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June 5

looking forward to seeing you

"I’d like to seeing you" – nobody would say that. But why do you say: "I’m looking forward to seeing you"?. "to see" is an infinitve we lean at school, but "to seeing"? – I wonder Fritz Jörn (talk) 09:02, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"Seeing", in this phrase, is a gerund, which acts syntactically as a noun. "To" is not the infinitive marker, but the directional preposition "to", and as such it can govern the gerund-noun "seeing" just as it could govern any other noun. This prepositional "to" is a fixed part of the idiomatic phrase "look forward to". You "look forward to something", where something can be any noun phrase. You "look forward to your vacations", "look forward to our meeting", or, if you fill in a gerund phrase instead of the noun phrase, "look forward to doing something". Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:10, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much! Fritz Jörn (talk) 13:37, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As an aside, I tutored a native Turkish speaker in English, and he simply could not understand that there was no pseudo-progressive infinitive with -ing as in "to seeing" and he quit my services after I assigned him a twenty sentence exercise on the matter. But the way to parse the above visually is (I'd like)(to see you) vs (I’m looking forward to)(seeing you). μηδείς (talk) 19:12, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Can you read this tombstone?

I can read parts of this inscription easily, but the weathered bits are playing tricks on me. What I can read, Google doesn't recognize. It's like a Hangman puzzle, but with whole words. Anybody good at that game (or good at recognizing 19th century verse) and want to help?

Just the poem bit, not the vitals. InedibleHulk (talk) 11:01, June 5, 2015 (UTC)

Here's the Findagrave profile, if that offers clues. Doesn't to me. InedibleHulk (talk) 11:04, June 5, 2015 (UTC)

"One little bud adorned my bower etc". It is a poem on the death of an infant. See here. Contact Basemetal here 11:08, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

(ec)I think it's this, the poem "Death of an Infant". I downloaded the picture and inverted the colors, which made it easier to read. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:09, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, thanks. I couldn't read the simple words, after all! Thought that was "one little bird". InedibleHulk (talk) 11:17, June 5, 2015 (UTC)

That's quite a good bit of detective wortk, BB! Charles Sprague was quite an interesting character. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:20, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I deduce Bugs sees different colours from me, because inverting them made it harder to read, in my eyes. But that's why two heads are better than one. I also am led to believe Sprague has a forcefield around his headstone, because nobody can read this. Or can they? InedibleHulk (talk) 11:29, June 5, 2015 (UTC)

I'm fairly certain it says "Sprague". Oh, you mean the obelisk? The picture is not sufficiently high-def to be readable. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:31, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I'd meant that thing in the distance, but then I realized that's not even his. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:41, June 5, 2015 (UTC)

I didn't need to do anything other then inject into Google the few words I could read. Maybe you all need better glasses. Contact Basemetal here 11:40, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You found it at the same time I did, and the same way. I also first thought it was "little bird", but it didn't quite work. Inverting the colors helped me because it made the letters jump out a bit more. But even knowing what the words are, it's kind of hard to read. Too much stuff growing on the stone. A local needs to fix that. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:06, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No, tombstones are supposed to gather moss. They're the opposite of rolling stones. When they topple, that's fine, too. Lets you know their time has passed. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:16, June 5, 2015 (UTC)

This guy gets it. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:27, June 5, 2015 (UTC)

We all need better tombstones. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:23, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"Beneath this stone lies John Mound / Lost at sea and never found." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:27, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"What's up Doc?" ... HERE LIES LESTER MOORE, FOUR SLUGS FROM A 44, NO LES NO MORE. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:33, 5 June 2015 (UTC) [reply]

Some good shit here. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:47, June 5, 2015 (UTC)

Do I detect another new article being dug? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:00, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Are these ok? (Still a bit hard to read) Contact Basemetal here 12:38, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think this guy had two kitchens, too? Martinevans123 (talk) 12:44, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Since he had two wives... Contact Basemetal here 13:05, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As I was going to St Ives, I met a man with two wives. And each wife married a man with two names. Thankfully, this isn't the math desk. InedibleHulk (talk) 13:33, June 5, 2015 (UTC)

Wait, my brain broke again. Only one wife was going to St Ives. They called her "Pee". InedibleHulk (talk) 13:36, June 5, 2015 (UTC)

My eyes work, it's my brain that was too narrow. I saw the picture of the little bird and the very possibility that it's about a little bud went out the window. Like how tons of people still can't see how "Puff the Magic Dragon" is about a literal magic dragon, not a little bud. InedibleHulk (talk) 12:26, June 5, 2015 (UTC)

Surely a song can be about two things at once? Or even more? Aboutness is hard to pin down, but I think you'd appreciate a skim. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:17, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If Jackie Paper can whip up a dragon out of autumn mist, we can certainly interpret something like words and music however we'd like. And in the privacy of our imagination, of course we're right. But once that theory's out, it's vulnerable to attack.

