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December 21

Hanging

If he committed suicide by hanging then he hanged himself. What about another person who strung himself up neither intending to die nor dying as a result? Kittybrewster ☎ 00:15, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Autoerotic asphyxiation, or, if that seems to necessarily indicate fatality (which I think it does not), asphyxiophilia? - Nunh-huh 01:00, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, what if they strung themselves up not for sexual pleasure, but to make it look like they wanted to commit suicide? We apparently don't have a "cry for help" article (or, ha, we do, but it's sort of a Rickroll). Adam Bishop (talk) 01:22, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
But we do have an article on Harold and Maude. It might also be considered a form of self-injury. +Angr 07:45, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My question was grammatical. E.g. "Nine is a significant number in Norse Mythology. Odin hung himself on an ash tree for nine days to learn the runes." Kittybrewster ☎ 10:48, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It sounds like a quirky mistranslation. You don't use the term "hang xself" in English, unless with the meaning of an execution technique. Did Odin tie himself to a tree? Or suspend himself from the branches of a tree? --Dweller (talk) 11:11, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(Exception - corpses can be hung without it necessarily meaning by the neck, but arguably corpses aren't people. And they certainly can't do so reflexively (hang themselves)) --Dweller (talk) 11:17, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that the Hávamál leaves the means by which Odin hung from Yggdrasil (while pierced with a spear) rather vague; I don't think it's necessarily true that any rope was involved. The imagery is more reminiscent of the Crucifixion than a gallows hanging. - Nunh-huh 11:23, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If the means are vague, I'd go for "suspended" to avoid ambiguity. --Dweller (talk) 11:37, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ahh, the old hanged vs. hung. This says it's only hanged in case 2, which specifies death. So, you hung yourself by your neck until you're dead, at which point you were hanged. In Odin's case, you'd probably say "hung by the neck" if you mean he hung himself in the style used on people who were hanged. That's assuming the Compact Oxfrod English Dictionary is right in specifying death as a necessity. Vimescarrot (talk) 11:31, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No matter which word you choose, you can probably find a dictionary to justify it... which is to say, this is a matter of style and not of right or wrong. Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate contains the following "usage note", which echos the "until dead" but is lenient on choice of verb form: "For both transitive and intransitive senses 1b [to suspend by the neck until dead] the past and past participle hung, as well as hanged, is standard. Hanged is most appropriate for official executions <he was to be hanged, cut down whilst still alive…and his bowels torn out — Louis Allen> but hung is also used <gave orders that she should be hung — Peter Quennell>. Hung is more appropriate for less formal hangings <by morning I'll be hung in effigy — Ronald Reagan>." BTW, I don't think there's anything to indicate Odin hung by the neck. - Nunh-huh 11:45, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Regardless of the grammar of the situation and the method (rope, nails etc) this folklore motif is almost always called "the hanged god" as it is known in the influential work The Golden Bough meltBanana 13:18, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"The hung god" would probably be something entirely different. Vimescarrot (talk) 13:35, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Charlie: They told me you was hung!
Sheriff Bart: And they was right!
←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:48, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Vaguely similar comparison: The batter flied out to left. The ball itself flew. The batter flied. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:48, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The linguistic theory of Lexical Phonology (which I mentioned in my comment in the Dec. 21 thread below) also has a lot to say about "flied" vs. "flew". For a popularizing account, see chapter 5 of Steven Pinker's Language Instinct... -- AnonMoos (talk) 08:25, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

translation for the sires of Enghien

Hierna volgt een lijst met de heren van Edingen. In 1394 gaat Edingen naar Jan van Luxemburg, schoonzoon van Lodewijk. Met de echtgenoot van Maria van Luxemburg komt Edingen terecht bij Bourbon-Condé en wordt het nadien een hertogdom (Hertogen van Enghien).

The list is in Dutch. The ranks of nobility don't tranlsate well from one country's system to another. I would have said Lord of Enghien, not Sire. Hertog is a duke, a higher rank. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 17:08, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Here follows a list of the Lords of endingen. In 1394 Endingen passed to Jan of Luxemburg, son-in-law of Lodewijk. With the marriage of Maria of Luxemburg, Endingen passed into the House of Bourbon-Condé and was later raised to a duchy (Duchy of Enghien)." In the list itself, zoon is son and neef is cousin or nephew. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 17:51, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In English we also have Sohier of Enghien, Walter IV of Enghien, and Louis of Enghien, although apparently none of the others. Adam Bishop (talk) 18:28, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation of Derwood

Derwood (place name, from Deer Wood)

Does the first part sound like "dare" and rhyme with "pear" (IPA [deɑɹwʊd]), or does it sound like "dirt" without the final "t" and rhyme with "her"? (IPA [dɚwʊd]) Or does the first part sound like "deer"/"dear"?

Thanks! 96.244.43.203 (talk) 15:21, 21 December 2009 (UTC)Ianthe[reply]

On Bewitched, Endora always pronounced it to rhyme the first syllable with "her". +Angr 15:36, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think it's the same for Derwood, Maryland?96.244.43.203 (talk) 15:48, 21 December 2009 (UTC)Ianthe[reply]

Evocative

Is there a word to indicate that a word needs a subsidiary phrase. Eg Evocative or reminiscent which need the "of ...." Kittybrewster ☎ 16:00, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Phrasal verb seems to be what you're looking for. (But note that "evocative" can be used on its own, to refer to something that brings up emotions. (e.g. google {"very evocative" -"evocative of"} with the quotes, but without the curly braces). -- 128.104.112.94 (talk) 22:17, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Evocative of" is not a phrasal verb, because "evocative" is not a verb. --Anon, 06:26 UTC, December 22, 2009.
Also see subcategorization, though the article is woefully exiguous. --ColinFine (talk) 00:04, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Some languages might have evocative markers in their lexical or grammatical marking. In English, I doubt there is such thing; other than in poetical or periodical natures. However, if you can clarify this with a sentence, then it is easy to understand what you are saying. —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 03:51, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I was thinking of eg "It is evocative of the spirit of Manderley", "the smell is reminiscent of an abattoir". Kittybrewster ☎ 17:29, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That is better. My answer is then these words (which I have not read often in contexts but according to corpuses) usually form as a nominal in a sentence (though the examples are adjectival here), i.e. by taking of a subsidiary phrase (usually a prepositional phrase, as you said). And as they are adjectives, they can function as adjectives.
And to a different question on whether a word needs a subsidiary phrase in phrasal categories, other than ‘Comp phrase’ which requires a phrase, all other words can stand alone within their phrasal categories.
However, you may be correct on the assumption that ‘evocative’ as a rhetorical marker needs a subsidiary phrase in discourses (not just mentioning the grammatical aspect). If that is case, I do know the word for such feature either. —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 20:06, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Just to be clear, Kitty's question was perfectly clear (to a native speaker) in its original form. I'm glad Kitty's examples made the question clearer to you, Mihkaw.
I'm going back to the first anon, in the very first answer. The phrasal verb is is evocative of or is reminiscent of, with is as the verb.
You can replace "is evocative of" with the verb "evokes", for example It is evocative of the spirit of Manderley: It evokes the spirit of Manderley. You cannot similarly replace "evocative" when is evocative is used intransitively, because the verb evoke is pretty transitive. For example: It is certainly evocative: *It certainly evokes (although I suppose you might try, it would always sound like it was missing something to me). The of transforms it from intransitive to transitive. Perhaps a linguist could comment. 86.176.191.243 (talk) 18:38, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Woman as an adjective

We sometimes see sentences like this:

  • She is the state's first woman premier.

