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August 25

W

Why is the article for W sometimes (but not always) using guillemets around its example glyphs? Is this an affectation that linguists use, or is it more likely the work of an editor whose first language uses them as quote marks? Shall I change them to quotes? Seeing one unfamiliar symbol (the wynn rune) surrounded by other unfamiliar symbols (the guillemets) really didn't help my comprehension. 213.122.40.202 (talk) 04:30, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

There are no guillemets in that article; guillemets look like «» . What is in the article are single angle brackets, like ›, which are used around glyphs (as opposed to, for example, quotation marks "" which are used around words, square brackets [] which are used around IPA phonetic transcriptions, and slanted brackets // which are used around phonemic transcriptions). rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:35, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Should I change the article the opposite way, then, correcting the various instances of glyphs surrounded by quote marks to use angle brackets? Also, I copied and pasted one from the article into the search box, which took me to the guillemets article, so that might be a mistake. 213.122.40.202 (talk) 04:46, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

That's not a mistake, rather the W article is using the wrong glyphs. ‹ and › are indeed single guillemets (U+2039 SINGLE LEFT-POINTING ANGLE QUOTATION MARK and U+203A SINGLE RIGHT-POINTING ANGLE QUOTATION MARK), whereas angle brackets are 〈 and 〉 (U+2329 LEFT-POINTING ANGLE BRACKET and U+232A RIGHT-POINTING ANGLE BRACKET).—Emil J. 11:21, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

At Wikipedia, there seems to be an unwritten agreement to use the single guillemets in place of the angle brackets when discussing orthography. It's a compromise between using the true angle brackets, which are not available in many fonts, and using the less-than and greater-than signs, which are ugly and which can be confused with markup. For example, if you want to indicate the letter s inside angle brackets, 〈s〉 may show up as ?s? or the like for many users, while <s> will simply initiate strikethrough formatting if you type it directly (you have to type &lt; and &gt; instead). So ‹s› is used as a compromise. —Angr (talk) 21:16, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Who says people (not on Wikipedia, but in general) are actually supposed to use 〈…〉 rather than ‹…› or <…> to present glyphs or orthography? 〈〉 are fullwidth, so I always assumed they are intended for use with CJK and nothing else. I'd always use ‹…› because < and > are bigger and look like they should only be between things, not around things. For example, it's unnecessarily potentially confusing to use < both as a marker to show etymological development (e.g. Wikipedia < OE Ƿicipǣdia) and as an opening bracket for glyphs/orthography (e.g. <ß> [s]). I'm not saying you are wrong, I'm just surprised as it never occurred to me to use 〈…〉. Thanks in advance! --84.46.38.144 (talk) 01:58, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

You're talking about U+3008/9 "left/right angle bracket" in the CJK Symbols and Punctuation block, but Angr is probably talking about U+2329/A "left/right-pointing angle bracket" in the Miscellaneous Technical block. The names seem suboptimal. There's a third set, U+27E8/9 "mathematical left/right angle bracket", in Miscellaneous Mathematical Symbols-A. -- BenRG (talk) 01:07, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Azalai

What is the etymology of Azalai? 149.169.164.52 (talk) 05:47, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I know nothing about Tamasheq, but one book says it means "camel driver" (both singular and plural). (MIchael Benanav, Men of Salt: Crossing the Sahara on the Caravan of White Gold, p6). ---Sluzzelin talk 05:58, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

This suggests it's vernacular, from circa 1942 Zoonoses (talk) 13:59, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Research on the language used on 3 stamps

Hello everybody, at the German "Reference desk"-equivalent Auskunft link to paragraph we're atm working on identifying 48 stamps. And there were great results till now. But there are 3 stamps none of us could even find out what language is written upon them.

See the external Links: Pic 1 (stamps 2+3) Pic 2 (stamp 42)

They seem to belong together. A higher resolution was uploaded on German Wikipedia Datei:48 http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:48_Briefmarken.png (but without numeration).

I am grateful for every small hint to which part and language of the world they belong. PS: Number 6 is also lagging any information. Thanks --WissensDürster (talk) 06:23, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, no idea for the three stamps. But as for the stamp 25, it says 大日本政府/Great Japanese Government, 訴訟用印紙/stamp for lawsuit or litigation, and 拾錢/10 Sen (Sen is an abolished unit. 1⁄100 Yen). the stamped black letters is 見本/sample. Oda Mari (talk) 07:54, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

The postmark of #5 7 is Shinbashi, Tokyo on Aug. 5, 23(probably Meiji). 47 is a stamp of 國民華中/Republic of China. Oda Mari (talk) 16:03, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the bottom line of all three of them says Muscat موصكت, but I may be wrong. It's Arabic, rather than one of the other languages written in Arabic, I think. Steewi (talk) 10:26, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Cancel that, I can't spell Muscat - مصقط Steewi (talk) 10:28, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think they say Muscat...looks more like "muzou..." something, and the top looks like "al-barkiy..." something, but I can't make it out. (It doesn't look like Morocco either, despite MeltBanana's links below.) Adam Bishop (talk) 19:56, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Probably "moussonats" the currency at the time. meltBanana 21:44, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Ah, yeah, Moroccan rial says "mazuna", that seems to fit. I still don't know what the top says though. Adam Bishop (talk) 22:34, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

2, 3 and 42 were issued in morocco in 1912 part of the Cherifien Post discussed here and here. Number 6 is some kind of syrian tax/fiscal/revenue stamp issued during the UAR 1958-61 shown here. meltBanana 13:04, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the quick and broad information. You guys are great and my family will not forget it. --WissensDürster (talk) 07:47, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Beethoven's "ingharese"

Reading Rage Over a Lost Penny, I was intrigued by the indication "Rondo alla ingharese quasi un capriccio", and particularly by the word 'ingharese'.

