. I can give the reference if requested. Plasmic Physics (talk) 05:58, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for that, but I don't see how it's relevant to Cream of Chicken Soup. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 06:23, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Back to my original post: this would be an example of when hyphenation is appropriate. Plasmic Physics (talk) 06:44, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Or not. One's own language has to be squeaky clean before one can hope to pontificate about how others should use it and have any credibility. Enough said. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 07:39, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

In reponse, I prompt you to read Samuel Johnson's quote on hypocrisy (a practice which I avoid like the plague), found in the lede. Plasmic Physics (talk) 07:49, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Be that as it may. The fact remains that saying how everybody should operate is futile if virtually nobody does. That's why descriptive grammars exist alongside prescriptive ones. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 08:16, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I would think "cream-of-[whatever] soup" would make more sense, if hyphenation even does make sense for this. There's no cream coming from the [whatever], but rather the creamy stuff is added to the [whatever]. It's just a different way of saying "creamy or creamed" [whatever] soup. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Baseball Bugs (talk • contribs) 07:40, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I googled [crème de champignons], which is French for "cream of mushroom(s)" and found many references. Maybe this idiom makes a bit more grammatical sense in French and was imported into English as a direct translation. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:14, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I have to agree the construction is a calque on the French. μηδείς (talk) 04:30, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Oughta be cream soup of leek. Gzuckier (talk) 06:13, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Correcting names of recipes is silly. Chicken Kiev can't be called that unless it's actually from Kiev? Chicken Maryland? Quiche Florentine? Bombe Alaska? C'mon. Shut up and eat. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 06:28, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

More to the point, this is the "Reference desk" not the "I have better ideas about how English should work and so I'm going to try to change the entire language to my own ideas desk". --Jayron32 06:33, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

(then of course there's the popular chinese dish - cream of sum yum gi - Adambrowne666 (talk) 08:24, 7 May 2013 (UTC))

So, what you need now is an expert on history of cookery in England. Which is me, enough for RefDesk, anyway. It's ((cream of leek) soup). Cream of leek can stand alone. English cookery is very strong on creams; my 1615 cookery book has pages of them. This one is a cream, eaten (drunk?) hot as a soup. I don't think calques come into it because the grammar is the same in both languages. French and English cookery are a continuum if you go back to the early modern period. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:20, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

And it's not just soup. Cream of Wheat, Cream of Rice, and the apparently unexplainable cream of tartar. - Nunh-huh 23:22, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

May 7

translation to Venetian please

Hi - I have an awkward name for a university I'd like to have Venetianised please - it's 'University of the Glass Bridge of the Ca'Foscari' - thanks for any attempts. Adambrowne666 (talk) 08:20, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm confused. Do you just want it in the Italian language (which is what they speak in Venice, Italy) ? Or are you looking for a specific modern or archaic Venetian accent ? StuRat (talk) 08:23, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I always assumed they had their own dialect - I might well be wrong - in which case, yes, Italian would be great, thank you. Adambrowne666 (talk) 08:33, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, Venetian is quite different from standard Italian. Linguistically it's not even a dialect of Italian. "Ca' Foscari" is, itself, Venetian. You might be waiting a while if you need a native speaker of Venetian though... In the absence of that, the best I could suggest is to start with the Italian, then use a Venetiain dictionary (Google turned up this but I can't figure out how it works) to substitute the words? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 08:56, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

There is a Venetian language article on vec:Università_Ca'_Foscari...so now all you need to figure out is "glass bridge". Adam Bishop (talk) 10:44, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Good thinking Adam! Using a similar method, I looked up vec:Ponte de Rialto, which suggests that bridge is "Ponte", and compared vec:Muran with it:Murano, which suggests that glass is "véro". Now all you need is to figure out the cases for "de/del" in Venetian to string these words together. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 17:44, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Building on that, I think it's probably "Università del Ponte de Véro de ła Ca' Foscari". That was clever to think of using Murano. Lesgles (talk) 18:31, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I love you guys (nongenderspecific)!!!Adambrowne666 (talk) 22:51, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Resolved

Does anybodies really talks this ways?

