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May 4

What does 'You're done!' mean?

Hi, What does You're done! really mean? Does it mean You've done something perfectly?--Joseph 16:01, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

In what context? AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:05, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

• Either you've completed your task, you're fired, the medical procedure you were undergoing is finished, you've been roasted to 140F internally, and are ready to be eaten, or I will soon kill you. μηδείς (talk) 17:56, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Or maybe "You'll never _____ in this town again!" Started as a Hollywood thing, where the blank was "work", but it's been played on many times since. Basically means you've been blacklisted. InedibleHulk (talk) 18:26, May 4, 2014 (UTC)

Or maybe "Your haircut/dental work is finished. Please pay me handsomely and go away". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:53, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

If you hear someone saying it to a horse, they probably mean "You're dun!" If it's directed at someone trying to pass themselves off as Kix Brooks or Timothy Well instead, that's Dunn. If you hear a fisherman talking to his bait, he's possibly using a mayfly subimago (and probably drugs). InedibleHulk (talk) 20:58, May 4, 2014 (UTC)

What if I used it on a tutorial post? I mean in a tutorial post in a website or blog.. eg: Click on OK. Aha! You're done! If I use it like this, does it mean, you've completed it.--Joseph 17:29, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes. It would be taken to mean that the task is completed and you can continue on to other things. Dismas|^(talk) 18:17, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

On Wikipedia, we sometimes say Done. Green is sort of the standard colour of success. Traffic lights, money, vegetation, power meters, additions in edit histories; if you see green, "You're done!" is a good thing. If you see red with it, you're probably done having fun (at least for a while). InedibleHulk (talk) 03:05, May 6, 2014 (UTC)

Resolved

• I have an acquaintance, Don Dunn. On the weekends he walks across the local four-lane highway to breakfast with friends at McDonalds. I almost hit him one day, which allowed me to inform those who know him that I had almost run Don Dunn down. μηδείς (talk) 03:53, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

• As noted in EO,[1] "done" is a synonym for "finished", which can be either good or bad depending on the situation. And EO also notes the southernism, which would revise Medeis' comment to "I almost done run Don Dunn down." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:00, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

E.g. "A man is not complete without a wife. Once he's married, he's finished" (Zsa Zsa Gabor). -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 08:35, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

In "Mom and Pop Art", Marge Simpson asks Bart if Homer is finished setting up the new barbecue. After watching his dad make a last-ditch charge at the pile of parts with a patio umbrella and collapse in defeat, he concludes, "Yeah, he's done." InedibleHulk (talk) 07:45, May 8, 2014 (UTC)

’grammer grammar

(I almost put this on the Computing Desk.)

Presumably some computer programmers prefer to write in languages that have not lost most of their verb endings. When a subroutine's name is a verb, is it imperative, infinitive, stem or something else? Are there customs, style wars, or indifference? —Tamfang (talk) 20:34, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

I think brevity wins over anything else just about every time. So you might have "CircleDraw" instead of "CircleDrawing", "CircleDrawer", "CircleConstruction", etc. (If you need to type anything repeatedly, it's important that it be short, and you are also less likely to make an error.) I'd also tend to put the verb first, so it would be "DrawCircle" instead of "CircleDraw". There might also be some abbreviation, so more like "DrwCirc", although I tend to avoid that, because then you have to remember exactly how you abbreviated it. StuRat (talk) 21:19, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

I think Tamfang's asking about programming in other languages than English. Would a French programmer call a function "dessin", "dessiner", "dessinez" or something else? I would guess "dessiner", but that is only a guess. --ColinFine (talk) 21:38, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure about programming languages, but for menu options, like "save" and "load," French always uses the infinitive.

As you're probably aware, English-based programming languages are pretty standard throughout the world, regardless of the programmer's native language, so Non-English-based programming languages are usually the exception rather than the norm. In Dutch, even though infinitives are normally used for menu items, the imperative is the only form I've seen used in programming languages (forms like "maak", "herhaal", "schrijf"). French seems to be the same, see e.g. in documentation for Linotte; it uses forms like "Attache", "Retourne", "Attends". (Although both in French and in Dutch the first person singular present (as in 'I know') is identical in form to the imperative singular, the former is never used without a pronoun, so the forms used in programming must be imperatives) - Lindert (talk) 18:26, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Linotte is aprogramming language for children, that why the imperative singular is used. Usually verbs at infinitive are used for methods and procedures, names are used for classes, etc. (see examples in[2]) — AldoSyrt (talk) 14:12, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

But the question seems not to be about the language per se, but about the programmer's choice of identifier names (especially functions/methods/procedures). --Trovatore (talk) 22:50, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

In German infinitive and imperative differ. For a subroutine's name you can use both, whereas the infinitive is more neutral and formal, the imperative is informal. More often subroutines' names in German are constructed as infinitive clauses of the type (noun + infinitive of verb1), (noun + infinitive of verb2) and so on. In this case the noun will dominate the sorting of the subroutines' names. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 22:47, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

May 5

What is the difference between ascribe and prescribe?

^Topic ScienceApe (talk) 05:42, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Both words are derived from a Latin word meaning to write, but their meanings have nothing in common.

• To ascribe is to "refer to a supposed cause, source, or author". For example, "he ascribed her frequent spelling errors to dyslexia."
• To prescribe something is to "to officially tell someone to use [it] as a remedy or treatment", or to "make [it] an official rule". For example, "the doctor prescribed penicillin for the infection" or "the US Postal Service prescribes a set of two-letter abbreviations for the states".

--50.100.193.30 (talk) 06:43, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Ascribing writes the past from the present. Prescribing writes tomorrow today. The latin prefix is ad (at, near), but I suppose that looked sounded stupid in English, so they dropped the D. Pre- has become more English than Latin. It means what it obviously does. InedibleHulk (talk) 07:19, May 5, 2014 (UTC)

The prefix didn't look anything. With extremely few exceptions, language change happens in real language, ie. what people speak, not in the written language. --ColinFine (talk) 07:56, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, and in this case the 'change' occurred in Latin "ascribere", before it even passed into the English language. - Lindert (talk) 08:29, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Makes sense. Rescribed. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:54, May 5, 2014 (UTC)

New incorrect answers are hereby proscribed, and surviving remnants must be exscribed forthwith. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:38, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Mine eye doth not descry the remnants thou describe. If ye be among us who would inscribe new truth, arise ye now, et cetera. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:24, May 6, 2014 (UTC)

[D]escribest, unless you're using the subjunctive, which I doubt is called for here. --Trovatore (talk) 10:42, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I was pontificating generally. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 05:08, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Omne bonum. And to Trovatore, I knew, but I was trying to rhyme. Demi bonum. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:55, May 7, 2014 (UTC)

Oddly enough, we have an Omne Bonum article, containing the word scripsit. Our article for that is a rudimentary word processor. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:58, May 7, 2014 (UTC)

Parerga and Paralipomena

Which one of these two sources, Wikipedia Or Britannica, are more reliable on the meaning of that title? Any new suggestions, maybe? Thanks. Omidinist (talk) 07:13, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Your link for Britannica is faulty. I'm guessing you mean [3] where it's called "Minor Works". "Appendices & Omissions" is more literal (although "appendix" is a bit of a stretch for "parergon"), which is not to say it's better. "Incidental works and leftover matters" or "Incidental and leftover works" would be very literal translations. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 08:19, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Many thanks, and sorry for that faulty link. Someone could have mentioned that to me days ago. Omidinist (talk) 19:06, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Is it fair to say that English evolved from Latin?

