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May 5

Get 'a' divorce

What is the function of 'a' in that construct? Is 'divorce' countable? Or supposed to be? Thanks for comments. Omidinist (talk) 05:34, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The "a" is a normal indefinite article. "Divorce" is a count (countable) noun in this context and can also be a mass (uncountable) noun in other contexts. The question about "supposed to be" is meaningless. --174.89.12.187 (talk) 06:13, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's just one of the many inconsistencies of the English language that you can either get divorced or get a divorce but you can only get married and not *get a marriage. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:38, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"a marriage" is perfectly cromulent. The sentence "I have had three marriages and two divorces" is perfectly reasonable. And yes, "divorce" is a countable noun, as I just demonstrated. --Jayron 32 12:43, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Mahagaja -- You can "get a marriage license", "officiate at a marriage", or "hold a wedding ceremony". AnonMoos (talk) 19:12, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I never denied that marriage is a countable noun, I'm just asserting that no one says "I'm getting a marriage" to mean "I'm getting married" the way people say "I'm getting a divorce" to mean "I'm getting divorced". —Mahāgaja · talk 07:39, 6 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm? --Jayron 32 23:57, 7 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That doesn't preclude "getting a marriage certificate" etc. Nardog (talk) 06:19, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

One could also "get a spouse". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:24, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Looking for logic in English usage can sometimes prove to be a fruitless exercise. Alansplodge (talk) 11:51, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Cartellverband

I'm reading the list of member fraternities of the Cartellverband. Apparently their names are in Latin and somehow refer to their respective territory/city. Some of them are transparent, such as: Badenia, Bavaria, Carinthia, Guestfalia, Palatia, Rhenania or Saxonia, but a few of them are quite mysterious, in particular: Aenania, Alcimonia, Algovia, Ascania, Tuisconia/Tuiskonia, Makaria, Moenania, Novesia. Do you have any idea about their meaning? 79.26.53.210 (talk) 07:16, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think Algovia refers to the Allgäu and Moenania to the River Main. Ascania probably refers to the House of Ascania, whose name apparently comes from the Latin name of the castle in Aschersleben. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:56, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Aenania refers to the river Inn (de:KDStV Aenania München). Alcimonia is probably related to Alcimoennis and/or the river Altmühl. --Wrongfilter (talk) 08:12, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tuisconia is from Tuisto (de:Karlsruher Burschenschaft Tuiskonia). Makaria is named after a poem by Theodor Körner, Greek Μακαρία meaning "happiness". --Wrongfilter (talk) 08:18, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Finally, de:Novaesium is the Latin name of Neuss; however, neither the article de:KDStV Novesia Bonn nor their website make that connection (or say anything at all about the name). --Wrongfilter (talk) 08:25, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why does Sunday have a special name in Chinese?

Names_of_the_days_of_the_week#Days_numbered_from_Monday explains that days of the week in Chinese are "Stellar Period" followed by a number, except for Sunday.

Why does Sunday have a special name and not just a number like all the others?

Is having a 7-day week a relatively recent introduction by westerners who were more likely than not, missionaries?

Thanks, cmɢʟee⎆τaʟκ 09:24, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The name for Sunday is likely a retainer from the original East Asian system mentioned elsewhere in the article. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:21, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The situation seems similar to the developments in Icelandic, Portuguese and Modern Greek, where the older system was (mostly) replaced. In the European cases, it would largely have been due to Christian views on paganism. In Chinese, it seems that the modern system basically originated with the founding of the Republic of China in 1911. The founders mostly seem to have been revolutionaries and nationalists, but not strictly communists, so I guess the older system might have been seen as convoluted and superstitious. The old name for Sunday might have been kept, as it was exceptional as a resting day. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 14:50, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sadly, Week#Adoption in Asia sounds like a promising place to find this information, but what is there is a) very scant and b) entirely unreferenced. --Jayron 32 12:41, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Days of the Week in Chinese: Three Different Words for 'Week' says that a seven-day week was a fairly recent innovation based on Christian worship.

Before they adopted the Western-style week, the Chinese used a ten-day cycle known as a 旬 xún in ordering their daily lives and activities. Although the Christian week was not unknown (it was known, for instance, from contact with the Jesuits in the 16th-18th centuries), the seven-day week as we know it first became widely familiar in the 19th century with the coming of traders and missionaries from Western powers.

The present terminology was adopted in 1912 at the founding of the Republic of China. Alansplodge (talk) 17:28, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well, actually the seven-day week arrived in China quite a while ago. From the Cihai: 中国在4世纪时有此法。("This reckoning [the seven-day week] existed in China in the 4th century", i.e. Jin dynasty). Buddhists and Manichaeans from the Western Regions probably brought it in again in the 8th century, i.e. Tang dynasty. The site you link to describes all of this when discussing the weekdays in Japanese. The recent innovation was actually adopting the 7-day week for the daily schedule. When China and Japan did this, Japan put the traditional planetary names in daily use, whereas Chinese replaced them with numerical names.

