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August 19

quebec/canadian word for pacifier

when i was young my parents and myself would call my pacifier a 'suss'. i searched it online and found one person mention that their french canadian nanny would call it a suss as well. he suggested it comes from french and is spelled differently. anyone have info or the correct spelling or origin of this word? i live in montreal so it is likely a word borrowed from french. just curious. thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.201.190.95 (talk) 01:58, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well the french wikipedia article at fr:Tétine has "suce" as an alternative in its lead para. Nanonic (talk) 02:46, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This conjugation [1] suggests that the word in question basically means "sucker" (presumably the French would be the root of the English word). Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 02:51, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that's it. My quebecois family uses that term. Suce it is... --Jayron32 03:23, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting that I remember that word from my childhood, and I grew up in an exclusively Anglophone environment in the northeastern United States. Marco polo (talk) 12:35, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There are lots of Quebecois in New England; I grew up in New Hampshire, which has a sizable Quebecois population, so it is not inconceivable that if you grew up anywhere in New England you heard the term. --Jayron32 17:34, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If it's of any interest, it's usually called a "dummy" in the UK. --Phil Holmes (talk) 16:37, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Probably because it renders them "mute", yes? The concept as "pacifier", except a lot less euphemistic. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 18:07, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Huh. I always assumed it was a dummy (as in fake) nipple. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 16:01, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For some reason, among some Americans, it's a "binky", although that also refers to a favorite blanket. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 19:00, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, in America it's usually binky or nookie or just plain pacifier. Interesting checking Wikt's list of synonyms for pacifier there & seeing what it labels as US, GB, & canada :) L☺g☺maniac chat? 04:59, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting, I didn't know it could be called nookie in America too (like wiktionary, I thought that meant something else). That's what a pacifier is called in Swiss German (spelled Nuggi), but not in Standard German. ---Sluzzelin talk 19:23, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone feel like giving Quebec French some attention? BrainyBabe (talk) 19:14, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Appropriate business email sign-off in English, bonus points for Chinese version as well

I'm looking for an appropriate sign-off for business email. Got the signature all sorted out, but the sign-off is bothering me. The joint venture I work for generally uses "Best Regards" but I find it grating. Does anyone have any better suggestions? Also, bonus points for a Chinese equivalent... 218.25.32.210 (talk) 08:18, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't like "Best regards" either (and you should note that there is no capital R in 'regards') and I go out of my way to avoid using it. I normally go with "Best wishes" or, if the person is known to me, "Many thanks". --Richardrj ^talk ^email 08:36, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you don't know the other person well, "sincerely" is never out of line. If you do know the other person, "best" (without "regards" or "wishes") is perfectly acceptable. Or, for close friends, "cheers," "ciao" or "ta" would be OK. DOR (HK) (talk) 09:02, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For Chinese, the standard format is to write 此致 after the main body of the letter (this is indicates that you are done communicating through the text), then either leave two spaces or on another line write 敬禮 (denoting respect on behalf of the letter writer to the recipient).69.203.207.54 (talk) 09:56, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

'Thanks' works for me. The joy of email is that the medium is (I find) less formal than snail-mail. That said whilst i'm a fan of not dumbing down, I don't like stuffiness for the sake of stuffiness so 'yours sincerely' and the like all end up coming across to me as if i'm being written to by a faceless corporation and not a person. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 11:24, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I write literally hundreds of business e-mails per week in my job with a multinational corporation. The only signature I normally use is my name. Most often (when addressing people who know me) I just write my first name and my last initial. When addressing people who don't know me, I have a ready-made signature that puts my full name in a special font, followed by my title, division of the company where I work, phone number, etc., like an old-fashioned letterhead. If I have made a request or want to acknowledge something someone else has done, I preface my name with the word "Thanks" or, if writing to clients or people I need to please, "Thank you". Otherwise, for example if I am responding to someone else's request for a file and there is no reason for me to thank them, I leave out the "Thanks". I do not normally use closing phrases like “Best wishes” or “Best regards” in e-mail. The one exception might be if I were checking in with someone outside the company with whom I had not communicated in some time or maybe if I were communicating with a client. Then my preference is “Best wishes”. But certainly I do not use those phrases for internal communications, nor does anyone else in my company. Marco polo (talk) 12:46, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Latinise the term 'creative juice' please?

Hi - the context is this: 'The gondola advanced down a canal welling with a velvety black liquor (called by some creative juice) possessed of properties that, although perfectly astounding, will not be listed here' - can someone latinise 'creative juice' please? Ta Adambrowne666 (talk) 12:59, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Given that they're speaking euphemstically, it's hard to say. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 13:05, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What sort of latinization is called for? I looked up the word Latinise, because I'm not familiar with this. But there still seem to be several possibilities. Can you give an example of the sort of thing you're looking for, even if it is less than perfect? Maybe my ignorance is showing, but I'm just curious to know what latinise means in this context. Bus stop (talk) 13:26, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm guessing Adam's writing some sort of historical fiction or fantasy story, and wants some authentic-looking obligatory-badass-Latin-interjections? Depending on what you mean by 'creative', you might try sucus inventionis or liquor ingeniosus. Though honestly, it sounds like what you're describing is really melancholia. -Silence (talk) 14:00, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

By latinise I meant precisely 'gimme some authentic-looking obligatory-badass-Latin-interjections', but maybe it's the wrong term - anyway, 'melancholia' is a great idea, Silence - I'm gonna go with that. Thanks heaps. Adambrowne666 (talk) 23:51, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

'runs in the family' jokes?

any 'runs in the family' jokes? diarrhea, baseball etc . already tried googling —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.224.23.8 (talk) 13:30, 19 August 2009 (UTC) Yes, it's true. Diarrhoea is hereditary. It runs in your jeans. Steewi (talk) 00:23, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Big noses run in our family, 86.4.181.14 (talk) 07:48, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For five generations we've repaired nylon stockings. --- OtherDave (talk) 10:04, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I hear long legs run in Usain Bolt's family. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 09:42, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

French "unnecessary" sh-like sound after some words

I've noticed that the French pronounce sometimes an "unnecessary" sh-like (as in shoot) sound after some words. For example, here: [2], click in Les insectes->vocabulaire-> ant drawing. That person says something like "une furmish" (which actually sounds more like a German ch as in ich bin. I'd like to know more about that. Does it have a name? Do some dialects use more than others? Thanks. --Belchman (talk) 18:56, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The IPA symbol for the sound you're talking about is [ç], and it is the same as the German ich-Laut. I heard it when I was in Toulouse, especially in oui, which was pronounced [wiç]. I don't know if it's restricted to Meridional French though; neither that article nor French phonology says anything about the phenomenon. +An gr 19:06, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The phenomenon (which is really just devoicing the palatal approximant so it becomes a little bit fricative is not restricted to French. I used to notice it in my Russian teacher's careful pronunciation of words like 'синиӣ' with an 'ӣ' on the end. And something similar must be behind the realisation of 'll' as 'ʒ' in parts of the New World, and also Portuguese 'ch' as in 'chamar' ( = Spanish 'llamar'). --ColinFine (talk) 19:24, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I believe this phenomenon is standard French, but that's as much as I can say. Bʌsʌwʌʟʌ ^{Speak up!} 20:11, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There's a definition on French Wiktionary at http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/ouiche ... AnonMoos (talk) 01:40, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I heard a phonetician say that this is some discourse effect indicating finality or decisiveness or something. Mo-Al (talk) 17:30, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed that many French speakers, especially women (no idea why), don't articulate oui at all, but instead quickly inhale, as if they had a hiccup. It's probably just another quirk of French phonology that they don't teach at French language courses. — Kpalion^(talk) 11:12, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, that's quite common. It's the French equivalent of "uh huh" (or however you spell it). -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 12:21, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Republic of South Africa being referred to as S. Africa or similar

This might be a simple case of puratism, but it seems to annoy me whenever I see South Africa (the country) referred to as 'S. Africa' or similar. I've seen this happen in news articles from CNN, BBC and elsewhere and I've even once sent in a comment to CNN telling them that South Africa (as in the country) cannot be referred to as S. Africa s this refers to 'Southern Africa'. Here's an example: [3]
Now tell me, are they correct to do this, or is it wrong? Rfwoolf (talk) 21:57, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The example you link only shows your issue in the headline, as far as I can tell. When space is a concern, as it always is with headlines, anything goes. Were they to do it in the body of an article, I would think it unnecessary... improper? Not sure. But in a headline, again, anything can and often is acceptable. 61.189.63.183 (talk) 22:18, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm I guess maybe with Headlinese you can abbrev everything Rfwoolf (talk) 22:20, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

IMO it's a question of space in headlines and editorial policy, where it is extremely rare to use the formal full form of a country. The BBC for example refers to 'France', not 'the French republic' or 'the Republic of France' ('la république française'). I have never seen it refer to the UK as 'The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland' in a headline (which would get rather tedious), a term which one finds on official documents such as passports. As for the S, well in geo-coordinates the N stands for North and the S stands for S etc. -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 08:17, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think you need to get over your annoyance, Rf. "S" or "S." may sometimes be used to abbreviate "Southern", but it is also very common for it to abbreviate "South" -- for example, in street addresses ("1 S. Elm St.") and driving directions ("take I-75 30 miles S to exit 15") as well as place names (SC or S.C. = South Carolina). The online Encarta dictionary under encarta.msn.com gives 8 possible expansions for "S.": Sabbath, Saint, Saturday, Saxon, Sea, September, South, and Sunday. Note that "Southern" is not even on the list. --Anonymous, 03:33 UTC, August 20/09.

"S." is more likely to mean "South". SC for South Carolina; or SD for South Dakota, also abbreviated S. Dak. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 03:44, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

When I worked data entry for the local tax-collector, we had to shorten "street" to "st" "drive" to "dr" and "lane" to "ln", "south" to "s" etc unless they were part of the street name so "South Long street" would be "s long st" but there were tougher names like "West South Beach Avenue" (w south beach ave) or "Lois Lane street" (lois lane st). — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 04:52, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm but folks you don't seem to see the point... 'S' may very well be an abbreviation for 'South' and 'Southern', but you cannot abbreviate half the name of a country. You never hear of 'U States of America' or 'U Kingdom', so too the name 'South Africa' should either be abbreviated in full ('SA' or 'RSA') or written in full (South Africa). In fact if you asked me, 'RSA' doesn't make for such a bad brand. "So where are you going for a holiday this winter? ... Oh, RSA?". I guess the puratism part might come in that you should not partially abbreviate country names. Rfwoolf (talk) 12:11, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well it is hard to guess what the A could be in S.A, but it is really easy to guess what the S could be in S. Africa. I have seen recently in the papers "SKorea" even without the dot or space. Lgriot (talk) 12:17, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See, after reading 'SKorea' I did not confuse it with the Southern region of Korea. But in the case of South Africa, Africa is a continent, not a country. So S Africa would very well mean the Southern region of Africa. What's more there's a country called North Korea, but there isn't a country called North Africa. What would happen if we wanted to actually refer to the South region of Africa, in those cases they usually say 'Southern Africa' or 'Sub-Saharan Africa'. Rfwoolf (talk) 12:29, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, RSA? — Emil J. 12:28, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, R of SA? Rfwoolf (talk) 12:43, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ironically, it used to be "Union of South Africa", or "USA" for short (?) Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 12:52, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to see someone post some examples of where the prefix "S." is definitely an abbreviation for "Southern" rather than "South". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 12:44, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Google shows some results for S. Methodist University and S. Baptist Convention. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:59, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I see. Those are proper names, just like all the "Souths" are. So one would have to know which one it is, in any given case. Oddly enough, I don't recall seeing those two items that way, as Southern Baptist is usually spelled out, and Southern Methodist is typically abbreviated SMU. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 13:13, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Getting back to the original question, he asks if it's "wrong", which I assume means grammatically wrong as opposed to "morally wrong" or whatever. My old Webster's lists capital "S." as a valid abbreviation for both "South" and "Southern". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 13:15, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But here 'South' does not mean 'South'. Here 'South' is part of the name. The 'South' in 'South Africa' does not mean 'South', it means 'Hey, you left out half my name!'. :) Rfwoolf (talk) 13:26, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The original respondent pointed out that it might be used in a headline where space is at a premium, and presumably the meaning would either be understood or would be clarified in the body of the accompanying article. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 13:47, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's fair enough I guess - in fact I'm normally a fan of headlinese. So then, what if it appears in body text? As in, "Pakistan plays S. Africa this Wednesday at The Wanderers cricket ground". I would suppose that in such a case it's incorrect.Rfwoolf (talk) 13:52, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The tricky part is trying to define who has any say in what's "correct". Perhaps in legal documents it would need to spell out "Republic of South Africa". But unless there's a Grammar Governance Board, newswriters could write it however they feel like. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 13:56, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, trouble is that there are 'Grammar Governance Boards' - such as English Purists associations and language societies - yes there are people still out there who can tell us what is 'correct' and what not. Trouble is you can get around all of them by just calling them purists. Rfwoolf (talk) 14:07, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think if we can have full initialisms like USA (or, U.S. of A) that abbreviating only half of the country's name doesn't seem problematic or wrong. After all, it may be the country's name but it's still a direction. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 17:05, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But the 'Grammar Governance Boards' are self appointed "defenders of the language" - anyone can claim to be an "expert". There is no de jure or even de facto reason to adhere to their recommendations. English doesn't have the equivalent of French's Académie française. There's no body with a legal mandate, or even with widespread community consensus, to officiate what is or is not "correct" English. It's wrapped up in the whole descriptivist/prescriptivist dichotomy. -- 128.104.112.102 (talk) 20:30, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have much to add here, except that as a South African, I sometimes write "S. African" when space is constrained, and wouldn't be offended if others did it in similar situations. In South Africa, you're more likely to see S.A. in a headline, however. --196.210.182.23 (talk) 20:29, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

August 20

Books about learning how to speak without hesitations

I've perused a few books on the art of speaking in public. They seem mostly concerned with the following problems:

"stage fright" — people who get paralyzed when in front of an audience, or on TV or radio
how to grab the audience's attention
how to keep your message short enough so as to keep the audience's attention.