"Woman" is chosen because "female" is a gender term that does not necessarily refer to women.

But when we come to the plural, "woman" changes to "women":

  • Australia has now had four women state premiers.

Since adjectives in English are indeclinable, this leads me to believe that "woman/women" here is not an adjective (whereas "female", had it been used, most definitely is). What's the relationship of "women/women" to "premier/s"?

Why can't "woman" be an adjective, leading to such sentences as:

It can be a noun adjunct. -- Wavelength (talk) 20:43, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The phrase woman painter is ambiguous. -- Wavelength (talk) 20:45, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thinking about this a little laterally: when there's an occupation that's predominantly occupied by women, a man who does it is not called a "man nurse/secretary", but a "male nurse/secretary". Why is it ok to use "male" to refer to a man, but not to use "female" to refer to a woman? -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:47, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Women state premiers sounds odd to me, as does robots state premiers, although rangers hockey game sounds fine (and so does woman state premiers). All the plural noun adjunct examples in the article are types of container, such as a club or an agency. And female bodybuilder gets more ghits than woman bodybuilder. (30 times more, if you put the phrases in quotes.) Felis cheshiri (talk) 21:04, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia has articles beginning with female, including Female athlete triad, Female guards in Nazi concentration camps, and Female political leaders in Islam and in Muslim-majority countries; and articles beginning with woman, including Woman warrior.
-- Wavelength (talk) 21:21, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There is also man servant, for some reason, and man child and man whore. I don't know why man secretary and man nurse aren't common. Felis cheshiri (talk) 21:23, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And for what it's worth, the plural of 'manservant' (NB, single word) is 'menservants' (so saith the 1979 Collins English Dictionary). 87.81.230.195 (talk) 21:34, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe just compound words? --88.74.30.79 (talk) 22:03, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia's article on Australia's first female premier describes her as "the first female Premier of an Australian State". Mitch Ames (talk) 00:47, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And yet, see this summary of Australia's "women premiers", who all succeeded "male" premiers. -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 02:35, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
...which I've now corrected, thanks to the advice given here. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 18:39, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This type of construction was discussed intensively by Otto Jespersen in his grammar of English many decades ago, and also was discussed by linguists (generative phonologists to be precise) in the development of the theory of lexical phonology (redlink which should probably be an article) in the 1980's. To begin with, it's highly dubious whether the first element in phrases such as "woman doctor" or "boy doctor" etc. is an adjective at all. Such elements certainly don't take comparative and superlative degrees, and cannot be ordinarily preceded by "very", etc. etc. It turns out that a non-final noun in such a construction being plural in form is fairly closely correlated to irregular plural morphology (i.e. something other than the standard "-s" suffix). AnonMoos (talk) 23:55, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

<quoting AnonMoos> ... it's highly dubious whether ... is an adjective at all. Such elements certainly don't take comparative and superlative degrees, and cannot be ordinarily preceded by "very", etc. etc. </quote>
You could say the same about "unique" but it's definitely an adjective (according to SOED). Mitch Ames (talk) 00:55, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
People actually do say "very unique" reasonably often (some think they shouldn't, but they do). In any case, the question is whether there's any test of adjectivehood which would reveal that the word "boy" in "Doogie Howser, the boy doctor" etc. is distinctively an adjective (rather than a noun which happens to be serving in the role of modifying another noun). I don't think that there is any such test. AnonMoos (talk) 08:37, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

¶ Oddly enough, this very question was discussed by Jan Freeman in her weekly language column in the Boston Sunday Globe yesterday (20 December 2009). See The Female Question. —— Shakescene (talk) 00:09, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I love the problems that sexual/gender style guides cause. When The Guardian carried Carlo Ponti's obituary, they were forced to print the following correction: "A rigid application of the Guardian style guide caused us to say of Carlo Ponti in the obituary below that in his early career he was "already a man with a good eye for pretty actors ..." This was one of those occasions when the word "actresses" might have been used." It seems to be that "woman premier" is trying to point out the premier's sex, so there need be no consideration of her age; "female" does it best. - Nunh-huh 02:08, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Some people think that "female" has inappropriate connotations, since it seems to focus narrowly on biological sex, and is a word that can be applied equally to animals and humans (unlike "woman", "lady", etc.). However, in the nineteenth century, "female" was sometimes kind of an elegant alternative -- a "female seminary" would have been more pretentious and expensive than a mere "girls' school"... AnonMoos (talk) 08:37, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
For a sports-related example, the article on South Carolina Gamecocks states that the women's teams, formerly known by the somewhat peculiar name "Lady Gamecocks", are now also just the "Fighting Gamecocks", like the men. Presumably "Gamehens" was not given much consideration as an alternative. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:36, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

All very fascinating. Thank you, men and women of Wikipedia. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 18:39, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is this good Latin, or Dog Latin?

The quote is by Terry Pratchett:

Cuius testiculos habes, habeas cardiaet cerebellum. Woogee (talk) 22:34, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sort of...currently it says "whose balls you have, you should have hearts and a brain", which I assume means "let he who has balls also have a heart and a brain". Actually "cardia" is Greek, since "hearts" in Latin is "corda". I would say "qui testiculos habet, cor et cerebellum habeat." Adam Bishop (talk) 22:45, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's more like "If you have their balls, you'll also have their hearts and minds". Woogee (talk) 23:08, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Then future indicative habebis might be preferable to present subjunctive habeas. AnonMoos (talk) 23:44, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's almost definitely supposed to refer to the old aphorism "if you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow". Grutness...wha? 23:52, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And so 'cuius' is better than 'qui'. --ColinFine (talk) 00:06, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, that does make pretty good sense then. I've never heard that before. Adam Bishop (talk) 00:27, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's neither good Latin, nor dog-Latin. It's Latatian. Some denizens of Pratchett's Discworld, particularly wizards, often use Latatian which, purely by coincidence, looks to a Roundworld reader like Latin as spoken by someone who will try to translate the inscription on a gravestone but come up with a recipe for lentil soup. See also http://wiki.lspace.org/wiki/Latatian. One of the better-known examples is Rincewind's "incantation" - Stercus stercus stercus, morituri sum. These are more examples. Tonywalton Talk 01:33, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Tony, that never crossed my mind. Woogee (talk) 22:04, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]


December 22

креатура (Russian! :)