For completeness, Korean uses the same Chinese-character names as Japanese (but read in Korean and mostly today written in Hangul), whereas Vietnamese rather follows the Portuguese pattern (numbered days with special Sunday, and Monday as the second day), as do the traditional names used by Chinese Catholics. Double sharp (talk) 22:49, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a lot, everyone, for the excellent insights. I wonder what can be added to Week#Adoption_in_Asia or Names_of_the_days_of_the_week#Days_numbered_from_Monday to help future readers. Cheers, cmɢʟee⎆τaʟκ 05:08, 6 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It has nothing to do with the traditional ten-day week. Sunday is a special day in the Christian religion, which was the introduction vector of the seven-day week. It might be worth considering that the second syllable of the word "week" (xingqi) is homophonous with the word for "seven". I could see the pronunciation being misparsed, especially as time terms tend to come at the beginning of the sentence in Chinese and thus are easily miscontextualised. No references. Folly Mox (talk) 12:26, 6 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at the table here I've only encountered the informal 禮拜 in Cantonese, in Hong Kong in particular where it is the usual form. Interestingly in Cantonese 一 and 日 are a minimal pair, both pronounced "yat" but with different tones. So 禮拜一 and 禮拜日 are both "laibaiyat", only distinguished by their tones, a particular problem for anyone trying to get by without tones. 92.40.5.34 (talk) 09:09, 7 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

May 7

A rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight

Hello, I am German and my English is not so good. I'm looking for a source as early as possible since 1863 in a newspaper, magazine or a book for the slogan „A rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.“ (See also my query at the German Wikipedia [1]) My second question is whether this is already a Winged Word or a catchphrase (in German: Geflügeltes Wort). Thanks for answers. --88.72.111.240 (talk) 15:18, 7 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This is from 1864: Raleigh Standard as quoted in the New York Times, January 22, 1864. No luck finding an antebellum source. 136.56.52.157 (talk) 15:47, 7 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That use of the phrase seems to be by the NCpedia editors in introducing the New York Times article. The phrase "A rich man's war and a poor man's fight" doesn't appear to have been used by either the Times or the Raleigh Standard at the time, at least in this case. It certainly sounds like a phrase that would have been used in a Civil War context though. Deor (talk) 16:42, 7 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Somebody with a NYT subscription (not me) can read the original article here:[2] --136.56.52.157 (talk) 18:08, 7 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

HHill from the German Wikipedia answered me: „Nein, in dem Artikel FROM NORTH CAROLINA: Excitement About the Rebel Conscription Law. In: New York Times 22. Januar 1864, S. 1 steht dieser Satz nicht. Den auf den auf dem oberen Teil der verlinkten Seite zitierten Text aus der Times vom 12. Mai 1863 habe ich in dieser Ausgabe gefunden. Das hier in Rede stehende Zitat noch nicht. Beide Zeitungen sind übrigens für alle angemeldeten Benutzer, die die Zugangsvoraussetzungen der [Wikipedia:Förderung/The Wikipedia Library|Wikipedia Library] erfüllen, zugänglich (via Proquest bzw. Gale).“ So Deor was right. No sentence in NYT 22. Januar 1864, p. 1. If the sentence can be found in the Times 12. Mai 1863 is still not sure. To read NYT and Times is possible, if you have an account of Wikipedia Library (you might know better than I about this in en.wp). --88.72.111.240 (talk) 21:31, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much! --88.72.111.240 (talk) 15:57, 7 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Is it already a Winged Word or a catchphrase today? Can I say this? --88.72.111.240 (talk) 16:31, 7 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Presumably, but that might be a matter of opinion; these might help:

"Rich Man's War, Poor Man's Fight". Beyond the History Textbooks. 4 December 2013.
Andrea Asoni; Tino Sanandaji. "IFN Working Paper No. 965, 2013" (PDF). Research Institute of Industrial Economics. Rich Man's War, Poor Man's Fight? Socioeconomic Representativeness in the Modern Military
Martin, Bessie (2003). A rich man's war, a poor man's fight : desertion of Alabama troops from the Confederate Army. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. ISBN 978-0817350109.
Keith, Jeanette (2004). Rich man's war, poor man's fight : race, class, and power in the rural South during the first world war. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9780807855621.
"Rich Man's War – Poor Man's Fight – Whiskey & Wickedness".