Yet there is little on how to, say, always keep a pleasant tone and naturally produce well-constructed sentences. Most people, when speaking a non rehearsed speech, produce ungrammatical sentences, hesitate, cut sentences short, interject other ideas, etc. This is why, for instance, some parliamentary assemblies employ people who rewrite the spoken word into readable proceedings; contrast this with the unpleasant reading of the transcripts of the Watergate tapes.

Yet, some minority of individuals seem to be able to speak in a perfectly mannered tone, with well-constructed and meaningful sentences, even though they have not rehearsed. (An example comes to mind: listen to interviews of Robert Fripp and compare with interviews with most rock musicians.)

Are there books where one can get directions about this craft? David.Monniaux (talk) 02:37, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's called "the gift of gab" or "blarney". Most any radio personality has it. Perhaps one of them has written about it? Also, I have a vague recollection of a book with a title something like "How to talk to almost anyone about almost anything". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 03:41, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You Can Talk to (Almost) Anyone about (Almost) Anything didn't get a very good review. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:42, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently the guy failed to talk to the reviewers. As regards self-help books in general, Dogbert said, "Beware the advice of successful people - they do not seek company." Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 07:50, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The answer you probably don't want -- it comes with practice/experience. I started my public speaking with Toastmasters at the age of ~8. From then until around ~22 I spoke occasionally in public - and was always comfortable - but not as smooth as the written word, which I think is what you're after. However, from 24~26 I was a university lecturer, responsible for 90 minute lectures with little or no notes. In short order, I was able to develop a much more fluid style free of uhs, ahs, umms, and digressions. Like most things in life, you have to actually do it to get better, and you need to consciously analyze your performances. The best advice I can give you is to videotape yourself monologing to random topics drawn from a hat. Reviewing those critically will get you on the right track quite quickly. 218.25.32.210 (talk) 08:49, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hem. What I'm looking for is not necessarily about lectures. I think I'm a decent lecturer and a decent speaker at scientific conferences, but these are events in which I have an idea of what I'm going to say in advance, even though I do not have a pre-scripted speech. What I'm looking for is more about conversation, in which somebody tosses you a question and you have a very short time to answer. David.Monniaux (talk) 11:11, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

At home now, to quote my last line from above, as it still applies: The best advice I can give you is to videotape yourself monologing to random topics drawn from a hat. Reviewing those critically will get you on the right track quite quickly. 61.189.63.183 (talk) 11:31, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It occurs to me that, in contrast to the Toastmasters angle, this is more like how to become a good debater. Debaters have to be able to respond quickly to comments and questions by others. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 11:34, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(ec)Even at that, there is no substitute for practice. The difficulty is finding someone to practice with. But I've a hunch that's key to success. The reality is that when we already know what we're going to say, it's easier to say it. And writing is easiest, because you can take your time (as I'm doing now). But there's no "rewind" on talking. I think of Ronald Reagan, who was merely OK with extemporaneous speaking while he was excellent with a script - as well he should have been, given his background. Bush, by contrast, was OK with a script and very poor at the off-the-cuff stuff. You aspire to be more like JFK, who seemed to have a quip at the ready at all times, yet even he did say um and er fairly often, just in such a way that it did not seem to interfere. Here's something to consider, and I bet this is how it works for successful radio talk show hosts, for example: Their focus is on their audience, on conveying information. It's when we focus inwardly that we become hesitant and stumble over our words. That's my theory, anyway. I'm thinking of an unfortunately out-of-print book by Charles Osgood on public speaking. He said the secret to overcoming nervousness was to think of the audience as being nervous, and that your job is to "comfort" them. That's his technique. But do you see what I'm getting at? I was thinking that Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influnce People is not the worst place to start. It's not so much about public speaking, as about communicating - about focusing on the other person. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 11:32, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I hate speaking in public (I mumble and stutter when I'm nervous), but since I have to teach and present papers I don't really have a choice. It helps if I am confident that I know the material I am presenting, and if I assume that the audience is relatively ignorant of the topic and want to learn from me. Unfortunately my standard of public speaking is an old professor, who often walked in to class, started speaking with no notes, kept going for an hour and simply walked out when he was done. I always assume I should be as comfortable speaking as he was, although it probably took him many decades to reach that point. I've found that it helps me to prepare notes to read directly - I usually hate when people do that, and I hate doing it too, but if I write the way I would speak, as opposed to the more usual formal writing style, then it is easier to read from the page and make it seem natural. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:22, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Science is a verb now"

What is that supposed to mean? It's a meme of some sort, but where does it come from and what does it mean?! --Dr Dima (talk) 07:48, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I believe it to be a phrase connected with the GLOBE program, meaning that science is a participatory activity for the schools / teachers / students involved in the program. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 08:05, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm assuming you are asking because of today's QC? It reminded me of this Dinosaur Comics strip from earlier this month (especially note the alt text). I'm pretty sure Jacques and North know each other and read each others' comics, etc. These instances are probably also both influenced by xkcd, a very pro-science and popular webcomic, that I'm sure that Jacques and North also read. I don't think that the phrase is specifically a meme of its own - it is kind of a theme that is mildly popular among webcomicists, from what I've seen. —Akrabbim^talk 10:20, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Science may be an activity, but that doesn't make it a verb. "OK, class, let's science today." Nope. Doesn't work. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 10:57, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Give it time: I was reading an old copy of Strunk and White which berated writers for using "contact" as a verb. The young folks are already starting to disagree with you on sciencing. :) --Sean 14:06, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

They're using "scienced" as a synonym for "out-smarted". I doubt that's what the marketers of "science is a verb now" had in mind. I'm thinking "slime" probably wasn't originally a verb either, but to get "slimed" is. Words obviously evolve. At least "contact" went from a noun to a verb in the same form. Too often when that's done we get abominations like "prioritize". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 18:28, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

[ahem] Forgotten my Latin from 46 years ago, but shouldn't the verb form of "contact" be different (which was probably the original objection); something like "contang" or "continge", from Tango/Tangere/[??]/Tactus? Noli me tactere? Cf. infringe/infraction and the abominable "self-destruct" ("Mark my words: I will destruct you !!!"). —— Shakescene (talk) 21:56, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Forgot my English, too, i.e. the word "contingent", so (being too lazy at the moment to hunt for a Latin book or link) the etymological root must be contingo/contingere/.../contactus. Another of my old fuddy-duddy bugaboos is "access" as a verb: one gains or grants access to something, or one accedes to another's wishes or status, or one accedes to power or the Throne; but I avoid saying "I accessed that book". So my Wikipedia footnotes for hyperlinks always say "retrieved on" [date] rather than "accessed". —— Shakescene (talk) 07:49, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's not abnormal for English (through French) to make a verb out of the Latin past participle, like "access" or "contact". Sometimes this had already happened in Latin as well (dicere -> dictus, then dictare -> dictatus, whence "dictate"). Adam Bishop (talk) 13:10, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As someone put it a long time ago, "Nowadays every noun can be verbed". DJ Clayworth (talk) 18:30, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Or slimed. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 18:32, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We're apparently "transitioning" to new ways of speaking. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:43, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Verbing weirds language"—Calvin. Deor (talk) 00:19, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So glad to find this

I've been at the science reference desk for a few weeks now and am glad to have found this desk, as I have some burning questions:

I. What's up with the word fast -- is it both an adverb and an adjective?
II. What's up with "I couldn't care less/I could care less" -- the latter one seems to me to be a malapropism.
DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 17:22, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would think fast is both, given that one can say the fast boy or the boy runs fast (at least colloquially). Mo-Al (talk) 17:28, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's a noun and a verb, too! "Tomorrow, I start my fast." "I had to fast before my surgery." As for point 2, I think I'd call the second version an idiom, because its use isn't limited to a single speaker. --LarryMac | Talk 17:48, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

However "The boy runs fast" is technically wrong: it should be "The boy runs quickly". However widespread usage has meant that it's very hard to object to nowadays.

"I could care less" is on the face of it a malapropism (if you could care less then you probably care very much) but it's again got such widespread usage, especially in North America, that it's hard to object to. I guess you could also think of it as sarcasm rather than a malapropism. DJ Clayworth (talk) 20:20, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Does that mean that "should of" and "spirit of the moment" are idioms as well and not malapropisms? I would disagree. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 18:15, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I was very careful to say that I would call it an idiom. You may call it whatever you wish. --LarryMac | Talk 20:24, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Should of" is bad spelling for "should have", or actually "should've" which sounds almost exactly like "should of" which is actually a meaningless phrase. As for fast, it also means "adhered to", as in "the snake held fast to its prey". I've heard the "I could care less" for as long as I can remember, and it really doesn't make sense, since it implies that you care at least a little bit. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 18:23, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Using "have" as an auxiliary verb is pretty meaningless too. There's no reason we couldn't use "of" instead. Why not? It's wrong according to the way we currently understand English, but maybe it will be normal in a thousand years. Adam Bishop (talk) 18:30, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's not meaningless at all. "I should have used the language correctly" is the perfectly normal and standard past tense of "I should use the language correctly". There's an analogy with the future past tense - Oh, you can come by next week if you like, but I will have left for Europe by then. Would you ever write "I will of left for Europe by then"? What possible sense would that make? -- JackofOz (talk) 21:40, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think Adam's point is that there is nothing about the meaning of 'have' that suggests that it should be used to form a past tense: once upon a time it might have been well motivated, but in English today it is essentially arbitrary and might equally well be expressed by 'of'. --ColinFine (talk) 22:15, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think y'all need to go back and study your English. "Have" makes sense. "Of" does not. "Of" essentially means "from", which makes no sense in a sentence like "I should of left". "I should from left"? Ugh. Part of the problem is that "have" has two different usages in English. The auxiliary verb discussed here comes from the Latin "habere". Its English usage in the sense of holding onto something comes from the Latin "tenere", which has very few English derivations. As far as using "of" instead of "have", consider the present tense: You would say "I have gone shopping". You wouldn't say "I of gone shopping". Ugh. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 22:30, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

[edit conflict]: "Have you seen her?" makes sense; "Of you seen her?" makes none. The English auxiliary verbs used to form compound tenses, are pretty well-established and very close to those in most Indo-European languages (Latin, German, etc.): be, have, do, will/would, shall/should, can/could and may/might. And whether they should have been, could have been or might have been different, I do not see "of" as a possible alternative that is grammatically logical. (Although grammatical logic has very little use as a guide to how language is actually used. And the formal compound tenses in English are, in my view, rather artificial constructions used for comparison to and translation from one-word Romance equivalents.)

And there is a primitive, intuitive logic to "have" in the sense of possessing something now that you didn't before: I have caught the deer and now I have food. —— Shakescene (talk) 22:37, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

From "have" to "of" also takes us to the next abomination, substituting "a" or "o" (both pronounced "uh") for both "of" and "'ve". "Could-a, should-a, would-a... cup o' tea", etc. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 23:22, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The OED cites fast as an adverb (meaning "quickly") so far back as the 13th Century A.D (the 1200's). So this rank neologism disfigured Middle English as well as Modern. And it's hard to think what the "more-correct" form would be: "fastly" ? —— Shakescene (talk) 22:13, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Quick" actually means "living", hence the use of "quick" or "quickly" as "lively" and in some other seemingly obscure ways, e.g. the "quick" of the fingernail, the "living" part. "Fast" has a variety of uses, but they all pretty much come back to the original "faest" which means "strong" or "firm". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 23:20, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would just point out that the English verb have, whether used as an auxiliary or main verb, is not derived from or cognate with the Latin habere. It is a Germanic verb stemming from a distinct Indo-European root. Also, it is by no means accepted by historical linguists that the English periphrastic perfect tense (use of have as an auxiliary verb) is derived from the Romance languages. This form may have developed independently among some of the Germanic languages. Indeed, it seems possible that the innovation first occurred in the Germanic languages, since, according to this source, its first clear instance in Romance is in the Latin of Gregory of Tours, writing after the Frankish conquest of Gaul. Marco polo (talk) 00:14, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It seems unlikely that words of similar form and meaning would have totally independent origins. I wonder what the Sanskrit equivalent is? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 00:24, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If (as I remember learning) "have" is from the same root as Latin "capere" (to take), then according to Lewis and Short the Sanskrit cognate is "hri-". Anyway, the point I was making before, which was apparently not clear, is not that "have" is the correct construction in English; of course it is, and that's why it makes sense. But there is no logic to it. What do you have? You don't have anything. If you say "I have eaten", "eaten" is not an object to possess. It doesn't make any more logical sense than if you said "I of eaten". You could stick anything there and if that is how English worked it would make perfect grammatical sense, no matter how illogical. Adam Bishop (talk) 01:04, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"I have eaten" implies something done recently. "Of" means "from". You wouldn't say "I from eaten". Basically, "have" has a specific meaning and use, and is appropriate in this usage. "Of" has a different meaning and usage, and is not. If you stop and think about it, all words are arbitrary. You could also say "I antidisestablishmentarianism eaten", which makes every bit as much sense as "I from eaten". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 01:09, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's what I've been trying to say! Adam Bishop (talk) 01:33, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Have" doesn't necessarily imply something done recently - for example I have been to Iceland (but it was 36 years ago). AndrewWTaylor (talk) 11:45, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

True. Which raises the question, what's the subtle difference between "I have been to Iceland" vs. "I went to Iceland"? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 12:06, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Though it maketh not much difference, let me clarify what I was trying to say as asides. I was thinking (perhaps quite fallaciously) of the auxiliary verbs being rather similar in the Indo-European languages in general, whether Latinate, Germanic or other. The second point I was throwing out as another aside (which may also be wrong), but which was naturally confusing when considered with the first, is this: I suspect that the archaic or classical classification of tenses in English used to rely too much on equivalences with Latin, French and other Romance languages (e.g. French has different verb-forms for the conditional and subjunctive, where English, I think, does not.) You need to make those equivalencies when teaching or translating between English and Latin or French, but their verb structures are different from ours, and shouldn't be used to parse English or teach it to Anglophones. —— Shakescene (talk) 07:33, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW both French and German use 'have' both to indicate possession and as an auxiliary to indicate the past perfect: 'J'ai une mère' / 'Ich habe eine Mutter' / 'I have a mother' and 'J'ai mangé'/ 'Ich habe gegessen' / 'I have eated'. -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 08:07, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes: Fast is both and adjective and an adverb. ("hold fast") Shakescene, what makes you think this is a neologism?(or were you being sarcastic?) As Etymonline says: The adv. meaning "quickly, swiftly" was perhaps in O.E., or from O.N. fast. It's also the usual case in German and the Scandinavian languages that the adjective and adverb forms are the same. In any case, it's certainly not 'technically wrong' to say 'the boy runs fast'. It's just unusual. --Pykk (talk) 22:10, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To go back to question II, I believe it is one the quirks of the differences between British and American English. In British English we say "I couldn't care less", whereas it has evolved in American English to "I could care less" (unfortunately I can't find the article we have on this subject). -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 08:55, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Solecism? decltype (talk) 09:01, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This linguistics professor at the University of Michigan talks a little about it, and calls it a "negative polarity item," for what that's worth. This site also talks about it. I've seen it mentioned a few times that "could care less" arose in the US in the 1960s, but haven't found any hard references on that. The American Heritage book of English usage gives no etymology or history, but attributes "could care less" to sarcasm, and compares it to "cannot but"/"can but," where postive and negative mean the same thing. I think the idea that makes it work is supposed to be you're basically saying "I already care about whatever it is you're talking about only a reeeaaall little bit, as in you're really scraping the bottom of my ability to care barrel, but keep on about it, and I'm sure I can find a way to care even less," but I doubt many people who actually use the phrase are conscious of that as they say it. I know I'm not when I do, but I am conscious of adding the negative. "I could care less" is a gentle dismissive, but "I could not care less" means, to me, "I do not care and I will not entertain any more discussion of the subject. "Couldn't care less" falls somewhere in between the two. Some jerk on the Internet (talk) 13:13, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Same Etymology, Different Pronunciation

So "Corp" as in "Marine Corps"---and "Corp" as in "Corporation" both stem from the same root meaning "body". The former has not been anglicized in its travel to my dialect (US English) but the latter has.