Occasionally I meet a fictional character who, to signal his uneducated status, attaches –s to too many words. My primary example is the plumber in Dead Winter; I think I've heard Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel do it, as well as someone or other in Futurama.

But in real life I've only heard it from a couple of Vietnamese immigrants, who were hazy about verb agreement.

So is this real? —Tamfang (talk) 09:22, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

There's the word "anyways", which seems to be an American counterpart of what I know as "anyway". The first time I heard the -s version was from an American-born Australian whose father is a university professor and whose mother is Vietnamese. He was from Ohio, if that matters. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 09:30, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Newfoundland English typically uses only one verb conjugation, the one with the s (normally the third-person singular in "standard" English) - "I wants", "you wants", etc. (This probably comes from Irish English or some other England English variety.) Adam Bishop (talk) 10:41, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

In South Africa, people whose home language is not English often do this - especially with nouns that are already plurals. e.g. I sheared my sheeps. I took my cattles to the kraal. I caught 3 fishes. 196.214.78.114 (talk) 14:16, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Sheep and fish are endling-less plurals, for different reasons I believe (I think the one is original, the other is by analogy). Tamfang didn't specify which kinds of words, though; if they did, that might help. Drmies (talk) 14:18, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I have heard people with loose-fitting dentures sound like they are adding an "s" to words. --TammyMoet (talk) 17:51, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm reminded of the punch line from an early Bill Cosby bit, parodying a hair tonic ad, which I think went like this: "Now let's compare combs... yours is blue, mines is orange... now let's go get us some womens!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:22, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

That would be perfectly accepted in Harlem, but there are two things going on. The extra ess on mines is in analogy to yours, not a pluralization. And the extra ess on womens is a hypercorrection, adding an ess where unnecessary to approximate a more standard form. μηδείς (talk) 12:47, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Semi-related, one of the relatives of one of the rescued women in Cleveland yesterday referred to the four as "womans" or "womens", I'm not quite sure which. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:23, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

No idea if it's real, but another fictional or semifictional character who does it (in this case as a sign of being a nonnative speaker of English) is Spiro in My Family and Other Animals. Angr (talk) 21:27, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

some nordics folks froms swedens or norways speaks english this ways. Gzuckier (talk) 05:33, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Elision in Latin

Hello,

is a diphthong or are other double vowels in Latin elided?

As example:

Eae accinunt --> Ea'accinunt ?

Ii accinunt --> I'accinunt ?

Greetings HeliosX (talk) 13:05, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

First, eae → ea would not change the syllable count. Elisions often have to be reconstructed as having occurred in poetry, in order to make the text scan according to the poetic metre used, but such elisions are rarely written when they occur across words (unlike the situation in ancient Greek). AnonMoos (talk) 15:19, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

The diphthongs in Latin are never broken up, so if there is elision, the a goes as well: "e-ac-ci-nunt". In your second example, ii is not a true diphthong, so the first i is not affected, but the second i can be elided just like any other vowel: "i-ac-ci-nunt". As AnonMoos said though, this is not indicated in the writing. Lesgles (talk) 18:10, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

So to summarise, a dipthong is treated as a single long vowel (I think) but a double vowel is just two vowels. IBE (talk) 02:32, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Looking for a word that has this meaning...

Basically a rhetorical or moral statement that isn't actually true. For example,

"Fighting never solves anything"

The statement isn't true, fighting has solved many disputes and conflicts in history, but the statement is used for rhetorical/moral purposes. Is there a word that describes this kind of statement? ScienceApe (talk) 15:48, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Aphorism? No aphorism, AFAIK, is strictly true 100% of the time. --Jayron32 16:06, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

The closest thing I can find is thought-terminating cliché. Incidentally my own favorite example is, whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Looie496 (talk) 17:42, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Platitude (especially in combinations like "reassuring platitude") is a decidedly uncomplimentary term (in comparison with "aphorism", "maxim", etc). I've also seen such phrases described as "literary pablum". Tevildo (talk) 18:02, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

