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April 19

how do you pronouce phoenix?

is it for-nix or fee-nix or something else?

The latter is usual - fee-nix. -- JackofOz (talk) 08:20, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

origin of phrase "roll up the sidewalk"

Where did the term "roll up the sidewalks" originate?

Thank you

skateboards?

I wandered around with google a bit and came up with this poem. I;ve never heard of it so I am not sure the attribution is correct

Poem: "Night Poem: U.S.A.," by George Garrett from Days of Our Lives Lie in Fragments (Louisiana State University Press).

Night Poem: U.S.A.

They roll up the sidewalks all over town by 11:30 p.m. Lord, by midnight there's nothing doing, moving. Lone streetlights glare like one-eyed giants, do not dare to dance. Here and there a late place burns pale fire to keep back the beasts of the night. Somebody's sick, you think (like Huck), or, less innocent, project the lewd fantastic, the cheap frail beams of poor Imagination gone awry into those naked rooms. Alas for the cop on the corner who gives you a glass-eyed stare, and for the last car weaving the pavement like a lonesome drunk. Dancers, giants, heroes and dreamers, where are you now? It's a fact— when the heart breaks it doesn't make a sound.

I couldn't find any more information on this poem to verify the author or the book or the date beyond what was said, but maybe this is a lead... 152.3.44.183 (talk) 23:01, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Rolling up the sidewalks at night means that there's nothing to do and nobody goes out. Corvus cornix_talk 23:08, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Surely it was this George Garrett. I'd be surprised to find a one, true source for this expression. It sounds to me like one of those things somebody said once and it stuck. That poem is in Days of Our Lives Lie in Fragments: New and Old Poems, 1957-1997, published in 1998. I'd also be surprised to learn that the expression was no older than 1957. --Milkbreath (talk) 23:25, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps it should be made explicit that the figure of speech refers to rolling up a carpet as you might do to put it away when it's not needed any more. As explained above, the expression means that nobody goes out at night because there's nothing to do. And therefore the sidewalks aren't needed, and therefore we might as well imagine them being put away like carpets. --Anonymous, 02:15 UTC, April 19, 2008.

Moved from Misc Desk. BrainyBabe (talk) 09:54, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If the question is who said it first, wouldn't the Humanities Desk be the right destination? --Anon, 10:55 UTC, April 19, 2008.

Someone vandalised the Wales section

Hey there, I just wanted to tell you that has vandalised the Wales page. You should check it out. Thanks.

'THAT' has? What has?--ChokinBako (talk) 13:00, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't mock other user's errors, ChokinBako. It is rude and comes across as hostile. To the person who brought up the vandalism of the Wales page, thank you. The vandalism was quickly removed and the page looks good now, to me. Skittle (talk) 15:03, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Aaaaaargh, more vandalism: there is a horrible picture now on the Wales page! --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 17:26, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What's the word for?

I know there is a word for this situation: Your PC or electronic gizmo does not work after trying and messing around. So, you call the technician. When he arrives, the PC or gizmo behaves itself like a good child. I know many can identify with this situation. :-) 59.183.50.187 (talk)

Gremlins ;-) --Prestidigitator (talk) 18:23, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In computer programming there is the term Heisenbug (a portemanteau of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and bug) which refers to computer bugs which disappear when you look for them or try to track them down. -- 128.104.112.85 (talk) 19:10, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But the principle extends further: the car that no longer makes a mysterious knocking sound when at the garage, the problem child who behaves sweetly for the behavioural therapist, the eczema that disappears mere days before the long-awaited appointment with the dermatologist.... BrainyBabe (talk) 20:32, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Could it be Sods law?

Maybe even objects and things act up to get attention? Julia Rossi (talk) 01:18, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you want a jokey answer, these are fine. If you want a serious answer, it's an intermittent problem. --Anonymous, 03:45 UTC, April 20/08.

Technically it's intermittent, yes. But we do have this concept floating around of something that consistently acts up until you need to show it to someone else, and I don't know if we have a word for it. kwami (talk) 03:46, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Intermittent sounds random, but this more like intermittent with a plan. Is there planned intermittence? Julia Rossi (talk) 06:40, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Perverse" is a more general word, but is sometimes used in reference to this sort of thing.

Someone once said: "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action." Doesn't answer the question, but it felt appropriate to quote it.

--Anon, 19:05 UTC, April 20/08.

Another slightly OT quote; "The innate animosity of the inanimate". SaundersW (talk) 17:18, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Clutch (sports)

What is the origin of this somewhat annoying term? When and how was it first used?--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 21:23, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good question. I don't seem to be able to find out where it came from. The parent expression is, of course, "to come through in the clutch". I'd always imagined it referred to wrestling, the "clutch" being some state of deep grabbing that it would be hard to come through in. Maybe it's from falconry, the "clutch" being when the bird takes the game. I dunno. --Milkbreath (talk) 23:09, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. What does the OED have to say (I don't have access to one)? Is "clutch" in this sense even in the OED?--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 00:27, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, but "clusterfuck" is. Go figure. Yeah, I read both entries (the other one is for eggs), and I searched all on the phrase "in the clutch". No dice, all about cars. I googled, obviously, I tried onelook, and I checked Brewer's. Nada. That article bites, by the way. --Milkbreath (talk) 00:53, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for checking. It is a godawful article, I agree (and of course, it's much funner for me to complain than to do something about it).--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 01:09, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This suggests that it's derived from WE Henley's Invictus, although they don't give any proof:

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Corvus cornix_talk 21:29, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that's the best source I've seen. It even references a William Safire column.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 19:23, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

April 20

AARGH! What's the word...

What's a word for difficult to understand, besides arcane, puzzling, muddled, incomprehensible, etc. It must mean difficult to grasp due to complex, overly-technical design. --^La Pianísta! 01:53, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Elusive, perhaps? -- JackofOz (talk) 02:15, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've thought of that, but it just doesn't ring. Keep it coming. --^La Pianísta! 02:34, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

brain freeze, complicated, academic, george w. bush, mom, woman, complex, confusing, convoluted, mundane, technical, jargon68.27.143.101 (talk) 02:49, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

All, like, sciencey 'n stuff. kwami (talk) 03:30, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Abstruse" and "recondite" both have something of the desired flavor, although they don't refer specifically to "complex, overly-technical design". --Anon, 03:45 UTC, April 20/08.

Maybe not what you're looking for, but Goldbergian. kwami (talk) 03:48, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dense. Julia Rossi (talk) 06:36, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Impenetrable? -- JackofOz (talk) 07:25, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If it's deliberate, you might want obfuscated. Algebraist 10:17, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think you had it with arcane. FreeMorpheme (talk) 10:16, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Obfuscated? Turbid? --pie4all88 (talk) 10:25, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Byzantine is one of the best words for something unnecessarily complicated.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 13:27, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Intricate, elaborate. --Milkbreath (talk) 14:09, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Obscure. Technobabble.--Eriastrum (talk) 15:47, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think the Anon got it at "abstruse." Thanks everyone, for all your abstruse, obscure, intricate, elaborate, arcane, mental backflips and miscellaneous gymnastics to come to my aid. =) --^La Pianísta! 18:59, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No one mentioned esoteric. Gandalf61 (talk) 13:40, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Or Heath Robinson. -- JackofOz (talk) 14:02, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hey what about CONVOLUTED?

Gòngchǎndǎng in Wades-Giles

.How does Gòngchǎndǎng translate from pinyin into wades-giles?
.Also what is the literal translation of the Chinese characters in 共产党.
.What is the literal difference between Zhōnghuá Mínguó and Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó?
.What do they mean character by character? --Gary123 (talk) 02:41, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You can answer all of that by pasting the characters into the Wiktionary search box. kwami (talk) 03:29, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

penetrated or topped in vietnamese

how do you say penetrated or topped in vietnamese ( anally penetrated ) ?

Jail/prison?

What is the difference between a jail and a prison? JIP | Talk 03:01, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No real difference as far as I can tell. There's also the gaol spelling of jail, but that's still the same thing. -- JackofOz (talk)

Jail makes me think of Elvis. Prison makes me think of Les Miserables :P Wrad (talk) 03:10, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's a legal difference in the US. Jail is for more minor offenses, or people awaiting trial. Prison is where they put you away for a long time. kwami (talk) 03:21, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. It seems as though jail is more of the local holding pen where they put you for a DUI or something overnight, and prison where you actually live for an extended period in another location. Wrad (talk) 03:30, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See, well, Jail. --Anon, 03:46 UTC, April 20/08.