Hello. I want to use the word 'креатура' in Russian. I've found it means creature, but also minion or henchman. If I wanted to say for example minions of (X) with 'креатура' (e.g. "minions of God"), how would it be? I tried using an online translator, but it uses Russian words other than креатура, and I don't understand from the translations how the 'of' or the plural work in Russian, so that's why I'm asking here :) I would appreciate a short explanation of these and any other grammatical rules needed to understand the translation. Thanks in advance! :3 190.157.136.97 (talk) 00:22, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, 'креатура' does not mean creature / minion / henchman. There is no such word as 'креатура' in proper Russian at all. You may use 'креатура' as a transliteration of the English word 'creature' in any sense or context the word 'creature' is used. However, that won't make it a Russian word; it will still be an importation, a loanword. It may enter Russian eventually as a neologism, but I doubt it. Now, there are many words in Russian that correspond to the English word 'minion'. Different Russian words for 'minion' express different degrees of derision, so you should choose wisely. I can not suggest anything without knowing the context... --Dr Dima (talk) 03:10, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand. Why do several dictionaries say the word does exist then, like here, here, here, and here? Did all of them make it up? And from where would they get the 'minion/henchman' meaning? What does this mean??? 190.157.136.97 (talk) 12:13, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My Oxford Russian-English Dictionary (1972 edition) has 'креатура', meaning "creature, minion". -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 18:35, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm, my 1997 edition of the ORED doesn't have креатура but it doesn't have an entry for "minion." and создание is the only translation for "creature." — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 19:21, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
В.К.Мюллер's Англо-Русский Словарь (Moscow, Russian Language Publishers, 17th ed, 1977) gives 'креатура' as the 2nd meanings of both "minion" and "henchman". -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:46, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
To answer your original question, the (nominative) plural of 'креатура' is 'креатуры'. "Of God" is the genitive of 'Бог', viz. 'Бога'. --ColinFine (talk) 19:36, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I believe I understand now... one last question: is the genitive singular of 'креатура', well, 'креатура'? :) 190.157.136.97 (talk) 20:39, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's the same as the nominative plural, 'креатуры'. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:47, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oh I see, it's because it's feminine... thanks again :3 190.157.136.97 (talk) 20:56, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you are to use 'креатура' as a feminine noun, the declension for the singular form would be as follows. Imenitelnyi (nominative) - 'креатура', roditelnyi (genetive) - 'креатуры', datelnyi (dative) - 'креатуре', vinitelnyi (accusative) - 'креатуру', tvoritelnyi (instrumental) - 'креатурой', predlozhnyi (prepositional) - 'креатуре'. --Dr Dima (talk) 21:04, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The declension of креатура is at wikt:ru:креатура. -- Wavelength (talk) 22:23, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Arbeit macht frei - translation

Is there a generally accepted English translation of Arbeit macht frei, used by historians? A glance at the revision history of that article shows frequent changes to the translation.

A while ago it read "[Arbeit macht frei] literally translates [sic] 'Work Makes Free'", so I changed the verb "translates" to "has the word-for-word meaning", since "Work Makes Free" is a sequence of word glosses rather than a translation; and anyway, we should not use "translate" in this way as an intransitive verb because translation is an active process. But soon afterwards, "Work Makes Free" was replaced by "Work will set you free", but still with the description "word-for-word meaning", which it is not. Then there is a second attempt for good measure - "Labour liberates" - so the whole thing is clearly in need of some expert attention.

I hope we can find a stable solution that is based on actual, verifiable usage by historians and translators, instead of attempting the translation ourselves. Lfh (talk) 16:47, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The most literal translation is "Work makes free". This is the only translation that I think can be acceptable as "word-for-word". The translation "labour liberates" takes too much translators' licence into account. "Work will set you free" is perhaps the best translation, as it makes more sense in english than the blocky "work makes free". A quick search on google shows approx 4460000 hits for "arbeit macht frei", 15900 for "work makes free", 211000 for "work will set you free", and 956 for "labour liberates".
My suggestion to the article's opening sentence is to change "work will set you free" to "work makes free" and change "labour liberates" to " work will set you free". I'll go ahead and make this and see if anyone objects. ThemFromSpace 17:26, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As Lfh said, "work makes free" is not a translation. It's a gloss. kwami (talk) 18:18, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's a "literal translation". It's like Vaya con Dios is literally "Go with God" in Spanish, and the English idiom is "May God be with you." It's useful to have both, to better understand how words are put together in another language. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:27, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've no objection to "Work makes free", as long as we mark it for what it is (be that "gloss" or "literal translation"). But whether or not we have "Work makes free", we should have an actual translation too, and I would like to know if translators and historians have ever reached a consensus or if it remains debated (like Das Judenthum in der Musik). And if the latter, how should we cover the issue? Lfh (talk) 19:31, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In newspapers over the past few days, I have seen only "work makes you free" or "work will set you free". Adam Bishop (talk) 19:34, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Weighing in as an inhouse translator for a historical archive, I can offer "work makes [one] free" as a rendition faithful to the German, and within ten hours shall return here with the version used in the English-language edition of the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust published by Yad Vashem, a highly authoritative academic source. -- Deborahjay (talk) 21:08, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
...and from the English-language edition of the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, vol.4, p.1751 (Glossary), published by Yad Vashem, a highly authoritative academic source:

"Arbeit macht frei" ("Work liberates") Slogan above the entrance gate to Auschwitz I and other concentration camps.

-- Deborahjay (talk) 07:14, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you Deborahjay (and everyone). I'll add this translation and reference to the article, and also add a note asking people not to change it without good reason. Lfh (talk) 11:30, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have also frequently heard it translated as "work brings freedom", a looser translation perhaps but maintains the three word pithiness of the original meltBanana 13:15, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]


December 23

Somebody wrote me a message in Arabic

Tonight, I was browsing the Arabic Wikipedia (even though I can't understand a word of it) when I noticed someone had left me a note on my user page. Does anyone know what it says? I imagine it's just a welcome template, but that would be rather strange, since I've never made any edits on that wiki. I'd also like you to look into the contributions of the user who left me the message. Does s/he compulsively go around leaving welcome messages to users who have never edited? This user should be got after and looked at (yes, I know this only the Reference Desk no the Arabic AN/I, but still....).--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 02:29, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is a welcome template. The Arabic wikipedia has a page just like this. Anyone who wants to welcome all new users can use that log to do so. It's perfectly ok. I hope that clears things up. Happy editing! JW..[ T..C ] 03:10, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I just clicked on the link you gave and got one too. Looks like this bot welcomes new users on ar.wikipedia. — ækTalk 03:16, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Most of the individual language WPs have that feature. If you have established a global account, you'll get such a message the first time you visit each particular WP version. Deor (talk) 03:22, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, dude. That is seriously fucked up.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 05:41, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Shoes

What is shoetips?174.3.102.6 (talk) 05:46, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The tip of your shoes, I would imagine. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 05:59, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The text that's being asked about is:

...within each U.S. subculture there is little variety in headgear among U.S. men. That is because fashion sense is considered unmanly in the United States and because for those men who defy this cultural bias, fashion sense is usually more a matter of shoetips and the cut of one's clothing.