Are there other examples of words that share a common root, but differ in their pronunciation?76.119.33.164 (talk) 21:34, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

One that comes to mind are the English words "hotel" and "hostel", which both derive from the Old French word "hostel" which in modern French is spelled "hôtel". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 22:20, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) Certainly. A modern example which comes to mind is 'resume' vs 'résumé', but if you go back a bit there are plenty. 'regal', 'royal' 'real' (in the special sense of real tennis, not the ordinary word 'real') have been appropriated from the same origin at different times, as have 'cattle' and 'chattel', 'capital' and 'chapter', and many others. --ColinFine (talk) 22:21, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Doublets, though these are different from the OP's query, since they're spelled differently. --Sean 23:51, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Real estate" is another example of that special use of real. It's not saying the estate is the opposite of unreal. -- JackofOz (talk) 08:15, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In "Marine Corps", the s is not a plural inflectional s, and is usually not pronounced, so "Corps" is not derived from "Corp" within English... AnonMoos (talk) 01:33, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not from English in any case. Most any English word you can think of that starts with "corp" (and my old Webster's has half a page worth of them) comes from corpus. "Corps" is the French version, and was originally pronounced more like "corpse", and in fact "corpse" is a doublet of "corps" So "corps" vs. "corpse" actually comes closer to the answer to the original question. This reminds me of something Richard Armour said in his satirical history of the U.S. He referred to this one international organization as the "Peace Corpse", on the grounds that "peace was a dead issue". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 01:44, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you go back far enough, there are a lot more of these. Blaze and black have cognate roots. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 08:23, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For the record: The Peace Corps is NOT an international organisation. As it says in the very first sentence of the article, it is organised by the United States Government./Coffeeshivers (talk) 16:14, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That does not change the concept of the joke. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 17:01, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

@JackOfOz, "real" in "real estate" is indeed a special use of "real", but it is nevertheless cognate with the ordinary "real". "Real" in "real tennis" is not, and is derived from the same root as "regal" and "royal". --ColinFine (talk) 21:30, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Now, that's curious. I was under the impression that "real estate" referred to the fact that all land once belonged to the Crown, ie. royalty. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:22, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But I see from real estate that this is a misapprehension. Thanks for the correction. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:25, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

August 21

Variant spellings in early nineteenth-century Pennsylvania

I'm transcribing the minutes of the session (elder board) of a small church in Franklin County, Pennsylvania in the first half of the nineteenth century — it's full of what today, at least, are considered misspellings. I'm curious how many of these are truly misspellings and how many might be considered standard/normal/acceptable for the day. For example: a member being "admited" to the church; an elder being "apointed to manaje an apeal" [appointed to manage an appeal]; problems with the "arrearges" of the pastor's unpaid salary; "it was mooved and seconded"; and the meeting being "adjurned". Moreover, there's quite an inconsistent usage of ſ — it's generally used in words such as "seſsion" but almost never a situation such as "reſtraint" or "ſeſſion". Should I consider this to be simply the style of a few poorly-educated Scotch-Irish farmers, or should I see this as a change in the style of writing? I'd welcome a link to a website that would contain a detailed discussion of this subject. Nyttend (talk) 02:21, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

One other curiousity that I forgot to mention before — days of the week are almost never capitalised. Nyttend (talk) 02:29, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Spelling was far less standard in those days. That was one of the reasons Noah Webster wrote his dictionary - to establish some norms. Even looking at the U.S. Constitution, you see spellings like "chuse" instead of "choose". Looking at a few things you cite, "manage" comes from French and Latin roots where it's "g", not "j", so they've simply got it wrong. Likewise with "appeal", whose French and Latin roots are a double-p. It's a little slipperier with "adjurn", as the word comes from the Latin "adiurnare", with the "i" converted to "j" over time and a "u" added, both of those changes occurring in Old French. The swirly "s" that you're asking about (ſ) if you look closely it's mainly used when there are two consecutive "s". I don't know for sure, but I suspect that's related to the German double-S character. By the way, some folks used to spell the state "Pensylvania". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 02:48, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(EC With bugs) Standardized orthography did not really hit American English until Noah Webster's dictionary became widespread, and the educational reforms of Horace Mann brought a standardized education to all citizens. Before the middle of the 19th century, everything was mostly spelled foe-net-tick-all-lee, and since everyone understood what was being written, it wasn't a big deal. Its about 150 years from before when you were researching, but I ran across the same spelling variants when researching the Plymouth Colony article; people just didn't maintain a standard spelling convention until the middle 1800's, so I am not surprised that documents before that show such inconsistancies. --Jayron32 02:50, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the input; I was under the impression that spelling was essentially standardised in the USA by the late eighteenth century. My curiosity over the long s is again over the inconsistency, because I'm familiar with the way it was printed, with the nineteenth letter always being written ſ except when capitalised or at the end of the word, and I've been told that "ſs" is not uncommon in American manuscript of the period; it's simply confusing that it's only sometimes used in "ſs" and very rarely — but neither never nor frequently — in words such as "cloſely". I'm still curious, however — any ideas on the capitalisation? Or is this just the same as the rest: nonstandard and didn't really matter to the readers? BTW, if you look at Talk:Long s, you can see that I asked a somewhat similar question there last year, although for a situation sixty years later. Nyttend (talk) 03:41, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As with other "rules", it may have been used inconsistently, i.e. at the whim of the writer. I see I was right that it's connected with the German double-S. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 03:46, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And I would say caps were used inconsistently also. In legalese especially (note the style of the Constitution) the tendency was to capitalize all nouns, as with German. In German, the days of the week are capitalized. Such is also the case in places in the Constitution where names of days are given. Again I think you're seeing the whimsy of writers. Eventually in English it was decided to only capitalize proper nouns, and the days of the week are obviously that. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 03:57, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For some wonderfully weird spelling, see the journal of William Clark (explorer) of Lewis and Clark. Lewis was better educated and generally spelled words more like we expect today, while Clark was not as educated and his spelling looks much more phonetic (unfortunately our article on Clark has two links to gutenberg texts of the journals, but at a (very) quick glance they appear to have been "corrected". Another famous, perhaps apocryphal quote of the time is from Andrew Jackson, who supposedly said “It’s a damn poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word!” I don't know about the long S.. but I would think its usage also had something to do with education or the lack thereof. Pfly (talk) 06:32, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think the specific case of a church record not capitalizing days of the week or months of the year might possibly reflect another concern (apart from the fact that they're almost never capitalized today in Romance languages: mardi, miercoles, giovedí): the desire to avoid idolatry. Traditional Quaker practice, in fact, is to avoid all those pagan gods and emperors (Saturn, Julius Caesar, Thor, et al.) by referring to the Third Month or the second day, a practice that's still often followed in the formal documents of liberal Friends meetings. —— Shakescene (talk) 07:19, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I never before knew why the Quakers simply numbered months and days. However, that's not a problem here; other period documents from this same small denomination (Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America) capitalise days and months, which have the same names as we name them today. Traditionally, RPCNA members have referred to Sunday as "Sabbath", but all seven appearances of this word are in the form "sabath" (never "sabbath"), not "Sabath" or "Sabbath". Capital letters often appear in this document with what we consider common nouns, but I wasn't surprised by that for the reasons that Bugs gives. Thanks! Nyttend (talk) 16:16, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Translations needed

I need some translation.--Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 07:53, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Czech
Wettinové Vilém II. Saský, 1457-1482, vévoda lucemburský a saský

Wettins

William II of Saxony, 1457–1482, Duke of Luxembourg and Saxony

I don't really know what is the accepted name of this person in English literature, though, so you might need to check some sources. — Emil J. 10:46, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

German
Nach dem Tod Johanns am 26. August 1346 konnte Wenzel sein Erbe nicht antreten. Aufgrund der finanziellen Unterstützung, die Balduin von Trier seinem Großneffen Karl bei dessen Königswahl leistete, verwaltete der Trierer Erzbischof die Grafschaft Luxemburg als Pfandbesitz bis zu seinem Tod am 21. Januar 1354.

Am 13. März 1354 wurde Wenzel der erste Herzog von Luxemburg. Das neue Herzogtum Luxemburg wurde aus der Grafschaft Luxemburg, der Grafschaft Durbuy, der Grafschaft Laroche, der Markgrafschaft Arlon und einigen kleineren Herrschaften gebildet. Das Herzogtum Luxemburg blieb außerhalb der böhmische Krone, es war ein Lehen des deutschen Königreiches. Wenzel wurde Reichsfürst und erhielt das Ehrenamt des Reichstruchsesses.

After the death of John on August 26, 1346, Wenceslas (Václav) could not claim his inheritance. Because of the financial support that Balduin of Trier provided to his great nephew Charles at his election as king, the archbishop of Trier administered the County of Luxembourg as collateral [i.e. under a kind of lien] until his death on January 21, 1354.

On March 13, 1354, Wenceslas became the first duke of Luxembourg. The new Duchy of Luxembourg was formed from the County of Luxembourg, the County of Durbuy, the County of Laroche, the Margravate of Arlon, and several smaller territories. [lordships, i.e. Herrschaft (territory) ] The Duchy of Luxembourg remained separate from the Bohemian crown. It was a fief of the German kingdom. Wenceslas became an imperial prince and received the honorary office [or "honor"] of imperial steward. Marco polo (talk) 13:14, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

French

duc en titre		duc engagés
1388-1419 : Wenceslas II 1419-1437 : Sigismond, frère du précédent (épouse 1° de Marie de Hongrie, 2° Barbe de Cilly), empereur germanique, roi de Hongrie ou de Luxembourg 1437-1442 : Élisabeth, fille du précédent, marié à Albert II de Habsbourg, archiduc d'Autriche, empereur, roi de Bohême et de Hongrie 1442-1457 : Ladislas de Habsbourg, fils du précédent, roi de Bohême et de Hongrie 1457-1459 : Anne de Habsbourg, sœur du précédent, mariée à Guillaume II de Saxe, landgrave de Thuringe. Ne pouvant faire valoir leurs droits sur le Luxembourg, il les cède au roi de France , descendant de Bonne de Luxembourg. 1459-1461 : Charles VII, roi de France 1461-1461 : Louis XI, roi de France, fils du précédent. Il cède ses droits sur le Luxembourg à Philippe le Bon en remerciement de l'aide que ce dernier lui avait apporté quand il était dauphin.		1388-1402 : Jobst de Moravie, neveu de Charles IV, margrave de Moravie et de Brandebourg, qui cède ses droits à Louis d'Orléans, moyennant une rente viagère 1402-1407 : Louis de France, duc d'Orléans 1407-1411 : Jobst de Moravie, de nouveau ; à la mort de Louis d'Orléans, il récupère ses droits 1411-1433 : Elisabeth de Goerlitz, nièce de Wenceslas II et de Sigismond. Criblée de dettes, elle vend le Luxembourg à Philippe III le Bon 1444-1467 : Philippe le Bon, duc de Bourgogne

¶ Responses to request for translation

I'm not sure if this is the right place for such a huge gob of translation. And much of this, being in standard form, could be made clearer by using any of the automatic translation services such as Babelfish, before anyone attempts this vast project. —— Shakescene (talk) 08:38, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oui -- Fullstop (talk) 09:32, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Here's what Babelfish did for the Comte de Luxembourg section:

The title of count de Luxembourg n' appears that in the acts of Guillaume Ier of Luxembourg. For these predecessors, one knows qu' they are counts and qu' they had the city and the castle of Luxembourg since the foundation made by Sigefroy of Luxembourg towards 963.

Assuming from other questions you've had that your interest is mainly genealogical, even without knowing French, you could get close to what I see as the meaning:

The title of "Count of Luxembourg" did not appear until the acts of Guillaume [William] I of Luxembourg. Regarding his predecessors, it's known that they were counts and that they held the town and the castle of Luxembourg from its founding by Sigefroy of Luxembourg around 963." (I take this to mean that there's no evidence of a specific "Count of Luxembourg" title prior to Guillaume, but this is far outside my field.)

Good luck. --- OtherDave (talk) 11:32, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Considering I know quite a bit of French, I thought I'd help out. The translation for the Count of Luxembourg given above is preety much right, except for:

that they held the town ---> that they owned or possessed the town
Luxembourg from its founding by Sigefroy ---> Luxembourg since its founding by Sigefroy. Hope this helped. Warrior 4321 19:15, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

¶ The work's already been done (no need to repeat it). All that was necessary in the original French article was to look at and click that little box to the left that said "English". See List of monarchs of Luxembourg, County, Duchy and Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, History of Luxembourg, and the various links they give, especially under "See also". If there are specific details you need that aren't covered by the English translations, then by all means, come back here with the specific questions, but I think most of what you want is here (unlike the French version, the English list even has pictures!) —— Shakescene (talk) 19:33, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I found a list somewhere else but I need this section translated at least for the french list of dukes includes Charles VII of France Sigismund I, Holy Roman Emperor and I don't know why?