English jail/prison

In the US, jails and prisons are distinct. Since jail and prison are synonyms in the UK, what does an English jail/prison more closely resemble, an American jail or American prison? HYENASTE 23:18, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Common Grammar Questions

Two questions here; I find myself wondering about these often while editing Wikipedia. First off: I've always been told that periods *always* precede closing quotation marks (as in the sentence Jeff called Mary "a poor excuse for a human."). I'm American, so I was wondering if British grammar was different or if editors are generally unknowledgeable about this. Secondly, when do you use the word "that" and when do you use "which?" I've found the following sentence in an article and I'm unsure which word should be used: "In the 1970s the Soviet Union deployed a missile defense system, still operational today, which defends Moscow, Russia and nearby missile sites." Thanks! --pie4all88 (talk) 10:25, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/which.html has: If you are defining something by distinguishing it from a larger class of which it is a member, use “that”: “I chose the lettuce that had the fewest wilted leaves.” When the general class is not being limited or defined in some way, then “which” is appropriate: “He made an iceberg Caesar salad, which didn’t taste quite right.” Note that “which” is normally preceded by a comma, but “that” is not. Intuitively I think that is right, but I am not a native speaker. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 11:08, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have a problem with "which" and "that" myself. I remember being told a good rule of thumb was number - "This is the pencil that I have chosen, these are the pencils which I have chosen," but i don't know if that's entirely accurate. doktorb _words^deeds 11:12, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For the first question, yes it is a difference between American and British usage. See American and British English differences#Punctuation. As for your second question, "that" is used to introduce a defining clause, and "which" to supply further information. For further explanation see English relative clauses#That and which. (One rule of thumb – which doesn't always work! – is that if you can omit the word without any change of meaning, the word you should be using is "that".)--Shantavira|^{feed me}

In the MOS it says, "Punctuation marks are placed inside the quotation marks only if the sense of the punctuation is part of the quotation; this system is referred to as logical quotation. [...] Note: Some other style manuals endorse always placing ending periods and commas before, rather than after, a closing quotation mark; this system is referred to as typesetters' quotation because many typographers favor it for aesthetic reasons. Wikipedia uses logical quotation because, as an encyclopedia, it requires high standards of accuracy in the use of source material, and because logical quotation is less prone to misquotation, ambiguity, and the introduction of coding and other errors. This is not primarily a difference between American versus British English usage."

I have a follow-up question, which should be on MOS Talk: should punctuation following an italicized word (comma, parenthesis, etc.) also be italicized, or is this something that we expect browsers to eventually handle automatically? kwami (talk) 13:57, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Again, they should be treated logically. Many fonts don't distinguish between italic and roman stops, but italic parentheses (brackets) are always provided. Personally I don't find italicized parentheses very pretty, but when embedded in a longer italic phrase these must be italic too. When they enclose just one italic word, they look better in roman, though this sometimes gives rise to touching characters. Browsers shouldn't be messing with this sort of thing.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 14:49, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds as though you mean treated aesthetically, not logically. kwami (talk) 15:28, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Shantavira in regards to Kwami's question. As to the second of the original questions, my usage book says it clearly: "which" is preceded by a comma, and "that" is not. Further, phrases that begin with "which" are normally used as an attachment that only serves to elaborate, not specify. See here: "My book, which is always right" and "My book that is always right." --^La Pianísta! 19:05, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the help! I'll read through the provided links for more information, too. --pie4all88 (talk) 21:06, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Splitted

Why is the past tense of 'split' 'split' and not 'splitted'? What justification is there for such inconsistency? ----Seans Potato Business 11:05, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What about "hit"? Or "bit" (which is either "bitten" or "bit")? I don't think English is ever in the business of justifying its inconsistencies. They just exist. Adam Bishop (talk) 11:31, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a reason why we can't iron them out? ----Seans Potato Business 14:47, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It would require everyone to speak a new, artificial language. What do you think the chances are of a)getting everyone to agree on what the best consistent version of each word, construction and presumably spelling is and b)convincing everyone to learn this new language and speak it in place of their mother tongue at all times? French has the Académie française, but English has no equivalent. Even in French, the 'approved' version doesn't necessarily control how people actually speak. 79.66.99.37 (talk) 15:34, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We can actually do something about some of them. Take "dived" vs. "dove". Pick the one you like and use it all the time instead of the other one. You will have tipped the scales that way just the tiniest fraction. I'm doing that right now with the pronunciation of "often" as "offen", but I haven't seen any results yet. --Milkbreath (talk) 16:02, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure there's a technical explanation for this, involving some sort of pre-alveolar post-labial infra-dentational fricative explicative implosive apocalyptic whatever, but I think the real reason we don't say "splitted" is that, for people other than elocution specialists, it's relatively hard to say compared with fitted, kitted, knitted, littered, pitted, and witted. In a society like ours, language always follows the line of least resistance. -- JackofOz (talk) 16:59, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure there's a technical explanation for this, involving some sort of pre-alveolar post-labial infra-dentational fricative explicative implosive apocalyptic whatever There is, but I'd say it's less convoluted than you might think :-) It's what morphologists call blocking (unfortunately, we don't seem to have an article on it), a process that poses constraints on productivity in the language. We say that the irregular past tense form of split "blocks" the more productive application of -ed. *Why* this happens for some words but not others is not always very clear, but it is often a historical question; for example, why the plural form of child is children and not what one would expect ("more productive") *childs has to do with the history of the English language. Others might have an insight as to what that might have entailed for verbs like split. — Zerida ☥ 18:04, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Milkbreath, I say offen. Something's working. Julia Rossi (talk) 23:21, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've always said it that way too. My grandad used to say of-ten and Wed-uns-day (not to mention pronouncing "macabre" exactly like Micawber). We'd always ask "Poppy, why are you talking funny?". -- JackofOz (talk) 23:40, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with calling it an inconsistency. Many *t verbs don't change in past/present/participle tenses. For example, split, let, set, wet, cut, hit, put. Even if they don't stay the same, many *t verbs don't take the regular -(e)d ending. Get/got/gotten, bite/bit/bitten, eat/ate/eaten, forget/forgot/forgotten, melt/melted/molten. It's as if the *t verbs that end in -ed are the inconsistencies. HYENASTE 23:42, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

'Common' words used in only one 'situation'

Hi. I hope you catch my drift with this one... I was wondering about certain words that are common, people usually know their definition, and are pretty familiar; but that's only because you hear them in a single expression that you're familiar with, not because of the word itself! (Still with me?) The few examples I can come up with are:

'utmost, which you're familiar with only because you've heard it in the expression of the utmost importance;
and the double-hitters wreak and havoc, which people are familiar with only because of the expression they form, wreak havoc!

In other words, the layman would be pretty much ignorant about the meaning of these words, were it not for the single situation they are usually used in. (I know that these words can obviously be used in other contexts, but the point is that except for these expressions, they aren't used in common English!)

So my question is, (if you actually understood what the hell I'm talking about), what are other words can you come up with which are like these, where the words themselves seem common and not obscure, were it not for a single expression where they are used in common everyday English? (Please tell me if you need me to explain further! Otherwise I'll understand if absolutely no one replies to this question... :( ) Kreachure (talk) 22:46, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I agree with your contentions concerning these words. "Wreak" is used in more cases, although generally in its past tense or other forms as "wrought" - "wrought iron", "What hath God wrought?", etc. Shakespeare uses "havoc" alone - Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war, and "utmost" is certainly used without "importance" - My Utmost for His Highest is a well-known Christian devotional, and you'll frequently hear "he will do his utmost" to do something. As well as "to the utomst extent of..." something. Corvus cornix_talk 22:59, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In "wrought iron" and "What hath God wrought?" wrought is the (obsolete) past participle of work. To the best of my knowledge, the past tense of wreak has always been wreaked. Deor (talk) 23:04, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, just do a Wikipedia search for utmost and you will find lots or other uses. Corvus cornix_talk 23:01, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Punnet" always got my attention, because I only ever heard it used to describe a box that you buy strawberries in. The same box with anything else in would just be called a 'box'. I always felt disgruntled with it and have never been able to regruntle myself.--ChokinBako (talk) 23:37, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

O...kay, despite the popularity of 'Christian devotionals' to the layman :P, I think there are words that fall under the description I provided, even if my examples weren't the best. As others have pointed out, you haven't given me another common example for wreak; and as for the Wikipedia search, the majority of results are of "My Utmost for his highest", so besides that there's no other 'common' thing with wreak on it (I think a Google search of wreak, and then of wreak -havoc to compare, is much more revealing). Anyways, it seems you forgot to actually answer my question: can you come up with words that suit my 'definition'? I need open-mindedness, fellas! (I give you permission to change my definition from 'a single expression' to 'one or two', if you want...) Kreachure (talk) 23:58, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you'd rather argue than actually read what I wrote, then there's no point in continuing this discussion. Where did I say that "the majority" of Wikipedia searches were for other uses? I merely pointed out that there are lots of other uses for utmost in Wikipedia searches, but I guess you're not interested in a real response. Corvus cornix_talk 00:54, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've wondered about the same thing. Examples I've recorded are:

the word dint almost always appears in the phrase "by dint of"
the verb brook is inevitably preceded by "will" or "shall" and followed by "no" and a noun (as in "we will brook no derision")
devoid is always followed by "of"
the verb curry is almost always followed by "favor"
the word unison is just about always preceded by "in"
hooky is invariably preceded by "play"

Someone will shortly post counterexamples to each of my "invariably"s and "inevitably"s and "always"s, but you get the idea. —Steve Summit (talk) 00:54, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's chicken curry, even beef curry (if that's not a sin somehow), and usually just plain curry, but I don't hear "curry flavor" any more than "chicken flavor" (which is just about never).