^Topic ScienceApe (talk) 07:16, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

As a Wize Woman once said in a Yahoo! Answer, "I hope it helps." Times sure have changed. InedibleHulk (talk) 07:25, May 5, 2014 (UTC)

That Yahoo answer is extremely oversimplified, as well as erroneous in parts, but the main point—that English "evolved" as a branch of West Germanic rather than from Latin—is valid. We've actually been adopting and adapting Latin words since the time of Old English, but that doesn't mean that we speak a descendant of Latin. Deor (talk) 12:14, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

The answer I referred to was just a link to our Wiki article. Never trust a man named catbarf, my grandfather told me. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:27, May 6, 2014 (UTC)

One would think that if there is any argument to make for Latin it would be through Norman French to Anglo Norman. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:40, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

English did not evolve from Latin. It evolved from old Anglo-Saxon, though many loanwords were adapted into English from Latin (through Norman French). The fact that many loanwords were added to English doesn't mean it evolved from Latin, however, Historically, the development of English is from the Germanic branch of Indo-European, not the Romance branch. --Jayron32 12:51, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

What Jayron said. Virtually all Latin influence on English came by way of the French spoken by William the Conqueror and his Norman buddies, not directly from Latin. Evan ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:42, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

By most people's reckoning, there are more Latinate words than Saxon in the English lexicon, but if you count the words in conversation or writing, they are predominantly Saxon, ie. derived from Old English, and thus Germanic (see that same article for confirmation of this). This is the simplest basis (apart from the historical one) for claiming unequivocally that English is a Germanic language. Further, style guides will usually tell you that the native Saxon word is generally more natural and "earthier" (dare I say "terrestrial"?) than the Romance one. Old French/ Norman words occupy a particular register, but Latin and Greek words have come into English to expand the technical vocabulary and fill gaps and so on. My favourite example of gap-filling is the native word moon which uses the Latin word lunar for an adjective, whereas for highly technical words, it uses the Greek; for example a "moon geographer" is called a selenographer. IBE (talk) 14:41, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

At least to me a full answer would have to deal with structure not just (loan)words. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:31, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Quite. And English has the structure of a Germanic language, not a Romance one. AlexTiefling (talk) 18:21, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm not arguing with you, but with 5 cases, 3 genders, and V2 word order, I'd like a reference (or an explanation) for how the structure of Old English persists in Modern English, or, failing that, what else you mean by Germanic structure. IBE (talk) 04:53, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

The examples I can think of off the top of my head are: the existence of only two synthetic tenses (present and past); the formation of the past and ppl by ablaut in root verbs and by a dental suffix in denominal verbs; the use of verbal prefixes which in some circumstances can be separated from their verb; a possessive ending in -s;. --ColinFine (talk) 10:16, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

All of the above. Additionally, Latin itself has a fairly flexible word order owing to its strong case-marking behaviour, but is SOV by default, and questions marked by suffixes. English, like Swedish, has relatively strict word order, SVO by default, with questions VSO. German has the same, with the additional rule (not seen in any of the others) that verbs come last in subordinate clauses. All the Germanic languages make extensive use of modal/auxiliary verbs, while Latin has a huge range of specialised verb forms instead (so in Latin there are words for 'about to be carried', 'fit to be carried', 'having been carried', 'it may have been carried' and so on). AlexTiefling (talk) 10:43, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Some good examples, but the ones that didn't come into English via Old English surely need a reference, that is, if you want to claim they are part of Germanic structure, rather than just found in a lot of Germanic languages. So the two-tense system looks like a winner, and (afaict) so does the modal/ auxiliary system (alluded to in the article Germanic languages, so I won't argue). I don't credit the word order thing, since it wasn't from Old English, and English had a fairly flexible word order, I think, until around the time of Shakespeare, though maybe a bit before (I can't find a reference). The ablaut is Indo-European, and also found in Latin, although the "-ed" ending is mentioned in the article Germanic languages. In short, the article on Germanic languages accepts only some of these, so I would ask for a reference for anything else. IBE (talk) 13:03, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

The fact that the structures of Modern English have changed since the time when the predecessors of Modern English and other Germanic Languages were mutually intelligible doesn't mean that they do not share a genetic relationship. The changes were incremental and evolutionary in nature, and direct links can be traced backwards to Proto-Germanic and not in any way to Classical Latin. That's what makes English a Germanic, and not Romance, language, despite borrowing words from Romance languages and slowly modifying other rules of grammar and syntax over the centuries. --Jayron32 16:51, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, but I think the "genetic" idea is a little bit of a false analogy in the first place, as applied to languages. Languages aren't born, and they don't have parents. A closer biological analogy would be something like the way bacteria evolve, including bacterial conjugation. In that sense, English does have "genes" from Latin. --Trovatore (talk) 22:30, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Regardless of which word to describe the process, don't confuse the fact that English is a Germanic language and not a Romance one. Regardless of how many individual words it borrowed from Latin, and regardless of how much syntax and grammar has gradually changed over the years. The issue is the process that occurs, not the arbitrary words you use to describe it. You could call it "Bob" and it wouldn't make English NOT a Germanic language. --Jayron32 23:08, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, it's your description of the actual process I take issue with. English has both Germanic and Latinate "heritage". It may have more of the Germanic, but it's a mix. --Trovatore (talk) 23:26, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

It's clear English is related to Germanic languages in a specific way that it is not related to Latinate languages, which is what is meant here. Or do you reject the entire notion that languages exist in analysable families? AlexTiefling (talk) 23:46, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I reject the notion that they are necessarily in a tree structure, if that's what you mean. Or rather, I don't deny that this might be a useful notion for linguists, but I think that it's a quantitative rather than qualitative distinction. --Trovatore (talk) 23:51, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I see what you mean; I agree in as much as it's not at all self-evident that a language must have a single unique predecessor. However, in the actual case at hand, I think there's a credible historical argument for treating English as continuous back to Anglo-Saxon and into Old Saxon, and French as continuous back into Langue d'Oil, Vulgar Latin and Old Latin, but not English into any form of Latin in the same way. AlexTiefling (talk) 00:03, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

That may well be. I'm not an expert on that. --Trovatore (talk) 00:11, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

About the concept of "genetic": it is a frequent error to think that the linguistic use of the term "genetic" implies an analogy to biological descent and the transmission of "genes". In fact, the linguistic use simply has nothing to do with "genes"; it's directly based on the basic, original Greek, meaning "concerning the origins". If I'm not mistaken, 19th-century linguists were using the term well before the biological theory of genetics evolved; if anything, biologists borrowed the concept from us, not the other way round. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:18, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

(Note that I'm answering Jayron's post, "The fact that...") The original point was that English has the structure of a Germanic language, that is, it has this structure now. You are using a different argument, a historical one. I don't deny any of these, but I was questioning the "structure" bit, which depends on what the case is now. Or on what the cases are now, but let's not get tense about all this. IBE (talk) 01:50, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

For another European language with a lot of Romance words (40 - 55 % of its vocabulary), plus a decent portion of more recent English loanwords (6 - 20%), yet the language is categorized as neither Romance nor Germanic, not even Indo-European, see Maltese language (percentages from the article's subsection on vocabulary). ---Sluzzelin talk 16:15, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

• A language is considered genetically transmitted if it is conveyed from mother to child with retention of basic grammar and vocabulary, subject to regular linguistic change like slight shifts in the pronunciation of phonemes or gradual changes in accepted grammar. An example of a non-genetically transmitted language would be a creole such as Haitian creole which was an imperfect pidgin form of French originally learnt by adult African slaves without a common language and with a total reanalysis of the grammar and an abrupt shift in phonemes and vocabulary. Now that newly created language is transmitted from mother to child and is evolving genetically.

Genetically, English is 100% a Germanic language. It retains the typically Germanic characteristics such as the weak versus strong verb distinction, something like 94/100 of its basic Swadesh list vocabulary has been retained. At no time has the transmission by native speakers, mother to child been interrupted, although there have been adults who have learned English as a second language, and a large influx of, especially French and Latin through borrowing by adults.