This tells me that 'ingharese' combines 'ongarese' (Hungarian) and 'zingarese' (gypsy).

Googling it, I get 17,700 hits, all of which appear to relate to this piece by Beethoven (I didn't scroll through the entire 17,700). That suggests it's a word Beethoven invented (or coined, but not pennied), and it's had little or no exposure outside this use.

Can anyone confirm that 'ingharese' is not a standard Italian word, but that an Italian hearing it would understand it's a hybrid of 'ongarese' and 'zingarese'? Has it ever been used outside this specific context? Was Beethoven justified in spelling it with an 'h', given that both of its parent words do without one? -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 09:41, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Sounds kind of like "inglese" to me... AnonMoos (talk) 13:37, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

As a Japanese might pronounce it, perhaps ...  :) All the sources agree it was meant to evoke a Hungarian gypsy mood. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 22:02, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I am Italian and ingharese is not a common Italian word. Also its spelling isn't correct, at least in modern Italian: the gha never appear. If you want to have the hard sound of a G before a A you just have to write GA. If you want a soft G sound you write GIA. The hard G before a E or I is, instead, GHE and GHI, while GE and GI have the same sound of English JEH and JEE. Also, in modern Italian, Ongarese and Zingarese sound a little antiquated, their modern forms being Ungherese and Zingaro.--151.51.145.104 (talk) 15:51, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

OK, grazie. Beethoven was around between 1770 and 1826; would -gha- have been more prevalent then, or were he and his publishers just lousy spellers? I would be aghast at such a thought. :) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:36, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

The other side of betrayal?

I am writing about a character who was betrayed, and I want to describe this character as the embodiment of the experience of being betrayed. I'd like to put it more succinctly, needless to say. "The embodiment of betrayal" would seem to imply the act of betraying, rather than of being betrayed. Is there a word that sums up the feeling or experience of betrayal as experienced by the one being betrayed? 71.104.106.143 (talk) 10:26, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

shafted —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.153.253.222 (talk) 10:53, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

There are lots of adjectives meaning "betrayed", 84.153, what the OP is looking for is an abstract noun for their condition. I can't think if one myself. --ColinFine (talk) 13:37, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

et al. and etc.

Is et el. used only with reference to names of people? Can it also be used with nouns such as thunder, bucket, door etc.? Would it be correct if I say, 'I saw thunder, lightning et al. on my way today'? If yes, what is the difference between et al. and etc., because I can also use etc. after lightning. If not, why not because et al. basically means 'and others' from Latin and it makes no reference to the fact that 'others' has to refer to only animate beings? Thanks - DSachan (talk) 10:42, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Whatever it means in Latin, in English it is used specifically as contrasted with "etc" (and the rest) to mean "And other people." I speak one other language, and in that language if you say "And others" it can only refer to people; Latin might be the same. As for "I saw, a cat, a dog, and others" it is a funny sentence, because suddenly the cat and dog are referred to as people. And you can't say "I saw thunder, lightning, and others". So, I would say English "and others" also refers to people at least the majority of time time. Bottom line: "etc" reads as if it means "...and so on", "e.g." reads as if it meant "for example", "ie" reads as if it meant "that is to say", "et al." reads as if it meant "among others." 84.153.253.222 (talk) 10:49, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

The University of Minnesota Style Manual states:

In strict usage, et cetera (and the rest) is neuter and so can refer only to things, and et alia (and others) can refer only to persons. Do not end a list of persons with etc.; instead, use and others. Using etc. at the end of a list introduced by for example, such as, or a similar expression is also incorrect. (Note: A comma is required after etc. unless it ends the sentence. Also note that et does not require a period but al. does; et is a word, al. is an abbreviation.)

King County's Manual of Style says:

etc. Abbreviation for et cetera, a Latin phrase meaning "and others," "and so on," "and the rest." It's usually used for things, not people; the Latin et al. is the correct abbreviation for referring to people. But avoid using the abbreviations; use the simpler English words instead.

