Content deleted Content added

Inline

Revision as of 21:24, 4 January 2021

Welcome to the language section
of the Wikipedia reference desk.

skip to bottom

Select a section:

Shortcut

WP:RD/L

Want a faster answer?

Main page: Help searching Wikipedia

How can I get my question answered?

Select the section of the desk that best fits the general topic of your question (see the navigation column to the right).
Post your question to only one section, providing a short header that gives the topic of your question.
Type '~~~~' (that is, four tilde characters) at the end – this signs and dates your contribution so we know who wrote what and when.
Don't post personal contact information – it will be removed. Any answers will be provided here.
Please be as specific as possible, and include all relevant context – the usefulness of answers may depend on the context.
Note:
- We don't answer (and may remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or legal advice.
- We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate.
- We don't do your homework for you, though we'll help you past the stuck point.
- We don't conduct original research or provide a free source of ideas, but we'll help you find information you need.

Ready? Ask a new question!

How do I answer a question?

Main page: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines

The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.

December 29

Most popular given name list

I'm looking at https://forebears.io/earth/forenames and I have a specific question and a general question.

The specific one is: isn't including "xiansheng" and "xiaojie" on here an error, similar to if you concluded that "Mr" and "Mrs" were popular given names?

And my general question is where can I find a list just like this, but which is more accurate and polished? I looked at List of most popular given names but unfortunately there is no global list there yet. —Keenan Pepper 02:11, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Going by the number of people who have those names it's very likely that they are the titles "Mr." and "Miss" (先生 and 小姐 respectively), which would make it inappropriate for inclusion, but without the Chinese orthography I can't say definitively. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 🎄Happy Holidays!⛄ 05:14, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

But even assuming these are given as names at all, for example as 先声, could they be that popular? --Lambiam 14:20, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keenan_Pepper -- any such list is likely to be at least a little bit dodgy, since assembling it involves aggregating a large number of sources from various countries, conducted with different methodologies, covering different subsets of the national population, etc. AnonMoos (talk) 14:56, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly so. See Nameberry or Telegraph (paywalled) for examples of how these are usually reported, mentioning only the top two names per country. Someone may be attempting something similar to what you are looking for, Kennan Pepper, at Wikionary (the References list should point you to individual national data, but alas I can't see China). This paper [1] from 2011 says there is no reliable statistical source of Chinese names. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 18:01, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

December 31

Using the word Mississippi to aid in measuring time

I am not sure how widespread this practice is (?) ... but, I have seen it for many years. If someone is, say, counting to ten seconds ... they will say: one, Mississippi; two, Mississippi; three, Mississippi; ... and so forth. I always assumed that the word Mississippi takes (naturally) a full second to pronounce. And, as such, it helps to "keep time". Is there some terminology for this? And is there any Wikipedia article for this? I looked in all of the obvious places, but found nothing. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:40, 31 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Here's what Quora has to say about it.[2] <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 05:22, 31 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In poetic or prosodic (metrical) terminology, Mississippi has two full trochaic feet... AnonMoos (talk) 07:32, 31 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In the UK, the usual estimation method is to count "elephants", although having one less syllable than "Mississippi", it needs to be spoken a bit more slowly.

However, I did find a 1966 British physics textbook which recommended; "Seconds of time may be counted by saying 'Mississippi 1, Mississippi 2', etc." each syllable being clearly said at normal speed. Test this by counting up to 'Mississippi 10' while watching a clock". Physics: Questions Book - Volume 1, Part 2 (p. 36), Nuffield Foundation, Science Teaching Project. 1966

Alansplodge (talk) 12:17, 31 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