That influence is so great that we have even incorporated affixes like pre- pro- anti- in- dis- -ize -able- -ation -eer into English and now apply them to English root stock. But the historically attested continuity of transmission, and the Germanic nature of our basic grammar and vocabulary disallow any denial English is a fully Germanic language. The standard text is Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics by Sarah Grey Thomason , Terrence Kaufmanμηδείς (talk) 18:02, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Out of curiosity: Which 6 entries of the Swadesh list are (presumably) Norman- or Latin-based? Thank you. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 13:47, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't feel like going through the whole list, but the first one I see is #16, person. Deor (talk) 14:44, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't remember which list it was, by I do remember 94/100 being non-latinate, so I assume it was the 100 or so-ish list, User:Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (and thanks, User:Deor. Besides person there was face, because, mountain, forest and river. In any case, the vast majority in any list is of Germanic stock. (There are also Germanic, yet dialect borrwings fom Norse, like sky. The ultimate determinative of genetic descent which we can verify historically is that there is no point at which English isn't being learnt as a first language by children whose mothers are native speakers. Even children whose parents both have a foreign accent will have children without accents if their peers lack foreign accents. In languages where there's no historical record, retention of basic grammar and vocabulary and regular reconstruction are used as proofs of genetic descent. μηδείς (talk) 03:35, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Traditional instruction in Latin

How did medieval monks and other educated people learn Latin in the Middle Ages? I'm thinking specifically about Northern Europe in the 13th century but any information would help. I understand they used Donatus and Priscianus for grammar - but what would they read? Was Caesar already standard back then? Haukur (talk) 14:23, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

The list of authors in the Medieval Latin article might help. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:43, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

I always asked myself this question. I think, giving the fact that there were no many (if not at all) widely available bilingual Latin (and Greek, Church Slavonic, Hebrew, Arabic, Sanskrit and so on, if we consider other countries and continents) dictionaries and textbooks at that time, the main source was personal interaction with the teacher. Knowledge of Latin was being passed from generation to generation. This is why monasteries and universities were so important.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 15:04, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Take a look at the sources listed for the January 5 lesson in this syllabus. If you can track a couple of them down, you should have a definitive answer to your question. Marco polo (talk) 18:12, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

The Latin text that medieval monks read above and beyond all others was the Vulgate. Angr (talk) 18:51, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I read the 1909 book, but it lists only Latin-Latin reference books. Not too useful for those who didn't know Latin at all.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 01:24, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I want to acknowledge...

How does one say "I want to acknowledge everyone whom I should have acknowledged but did not" in French? I came up with:

Je veux reconnaître tous ceux que je devrais reconnaître mais n'ai pas reconnu

But how do I avoid repeating reconnaitre the third time? Thanks. --Bowlhover (talk) 18:11, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

French does not allow the same kind of ellipsis of verbs as English, but with pronouns, you can avoid repeating nouns. My French is not very good, but how about something like the following, corrected by a native speaker: "Je veux rendre la reconnaissance à tous ceux qui la méritent, mais ne l'ont pas reçu." Marco polo (talk) 20:35, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Here would be a way of conveying the thought succinctly: "J'aimerais reconnaître la contribution de tous, y compris ceux que j'ai oubliés". But that's extremely generic. You can't just recognize someone in French: "je reconnais M. X" means literally "I can pick Mr. X out of a crowd". Therefore, you have to recognize something such as the presence, participation or contribution of a person, so the wording would be adjusted depending on context, to explain what exactly deserves recognition. --Xuxl (talk) 12:29, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Agree. To be closer to the original, what about Je veux remercier tous ceux que je n'ai pas remercié alors que j'aurais dû le faire or Je veux dire ma reconnaissance à tous ceux que je n'ai pas remercié alors que j'aurais dû le faire? Heavy style (in French)... — AldoSyrt (talk) 15:35, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Bible passages

Normally, when someone refers to a Bible passage in writing, it would appear as such: for example, "John 3:16". What does it mean when a Bible passage has the notation of "cf." in front of it? For example, my religious calendar has a quotation. Underneath the quotation, it says "Cf. Luke 2:51". I read the Wikipedia article on "cf.". I don't understand why would the calendar use this notation; why not just list the actual Bible passage (chapter and verse) to which the quote is attributed? If it matters, the quote is: "And he went down with them and was subject to them. Cf. Luke 2:51". What does this mean? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:58, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't know what translation the biblical quotations on your calendar come from, but in the KJV Luke 2:51 begins "And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them ...", and I don't see any translations here that omit the reference to Nazareth (for one thing). So presumably you're supposed to "compare" the text of Bible verse because the words on the calendar aren't an exact quotation. Deor (talk) 22:34, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Hmmm. OK. So, what you say makes sense as far as "comparing" the actual quote with the quote they placed on the calendar. But, why would they do that? Why not just put the "real" quote on the calendar page? The actual passage? Especially in a case like this, where they really didn't make meaningful changes? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 23:16, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Who knows? Is the quotation for Mother's Day, perchance? Maybe the compilers of the calendar wanted to make the point that even Jesus was obedient to his mom, without introducing irrelevancies like "and came to Nazareth". Deor (talk) 23:59, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

It is a monthly calendar. And this quote is placed on the month of May. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:28, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I suggest the compiler had only a hazy idea of what "cf" means, and/or maybe he's saying "I wanted to keep this quote as brief as possible, but if you want to know the complete sentence from which it came, see Luke 2:51". Obviously, going to the trouble of spelling all that out would have been inimical to his purpose, so he had to find a much more concise solution. He could have achieved the same result with an ellipsis (...) in place of "and came to Nazareth"; actually, a better result, because it would not have raised questions in the minds of readers. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:19, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Funny, I was thinking the exact same thing: why didn't he just use ellipses? Maybe, they (subtly) wanted to encourage you to actually read the Bible, to open up a Bible and find out the real quote for yourself. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:31, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Maybe. But history is rife with people who cherrypicked Bible passages to push an agenda. Every calendar company has an obvious primary one: sell calendars. Beyond that, who knows why they need the money, but many have tried to make sure nobody doublechecked. I don't usually cite the musings of bloggers, but this might at least give you an idea.

I do often cite Petyr Baelish. "A man with no motive is a man no one suspects. If 'they' don't know who you are or what you want, 'they' can't know what you plan to do next." I've modified that somewhat. Find out how Sundays at 9, only on HBO! InedibleHulk (talk) 05:01, May 6, 2014 (UTC)

Ironically enough, Luke 2:50 goes "And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them." Or, as God's Word® says "But they didn't understand what he meant." InedibleHulk (talk) 05:18, May 6, 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, all. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 16:55, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

May 6

Time allowed for dialogue during episodes/movies

While watching an episode of Star Trek:The Next Generation ("Skin of Evil" specifically), I wondered about a scene and further wondered if there was a word for something. During a scene, Riker is pulled off his feet by an unseen force and dragged towards the antagonist, Armus. Data, Geordi, and Dr. Crusher were standing with him. None of them reacted to him falling and being pulled away until after he starts yelling for help. And their reactions are slow even then which gives Armus time to tell the group that if they try to help Riker, that Riker will die. Is there a term for this pregnant pause of sorts? Other than just bad writing/direction/etc.?