That is a most disconcerting cliché, if not somewhat dangerous if use carelessly. There exist plenty of counterexamples - try mercury poisoning, cocaine use, diabetes, ... Need I say more? Plasmic Physics (talk) 23:40, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

• Ayn Rand was fond of the word bromide to describe a false or cliched platitude. It's a little dated, and I have only heard it used once or twice outside her non-fiction. μηδείς (talk) 20:20, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

There's a great 1946 "music video" of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelley dancing to "The Babbit and the Bromide" (sequence from Ziegfeld Follies (film))... AnonMoos (talk) 21:06, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, in a very convoluted way, killer phrase comes to my mind, as well as the concept described in Spiral of silence...in German we would probably use "Totschlagargument", killer argument. Lectonar (talk) 21:01, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Pablum, pablum, intellectual pap. Bus stop (talk) 23:51, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Bromide is definitely dated, but I think it is more common than Medeis suggests. I get the feeling there isn't an exact term, but the words given should offer you plenty of alternatives for the basic gist. My own favourite is "hard work never killed anyone." What happened to slaves then? Or the people who built the Panama canal? IBE (talk) 02:38, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

As Ronald Reagan (allegedly) said: "They say hard work never killed anyone, but I figure, why take the risk?" AndrewWTaylor (talk) 08:28, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Seems to me the best answer to the claim that "Hard work has never killed anyone" is "Arbeit macht frei" 64.201.173.145 (talk) 12:08, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

I spend my life vapidly vacillating between "Many hands make light work" and "Too many cooks spoil the broth". -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 12:18, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

My personal bugbear is "The medium is the message." It's so obviously untrue, but I suppose "The medium is often as important as the message and very occasionally more important than it" isn't so snappy. Tevildo (talk) 19:36, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

• Arbeit macht frei was simply a lie, not an aphorism. μηδείς (talk) 12:44, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Unless you take "free" to mean "dead". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:21, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
    • How is that? In normal society, it probably is somewhat true, sounds like something Rousseau might approve of.
    • It wouldn't make sense to say "work makes you dead". Even in the death camps, it wasn't work that killed people, it was homicidal Nazis that killed them. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 13:37, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Editors/Censors

I have trouble reading nonfiction books now because editors hijack the text to make it what they want it to be. For example:

• Only "coauthor," without a hyphen, is valid.
• Only "Hughes's," with an extra S, is valid.

I've been trying to convince my parents that this is editors' doing and not authors', but it's been like trying to sway a rock to get my point. Please prove them wrong. (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:30, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

What? How could you possibly know whether an author or editor did it? Are you certain that no author would ever under any circumstances write that way? Looie496 (talk) 17:38, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

In order to prove that, it would have to be true. It isn't, so we can't. The English language did not drop down on a cloud out of Heaven, endowed with a unique standard of correctness. It's a matter of consensus, and on these topics there is no full consensus. Even highly-respected standards are no more than the opinions of highly respected groups or individuals, not some form of absolute truth. You are wrong, and unless our parents are arguing that only the opposite of your position is correct, they are probably in the right. AlexTiefling (talk) 17:50, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

If the OP "has trouble reading" text just because of its punctuation variances, he might have a larger problem than just parental issues. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:17, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

See Style guide. Proofreaders and editors do alter manuscripts, not only to fix undisputed errors of spelling, grammar and punctuation (authors do make them!) but also sometimes to make the text conform to a publisher's house style. Some authors accept this process (scientific journals, for example, generally insist on compliance as a condition of publication). Others object, and you will find plenty of anecdotes about authors who have rejected or negotiated on this kind of editorial input, with varying degrees of success. Your difficulty is that your preferred versions of coauthor and Hughes's are neither definitive nor authoritative. You have no idea whether the author's original preference coincided with your own or whether an editorial change has been made; any printed authority you can produce to support your preferred version can almost certainly be contradicted by a different, equally authoritative source; and in a decade or two usage may have changed again anyway. This is why I can bid you goodbye instead of good-bye (I draw the line at wishing you alot of luck, although in fifty years or so some authority will probably have already declared it an acceptable variant. Thus it goes.) - Karenjc 12:18, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Karenjc, you are my heroine. Your barnstar is in the mail. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:49, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