Say the song's about duty or reincarnation or the Java War, people may hear you out. But say it's about weed, and somebody in the room will kneejerk mythbust you like you said Columbus discovered America or toads cause warts. The evidence is on their side, and they're glad to let you know this. It's essentially the only wrong answer.

I'll stick with "subject" over "aboutness", but thanks for sharing. It sort of includes theme better, just doesn't have a nice ring to it. John Hutchins' website is about machine translation and feels about 1995. But I'd just say those are what it's about, not those are its aboutness. People would tell me I'm wrong. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:11, June 5, 2015 (UTC)

Well-to-do

Wiktionary says that "well-to-do" is applied to plural subjects only. Is that correct? I'm sure I've read things like "She married a well-to-do merchant".

Also, is there an antonym of this expression that preserves the "-to-do" ending? What does "-to-do" refer to, anyway? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 11:26, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe ne'er-do-well is an opposite. Maybe not quite. I don't find it weird if either is used for singular or plural objects, and haven't heard that anyone does till now, but I'd never really thought about it, either. InedibleHulk (talk) 11:44, June 5, 2015 (UTC)

I think what they "do" is just general business. InedibleHulk (talk) 11:46, June 5, 2015 (UTC)

Wiktionary says that the term used as a noun (as in "The well-to-do may not be happier than you or I") is plural in sense. It does not say that the adjective is used only to modify plural nouns. Deor (talk) 12:09, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Now that seems correct. InedibleHulk (talk) 12:18, June 5, 2015 (UTC)

Good Lord! That's the first mistake I've ever made. My life is in ruins. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 13:02, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've told you a million times, don't exaggerate. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:25, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Pretty sure there's no *poor-to-do or *bad-to-do, but there are the slightly related terms (in my AmEng) "well off", "better off", "worse off" &c. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:05, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the same in British English, and we also have the colloquial "badly off", though I wouldn't use it in formal writing. Dbfirs 15:37, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The OED Online has three nineteenth-century citations for ill-to-do. (ill being the opposite of well, I think). 128.232.236.110 (talk) 09:54, 6 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it ill-behoves us not to know that. Thanks for that info. I shall introduce "ill-to-do" into my scribblings forthwith. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 10:42, 6 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

June 6

BB in Nitzinger’s "Texas Blues"

What’s a BB or B-B in the song Texas Blues presented in April '72 by John Nitzinger in Puerto Rico during the festival Mar y Sol (Album)? To be heared on Youtube og0R6HLCzws (?t=6m9s). As far as I’ve researched: "Mama, if you put your brain on a razor blade it'd look like a BB rollin’ down a four lane highway – (the) girl’s not too sharp"? Quoted by Terry Moore in "Strangers in Paradise" No. 6, July 1995. BB coudn’t be a Blackberry, not yet invented, and far from rolling (–:) PS. I like Blackberries, both of them. – Fritz Jörn (talk) 08:09, 6 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

BB gun Fgf10 (talk) 09:26, 6 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This, although it does not explain "rollin' down". --Askedonty (talk) 09:30, 6 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wiktionary says BB can stand for "battleship". 'BB' is a hull classification symbol for a battleship. Contact Basemetal here 10:49, 6 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Erm what? It clearly refers to a BB pellet. Do you see a battleship or a bed and breakfast rolling down? Fgf10 (talk) 11:30, 6 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This is poetry, man. The girl may not be too sharp, but a brain that'd be to a razor blade what a BB pellet is to a four-lane highway, what size would it be? Even vital functions couldn't be carried out. There's no way this can be taken literally. There's poetic license one way or the other. I prefer to give the girl the benefit of the doubt. Contact Basemetal here 11:49, 6 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