-Some jerk on the Internet (talk) 12:33, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

That's strange. Do they interpret et al. as et alia? That would never involve persons in Latin. I think et alii is normally implied. Pallida  Mors 16:11, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

According to wikt:et al., the abbreviation stands for "et alii".—Wavelength (talk) 16:31, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

---

In actual common modern English usage, "et. al." is rarely used except to abbreviate a reference to a work written by multiple authors, while "etc." has a broader / more general range of uses... AnonMoos (talk) 13:33, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

The abbreviation "et al." is used in names of lawsuits. See List of class action lawsuits. -- Wavelength (talk) 14:27, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

There's a difference between "et al" and "inter alia". The first means "and others", the second means "among others". -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:37, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Besides "et al." only being used for people, there's a specific difference from "etc.": it's only used in connection with a known list of specific people. Co-authors of a book, article, etc.; parties to a lawsuit. So "Alpher et al.", in the appropriate context, means specifically Alpher, Bethe, and Gamow. "Etc.", on the other hand, may mean that you don't even know how many people or things are included. (Of course, if you're quoting someone else's use of "Alpher et al.", you may not know either -- but you know where to look it up.) --Anonymous, 21:50 UTC, August 25, 2010.

A term to call a child of a person who later enters into a new marriage with another

When a person has already a child, and he or she later enters into a new marriage with another person, the said child is called what? Is there a specific term to call such child? Thank you.

203.131.212.36 (talk) 13:15, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

step-son or step-daughter would be the closest. (because it means you're somebody's stepchild now.) 84.153.253.222 (talk) 13:21, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Frank is married to Gertrude, and they have a son named Ernest. Frank and Gertrude divorce. Ernest will always remain their son. Frank remarries, to Sybil. Ernest is still Frank's son, but Sybil's step-son. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:32, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Technically, that is correct, but I feel that stepchild carries the faint implication that one of the child's parents is no longer present. That is, there is a suggestion that the stepparent has taken the place of one of the birth parents. My parents divorced shortly after I reached majority and moved out of their house, and it always seemed absurd to me to refer to my father's second wife—who was only a couple of years older than me—as my "stepmother". I always referred to her as "my father's wife" in the third person and by her given name when addressing her. Marco polo (talk) 00:45, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

There are all sorts of "unofficial" titles given to family members, to cover a wide variety of circumstances. I have 2 sons; I was not the biological father of the elder, but I did legally adopt him. And when the adoption came through, he was issued with a new birth certificate showing me as the birth father (even though I'd never even heard of him till he was 3 years old), and all mention of his true birth father was expunged. Thus, legally I am his (unqualified) father; we still can't be unaware that biologically he and my other son are half-brothers, but we never call them that. -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 02:23, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

"Barbecue" in Hawaiian?

I'm trying to find the word for barbecue in Hawaiian and remember some word similar to le nai or lanai or something, but I'm not having much luck searching for it. Anyone have any idea? Thanks, Ericoides (talk) 13:17, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

My Pocket Hawaiian Dictionary says Kō`ala (apparently derived from a verb meaning "to broil"), but you may have in mind luau... AnonMoos (talk) 13:26, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, AnonMoos. Ericoides (talk) 13:30, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I have this image of barbecued koala. Mmm, yum.  :) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:26, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

programming code

hw to run applet program write a java program for image editing —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sumansantosh753 (talk • contribs) 14:50, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

This is the language reference desk. You are probably looking for the computing reference desk.—Emil J. 14:55, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

i can't place a word, please inform me what it is

okay i know that isn't a great title. the word i am looking for is the name for the phenomenon where you are exposed once to a somewhat infrequently discussed thing (say a chuck berry song you'd never heard), and throughout a period of time (say, a week), it 'pops up' with a relatively high frequency. does anyone know the name for this? 68.150.211.200 (talk) 20:25, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Serendipity? schyler (talk) 20:38, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

You might also be interested in an earlier question on "Velpeau's Law". ---Sluzzelin talk 20:49, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Or possibly confirmation bias - it could be that people discuss Chuck Berry all the time, but you only notice it because of your recent discussion. TomorrowTime (talk) 21:32, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

It is sometimes referred to as the Baader Meinhof Phenomenon.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:13, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

"Synchronicity" is probably the word you're looking for. Paul Davidson (talk) 05:34, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

That would be very low-grade synchronicity if it fits that description at all. This isn't about things suddenly happening in new and unexpected ways; it's about someone suddenly noticing things that were always there, because they've become attuned to them. Like, I know zilch about cars, but I buy a Lexus one day, and then, magically, I start seeing all these Lexuses all over the place that I'd never noticed before. There's no synchronistic effect there, just new awareness of what was always there to begin with. -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 03:24, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

flap

hey again, sorry for somany question but I'm curious ;) In Spanish, when do you use the flap for "r" and when do you use the other realizations (and for that matter, what are those realizations?) Also how do you know when to pronounce the "g" as an "h" and when you pronounce it as a g? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.249.1.8 (talk) 23:48, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Our Spanish phonology explains the r situation well: the trill [r] is found after /l/, /n/, and /s/, before consonants, and utterance finally; the tap [ɾ] is found elsewhere. The trill is also found written as word-initial r and in the combination rr. As for g, it is usually [x] or [h], etc. when written ge or gi, and [g] (EDIT: but [ɣ] non-initially) elsewhere. -- the Great Gavini 06:03, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I thought <g> is [ɣ]. (Caveat: I know essentially no Spanish.) Is that plain wrong, or is it dialectal and/or position-dependent?—msh210℠ 15:00, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