This is a legitimate question which is not of a medical or financial nature. Please don't hat or delete this section, thanks. Dismas|^(talk) 00:36, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

In theatre, film, and television, a pause is counted out as a "beat" (see Beat (filmmaking)). The pause may be prolonged and include more than one "beat", so a director may give a cast member instructions along the lines of "count beat, two, three, then deliver your next line", for example. In the scene you describe above, it just sounds like poor pacing in the directing. OttawaAC (talk) 00:50, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Sitcoms are the worst offenders, waiting for their canned reactions. If you mask/mute/ignore that track, things get uncomfortably weird. It's like listening to half of a cell phone chat. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:59, May 6, 2014 (UTC)

Maybe, but if you tried watching that (mercifully now cancelled) Robin Williams show this year, there was no laugh track, hence no pause, and hence they crammed in as many attempts at jokes as they could, and the dialogue could be very difficult to follow. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:07, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I've tried to appreciate Robin Williams' brand of humour for years. It certainly wasn't easy. But it sure was plentiful. Probably still is, but I don't have TV anymore. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:31, May 7, 2014 (UTC)

Even more awkward are the shows with live studio audiences. The laughter isn't canned, it's real, but the poor actors have no idea how long it's going to last and have to sit there frozen waiting for the room to quiet down so they can go on. Sometimes they even start to say the next line and then stop because they realize the laughter hasn't stopped after all. See old episodes of All in the Family or The Jeffersons or, more recently, The Big Bang Theory for plenty of examples. Angr (talk) 19:13, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, absolutely. The Big Bang Theory (and How I Met Your Mother) were two reasons I finally tuned out. But it was mostly because they really started scripting wrestling the same "viewer-friendly" way that year. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:31, May 7, 2014 (UTC)

Or you have something like Mrs Brown's Boys which properly interacts with and plays with the studio audience's reaction, like a stage show would. Like stage actors, they don't expect to just be able to deliver everything at the rehearsed pace. 86.146.28.229 (talk) 20:48, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

(e/c) But that is the way it has always been in live theatre. If you have an actual audience, you have a factor you cannot control, nor should there be any expectation of doing so, and nobody ever calls that "awkward". The players never know what to expect from night to night, which is why they love doing it over and over and over again and never tire of it, and why many of the audience come back often because they, too, never know what to expect from night to night, except that it's always a different performance. The once-only, frozen, set-in-stone, performances we now see on TV and film are what's really unnatural, if you think about it. Same with studio recordings of music, cf. live recordings, cf. attending live performances. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:58, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Long before laugh-tracks, film comedians such as the Marx Brothers would try their various jokes and schticks in theaters, to get a sense of how much time to leave after a given bit. Groucho, of course, also talked directly to the film audience. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:05, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Correct or incorrect "if you want a garden waste bin delivering" - and which is right ?

We had a letter from the council asking us whether we wanted a garden waste bin for their new collection service. (The council area has a mix of town houses houses with no gardens and suburban houses with gardens to it is reasonable of them to ask). The letter said "If you want a garden waste bin delivering, please phone us on XXX".... and to my wife this sounded wrong. I thought it sounded awkward but not wrong.

Then my wife said "it should say "If you want a garden waste bin delivered, please phone us on XXX", but I thought it should say "If you want a garden waste bin to be delivered, please phone us on XXX". To me "If you want a garden waste bin delivered" sounds as though it implies the present, for example saying to a delivery guy "I want a garden waste bin delivered, this is a plastic replica of Venus de Milo".

Basically which of all of these are right:

• If you want a garden waste bin delivering, please phone us on XXX
• If you want a garden waste bin delivered, please phone us on XXX
• If you want a garden waste bin to be delivered, please phone us on XXX

Are there any subtle differences in meaning? -- Q Chris (talk) 07:56, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Personally I think they're all acceptable but the third one is more formal English. The second one sounds more North country to me but still acceptable. --TammyMoet (talk) 09:37, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

To me, they all look correct, but the first one looks distinctively northern - the north of England in particular. The third one looks more formal, but the meaning seems equivalent. As an aside - a usage that would seem distinctively Scottish to me would be the use of the past participle in a sentence where the sense is future passive: 'The windows need cleaned' as opposed to 'The windows need to be cleaned' or 'the windows need cleaning', either of which would be more English/southern. I'd be interested in getting to the bottom of how these two very similar constructions differ and vary. AlexTiefling (talk) 10:21, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

(ec)::I find the first to be colloquial, and the other two quite normal. I don't find the second to be particularly Northern (I am a Southerner who has lived in the North for more than twenty years). On the other hand "the bin wants moved" sounds very Northern to me, as opposed to "the bin wants moving". --ColinFine (talk) 10:24, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

In American English, the first sounds wrong, the others ok. You could have "If you want a garden waste bin delivery, please phone us at XXX. 75.41.109.190 (talk) 15:27, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

They're all "right" insofar as they all are comprehensible and convey the meaning that you need to call the given number in order to obtain a garden waste bin. Why didn't they just say "If you want us to deliver a garden waste bin, please phone us on XXX"? Tonywalton ^Talk 00:20, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Last time I had to order a new bin from the council, it was delivered by a private contractor whose HQ is at the other end of the country. The passive may be used here to conceal this kind of arrangement. AlexTiefling (talk) 00:26, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

• The only time I have heard something like this cosntruction in America was from Scottish immigrants. Specifically, the question was, "Want spanked?" μηδείς (talk) 03:46, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

• @Medeis:, @AlexTiefling: et al., I think this issue is a close relative of the "needs washed" issue in USA. See here [4] for a pretty thorough description with additional refs. In the variety of AmEng I grew up with, "the car needs washed" is perfectly cromulent, with the verb "to be" easily implied/elided. Agreeing with above comments, All the OP forms are grammatical insofar as they are communicative and intelligible, but the flame wars between linguistic descriptivism and linguistic prescriptivism will never die. (I know because I fight for both sides ;) SemanticMantis (talk) 20:35, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Me too (descriptively speaking; or, if you prefer prescriptive, "I, too"). We soldiers of linguistic fortune should form our own army, or something. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:08, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I actually think I heard the same woman say "needs washed" and I have since noticed it I think from New Englanders but it's rare to non-existent in my dialect. What gets my gall is the Midwestern/Western converse, "looks to be green". μηδείς (talk) 18:08, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Latin word

Hi, I'm reading a Latin text on the Trojan War, and am wondering what the word 'flagaret' means in this sentence:

Decimo belli anno ab Agamemnone Achilles et verbis et facto violatus est, ut ira flagaret.

I searched for it on Wiktionary, but found nothing. Could it be an archaic conjugation of flagitare? Thanks in advance, --Eisfbnore ^(会話) 11:28, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Is it perhaps a slight mistake for a part of flagrare, 'to burn'? "So that anger might blaze up", perhaps? AlexTiefling (talk) 11:45, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

That would seem to make a lot more sense than flagitare. Can you tell us the text? IBE (talk) 12:09, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Agree. Many thanks. :) The text is simply a small preparation for our exam, written by our teacher. --Eisfbnore ^(会話) 12:18, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Cool, that's exactly why I was asking - that makes the typo thing a lot more likely. Typos seem to be very rare in more venerable manuscripts. IBE (talk) 13:06, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

There are some check-out-worthy hits in this search. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 11:55, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

What does "sujeño" mean?

I think it's Spanish, but Google doesn't know. 98.176.56.95 (talk) 20:44, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Where did you see it? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:02, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

It pops up in occasional conversations online when you google it, a couple Facebooks and Twitters. 98.176.56.95 (talk) 00:14, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Could it be a misprint for sueño, dream? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:04, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Just by looking at this first page of google hits, it appears to be a misspelling of "sueño" in every case.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 00:25, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

My first thought was Sureños. 75.41.109.190 (talk) 15:21, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

As a native Spanish speaker I can guarantee you that is not a Spanish word. The RAE backs me up on this. For what I could find in google, it seems to pop up in conversation between highly ignorant people, or teenagers, which is the same thing really, as a way to sounds "cutesy" when typing. I found this example "si ke me dio muxo sujeño", it almost makes my eyes bleed just eyeing those words. Another more hopeful explanation could be that it's simply a typo, the letters U and J are close together in the keyboard, some fat-fingered typer probably pressed two letters instead of one when typing sueño.... either way, that's all I have. mijotoba (talk) 04:14, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

May 8

We provide business solutions!