Here the author is saying that for these particular Americans, fashion sense means more than the shape of the tips of a man's shoes or the cut of his clothes. The tips of some shoes are of a different color or material than the rest of the shoe, some are very round, some are very narrow and sharp, some are wingtips (with, Wikipedia says, "a toe cap in a W shape") and some (required for construction work) have steel toes. There have been different cultural associations with different types and shapes of shoes, including their tips. It's not my field, but narrow-pointed shoes have at times been popularly associated with an rebel teenage culture, and wingtips with a more suburban, middle-class one. —— Shakescene (talk) 10:00, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It could be an alternative name for shoe taps -- that would certainly indicate a sense of fashion." DRosenbach (Talk | Contribs) 14:59, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
When a reference is made to "shoetips" it is a reference to the phenomenon in which very small variations assume great fashion significance such as in the design of very classically and conservatively styled men's dress shoes. Wingtips are a general example. Bus stop (talk) 18:06, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hirsebeutels Hymne

What would be this title's literal meaning, and what might be its significance in the context of the Nazi era? The poem—three stanzas in German, undated, author unknown—makes ironic or cynical note of how the vaunted purity of the German Reich, that puts "Abraham" to the knife, is maintained by sloughing its sins off on "our" children. -- Deborahjay (talk) 13:26, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hymne in German means "anthem" (not really "hymn" as that word is used in English). Hirsebeutel sounds like a name; the -s at the end puts it in the genitive case. However, "Hirsebeutels Hymne" gets 0 Google hits, so I'm at a dead end for further research. +Angr 14:15, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think it is probably a misspelling for de:Hirschbeutel. Still no hits for a hymn though.·Maunus·ƛ· 14:30, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Probably not a mis-spelling: Hirsebeutel means "millet bag" -92.11.141.194 (talk) 16:39, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, true.·Maunus·ƛ· 16:52, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'd arrived at the "millet bag" via Leo, which prompted me to post here in hopes that some such allusion might be familiar to German-culture cognoscenti. The possibility of a misprint for "Hirsch..." occurred to me because of a handwritten notation in what's apparently Polish orthography: "Hirsz..." – though that sort of mishmash is frequent enough in this archival material at the hands of polyglot immigrants. As for the title and text, I doubt they'd have made it to the Internet. The lack of provenance on this item is frustrating. Any insights are appreciated! -- Deborahjay (talk) 21:04, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Among the only 8 google hits I received for "Hirsebeutel", there was one text from 1884, where a (typically daft) recruit is addressed as "Hirsebeutel" by his commanding officer See here. Maybe the "millet bag" was an accessory sometimes used metonymously for lowly recruits, or maybe not. (The usage of "Brotsack" ("bread bag", a small bag carried by Swiss soldiers) in the title of Max Frisch's Blätter aus dem Brotsack suggests that the author is not an officer, for example). I have never heard the term "Hirsebeutel" in any remarkable way, personally. As an aside, the Word "Hymne" can also mean a type of poem in German, something like an ode; its meanings aren't limited to anthem. Is it possible for you to post or link to the entire text, or do you have any other information regarding this Hymne? ---Sluzzelin talk 21:36, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Did anyone search Google for key phrases in the poem, rather than the (uncertain) title? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:32, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The document was acquisitioned in mid-1993; from its appearance it's possibly a page from a self-published slim volume of poetry, otherwise quite anonymous. A Google search of its more idiosyncratic phrases yields nothing. -- Deborahjay (talk) 07:54, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OP adds: Singling out a word from a poem or artwork's title and querying its significance in the source language's culture is a favorite research device of us translators. Whether Hirsebeutel or Hirschbeutel, it seems peculiar, hence likely a deliberate choice and one that escapes my understanding. As a sample of the text, the first of the three stanzas begins identical to the Deutschlandslied and continues with a presumably eponymic reference to a "Nachmann" (where the last line's "Abraham" quite clearly stands for the Jews):

Deutschland, Deutschland,
über alles,
über alles in der Welt,
solange der aus Nazi-
schlamm Geborene
vor den Nachmanns
auf die Knie fällt.

(punctuation verbatim). Sorry to have so little to offer, but this is how it goes. -- Deborahjay (talk) 08:08, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Where is this "A" originally from???

Hi. I'm not sure this is the most adequate Reference Desk for this question (it would depend on the answer), but here goes. I've been trying to trace the origins of this particular and very common A design, but I have absolutely no clue where it comes from originally. I've seen it in many, many places... For example, I happened to find a contest for designing a logo for "Alpha Elevators" here, and many of the entries used this special "A" design (like this one, this one, and this one). Why is this particular "A" so popular? And where did it come from??

...Might it be some weird variation on Delta, or the capital Lambda? It certainly looks to me like a middle ground between Lambda and the modern L (or the more similar phoenician Lamedh: ). I've tried looking for a similar figure across several alphabets, but so far the closest thing I've found to it is the Coptic equivalent of lambda: . Or maybe, it's simply a design someone used once for their company or store logo, and people started ripping it off? Perhaps I'm complicating myself too much? I really have no idea. Does anyone know about this? Any help is greatly appreciated! Kreachure (talk) 17:42, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Another possibility is that a particular font or goup of fonts featured an A that looks like that and use of such a font occurs enough that it's gotten popular. Though I'm just guessing here. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 18:43, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Stop" by Aldo Novarese (part of the Linotype library) has a similar though not identical capital "A": the gap or opening is on the top left, not on the bottom right. See here. ---Sluzzelin talk 19:03, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There is also the Sinaloa font family. What I think the Adobe "A", the Stop font, and the Sinaloa font have in common is that they were designed in the 1970s or early '80s to have a streamlined, "futuristic" look. I am fairly certain that this has little or nothing to do with the ancient Greek, Phoenician, or Coptic scripts. Marco polo (talk) 20:31, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The A in the Star Trek: The Next Generation title looks kind of like that Stop font. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:05, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It looks to me like an abstraction of the lowercase italic a; it's the only sensible way to trace it in one line. — Sebastian 22:56, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, that's what I thought as well. --Kjoonlee 06:16, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Look at some of the a's in uncial script, just before (as I understand it, perhaps wrongly) capital letters became distinct from what (after the printing-press) we now call lower-case. —— Shakescene (talk) 06:22, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The A in the Adobe logo, was designed in 1982 by Marva Warnock, wife of John Warnock (one of the two founders of Adobe Systems). The original log (which you can see on page 4 of this PDF) was a bit different than the current one, in that it spelled out "ADOBE" and the right limb of the A didn't extend all the way down. As Marco Polo said above, the font was certainly intended to have a "futuristic" geometric look, and is unlikely to be a direct reference to "ancient" scripts. Abecedare (talk) 07:48, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much... :3 Kreachure (talk) 14:55, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

December 24

Vivid? Really?

On (US) television an advert is currently running, perhaps for a stop-smoking drug. Per FDA regulations, nearly half the ad is disclaimers, one of which is "may cause vivid or intense dreams."

Does anyone know what the FDA-approved, medical definition of a "vivid dream" might be? Surely it's more than just bright colors, because lots of drugs (most of which don't require a prescription!) can induce that, right?

Happy holidays to all, by the way...