See one of those internal Wikilinks, House of Luxembourg, which has a handy family tree. For Louis XI of France, the French text above says "son of [ Charles VII of France ]. He ceded his rights to Philip the Good in thanks for the help which the latter had brought him when he was Dauphin [heir to the French throne]. —— Shakescene (talk) 20:28, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

French ... into English

Duke by title(?)		Duke as recognised(?)
1388-1419 : Wenceslaus II 1419-1437 : Sigismund, brother of the above (married: 1st Mary of Hungary, 2nd Barbara of Cilli), German emperor, King of Hungary and Bohemia 1437-1442 : Elisabeth, daughter of the above, married Albert II of Germany, archduke of Austria, emperor, King of Bohemia and Hungary 1442-1457 : Ladislaus of Habsburg, son of the above, King of Bohemia and Hungary 1457-1459 : Anne de Habsburg, sister of the above, married to William III, Duke of Saxony, Landgrave of Thuringia. Unable to enforce his rights in Luxembourg, he ceded them the King of France, descendant of Bonne of Bohemia. 1459-1461 : Charles VII, King of France 1461-1461 : Louis XI, King of France, son of the above. He ceded his rights over Luxembourg to Philip the Good in thanks for the help he had given him when he was crown prince		1388-1402 : Jobst of Moravia, nephew of Charles IV, March of Moravia and of Brandenburg, who ceded his rights to Louis I, Duke of Orléans, with an annuity(?) 1402-1407 : Louis I, Duke of Orléans 1407-1411 : Jobst of Moravia, once again; on the death of Louis I, Duke of Orléans, he regained his rights 1411-1433 : Elisabeth of Görlitz, niece of Wenceslaus II and of Sigismund. Riddled with debt, she sold Luxembourg to Philip the Good 1444-1467 : Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy

Lego

Why can't *lego be a Finnish, Hawaiian, Japanese or Maori word? --88.77.254.193 (talk) 16:38, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Because there's no "L" in their language. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 16:59, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In which case nobody in Fin?and understands [4]. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 18:07, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well voiced stops don't occur much in native words, so the /g/ might be a problem in Finnish. But as a borrowed word it's probably okay, I would guess. Mo-Al (talk) 18:31, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I just took a shot at what is obviously another trivia question that the OP already knows the answer to. I'm not sure why the leading asterisk. Aha, maybe that's the answer. There's no asterisk in those languages. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 18:34, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The leading "*" is a linguists' notation for an ungrammatical construction or a hypothetical, unattested word. See Asterisk#Linguistics. --Anonymous, 20:37 UTC, August 21, 2009.

No L in Finnish? Olen pahoillani (I'm sorry) but I don't think that's correct. You can't count to five in Finnish without Ls (kolme is 3, neljä is 4). But loppu hyvin, kaikki hyvin (all's well that ends well); there's no F. --- OtherDave (talk) 20:45, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No l in Hawaiian? lei, luau, Honolulu? There is, however, no g in Hawaiian. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 22:57, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is yet another of these things where the OP already knows the answer and is conducting a quiz here. Any objections to summarily zapping these kinds of things? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 23:16, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not from me. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 23:26, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I object. And Maori has Gs. Whanganui, Rangitoto, for example. Aaadddaaammm (talk) 13:38, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A very quick google search of 'lego suomi' gave me the Finnish website for lego, and apparently, it's called 'lego' in Finland. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 04:15, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why do we keep getting these "why can't XYZ be an ABC word" questions? --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 19:22, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Someone's conducting a trivia quiz. He already knows the answer. It's a riddle of some kind. I'm about 5 minutes away from zapping it, unless someone objects.

I object. What's the answer? Remember to sign your posts, too. Aaadddaaammm (talk) 20:39, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The one time in the last month I forget to sign, and someone's all over me about it. Well, just don't start an RFC/U. I'll do better next time. :) Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 03:54, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Lego could not be a native Finnish word, because the language doesn't have the 'g' sound. (even if their alphabet does) Generally it gets pronounced like a 'k', and in older words/names, substituted for a 'k'. For instance the word for 'street', borrowed from Swedish 'gata' is 'katu', Swedish 'Helsinge' became 'Helsinki'. (And on that note, Danish 'g's are often 'k's in Swedish - as with LEGO, from Danish "LEg GOdt" which would be "lek godt" in Swedish) --Pykk (talk) 21:39, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

...or (in Swedish) rather "lek gott" or even better "lek bra". E.G. (talk) 00:23, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

'Godt' is perfectly fine Swedish spelling, prior to 1906. I think "lek väl" would be better though, "bra" tends to sound bad as an adverb. --Pykk (talk) 12:29, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Happy Christmas

...Is there an equivalent saying that people normally use, in Arabic, for Eid ul-Fitr? Note that I know nothing about the culture at all, in case any answer made such an assumption. Thanks in advance. Vimescarrot (talk) 20:08, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Happy" goes with "Birthday", "Merry" goes with "Xmas"! That's my opinion anyway... Aaadddaaammm (talk) 20:33, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I thought that Brits say "Happy Christmas" where Americans say "Merry Christmas". At least this is what I took away from "Happy Christmas (War Is Over)". Dismas|^(talk) 20:37, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not if you're British. Now can we get back to the question? --Anon, 20:38 UTC, August 21, 2009.

Christmas is Eid al-Milad, so you can say "Eid al-Milad mubarak" or "Eid al-Milad majid". Adam Bishop (talk) 21:00, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The questioner is asking if there is a greeting for Eid ul-Fitr, not for Christmas. Marco polo (talk) 00:28, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

He rather confused the issue by titling the question "Happy Christmas", no mention of which occurs in Eid ul-Fitr. -- JackofOz (talk) 00:54, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, well, since that is the default Eid, you would just say "Eid mubarak". Adam Bishop (talk) 01:10, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Um, am I missing something? According to the article you (the OP) linked to—Eid ul-Fitr#General rituals—the greeting that means "Happy Eid" is ‘Īd sa‘īd. Deor (talk) 01:59, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That works too. I also just noticed we have an Eid Mubarak article. Adam Bishop (talk) 13:17, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

...That's embarrassing. I hadn't checked the article because I was in a rush and I didn't think it would be in there. Ah well, thanks! (And sorry for the confusion, I didn't mean to imply any sort of Christmassyness with the title, it was just the only comparison I could think of.) Vimescarrot (talk) 18:12, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Grammatically correct but impossible sentence

I've been wondering whether there are sentences that are fine grammatically, but for grammatical reasons are still "wrong" or at least never used. For example, a particularly crude swear word with the formal Sie in German? Any problems with this example and other egs? Thanks! Aaadddaaammm (talk) 20:32, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Gracie Allen made a career out of it: "That man is the woman who is this club's best friend's husband." - Jmabel | Talk 20:51, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. --ColinFine (talk) 21:34, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My hovercraft is full of eels. [5] [6] —— Shakescene (talk) 21:50, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo, actually the opposite. It is gramatically perfect, but still almost impervious to understand without explanation. --Jayron32 22:46, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the interesting links. The buffalo one, although exactly the opposite of what I asked, reminds me of the story about the sign writer making a "Fish and Chips" sign, when asked for feedback, was told that there needs to be more room "between Fish and and and and and Chips". Any German speakers have any thoughts on whether something like "Ficken Sie mich/mir" fits in this category? Aaadddaaammm (talk) 09:04, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, it doesnt. Firstly, you can't translate "f--- you" literally into German. It would just be taken literally as a blunt invitation to have sex. Secondly, it's not at all wrong or never used. The "Sie" in the sentence makes the combination a bit less likely, because it suggests less intimacy, but with a little bit of fantasy, you can easily imagine situations when people could use it, and be it just as part of what Alex Comfort calls "playtime". But maybe that was TMI; maybe all you wanted to know was whether you can use some vulgar insult together with "Sie"? The answer to that would be affirmative; the "Sie" doesn't mean that you have high regards for a person at the moment; it only expresses the social relationship to a person, which doesn't change so fast. — Sebastian 15:33, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In French, the 'tu' form (second person singular, indicating familiarity with the person), is used in order to reinforce the insult, insinuating that you have no respect whatsoever for the person. -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 07:45, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Aren't I? is grammatically incoherent yet ubiquitous ("Are not I"??); Ain't I? is grammatically impeccable yet near-universally maligned and avoided. -Silence (talk) 17:01, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am not quite fluent in German, but I lived in Germany for a time, and I think the rough German equivalent of "fuck you"—not in literal meaning but in effect—is "verpiss dich" (meaning roughly "soil yourself with your own piss"). I heard Germans say "Verpiss dich!" (not usually directed at me!) a number of times. I don't ever recall anyone saying "Verpissen Sie sich!" It is not quite inconceivable, I guess, but it is hard to imagine a situation in which one would maintain politeness while cursing someone. Marco polo (talk) 02:03, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Aren't I may be frowned on by those who believe in prescriptive grammar but in no way can it be any more 'incoherent' than ain't I. In either case it is an irregular form replacing the expected amn't I. --ColinFine (talk) 12:42, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's incoherent if you interpret aren't as always being a simple contraction of "are not"; if you accept that aren't can (depending on context) be a contraction of either "are not" or "am not", semantically if no etymologically, then obviously there's no problem. But I think the most commonplace interpretation of aren't is that it's simply "are not", which would make it as grammatically inexplicable in this context as the much less standardized "Isn't I?". The situation with ain't is more complex, because I don't think most people who use it think of it as a contraction for any particular words, even though etymologically it's simply the English language's only contraction for "am not". The fact that people have forgotten its roots, yet still write and use it analogously to the other pronominal contractions, partly explains why ain't has become detached from any particular pronoun and can now signify, in various contexts, "am not", "is not", or "are not". -Silence (talk) 19:29, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also, everyone believes in prescriptive grammar. Some people just don't talk about it much. :) The only real difference is in what people prescribe. -Silence (talk) 19:30, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In English you used to be able to use "thou" to express either contempt or intimacy. "If thou thoust him thrice, it shall not be amiss…" (Toby Belch urging Andrew Aguecheek to insult the disguised Viola in Twelfth Night). - Jmabel | Talk 05:37, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that nobody says *I are or even *I aren't suggests that nobody interprets aren't in aren't I as a contraction of are not. And of course I believe in prescriptive grammar as a social phenomenon: I just don't believe that it has much to do with the grammar of English (or any other language). --ColinFine (talk) 20:01, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sick of the high-hat

In Miller's Crossing , gangster Johnny Caspar frequently says things like "I'm sick a marchin' down to this goddamn office to kiss your Irish ass and I'M SICK OF THE HIGH HAT!" and "What is this, the high hat?" From context, "the high hat" would seem simply to mean "a gesture of contempt", but to what (if anything) does it literally refer? I'd always taken it to be a sting (percussion) (something you'd do to an unfunny guy, or maybe to get a bad act off the stage) but that's just a guess on my part. Is this an expression with any independent meaning, or just something invented for this movie? -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 20:54, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"The high hat" refers to a condescending attitude; see Wiktionary. I assume that the origin of the expression is in the top hats worn by the rich. Note the sentence "The top hat became associated with the upper class, becoming a target for satirists and social critics" in the article. Deor (talk) 22:11, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds like you'd wear a high hat while riding your high horse. Vimescarrot (talk) 18:09, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Only if you're Mister High and Mighty. Deor (talk) 18:29, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe he means he doesn't like cymbals. I never really took a penchant to them either. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 11:18, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Inglourious Basterds

This may be too esoteric for here, and is probably going to need a German language linguist, but here goes: In Inglourious Basterds, one of the scenes revolves around how an SS officer can determine what part of Germany a German speaker comes from. He claims to be able to tell that one speaker is from Frankfurt and another is from Munich. Do the actors really speak with German accents which are detectable as coming from those parts of Germany, or is it just so much nonsense? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 23:30, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have not seen the movie, but I have no doubt that a native German speaker could deduce which part of Germany someone comes from by the way they speak. Can a native English speaker not identify whether someone is from Massachusetts or Scotland or New Zealand? --Jayron32 23:42, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, what I'm trying to ask is, are the actors' accents really from those regions? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 23:52, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't seen the movie and won't (not my taste), but apparently the cast includes German actors. Just as good English-speaking actors can learn to speak with a different English accent from their own, surely a decent German actor can adopt a Rhine Franconian (Frankfurt) or Bavarian (Munich) accent. Marco polo (talk) 00:25, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Do you know the actors that are meant to be from Frankfurt and Munich? It would be possible to check where they come from. Aaadddaaammm (talk) 09:08, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Michael Fassbender is German-Irish (but moved to Eire at the age of two), Eli Roth´s grandparents came from Austria, Poland and Russia. August Diehl is German and so is Martin Wuttke, Til Schweiger, Diane Kruger, Gedeon Burkhard, Sylvester Groth, Volker Michalowski and Hilmar Echhorn. Christoph Waltz is Austrian. Some of those are noted actors on German / Austrian stages. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 11:37, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yea, OK, I really meant, in that particular scene the OP is referring to, who are the 2 actors and where do their characters come from. With that info, the Q is a lot easier! Aaadddaaammm (talk) 13:34, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Til Schweiger is the "Frankfurt" and I think Gedeon Burkhard is "Munich". Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 21:59, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Til Schweiger was born in Baden-Würtemberg (in the South of Germany), quite a distance from Frankfurt. However, he honed his acting skills in Cologne, the dialect of which belongs to the same group as the dialectal froms of Frankfurt.