Where/when did this lingo originate? I only remember hearing it after beginning graduate school in 2010, but that's probably because I wasn't often around business-type people before that time. Wikipedia:On Wikipedia, solutions are mixtures and nothing else dates from late 2011. I love my single-volume OED, but it's definitely not new enough to include this usage. Nyttend (talk) 06:08, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm surprised that your little OED volume has only one sense for the noun. (See wikt:solution for other senses in a sister dictionary.) I agree with you that the business usage is modern and sounds slightly "slangy" and "advertising-speak", but the basic meaning of "method of solving" is at least as old as the chemical sense: see "Dan. ii. 25 A man..that shal telle to the kyng the solucioun." in Wycliffe's Bible of 1382 compared with " Ferst of the distillacion, Forth with the congelacion, Solucion, descencion [etc.]." cited in the big OED from 1390. I don't know when the "business-speak" variation began. Not even the big OED has picked up on the marketing buzzword variation, but they haven't updated that entry yet for their third edition. Dbfirs 06:49, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Sorry for the non-clarity; I wasn't attempting to address mathematical solutions, solutions to puzzling divine-sent dreams, etc; all I meant to ask about was the business slang. My OED is little in overall size and in typeface; they reduced the text size to the point that the first owner (no clue how long ago that occurred) was given a magnifying glass included as part of the price. Nyttend (talk) 07:48, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

My impression is that it originated in IT. Back in the early 1990s I did some IT courses, and it was stressed that businesses shouldn't just mindlessly acquire expensive gadgets they didn't need, but should work out what problem they had that they needed IT to solve, and then work out exactly what hardware or software would be a solution to that problem. I first noticed IT suppliers and systems analysts using "Solutions" in their business names and jargon, and from there it spread to other businesses, to the extent that Private Eye magazine had a "Solutions" column for a while highlighting the silliest of them. --Nicknack009 (talk) 07:37, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

In fact, thinking about it, the systems analysis usage might have come from programming. I learned a little programming in BASIC many years ago, and I was taught to understand the problem before finding the solution - using "problem" and "solution" in a mathematical sense. --Nicknack009 (talk) 07:47, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

@Nyttend: As a normal hater of marketing/business speak, this one doesn't seem that bad to me. As a mathematician, "solution" is a standard go-to work for several related concepts. Anyway, it's not clear to me that this usage is that distinct from the the other primary usage. My OED on a kindle gives this under their first sense of the word: "a means of solving a problem or dealing with a difficult situation..." then, "(solutions) products or services designed to meet a particular need - we are an Internet marketing firm specializing in e-commerce solutions" I personally would have written something more like "products or services to designed to solve specific problems or address certain issues" instead of "meet a particular need". Anyway, this version doesn't have sources or dates for the usage quote, but there it is, in the latest Kindle version of the OED. (side note, it is very different from the online version, I'm not even sure if the italics above are supposed to be a direct quote, or just and example usage.) SemanticMantis (talk) 13:56, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Meat of a fish

An illustrative photo for Ocean sunfish#Human interaction is captioned: "A dish made with the meat of the ocean sunfish." As a native speaker of U.S. English, I'd think that the proper term is "...the flesh of ..." when referring to fish in this context or similar (e.g. a cookbook). Are the two terms equally correct, or only one, or is this a matter of preference, AE vs. BE, or what? -- Deborahjay (talk) 12:40, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

As a British English speaker, I'd regard meat as a better choice when (a) the fish is dead and (b) it's being used as food, whereas flesh would be more apt if the creature were alive, or being subjected to an autopsy. AlexTiefling (talk) 13:06, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

When I hear "meat", I don't think skin, fat or scales. But "flesh", yeah. I'm Canadian English, if that matters. Our flesh article says it's commonly called "meat", when food. InedibleHulk (talk) 13:12, May 8, 2014 (UTC)

(British) When I hear "meat" I don't think of fish at all. DuncanHill (talk) 13:21, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Of course - it's customary to distinguish meat from fish as kinds of food. (This may be what leads so many people to try feeding fish to vegetarians.) But here the fish part is a given. Just because you call fish-meat fish rather than meat, you wouldn't go on to refer to the flesh of the fish as the fish of the fish, now would you? AlexTiefling (talk) 14:23, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Fair point, but then I would probably say that the dish in Deborahjay's original question was made from ocean sunfish, rather then from the meat or the flesh of it. DuncanHill (talk) 14:27, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't know every Canadian, but from who I do, "meat" is meat here. If they want to be specific, they say pickerel or deer or quail or whale (not so often). But generally, every animal but insect. Then it's "I'm eating bugs", whether or not true bugs. InedibleHulk (talk) 15:08, May 8, 2014 (UTC)

AmEng here, I would say "meat from the Ocean Sunfish" -- It's flesh whilst on the fish, it becomes meat when it's cut off/skinned, scaled, etc. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:00, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I also speak American English, and while this usage of meat is a little odd, it doesn't seem wrong to me. I could also accept flesh, but that sounds less appetizing. Marco polo (talk) 14:46, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

• Once again, etymology comes to the rescue. Meat in Germanic originally meant any serving of food, and flesh refered to that which can be torn off. Consider "meat and drink" versus "flesh and bone". μηδείς (talk) 18:03, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

• I'm reminded of TV journalists who have stolen the word "carnage" (as in the carnage on our roads), which derives from the Latin for "meat" (cf. chili con carne; carnal appetites and lusts), to refer to episodes of significant damage or destruction of road vehicles in accidents, whether or not any human lives have been lost or even imperilled. I wonder where one would look to find the meat of a vehicle. Maybe they think "carnage" is etymologically related to "car". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:44, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Plenty of wrecks do leave bits of meat laying around. In older newspapers, they'd often literally describe the carnage. Then it became a catch-all word for describing a scene involving carnage. And yes, eventually, for any debris, flesh or metal. Then this fellow. Can't call a wreck "awesome" or "spectacular" anymore, either. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:29, May 10, 2014 (UTC)

Our Fugu article says that it "must be carefully prepared to remove toxic parts and to avoid contaminating the meat". Alansplodge (talk) 22:07, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

And for you American chaps, Merriam-Webster Learners Dictionary says under "fish (2)" "the meat of a fish eaten as food". Alansplodge (talk) 22:10, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Slang word for military informant

Is there a military slang word for a captured enemy informant, who discloses information to the opposing side (as used in the US and/or British military)? Brandmeister^talk 13:24, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Stool pigeon or stoolie was used by British POW's in the Second World War for a POW who was passing information to the Germans (see, for example, the Colditz books by Pat Reid). DuncanHill (talk) 13:57, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

And what word would use the side that captured such a POW? The same? Brandmeister^talk 14:50, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Stool pigeon and stoolie were also used by Americans during WWII and are still current to some extent in American English. Marco polo (talk) 14:50, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

If they flip him around to the side of good (or evil, depending) and send him back to gather more secrets, they've turned a pigeon into a mole. InedibleHulk (talk) 15:00, May 8, 2014 (UTC)

• Stool pigeon is an American coinage, although I am sure Brits find it useful. μηδείς (talk) 04:21, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Spelling with homophones

Is this just me ? Normally I spell common words properly without thinking about it, but not so with homophones, so I find myself writing "Depends wear there cite is". I have to go back and think about every homophone to decide which is right. Note that I do know which is correct, but it just refuses to become "automatic". StuRat (talk) 13:54, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm sure you're not alone, and this certainly does seem to explain people writing "I ate to much", or "their is a spider on the wall." I personally don't have much of a problem with it, but I do mess up on (a/e)ffect once in a while If I'm writing quickly (especially rough since I often use effect as a verb, and occasionally affect as a noun). For reference, here's some relevant journal articles [5], [6]. I didn't have much time to search for open-access, so you will probably have to go through WP:REX (or ask me nicely) if you want to read more than the abstracts :) SemanticMantis (talk) 14:09, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