When I was a kid, the saying with regard to a stupid person was that the brain in his or her skull rolled around "like a BB in a boxcar". This is clearly an even more exaggerated version. Deor (talk) 11:53, 6 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, seems like me, or two of us have to sharpen their view on the BB Gun article: BB_gun History, although, nonetheless, a battleship would do. Does anyone, like me, see in the boxcar version the similarity or rather the possible link with the Danish Prinsessen paa Ærten ? --Askedonty (talk) 12:55, 6 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah. Probably in the original (Swedish?) version of the story they stuck her brain under those mattresses. Contact Basemetal here 17:15, 6 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's a serious possibility. And so regarding the song, we can assume the princess tale is giving the scale while the narrative is building upon the boxcar theme. Then the tiny ball would be rolling down only erratically if it's a highway while most of the time it would rebound and bounce. If it was the ball that was viewed on the razor blade, its erratic behavior would not be perceptible, too tiny; while the magnifier (the girl), is not so sharp. --Askedonty (talk) 17:25, 6 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Finally while the erratic pellet is lost into infinity some of us will not know about the boxcar fun and some others will not want to take things according to it, for example if the lady is viewed as obstinate instead of mindless. Or there is no disagreement to be considered and it is only stated that thinking the image of one's own brain left on a razor blade is absurd only as much as any of the possible sorts of BB's rolling down highways: either impossible, or futile. --Askedonty (talk) 08:38, 7 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with BB pellet. Hull classifications are only used in the US Navy until they assign a name to the class of ship, like Virginia class, plus on various paperwork. I don't see anyone, even sailors, saying "That's a new BB" when referring to a battleship. And it would be B&B for a bread and breakfast, not BB. StuRat (talk) 12:48, 7 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I always understood that the "BB" in "BB gun" stands for ball bearing, which seem to have been invented in Wales in 1794, according to our article. Alansplodge (talk) 17:18, 7 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that sounds like a reasonable explanation of the origin. StuRat (talk) 19:23, 7 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. That makes sense. --Askedonty (talk) 19:40, 7 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This is one of those things that sounds reasonable, but isn't actually true. At least not according to our BB gun article, which explains that BB was the designation of a certain size of shot, at the time nominally 0.180 inches, now slightly smaller. --Trovatore (talk) 19:57, 7 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

True, but people not too knowledgeable about hunting in America ( look for BB in Shotgun shell ) can have made of it BB stands for bearings, even possibly arguing for precedence. What makes sense to me in the current context is that ball bearings can make for much heavier balls than 0.180 shotgun balls and that new kind of weight is what's needed to make the boxcar situation ( described by Deor above ) "scalably" portable in Nitzinger's scheme. Bearing balls are of various size and they can be felt and I imagine, weighting like stones. --Askedonty (talk) 21:55, 7 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I stand corrected on the ball bearing issue, several sources on the net suggest that there were various sizes of ball shot for shotguns called "B", "BB" and "BBB". See The Secret History of Balls by Josh Chetwynd. Alansplodge (talk) 12:54, 8 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Enter your MC card in the ATM machine and when requested type your pin number

I like to have more examples of such sentences. Count Iblis (talk) 19:17, 6 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

RAS syndrome is the term for it, and has other examples. -- 160.129.138.186 (talk) 19:57, 6 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Surely you mean "PIN number"? Martinevans123 (talk) 20:10, 6 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

And not just any old PIN number, Martinevans123, but your own personal PIN number. μηδείς (talk) 18:57, 8 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If MC refers to MasterCard, then that particular one isn't necessarily redundant. MasterCard is the company. So their card could be (sounds dumb, I know) "MasterCard card' the same way it would be a "Visa card". All the other ones are dumb, though. Mingmingla (talk) 21:56, 6 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

They should have stuck with the original name, MasterCharge, in which case MC card makes perfect sense. StuRat (talk) 12:52, 7 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

To borrow from Adrian Monk (Tony Shalhoub), this kind of thing is enough to make you LOL out loud. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:00, 7 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Please RSVP. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:42, 8 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I am sorry, SemanticMantis, but I have a previous engagement. μηδείς (talk) 20:05, 8 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We have an article on U.S. states. --Amble (talk) 18:11, 8 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps related. In linguistics there's the term Reduplication (see also Reduplicated plural and Reduplicative copula). It refers to a doubling of a word or part of a word. In any other context this would be just called "duplication". The re- part suggests it's not just doubled but tripled, or more, but that turns out not to be the case, so there's something tautological happening there. Interestingly, when something is actually tripled linguistically, the process is called triplication, not retriplication. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:20, 8 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- Irregardless of its seeming overexaggeration, the term "reduplicate" comes from the same root as "redouble" and really means "multiply".[1] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:46, 9 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have wanted to found an organization called Americans Committed to Renaming Organizations with Names You Must Spell. → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 20:24, 9 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

June 8

Old Persian

Is there any source mentioning the Old Persian (Achaemenian) name of Greco-Persian Wars? I also wonder whether there is Old Persian rendition of the name of Artemisia I of Caria. So far the corresponding articles contain Ancient Greek names, but only modern Iranian names are shown. Brandmeister^talk 21:42, 8 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Our article states that there are no surviving Persian accounts of the war, so we can't know the Old Persian name of the war for sure. For the same reason, it is unlikely that we know how Artemisia's name was rendered in Old Persian. Marco polo (talk) 13:36, 9 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There is a 19th-century German Old Persian dictionary that you can read online, but it does not seem to mention Artemisia or the Greek war. I bet they would have spelled Artemisia with the arta-, the same word at the beginning of Artaxerxes for example, but as Marco says, we'll probably never know. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:51, 9 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