Gedeon Burkhard, however, is actually born in Munich and has Austrian roots. He would have no problems using a Bavarian Accent. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 07:13, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

August 22

Ancient Chinese

What language was spoken by pre-Mandarin people of China? What was the spoken language in Shang and Zhou dynasty's times? And also seeing how most of northern china is mandarin speaking, were there older distinct northern dialects of Chinese spoken in the north? --Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 02:07, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The answer to your second question is Old Chinese, though there was an intermediate Middle Chinese stage before Mandarin. As to your third question, in fact, there are a variety of Mandarin dialects. Each of these seems to be a direct descendant of Middle Chinese. That is, there was no intervening non-Mandarin dialect in most of northern China that was supplanted by Mandarin. That said, the various dialects of Mandarin may be giving way to standard Mandarin, especially in cities. Marco polo (talk) 02:25, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There are 54 languages in China, one of which is Mandarin, and the precursor of that was, as stated above, Old Chinese. Are you asking what language was spoken before Chinese was? I guess it would be all of them (except Russian and Korean, which were introduced later). You need to specify a place if you want a specific answer. China is actually quite big. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 08:11, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See Varieties of Chinese for information on the disputes about the classification and delineation of spoken Han Chinese. Orthodoxy in China is (if I remember correctly) that there are 5 dialect groups / major dialects / languages: Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese, Min (Fujian/Hokkienese) and Gan.

In addition to Han Chinese, as Kage mentioned, there are a lot of non-Han languages in China.

It is posited that some languages were widely spoken in China before they were supplanted by Han Chinese; see, e.g. Yue peoples and info on their (posited) distinct language. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 00:05, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The pre-Mandarin speech in the north-west of China were non-Sinitic languages, mostly Turkic and Mongolic languages. In the north-east, there are tiny leftovers of non-Sinitic languages such as Palaeo-Siberian languages (i.e. Manchu. Ramsay's Languages of China is a good reference to look for if you want more information. Steewi (talk) 02:50, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've never seen a classification which lists Manchu as Palaeo-Siberian: it's Tungusic, which many consider to be part of Altaic. --ColinFine (talk) 20:04, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How is Wikipedia pronounced?

I'm trying to find out if I pronounce it correctly. Please no IPA wingdings in the answer—I have no idea how to read it. I pronounce wiki, standing alone, wick-ee (wickie) but when I pronounce wikipedia I pronounce the second "i" the same way as I do when I say the word "it". Is this correct or do you say wikeeepedia? (which sounds wrong to me).--162.84.164.115 (talk) 03:49, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I usually pronounce "Wiki" by itself "Wih-KEE" but turn the second syllable to a schwa-sound in Wikipedia, "Wih-kuh-PEE-dee-uh" since the "ki" syllable changes from a stressed syllable in "Wiki" to an unstressed one in "Wikipedia". --Jayron32 03:57, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Everyone I know pronounces it "wicky-pedia", to rhyme with "tricky-pedia". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 04:12, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I love "tricky-pedia" - how true! — Sebastian 06:56, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sticky-pedia? —— Shakescene (talk) 07:00, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I usually pronounce it "wee-kee", which is how the word wiki is pronounced in Hawaiian. But when I get lazy I sometimes use the pronunciation Jayron described. —Kal ^(talk) 04:39, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A middle-age couple gets off the plane in Honolulu and are greeted by lovely maidens with leis for each of them. The man turns to them and says, "Now that we're in the Aloha State at long last, can you settle a debate we've been having for years? Is it 'Hawaii', or 'Havaii'?"

"It's Havaii, sir."

"Thank you!"

"You're velcome!". - Nunh-huh 08:09, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Henny Youngman just called. He wants his joke back. :) Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 18:01, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Pronounce it as 'mickey-pedia' like the mouse, but with a 'w' instead of an 'm'. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 08:07, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In German they say Vicky-pedia. Aaadddaaammm (talk) 09:05, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I know someone who calls it "Wacky-pedia", and some days that seems to be true. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 03:52, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There's no substitute for actually hearing it: File:300 (film).ogg. decltype (talk) 13:19, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

One of my mates calls it 'wankipedia' for some reason. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 16:08, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I say "wiki" as "wick-eee" in front of all the other things (species, books, -versity, quote) but on Wikipedia I say "wick-(uh, tending toward short i)-pedia". Sorry for the confusion in the middle of the pronunciation but I don't know how to explain it right ... I agree with all users' posts above. :) L☺g☺maniac chat? 23:02, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A schwa, i.e. the same as Jayron above. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 05:39, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dutch naming convention question

What does the particle "Ten" mean in names of Dutch orign, such as Abraham Ten Broeck? I have seen it occasionally in different surnames of Dutch origin. I know that "Van" is usually used where the German "Von" is, but I don't know what the "Ten" comes from. Anyone know? --Jayron32 03:55, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It means at. See the Tussenvoegsels section of Dutch names. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 05:41, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The word "damascan"

I came across the following sentence recently:

One can but hope that this self-evident fact will hit them with damascan force before it's too late.

I've looked up "damascan" in Wiktionary (zip) and wherever else I can think of, but I get no results that elucidate the meaning of the word. I presume it's some reference to Damascus, but what does it mean in relation to a force? -- JackofOz (talk) 12:05, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Probably from Damascus steel "Damascus swords were of legendary sharpness and strength, and were apocryphally claimed to be able to cut through lesser quality European swords and even rock"

Bit of a mixed metaphor in my opinion.83.100.250.79 (talk) 12:30, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps a reference to the Conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus, wherein Paul literally "sees the light", leaving him blinded for several days. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 12:51, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Interpreting a bit, I think it means "overwhelming" - Saul's conversion was supposed to be from one end of the spectrum to the other in a second. "Damascan force" meaning one immediately turning someone, I'd guess. - Jarry1250 ^{[ In the UK? Sign the petition! ]} 13:10, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps the writer of the sentence hopes that the clueless "them" will be struck with sufficient force that they fall off their horses. Deor (talk) 15:37, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

[Edit conflict; hitting the preview button just wipes out my own tentative contributions]

Damascene, as in the Damascene conversion of Paul, Damascene steel and a Damascene sword (not to be confused with the Damoclean Sword), is definitely an adjective. Occasionally, I run across a phrase like "damascene hardness", referring to the steel. Damask is both an adjective, as in damask silk, and a noun for such fabric (damask and lace). All, I've always thought, refer to Damascus, the capital of Syria and one of the longest-surviving cities in the world. I wonder what the writer was thinking of when (s)he wrote "with damascan force" (demonic?) Perhaps the implication was that they would, like Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, they would be sun-struck by "this self-evident fact" and suddenly convinced of the utter wrongness of their previous views. I'll see if "damascan" is in the OED. —— Shakescene (talk) 18:32, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reminds me of the old joke: Teacher: Who can tell me about Damascus? Student: Kills 99% of all germs dead! (ok so it's a UK joke)--TammyMoet (talk) 19:51, 22 August 2009 (UTC) (OMG what happened to the small tag button?)[reply]

Any luck with the OED, Shakescene? -- JackofOz (talk) 08:36, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Translation - Switzerland

Can I get a translation of this video, please? [7] 121.72.171.75 (talk) 12:12, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"... as it has been read out aloud and declared here, ~~that in peril we may always remain cheerful and undangerous~~ ~~[more likely "unharmed", but ''ungefährlich'' does mean "undangerous"]~~ . So I plead that God and the Saints [(holy ones)] help me. Amen." (Not quite sure whether I understood everything correctly, using a semi-broken set of phones here. By the way, this is not Swiss German, but (somewhat archaic) Standard German spoken with a Swiss accent). ---Sluzzelin talk 15:02, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Using a better sound system now. I stand by the first and last bit, but misheard the middle part which I now struck out. (What I had heard was: "daß wir in Gefahren uns stets halten ... freudig und ungefährlich").

Now I hear "daß wir befahren und stets halten ... freulich und ungefährlich". (doesn't make a lot of sense)

What I (now) think he is saying is: "das wir bewahren und stets halten ... (er)freulich und ungefährlich" which, without further context, I'd translate as "that we keep/protect and always hold ... pleasant/gratifying and undangerous". Hmm ... actually having trouble here, and the mumbling Gemeinde doesn't help much either ... sorry ---Sluzzelin talk 19:58, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Earthy man

What mean: "Naturaly lovely woman seeks a ruggedly earthy man." Christie the puppy lover (talk) 12:19, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps a down-to-earth man? Nyttend (talk) 15:26, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

She's probably looking for somebody who's homeless but has a large savings account. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 18:00, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Presumably an outdoorsy type who is not an "egghead"... AnonMoos (talk) 21:35, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

She has not derived any loveliness through nurture and he should possess a distinct cave-like odor and tend to carry a pocketknife. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 14:40, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Naturally lovely woman" could mean she doesn't shave. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 19:11, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Don't worry, they found each other. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 20:36, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mathematically possible

A certain weird expression has crept into Australian sports-speak. It crops up, for example, when a team is trailing badly towards the end of a game. By saying "It's mathematically possible the <name of team> can still win" (or something similar), the commentator is acknowledging that there's still enough time for them to put in a mighty effort and get to the front before the final siren. Depending on their voice tone, there may be an unspoken message that they doubt the team will actually achieve this; or they may in some cases be hoping they'll overcome the odds. But exactly the same message - whether hopeful or dubious - is imparted by saying simply "It's possible they can still win". The use of the qualifer "mathematical" is a fine case of unnecessary, superfluous, redundant tautology. :) Is this terrible term just a down-under thing, or is it mathematically possible that other countries' sportspersonages are also afflicted by it? We know that sports commentators are renowned for their liberal employment of tautologies, but I'm particularly interested in "mathematically possible". -- JackofOz (talk) 12:47, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've never heard it that way, but this happens in North American sports when trying to determine if a team can still make the playoffs. The first place team will have a certain number of wins, and the other teams will be a certain number of "games back"; say the first place team has 70 wins, and the second place team has 65 wins, the second place team is "5 games back". In baseball, for example, where only the first place teams get to go to the playoffs, this is often structured as "5 games out of first place". In (ice) hockey, where all but the very worst teams get to go to the very lengthy playoffs, it is "5 games out of the playoffs". I think (American/Canadian) football and basketball have similar systems but I don't really follow those. By the end of the season, if there is a close race for first place, or the last playoff spot, people will pay close attention to the combination of wins and losses a certain pair of teams will need in order to reach the playoffs; for example, there are five games left, and team A will need to lose 3 games, and team B will need to win all 5, in order for team B to surpass team A for the playoff spot. That's the "mathematical" part. This often shows up as a joke; David Letterman used to have a Top Ten List of ways you can tell it's spring, and one of them was always "the (new York) Mets are mathematically eliminated from the playoffs", which is funny because the Mets used to suck, and spring is very early into the baseball season when it would be impossible to tell who would be eliminated in the autumn. (Around here, this joke is also made about the Toronto Blue Jays baseball and Toronto Maple Leafs hockey teams at the beginning of their seasons, since they are perennially terrible.) Adam Bishop (talk) 13:13, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK. So, in a relatively complicated system, one might need to employ a little bit of mathematics to work out whether or not a certain team can make it to the next stage or the final round or whatever. Some can; others can't, no matter how hard they may try, because they haven't amassed enough points in the earlier rounds. For the ones that can, that means it's possible they will win. Just because mathematics are used to determine this, doesn't mean it's "mathematically possible" they will win. -- JackofOz (talk) 13:28, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah I guess it's just a way for sports broadcasters to sound fancy. It's not like it's "mathematically impossible" but possible in some other way. Adam Bishop (talk) 13:42, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Something similar happens here in Spain, and I also hate it. However, here they normally say that it is "mathematically impossible" for a team to win when in a league competition every team can get e.g. at most 9 points (that is, there are 3 matches left for each team) and the first team is 11 points ahead of the second. My guess is that for sport commentators realizing that is somewhat "mathematically" challenging or they are just "decorating" their language with cacophonous expressions. Another notorious tendency is that, in a futile attempt to avoid the unpleasant sound of constant repetition, they tend to use synonyms... so instead of saying "the ball" they say ridiculous things such as "el cuero" (the leather, well, the ball is made of leather, you know...) or "el esférico" (the spherical one, I love this one). --Belchman (talk) 14:06, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh yes, I know that one. When there's a list of, say, 8 results being read out, they'll find 8 different ways of saying "defeated" - "Team A beat Team B; Team C defeated Team D; Team F went down to Team E; Team G demolished Team H; Team J was ouwitted by Team I; Team K smashed Team L; Team M just pipped Team N; and Team O had the goods over Team P". -- JackofOz (talk) 14:24, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't view this as at all fancy or decorative — to me, it's a way to say "it's theoretically possible but quite unlikely". To go with the baseball example — let's say that there are two teams competing for a specific title. If one team wins every game in the first half of the season and the other loses every game, it's quite possible for them to end up with an equal record, since the losing team could win all remaining games and the winning team could lose all remaining games. I would use "mathematically" here because it's quite unlikely for this result to occur. Nyttend (talk) 15:42, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

All of that remains true whether the word "mathematically" is used or not. This is not quite the black-and-white thing that "unique" is. Either something is unique, or it's not, and you can't qualify it. However, something can be "just barely possible", or "very possible", or something in between. But all of those gradations of possibility are in a sense "mathematical". To use this word only in the case where it seems unlikely is a misuse. To another person, it may seem a lot more likely, so does it cease to be "mathematical" to that person? -- JackofOz (talk) 16:23, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See idiom. Sometimes the use of a term or word does not carry the same meaning as its dictionary definition. In this case, "mathematically possible" is an idiom for "no real chance based on past performance, even if techincally still possible to happen". --Jayron32 16:36, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(Unindenting)

What Jack is missing is that when people say "possible", they usually mean that there is a significant probability. "Mathematically possible" is a way of saying that that's not the sense, that the word "possible" is being used in its strict sense as in mathematics. (And there's also an implication, because the speaker troubled to use the word, that there is only a small probability.) In short, it's a useful expression. "Mathematical(ly)" is used with a similar meaning with words like "exact" ("Okay, it's not mathematically exact, but pi = 3.1416 is good enough for our purposes here") and "logic(al)" (Dialogue from The Caine Mutiny (film), quoted from memory: "I proved it with mathematical logic".) --Anonymous, 17:00 UTC, August 22, 2009.