We've had this discussion before, if you care to search the archives. I have the perverse habit of always getting there and their and they're wrong on the first try, which was mentioned. μηδείς (talk) 17:53, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

You're probably thinking of this [7] (search for the OP there, " filelake"). Mostly it devolved into a lot of discussion of pairs of words that are homophones in some Eng. varieties but not others. If there were any science refs there, I missed it. (Stu's only question is "Is this just me?" - to which the obvious answer is "no". Unless we take him literally, in which case, the answer is "yes", Stu is just Stu. To me, the next logical step is finding studies of mispelling and homophony, perhaps touching on incidence and prevalence. The ones I posted above are a decent starting point, but there are probably better ones out there.) SemanticMantis (talk) 19:26, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, Stu, when you say "writing" do you mean actual handwriting or typing? I sometimes have this problem but only when typing. Of course this is just anecdotal OR, but I've always assumed it was either because handwriting requires more time (forming each individual letter gives my brain time to think about the next) or that muscle memory was involved (thinking "/ðɛɚ/", my fingers sort of automatically type the spelling I use the most). I've never looked into the research, but I do find the phenomenon very interesting.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 19:02, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Oh, that's very interesting, User:WilliamThweatt. I just noticed the other night I left my dad a note which, had I typed it, would have been full of errors. But there was not a single mistake in the handwritten note of about 100 words. μηδείς (talk) 20:40, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I tend to do almost all my writing on the computer. When I do write on paper, it's usually things I don't much care about, like a grocery list. If I did sit down to write a letter the old-fashioned way, I expect I'd do better, just because there is such a high penalty for a mistake (start over or leave the mistake in or cross it out or leave a nasty erasure) that I'd write very slowly and think every word through. I remember when I wrote papers in school it would take me many drafts before I was happy with the result. That's still the case when writing on PC, but it's much quicker to make changes here. StuRat (talk) 03:27, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

• We learn to spell at the same time as we learn to write and are also given frequent feedback and corrections on our spelling as we learn to write. Most of us just pick up typing as we go, and without as much, or as immediate, feedback. That may underlie why we spell better when writing than typing. DuncanHill (talk) 03:43, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

You can do this on purpose to make a holorime. Adam Bishop (talk) 23:29, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

GB - UK?

From United Kingdom:

"The term Britain is often used as synonym for the United Kingdom. The term Great Britain, by contrast, refers geographically to the island of Great Britain, or politically to England, Scotland and Wales in combination. However, it is sometimes used as a loose synonym for the United Kingdom as a whole. GB and GBR are the standard country codes for the United Kingdom (see ISO 3166-2 and ISO 3166-1 alpha-3) and are consequently used by international organisations to refer to the United Kingdom. Also, the United Kingdom's Olympic team competes under the name "Great Britain" or "Team GB".

Why is GB used as the official abbreviation for the United Kingdom in most official contexts, and as it is, why is the identification considered to be "loose" (i.e. "colloquial", as far as I can understand)? The many sources in the paragraph state that it is this way, but don't explain why. Does the geographical meaning of Great Britain have any significance outside of scientific geography? --KnightMove (talk) 14:14, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, the term Great Britain — referring to the island that includes England, Wales, and Scotland, but not Northern Ireland — is used in that specific way by people other than geographers. For example, there are road atlases of Great Britain that exclude Northern Ireland. People who live in Great Britain or on the island of Ireland, in my experience, tend to use the term Great Britain in its specific geographic reference to the island. It is only people from other countries who tend to use Great Britain as a synonym for the United Kingdom. The abbreviation GB may date back to a time before UK was well recognized or the sentiments of the Irish were considered important. (Irish nationalists of course object to using GB to refer to Northern Ireland. While most also object to Northern Ireland being part of the UK, few would dispute that it is in fact part of the UK.) The metonymous use of Great Britain to refer to the United Kingdom dates back to the time before the Act of Union of 1800 merged Ireland with Great Britain in a single state. Between 1707 and 1800, the United Kingdom was in fact coterminous with Great Britain. After 1800, that was no longer true, but everyone knew that Great Britain was the overwhelmingly dominant party in the United Kingdom. So, the actions of the United Kingdom could more or less accurately be described as the actions of Great Britain, since Ireland had little voice in those actions. Marco polo (talk) 14:37, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I'd also add that the Olympic situation is a little complicated. It's not exactly that the United Kingdom competes as Great Britain: "Great Britain" and "Ireland" are the Olympic teams, rather than the UK and the Republic of Ireland, and citizens of Northern Ireland can compete in either. See also Ireland at the Olympics, Great Britain at the Olympics. 86.146.28.229 (talk) 16:48, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Technically, there are no "citizens of Northern Ireland". Under British nationality law and Irish nationality law, persons born in Northern Ireland are dual citizens of both the United Kingdom and Ireland. Most sport federations, including the IOC, have nationality rules for dual citizens that allow them to choose to represent either nation in competition. However, once they have chosen a nationality and competed under that flag, they are deemed to be of that nationality only for the purposes of future competition. There is a process to allow them to change to the other nationality, but it typically requires a waiting period and often approval of the 'former' nation. - Eron^Talk 17:27, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

The thing is that "Ireland" is the full formal name of what we tend to call "the Republic of Ireland", whereas "Great Britain" is the name of no nation at all. It either contains 3 (or more) nations, or is a part of a larger nation, depending on your definition of "nation". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:10, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Only three nations? What about the Cornish? DuncanHill (talk) 21:14, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Silly me. Amended. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:36, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

C. G. P. Grey on "The Difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England Explained". — SMUconlaw (talk) 16:55, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

See also our own article Terminology of the British Isles, which goes into this and related matters in astonishing detail. A walk through the talk page and its (currently 10) archives is also very instructive. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:29, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Also "GB" is used as a national identification for British vehicles abroad, because Northern Ireland has a separate registration scheme and their own "NI" badge. Alansplodge (talk) 22:03, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

"Between 1707 and 1800, the United Kingdom was in fact coterminous with Great Britain." — Well, except for Wight, Mona, the Hebrides ... — Was the phrase "United Kingdom" part of the name before 1800? —Tamfang (talk) 23:02, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm going to guess not. The last monarch in London to die before the union of 1801 was "George the Second, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Archtreasurer and Prince-Elector of the Holy Roman Empire". If the style were anything more than "GB", they wouldn't have put France in the middle of the list of titles. Nyttend (talk) 03:50, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Google nGrams suggests that the term 'United Kingdom' came into popular use around 1750, but experienced a massive spike around 1801. Looking at some of its example sources, I've found legal textbooks quoting the articles of Union from 1707 using 'united kingdom' both as an informal term to describe the effect of the Union, and as part of the apparently official title 'United Kingdom of Great Britain'. AlexTiefling (talk) 11:43, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

• This will, of course, all become blissfully moot once Scotland throws off the Sasanach yoke. Indeed, the Russians are calling for a plebiscite on independence this very moment. The real question is, would Harry become Henry the IX, or Henry the I of Scotland? μηδείς (talk) 20:36, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

My guess is no: the secessionist parties favor either a republic or keeping personal union with the 16 other Commonwealth realms. —Tamfang (talk) 05:36, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Of course, no matter the outcome of any referendum on Scottish independence, Wales and Scotland will remain part of physical island of Great Britain and Wales and Northern Ireland will remain part of the political concept of the United Kingdom. Anyone else offering half-arsed opinions probably ought not to, since this is supposed to be a reference desk offering fact, not jokes and pissing in the wind (as seems to be usual around here). The Rambling Man (talk) 20:39, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

As noted in Great Britain at the Olympics, the committee has its own way of defining what they mean by "Great Britain", and when or if Scotland breaks away, that will likely be just one of many issues to be negotiated. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:18, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Great Britain will remain what it always has been, the biggest isle of the British Isles. The United Kingdom will cease to exist in the original sense, although it would seem a matter of convenience to keep calling the rump kingdom the United Kingdom. μηδείς (talk) 00:56, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

If the results shown in Opinion polling for the Scottish independence referendum, 2014 remain consistent, it will likely be a non-issue anyway. September 18th. Just 4 days after the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Baltimore and the writing of the US national anthem. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:22, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

@Baseball Bugs: Hope you don't mind, I wikilinked the Battle of Baltimore as most British people will never have heard of it. DuncanHill (talk) 03:45, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Neither will most Americans. Angr (talk) 10:19, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Most Americans also can't sing the national anthem on key, nor do most know any more than the first of its four verses. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:41, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

The "Star Spangled Banner" is a description in archaic elevated poetic diction of a battle that few know much about, set to a melody that many find unsingable -- and we seem to like it that way... -- AnonMoos (talk) 20:57, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Yep. My favorite part is verse three, where it talks about how the enemy's own blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution. I'd pay good cash money to see Beyoncé sing that verse.