May 8

Translation from German to English

I would be grateful if a user could please translate the following lines, which I require for my research. Thank you. “Lebenslauf: Ich bin am 21. III. 1909 als Sohn des …. jüdischer Konfession, in Breslau geboren. Von 1915-1918 besuchte ich die katholische Realschule, dann trat ich in die Sexta des König Wilhelmgymnasiums ein, wo ich Ostern 1927 die Reifeprüfung ablegte. Ich studierte Englisch, Geschichte und Erdkunde, und zwar 1927/28 in Breslau, 1928/29 in Köln, 1929/30 hörte ich Vorlesungen am University College in London. Seit SS. 1930 studierte ich wieder in Breslau. - Meine Lehrer waren die Professoren: … Mein besonderer Dank gilt den Herren Professoren …., durch deren Arbeiten und Volesungen vorliegende Dissertation angeregt und gefördert worden ist.” Simonschaim (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:02, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Glad to point you in the right direction Simonchaim, 2 quick tips, 1st always end your posts with ~~~~ that way your username and talkpage link immediately appears. 2nd depending on how many German speakers check this Refdesk you may get a very quick answer, if not you can always try the German Wikipedia here, übersetzen is what I remember as "Translate?" in German. Best of Luck! ^{Market St.⧏} _{⧐ Diamond Way} 13:40, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

"Curriculum vitae: I'm 21 III. 1909 as the son of the .... Jewish denomination, born in Wrocław." I attended Catholic school from 1915-1918, then I entered in the Sexta of the King Wilhelm-Gymnasium, where I graduated in the Easter of 1927. I studied English, history and 6geography, and 1927/28 in Wrocław, 1928/29 in Cologne, 1929/30 I attended lectures at University College in London. Since summer, in 1930, I studied again in Wroclaw. -My teachers were the professors:... My Special thanks to men's professors..., this thesis has been stimulated and encouraged by their work and [Volesungen?]." (Microsoft Word) Plasmic Physics (talk) 13:41, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Cleaning up the above, with extra help from Google Translate: "Curriculum vitae: Born 21st March 1909 in Wrocław as the son of ... of the Jewish faith. Attended Catholic secondary school from 1915-18, then entered the Sixth form at King Wilhelm Gymnasium, from where I graduated at Easter 1927. I studied English, history and geography. I attended lectures during 1927/28 in Wrocław, 1928/29 in Cologne, and 1929/30 at University College London. In 1930 I studied again in Wrocław. My teachers were the professors .... My special thanks to Mr Professor ..., by whose work and lectures this thesis has been encouraged and stimulated." (I'm assuming Volesungen to be a typo for Vorlesungen - lectures.) - Cucumber Mike (talk) 14:00, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Karenjc's interpretation of the passage beginning 'Ich studierte Englisch...' is better than mine (see below), although in English I would word it "I studied English, History, and Geography in 1927/28 in Breslau and 1928/29 in Cologne, and in 1929/30 I attended lectures at University College London." - Cucumber Mike (talk) 14:04, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

My German is limited, but I would translate it thus: Curriculum vitae: I was born in Breslau, into the Jewish faith, on 21 March 1909. From 1915-18 I attended Catholic secondary school, then entered the sixth form of König Wilhelmgymnasium (King Wilhelm's Secondary School), where I passed my Reifeprüfung (matriculation certificate/A-levels) at Easter 1927. I studied English, History and Geography, actually in 1927/28 in Breslau, 1928/29 in Cologne and in 1929/30 I attended lectures at University College London. After [SS.] 1930 I studied once again in Breslau. My teachers were Professors: (names missing) ... my particular thanks go to Professors (names missing) by whose work and lectures this thesis has been stimulated and encouraged.