No, you're right actually - it's [ɣ] in non-initial position and [g] otherwise, unless the following letter is e or i. I've edited my previous comment accordingly. -- the Great Gavini 17:08, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

/g/ is [ɣ] everywhere except "after a pause [or] after a nasal consonant" (according to our article) in which case it's realized as [g]. So, for example, in normal flowing speech, la garganta is pronounced [la ɣaɾɣan̪t̪a], even though /g/ is word-initial. Note also that [ɣ] in Spanish is pronounced as an approximant, not a fricative. The fricative symbol is used because linguists are too lazy to find the undertack. :) --el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 04:08, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

But IPA does have a symbol for the velar approximant: <ɰ>. There is no need for an undertack, IMHO (though that would correct as well, if not straightforward). JaneStillman (talk) 19:10, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

But [ɰ] is specified as [–round], whereas [ɣ˕] is unspecified for rounding, which makes it a good candidate for transcribing Spanish. Spanish /g/ takes on the rounding of its environment. Martínez-Celdrán touches on this in his article "Problems in the classification of approximants" published in the Journal of the International Phonetic Association in 2004.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 22:53, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, obviously, [ɰ] is unrounded since it is the approximant counterpart of [ɯ], so I guess you must be right. So, <ɣ˕> is a shorthand for both [ɰ] and [w], depending on the environment. Anyway, thanks for correcting me. JaneStillman (talk) 10:08, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

August 26

I'm all right, Jack

I know what "I'm all right, Jack" means, but I wonder why this sentence comes to have such a meaning.--Analphil (talk) 09:09, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Here's one theory:[1] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:25, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I've already read it, but am not sure whether it is reliable. Is it? --Analphil (talk) 10:28, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it comes from "jack" as slang for a sailor. They first record it in use in 1919, although a 1910 source records it as "Damn you Jack - I'm all right!" - see [2]. This suggests that the Urban Dictionary definition is substiantially correct. Warofdreams talk 11:11, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. --Analphil (talk) 15:34, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Creole Languages

Is there a language that is a creole of modern English where an American could understand the majority of what a speaker is saying? For example I would consider Jamaican Creole too different to really understand but I have seen a Dutch speaker communicate fairly well with an Afrikaans speaker. So what would be an English equivalent? TheFutureAwaits (talk) 11:44, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Not meant to be an answer: We have an article on English-based creole languages, which you may find of interest. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 14:41, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

If it were easily comprehensible, then it would presumably be a "Mesolect" rather than full creole as such. On the opposite extreme, the Ndyuka languages are historically English-based, but basically completely incomprehensible to speakers of ordinary English dialects... AnonMoos (talk) 18:32, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

English speakers can usually understand creole acrolects, but the basilects will be beyond their ken. This is certainly the case for me and Jamaican Creole. Steewi (talk) 02:33, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I would not classify Afrikaans as a Creole: its grammar is basically that of Dutch, though with significant differences in detail. --ColinFine (talk) 13:46, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

If you're looking for a language analogous to Afrikaans, there is the Scots language. —Internoob (Talk · Cont · Wikt) 20:26, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Vol-au-vent

What would be the IPA rendition of "vol-au-vent"? Our article says it's pronounced as "voll-a-vom", but I personally wouldn't put an "m" sound at the end. Rojomoke (talk) 12:36, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

In French it's [vɔlovɑ̃].—Emil J. 12:44, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

The incorrect "voll-a-vom" pronounciation was added to the article yesterday by an IP contributor. I have replaced it with Emil's IPA pronounciation. Gandalf61 (talk) 13:16, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Is it common for people to learn to read IPA before they learn to pronounce vol-au-vent? The IPA text links to the page "IPA for French", a page which doesn't explain how to pronounce the crucial final vowel. Anybody who doesn't know IPA will be forced to flick back and forth between the article and the chart three times, ending in disappointment, which seems a sadistic thing to do to the readers when we could just explain the pronunciation using human language instead of IPA. 81.131.26.162 (talk) 22:52, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

(ec) IPA is the standard transcription system both internationally and on Wikipedia. If you are dissatisfied with that, see the numerous discussions that have been held at Wikipedia talk:IPA, such as this and others. If you can suggest another transcription system for this particular article that is actually accurate and helpful to readers (i.e., not something ad hoc that only makes sense to you), feel free to do so at Talk:Vol-au-vent. rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:59, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

on IPA being the standard transcription system internationally. It is not. It is the standard only among linguists. The actual standard internationally is the dictionary soundalike standard. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:33, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

What about "tart" ;-) Alansplodge (talk) 22:54, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Every article on Wikipedia is ad hoc, that's the nature of explanations, you can't mechanize them. (Except the articles which are automatically-generated lists, I suppose.) I'm fond of cypher codes, and habitually write notes in my own set of glyphs, but I can't see why we should set the IPA cypher code as an obstacle between the casual reader who is interested in little pastries and the information about the (approximate) pronunciation. By all means have the IPA as well as the transliterated version for normal people. 81.131.26.162 (talk) 23:32, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

This reference desk is not the correct venue to argue about encyclopedia-wide editing standards. If you dislike the way IPA is used in the project you can move the discussion to Wikipedia talk:IPA. And by the way, the IPA is not a cipher. rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:36, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

If the reader is an English speaker who does not know IPA and doesn't know how to pronounce French words, you are not going to be able to represent to them how this is pronounced in French using the conventions of written English. Instead, you should be trying to include an audio file, since that will actually be useful. 86.161.108.172 (talk) 23:45, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Is "dwarven" a proper adjective to use to describe someone with dwarfism?