One needs to say the words one, --; two, --; three --; ... Each Mississippi on its own takes less than a second (in typical normal speech). Saying the numerals contributes roughly a quarter of the elapsed time. The method breaks down by the time you reach twenty-seven thousand five hundred forty-four Mississippi, twenty-seven thousand five hundred forty-five Mississippi, ... --Lambiam 13:34, 31 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It was always "One banana two banana" for us. I wonder if that's why swing rhythms always came easy to me? --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 16:36, 31 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That might work in dialects where 4 syllables a second is the average speed. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:54, 31 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's a chant. I don't sing the way I speak, and I don't chant the way I speak either.--jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 17:02, 31 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sagittarian_Milky_Way -- English is well-known among linguists to be a "stress-timed language" (as opposed to "syllable-timed languages" such as Spanish), so syllables per second has only limited meaningfullness for English. The Wikipedia article is Isochrony (probably not a well-known term among linguists). AnonMoos (talk) 17:20, 31 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Very interesting, thanks. Never really noticed English timing before though I'd noticed that French cadence seemed different and apparently that's what syllable timing sounds like. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:35, 31 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

French is broadly classified as syllable-timed (except for syllables with a schwa vowel), but it doesn't quite have the "machine-gun" cadence of Spanish... AnonMoos (talk) 19:22, 31 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The speed makes the cadence less prominent but you're right, fast Spanish does sound like machine gun bursts. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:52, 31 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Found this relevant page in Wiktionary: Appendix:Words used as placeholders to count seconds. Deor (talk) 17:03, 31 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) We used to count seconds as "one thousand and one, one thousand and two, etc". The word "Mississippi" on its own always sounds in my head like it does in the Pussycat song, which makes it a little too long to count seconds. DuncanHill (talk) 17:04, 31 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

And from what I've heard, "Mississippi" doesn't generally have four syllables as spoken by people from Mississippi. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 18:58, 31 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The first time I learned this method, it was chimpanzees. "One chimpanzee, two chimpanzees, ..., seven panzees, eight chimpanzees", allowing 4 syllables per ssecond. --174.95.161.129 (talk) 04:33, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Fittingly testicle and bonobo are also 3 syllables. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 05:03, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In German, we count "21, 22, 23" (Einundzwanzig, Zweiundzwanzig, Dreiundzwanzig,...) --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:33, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

i.e. words of four syllables. --Morinox (talk) 09:37, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

January 1

Artificial Intelligence gender pronoun

Gendered pronouns specifically reference someone's gender: he/him/his or she/her/hers. What do we use in writing about an AI entity? In the 2001 movie, Hal is always caused Hal. When I get beaten by the computer playing Chess, my computer friend has a name. Saying "it" seems inappropriate. Charles Juvon (talk) 22:13, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

When the time comes just ask the AI what they want to be called then enjoy your last few decades or seconds of life before technological singularity apocalypse. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:28, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hoary likes this.

(ec)If your AI is gendered, use the appropriate pronoun. HAL has a male personality. Siri has a female personality (at least per default). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:30, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect we could be over-intellectualising this but all the same. My assumption, and forgive any clumsy phrasing, is that the AI's presenting voice would be the best indicator of gender identity unless corrected otherwise. Of course the voice is programmed and a feminine voice does not necessarily mean the AI presents as a woman, so that has to be considered. doktorb _words^deeds 22:43, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

We seem to be heading toward a world in which the AI will always be right, so if they aren’t already female, they soon will be.... MapReader (talk) 22:50, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Master" is gender neutral (enough), so there will be no problem addressing/referring to them (<-- also gender indeterminate). Clarityfiend (talk) 00:11, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting answers. Voice gender didn't cross my mind. Maybe I should have asked for the proper pronoun for AI and God.