Not sure about the SS. abbreviation - it could perhaps mean "the beginning of" or "summer" as Plasmic Physics translated it above - and the grammar in the third and fourth sentences feels odd; could they be one sentence in the original, or is something missing? Have assumed that "Volesungen" in the final sentence is actually "Vorlesungen". - Karenjc 13:58, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

"SS" is most likely "Sommersemester" (summer term). German university lecture times are roughly late October-February ("Wintersemester") and late April-Juli ("Sommersemester"). There is no single summer break, but two shorter ones in late summer/early spring. The translation by Karenjc looks mostly fine to me. I think the first sentence should be "I was born in Breslau on 21 March 1909 as the son of (...) of Jewish faith, ...", where the name of the parents is elided in the original. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:14, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Don't use "A Levels", as that would be anachronistic (they weren't introduced in England until the 1950s) as well as too UK oriented. Matriculation certificate would make sense in to UK readers. The US equivalent is graduating from high school. I might be tempted to leave Realschule untranslated as some people are familiar with it as a type of school in German-speaking countries, or might wish to look it up to find the exact type of school. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:57, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

One problem is that in 1920, the split "Realschule" vs. "Gymnasium" was different. Nowadays, there is a clear hierarchy (Gymnasium education subsumes Realschule, which subsumes Hauptschule). Back in the 20s/30s, "Gymnasium" was oriented more towards languages and humanities, while "Realschule" was oriented towards trade and, in particular, engineering (hence things useful in the "real" world ;-). Modern Realschulen were created after 1945 from previous "Mittelschulen" ("middle schools"). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:14, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, whether you bother to distinguish the two types of school depends on the purpose of the translation and what knowledge and interests you can assume on the part of the readers. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:21, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

While sexta means "sixth (form)" note that the traditional latin form designations were counted backwards and for historical reasons half of the forms were two years long. All in all that means that the sexta was the first year of secondary school and the fifth of 13 years total. KarlLohmann (talk) 23:01, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Sexta and sixth form are false friends. Nevertheless he spent only 12 years (Easter 1915 thru Easter 1927) in school. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 15:27, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Latin case order anomaly

When I studied Latin in school, the order of grammatical cases was:

• Nominative, Vocative, Accusative, Genitive, Dative, Ablative
• Locative was mentioned, but was sort of ignored when declining "mensa" etc.

That’s also the order we use in our Wikipedia articles: Latin#Nouns, Latin declension#Meanings and functions of the various cases, etc. I know it has a long history, since my mother confirmed that was the same order she was taught at school.

However, Wiktionary seems to use a different order. See "mensa" (under Latin: Inflection):

• Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Ablative, Vocative.

Now, I appreciate these things are entirely arbitrary, but it'd be helpful if everyone uses the same order, as we do with the alphabet etc.

Does the Wiktionary Latin case order have a wide currency? Why would different case orders exist for the same language? I know that there are many other cases that Latin doesn't use, and maybe there's some "Grand International Case Order Framework Structure Paradigm" that these 6 have to be made to fit into. Or something.

I'd appreciate some lumen or lux being shed about this. Thanks. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 22:40, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

The Wiktionary order is what I learned when I was taking Latin in a U.S. high school in the 1960s. Gildersleeve and Lodge's Latin Grammar, on the other hand, uses still a third order: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Vocative, Ablative. Deor (talk) 22:49, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

See Instruction in Latin#Order of declension in various curricula. It's essentially a Commonweath/US difference. Lesgles (talk) 22:51, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

That is the perfect answer. Thanks, Lesgles. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 23:06, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Resolved

• When I studied German and Greek they used the NAGD order. Latin uses NG...first because one can deduce all the other forms if one knows just the Nominative and Genitive forms. See also, principal parts. μηδείς (talk) 23:27, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

I can't remember what we did in German, but in Greek we did NG...first, for a similar reason: genitive preserves the stem. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 23:49, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