136.56.52.157 (talk) 18:01, 7 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

1863: The Rebellion in America by Baptist Wriothesley Noel, published by J. Nesbet, 1863. p 269. "They declare that this is a rich man's war, but a poor man's fight" with a footnote that says "Times, May 12". 70.67.193.176 (talk) 18:10, 7 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Whow. Thank you. Nesbit is published 1863, so Times 12 May 1863 seems now the earliest source, we found. And thanks to all the other answers. (Now time to bed for me. :-) --88.72.111.240 (talk) 19:28, 7 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Translation of Geflügeltes Wort

Folowing on from this, the German article for Geflügeltes Wort (literally "winged word") links to the English catchphrase. I would associate a catchphrase with a line used by a comedian rather than something used in politics. Is there a better translation for the example quoted above? Alansplodge (talk) 11:48, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking as an(other?) elderly Brit, the comedic application is not predominant for me, and M. Roget has not suggested any better, more politically oriented term. {The poster formerly known as 897.81.230.195} 90.213.18.208 (talk) 12:36, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well...I think "familar quotation" might catch at least the gist of the meaning of geflügeltes Wort. Lectonar (talk) 12:40, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hint: The origin of this german term is connected to Georg Büchmann. --88.72.111.240 (talk) 13:33, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Geflügeltes Wort (also in the Scandinavian languages: bevingede ord in Norwegian and Danish, bevingade ord in Swedish) covers a lot more than the English term 'catchphrase'. It can be a catchphrace, but it may also be a literary quotation, a slogan, a proverb, a maxim, any expression that is well-known enough to have the power of "flying by itself". The term ἔπεα πτερόεντα – words with wings – was used already by Homeros many times, both in the Iliad and the Odyssey. --T*U (talk) 14:10, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Aren't catchphrases often connected to certain persons, who would use them repeatedly, whereas Geflügelte Wörter could be linked to certain persons, but it might not have belonged to their regular speech habits. Apparently, Bartlett has released a book of "Familiar quotations", a phrase I think functions reasonably well. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 15:36, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Geflügeltes Wort seems to be another useful German term that doesn't really have an adequate English corresponding term, (along with fremdschämen and schadenfreude, &c.). 136.56.52.157 (talk) 17:58, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

P.s: I wonder why this term wasn't created as a single word (as Germans like to do). 136.56.52.157 (talk) 18:45, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Then it would have to be someting like "Flügelwort". Lectonar (talk) 07:02, 9 May 2023 (UTC) [reply]

Hehe, or like the legendary Kindergarten. :-) Maybe, Georg Büchman or his publisher Friedrich Weidling imagined Pegasus. Büchmann was 1848 - 1877 teacher. He wrote: Ein geflügeltes Wort ist ein in weiteren Kreisen dauernd angeführter Ausspruch, Ausdruck oder Name, gleichviel welcher Sprache, dessen historischer Urheber oder dessen literarischer Ursprung nachweisbar ist. The literarily record is one of the main characteristics of a Geflügeltes Wort. --88.72.111.240 (talk) 21:54, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wiktionary has an entry winged word, with a quotation from 1591 in the sense as used by Homer. A quotation suggestive of the currently common sense of geflügeltes Wort, but most likely intended in the Homeric sense, is from 1891, by Thomas Carlyle. Here we find, "A proverb is 'a winged word, outliving the fleeting moment'." This characterization is attributed to Cervantes. --Lambiam 06:43, 9 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks all. Perhaps English should just co-opt the whole word, like schadenfreude or zeitgeist? Alansplodge (talk) 17:00, 9 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Or incorporate word on wings as an idiomatic expression.^[3] --Lambiam 09:44, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A "winged word" is aliterative, already, which I find phonetically pleasing... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 21:18, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

May 9

Russian propaganda lessons

I wonder if this is the correct place to ask someone to confirm the translations of the names of topics covered by the Russian propaganda lessons?

This is because I am making a list of Russian propaganda lessons (currently at User:Minoa/Propaganda) and I want to make sure the translations do not drift too far from the original Russian text. Best, --Minoa (talk) 03:56, 9 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Translators available may have some people to contact to help you out. --Jayron 32 11:40, 9 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Questions

Why in Latin, the dictionary form of verbs is the first-person singular indicative present, rather than the infinitive? Is there any Romance language which has same?
Is there any Romance language with morphological passive voice?
Is there any Romance language using letter Ç to indicate soft C pronunciation before back vowels where soft C sound is other than /s/?
Does English use hyphen when one of the parts of closed compound is a number, sign or abbreviation, like HIV-infection, @-sign, A-class?
Does Spanish have any word-final consonant clusters?
Are there an Spanish words ending in consonant which get just -s in plural ending, and not -es?