--DaHorsesMouth (talk) 02:39, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds kind of like weasel-words, in sort of a good way; not just the "vivid" part, but the "intense" part. Whether a dream is vivid or intense would be a judgment call on the part of the dreamer. It's unlikely there's a federal standard for the term. It's probably more of a summary of observed results. By the way, "vivid" derives from "to live", hence it means "lively", and one of its synonyms is "intense". So it may cause intense or intense dreams. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:47, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My understanding of "vivid" in this context was dreams that are a lot more realistic, perhaps even difficult to distinguish from reality. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 02:51, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Could be. But you don't have to be on drugs to have vivid and/or intense dreams. They might have been better off saying "more vivid or intense than you normally get". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:55, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And as with any other drug, it would have been through a battery of tests, in which such side effects would have been observed. If you get any kind of prescription drug nowadays, you get like a book that explains every possible side effect of the drug. Those effects would be known through testing required for FDA approval. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:57, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You can also get intense dreams without being on drugs. In general, when someone says "vivid dream" I don't think intense, I think realistic. Maybe it's just me. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 03:33, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Vivid" literally means "alive" or "living", i.e. seeming real. The disclaimers are likely just trying to come up with a couple of words to summarize what they observed during testing. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:39, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I suspect that this is based on self reporting rather than some sort of objective standard in a laboratory. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 03:58, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A fair amount of lab testing would involve self-reporting. If someone says, "This drug makes me nauseous", I don't know how you could measure that. More likely what they would measure is the percentage of test subjects who reported a given side effect. Like if they tested 100 people and only 1 of them had vivid dreams, vs. 50 of them having vivid dreams. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:03, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think the definition of "vivid dreams" is pretty much the one suggested by a straightforward interpretation of the English words:

  • This paper describes the term parenthetically as "unusually clear, long dreams with elaborate scenario and possibly strong emotions, that occurred only when sleeping and were acutely remembered".
  • The Parkinsons Disease Non-Motor Scale has a question for the patient on the topic, which simply asks if they have experienced "Intense, vivid dreams or frightening dreams". Since the patient is given no further information on how to interpret these terms, the answer would reflect the usual layman understanding of the terms. The use of the term in the ad you saw is likely to be similar, rather than there being a special "FDA approved" definition.

Abecedare (talk) 04:34, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think 'acutely remembered' is important. As a layman, my impression of a vivid dream was one that, even if you knew you were dreaming, still seemed completely realistic. Or that after you woke, instead of it seeming like a dream, it still seemed completely real even though you now realized it wasn't. kwami (talk) 06:21, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So funny -- I actually just had a seminar on the tobacco cessation drug to which you are referring, varenicline. "Vivid dreams" is a formal term used to describe intense dreams, the content of which one might normally not experience. Suicidal thoughts and irrational behavior are also side-effects. DRosenbach (Talk | Contribs) 18:11, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Six days left and I'm still uncomfortable calling them the "ohs", "aughts" or "noughties". How about you?

Civic Cat (talk) 17:17, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have a intelligible question? DRosenbach (Talk | Contribs) 18:07, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
2000's. What do you call them?Civic Cat (talk) 18:16, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
2000s itself isn't very satisfying, because it is ambiguous. We use terms like 1800s and 1700s to refer to entire centuries, so 2000s could seem to refer to the entire 21st century. On the other hand, when I was a child (1960s-1970s), I remember the decade 1900–1909 being called the 1900s, so maybe there isn't such a risk of ambiguity while the century is still underway. I agree that aughts and noughties are also unsatisfying. Neither has caught on in the United States. Also, the first sounds archaic, and the second sounds silly. The word nought is not in common usage in the United States at least, so the word sounds like naughties, and for most people, the decade has not been fun at all, much less "naughty". (What went on on Wall Street and in the City of London went several steps beyond naughty.) There isn't a widely accepted term for the decade in the United States, but I think we will end up with 2000s or ohs. I prefer the latter. Looking back on the decade, a sigh seems fitting. Marco polo (talk) 18:57, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Marco Polo, and may you (and all Wikipedians) have a merry teens.
:-D
Civic Cat (talk) 19:20, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The expression "2000s" might refer to a decade, a century, or a millennium. -- Wavelength (talk) 19:22, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
For disambiguation with written figures, I propose the 2000s, the 2000s, and the 2000s, respectively.
-- Wavelength (talk) 20:54, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Here is another proposal: the 200\0s, the 20\00s, and the 2\000s. -- Wavelength (talk) 06:33, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I propose the two thousands for the millennium, the twenty hundreds for the century, the twenty zeroes (abbreviated to the zeroes) for the first decade, and the twenty tens (abbreviated to the tens) for the second decade.Wavelength (talk) 19:56, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, good luck with that. I propose "the third millennium" for the millennium, "the twenty-first century" for the century, "the first decade of the twenty-first century" for the first decade, and "the second decade of the twenty-first century" for the second decade. +Angr 21:32, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia has information about determining the first year and the last year of a decade, a century, and a millennium.
-- Wavelength (talk) 23:24, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Twenty aughts" and "twenty tens" are pretty normal, even if the former sounds a bit 19th century. kwami (talk) 04:21, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In my dialect, "noughties" sounds just like "naughties". That one won't get very far except in retrospect by our puritanical grandchildren. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 19:51, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I doubt there's any dialect of English where they aren't homophones. +Angr 10:30, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
For the record, the decade still has a year and a bit to run. Since the system started on year 1, the next decade should start in 2011. And yes, I attempted to celebrate teh millenium in 2001; nobody listened to me then either. Of course you could say that a decade is simply a period of ten years, in which case, every day is the end of one.- Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 20:21, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're going to find that convention will say otherwise. There are already stories appearing about the first decade of the 2000s (which I would tend to call the "early 2000s", just as 1900-1909 is the "early 1900s"). That's counting 2000 through 2009, because 2000 begins with "two thousand". This is not to be confused with the 21st Century, which began on January 1, 2001, and will end on December 31, 2100; nor the Third Millenium, which began on January 1, 2001, and will end on December 31, 3000, assuming nothing bad happens In the Year 2525; if man is still alive. :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:31, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's simply an inappropriate appeal to popularity. Most people are wrong. Now, let's see whether I can find any lives to ruin, grass to protect, etc. etc. etc.... :) - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 20:34, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The dilemma is that reliable sources and common usage will trump what we might think is the "true" way of saying it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:48, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Serendipitously Washington Post has just published an article addressing the OP's question. Abecedare (talk) 04:48, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Names of decades, centuries, and millennia 1000 years ago

One thousand years ago, how did people refer to the decade 1000–1009, the decade 1010–1019, the century 1000–1099, and the millennium 1000–1999? (Incidentally, I am aware of the Italian expressions for some centuries in Italian culture: Trecento, Quattrocento, Cinquecento, Seicento, and Settecento.) -- Wavelength (talk) 21:28, 25 December 2009 (UTC) ..... [I am revising my message. -- Wavelength (talk) 21:36, 25 December 2009 (UTC)][reply]