Is dwarven a proper adjective to use to describe someone with dwarfism? The Hero of This Nation (talk) 16:02, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

No, the adjective is "dwarfish", and even that sounds archaic and mildly offensive nowadays. The dwarv- stem, as in dwarven, dwarvish, and dwarves, was invented by J.R.R. Tolkien, and is confined to works of fantasy. LANTZY^TALK 16:11, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

The Oxford English Dictionary has only dwarfed, dwarfish and dwarfy, but Wiktionary includes dwarven, without citations as yet. If usage was restricted to Tolkien's works, then Wiktionary would not include the word, so it must have spread to the language, but I would use it with great care because it will mark you as a Tolkien fanatic. I can find usage only in gaming derived from Tolkien's works, so I agree that it isn't a "proper" word in the language. Dbfirs 16:18, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Wait, so the plural of dwarf should be dwarfs? That seems unlikely. And "dwarfy" is a splendid word. Exploding Boy (talk) 16:31, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Yup, the correct plural of dwarf is dwarfs. Tolkien and Walt Disney confused things a bit between them, but it's still correct. Karenjc 16:34, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

The usage Tolkien popularized (but did not invent: the OED has a cite for "dwarves" from 1818) is now fairly standard to describe mythological or fantastic creatures related to Norse dwarves. "Dwarfs" is still standard for abnormally small plants, animals and humans. Algebraist 16:41, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

If memory serves from one Tolkien biography, his publisher sent back a manuscript with every single "dwarves" (etc.) changed to "dwarfs" (etc.), and Tolkien laboriously corrected them all back. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:54, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

That must have been fun, in the days before word processors. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:00, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

"Dwarfs" just sounds wrong: it should be a verb! Exploding Boy (talk) 19:04, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

My old Webster's has "dwarf, plural dwarfs, also dwarves." In contrast, "elf, plural elves." In further contrast, "leafs, plural leaves, also leafs" (as in Toronto Maple Leafs). English is an endless source of wonderment and entertainment. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:07, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Toronto Maple "Leafs" is another thing that's just wrong. Exploding Boy (talk) 19:09, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

"Toronto Maple Leafs" is actually an example of bahuvrihi or exocentric pluralization, a phenomenon which has been studied by linguists... AnonMoos (talk) 05:41, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

You're thinking of "leafs" as being an action verb rather than a noun, and you might be onto something, as the Leafs haven't had any action since about 1967. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:22, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

What's wrong with "with dwarfism"? rʨanaɢ (talk) 19:10, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

"Dwarfism" is a noun and "dwarven" sounds like it would be an adjective, if there were such a word (which there isn't, according to my Webster's). It lists "dwarfish" (adjective), "dwarfishly" (adverb), "dwarfishness" (noun), "dwarflike" (adjective), "dwarfness" (noun), and "dwarfism" (noun), along with "dwarf" itself being noun, verb and adjective. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:20, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Italian word

In The Opera, Kramer is trying to persuade Jerry that his presence is required at a social gathering: "You're the straw that stirs the drink; you're the magliana!" I couldn't find this word in any Italian dictionary, so I conjectured that it was a corruption of magliaia, "knitter", which would make sense in this context. But it may be that my dictionary is inadequate, or that magliana is colloquial or dialectical. Does anyone know? LANTZY^TALK 16:06, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Does either Magliana or Banda della Magliana help? AndrewWTaylor (talk) 16:20, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, it:Magliana contains a brief etymological aside relating the toponym to maglie, but only in vague terms. However, I get the feeling from this that magliana is not a (standard) Italian common noun. LANTZY^TALK 00:21, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

If you look at e.g. Kramer's Spanish, then you wouldn't really expect correct language use from him. Rimush (talk) 19:21, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, but I figured it was at least an allusion to an actual word. You're probably right, though. This may be a case of linguistic pareidolia on my part. LANTZY^TALK 00:21, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Why do dwarves have Scottish accents?

From whence arose the convention of having fantasy dwarves speak in Scottish accents? It was around before Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films, for example the Baldur's Gate games have Scottish-sounding dwarves. The Hero of This Nation (talk) 16:41, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't have a citation for this, but I suspect it's related to the "Scottish engineer" stereotype. Scotland has produced a number of clever and famous engineers (hence Scotty's development as such). I imagine if a film director or game designer is looking for a quick way to distinguish dwarves from other races in dialogue and action, and a weird or eldritch accent is the easiest way to do that, then a Scottish accent directly invokes dwarves' propensity to hang out in mines and forges, building and hammering things together. As a half-ass genealogy / "just so" story, this is not too shabby, but not easily confirmed. But I don't have any better ideas. ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 16:57, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