Short shrift. I don't think you can even say "shrift" any other way anymore. kwami (talk) 01:13, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In case you weren't joking, note that I said the verb "curry", and "favor". (Good example with shrift, though.) —Steve Summit (talk) 01:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) That's favor (or favour), not flavor (or even flavour). "To curry someone's favo(u)r" means to seek their assistance or cooperation by flattery or attention. "Sleight" is only ever used in "sleight of hand", to my knowledge. "Kith" appears only in "kith and kin". There must be a long list of these somewhere already. -- JackofOz (talk) 01:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Now added to the long list of things I didn't know is that "curry favor" is a set and so "curry" doesn't belong in this list, it being nothing more than the word we use for grooming horses. According to the AHD, it's "from Old French correier fauvel, to curry a fallow-colored horse, be hypocritical (from the fallow horse as a medieval symbol of deceit)." I comfort myself by supposing that nobody knew that before now. --Milkbreath (talk) 13:27, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Consider yourself discomforted, Milkbreath (but not discomfited). That was one of the few things I do know. But I'm reminded of an old sketch from The Two Ronnies, where Corbett told a story about someone who had a curry pizza, and for whatever reason he thrust it down the front of Corbett's trousers - "in an attempt to curry my favour". :) -- JackofOz (talk) 01:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

tabs from "keep tabs on someone"
tell (as in 'to count') from "bank teller" or "automatic telling machine machine"

Someone once speculated that, once baseball dies out, people will still be using the phrase "to field a question" even in nonsport situations which then may turn "field" as a future example.

I've also noticed that in the lyrics to "Baa baa Black sheep" that "Have you any wool" is technically ungrammatical in American English but nobody seems to have a problem with the lyrics. That's technically a grammatical thing but I thought I'd mention it. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 01:33, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I'll bite. Why is "have you any wool" ungrammatical? --LarryMac | Talk 13:50, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Some of these (but not all) are members of what Fowler calls Siamese Twins: Alack (only in alas and alack), and tittle (jot and tittle). Hither and thither are now individually archaic but still exist in hither and thither. Sackcloth only ever comes out to play with ashes. There's also our old friend spick (known only for its association with span). The expressions "fossilised word" and cranberry morpheme are current – here’s an additional cite [1]. This question has come up before – see here. -- JackofOz (talk) 01:57, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Have you any wool?" is actually grammatically correct; it's just more poetic than the normal way of speaking. You can see similar a construct in phrases like "Have you any idea", "Have you no shame?", and The Princess Bride's "Have yoo tha wing?" --Masamage ♫

Not that it's terribly important, but the have you inversion is so "poetic" (i.e. archaic) that it is absolutely unused by normal American English speakers as a synonym for "do you have" outside of such fossilized expressions. With British English, it's still productive. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 01:38, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, that's more like it, thanks for all the responses! I must admit I haven't heard of many of the ones you've all mentioned, but most of them are exactly what I had in mind! My favorite's "sleight of hand": where else could you hear sleight being used, seriously! I also found some good 'siamese twins': "spick-and-span" is pretty nice (although I'd never heard of it before), and "hither and tither" too; but I also found "to and fro", "first and foremost", and a double whammy, "nook and cranny"! And thanks, JackOfOz, for pointing me to that previous question; that's pretty much what I asked for here, but in a clearer way >.<! From that, I got "ulterior motives"! Awesome. If you got any more, please cough them up!

And by the way, I found the Wikipedia article for these types of words: Fossil words! (Not to be confused with 'fossilized terms'.) I'll definitely work on there with all the great examples you've given me. Thanks a lot! Kreachure (talk) 03:14, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

PS. Another big one: scantily clad! Kreachure (talk) 03:36, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll grant you "cranny", but "nook" is a perfectly cromulent word. --LarryMac | Talk 13:50, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Don't forget hydrant. —Keenan Pepper 08:03, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that qualifies, KP. There are thousands of words that have only one meaning, but can be used in various contexts. Kreachure is interested in words that are used in only one situation. -- JackofOz (talk) 13:03, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"With all my might and main", "hoist by his own petard". SaundersW (talk) 15:53, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to offer "Aviatrix", which for some reason only refers to Amelia Earhart. --Masamage ♫ 20:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

'Cahoots' is always preceded by 'in'.--ChokinBako (talk) 21:14, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In one fell swoop.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 23:19, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, with "one fell swoop" and SaundersW's "hoist by his own petard" we're getting into the realm of Shakespearean tags containing words that are unfamiliar to most people in other contexts. I'd wager that there are plenty of these ("bare bodkin", for example), as well as plenty of similar King James Version instances (e.g., "helpmeet," frequently altered to "helpmate," from a misunderstanding of Genesis's "an help meet for him"). Deor (talk) 01:58, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes indeed, Noetica. A lot of people say "one foul swoop", but whether that will ever become a recognised expression is a moot point. -- JackofOz (talk) 01:54, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Quite, Jacko. Or mute point, as our CoOzFolk often have it.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 02:56, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My favorite is "inclement." Used only with "weather." You never hear, "Oh, gosh, what an inclement day I had at work." -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:56, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I like "out of kilter" - never heard kilter used in any other context. Ka renjc 09:33, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've just discovered that dudgeon has obsolete or archaic meanings related to wood, handles and daggers, but I've only ever heard it in the expression in high dudgeon, meaning resentful or self-righteous indignance. The phrase is somewhat dated these days and may itself be in imminent danger of obsolescence. -- JackofOz (talk) 10:23, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The OED doesn't list "kilter" as a headword, only "off-kilter", and one of the examples they cite has gone the full transition to a compound word "offkilter". Sounds like a disrobing instruction to a Scot. I can imagine a one night stand: "There was no time to be lost. He was quickly offkilter and on the bed." BrainyBabe (talk) 22:08, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I recall Tony Blair using "gruntle" for making people happy. In his doc-trilogy, but I only knew "disgruntled". Julia Rossi (talk) 08:50, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My favourite, and one I'm surprised people have missed - try and find a jetsam without a preceding flotsam. Very difficult to do. Neıl ☎ 10:05, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A related phenomenon: couth, licit and maculate, for example, are rarer than uncouth, illicit and immaculate. SaundersW (talk) 15:34, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Jerk, nerd, dork, geek, wuss

Why are there all these descriptive words in American english, yet none in common use in British English? "Jerk" would be useful, as it reprimands someone for bad behaviour, but the others just seem derogatory. And are there any other similar words I have missed out? 80.0.109.128 (talk) 23:05, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's my understanding that in Britain anorak is roughly equivalent to nerd. Deor (talk) 23:08, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are 'nerd' and 'geek' insults? Julia Rossi (talk) 23:16, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe, but in any case 'geek' is in common use in British English (at least in my experience). Algebraist 23:28, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But not in mine. 80.0.109.128 (talk) 00:18, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

They can definitely be used as insults, but just like queer, both terms have been "taken back" by many to whom they apply, and can be used self-referentially with pride. —Steve Summit (talk) 00:43, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dork, nerd, and geek have been rotating in and out of fashion for generations. Maybe when one no longer stings, the one which hasn't been used the longest comes back. kwami (talk) 01:08, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I really hope you're right. Then I'll finally be vindicated for referring to all the ladies in my rap video as viragos. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 01:20, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nerd, dork and geek have all been in vogue in Australia, wuss perhaps less so, and jerk to some extent. I suspect that jerk and nerd don't sound quite right when spoken with most British accents as compared to the American accents they'd normally be heard in. And geek is, indeed, being taken back from being in the same class as nerd and dork to something more along the lines of "someone with a large amount of knowledge in a specialised area". Of course, if you called Ozzy Osbourne a geek these days, most people wouldn't get the joke. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 05:05, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have frequently heard each of those those words used in various contexts, and would consider them quite normal (ie I am not surprised to hear them). I am not American, and watch American TV programmes extremely rarely. Thus, I can conclude that non-Americans are familiar with and regularly use those terms. There my usefulness ends, for I cannot specify geography beyond not-America, since I forget which country my vocab comes from. Gwinva (talk) 05:55, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We have our own words, wanker, chav,wally etc.hotclaws 15:22, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Anorak (as above) train-spotter, and swot leap to mind as Brit pejoratives. SaundersW (talk) 15:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My daughter informs me that "swot" is ancient, they say "spoff" nowadays. -- Q Chris (talk) 07:26, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And boffin, often shortened to boff. And geek is quite common in Britain, as is wuss. Skittle (talk) 21:27, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

While I've heard 'boffin' plenty of times before, particularly in British military slang, I never thought it was pejorative in any way. I've always taken 'nerd' to mean someone with poor social skills and bad dress sense, skilled in a particular area, but not in anything particularly useful (being interested in video games, or insects, or some other hobby). Whereas 'geek', while I've not heard it used in Britain, it means to me specifically someone with technical expertise, as well as the poor social skills and bad dress sense (but only jokingly). 'Wuss' is totally British, but we'd never use 'jerk' here (unless it was a verb, but NOT in the American sense!)ChokinBako (talk) 01:39, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A friend of mine who teaches in England says "keener" is the equivalent to "nerd" over there. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:57, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What about 'berk'? (Or is that just an idiot?) —Steve Summit (talk) 02:33, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Berk" has kind of softened.It is rhyming slang for "Berkley Hunt"hotclaws 08:11, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

'Berk' just means 'idiot'. I've never heard 'keener', but it sounds Scots or even Northern Irish to me.ChokinBako (talk) 03:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The school is in Southwest London, actually. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 03:46, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

When you come down to what the children are using in school, trends and fads come and go in mysterious ways. That the students are using 'keener' at one school doesn't necessarily make it widespread outside the school. Skittle (talk) 03:37, 22 April 2008 (UTC) (Edit: I wondered whether to say "I bet the school's in London". Most strange fly-by-night school slang comes from London :)Skittle (talk) 03:48, 22 April 2008 (UTC) )[reply]

In Oz there was "keenite" – it's so not cool to be keen. Not heavily in use though. Julia Rossi (talk) 11:10, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What about yob, hoodlom, rascal, spiv,

Neek is very common at my school (Croydon, near London). I assume it's a portmandeau of geek and nerd; the meaning is roughly the same. D aniel (‽) 19:54, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

April 21

Tom cruise translation?