I wonder whether people 1000 years ago referred to decades as unitary concepts at all. I suspect that thinking of "the fifties", "the sixties", "the seventies", etc., is a relatively modern thing to do. I know the 1890s were called the "Gay Nineties" (at least, after the fact they were), and maybe some other decades in the 19th century were thought of as identifiable units, but does it go back earlier than that? +Angr 23:21, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Around 1000 A.D., very few people (other than a few scribal monks) commonly encountered Dionysian A.D. dates in the course of their everyday life. That's part of why there was no real "Y1K" panic -- some people might be alarmed if they were told by one of their friendly neighborhood monks that it was approaching 1000 years since the birth (or death) of Jesus, but unless they were told by a monk etc, the vast majority of people would have no idea when such an anniversary occurred... AnonMoos (talk) 00:03, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
According to Arabic numerals#Adoption in Europe, the use of Roman numerals continued to predominate in Europe after the year 1000 (in Roman numerals, M). That might have some relevance. 2009 = MMIX. 2010 = MMX. -- Wavelength (talk) 02:22, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
They also didn't need to differentiate between decades, since, unlike the past couple of hundred years, nothing much really changed decade to decade. Adam Bishop (talk) 05:21, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Some events are mentioned in the articles 990s, 1000–1009, and 1010s. -- Wavelength (talk) 05:54, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, but that doesn't mean people at the time thought about these decades as entities needing a name. +Angr 10:30, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There is the Latin word "decennium", but similar words can be made with any number and time period ("millennium" for example). Adam Bishop (talk) 03:56, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The Oxford English Dictionary's first recorded use of the word "century" to refer to a 100-year period ending in a "00" year comes from 1638. The first similar use of "decade" also dates to the 17th century. Same with "millenium." That's only English, of course, but it gives some indication that measuring time according to the Dionysian system of years was not a major priority in the Middle Ages. If required to identify a range of years in the past, a Medieval scholar might refer to the king who was ruling at the time. ("In the time of the second King Henry after the Conquest," e.g.) -- Mwalcoff (talk) 08:02, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Company Of Heroes (game)

In the WW2 game CoH, the Americans sometimes shout something that sounds like 'Krauts have got a feed on us'. Is this correct? --KageTora - (影虎) (Talk?) 21:55, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Have got a bead on us" (i.e., "have us in their gun sights"), perhaps. This sense of bead doesn't seem to be covered in the Wiktionary entry; see, however, senses 7 and 19 here. Deor (talk) 22:07, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, excellent, thanks! I suppose that makes some sense. Would anyone know if this has been taken from a film or if American soldiers do/did in fact say this sort of thing? --KageTora - (影虎) (Talk?) 22:44, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
According to my old Webster's, one version of a bead is a small knob of metal on a rifle, near the muzzle, used for a sight. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:16, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think that this is the sort of thing that soldiers would have said during WW2. I don't know if the expression remains current. Marco polo (talk) 01:46, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
to draw a bead on H. L. Mencken in The American Language calls an obvious product of pioneer life, when discussing phrases which originated around the time of the revolutionary war. I found the phrase in a number of memoirs from World War II.—eric 03:15, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

December 25

Need a 7 letter word meaning last

Playing a game with someone and looking for a 7 letter word pertaining to Nero being the last Roman emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. It must end in the letter h. Thanks.--Doug Coldwell talk 00:26, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

'Last-ish'? --KageTora - (影虎) (Talk?) 00:44, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry :) This online thesaurus gave plenty of words, but not a single one ended in '-h'. --KageTora - (影虎) (Talk?) 00:46, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
through? impeach? seventh? ("No hairy seventh to him succeeds.")—eric 03:58, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The word "through" fits nicely. Made a shortcut to Dictionary.com. The solved puzzle then comes out as

Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, fifth Roman Emperor of through with the Julio-Claudian dynasty, was held in disrepute over the same ruled mortals and produced a history segment as misrepresentation of all the emperors who were in a dilemma, a tasteless history record on the dynasty.

I think it makes sense. He's a really old professor playing these games with me.
Found reference to "No hairy seventh to him succeeds" in Google Books here. Thanks for help.--Doug Coldwell talk 12:58, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If it "makes sense", could someone translate it for me? It doesn't read like any English I know. Bielle (talk) 20:45, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's just an old game a very old professor is playing with me. I'll try to break it down to where it makes sense:

  • Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, fifth Roman Emperor of through with the Julio-Claudian dynasty = last of the Julio-Claudian dynasty emperors.
  • ...was held in disrepute over the same ruled mortals... = ruled the same people as Claudius.
  • ...produced a history segment as misrepresentation of all the emperors who were in a dilemma... = left worst reputation of these emperors.
  • ...a tasteless history record on the dynasty. = his rule is often associated with tyranny and extravagance.

The game involves coming up with appropiate words that end with certain letters and have a certain count. Examples:

  • 7 letter word ending in h = through
  • 7 letter word ending in s = mortals
  • 7 letter word ending in a = dilemma

The English is not smooth as we are accustom to because it is a very old English game we are playing. He's teaching me some ancient Roman history. I think the gest of the small bio on Nero above is generally correct. Don't you agree?--Doug Coldwell talk 21:56, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Another example of the old English game would be below. See if you can solve:
  • _ _ _ _ _ _ s of _ _ _ _ _ _ a also, layperson and athlete, activity in the same _ _ _ _ _ a.

Answer ---> Perhaps of militia also, layperson and athlete, activity in the same tunica.

Keep in mind, this has something to do with ancient Rome that was around for about 1200 years.--Doug Coldwell talk 23:29, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]


For the 7-letter one ending in "h" to refer to a finality, I'd have gone with "epitaph" rather than "through". Grutness...wha? 23:52, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I like that better myself.--Doug Coldwell talk 00:21, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Surely "of epitaph with" makes no sense in English (just like "through")? Admittedly, a replacement is elusive. Ignoring the finality meaning, I'd think perhaps "triumph". - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 10:36, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, fifth Roman Emperor of triumph with the Julio-Claudian dynasty, was held in disrepute over the same ruled mortals and produced a history segment as misrepresentation of all the emperors who were in a dilemma, a tasteless history record on the dynasty.

Better yet, thanks! Otherwise does the short "bio" apply to Nero?--Doug Coldwell talk 12:11, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It could do. Almost every emperor has his successes and failures. Even more so with Nero. - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 15:42, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Turns out the last word has 6 letters, not 7 letters, so it looks like it comes out then:

Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, fifth Roman Emperor of triumph with the Julio-Claudian dynasty, was held in disrepute over the same ruled mortals (of Claudius) and produced a history segment as misrepresentation of all of the emperors who were not in tunica (used toga instead), a tasteless history record on the ending of the dynasty.

Can someone that is expert on Nero confirm this outcome to be a description of him?--Doug Coldwell talk 22:34, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hair

What is the English term for the triangular extension of hair at the back of the neck? It is at the center of the back of the neck & is shaped like a triangle that is pointed downward and is most noticeable among hairy individuals.--68.215.227.182 (talk) 05:01, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nape? --TammyMoet (talk) 09:20, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The nape is just the back of the neck. English has no word for the hair there, to my knowledge. Paul Davidson (talk) 10:52, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
When my barber cuts it that way, he calls it a "taper(ed) back", as opposed to a "square cut" that would go straight across. This is in Canada. And the fact that he just uses the word "back" suggests that there isn't any other word for that part of the hair. --Anonymous, 04:18 UTC, December 26, 2009.
Look up some photos of a Duck's Ass. I'm not screwing with you. Seegoon (talk) 15:58, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dried eye fluid

When I wake up, I find that at the corners of my eyes near towards the nose bridge, there are solidified substances. What are they called?--68.215.227.182 (talk) 05:41, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is sometimes referred to as Rheum. I hope this helps. JW..[ T..C ] 06:03, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks.--68.215.227.182 (talk) 06:09, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Dried eye mucus is called "sleep". Paul Davidson (talk) 08:36, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I used to hear that stuff called "sleepers". It's fair to say that's probably a colloquialism. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:42, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Monkees Song Lyrics: "Daydream Believer": verse 1, line 5: "Wipe the sleep out of my eyes." Wavelength (talk) 17:57, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
eye boogers or eye crusties --Nricardo (talk) 18:13, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Backwards dictionary