What commentators have done is to take "mathematically eliminated" or "mathematically impossible", which is a certainty, and flip it around to "mathematically possible". Baseball is a good example. If you're 9 games behind with 10 left to play, you've still got a theoretical/mathematical chance of winning, but you would have to win 10 in a row and the first place team would have to lose 10 in a row. Possible, but unlikely. The larger the margin gets, the smaller the probability is. The Mets lost a 7 game lead with 2 weeks to play a couple of years ago, and that was considered amazing - as with the Yankees catching the Red Sox in 1978 after being 14 games out with a month to play. However, if you're 1 game back with 2 to play, then you've got a very realistic chance, especially if you're playing against the first place team - which, by the way, describes exactly the final two games of the 1949 season, when the Yankees won 2 against the Red Sox and won the pennant. Looking at the MLB standings right now, the Nats are 27 1/2 games behind the Phils in the NL East, 29 out on the loss side, and have the worst record in MLB. Yet they still have a mathematical chance to win the division. But you could safely bet your life savings that it won't happen. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 17:58, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's ok, but the point was, what mathematics has to do with all that? I've also heard these odious expressions used by sport reporters, with other variations. Usually, it is apparent that for them mathematics is indeed, the science of computing the scores of soccer teams and draw "mathematical" consequences... --pma (talk) 18:43, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, just as the accumulation of batting, fielding and pitching records are referred to as "statistics", despite the fact that the closest thing to a mathematical statistic is dividing something by something else to come up with a "mean", e.g. the batting and fielding averages, and the earned run average. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 18:47, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If something's arithmetically possible, isn't it ipso facto mathematically possible? {"'Taint mathematically so...?") —— Shakescene (talk) 21:11, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But see, I have the same issue with the expressions "arithmetically possible" (yourself) and "mathematical chance" (Baseball Bugs). "Chance" by itself means nothing other than there's a possibility - it may be a slim possibility, or it may be a virtual certainty. It's still a chance. Both numbers can be deduced mathematically, so one is no more or no less "mathematical" or "arithmetic" - or "algebraic" or "statistical", for that matter - than the other. People also talk about a "technical breach" of some rule or law. I've got some news for them: all breaches are "technical" breaches. The murder of 50 schoolchildren is still a "technical breach" of the law against murder, and the breach of some fine print that wouldn't normally get you into any trouble is just as much breaking the law as murder is. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:37, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In the standings, saying someone still has a mathematical chance simply means they have no practical hope of winning but have not yet been mathematically eliminated. That expression wouldn't be used for a team that's close to first place. Such a team is said to be "in the hunt". The Nationals are mathematically still in the race, but no one would claim they are "in the hunt". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 23:49, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, I've always known what it's intended to mean. But it's also used in a positive sense: two commentators are talking about a match. One says "Well, the Tigers can kiss their hopes goodbye now. They're out of the race". But the other one says "Not so fast. It's still mathematically possible they could get up." The second guy is acknowledging the chance is slim, but not non-existent, so there's still hope, and sporting history is littered with cases where most everyone had given up on a team but they came through anyway. I just don't get why they don't say what they mean - "only a slim chance" or something like that, rather than this absurd "mathematically possible". But I guess hoping that sports commentators will ever adhere to my idea of English is asking the impossible (that's not "mathematically impossible", btw, just practically impossible). -- JackofOz (talk) 01:57, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sports announcers are more given to hype than pedantic accuracy. When "Mine That Bird" won the Kentucky Derby this year, the track announcer called it an "impossible" result. Well, if it happened, it can't be impossible, now can it? And how about the overuse of "Unbelievable!" or "Incredible!" when an athlete makes a spectacular play? The only slack I would cut for that is for Jack Buck ("I don't believe what I just saw!") when Kirk Gibson hit his homer in 1988 while seemingly having just stepped out of a wheelchair to pinch-hit. And even then, the great Vin Scully remarked that "the impossible has happened". Holy Toledo! Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 03:51, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've always interpreted "mathematically possible" to mean "possible judging just by the scores". If you take other things into account (that one of their upcoming fixtures is against a team they haven't beaten in years or that one of their key players in injured, or whatever) then you may determine that the chance of them winning (or reaching the playoffs, or whatever) is negligible (in everyday speech, we often say things that have a negligible chance of happening are impossible). So, it is "mathematical" because it is based on the numbers, as opposed to being based on all sorts of less quantitative factors. --Tango (talk) 21:13, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is an exercise in the futile art of nitpickery: The discussions above seem to deal with probabilty and not with possibility. However, in fuzzy logic there does exist the concept of possibility theory. Lofti Zadeh has written about it some 30 years ago, but even if the possibility of me having forgotten all about it were 1, it would leave the current precision of my memory undefined. In other words, stating (in the constraints of fuzzy logics), that X has a possibility of 1 does not imply any statement on the probability of X (which is between 0 and 1, but remains undefined). It is only the possibility of 0 which precludes x happening. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 21:18, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To apply some true statistical analysis to baseball, you would have to look at the number of times a team has been 1 game behind with 2 to play and see how often they've managed to duplicate 1949. That gives you a probability of that event. Then look at how often a team has been 7 behind with, say, 15 to play, and see often that kind of lead has been overcome. Then you've got something to look at in terms of probability theory. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 03:40, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Everloving" as an oath

"Are you out of your everloving mind?" How did "everloving" come to be part of an oath? Always struck me as a strange expression. Maybe it's the same thing as when you substitute frick for fuck or shoot for shit (there's a word for that), but I can't think of what everloving is substituting for. Oh, wait a second: «everloving motherfucking»...? Maybe?--162.84.164.115 (talk) 18:24, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In the film version of West Side Story, the Jets sing something about "the whole buggin', ever-lovin' street". In the stage play, I've heard them singing "mother-lovin' street". Make of that what you will. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 18:49, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A slightly archaic meaning of "ever" in contexts such as this is "always"... AnonMoos (talk) 21:33, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Either a minced oath or expurgated (though the latter article doesn't cover this case). I haven't thought about 'ever-loving' before, but as soon as I think of it I would assume that it is an expurgated form of 'mother-loving' or more conventionally 'mother-fucking'. --ColinFine (talk) 23:53, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

HDAS has ever-loving back to 1919 or so, so it was an established term long before West Side Story. It's even older as a noun, meaning one's spouse or sweetheart. It appears to be an intensifier in its own right, and not a euphemism for something else. John M Baker (talk) 16:07, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Monduan

what is Monduan? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.229.182.5 (talk) 19:01, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I give up. What's Monduan? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 19:12, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is a specific term for manillas, used by the Yoruba people. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 20:02, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation of Rudolf Caracciola

Hi, I don't know if this is the right place, but could someone who knows their IPA please check how I did the pronunciation of Rudolf Caracciola? I did one course of linguistics at university, but I wasn't really listening. :( His surname should be pronounced:

Car (carry) acc (catch) i (sea) ola (cola)

Is it really with a long 'i' ([i:])? In Italian the 'i' would have no vocalic force at all, but would just indicate the preceding consonant is palatalised (-tʃ:ola). I can imagine that in a non-Italian milieu it might be pronounced (-tʃiola), but I'm surprised that it should be lengthened. --ColinFine (talk) 23:59, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Could be. Your suggestion sounds right. I've really only heard it said by English speakers, so there is a high possibility that pronunciation is not right. Aptery gial 00:02, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Probably. Many English speakers say "Jee-o-vahnee" (Giovanni) and "Jee-a-como" (Giacomo), etc, when really they should be "Jo-vah-nee" and "Ja-como". -- JackofOz (talk) 01:42, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So apparently the "i" following the "G" is merely to indicate that it's a "soft G"? Because if it lacked the "i" it would be pronounced "Go-vahnee" and "Ga-como"? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 04:33, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Precisely. -- JackofOz (talk) 06:37, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I just observed another example of this while watching ESPN "Outside the Lines", in which Bob Ley referred to Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti as "Jamatti", phonetically speaking. There's no IPA in Giamatti's entry here. Maybe there should be? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 13:14, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So does anyone have any idea if ʁuːdɔɫf kaʁatʃiːɔlɑː is right, or how to fix it? Aptery gial 07:40, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In my dim memory (I must have heard his name mentioned a few times on Austrian radio in my childhood in the last millenium). the vowel "o" is both stressed and long, so the [ː] symbol should be moved. Maybe the editor wanted to use the stress symbol and selected the wrong IPA caharacter. If need be, I can check on the German WP if any local infracentennarians have a clue. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 10:55, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And most likely with the accent on the second "a". Here [8] they don't have the pronounce of the surname Caracciola, but they have the more common Caracciolo, that differs only in the last vowel. --pma (talk) 17:05, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

August 23

Leaving out the word "the" when English is not one's primary language

A professor of mine does not speak English as a first language (although she does speak it very well) and she will usually leave the word "the" out of her sentences, such as saying, "When you take membrane from beneath the gingival tissue, make sure you do so with caution." My presumption is that, because she speaks fluent Hebrew (presumably as her first language), and in Hebrew, "the" is adjoined to the following word as a prefix, when she first learned how to speak English by translating Hebrew word-for-word into English in her mind, the word "the" got lost in the switch because it was affixed to the following word. I speak only English, and when I try to speak Hebrew (though I wouldn't actually consider myself to be speaking it :), I translate each word separately, and thus come up with lots of errors of conjunction and the like -- I just figured that my professor is having the same problem in reverse. But, then again, this may happen with people who speak another language (not Hebrew) as their primary language while speaking English, in which the primary language does not have "the" as a prefix. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 04:26, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have a number of Indian colleagues that tend to do this also. "The" must be more of a European construct, that Asians find confusing somehow. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 04:34, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"The" isn't a European construct, as many non-European languages have a definite article. However, it's also common for languages to lack it (e.g. Russian), or express it somehow other than by using a word coming directly before the noun (e.g. Bulgarian uses a suffix, e.g. myzh 'a man', myzhyt 'the man'). Mo-Al (talk) 04:39, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Aha, so it seems like they would tend to translate both of those words simply as "man" and leave out the article. And it sounds funny to us because the Romance languages and English (and its cousin, German) put the article before the word. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 04:58, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My wife's ob/gyn is Sephardic and we laugh about how he says, "...and then you can go to mikvah." I don't know what his primary language is, though. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 04:42, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

BBBugs may be somewhat correct, as most linguists seem to think think that the Proto-Indo-European language did not have an article and that it developed out of the demonstrative pronoun in some of the extant Indo-European languages. Our entry on article points to the Latin "ille, illa, illud" and the fairly similar sounding articles as used in surviving Romance languages. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 08:13, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

PS: It may also be relevant to point out that, whilst most languages have but a few articles, Wikipedia has 13,000,000 articles in 260 languages. None of these, however, is a definite article :) --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 08:30, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, those cunning linguists. Even though the article exists in Latin, as far as I know it is seldom used, although those 3 words are obviously the roots of the definite articles in the Romance languages. I should point out that while most wikipedia articles are indefinite, in that they are subject to change by anyone who can edit, wiki does have some definite articles: those that have been fully protected due to assault by users that have, ironically enough, been blocked indefinitely. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 11:47, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wonderfully pointed-out irony, Bugsy. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 12:53, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The different formation of the definite article in different IE languages, and its absence in the earlier instances of some groups, suggests very strongly that it did not exist in proto IE. I don't believe there was a definite article in classical Latin, even for translating from Greek (which had one); but obviously the use of forms of 'ille' as an article appeared at some time in the history of Latin.

All the Semitic languages I know anything about have a definite article (prefixed in Hebrew and Arabic, suffixed in Aramaic and Amharic) so I am surprised that it is a Hebrew speaker that is making the error the OP mentions: it is very familiar with speakers of languages which do not, such as Russian or Japanese. --ColinFine (talk) 12:52, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ah...but my second point relates to just that! It is my own speculation that Hebrew-to-English translation allows for a novice to inadvertantly skip "the" because it exists as a prefix and not as a word by itself. I speculate as such because I recognize my own ineffective English-to-Hebrew translation based on my word-for-word translation. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 12:56, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Even western languages with both indefinite and definite articles will use them in ways different from English. French, for example, uses a definite article with abstract nouns (le bonheur, happiness), and as an equivalent to English "some" or "any" (J'ai mangé de la salade hier, I ate (some) salad yesterday). --- OtherDave (talk) 13:48, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Romance languages appear to use the definite article more than English does. It's almost used like a "title". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 13:55, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mmmh, like "the white house", "the queen" , "the titanic" ?83.100.250.79 (talk) 17:41, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually "the White House", "the Titanic", etc. "The" is needed in those cases because it's pointing to definite objects, hence the term "definite article", as opposed to "a white house", or "a queen". I was thinking more in terms of expressions like "el español". We don't say "The Spanish", we simply say "Spanish", unless we spell out "The Spanish Language". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 19:22, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not just Romance languages - German does that too: German name#Order of names and use of articles. -- 128.104.112.102 (talk) 17:29, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

@DRosenbach: Perhaps that is relevant, but I'm a bit dubious: I don't think 'words' are that clearly separated in our minds. I wonder if it might be significant that in the construct state in Hebrew, the head noun does not take the definite prefix: Template:Hebrew "wife (const) the man". However, my impression is that this sort of construction is not common in modern Hebrew, being replaced by Template:Hebrew "the wife of the man", so it may not be relevant. (Compare "the man's wife" and "the wife of the man" in English). --ColinFine (talk) 18:22, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I wouldn't count leaving out the definite article as a grammatical error for an Indian, since it's a general and recognized feature of Indian English. It's hard some times to say what's 'wrong' given the variations between established English dialects. For instance, Americans say "taken to the hospital", where Brits would omit the definite article. Both Brits and Americans would say "go to town" but inconsistently still say "go to the city", whereas Indian English would omit the article there. --Pykk (talk) 21:23, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

With regard to your professor, I think I may help you, since I'm a Hebrew speaker too, yet not a native English speaker.

As far as I know, Hebrew speakers who start learning English find no problem when coping with the "the": its being a prefix in Hebrew can't constitute a reasonable ground for the professor's avoiding the "the" in some (rare) words (e.g. membrane). I think the reason for her behaviour is due to another fact, i.e. due to a Hypercorrection: English tends to omit the "the" more than Hebrew does, e.g. in sentences like: "I'm lying under sun" (whereas the parallel sentence in Hebrew would always be: "I'm lying under the sun", and never: "I'm lying under sun"). Unfortunately, the professor has got no general rule for knowing when the "the" should be omitted in English, so she omits it even when unnecessary.