Could somebody translate/interpret what tom cruise is actually SAYING about scientology in his 9-minute-rant into something that actually explains something about scientology?

66.189.73.3 (talk) 01:24, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can anyone do that with anything about Scientology? Probably not. Adam Bishop (talk) 07:37, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If we explained it we would probably be in copyright violation. -- Q Chris (talk) 12:59, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If I recall correctly, Cruise was saying that scientologists have a duty to help others since they're better people. If this description sounds glib, this is because I'm a suppressive person. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 17:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's not a terribly neutral way of putting it ;-) I'm not going to risk watching it (in case I die of pneumonia etc.), but if anyone has a transcript I can have a go at translating the jargon. It is an internal video, so is spoken entirely in Scientology jargon, but it all means stuff and is translatable - David Gerard (talk) 07:22, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've watched it and it's in perfectly normal English to me. He just basically says he feels he has a duty to help people. Whether he will or not and whether he is just in it for the money or not is not said, but that is the basic crux of it all. The reason everyone thinks he's gone totally mad, is because (besides joining a well-known cult) he does the interview in the 'actor' style, and is just laughing at random moments and playing a character, but everyone is supposed to believe that it is himself that he is playing. Simple PR. Most of what he says, though, sound like a person who can't explain himself properly without a pre-written script. I have worked as an interpreter at press-conferences for a number of actors and actresses (Nicole Kidman for one), and, to be honest, without a script, they have nothing to say.ChokinBako (talk) 11:08, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So actors are not very intelligent? I'm not surprised. I've noticed that people like that become succesful by being ruthlessly selfish and shamelessly syncophantic to those with power over them. They havnt got the computing power to figure out ethics. 80.0.99.135 (talk) 15:29, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think that contains at least three rather absurd gross over-generalisations, but we're not supposed to debate here so I'll say no more. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:53, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Countering 80.0: I shall simply drop Jensen Ackles into the conversation as being a lovely person, by all accounts, then drift slowly away in a dream. 79.66.99.37 (talk) 02:09, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How cold is it in Germany?

When the temperature drops to less than zero in English, most of us will say, "It's minus ten." (Mathematical purists will argue for "It's negative ten" because negative is a unary operator, whilst minus is binary, but that's not part of the question, and I wanted to head it off early.) The next most common usage is probably "It's ten below zero", and colloquially often reduced even further, even on the evening news, to just "It's ten below."

I need to understand those little differences in German. When the thermometer reads -10°, what are the correct phrases, both formally and informally? Many thanks, --Danh 63.226.145.214 (talk) 01:38, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Formal phrasing is "10 Grad unter Null" or "minus 10 Grad"; in informal usage, "minus 10 Grad" is much more common. This is sometimes shortened to "minus 10", but only if it's clear from the context what the phrase is referring to. -- Ferkelparade π 07:29, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Top 10 most spoken?

What is the top 10 most spoken languages in the world?

List of languages by number of native speakers and [2]. - Akamad (talk) 10:42, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Depending on what the questioner meant List of languages by total number of speakers might be more relevant. It differs from List of languages by number of native speakers as some languages have a lot more non-native speakers than others, for example English is spoken as a second language by many people worldwide and Hindi is spoken as a second language by many people in India. -- Q Chris (talk) 07:19, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

synonym for "startup"

startup as in a new company

fledgling company? Sandman30s (talk) 14:30, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't seem to be one in one word; I like the antonym for dot-com startups, dot-gone. So to invent a synonym for these, how about dot-come. Julia Rossi (talk) 08:46, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Name of a shape

I'm asking this here not at maths as I am seeking the name commonly used rather the maths name fo a shape. EG Diamond not Rhombus. The shape I want a name for is the shape made as an arc of a circle (under 180 degrees) with its reflection. A bit like the current Doctor Who logo. -- SGBailey (talk) 13:52, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In America, we might call it a football shape. I was curious about the technical name for it, so I looked it up and I guess it is a kind of Lens (geometry). Recury (talk) 14:14, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Under some circumstances is is also called a mandorla, Italian for almond. SaundersW (talk) 15:43, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's also lenticular, although it's not exactly an everyday word. —Steve Summit (talk) 22:28, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Almond-shaped is common in English, though not for something as narrow as the Dr Who logo. kwami (talk) 23:07, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I will repost this in the mathematics desk, as there is probably a mathematical name also. -- Q Chris (talk) 13:02, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(copied from mathematics desk by Q Chris (talk) 14:20, 22 April 2008 (UTC)): Lens is the mathematical name for this shape. If you are looking for a more impressive name, you could call it a vesica piscis, as long as the arcs are specifically arcs of a circle. Gandalf61 (talk) 13:31, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mnemonic versus Acronym?

Is there a difference at all between the two?

Yes, a mnemonic is a memory aid consisting of a series of phrases typically used for short lists (e.g." Never Eat Shredded Wheat" for the four cardinal directions), while an acronym is a shortened name using initial letters. (e.g. NATO for North Atlantic Treaty Organisation). Arguably the mnemonic is like a "backronym", a long version of a name invented after the original word to suggest some provenance. -- Flyguy649 ^talk 14:51, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A mnemonic can also consist of a word or phrase consisting of initials or symbols such as HHeLiBeBCNOFNe NaMgAlSiPSClAKCa, Pronounced "heli beb canofni namgal sips clacka" which is a mnemonic for the first 20 elements in the periodic table. The mnemonics for the lines and spaces in the treble stave are "Every Good Boy Deserves Favour" for the lines, and the word FACE for the spaces. In short, a mnemonic is anything which helps memory. SaundersW (talk) 21:19, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there's any requirement that the list being helped should be short — keeping the longer ones straight is a lot harder for me. The best mnemonics are also clever, to a degree; and to be useful, they have to be easier to remember than what they're helping you to remember — by this definition, Never Eat Shredded Wheat isn't terribly useful unless that particular sequence of direction names is important.

My favorites are "Knights Play Chess On Funny Green Squares" and "Bad Boys Rape Our Young Girls But Violet Gives Willingly", helping me with things I couldn't possibly remember, even when I was younger and smarter! -- Danh 63.226.145.214 (talk) 21:40, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We used "Bill Bloggs Ran Out Yelling 'Gor Blimey Violet, Get Weaving'" which is handily able to be versed in polite company. 84.71.96.69 (talk) 23:59, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mnemonics don't have to be about lists at all. If I see people misspell Niagara, I like to point out that it has three A's, the same as Canada. And how about this mnemonic for two similarly named cave formations?

    S T A L A C T I T E
              E
              I
              L
              I
              N
              G
                                                            
              D
              N
              U
              O
              R
    S T A L A G M I T E

--Anonymous, in Canada somewhere between the ground and the ceiling, 22:00 UTC, April 21, 2008.

Or sound symbolism, in this case: the ct in stalactite has a higher, sharper sound, while the gm in stalagmite has a blunter, duller sound, which recalls the shapes and positions of the objects. kwami (talk) 23:04, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If she pulls her tites down, mites are able to crawl up (or "When the tites come down, the mites go up") 84.71.96.69 (talk) 00:03, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My mother shared a mnemonic for remembering the spelling distinction between dessert and desert... something about wanting two desserts but not two deserts. It sounded better when I was 7.

She wasn't the one to teach me Kids Prefer Coming Over For Great Sex. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 01:30, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I'll bite. What do KPCOFGS and BBROYGBVGW stand for? -- JackofOz (talk) 01:37, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The first is the categories in taxonomy (Kings Play Cards On Fat Green Stools), the second is used for remembering the colour codes on resistors (Bad Beer Rots Our Young Guts But Vodka Goes Well with Silver And Gold has the advantage of also giving you the tolerance bands). I learnt both, some time ago, from some Wiki(pedia probably) page on well-known mnemonics. Found it! Wikiquote page. And I always remembered that stalactites hold tight to the ceiling, while stalagmites might reach them. Skittle (talk) 02:23, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Huh! Never new there were so many different devices for taxa. I'd always heard "King Philip Can Only Farm Green Spinach".

(And as for the resistor color code, there's a variant that's even less socially acceptable, which is too bad, because it disambiguates the first pair of B's better.) —Steve Summit (talk) 03:34, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One of the girls in my class when I was about 10 came up with one for 'longitude' and 'latitude'. The teacher thought it was so brilliant that he made her tell the class, but none of us got it at all. I just remembered the words. I do use mnemonics a lot, though, especially since living in Japan, as they have a very interesting system for remembering numbers and relating them to words. Fascinating! ChokinBako (talk) 01:46, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One that I learned in school more than 40 years ago was how to distinguish capitol from capital — the building has an O which is round like the rotunda or dome. — Michael J 03:53, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"On old Olympus' towering top, a fat-assed German viewed a hop." Deor (talk) 04:05, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, there are quite a few more for these, some funnier/racier (= more effective?) than others. -- Deborahjay (talk) 16:23, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Generally, the mnemonics you make up yourself work the best. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A couple more from me. Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain gives the initial letters of the colours of the rainbow. DRAPERS VAN MMT 13 - the French verbs (13 of them) that take être in the perfect tense (don't ask me to remember them now, though). My favourite - and certainly the most useful - is possibly that when you wire a UK plug, the bLue wire goes on the left and the bRown on the right. I've often wondered if that was intentional. --Richardrj ^talk ^email 07:20, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You went to a lot of trouble Richardrj - the usual mnemonic for that is "Mrs Vandetramp" (or Dr and Mrs Vandetramp if you include devenir and revenir). For Latin I made words out of the case endings to remember the 2nd and 3rd declension - ioumo, and isieme. And in Arabic, atatayatanataya helped me learn the verb prefixes when we first learned them, although it turned out to be useless since the stupid way we learned verbs left out half the forms and taught them in the wrong order. Adam Bishop (talk) 07:43, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, Chokin, what's the longitude & latitude one?