This is not to say that a Scottish accent is per se weird or eldritch; but like every other non-RP, non-GA accent, it (and its speakers) are often portrayed as bizarre, exotic, or vaguely magical. ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 17:03, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I always thought the LotR dwarves had Irish accents. HiLo48 (talk) 17:05, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

That would suggest Leprechauns, perhaps? (Shrek, who is no dwarf has a Scottish accent). As far as the Scottish and Irish accents being "bizarre", etc., a lot of us love the sound of those accents (although having some Scots-Irish blood in us probably biases us). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:13, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

The mythological idea of a dwarf is (if I remember correctly) actually based in the idea of miners - professional miners from ancient times were often hunched highly muscular (what happens if you spend 20 years digging ore out of a hillside with a pick and shovel), and were often considered somewhat 'magical' by outsiders for the same reasons that blacksmiths were. the largest mining areas in Britain, historically, were in the west and north (Cumbria was a major mining center), and so the guttural, semi-Scottish accent was probably associated with dwarves because actual miners spoke that way. that's a bit ORish, mind you, but I think it has some truth in it. --Ludwigs2 18:05, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

That sounds right, and of course Disney's seven dwarfs were diamond miners. However, they pretty much spoke like Americans (or at least sang like Americans). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:59, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Though in the original unbastardized version(s) they would presumably have had Germanic accents. 87.82.229.195 (talk) 10:47, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

This gets us into the notion of the little dumpy grey-blue men often reported (along with the tall slanty-eyed varieties) in stories of alien visitation; and the European Kobold or goblin - hence the word cobalt for the grey-blue metal said to be mined by these folk. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:26, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Many dwarves (including the LOTR subspecies) are known for their miserly ways. That ties in with the Scottish stereotype. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:43, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Selection of accents doesn't have a lot of logic in the otherwise spot-on LOR films. The Hobbits of the Shire are all supposed to have grown up in the same isolated community, yet one speaks RP with a hint of USA, two have a sort of West Country burr and one is Scottish. As for traditional mining areas of the UK; North and South Wales, Cornwall, Notts/Derby/Yorks and the North East of England all have as good a claim. My great-grandfather was a Scottish miner; he died well before I was born but I suspect he spoke inpenetrable Glaswegian like the rest of his family. Alansplodge (talk) 21:47, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

They should all be speaking Brummie, really, what with the Shire being based substantially on Moseley and Edgbaston. 81.131.26.162 (talk) 23:22, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

No, Frodo should be speaking like a bourgeois, Sam should be speaking like a peasant, Pippin should be speaking like an aristocrat, and Merry should be speaking like a semi-foreigner. Which isn't too far off what the films did. Algebraist 23:30, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, the films got it roughly right for Frodo and Sam (except that both of them sounded like Americans trying to sound British), but Pippin was the one who sounded like a semi-foreigner (from an English point of view, since he sounded Scottish), and Merry sounded like a generic Englishman. —Angr (talk) 13:48, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

August 27

Negative:Negation::Positive:??

Is there a "positive" analog of the word "negation"? Position doesn't seem right. Positivation is not a word. --71.141.125.225 (talk) 04:13, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Affirmation. Looie496 (talk) 04:33, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Double negation. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:22, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Sure. To explain, since analogies A:B::C:D can be rewritten as A:C::B:D, this analogy could also be stated as "negative:positive::negation:???" When it's written like that, it's easy to see you need the antonym of negation to fill in the blank. This thesaurus lists three other possible answers. If you don't believe that it's possible to rewrite analogies like that, here's proof:

Proof

$({\frac {A}{B}}={\frac {C}{D}})=(AD=BC)=({\frac {A}{C}}={\frac {B}{D}})$ QED

--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 06:03, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I think the questioner was asking a language question, not a mathematics question, and the answer is "no, not exactly". Antonyms are seldom exact. Dbfirs 08:08, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

You're right. I spent about 15 minutes working out the rusty mathematics in my head and wasn't going to let it go to waste. :) --el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 22:41, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Encyclopaedia vs. Encyclopedia

Why is it usually spelt the second way, as opposed to the first? What is the 'correct' spelling of this word? Thanks. Chevymontecarlo - alt 07:29, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I always spell the word "Encyclopaedia" or even "Encyclopædia" because that was the correct spelling in the UK at the time I learnt the word. In the USA, spelling reform simplified the spelling, and the simplest form is gradually creeping into UK spelling. Take your choice! Which version is most "correct" depends on where you live and what audience you are writing for. Dbfirs 08:13, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Technically, it should be encyclopædia. The æ and œ ligatures are often simplified to ae and oe in Commonwealth English and simply to e in US English. Thus in the UK, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, etc, we have encyclopaedia, anaesthetist, aeon, haemophilia, paediatrics; in the US and the Caribbean they have encyclopedia, anesthetist, eon, hemophilia, pediatrics. There are some words where the ae/oe format is slowly dying out in Commonwealth English (I haven't seen anyone write hyaena for a while), there are a few where the use of a simple a or e never took of in the US (they don't have TV erial, ameba, or subpena), and a few where the use of ae is only found in poetry (e.g., faerie). So it depends where you are, really. In the US and the Caribbean, you'd normally use encyclopedia; anywhere else you'd use encyclopaedia. Grutness...wha? 08:31, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Grutness, ameba is an acceptable alternative spelling in the states. I looked here and here and saw to my amusement that while the American dictionaries (Merriam-Webster and American Heritage) consider ameba to be a spelling variant of (i.e. less common than) amoeba, the British dictionary (Collins) considers it to be "the usual US spelling". —Angr (talk) 13:52, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