HOOTmag (talk) 18:27, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your insight. I can think of few contexts in which "I'm lying under sun" would be possible; but "in sunlight" is possible in some contexts, though it cannot be used in reference to a specific occasion. --ColinFine (talk) 18:53, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've got some clearer examples:

"President Obama". In Hebrew, one must say: "The president Obama" (i.e. the president, Mr. Obama; i.e. the president, being Mr. Obama). The avoidance of "the" is totally prohibited here.
"The issue of security bothers me". In Hebrew one must say: "The issue of the security bothers me", and mustn't omit the "the". Similarly, phrases of the form: "the X of the Y" are quite rare in English, and one would rather use forms like: "the X of Y" (e.g. "the issue of economy") instead, whereas the Hebrew phrases must be of the form "the X of the Y" ("the issue of the economy").
"My neighbor". Hebrew: "the neighbor of mine" (but never: "my neighbor"). Again, the "the" mustn't be avoided.

HOOTmag (talk) 19:08, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Except that "the issue of economy" and "the issue of the economy" mean to completely different things in English. The first is about using less, the second about spending more :} See the first two definitions at Economy (disambiguation). 75.41.110.200 (talk) 21:03, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

While Hebrew recognizes "the issue of the economy" only, in both meanings. HOOTmag (talk) 22:16, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what this is called in Hebrew, but in Arabic the idafa construction means that a bunch of different sentences (or fragments) can be constructed from two words, depending on the placement of the definite article. I assume Hebrew works the same way? Adam Bishop (talk) 02:00, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In Arabic, Idafa means that any phrase of the form: "the issue of the security" can become a phrase of the form: "issue of the security". Similary, "the issue of the security of the citizens" can become: "issue of security of the citizens", etc. The Idafa rule is as follows: in genetive constructions, one is permitted to remove the definite article from all nouns, excluding the last one. Doing so, each noun from which the definite article is removed, must undergo a little morphological change (indicating the genetive construction of the phrase), or else the definite article mustn't be removed from the noun.

A very similar demonstration exists in Hebrew as well, and it's called Smikhut.

HOOTmag (talk) 07:53, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

or construct state, as I mentioned above. The article says, as I surmised, that the construction is not productive in modern Hebrew, at least for possessive. --ColinFine (talk) 20:08, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah. However, modern Hebrew does use the construct state, when the word chain - points at an object whose essence is considered as "simple" (i.e. not complex), e.g. in the phrase: "the book house" (literally: "house the book"), which means: the school; or in the phrase: "the grave house" (literally: "house the graves") which means: the graveyard, etc. That kind of usage (which follows the construct state rules, according to which the first noun must undergo a little morphological change) is very common in Hebrew, including modern Hebrew, whereas using the construct state for objects considered as complex (e.g. in the phrase: "the man's wife") - can occur mainly in ancient Hebrew. In spoken modern Hebrew, that occurs less frequently, e.g. in the phrase: "Now it's the second team's turn" (literally: "Now it's turn the second team's"), etc. HOOTmag (talk) 00:31, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The key word is 'productive': there are many set expressions that use smikhut, but it is not often used ad hoc. --ColinFine (talk) 07:37, 25 August 2009 (UTC).[reply]

Not often? of course, as I mentioned above ("less frequently"). However, I really don't know what they mean by "productive". Is the English sentence: "now it's the second team's turn" - more productive than the English sentence: "now it's the turn of the second team" ? If the answer is positive, then also the Hebrew sentence: "now it's turn the second team's" (built by the construct state) - is more productive than the Hebrew sentence: "now it's the turn of the second team" (not built by the construct state). HOOTmag (talk) 08:31, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies, I should have linked to the technical term productive. Productivity is not a property of sentences, it is a property of processes or constructions. Saying "smikhut is not productive in modern Hebrew" means that while there may be many set expressions using the construction, it is rare for people to use it in new expressions. --ColinFine (talk) 18:50, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for not being aware of the technical term "productive".

Yes, the construct state is not productive in modern Hebrew. However, in some rare cases, the Hebrew speakers do prefer to apply the construct state in new expressions (as one can realize in the example mentioned above).

Do you study semitic languages?

HOOTmag (talk) 19:26, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Google translation of "Petit Papa Noël"

While researching Joseph Fourier I stumbled across http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petit Papa Noël (Les Simpson) (honest! natural progression!) which google correctly translated to "Santa's Little Helper" (Bart Simpson's dog)!

But when it translated http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petit Papa Noël (chanson), it (correctly) didn't translate it at all! (Edit: actually for the dog the title is translated but not the text, and for the song, vice versa!?)

Is google really that smart?

Thanks. Saintrain (talk) 23:38, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm completely ignorant in most computer-related matters, but there is some basic information about the workings of Google's translation feature here. It looks as though their program was able to recognize that occurences of "Petit Papa Noël" together with "Simpson" corresponded to occurrences of "Santa's Little Helper" together with "Simpsons" on English-language Web pages. You may be able to get a more detailed response on the computing reference desk. Deor (talk) 16:16, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Deor. I'd heard about google's syntactic translator but I was hoping that some francophone would chime in about there being a similar usage. Oh well ... I, for one, welcome our new silicon overlords. Saintrain (talk) 19:37, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, knowing (in principle) how Google Translate works, it's very likely that it determined the "correct" translations exactly the same way that Saintrain did it: by comparing corresponding articles in English and French Wikipedias. — Kpalion^(talk) 22:06, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, that's right. For a machine translator to be remotely useful, it needs to have some kind of mechanism to determine context, or even simple sentence could turn out very wrong. The same mechanism can cause very strange behavior; ambiguous sentences can give very strange results. Swedish "tomten åt banan" (all three words have double meanings) comes out as "sites to track", but capitalize the first letter (which doesn't change the possible meanings) and it becomes "The plot for the banana". --Pykk (talk) 22:58, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Translations

French: Vakhtang II meurt en 1292 sans laisser de descendance et il a pour successeur son cousin David VI, qui épouse sa veuve.

David II a épousé en 1292 la princesse mongole Oldjat, fille de l'Ilkhan Abaqa et veuve du roi Vakhtang II de Géorgie, puis en 1302 la fille du prince Ahmed Beg Orbéliani dont est issu :

Vakhtang II died in 1292 without leaving a descendant; his successor was his cousin David VI, who married his widow.

In 1292 David II married the Mongol princess Oldjat, daugher of the Il-Khan Abaqa and widow of king Vakhtang II of Georgia. Then in 1302 he married the daughter of prince Ahmed Beg Orbeliani, to whom was born: Marco polo (talk) 23:55, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

German: Dieser war seinem Vater in die Horde des Il-Khans Arghun (1284-1291) gefolgt und hatte dessen gewaltsamen Tod miterlebt. Doch die Mongolen setzten ihn gefangen und schickten eine Gesandtschaft unter Leitung Qutlughschahs Mankaberdeli an den Hof König Davids VI. Narin von Westgeorgien (1259-1293). Um Westgeorgien (Abchasien-Imeretien) enger an sich zu binden, boten sie dem ältesten Sohn Davids die Königskrone Ostgeorgiens an. David Narin erklärte sich damit einverstanden und Wachtang wurde an den Hof Arghuns geschickt, wo er von diesem als König bestätigt und mit der Schwester des Il-Khans, Oldschai(tu)-Chatun verheiratet wurde. Da er am Hofe des Il-Khans festgehalten wurde, konnte er seine Herrschaft in Tbilissi offiziell nicht antreten.

He had followed his father into the Horde of the Il-Khan Arghun (1284–1291) and witnessed his violent death. However, the Mongols took him prisoner and sent an embassy led by Qutlughshah Makberdeli to the court of King David VI Narin of West Georgia (1259–1293). In order to ally West Georgia (Abkhazia-Imereti) more closely with themselves, they offered the oldest son of David the throne of East Georgia. David Narin announced his agreement to this and Vakhtang was sent to the court of Arghun, where he was declared king by Arghun and married to the sister of the Il-Khan, Oldzhai(tu)-Khatun. Because he was held captive at the court of the Il-Khan, he could not officially take power in Tbilisi. Marco polo (talk) 00:03, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

August 24

stable

well i look it up on here for the definition and its showing me stables(like barns) im looking for stable like a relationship term... are u stable? hold a job house care emo's type thing///???/// —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.192.190.1 (talk) 03:35, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Look in wiktionary. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 03:37, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See here for "stable" as an adjective meaning "firmly established" or "unchanging". // BL \\ (talk) 03:45, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's worth pointing out that the root for all these words is the same, and that a related set of words from the same root are the variants on "establish". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 15:52, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And somewhat related also is the word "husband". A married man is presumed to be "stable". A "husband" is literally a "householder". In Spanish, the word for house is "la casa", and to marry is "casar". A married man, presumably stable, is "casado", which we translate as "married", but it's fairly clear that what it really means is "housed". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 15:55, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Pokémon

Why can't *pokémon be a Spanish word? --88.77.251.184 (talk) 10:00, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop this nonsense. 80.193.130.5 (talk) 10:38, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why can't 'shut up' be a phrase in your language? We are all getting really tired of this. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 11:06, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why can neither *shut nor *up be a Spanish word? --88.77.251.184 (talk) 11:44, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

C'mon, stop. It is not intelligent, nor funny. --pma (talk) 12:47, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This person seems to delight in getting editors to bite. Deny him his jollies by simply not responding. Is there any good reason why these questions can't just be removed on sight? -- JackofOz (talk) 13:38, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To be fair the reference desk is not a quiz desk - do you know the answers to these questions? You've asked several in the recent future. I would imagine that if you do not know the answer you should be learning how to "do your own research", or doing it yourself.

If you already know the answer then please cease from asking these questions. It is clear that other editors grow tired of these questions. Please respond.83.100.250.79 (talk) 14:14, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

'Recent future'? What is that? --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 15:08, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea and I wrote it, I probably meant - see below.83.100.250.79 (talk) 17:30, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is analogous to the 'near past' ;-) -- Q Chris (talk) 15:17, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am very willing to zap these kinds of questions on sight, unless someone objects. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 15:46, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The letter “k” is rare in Spanish, because it is only used in loanwords. “Pokémon” has a redundant accent on the penultimate syllable, which would be stressed if a trisyllabic Spanish word written without accents ends in “n”. Native Spanish words don't have word-initial “sh”, or word-final “p” or “t”. --88.78.236.1 (talk) 15:55, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fine. So what's the * got to do with anything? What's the Spanish for "Nathan Hale"? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 16:02, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A * is a standard way in linguistics to mark a word as ungrammatical. JIP | Talk 19:23, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, guys and gals, if you look on the Pokemon Spanish website, you will all find that it is, indeed, called Pokemon in Spanish, just like the Lego question a few days ago. And Jack is right, we should stop rising to the bait, because these questions are silly and very tiring. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 16:06, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The next one of these that appears, I will delete on sight. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 17:41, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to be called Pokémon, complete with accent, in Spanish. The irony is that the accent in Pokémon isn't there for stress, it's there to prevent English speakers from pronouncing it poke-mon, a mistake that Spanish speakers wouldn't make anyway. A stress accent would probably better be placed on the first syllable. This is actually mentioned at es:Pokémon#Etimología. Why they didn't market it as "Pocket Monsters" I'll never understand. Okay, end of thread. -- BenRG (talk) 10:43, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ambiguous sentence

aerotrekkers, people who fly unlicensed, open-cockpit planes

Who or what is unlicensed, the pilot or the planes? I tend to think that the planes are unlicensed, however, I think the sentence doesn't states it clearly.

Is the sentence ambiguous or is it just me?

--Quest09 (talk) 11:28, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a sentence, strictly speaking. Bus stop (talk) 11:31, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In some locations, various types of very small flying craft (ultralight) do not require registration and sometimes don't require design certification. This is sometimes refered to as unlicensed planes. To fly these planes the pilots don't need licenses either so the ambiguity reappears. Rmhermen (talk) 13:27, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The wholke sentence, from the NYT, is:

He bought the house in New Mexico as a playground for himself and fellow 
aerotrekkers, people who fly unlicensed, open-cockpit planes.

--Quest09 (talk) 17:50, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The sentence doesn't make sense if the unlicensed bit refers to the person. So personally, I see no ambiguity. Vimescarrot (talk) 18:00, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it's grammatically impossible for "unlicensed" in that sentence to modify "people", unless we're supposed to infer an and-deficient "He bought the house for himself, and for fellow aerotrekkers, and for people who fly unlicensed, and for open-cockpit planes", which is slightly insane. -Silence (talk) 18:39, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The comma between "unlicensed" + "open-cockpit" is merely to separate adjacent adjectives -- it does not serve to make "people who fly unlicensed" into a subordinate clause. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 18:59, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you want ambiguous, my dad called me the other day to tell me, "Uncle Benny died...Mom told you...I think." So I asked him if he was unsure that Uncle Benny died. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 19:01, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're ending the dependent clause too soon. Clauses don't end at the next comma; they can contain additional commas themselves. The second comma in the sentence is a "Between adjectives" comma, not a "Separation of clauses"/"Parenthetical phrases" comma. Read it like:

He bought the house in New Mexico as a playground for himself and fellow 
aerotrekkers, (people who fly unlicensed, open-cockpit planes).

128.104.112.102 (talk) 22:57, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Afrikaans given names

Do Afrikaans given names diverge from Dutch ones? I mean, is it usual for Afrikaans speakers to have an Afrikaans first name (if existing) instead of a Dutch one? For example, are Dutch names like Lodewijk, Matthijs, Martijn conveyed as Lodewyk, Matthys, Martyn? Or Balthazar and Jozef as Balthasar and Josef? I'd like to find some references. --151.51.42.132 (talk) 21:25, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The names that you mention don't seem to be very popular among Afrikaans speakers, based on some googling. While some common Afrikaans names are identical to Dutch ones, it doesn't look as if those include names whose spelling would need to change to match Afrikaans orthography. While the list of common Afrikaans names has some overlap with common Dutch names, the two lists are not identical, and there seem to be a number of uniquely or predominantly Afrikaans names. Here is a discussion of Afrikaans names from Yahoo Answers. Marco polo (talk) 13:25, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The protagonist of District 9 is an Afrikaaner named Wicus van der Merwe. Is Wicus a common name in the Netherlands? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 18:28, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Van der Merwe sounds quite Dutch. Merwe comes from the Nieuwe_Merwede, a river in the Netherlands. Never heard of Wicus though, couldn't find much people called Wicus anywhere. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sealedinskin (talk • contribs) 08:28, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

August 25

Schwa vocalization in Hebrew pronunciations

I've noticed that the vowel shva is often vocalized in different locations in Ashkenazi, Sfaradi, and Modern Israeli Hebrew. Where can I find a detailed description of the rules for when shva is realized? Mo-Al (talk) 01:03, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For classical Hebrew, See here, and here.