When I learned German it was also NAGD. I learned Latin from Wheelock's Latin, which is Nominative-genitive-dative etc, and that's still how I remember the endings, by inventing a word in that order ("isieme" for the third declension for example). Adam Bishop (talk) 01:21, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Funny, except for Zulu, Latin is the most recent language I have attempted to study, and it never occurred to me to invent a form like the brilliant "isieme". For some reason the third eclension seeems so perfect as to be obvious--but it's not. What a great idea, Adam. μηδείς (talk) 04:46, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

When I learnt German it was NAGD, and I was always annoyed by (older?) texts which put A at the end - it seemed natural to me that A should come after N, since those two cases don't differ that much. (For example, in the first adjective endings table, you get a nice compact region of -e amongst the -en.) Victor Yus (talk) 07:39, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

When I learned German (in Austria), it was NGDA, and I think that's pretty standard for German. They are even numbered from 1. Fall to 4. Fall in the same way. 109.99.71.97 (talk) 17:23, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

May 9

definition of eCPD

can you provide a definition of the English term eCPD used by various membership bodies all over the world41.0.147.162 (talk) 11:19, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

I assume "CPD" refers to continuing professional development (that is, a requirement to keep oneself updated by attending courses and other forms of professional training), and the e- prefix probably means that the CPD is delivered online. — SMUconlaw (talk) 11:23, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Checking grammar

For a school project I've got to make a website concerning the history of the 16th century. Since English isn't my mother tongue I was wondering whether someone could check my grammar and vocabulary. Or is there maybe an external site where I could post this question. It concerns (i'm not up to date with the english wiki regulations so please remove the link if not confirm your policies) this site Yours sincerely --Larsnl (talk) 16:04, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

I think most users on this page would be happy to check individual points. I'd be quite happy to look the whole thing over myself if I get the time; how long do we have before the work is due? Your English appears quite clear so far. If you don't mind my asking, what is your mother tongue? Knowing this may help us address any unusual quirks of grammar or vocabulary. Thanks! AlexTiefling (talk) 16:07, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Alex, thanks for your quick reply the hand-in date is just in a few weeks time. And the project isn't totally finished yet (most pages, expect for two are finished), might it be useful to post a message on your talkpage when i'm finished? My mother tongue is Dutch. Thx so far --Larsnl (talk) 16:14, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

(after ec) OK, some initial observations, starting with the home page:

"Welcome to this website", rather than "Welcome on this website", would be clearer English. Additionally, you should either start a new sentence right after that, or replace "on this site you can..." with "where you can...". ("on which you can..." would be regarded by some as more technically correct, but "where" is clearer in practice.)

A few words seem to have gone untranslated from Dutch (which is clearly your mother tongue). Firstly, "De Rooy". If this is a proper name, leave it like that, but provide an explanation (a gloss) for users who may not know what it means. Otherwise, translate it. Further down you have "tijdvakken".

"All the key aspects that are appointed by the Rooy to be characterizing for this site are taken into account." - This is very unclear. Did you use machine translation, such as Google Translate, to produce it? I can't even begin to produce a meaningful translation. It may be that this says something about your course requirements. I might suggest putting course-specific details on an 'about' page, rather than on the main page.

"The main focus of this site is at the Netherlands." - Either use 'on' instead of 'at', or use no preposition here.

"human- and world-view" - "World-view" is a known English compound, like the German Weltanschauung, but "human-view" isn't.

"sciene" - should be "science"

"Karel V" is these days usually called Charles V in English.

What does "De Beeldenstorm" mean? There may be a good English analogue.

Willem van Oranje is usually called William the Silent in English. ("William of Orange" to the English usually means William III, Stadholder and King of England and Scotland, unless the context is the Battle of Waterloo, at which a different Prince of Orange put in an appearance.)

On a note of web design, you'd do better to put your navigation widget at the top, not the bottom, and to provide clearer links to all the pages, not just the one that you want the users to read 'next'.

I am very interested in the subject matter of your website, so I'll be sure to keep checking back and trying to help where I can. And yes, if you don't hear from me for a bit, please do put a reminder on my talk page. Thanks! AlexTiefling (talk) 16:19, 9 May 2013 (UTC)