That's a good summation, Grutness. Except for your first sentence. I cannot see any justification, in this day and age, for ever using an æ or œ ligature. Except maybe when quoting some olde worlde text verbatim. It's like writing "ye" for "the", or using that weird long s that looks like an f. They're just not on anymore. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 11:13, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

... but it's only fifty-odd years since encyclopædia was the standard spelling (though I think it was changing here in the UK around that time). It is a much longer time since "ye" (strictly þe, or even ᚦ?) was used in standard print (though it is still heard in dialect), and even longer (200 years) since the long s went out of use. I agree that the ligature forms are now rare. The speed of language change seems to be increasing. Dbfirs 11:35, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Excellent - thanks a lot! I know loads about this now - great! Chevymontecarlo - alt 12:19, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think "ye" is used for "the" in any dialect of English (apart from faux-archaic). It was a purely orthographic convention. --ColinFine (talk) 14:11, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, yes, I was confusing the two words spelt "ye". Dbfirs 00:13, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

As are those ligatures. Does anyone who spells it as "encyclopædia" pronounce it any differently from those who spell it as "encyclopaedia" or "encyclopedia"? Answer: No. If one were to be consistent and use all the available Typographic ligatures, that could be justified, if not preferred. But this faux-correctness seems to be confined to -ae- and -oe-, which makes it pompous and snobbish. See Adam's comment below. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:51, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

For the words Grutness mentioned, Canada tends to use the American spelling, for example The Canadian Encyclopedia. For medical things you might see both. Anyway, æ and œ are not really "correct", they are just ligatures, which essentially means they are meant to save space when you have a limited supply of ink and vellum. Otherwise it is meant to look fancy. There is nothing special about them that make them more correct than simple ae and oe. (And why are those bastardized Latin versions any better than the original Greek ai and oi?) Adam Bishop (talk) 16:50, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Aerial is kind of an odd man out in the examples given thus far. Unlike the other -ae- words, the initial sound is not a "long e" so it would be unlikely to ever become "erial". Of course, we already have an Arial... Matt Deres (talk) 18:14, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

In the early days of the airplane, before the vocabulary had settled down, you sometimes saw the prefix aero- written with a dieresis, aëro- as in "aëroplane". I presume that in the original Greek word there were two distinct vowels and not a diphthong that might be reduced to the "æ" ligature. In any case people speaking English seem to have quickly settled on pronouncing "aeroplane" like "airplane" except for the O, and the dieresis (or diaeresis or diæresis) dropped out of use. --Anonymous, 22:15 UTC, August 27, 2010.

The ae- of aeroplan is not normally pronounced like the ai- of airplane. It's a much shorter sound, similar to the first -e- in "better" compared to the vowel sound in "hair" [ 'ɛrəpleːn] and [ 'ɛərpleːn]. And yes, you're all right about the ligature - my first sentence above should have read "Technically, it was originally encyclopædia." Grutness...wha? 22:55, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Nobody I know pronounces the first vowel in "aeroplane" short. ['ɛəɾəplɛɪn] vs ['ɛəplɛɪn]. --ColinFine (talk) 14:00, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

... and was printed with a "pompous and snobbish" ligature on the spines of "encyclopædias", though I don't recall ever seeing "ærial". Dbfirs 00:27, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

No, it wasn't those adjectives back then; they had their reasons back then. But those reasons don't apply anymore. Oh, sure, if someone wants a particular look in their printed text and chooses to use a ligature here and there, that's fine, that's their choice. But to insist on the correctness of the ligatures and only the ligatures in words like Aeneas, just because they used to spell it that way a long time ago - that's what's pompous and snobbish. Not to mention "old hat, stodgy, pretentious and unnecessary". -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 04:00, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

When "a long time ago" is within my lifetime, I suppose I'll have to admit to being "old hat and stodgy", but I object to "pretentious, pompous and snobbish". However, I agree with "unnecessary" - I don't actually use the ligature, and I suppose I might regard someone as pretentious if they over-used it. Dbfirs 07:52, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Please don't be troubled by my occasional outbursts of passion, Dbfirs. Nothing personal intended there. I'll retreat to the Moody Loners' Hermitage once more now.  :) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 10:11, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

That's OK, I didn't really take it personally! Please don't be offended by my occasional criticism of your posts. Most of the time I fully agree with your comments even though we are half a world apart. May I join the club? Dbfirs 20:17, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

No, find your own damn cave.  :) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 22:13, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

"Usual suspects" - meaning, origin of the term, Swedish translation

I have a number of questions about the term "the usual suspects". Can it be used to mean "the standard set of features", "the expected offerings", "nothing beyond the ordinary" or similar? If yes, are there any other idioms that states this? Who coined this term? And is there any good Swedish translation of it? 83.250.53.18 (talk) 09:31, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