Yeah, with the simple syllable structure of Japanese, most anyone's phone number actually means something, even if it's doggerel. I still remember a friends mother's phone number from years ago, after a single telling. kwami (talk) 07:20, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what Chokin's classmate's mnemonic was, but I recall that the horizontal ones are like rungs on a ladder, thus "laddertude". Lame, perhaps, but as was stated above, the best mnemonic is the one that works for you. --LarryMac | Talk 13:45, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, lame is good! If it makes you groan, and makes your friends groan, you'll remember it. kwami (talk) 21:15, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just something to say, ignore me if you want but I always remembered BBROYGBVGW by saying Black Beetles Run Over Your Garden Before Very Good Weather. Just my two cents, bye now Adam (Manors) 15:54, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Another point about mnemonics: rude ones are more memorable.The clean mnemonic for the simple bending equation F/y = M/I = E/R is "Find your mate in the engine room". SaundersW (talk) 16:23, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

When we first learnt trigonometry, the teacher told us a mnemonic for tan=opp/adj etc that didn't really seem that memorable. Then they said "Of course, this is the version we have to use now. When we learnt it it was ...". Naturally we all remembered our functions :) Skittle (talk) 16:32, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For us it was: B.B. Roy Of Great Britain had a Very Good Wife
<, >: As a kid, I visualized these signs as a shark's open jaw, and then was easily able to to tell them apart; after all any intelligent shark would always aim for the larger food pile. 98.212.189.170 (talk) 16:46, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

- Whereas when I realised the big end was always towards the biggest number I wondered why on Earth this was never pointed out. Skittle (talk) 20:29, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - No mnemonic for < vs > was taught to us either, but I remember thinking of the correct "bigger end-bigger number" and the incorrect "pointy end towards bigger number" (think arrowheads) logics. This was too confusing as an 8 (?) year old, so I developed the impeccable biological reasoning to solve the problem :) (if that makes sense to anyone but me ...) 98.212.189.170 (talk) 20:42, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I recall somebody (my little brother perhaps?) being told that it was an alligator's mouth, about to eat the larger numbers. Back in my day, we had to just memorize the damn things. And we liked it! --LarryMac | Talk 14:18, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, Kwami, excellent for remembering telephone numbers. One especially memorable one was the telephone number for a recycling company in Nagoya, which was (052) 758 5300, which can be said as 'Nagoya, Gomi Zero', meaning 'No Rubbish in Nagoya.' Many Japanese companies use this technique. (0120) 117 117 (number of another company) can be said as 'ii na, ii na' meaning 'great, great'. I can't remember what the company was for, though. This shows one more thing about mnemonics. when I studied physics at school, I remembered that V=I*R, but I cannot remember for the life of me what 'I' even is, since it has become irrelevant since become a language professional. For memory techniques, though, I would recommend Tony Buzan. I learnt a lot from his books when I was a teenager studying at High School, and still use them. ChokinBako (talk) 00:08, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Further OT, but Chinese (particularly Shanghainese) does the opposite - people send messages to each other with only numbers. 520 (wu er ling) is similar enough to "wo ai ni" for people to know the meaning. Qian Nairong's "2500 Sentences of Shanghainese Dialogue" gives 6 pages of potential messages. Steewi (talk) 02:02, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Th4t 1z t3xt sp34k. 1t h4pp3nz 1n 3ngl1sh 2 m8. Just 4 sh0rt w4y 0f s3end1ng 4 m3ss4ge (actually it takes longer to do it on a mobile phone than to just type normally, given that the numbers come after the letters on every key, so it's not even short). ChokinBako (talk) 10:57, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What you've written above is actually leet. Text speak doesn't do much of the intermingling of numbers and letters. --LarryMac | Talk 12:51, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well it does, but in a different way. Gr8, ill c u by d g8 b4 t. 130.88.140.123 (talk) 14:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Y r u l8? SaundersW (talk) 15:31, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

April 22

Latin translation please?

I need a Latin term for a 16th century piece of quackery I've made up, tentatively called, in English, Doctor Scalfrotto's Organon of Beautification. Feel free to improvise - it can be a longish term - it's 'a manner of exercising the cranial muscles that the face is brought into closer agreement with the current conception of male comeliness'.

thanks in advance

Adambrowne666 (talk) 05:37, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well organon is already Latin, or actually Greek but borrowed directly, or Latinized as organum. So how about "Organon Exornationis Doctoris Scalfrotto". Adam Bishop (talk) 07:36, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's a nice one - are there synonyms that make the meaning clearer to those of us (me) that don't know Latin at all? Don't have to use organon if you don't want to... Thanks again. Adambrowne666 (talk) 07:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You could say "Instrumentum Decorationis...", which uses words with English derivatives. Adam Bishop (talk) 07:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

thanks again - but at the risk of overstaying my welcome, are there any synonyms for 'decorationis' that are closer to 'beautification', 'handsomisation', that kinda thing? Adambrowne666 (talk) 04:28, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Probably none that would be immediately recognizable - if you stick all the Latin roots in "beautification" together, you get "bellitatificatio". "Bellificatio" doesn't look familiar either (and also suggests "war-making"!). Handsome is a good old Germanic word so there's no Latin cognate. Adam Bishop (talk) 04:43, 23 April 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.210.170.49 (talk) [reply]

Actually, I like 'bellificatio' - for my eye it works to suggest beautification rather than bellicose behaviour - thanks so much, Adam Bishop; I think we've got a winner. Adambrowne666 (talk) 06:24, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome - it's not really a Latin word, but 16th century quackery and made-up Latin words go well together! Adam Bishop (talk) 08:04, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

All the better! Adambrowne666 (talk) 08:28, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if we really want to be pedantic and make it pseudo-Latin, we could even change the 'Scalfrotto' into the genitive 'Scalfrottonis', as all nouns that end in '-o' would be in Ancient Latin (even though 'Scalfrotto' is not an '-n' noun). Or even 'Scalfrotti'. After all, it should agree with 'doctoris'. ChokinBako (talk) 10:52, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A couple of questions on French

I have a few short questions on French.

1. In Australia, just after the French news in the morning on SBS, there is an announcement in French. A female voice announces something about radio in French (presumably SBS radio), then says what sounds like "soyez denautre." This I'm quite sure doesn't mean anything, so what is she actually saying?

2. I heard David Pujadas say something on the news that sounded like "agissance." Is this a word? I assume it comes from agissant, the adjective, rather than the present participle of agir (though the adjective is presumably just the present participle that has become a separate headword). Also, in general, can you form French words by taking the present participle, eg. chantant, then changing the ending to -ance, ie. chantance, to create, say, a gerund? Is there such a thing as a gerund in French? Thanks in advance 203.221.126.94 (talk) 21:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure about the other questions (if no one comes around I'll see what I can do), but French does have a gerund, it looks like a present participle preceded by "en": "en mangeant", "(while/in) eating". (This is a coincidence from Latin, where the present participle stem ended in -nt and the gerund/gerundive ended in -nd, but the d became devoiced to a t as it evolved into French). French can also use the infinitive as a gerund but I suppose that is technically not really a gerund (same as in Latin, and in English). Adam Bishop (talk) 01:08, 23 April 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.210.170.49 (talk) [reply]

OK, here's a stab at the rest...is she saying "soyez d'un(e) autre"? That doesn't really seem to make sense in isolation, but without listening to it I can't make any other guess. "Agissance" doesn't seem to be a word, perhaps it was the plural "agissants"? I also don't think you can make abstract nouns by adding -ance...in Latin that was productive, abstract nouns (which is what this form makes, not gerunds) could be created by adding -ia to the stem of the present participle (-ant-/-ent-), which turned into -ance/-ence during the evolution of French, but I don't think modern French does that anymore. Old French did, which is the origin of English words with that ending (consider "parlance"), but now I think French tends to use the infinitive for abstract nouns. Adam Bishop (talk) 04:35, 23 April 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.210.170.49 (talk) [reply]

1. She certainly says: "soyez des nôtres" (join us) — 2. "Agissance" does not belong to the French lexicon. "Agissant" (acting), "s'agissant de" (as regards sth/sby) do. AldoSyrt (talk) 07:02, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Soyez des nôtres": the phrase is an abbreviation of "Soyez l'un des nôtres", and means "be one of us". Soyez is the second person plural of être at the imperative. "Nôtres" is not very much in use any more, except in this phrase. You can see were it comes from if you think of the Spanish "nosotros".