Is there a way to find certain words with the letter they end with? For example, say I was looking for all 4 letter words that end with a. Or I was looking for all 6 letter words ending with an r. Or I was looking for all 10 letter words ending with s. Is there already such a program already out there someplace that provides this?--Doug Coldwell talk 15:14, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Any of the many Hangman solvers can do this. Vimescarrot (talk) 15:25, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Some solvers have limitations, but googling "Hangman solver" comes up with any number of them, so you're welcome to try them all out. Vimescarrot (talk) 15:27, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I like it! Thanks.--Doug Coldwell talk 15:34, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A search for "crossword solver" might turn up some other tools. Also the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on CD includes tools for this. Mitch Ames (talk) 00:11, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Evocative (on the question of syntax)

It is an old discussion. I thought someone would comment on this further, but that has not happened. Here is the OP: —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 18:14, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a word to indicate that a word needs a subsidiary phrase. Eg Evocative or reminiscent which need the "of ...." Kittybrewster ☎ 16:00, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Phrasal verb seems to be what you're looking for. (But note that "evocative" can be used on its own, to refer to something that brings up emotions. (e.g. google {"very evocative" -"evocative of"} with the quotes, but without the curly braces). -- 128.104.112.94 (talk) 22:17, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
"Evocative of" is not a phrasal verb, because "evocative" is not a verb. --Anon, 06:26 UTC, December 22, 2009.
Also see subcategorization, though the article is woefully exiguous. --ColinFine (talk) 00:04, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Some languages might have evocative markers in their lexical or grammatical marking. In English, I doubt there is such thing; other than in poetical natures. However, if you can clarify this with a sentence, then it is easy to understand what you are saying. —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 03:51, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
I was thinking of eg "It is evocative of the spirit of Manderley", "the smell is reminiscent of an abattoir". Kittybrewster ☎ 17:29, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
That is better. My answer is then these words (which I have not read often in contexts but according to corpora) usually form as a nominal in a sentence (though the examples are adjectival here), i.e. by taking of a subsidiary phrase (usually a prepositional phrase, as you said). And as they are adjectives, they can function as adjectives.
And to a different question on whether a word needs a subsidiary phrase in phrasal categories, other than ‘Comp phrase’ which requires a phrase, all other words can stand alone within their phrasal categories.
However, you may be correct on the assumption that ‘evocative’ as a rhetorical marker needs a subsidiary phrase in discourses (not just mentioning the grammatical aspect). If that is case, I do know the word for such feature either. —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 20:06, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Just to be clear, Kitty's question was perfectly clear (to a native speaker) in its original form. I'm glad Kitty's examples made the question clearer to you, Mihkaw.
I'm going back to the first anon, in the very first answer. The phrasal verb is is evocative of or is reminiscent of, with is as the verb.
You can replace "is evocative of" with the verb "evokes", for example It is evocative of the spirit of Manderley: It evokes the spirit of Manderley. You cannot similarly replace "evocative" when is evocative is used intransitively, because the verb evoke is pretty transitive. For example: It is certainly evocative: *It certainly evokes (although I suppose you might try, it would always sound like it was missing something to me). The of transforms it from intransitive to transitive. Perhaps a linguist could comment. 86.176.191.243 (talk) 18:38, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
There are few new problems now, but I add one comment on the OP. The examples as stated above require first a noun phrase, though we see many such samples in English corpora. So I have to conclude that what we see in corpora are not correct as to their contexts in syntax, i.e. the word ‘evocative’ must be a noun or a modified noun before it can take a second AdjComp. One may argue however that the corpora are the most conventionalized speech patterns that give prominence to particular rhetorical elements than their syntax. —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 18:14, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Capitalization of pronoun "I"

What is the historical justification for capitalizing the word "I"? It doesn't seem to be serving any function in making English easier to understand, and no other word in English has this kind of special rule (except for the vocative "O", sometimes, and He, Him, His to refer to God). Also, is there any chance that this rule will drop out of English in the future? Thanks. 76.204.127.175 (talk) 19:59, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I went to google and entered [why is i capitalized] and a whole bunch of entries came up, much of it appearing to be speculation. This one [1] seems to be a reasonably scholarly explanation. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:10, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I (pronoun)#Etymology says:"Capitalisation of the word began around 1250 to clarify the single letter as constituting a full word: writers and copyists began to use a capital I because the lower-case letter was hard to read, and sometimes mistaken for part of the previous or succeeding word."
-- Wavelength (talk) 20:12, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If it is a proto-Germanic origin, what else could have been the reasons as such to emphasize the first person singular, while a special stress is given to the first person singular to be small letters in German (as though nouns are capitalized)? An example as I just got:
"..., über Deine Mail zum Christfest freue ich mich sehr. Ich bin gerne und immer Dein...."
It seems the stress in first person singular pronoun in English rather an accident (but conventionalized) than having an explainable etymological origin. Is there any linguistic prescription in modern English? —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 02:38, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't the better question why capitalization of "I" didn't stop when it stopped for other nouns? English used to capitalize all nouns. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 01:40, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Pronouns are not "nouns" in the relevant sense, anyway: German doesn't capitalize pronouns except for Sie (formal 2nd. person) and related forms. AnonMoos (talk) 05:34, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Informal 2nd person pronouns get capitalized as well, occasionally. See above with "Dein". Rimush (talk) 15:25, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Then, only the pronouns of '2nd. person' are capitalized in German, than I thought as if they were common to all pronouns other than in the cases of ambiguities where a pronoun stress marker is necessary (like, plural ‘sie’ versus formal ‘Sie’). —Mihkaw napéw (talk) 17:26, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A common folk etymology-ish thing is that the capitalization of "I" represents the individualist/navel-gazing nature of English speakers (i.e., we think we're so important we capitalize "I", whereas Spanish speakers capitalize formal "You", French speakers capitalize no pronouns, etc.). This is fanciful and groundless, so you shouldn't believe it...but people do try to say it from time to time. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 01:47, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In blackletter script, "i" was just a single-minim unit, and so not very distinctive on the page. Of course, the letter "i" was sometimes swashed to "j" at the beginning of a word ("I" and "J" were not really distinguished until the 17th century, and were not always considered fully separate letters of the alphabet until the 19th century). AnonMoos (talk) 22:16, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I once asked a teacher why the I was capitalized. She explained to me that it was simply a carry-over from the German Ich, which satisfied my curiosity (apparently I never thought to ask why Ich would always be capitalized) and I lived happily ever after... until the second week of German class a decade later. Matt Deres (talk) 02:05, 26 December 2009 (UTC) [reply]
I would guess that I is capitolized simply in order to make it apparent that the use of the single letter is intentional. since a is not a pronoun, that would seem to me to explain the reason why it's treated differently. ...and, now that I read the rest of this, I see that Wavelength stated something similar, above.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 03:57, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So is there any chance that "I" will stop being capitalized (as modern typography/handwriting makes it distinct enough for the capitalization not to be required), or will a lack of capitalization always be stigmatized (as wholly uneducated or childish, say) enough for the rule to continue perpetually? 76.204.127.175 (talk) 19:15, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is the reference desk, not the prognostication desk, so I don't think anyone here can answer that question. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 19:18, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