But slightly back on topic, has there been any discussion of what would happen to other symbols, such as the union jack? Does Scotland have a national anthem, or would it need to invent one? (I see from National anthem of Scotland that there really isn't one.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:00, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

What should happen to the Union Jack is obvious. Just subtract the St Andrew's flag bit. But that wouldn't be a decision for the Scots, so who knows? Scotland IS a bit lacking on the national anthem front. Maybe another referendum or a plebiscite. Australia did that about 40 years ago. HiLo48 (talk) 23:20, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Re anthem: they could choose from "Flower of Scotland", "Highland Cathedral", "Scotland the Brave" and "Scots Wha Hae", to name a few. According to our "Flower of Scotland" article, based on a 2006 poll of 10,000 people that song is the most popular, plus it has the advantage of referring "to the victory of the Scots, led by Robert the Bruce, over England's Edward II at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314" ... — SMUconlaw (talk) 07:15, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

People have already uploaded speculative flags of the UK minus Scotland... AnonMoos (talk) 00:46, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

• 
• 
• File:Flag of Great Britain (Proposal).png
• 

Wikipedia has an article about everything. See Union Jack#Flag speculation regarding proposed Scottish independence which says that the College of Arms has stated that there is no need to change the flag in those circumstances, and the existing flag could continue to be used if desired. [8] Alansplodge (talk) 01:05, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

My proposal for the UK flag, without Scotland: [9] :-) StuRat (talk) 06:37, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

May 9

What's in a name? Translation and proper English use question.

I am having some trouble trying to figure out how to properly transliterate/display a job title, this maybe be a language barrier issue. This is for a Colombian-related article. I am using the Template:Infobox Officeholder, and for the office field I need to include the title of the job. In this case the title in Spanish is Secretario General de la Presidencia, the more literal translation of this is "Secretary-General of the Presidency". According to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English), I should use the most used translation/interpretation of this, and the post/office/title is usually translated into English as "president's Chief of Staff", kinda like White House Chief of Staff since thats the American equivalent of the post and follows most of the same duties. That title is actually an ex officio title, since legally he is the "Director" of the Administrative Department of the Presidency of the Republic, but he is never referred to as such in every day speech.

Now that is fine and all, and I can certainly use "president's chief of staff" in the body of the article, but the problem is that, using the template, it is preferred that the title be accompanied by the country or entity it serves, such "White House" in the "White House Chief of Staff", or "Colombia", as in "Minister of Agriculture of Colombia". Given this I am finding it a little difficult to properly translate the title, these are what I have came up with:

• "Colombia's President's Chief of Staff"
• "President of Colombia's Chief of Staff"
• "Chief of Staff of the President of Colombia"
• "General Secretary of the Presidency of Colombia"
• "Secretary-General of the Presidenccy of Colombia

Can someone give me some feedback, what sounds better, what is more grammatically correct, what is ideal? mijotoba (talk) 00:09, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

General Secretary of the Presidency of the Republic, according to the English version of the government of Colombia's website. [10] OttawaAC (talk) 00:48, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately the English version of the website is a translation engine driven mirror site; it is full of translating errors such as "High Counsellor" which should be "High Advisor" since they are in fact political advisors (just of a higher legal standing than regular political advisor). Also the BBC and Reuters prefer using the term Chief of Staff. mijotoba (talk) 01:01, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I'd go with Colombian General Secretary (unless there are other General Secretaries, not for presidencies). If you must use "Chief of Staff", and there's likewise just one, Colombian Chief of Staff. But that doesn't seem a fair translation, more a way of equating it for English readers. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:15, May 10, 2014 (UTC)

May 10

Laudatory words

English has a lot of pejorative words – a car is a clunker, a house a hovel, a restaurant a dive – but can't think of many laudatory words. I don't mean active metaphor like calling someone a saint, or a house a palace. There's "steed" for a horse (opposite of a nag), but I can't think of any others. English seems to be better developed for insult than for praise, but can anyone think of any? — kwami (talk) 02:14, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Yea, I think English tends to use adjectives for that, like a "cherry car", although there is the old "cream puff", which, interestingly, is an insult when applied to a person. StuRat (talk) 03:19, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

That's still metaphor, though. A fine horse isn't being compared to a steed, 'steed' is specifically a word for a fine horse. Similarly 'nag', 'hovel', 'jalopy', etc. It's just hard to come up with positive ones. — kwami (talk) 04:33, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

A steed is any animal in relation to its rider, imho. —Tamfang (talk) 05:39, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Here are some possibilities.

• for "man"—"gentleman"
• for "stone"—"gem"
• for "work of art"—"masterpiece"
• for "clean" (adjective)—"pure", "spotless", "immaculate"
• for "eat"—"dine"
• for "writing"—"calligraphy" (I saw your edit of "Esperanto vocabulary" before I saw your question here.)

—Wavelength (talk) 04:37, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, "gentleman", "lady", "masterpiece" are good. "To dine", maybe. A bit metaphoric. — kwami (talk) 05:22, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Here are some additional candidates.

• for "thin", "skinny"—"svelte", "slender"
• for "stout"—"portly", "plump", "Rubenesque"
• for "snail"–"escargot"
• for "scrounge", "scavenge"—"salvage"

Others might be found in "List of English words of French origin".

—Wavelength (talk) 14:50, 10 May 2014 (UTC) and 15:11, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Euphemism and reframing are slightly different things, but yeah, I think the first one fits. — kwami (talk) 05:50, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Do I rule OK?

An expression that seems to have evolved in my lifetime is "(somebody) rules OK". I never quite known what it means. It seems to be something the the cool crowd said for a while. I'd also be interested to know where it came from. And Australia has one of those reality cooking competition shows called "My Kitchen Rules". (Probably copied from elsehwere.) I've never watched it, but one cannot avoid the ads without destroying one's television. Is that name related to the same saying? HiLo48 (talk) 04:06, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

KC Rules OK, but others ruled OK before that.

Here's a discussion. Scots apparently rule. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:26, May 10, 2014 (UTC)

I don't think "My Kitchen Rules" has anything to do with that. Since it's on TV, it's just a pun. (My kitchen is cool/One kitchen is coolest/My kitchen has rules, which I call kitchen rules) InedibleHulk (talk) 04:28, May 10, 2014 (UTC)

The same folks brought you My Restaurant Rules. Now they're just bragging. But it does seem to be an Australian original. Even exported. Serbia ruined the pun, translates into English as "My Kitchen, My Rules". Everyone seems to have ruined it on "The/My Restaurant". InedibleHulk (talk) 04:33, May 10, 2014 (UTC)

As mentioned in the discussion the Hulk linked to, punctuated "X rules, OK?" conveys the meaning more clearly. I always interpreted it that apodictic way: "X is the best, and I will tolerate no dissent!" or "X is the best, and I dare you to disagree!" Two puns I remember from an old graffiti collection are "Maggie rules UK" and "Dyslexia lures KO". ---Sluzzelin talk 04:37, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I used to see it everyday at the top of a train tressle I passed through. I still don't understand how someone who didn't rule could have gotten there, so I never questioned it.