Are you sure it isn't "Agissements"? That would mean acts, actions etc. I have never heard "agissance". And no, you cannot always create a word by adding -ance, it is not generative any longer. Do you have more context? --Lgriot (talk) 07:08, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Lgriot, I don't think nôtre[s] is so rare. It is the standard possessive pronoun corresponding to English ours, or our one: Leur chien est plus vieux que le nôtre ("Their dog is older than ours"). If we see this nôtre on the web without the circumflex, it's normally in a context of generally reduced use of diacritics, such as you get in French emails.

Nôtre also occurs as a possessive adjective, instead of notre in certain rare contexts. Petit Robert gives this account of such uses:

[Nôtre] I Adj. poss. À nous, de nous. Vx Cette idée nôtre: cette idée de nous.
Mod. et littér. (attribut) «Nous les avons faites nôtres [ces émotions]» (Proust). À présent, elles sont nôtres.

Compare English this idea of ours, perhaps. Or better, something of Shakespeare's:

O Mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O, stay and hear; your true love's coming.

Closely analogous.

Quant à agissance, ça n'existe pas.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 08:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, I forgot about "c'est le nôtre" type of structures. you are right, the word is far from being dead. --Lgriot (talk) 12:20, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's a very famous French drinking song, which goes like :

Il est des nôtres

Il a bu son coup comme les autres

C'est un ivrogne

Ça se voit, c'est écrit sur sa trogne !

meaning something like : He's one of us / He drained his glass like all of us / He's a drunkard / You can tell it from looking at his mug (face). As to l'agissance, I confirm it doesn't exist. It might (???) have been la jouissance (for ex : avoir la jouissance d'un bien = to be entitled to use something), but one should listen to the whole sentence. 89.83.23.161 (talk) 20:03, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

April 23

sapir-whorf hypothesis

Can you suggest some books which are available in inndia on sapir-whorf hypothesis? 202.88.252.28 (talk) 06:30, 23 April 2008 (UTC)remi[reply]

Well, online retailers such as Amazon deliver to everywhere in the world, including India. So it's just a question of finding the right book on there. Shipping will be expensive, though, I guess. --Richardrj ^talk ^email 09:11, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To the best of my knowledge, he hasn't published a book but Daniel Everett has studied an interesting tribe called the Pirahã which seem to lack some features in language (and maybe thought) that were assumed to be universal which touches on some of the same issues as discussions of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. Although I don't think you should be leaping to use any new and amazing tribe as proof of some overarching theory given what history has taught us about problems in ethnography and such.--152.2.62.27 (talk) 11:40, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

slightly different muddy brown
#674C47

muddy brown
#483C32

Also, note that the strong form of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis - that language determines and limits thought - is maintained by only a very small minority of linguists. The fact that (most) people can perceive a difference in colours such as the two on the right even though they do not have specific names for these colours is a fairly conclusive disproof of the strong Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. On the other hand, the weak Sapir-Whorf hypothesis - that language influences thought - is more moderate and more credible. Gandalf61 (talk) 13:38, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's going a bit far. I don't think even the proponents of the "strongest" version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis would claim that. They might claim that speakers of a language which has distinct words for those two colors would see them as less similar than speakers of other languages, but not that the others wouldn't be able to distinguish them at all... -Elmer Clark (talk) 01:26, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I can tell you that the names of those colours are "dark taupe" and "medium taupe". Now that you know those names, has your perception changed in any way ? Do the colours suddenly seem less similar to you ? I would be very surprised if your perception has been changed by learning names. Or suppose you learned names for these colours, but later found out that you had learned the wrong names - would that change your perception of the colours ? I doubt it.

And yet proponents of the strong Sapir-Whorf hypothesis regularly claim that monolingual speakers of a language that lacks words for numbers greater than two (such as the Pirahã language) are unable to consistently distinguish between groups of, say, four and five objects because they have no names for higher numbers. Framing a parallel proposition about colours (or you could equivalently use tastes or smells or textures or any other area where our sensorium is much richer than a lay-person's vocabulary) simply highlights the absurdity of this claim. Of course we can perceive, remember, distinguish and generally think about many things for which we do not have specific names. Gandalf61 (talk) 10:39, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

linguistic relativity and linguistic determinism?

i read on wiki that orwell's 1984 is an example for linguistic determinism.can we consider malayalam novelist o.v.vijayan's novel "the saga of dharmapuri"as an example for linguistic determinism and linguistic relativity?remi —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.88.252.28 (talk) 07:53, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Need 'one word' for a meaning

Hi I want to know if there is one word for the meaning "even before asking" in english. The sentence could be, Thanks for the bonus that was given to me "even before asking".

Regards, Guru ````````` —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.164.178.156 (talk) 07:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The word "unsolicited" is often used in this context. For example "I received a generous bonus and it was unsolicited." However, if you are acknowledging a generous action it would be more appropriate to use "prompt" and say "Thanks for the prompt payment of my bonus" or "Thanks for the prompt reply". Dolphin51 (talk) 08:16, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

<moved from Help desk Julia Rossi (talk) 11:06, 23 April 2008 (UTC)>[reply]

Other ideas: "preemptive", "anticipating a need". Probably other stuff with "pre" at the beginning... --Masamage ♫ 20:55, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Some bonuses are paid automatically; that is, there is an understanding that unless you've slept with the Managing Director's spouse or set fire to the building, and you've done a reasonable year's work, you'll be paid whatever bonus has been agreed up front (usually some percentage of profits). If that's the case, there's no need for any qualifying adjective at all. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:50, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So, Thanks for the unexpected bonus? Or, surprise bonus? Spontaneous or automatic sounds too factual. "Unasked" exists but like uninvited, it sounds unwanted. Unexpected has a welcome ring to it, even "welcome bonus" is nicely unsolicited. Whatever comes next will add to your point in the first statement. Julia Rossi (talk) 23:46, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

South Wales

Hello everybody! Does anybody knows what is the etymology of "Deheubarth" (a former kingdom in South Wales)... Wikipedia articles about Gwynedd and Powys give a full explanation of the origin of both terms, but there's nothing like that in the Deheubarth article... Thank you very much (forgive my English, I'm Catalan). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.147.187.61 (talk) 12:37, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We are all from Barcelona here. We know nooothing!

Which does not, however, prevent anybody from answering queries about the touristic marvels of Deheubarth and the royal couple of Basil and his dragon. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 20:24, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh it is a very ancient and mystical name......an online welsh dictionary showed it to be a word meaning roughly "southern region" or just "south". Oh, those welsh! ;-) Fribbler (talk) 23:44, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In an attempt to un-confuse our curious questioner, I should point out that Cockatoo's comment "We know nothing!" is a catchphrase of the Barcelona waiter in the British sitcom Fawlty towers. Double happy St George's Day to you, one day late. BrainyBabe (talk) 06:27, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Treatment of the plural representation of a singular concept

I'm trying to clean up Tier 1 capital and the following is part of a sentence therein.

Risk-weighted assets are the total of all assets held by the bank which...

Now Risk-weigted assets obviously refers to more than one asset but it is one concept so do I stick with are or should I change to is?
Zain Ebrahim (talk) 18:32, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Are" is correct. Deor (talk) 18:44, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

although you could possibly singlify it with quotes, like "risk-weighted assets" is the...... if you really wanted to for some reason. seems inferior, though.Gzuckier (talk) 18:47, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. What if "Risk-weighted assets" actually refers to a number? So for example: "The Risk-weighted assets is/are R105bn."? It isn't the case here but I'm just curious.

Zain Ebrahim (talk) 18:49, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Still "are." Generally, a plural subject requires a plural verb, even if the verb is followed by a singular complement. Deor (talk) 18:55, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks.Zain Ebrahim (talk) 19:00, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, you'd say "they are X", "I am X", and "you are X", never "is". kwami (talk) 20:40, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Given the sentence in the article that precedes your fragment, why not just Risk-weighted assets are all of the assets held by the bank which ...? resisting the urge to respond to kwami with "we are X together" --LarryMac | Talk 20:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

two Russian questions

I have two pretty specific Russian-language questions for someone who speaks the language better than I.

Grammar: In Pushkin's poem "Я памятник себе воздвиг нерукотворный" ([3]) I found this line: "Хвалу и клевету приемли равнодушно". I am guessing that the word приемли has something to do with принимать, but what part of speech is it?
Pronunciation: In a line of Lermontov's poem "Бородино" there is this phrase: "ведь были ж свхатки боевые". Would the ж in this case be voiced or unvoiced (in other words, is it pronounced "ведь были ш свхатки боевые"?)