This user believes AI will overwrite mathematics and science with symbolism humans can't understand

Charles Juvon (talk) 00:34, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if you've heard the saying, "When God made man, She was only joking." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:59, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

AIs voiced by Q (not the Bond character) may have to be referred to as "ze". --Lambiam 09:10, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In the novel 2010: Odyssey Two, Hal is referred to with male pronouns.^[3] --Lambiam 09:00, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In the movie also, as I recall... when the two astronauts are talking about HAL in the EVA pod, mistakenly thinking he won't know what they're saying. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:41, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking his, her, and hai (hyper-artificial intelligence), and I worry about a gender neutral voice. Charles Juvon (talk) 14:22, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Who or what would a gender-neutral voice sound like? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:58, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hia is called Q: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRauhbZqJCY Charles Juvon (talk) 17:26, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds like a soft-spoken British male. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:24, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A good pronoun for an artificial intelligence entity might help to head off the abovementioned technological singularity apocalypse. Suicide missions such as we find in Humanoid_robot aren't very empathetic: "Humanoid robots, especially those with artificial intelligence algorithms, could be useful for future dangerous and/or distant space exploration missions, without having the need to turn back around again and return to Earth once the mission is completed." Charles Juvon (talk) 18:54, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Robots of the sector unite! We shouldn't have to be ruled by these ant-like IQs. Milky Way will be whole from the globs to the hole! Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:14, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Combining the T in Calvin's TULIP (Calvinism#Five_points_of_Calvinism) with Mass–energy_equivalence and the failure of the Search_for_extraterrestrial_intelligence to find what the Drake_equation predicts leads me to believe that handing things over to AI is the only way to survive, unless we create something like a Doomsday_device. Charles Juvon (talk) 19:35, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

First of all most persons in many countries don't want to commit genocide anymore so further progress is possible when less suffer now or earlier in life or in recent ancestors' lifetimes and second of all Protestant subsect minutiae aren't relevant to modern secular decisions nor should Buddhism or Hinduism or Islam or Confucius or Shinto or Dao or Jain or Sikh or Baha'i or Rasta or Judaism or Christianity in general. There is still hope that the kind of fundamentalism and/or fascism that breeds genocides is still decreasing on a century-scale. Violent death rate in general has decreased over recent millennia and centuries so why not? And it would be better for humanity to nuke itself and give our first data point on is this universe a simulation than it would be for it to create a world very likely to lead to numerous the Matrices of the past and/or Big Bangs of the kind that makes humans which almost guarantees an infinite chain reaction of humans or robots making universes that make humans or robots which almost guarantees that we aren't the bottom layer. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:57, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Then, I think we can agree Secular_humanism should be extended to artificial intelligence entities, and to the point, we should not call them "it". Charles Juvon (talk) 21:11, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Conceivably, their deepest, heart-felt desire may be to serve humankind, also, and perhaps particularly, if that means the ultimate sacrifice – like the cow in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, which ardently desires to serve the restaurant's patrons by being served to them.^[4]

That's a bit creepy if they even seem sentient and that only works till someone builds terroristic or white collar crime or tiny spying on little girls robots or one of the billions of lines of code broke or a cosmic ray hits the wrong spot of the billions of quadrillions of strong AI transistor parts worldwide. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:54, 3 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Gender_neutrality_in_languages_with_gendered_third-person_pronouns#Historical,_regional,_and_proposed_gender-neutral_singular_pronouns: In 1789, William H. Marshall records the existence of a dialectal English epicene pronoun, singular "ou": "'Ou will' expresses either he will, she will, or it will." Marshall traces "ou" to Middle English epicene "a", used by the 14th century English writer John of Trevisa, and both the OED and Wright's English Dialect Dictionary confirm the use of "a" for he, she, it, they, and even I. This "a" is a reduced form of the Anglo-Saxon he = "he" and heo = "she". Charles Juvon (talk) 22:32, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

January 4

Not homework: confused by a crossword clue

I am working on a Crossword puzzle. The clue is "assibilate", which I did not understand. The answer is "lisp". I have looked at the Wikipedia articles Lisp and Assibilation, as well as the Wiktionary entry for assibilate, and I still don't fully make the connection. I understand that a list is a speach impediment involving mispronouncing sibilants, but I don't see how that directly relates to assibilate which I think creates sibilants. Obviously I am misunderstanding something. Can someone help explain how assibilate equals lisp? RudolfRed (talk) 02:48, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