Denis Leary isn't Scottish, but he really crammed a lot of apodictic (just learned that word!) OKs into his Asshole. Giving that a listen should clear up how that part's used. The "OK", I mean. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:53, May 10, 2014 (UTC)

So it's a kind of absolute statement about someone's superiority and a challenge/threat that the reader/listener had better not disagree. OK? (And thanks for apodictic too. I'll try to use it in casual conversation some time this weekend.) HiLo48 (talk) 05:01, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Yeah. It's like the smaller cousin of "Capisce?". If you're in a North American movie and someone ends a sentence with "Capisce?", it doesn't matter if you understood the rest. Just get that money somehow, OK?

I imagine your Italian stereotypes are a bit different. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:41, May 10, 2014 (UTC)

I first heard the phrase in an episode of The Sandbaggers (probably "Who Needs Enemies", 14 Jul 1980). When it's established that Dalgetty is not about to get Burnside's job, Burnside tells someone to have the words "Dalgetty rules OK" scrubbed from the washroom wall. —Tamfang (talk) 05:46, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I rule UK. Elizabeth R. (talk) 07:59, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Mary Fallin rules OK. Angr (talk) 10:11, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Why? HiLo48 (talk) 10:21, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

"OK" is the abbreviation for Oklahoma, the state which Mary Fallin rules. Angr (talk) 10:24, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Ah, I understand now. Systemic bias on display. HiLo48 (talk) 17:44, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Queensbury Rules, KO. DuncanHill (talk) 13:26, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Usage of Latin letters in other alphabets

Is there any online reference which shows how many of the world's alphabets (including non-Latin ones, where Romanization is applicable) use (and/or do not use) a particular Latin letter? Something like "the letter A is used in an X number of the world's alphabets" and/or "X number of the alphabets do not use it" (preferably, covering all Latin letters). Brandmeister^talk 15:18, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Omniglot was the first site that came to mind for me, but after a quick look, I don't think they have quite what you're looking for in your last sentence. This page, however, lists writing systems and the world's languages that use them. If what you're looking for doesn't exist, perhaps with a little work you could glean the information you're seeking from there.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 19:15, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I favour a hypothetical new article called "Usage of Latin letters in various alphabets", with a table having columns for letters and rows for languages grouped by families and subfamilies. The Cyrillic form of the Serbian alphabet has the Latin letter "J" among mostly Cyrillic ones—how should that letter be assessed? If a language uses a particular Latin letter but only with a diacritic, how should that letter be assessed? How should distinctions between languages and dialects be assessed? See also Wikipedia:Language recognition chart.

—Wavelength (talk) 19:31, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Wouldn't such an article be entirely original research|? --ColinFine (talk) 11:09, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Ukraine / the Ukraine ?

I've seen the Ukraine as in the Netherlands. Lately I've also seen Ukraine without the article. What is the correct way? --AboutFace 22 (talk) 02:24, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Plain old "Ukraine" is correct. This is a good explanation [11] Calidum ^{Go Bruins!} 02:27, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Name of Ukraine --Viennese Waltz 02:27, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

• The above is a bunch of politically correct hogwash. Ukraine means "borderland", literally, at the edge. If calling the Ukraine the Ukraine is insulting, so is calling the Netherlands the Netherlands, and the Bronx the Bronx. як кажуть, чистий гній. μηδείς (talk) 04:32, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Ah, the etymological fallacy again. No, in English "Ukraine" means "Ukraine (name of a country)", and nothing else. Its etymology (incidentally in a language which doesn't have articles) is irrelevant. --ColinFine (talk) 11:12, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

• • This strange nation is very hard to understand. Seems they simply like to bother others with their inferiority complex. They often interfere a stranger's speech and try to "correct" it if he says "wrongly" in Russian na Ukraine or even make the "wrong" stress ukráinskiy instead of the "right" ukraínskiy. "v Ukraine vs na Ukraine" flamewars became a very significant and well-established discipline of the Russian Internet Olympics long time ago. So you got rid easily of them only with the dropped article. But you still "wrongly" retain Kiev in your language. But don't yield and stand strong! :) --Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 07:04, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

For people who are, for some reason, unable to click through to the provided article which clearly explains why English-speakers used to say "The Ukraine", and now say "Ukraine", I will quote part of the relevant section:

"In English, the definite article is used with geographical identifiers primarily in one of four situations: 1. if the name is plural ("the Philippines", "the Netherlands"); 2. if a common noun is included ("the United States", "the Central African Republic"); 3. if the region in question is a sub-region of another ("the Sudetenland", "the Saar");[36] 4. if the country is essentially synonymous with a marked geographical feature ("the Republic of The Gambia [River]", "the Ivory Coast")."

So comparing it to the Netherlands is to suggest you do not understand when to use the definite article in English. Calling the region "the Ukraine" when it was merely a region in another state was perfectly correct: calling it "the Ukraine" now is to subtley suggest that it is still merely a region of Russia, rather than an independent country. I'm sure there are some editors who see no problem with this, and that is who you are positioning yourself with when you continue to add "the" at the beginning after being corrected. 86.146.28.229 (talk) 11:59, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

the meaning of "and"

I wonder if "and" in the following context means "but" --- "When we started, the prevailing wisdom was that snark ruled the Internet," says Eli Pariser, a co-founder of Upworthy. "And we just had a really different sense of what works." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.249.222.171 (talk) 04:45, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

The difference between and and but (in this sense) is entirely connotative: their denotative meaning is identical. You can always use and where but might be expected, and in doing so you are choosing to ignore or not express the contrariety between what precedes and what follows. Of course that choice itself may convey further connotation. --ColinFine (talk) 11:18, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Malay mottoes in Jawi

Coat of arms of Malaysia (1963–1965)

Coat of arms of the Federated Malay States

Anyone know Jawi (Malay written using the Arabic alphabet) here? A volunteer is trying to vectorize the two coats of arms pictured on the right, and would like to know what the Arabic characters of the mottoes are. The motto of Malaysia is "Bersekutu Bertambah Mutu" ("Unity is Strength"), and the motto of the Federated Malay States was "Dipelihara Allah" ("Under Allah's Protection"). Thanks. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 08:49, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

• Thankfully you're not asking meaning; my reading Jawi is really rusty. If you already know what the words are, why not simply go through phonetically (Malay is a very phonetical language), with the guide at our Jawi script article? That should give a rough approximation which can be polished further (heck, the article even has the unicode for non-Arabic letters like nga (ڠ). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:57, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Urk. That might take a while for me! In the meantime, if anyone would like to lend a hand ... — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 09:14, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't know Jawi, but the Arabic letters correspond pretty much exactly to the Latin letters. Bersekutu Bertambah Mutu is "برسكوتو برتمبه موتو". Dipelihara Allah is "دڤـليهارا الله" (oddly enough I can see that "P" in editing mode, but it shows up as a box everywhere else). Adam Bishop (talk) 10:39, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Wow, thanks. But I'm struggling a little to see how your transliterations correspond to the mottoes on the coats of arms, which seem much shorter. Could the mottoes have left out the vowel sounds? (I can see the p in Dipelihara on Mozilla Firefox without any problem.) — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 10:56, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Exactly. Short vowels are not normally written in Arabic script, whatever the language being written (though the decision of what counts as a short vowel may be rather arbitrary for some languages). In this case, the u are written, and some of the i' and a, but none of the e. --ColinFine (talk) 11:24, 11 May 2014 (UTC)