Thanks! Lesgles (talk) 20:30, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

1. приемли is a verb, it is indeed an archaic imperative form of принимать. 2. Both would be correct; it seems to be a question of personal choice. Usually the sound would be somwehere in the middle of ж-ш continuum. Hope this helps. --Dr Dima (talk) 21:33, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cпасибо! Lesgles (talk) 03:24, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've never heard of partial devoicing in Russian. As far as I know, ж would be fully devoiced for any Russian speaker during natural conversation because of the voiceless с. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 03:51, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That was my first assumption. I hesitated, though, because the word "ж" is simply a shortened form of "же", in which the ж would of course be voiced. Lesgles (talk) 01:48, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fun with Latin

For obscure reasons, I would like to know how to say "Your face" in Latin. Also, can I drop any noun-phrase into the noun-slot of any Latin sentence and have it be grammatically correct? Muahaha and thank you, Masamage ♫ 20:53, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Masamage, Your face roughly translates into Vestri visio in Latin. The answer to your second question, I cannot help you. Adam (Manors) 22:20, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Facies tua would be better, I think. As for your second question, Masamage: I believe the answer is yes, although, depending on what you mean by "noun-phrase," it may need to be inflected in accordance with its function in the sentence. Deor (talk) 00:05, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Or "aspectus tuus", or "os tuum", or if you use visio then "vestra visio". For dropping noun-phrases into a sentence, it depends - if you are willing to make up Latinish words/phrases then you probably always could, but if you are trying to use classical words and phrases, then no, you often can't do that. Adam Bishop (talk) 01:21, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Colleagues, let us not forget vultus (vultus, vultūs, m., "features, expression, air, countenance, face"). So vultus tuus might be apt, depending on the exact purpose and context that Masamage en(um...)visages.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 00:03, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for all the responses. :) Which of these would be the least formal? Like, the equivalent of "Oh yeah? Yer face!" in English. (I promise I am not in middle school.) --Masamage ♫ 02:55, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

wheezing in spanish

is it catarro?Latinlover-sa (talk) 23:50, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would say dificultad para respirar. Jadeo is also a possibility, especially if the breathing difficulty is related to some (physical) excercise: jadear usually implies that the open mouth is used to breath.

By the way, catarro stands for a cold with associated expectoration. Pallida Mors 16:58, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, my English-Spanish dictionary gives resuello ruidoso. Deor (talk) 23:59, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

April 24

French term « accuser un coup » — what does it mean?

Examples:

(1) La vénérable Mostra de Venise, 63 étés au compteur, accuse un coup de blues.
(2) Certains auraient accusé un coup. Pas Ariane Moffatt, qui s'est réjouie qu'un noyau plus qu'appréciable d'admirateurs soit prêt à la suivre même si elle faisait un disque à l'opposé du précédent.

Google Translate is unhelpful here (although it does know that “Mostra de Venise” means “Venice Film Festival”). Anybody know what this means? (Guesses are welcome too.) --Mathew5000 (talk) 02:26, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

According to a French dictionary, "Accuser le coup. Absol., Accuser. Laisser paraître qu'on est affecté d'une chose (au physique ou au moral)", so, kind of like "strike a pose", "give an air of", "appear as". (Accuser also means "show", along with the cognate of the English "accuse" - for example "accuser quelqu'un d'un coup" would mean "accuse someone of assault"). Adam Bishop (talk) 03:07, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would agree with Adam, the first sentence seems to say "has a case of the blues" whereas the second is more along the lines of "selling out". --Señor Purple (talk) 03:28, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much, I had not been aware that accuser in French had a second meaning in addition to accuse. In the second example, I don't think the meaning is tantamount to selling out, I think they are saying that because sales of her second CD were so much lower than sales of her first, you might expect her to show the signs of having taken a blow, or loosely you might expect her to appear rattled. --Mathew5000 (talk) 09:28, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In my French-English dictionary accuser le coup is "to stagger under the blow". Your understanding of the second example is right. — AldoSyrt (talk) 11:06, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This secondary meaning of accuser is not too remote from the familiar one that is reflected in the common English to accuse. The sense denounce shades into the sense announce. To declare, almost; or to bear witness (to, against, etc.). The summary form of the Petit Robert entry for accuser:

1 Signaler ou présenter (qqn) comme coupable (d'une faute, d'une action blâmable, d'un défaut).
2 Dr. Déférer (une personne soupçonnée d'un crime) devant la cour d'assises.
3 Signaler, rendre manifeste.
4 Fig. → indiquer, montrer, révéler.
5 (XVIIe) Faire ressortir, faire sentir avec force.

Senses 3 and 4 expanded:

3 Signaler, rendre manifeste. Relig. Accuser ses péchés. → confesser. — Accuser réception: donner avis qu'on a reçu. Accuser réception d'une lettre.
4 Fig. → indiquer, montrer, révéler. Rien dans son comportement n'accusait son désarroi. → trahir. Son visage accuse la fatigue, l'âge. Loc. fam. Accuser le coup: montrer par ses réactions qu'on est affecté, physiquement ou moralement.

Similar derivative senses turn up for Italian accusare and Spanish acusar as well; but as far as I can tell they are not present at the source: classical Latin accusare ("to accuse, to blame").

The word was used in these derivative ways in Middle French, according to Greimas's Dictionnaire du moyen français); but they are not recorded in his Dictionnaire de l'ancien français.

TLFi has a separate entry for these senses, and finds earliest uses in 10th-century French, founded on juridical Latin, supported by variations of the primary sense in earlier Latin.

Finally, as we might have expected for a Middle French legal usage, it is in fact present in English too. OED, "accuse, v.":

5. To betray, disclose. Hence, fig. to reveal, display, indicate, show, or make known. (Rare in mod.Eng., and when found, perhaps in imitation of mod.Fr., in which this is a common sense of accuser.)
c1400 Rom. Rose 1591 Right so the cristalle stoon shynyng, Withouten ony disseyvyng, The entrees of the yerde accusith. 1477 Earl Rivers Dictes (Caxton) 29 Withoute he wolde accuse them that wer consenting to make werre ayenst the King. 1580 Sidney Arcadia ii. 124 The Princes did in their countenances accuse no points of fear. 1649 Milton Eikon. Wks. 1738 I. 376 This wording was above his known Stile and Orthography, and accuses the whole composure to be conscious of some other Author. 1658 Reliq. Wotton. (1672) 362, I cannot (according to the Italian phrase)+accuse the receit of any Letter from you. 1864 Crowe & Cavalcaselle Painting in Italy II. xxi. 523 The distribution of the scene accuses an absence of motive or thought.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 00:39, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

how do you pronouce ayelie?

portuguese translation request

I need to translate some text for a business advert from english into portuguese - this afternoon (24th april 2008).

can anyone help? I will not be able to pay for this service.

thanks Spiggy 83.104.131.135 (talk) 11:08, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Translators in your area. WikiJedits (talk) 13:09, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ryukyuan languages#Writing_system

Nowadays, perceived as "dialects", Ryukyuan languages are not often written. When they are, Japanese letters are used in an ad hoc manner.

Before Japanese annexation etc. etc., were Japanese letters used adhocly?68.148.164.166 (talk) 04:01, 17 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I know, the writing system is not ad hoc. It is actually phonetic, which is more than can be said for Japanese. In fact, the Ryukyu dialect preserves sounds and letters which are not used in modern Japanese.--ChokinBako (talk) 10:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, could you give me a list of letters "...which are not used in modern Japanese"? If you can't could you point me to somewhere I can?68.148.164.166 (talk) 10:35, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the actual letters are basically 'wi', 'we', and 'yi' and 'ye', which you can find in a decent Japanese dictionary, but if you are interested in the language itself, try here. This has some info on the Shuri dialect.--ChokinBako (talk) 13:38, 18 April 2008 (UTC)Shur[reply]

Thanks; what graphemes were used to represent "...'wi', 'we', and 'yi' and 'ye'..."?68.148.164.166 (talk) 14:32, 18 April 2008 (UTC)68.148.164.166 (talk) 14:33, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please do not move your questions around. -Elmer Clark (talk) 17:26, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

ゐ・ゑ・ゐ for the first three, and for some reason my PC won't let me write 'ye', even though it is still used in some cases, far much more than the other three (as in 'yen' and 'yebisu' (the best beer in Japan)).--ChokinBako (talk) 12:50, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There never was a yi in Japanese, and ye disappeared before the creation of hiragana. You won't find them in any dictionary. Okinawan writing system does not discuss the pre-annexation writing system, only ad hoc competing modern conventions. It would be interesting to know how the Old Shuri kana system worked. —kwami (talk) 17:07, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If there never was a 'yi', then why does my PC have a hiragana for 'yi'? True, though, I've only ever seen 'ye' in katakana.--ChokinBako (talk) 20:01, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can you post an image? If it's really "yi", it isn't for Japanese. kwami (talk) 05:56, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

ゐ I assure you it is Japanese. --ChokinBako (talk) 12:05, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's wi in Japanese. In one of the several ad-hoc Okinawan orthographies it's used as /i/ ([i] is not distinguished from [ji] in Okinawan, just as in Japanese), where it contrasts with <い> for /ʔi/. kwami (talk) 14:11, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Whoops! My mistake. I just read my original reply and found it appeared twice in my list. Sorry, it was late at night, or something. You are right, though. I have not been able to find 'yi'.--ChokinBako (talk) 21:19, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Huh, I'm confused?68.148.164.166 (talk) 11:14, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Summary: ゐ・ゑ are obsolete kana for wi, we. There never have been kana for yi or wu, and ye disappeared before kana were graphically distinct from kanji. (The man'yōgana for ye were 曳延要遥叡兄江吉枝). kwami (talk) 22:27, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hm. The article says 具遇隅求愚虞 were used for wu, but I find that doubtful. kwami (talk) 22:27, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Get Fuzzy

Does the British slang used by Mac Manc McManx in Get Fuzzy actually make sense to an Brit. English speaker? example here. Dismas|^(talk) 14:06, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I'm hardly down with the kids these days, and only some of it makes sense to me. "Defo" is fairly common shorthand for "definitely" and "bobbins" just means "rubbish", but it's very unlikely that the same speaker would use both words - they're in a different register, if you see what I mean. As for the rest of it, I'm as much in the dark as you are. --Richardrj ^talk ^email 14:25, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fer sure, take a butcher's, e's got us bang t' rights, darn to a tee an' no mistake, innit ? (Actually, it's about as realistic as Dick van Dyke's cockney). Gandalf61 (talk) 14:47, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wait a minute, this is a comic strip that features talking dogs, cats, and ferrets, and you're complaining that their use of slang is unrealistic??? —An gr 16:52, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Quotation conundrum

Hi, wikipeoples. If the following sentences are correct:

"Where is my dog?" she said as she slapped him.