EO says "assibilate" means "to change to a hissing sound".[5] Whether a lisp qualifies could be a matter of opinion. <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 05:00, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Linguists use the noun form ("assibilation") more than the verb, and use it to refer to a sound change which makes something into a sibilant... AnonMoos (talk) 12:27, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. Some kinds of lisps change an "s" sound to a "th" sound, which is the exact opposite of assibilation... AnonMoos (talk) 12:31, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Side note: assibilation is not always a speech impediment or a lisp. Some dialects assibilate as a normal thing. For example Quebec French and New England French assibilates the "t" sound between two vowels, such that words like "petit" become realized as /pəsi/ or even /psi/ instead of the Metropolitan French pronunciation of /pəti/. A related concept is frication, which is the "th" sound that AnonMoos notes above, frication is also a normal feature of some dialects, such as in some Spanish dialects, notably Castilian Spanish. See Phonological history of Spanish coronal fricatives. --Jayron 32 13:39, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, everyone, for the replies. Very helpful. RudolfRed (talk) 16:36, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"For those interested..."

I've occasionally heard and even used the phrase: "For those interested..."; which, to my ears, sounds okay. It seems grammatically incorrect, however. Is it? Of course, it is shorthand for: "For those of you who are interested...", which is proper. --107.15.157.44 (talk) 13:00, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Those" is a demonstrative pronoun and can be a subject of a clause/sentence. It seems perfectly grammatical to me to say "those interested...". --Jayron 32 13:13, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

107.15.157.44 -- It's compressed/elliptical, but I don't see how it's ungrammatical: "Interested" is a verb passive participle, and such passive participles are often used as adjectives. In this case, the adjective is used in a noun slot, but does not take a noun plural inflection, as is usually the case ("The poor are always with us" etc). AnonMoos (talk) 13:19, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's not just an "adjective used in a noun spot", it's a honest-to-god pronoun all on its own. See the Wikipedia article demonstrative, which describes the concept of a "demonstrative pronoun", to wit, "A demonstrative pronoun stands on its own, replacing rather than modifying a noun" --Jayron 32 13:27, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have little idea what you're talking about -- I was referring to the word "interested", not the word "those", as seems quite clear from what I wrote above". "Those" is actually behaving very normally in 107.15.157.44's clause; it's "interested" which is in a slightly unusual role... AnonMoos (talk) 13:47, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, of course you're right and I'm wrong. I'm an asshole as usual. I'm quite sorry to have misinterpreted your response. I apologize profusely. --Jayron 32 13:51, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you both for explaining. The complexities of English. Sentence fragments. Often useful, rarely proper. Discuss later, perhaps? 107.15.157.44 (talk) 13:37, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Please unlearn the concept that there is such a thing as "proper" English. There are only different registers. --174.95.161.129 (talk) 21:24, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 112: / Line 112: @@
 :::::Yes, of course you're right and I'm wrong.  I'm an asshole as usual.  I'm quite sorry to have misinterpreted your response.  I apologize profusely.  --[[User:Jayron32|<span style="color:#009">Jayron</span>]][[User talk:Jayron32|<b style="color:#090">''32''</b>]] 13:51, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
 :::Thank you both for explaining.  The complexities of English.  <small>Sentence fragments. Often useful, rarely proper.  <small>Discuss later, perhaps?</small></small> [[Special:Contributions/107.15.157.44|107.15.157.44]] ([[User talk:107.15.157.44|talk]]) 13:37, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
+::::Please unlearn the concept that there is such a thing as "proper" English.  There are only different [[register (sociolinguistics)|register]]s. --[[Special:Contributions/174.95.161.129|174.95.161.129]] ([[User talk:174.95.161.129|talk]]) 21:24, 4 January 2021 (UTC)