In modern Hebrew, the shva is realized in the following cases:

In each of the following consonants: l, m, n, r, when beginning a word.
In every consonant followed by an identical consonst.
In every consonant which does not end the word and which follows a consonant whose shva is not realized. This (third) case does not relate to loan words borrowed from european languages, e.g. in the word: Astronomy, etc.

HOOTmag (talk) 01:16, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Which one?

Suppose you were writing a story and there was a situation in the story where someone switched brains with someone of the opposite gender. Which pronouns would you use for each character? Jc iindyysgvxc (talk) 09:00, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Can you please not title your questions "Question". All questions are, well, questions, so calling a particular one "Question" doesn't add any value and makes it impossible to search for it by its subject matter. Unless, of course, the question was about the word "question", but that's not the case here. -- JackofOz (talk) 09:08, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The last time I checked, "He" and "She" are determined by X and Y chromosomes, and other physiological details - not gray matter as such. Unless you buy into Henry Higgins' philosophy. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 10:43, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Switching brains would not create classic mosaicism, but the end product of this experiment would possess a complete body of XX and a brain of XY, and vice versa -- so we could therefor not determine he/she by chromosomes, per se. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 12:43, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The same would be true if she got a liver transplant from a man, but she's still a she. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 19:46, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There are many who are not as certain as you, Baseball Bugs. We do have an article on this - see Gender identity. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:21, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The writer didn't say anything about which sex they identify with. If something's got male genitals it's a he and female genitals it's a she - unless they ask you to call them otherwise. So apparently the right answer is, "whatever pronoun they want to be called". The catch here is that we're talking about fictional characters in a story - so they're a little hard to ask. Conclusion: The author has to decide the answer. No one else can do so. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 11:31, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"He, formerly she," or "she, formerly he," might work. Bus stop (talk) 12:56, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If I were the author (which is what the OP asks), I would use the gender with which the character identifies. With two characters, this could mean that both ended up using the same gender, if one chose to continue his or her traditional gender, and the other instead identified with anatomy. Presumably other characters will go by appearance in referring to these characters, until they are told otherwise. John M Baker (talk) 13:48, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How about "(s)he"? Bus stop (talk) 14:43, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If I was writing this, I'd have the character point out what (s)he wants to be called early on. So, the choice is in the hands of the character. Vimescarrot (talk) 15:26, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If I was writing it, I'd use their original genders all the way through the story, otherwise it might get confusing after they switch. Of course, other characters (who, presumably don't know about the switch) would refer to them by their present physical gender (and names), as said above. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 16:16, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you need a Gender-neutral_pronoun meltBanana

If I were the author, I would make the whole plot revolve around this question and ultimately leave it to the reader to decide. — Kpalion^(talk) 16:55, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Brilliant! :) Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 19:44, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You might try reading Orlando: A Biography and see how Virginia Woolf handled it. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 18:29, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Now known as "Who then is a lady". :) -- JackofOz (talk) 21:00, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In Robert A. Heinlein's I Will Fear No Evil, the ageing protagonist books a brain transplant and wakes to discover he is now inhabiting the body of his female secretary, who conveniently died at the right moment. The use of pronouns changes as the story develops, and "he" eventually becomes "she" to the author and other characters and even to himself, complete with a new name reflecting a third identity that has developed from the other two. Both original consciousnesses, male and female, remain in the body and have extensive and lively chats, so the references to gender are a little complex throughout. Ka renjc 21:56, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In that work there was an additional factor operating, which Heinlein deliberately avoided explicitly mentioning except in one place where it can easily be overlooked. Noticing it causes one to interpret a good deal of the book in a new and more complex light, and even prompt a re-read. I'm not going to be more specific here because that would be a spoiler, and I urge others not to do so, but I wanted to make the point that there are further depths to the novel than many people realise. He did something similar though more overt in Starship Troopers, which like most of that books arguments and subtleties were ommitted from (or reversed in) the execrable 1997 filmed version. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 11:06, 26 August 2009 (UTC)the 87.81.230.195 (talk) 10:42, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My suggestion is to keep the gender identity of the mind of the person. If the person is narrating, they would refer to themselves with their psychological gender. Other people would likely refer to the physical attributes of the person. Consider the self-reference and preferred referrents of people whose physical sex doesn't match their psychological gender. Steewi (talk) 00:14, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation of Zdzisław

The Polish Wikipedia page for this name doesn't appear to have an indication of the pronunciation, which I need to ~~romanize~~ transcribe into Hebrew. IPA would probably do the trick. And as there are already ten English wikipedia pages beginning with Zdzisław, do you think it would be helpful to have a page here based on the Polish one? -- Thanks, Deborahjay (talk) 09:40, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The PC I'm using now doesn't display IPA charecters correctly, so I will answer when I'm back home, in about five hours from now. — Kpalion^(talk) 10:22, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And you can also hear it here [9] --pma (talk) 11:26, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, here goes: ['zd͡ʑiswaf]. I'd like to see it transcibed into Hebrew (BTW, you can't Romanize into Hebrew, only into the Latin alphabet). — Kpalion^(talk) 19:16, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks -- and quite right! (My slip explained here.) I'll close off on the decision around Sunday when my boss, for whom I've gathered this info, is back in the office and can arbitrate. -- Deborahjay (talk) 21:16, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Small correction: it's ['zd͡ʑiswaf] if you use Firefox and ['zdʑ͡iswaf] if you use Internet Explorer. I don't know what it looks like in other browsers though. — Kpalion^(talk) 07:58, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Combining similar syllables in spoken english?

Is there a word for the phenomonon where, when spoken, the trailing syllable or consonant of a word can be swallowed up by the following one? For instance, 'space station' may be spoken not as two seperate words but as 'spae station', with the 's' sound at the end of space eaten up by station.--192.76.7.237 (talk) 12:15, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if this is a "formal" term, but one term to use could be "slurring". One example: "World's Championship Series", which was shortened to "World's Series" and then became "World Series". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 12:21, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's a kind of assimilation I guess...--pma (talk) 12:42, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That article is certainly a mouthful. But it explains or suggests the explanation of some things. Oddities such as how "and per se and" became "ampersand". Also how, in Spanish "tan bien" became "tambien". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 13:35, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Assimilation wouldn't be quite correct with the example given, since the last sound and first sound of space and station are the same. English typically doesn't have gemination, the phenomenon of pronouncing a consonant extra long, except across word boundaries and even then it's not always present. Another thing about English that might explain what the OP is asking about is referred to in English phonology as articulatory overlap which is described as seeming to be assimilation, but is actually starting to articulate one consonant before finishing the articulation of the other. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 13:40, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

..the trivial assimilation ;) --pma (talk) 13:57, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sandhi. --ColinFine (talk) 18:53, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would never call it sandhi. Sandhi refers to combining two sounds to create (what is usually) a different combination, which is not what the OP is asking. Like, in Korean, 'cup ramyeon' (instant noodles) becomes 'cum ramyoen', because the 'p' gets changed to 'm' before certain voiced sounds. I tend more to agree with "I'm a sausage' above (sorry, can't pronounce the username). --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 19:19, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Am I a sausage? — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 02:39, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't this merely a form of elision, or does that word not work for you? Jwrosenzweig (talk) 21:30, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Slippy"

I watch the show Man vs. Wild hosted by a South African fellow. Because of the nature of the show, he often has occasion to say that this vine or that rock is slippery, except that he says "slippy", and he says it often, distinctly and consistently. Is this just him or is this in widespread usage in South Africa and possibly elsewhere?--162.84.164.115 (talk) 13:27, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"slippy" / "slippery" - no real difference in meaning in the UK at least.83.100.250.79 (talk) 14:06, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What about 'Slippy - the bust kangaroo' - roadkill in Australia. :) --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 16:05, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I was surprised when I heard an American use 'slick' in this sense: I had only ever heard it in its transferred sense. --ColinFine (talk) 18:55, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what you mean by "its transferred sense", but "slick" is often or at least sometimes used as a synonym for "slippery"; as in the midwest, "with today's snow, the roads are slick, so drive carefully." Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 21:37, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's the sense he was referring to. The transferred sense is referring to a person with certain skills or behavior as "slick". --Pykk (talk) 12:22, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Google as a verb

Influenced by a question above, does anybody find it interesting that we use 'google' as a verb (e.g. "What's a verb?" - "Google it!") even when we are using a different search engine, such as Yahoo? Why don't we say "Yahoo it!". --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 15:10, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For the same reason that when someone sneezes, I hand them a Kleenex, even if its a Puffs. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 15:13, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any others like this? I can think of 'Hoover' for vacuum cleaner, even though mine has a name I can't read (I'm in Korea). Slightly related question, why did Google change the spelling from googal? --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 15:19, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Biro. For some people, Transit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vimescarrot (talk • contribs) 15:21, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

From the references section of Google, I pull this explanation for the origin of its name. Vimescarrot (talk) 15:23, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure I've heard this called something before. Brand idenficiation and brand association should both redirect there, unless it doesn't have a name. Vimescarrot (talk) 15:24, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I can think of "Band-Aid" (bandages, to the point where TV commercials call it "Band-Aid Brand") and "Alpo" (dog food, probably because it sponsored 60 Minutes for a while). I'm sure these aren't the only other two. Xenon54 (talk) 15:31, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

for me: Jell-O, even when it's name-brand gelatin, as well as Kleenex and Band-Aid, and yes, Google as a verb is a standard word in my lexicon. (I don't use Yahoo! or Ask or any of those anyhow.) L☺g☺maniac chat? 15:34, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Some people refer to pencils as derwents, after the name of the manufacturing company. Bus stop (talk) 15:43, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

They're called genericized trademarks. "Victrola" was an early example, if I remember correctly. — jwillbur 15:49, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Vaseline was patented even earlier, in 1872. "Googling" gives 5 times as many hits as it does for petroleum jelly. I suspect not all of the 2.5 million hits refer to the Unilever product with a registered trademark. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 17:00, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ooo PS: Of course, I wanted to write Google™ing. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 18:29, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Aspirin and Heroin were both trademarks of the Bayer Corporation. --LarryMac | Talk 17:29, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I know we've plenty of examples, but I remember being shocked as a kid that Popsicle was a brand, not a generic name for a frozen sweet thing. Jwrosenzweig (talk) 21:32, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Google sued over it, because as a noun, it can remain a trademark. If it is widely used as a verb, it's considered in the public usage, and loses its trademark status before the usual period/controls, IIRC. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 18:11, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sued who? You can't sue the general public. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 19:43, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Another notorious example is Xerox as in "could you xerox this for me, please?" It might be of interest that the operators of the Lizzie Borden museum in Fall River, Massachusetts, have just trademarked the name "Lizzie Borden" with the U.S. Patent Office, according to this morning's Boston Globe in order to prevent anyone else selling something called "Lizzie Borden" or in one case to persuade a competing Fall River attraction to change its name to "Forty Whacks" †.

↑ For those unfamiliar with the reference:
Lizzie Borden with an axe
Gave her father forty whacks
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her mother forty-one.

—— Shakescene (talk) 19:10, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Names of programs like TeX, LaTex, Zip... are used as verb --pma (talk) 21:15, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The funny part is Yahoo tried to get people to use their name as a verb. Remember their TV commercials? "Do you Yahoo?". APL (talk) 23:45, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I can't say that I use it, but strangely "Yahoo it" doesn't sound odd to me. I just prefer Google, so I google things. Falconus^{p t c} 02:46, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sheet-rock is used alternative to drywall. Both are used as verbs. Nouns that are used as generic forms include Styrofoam, scotch tape, Levolor blinds, Clorox. 71.236.26.74 (talk) 15:00, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Swedish question

Do any Swedes at any time colloquially say, for example, nyan or gamlan instead of den nya or den gamla? I think it would be a fairly obvious colloquial shorthand, but as a non-native Swedish speaker, I'm not sure if it's actually used. JIP | Talk 18:59, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No. E.G. (talk) 00:29, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, not in general. In colloquial speech 'den' is often omitted though, "Har du sett [den] nya bilen?". Of course, saying "den nya" is already shorthand in itself. As an aside, it might be worth mentioning that these definite adjectives originally have an -e ending if the gender is masculine. "den gamle mannen", "röde baronen", but that's falling out of use. --Pykk (talk) 12:16, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Translation from Czech

is anyone able to translate this Czech conversation into english for me please? It may be partly in Slovakian

"no jo ..zase se chlastá a žere..co?? "to si pis "Kto to fotil??? Márnosť.....vymažte to....." "Zmazat......vyzeram tam ako keby som mala 150 kg......a to mam jenom 130 :-))) "jde vydet ze se u nas mas dobre...pise Marketa" Rada by som vedela, kde si pochytila tolko mudrosti.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.18.35.133 (talk) 21:05, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't seem very coherent, but using Google Translate and my knowledge of Polish, a closely related language, I get something like this;

Yeah... Back to drinking and eating... What?

You bet.

Who took this picture(s)? Vanity... Delete it...

Delete... I look here as if I weighed 150 kg... And I only weigh 130 :-)))

Looks like you are doing well with us... writes Marketa

I would like to know where you became so wise...

I can't guarantee it's 100% correct. Hopefully, a native Czech speaker will help here. — Kpalion^(talk) 07:45, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a list of Czech-speaking Wikipedians: Category:User cs-N. — Kpalion^(talk) 07:52, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Jackpot"

In the movie "No Country for Old Men", they use the word "jackpot" to apparently mean "bad situation", as in the dialog "I don't wanna get into no jackpot here", "You don't know it, but you're already in a jackpot, I'm just trying to get you outta it.". Is this a new usage of the word ? Or was it some other word I mistook for "jackpot" ? StuRat (talk) 21:08, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Did you try turning the DVD subtitles on? 195.35.160.133 (talk) 10:50, 26 August 2009 (UTC) Martin.[reply]

No, I watched on Netflix streaming video, which means no subtitles are available. StuRat (talk) 14:46, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This screenplay says it is indeed "jackpot". --Sean 14:22, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting, has anyone else ever heard of this usage of the word ? Do we need to update the Wiktionary definition to include this usage ? StuRat (talk) 14:46, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

August 26