--40bus (talk) 15:49, 9 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding #4: Absolutely. See Mercedes-Benz A-Class for one example of the "letter hyphen word" construction. There's uncountable numbers of other examples. Regarding #5: apparently no: [4], though there may be loan words which provide rare counterexamples. --Jayron 32 16:01, 9 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If the question was does English ever use the hyphen like that, then yes, absolutely. But "HIV infection" and "@ sign" are standard, and "A class" could go either way. --174.89.12.187 (talk) 17:18, 9 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

They only said "Does English" and I took the examples to be representative, NOT exhaustive, here. Providing one usage case meets the requirement for "Does English..." The answer is an unambiguous "yes". I can find a second example if you think it would help; it certainly isn't hard to find them. --Jayron 32 17:57, 9 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding #6: This has some examples of spanish words that end in consonants and use -s for plural (bonus content: It also has one of the loan word counterexamples I allowed for above, "los icebergs"). Of course, all of those -s plurals would also be words that end in consonant clusters. --Jayron 32 16:04, 9 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding #3, Ç notes some different sounds (/dz/, /ts/, /θ/ and /ð/) in earlier versions of Portuguese and Spanish, but either changes in pronunciation (as in Portuguese) or in spelling reform (as in Spanish) has eliminated these uses. Occitan alphabet notes that it can be pronounced as /ʃ/ before the u vowel in the Auvergnat dialect, Catalan orthography#Ce trencada (c-cedilla) notes that it become voiced as /z/ in some contexts. --Jayron 32 16:12, 9 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding #2, This paper, which I haven't read myself more than just skimming, may be useful in your research. --Jayron 32 16:17, 9 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Re #1, the traditional presentation of Greek and Latin paradigms for verb conjugations started with the first-person form of the present indicative: λούω, λούεις, λούει, ... and luō, luis, luit, ... One would then say that bibō (for example) is conjugated like luō. When dictionaries were first compiled, these forms were chosen to represent the verbs. --Lambiam 09:06, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The paradigms of e.g. Italian, Spanish, Polish, English and Finnish start with the same form. But why these languages have the infinitive as dictionary form instead. Also, does Spanish have any verbs ending in -güer or -güir? --40bus (talk) 17:17, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Open central unrounced vowel

The open central unrounded vowel. I know that the reason why IPA has not assigned a specific symbol to it is because it is not reported to contrast with other open vowels (a, ɑ). But why it has not been assigned plain /a/ symbol even though languages with just one open vowel have usually central, not front of beack vowel? In my opinion, the /ä/ symbol is ugliest IPA symbol ever, and it is, like all vowel symbols with centralised diacritic, very "shocking". This is what I would do if I could change the vowel charts:

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i y	ɨ ʉ	ɯ u
Near-close	ɪ ʏ		ɯ̽ ʊ
Close-mid	e ø	ɘ ɵ	ɤ o
Mid	e̞ ø̞	ə	ɤ̞ o̞
Open-mid	ɛ œ	ɜ ɞ	ʌ ɔ
Near-open	æ̝ ɶ̝	ɐ	ɑ̝ ɒ̝
Open	æ ɶ	a	ɑ ɒ

You can see that plain /a/ stands for central vowel, /æ/ for open front vowel (current /a/ and near-open front vowel (current /æ/) is raised /æ̝/. --40bus (talk) 18:20, 9 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

40bus -- There was a kind of pamphlet published in 1942 by Bloch and Trager, "Outline of Linguistic Analysis", well-known to earlier generations of U.S. linguists, which has a completely symmetric vowel rectangle, where all degrees of height and fronting can freely co-occur, and all these combinations can occur either with or without lip rounding. I would guess that phoneticians have not found this as useful as the IPA, while for phonologists, it would allow a lot of theoretical low vowels which are rarely found to contrast phonemically with each other in languages. AnonMoos (talk) 01:07, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The biggest thing your missing is that vowels are a multidimensional continuum. You can transition between any two vowel sounds continuously, and travel through a literally infinite number of vowel sounds. In order to represent these sounds, by necessity, you need define a discrete set of symbols, which means each symbol represents not a single sound, but rather a small part of the multidimensional spectrum that most languages would consider "close enough" to consider all the same sound. However, there will always be edge cases where some vowel sounds may be classified with two different IPA symbols because they lie on the edge of what those symbols represent. This is unavoidable any time you try to fit a continuum phenomenon into a discrete set of classifications. No system would be free of this. Basically, it is always going to happen, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Now, regarding your " why it has not..." question: Those are unanswerable. It just wasn't. Also, related to that question and on your emotional responses to symbols (finding them "shocking"), that's mostly irrelevant. Symbols are ultimately arbitrary, and no one thought at the time they were inventing the IPA, what your future emotional response would be. --Jayron 32 12:47, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

May 11

dif

why everyon get angry

What i differece between Serbo-Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin, Croatian, Serbian, Slovamolisano, Chakavian, Kajakian, Burgenland Croatian, Bunjevc and Shtokavian

What do different people think