"There's my dog!" she said as she hugged him.

Then why isn't this one correct?

"There's my dog." she said as she shook his hand.

Or is that one correct too? As I understand it, it would be correct if it said "There's my dog", she said... but it seems to me that putting it like that either (a) makes it feel like the subject speaking still has more to say instead of having finished, or (b) it lightens up what the subject was saying (IMO with a change of pitch that commas provide in a conversation), instead of showing it like a blunt statement that ends with a full stop. (Perhaps (b) doesn't apply clearly within the context of my example, but it happens nonetheless). Is there a way to solve this, or is this just how it is? (Please try to generalize and not only fix the example I gave you :) Kreachure (talk) 16:02, 24 April 2008 (UTC) PS. Sorry if something like this was asked before.[reply]

I've been taught that <_." X said> is incorrect. It should be <_," X said> probably because it should be grammatically equal to <X said "_>. We don't have a way of graphically indicating comma ?/! and full stop ?/! and I believe this is the only time that the difference is important. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 17:44, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't get it. What is the rule that impedes me from using a period there? Is "no comma ?/! or full stop ?/!" the grammatical justifications for this? Is it then impossible to say that without a comma? Kreachure (talk) 19:41, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's normal to use a comma, though sometimes you'll see this without any punctuation mark. Periods cannot occur in the middle of a sentence, period. Exclamation marks and question marks can:

Is it good in form? style? meaning?

and they're necessary to convey the quotation. The period isn't considered necessary. kwami (talk) 22:16, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think the rule is rubbish. My advice to Kreachure: go ahead and write as you like, usage makes the language. If you and plenty of other people just ignore this rule, it will become extinct and periods at the end of a quote will be the accepted way to punctuate quotations within 30 years. --Lgriot (talk) 22:21, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hehe, of all places, I didn't expect to find a Linguistics freethinker here. I too think this rule is rather unjustified, and even hindering in some cases where you just cannot replace the period in a quote without changing the intention of it. Well, I'll get right on to it! Expect results in a few decades! :) Kreachure (talk) 23:29, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is very often hard to justify an entrenched principle of punctuation, but in this case it can be done easily enough. The sentence-ending marks in English are . , ! , and ? , but ! and ? do not always end sentences, while in its sentence-punctuating uses . does always end a sentence. While we're at it, not all sentences need a sentence-ender: "nested" sentences in brackets often have neither a capital at the start nor a sentence-ender. Consider these examples:

He lost twelve kilograms (!) in six weeks.
The question Why me? came back to her again and again.
We'll be there (such a happy thought!) in three days.
I too am a victim (well, at least I am a witness) of such pedantry.

Now, whether you like these or not, they occur in writing; and well they might, because people say such things, and writing must be able to record them. Written forms like these are all supported in grammars and style guides – but excuse me, please, from the task of laboriously retrieving the evidence.

I disagree with Lgriot's advice. Do what you like in your personal diary. But in public? If you use a sentence-punctuating full stop (as opposed to one marking abbreviation and the like) with the following text not being a new capitalised sentence, expect disapproval and the consequences of disapproval. That's just how it is, in the real world.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 01:11, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Now that's more what I was (regretfully) expecting :). You still didn't tell me how to fix the type of sentence I gave you with the period. You're right on the money when you say that writing must be able to record what people say, so how would you handle a sentence that must end with a period and not a comma or whatever (as I tried to explain before)? That's a challenge not for the real world, but for writers. Kreachure (talk) 03:16, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I thought that was already dealt with! This is the standard way:

"There's my dog," she said as she shook his hand.

Serious writers (who generally do live in the real world) nearly all do it that way. If they do not, an editor will generally fix their punctuation.

In short, there are several contexts in which sentences are not furnished with sentence-ending punctuation. A "nested" parenthetic sentence is one such context; this sort of quotation is another. In these, the exclamation mark and the question mark are not used as sentence enders (if they were, the following word would be capitalised):

"There's my dog!" she said as she shook his hand.

"Where's my dog?" she asked as she shook his hand.

They are used to mark an exclamation and a question, but not to mark the ends of sentences.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 04:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

spelling

I did a spell check while typing on the "word" program on an article and the word "dining" and then "dinning" with two "n"s was accepted by spell-check. Which is the correct or preferred spelling, please? thanks Eleanor (email address redacted to prevent spam)

If you mean 'dining' as in eating, then it's the first one. --Richardrj ^talk ^email 16:33, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) It depends which word you mean. If you mean dining as in eating dinner, it's "dining" with one "n" (one at a time, at any rate). If you mean dinning as in repeating something to someone over and over until they finally get it, or as in making a lot of noise, it's "dinning" with two "n"s (in a row, followed by a third one later in the word). —An gr 16:33, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hebrew translation: What does it means?

סקרנית, אינטיליגנטית , andמשהו —Preceding unsigned comment added by SaltnVinegar (talk • contribs) 19:18, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

משהו mashehu means "something". סקרנית sakranit is the feminine form of the adjective "curious". אינטיליגנטית I presume is a typo for אינטליגנטית inteligentit, which is the feminine form of "intelligent". Macnas (talk) 20:15, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To twist a rope of sand

Hi, we are some French guys wondering about the origin of the english expression 'to twist a rope of sand' (or : 'a cord of sand'). We found a reference in John Stuart Blackie's works, but we think it might be older than that. Any hints ? Thanks in advance. 89.83.23.161 (talk) 19:37, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ralph Waldo Emerson, contemporary of Blackie, also used the expression. --Diacritic (talk) 19:52, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It turns up in Ralph Waldo Emerson (see above), but he is a contemporary of Blackie on the other side of the ocean.

Googling indicates that it goes back to the ancient Greeks, where it was a term for adynaton (impossible task) associated with Ariadne´s thread, a sort of state-space methodology deployed in problem solution. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk • contribs) 20:57, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OED has this (at "rope, n.¹"):

II 5. [...] b. a rope of sand, something having no coherence or binding power.
1624 Gataker Transubst. 152 Like ropes of sand (as wee are wont to say) doe these things hang together. 1670 Clarendon Contempl. Ps. Tracts (1727) 583 Which destroys all possible security and confidence in this rope of sand, which Tradition is. 1780 Gouv. Morris in Sparks Life & Writ. (1832) I. 222 Our union will become a mere rope of sand. 1800 J. Adams Wks. (1854) IX. 87 Sweden and Denmark, Russia and Prussia, might form a rope of sand, but no dependence can be placed on such a maritime coalition. 1894 F. M. Elliot Roman Gossip iv. 124 The alliance fell through of itself like a rope of sand.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 01:19, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

History book madness!

"Arkon Nopo Fromolo Derexono Dalomn Daso Okedesuke"

This bit of jibberish has been mentioned in my Asian History* textbook as being some sort of old japanese proverb... But, "Arkon"!? "Derexono"!? I don't recall those OR "Dalomn" being even REMOTELY japanese... Furthermore, The translation isn't even mentioned!** Could someone help me out here, because, I think my school needs new books if this isn't japanese... the book is: "History of the eastern world"

There IS a footnote, although it cites "multiple possible translations" as the reason why it has no translation in the book 22.134.234.412 (talk) 23:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

April 25

Russian names

According to the article on Russian names, everyone has a patronymic name. Does that mean that if you had more than one child of the same gender, they would all have the same patronymic name? I was curious because I was reading about Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, who had an older brother named Mikhail, and I wondered if his name would be Mikhail Mikhailovich Dostoevky.

On a semi-related note, why are some Russian names (like Dosto(y)evsky or Mendele(y)ev) sometimes spelt with a "y" and sometimes not? – Psyche825 _(talk) 02:55, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To the first question, yes, provided they have the same father. So assuming Mikhail was Fyodor's whole brother (and not half-brother by the same mother but a different father), his name would have been Mikhail Mikhailovich. To the second question, it's a matter of transliteration style. Some prefer to transliterate in a more phonetic way, including the y to indicate the [j] sound in the pronunciation, while others prefer to transliterate letter-for-letter, excluding the y since there's no letter between the vowels in Достоевский and Менделеев. —An gr 04:27, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Chinese: Mono-syllabic?

There's a slight contradiction (or at the very least, it's unclear) on Wikipedia's articles about the Chinese language.

From Chinese language:

Modern Chinese has often been erroneously classed as a "monosyllabic" language. While most of its morphemes are single syllable, Modern Chinese today is much less a monosyllabic language in that its nouns, adjectives and verbs are largely di-syllabic.

From Written Chinese:

At the inception of written Chinese, spoken Chinese was a monosyllabic language; that is, Chinese words represented independent concepts (objects, actions, relations, and so forth) that were generally only one syllable in the spoken language.

So, Chinese isn't a mono-syllabic language, but it was? This clarification added to Chinese language would be useful. 69.138.16.202 (talk) 04:35, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]