June 9

Japanese instructions

Hello. Recently I bought some craft tape at the hobby store, and I noticed when I got home the instructions are all in Japanese. Anyone to help decipher it please? Thank you. → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 01:49, 9 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Since nobody has answered yet: I can't translate the text, but I'm pretty sure it's just telling you how to set up the dispenser, and to avoid putting the tape on freshly painted surfaces where removal of the tape may remove some paint. I was unable to find any good info on the company's USA website [2]. You might find something useful on Youtube. This clip [3] is maddening, as it seems like it's about to tell you something useful about the tape, and then the clip just ends! SemanticMantis (talk) 18:18, 10 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Finnish grammar- name suffix

I was doing a YouTube search for a hockey player named Aleksi Saarela. While scrolling I noticed that there were many more clips of him- in Finnish- if his name was spelled Aleksi Saarelan. Is the addition of the -n some form of genitive grammatical case? Or am I way off? Wolfgangus (talk) 11:06, 9 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that is correct. "Saarelan" is the genitive case form of "Saarela". JIP | Talk 11:29, 9 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! That was a complete guess, based on my college Latin. I appreciate it. Wolfgangus (talk) 12:02, 9 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Soul(s)

A 'non-liberated' soul is that which is circulating in the 'life cycle', a 'liberated' soul is that which accomplished 'liberation' and is not in the 'life cycle', what do I call/classify/state the soul(s) which are condemned to Hell for eternity after death? They are not in the 'life cycle'. -- Space Ghost (talk) 19:09, 9 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on what "liberated" means. It sounds like it means "no longer attached to a body." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:38, 9 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well, in Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism, the major faiths which accept the concepts of Moksha and Samsara (liberation and rebirth), Naraka is the abode of the damned. However, this punishment is not considered eternal (unlike the Christian Hell), but only as a part of the cycle from which one can eventually be liberated. This question would probably be better on RD/H. Tevildo (talk) 20:31, 9 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I'll do as you advised. -- Space Ghost (talk) 18:29, 10 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Soul#Jainism explicitly states that a Non-Liberated Soul is that of a living being which is currently stuck in any of the four life cycle forms, including Narak Gati (Hell). -- ToE 20:41, 9 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

June 10

TO&E

What does this mean? I have a number of board wargames which use this phrase to refer to certain combat formations. What does it actually mean? KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 12:12, 10 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Table of Organisation and Equipment [4]. Mikenorton (talk) 12:21, 10 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

Latin word and case choice: command to "begin"/"start"

Hello - Trying to wrap my head around Latin conjugations today without any training. Could use some help. I'm trying to figure out what a Roman teacher would say to a student or a group of students in order to make them begin or start on a test or exercise -- the equivalent of what would be "Start!" or "Begin!" in English. So I'm guessing that means I'm looking for the second-person present-tense imperative form of a verb. Two questions:

Which verb better fits the circumstances? initio or incipio?
Depending on the answer to that question, it looks like the answer would be either initia/initiate or incipe/incipite, depending on one student or many. Is there anything I'm missing?

Thanks. --Brasswatchman (talk) 18:48, 10 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that initio means "I originate, I am the beginning of" where as incipio means more "I begin [an activity]". So I think the more appropriate command would be incipe or incipite. Marco polo (talk) 20:55, 10 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Biblia Sacra Vulgata (the Holy Vulgate Bible) uses incipe at Deuteronomy 2:31.

—Wavelength (talk) 21:13, 10 June 2015 (UTC) and 21:19, 10 June 2015 (UTC) and 21:30, 10 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Perfect. Thank you both. (How do I mark this as resolved?) --Brasswatchman (talk) 22:58, 10 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You can copy the wikicode for "Resolved" from the previous section. (That section is now the one with the heading "TO&E", but archiving might change the order of the sections.) I prefer to avoid using the wikicode for "Resolved" (because answerers might provide additional information), but you are free to use it.

—Wavelength (talk) 23:03, 10 June 2015 (UTC) and 00:04, 11 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

June 11

Breatharians and always-awake-ians?

A breatharian is someone who never eats. What do you call someone who never sleeps? 24.130.24.40 (talk) 06:10, 11 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 201: / Line 201: @@
 = June 11 =
+== Breatharians and always-awake-ians? ==
+A [[breatharian]] is someone who never eats. What do you call someone who never sleeps? [[Special:Contributions/24.130.24.40|24.130.24.40]] ([[User talk:24.130.24.40|talk]]) 06:10, 11 June 2015 (UTC)