December 26

Aussie English

I was watching a documentary on Australia and came a cross a word I didn't understand. Near the end of the show, an angry shopkeeper is griping about the overwhelming number of bullfrogs that have invaded and he says that "They're in the lift and the lorry and all around the..." I hesitate to even try to guess how to spell it... "malunga-gulachuck?" "Milungagullashuk?" I more or less assumed it was a made-up word poking fun at what sounds to North American ears to be quaint or silly sounding placenames, but I'm curious as to whether it might be a legitimate place or thing. Any help? Matt Deres (talk) 01:30, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As I recall, just nonsense words. I found the episode extra funny because there is a "mistake" about Australia every minute; e.g the word "lorry" is little used. Polypipe Wrangler (talk) 13:40, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

作 and 做

What exactly is the distinction between the chinese characters 作 and 做? I looked them both up and they seem to have the same pronounciation (zuò) and both mean to do or to make. Can they pretty much be used interchangably? Yakeyglee (talk) 02:34, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

They are not interchangeable. 作, when used in practice, means rather negative things like cheat, make mischief, and show off. 做 often means rather positive things like make love, accomplish, and dream. Of course, there are many uses that are not strictly negative or positive, but the general negative/positive feeling still remains connected. -- kainaw™ 03:17, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comma use

Hi folks,

I've been noticing recently, in various places (not just on Wikipedia), that some people seem to be using (or not using) commas in sentence lists differently then how I've always been taught. For example, I've been seeing: 

In this example sentence, there are a number of items including item 1, item 2 and item 3.

(note that item 2 and item 3 are not directly related, so purposely excluding a comma between them would not be appropriate) I've always been taught that that it's more correct to do: 

In this example sentence, there are a number of items including item 1, item 2, and item 3.

This is probably slightly pedantic on my part, but... like I said, I've been noticing it quite often recently for some reason. Am I off base here, somehow? Thanks.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 02:54, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The commas in lists were originally a shorthand way of saying "and", so by including that last comma in the second example you're basically saying "and and". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:12, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Really?!? I've honestly never heard that before... and, I do have a Websters Quick Reference here that says to use a comma. Is this something new (the Websters that I have is a couple decades old... and my Grammar School education is as well, for that matter).
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 04:15, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You should read serial comma for a complete overview of this question, frequently debated. --Lgriot (talk) 04:17, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ahh.... thanks!
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 04:19, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yet another WP:ENGVAR issue, I see... *sigh*
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 04:21, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually it's something old. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:21, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Now that I know what to look for, I see: MOS:SERIAL, which covers this issue nicely. Thanks guys.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 04:32, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Whichever option you choose, may I just say that I would have put a comma between "items" and "including". -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:54, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

meaning of word

I want to know the meaning of the word "zarandela" "a la zarandela..." It is mentioned on a Puertorican christmas carol. Thanks Annie Maldonado San Juan, PR —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.45.215.122 (talk) 14:50, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I can't find a translation, but it seems to be the name of a song, and zarandear means "to shake", if that makes any sense in the context of the carol. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:16, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've also been unable to translate it. I don't speak the language, but it seems to be the name or nickname of a person. Matt Deres (talk) 17:20, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't speak the language either, but I think it may be pointed out that it sounds strikingly similar to 'Cinderella'. Maybe this is stating the obvious, and I apologize for that, but if it really is a name, as Matt says, this may be relevant. --KageTora - (影虎) (Talk?) 17:35, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Anything's possible, but "Cinderella" got her name from cleaning the cinders out of the family stove or chimney or something. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:37, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Cinderella" in Spanish is rendered as Cenicienta, which literally means "ashen" or "ash-gray". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:40, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't find "zarandela" in the Spanish wikipedia either. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:49, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think Bugs was on the right track, with a word deriving from zarandear -to shake. I wonder if the reference in what the OP describes as a Christmas carol is to "shepherds quake at the sight". And the usual disclaimer: I don't speak Spanish. Bielle (talk) 18:09, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Could be related. The word for shepherd is pastor, which makes it obvious why a church minister is often called by that title. Zarandela would seem to be a feminine word, so it's hard to tell. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:18, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm asking at the Spanish wikipedia. We'll see (1) if my Spanish is comprehensible to them; and (2) if they can provide an explanation. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:07, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Here's their explanation ...

Es complicado. «Zarandelo» es un dialectalismo que significa trompo que baila zarandeado; en esa canción, además, está usado metafóricamente, así que no es fácil la adaptación.
La expresión "a la zarandela" aparece en varias canciones (entre ellas, alguna de navidad y alguna de fiesta, puede leerla aquí). Se refiere a una mujer, que supuestamente gusta a quien habla y que tiene un carácter alegre, etc.

... and my attempt at a translation:

It is complicated. "Zarandelo" is a dialectism which signifies spinning top which dances shaken; in that song, moreover, it is used metaphorically, in a way that is not easily adapted [into other languages].
The expression "a la zarandela" appears in various songs (among them, some of Christmas and some of holidays, you can read it here). It refers to a woman, who supposedly is pleasing to who is speaking and who has a lively character, etc.

←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:28, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And it's risky to make assumptions, so I just wonder if this word is connected with the Italian lively dance called the Tarantella. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:37, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Nope. The Spanish for tarantella is tarantela. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:59, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It could just be a derivation of zarandearse (cf Bielle's answer), which in regional use relates to making swinging movements of the body parts. Pallida  Mors 23:17, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

word for brand name that becomes generic name

Is there a word that describes a brand name that becomes the generic term for some product? Examples include kleenex, q-tip, and xerox. I thought of eponym, but that is not quite right.--Eriastrum (talk) 20:24, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there's a single word, but genericized trademark should be of interest. - Nunh-huh 20:26, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Nunh-huh, that looks like the right term (although I was hoping for something snappier!)--Eriastrum (talk) 21:27, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The article on genericized trademark uses the term genericide. This word seems to "wrong" to me, because normally XXXicide means killing XXX, whereas genericide is "killing" the brand and "creating" a generic term. The word isn't in the Shorter Oxford yet, but googling it :-) finds about 213,000 results. Mitch Ames (talk) 00:50, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Genericide is also the term that is used on Language Log sometimes (e.g., [2]). rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 02:03, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

China

Is china named after China or vice-versa? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jc iindyysgvxc (talk • contribs) 21:36, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As you would expect from the pages you've linked to, "china" on the table acquired its name from the country: that is, "china" is a shortened form of "Chinese porcelain". As the first page you linked states. "Porcelain can informally be referred to as "china" in some English-speaking countries, as China was the birth place of porcelain making." - Nunh-huh 22:23, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the Etymology section in the article on China has a section on the etymology of the English word for the country, as well as for the porcelain. --KageTora - (影虎) (Talk?) 00:14, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

December 27

Mr. Bishi

Who is Mr. Bishi? --84.62.197.235 (talk) 15:37, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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