As far as I know, it was first used in the film Casablanca, by Claude Rains character Captain Louis Renault to the gendarmes that appear after Rick (Humphrey Bogart) shoots Major Strasser saying "round up the usual suspects". Mikenorton (talk) 10:16, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Most sources (such as this) seem to suggest that the line was written by screenwriter Julius J. Epstein and/or his twin brother, Philip G. Epstein. Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:35, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's ever used to mean "the standard set of features" or "the expected offerings", as it usually refers only to people. Maybe "nothing beyond the ordinary" as in the exchange "Who was at the pub last night?" "Oh, the usual suspects" (i.e. the people you would expect). The film of the same name is called De misstänkta in Swedish, but I have no idea if that's a suitable translation. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 10:31, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

The literal translation, "de vanliga misstänkta", seems to be used in the exact same manner as its English counterpart. "De misstänkta" fails to convey the meaning of the original film's title. It simply means "The suspects". decltype (talk) 10:44, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

So this isn't a correct usage? "What do they serve in that restaurant?" "Hamburgers, pizza, sandwiches and such - the usual suspects". 83.250.53.18 (talk) 11:33, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

That's an acceptable use as long as the person reading or listening understands that you're being droll. In the example you give, "the usual suspects" is a lighthearted way of saying "about what you'd expect." --- OtherDave (talk) 12:39, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Voices & morphosyntax

Hi everybody! I'm looking for a reading list (especially on the Internet but books as well) about morphosyntax and grammatical voices. I've been unable to find anything from Wikipedia's "References" sections except pages about buying/ordering the books in question, and that very interesting paper by Dixon & Aikhenvald (article "anticausative verb"), of which we unfortunately only have the first chapter.
I'm looking forward to reading your suggestions...
Many thanks :-) JaneStillman (talk) 19:01, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

How do the french...

...write notes to themselves? This seems like a random question but I need to know because our homework is to create a typical French student's weekly-planner, written in French. For example, how would you write something like, "stay after school for soccer practice" to yourself? There's no first person imperative in French. 76.229.159.12 (talk) 22:16, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think there's a first-person imperative in English either. I would suggest you use the infinitive. --62.49.68.79 (talk) 22:32, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's a good idea. You might consider titling it Choses à faire, create a table with the days of the week, and a couple of verb clauses for each day, like samedi: aller au cinema avec mes amis ... --el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 22:37, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Is there a first person imperative in English? Let me see. Marnanel (talk) 22:55, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

There isn't indeed such thing as first person [EDIT: singular] imperative in French, and I would be interested to know if any language has it. Also, what one would never do is include any references to the first person when writing orders to oneself. The verb would be in the infinitive, or better left out if evident. Thus:

"À faire:"

"sam.: cinéma avec " (more probably the name of the friends in question than "amis")

"lun.: entraînement foot après l'école"

Hope it helps... JaneStillman (talk) 09:10, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

(According to the article on imperative mood: "Irish has imperative forms in all three persons and both numbers, although the first person singular is most commonly found in the negative (e.g. ná cloisim sin arís "let me not hear that again").") ---Sluzzelin talk 09:23, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Was Marnanel's post too subtle for ordinary mortals? -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 10:06, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Isn't "let me see" actually second-person? You're asking someone to let you see. It's like saying let me go :D Rimush (talk) 10:50, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

No it isn't, in this case. In "Please let me see!" it would be, but in the sense that Marnanel meant, it functions as an (invariable) auxiliary marking the mood: something like jussive, or optative. I would hesitate to call it imperative, but the equivalent in some languages is so classified, for example the Russian "пойдём", "let's go!" --ColinFine (talk) 14:24, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

That's right. "Let me/us" is not, generally speaking, asking for anyone's permission. Does anyone respond "Oh, OK then" when they hear Queen or Robbie Williams singing "Let Me Entertain You"? Nor was Elizabeth Barrett Browning seeking permission when she wrote "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways ...". -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:56, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

In many contexts, "let us" cannot be substituted for "let's" without changing the meaning... AnonMoos (talk) 12:55, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

August 28

Simple past or pluperfect?

Hey everyone, I can't decide whether I should use the simple past or the pluperfect in this sentence:

"The 9/11 attacks happened in September 2001, and in the same month four years later Hurricane Rita devastated the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Texas, just weeks after Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans."

or

"The 9/11 attacks happened in September 2001, and in the same month four years later Hurricane Rita devastated the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Texas, just weeks after Hurricane Katrina had destroyed New Orleans."

What do other people think? —Angr (talk) 11:40, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I think your indecision comes from the fact that you could use either with equal correctness. It flows well either way, Angr. (Pedants might prefer the pluperfect, but what do they know.) However, that might be because it's quite a long sentence. Cut it down to "Hurricane Rita devastated the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Texas, just weeks after Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans" - no, it's still line-ball there, I think. The pluperfect can sometimes have the effect of sounding overly fussy; if the meaning is perfectly well conveyed without it, consider not using it. Subject to the strictures of the context, of course. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:46, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I think that, for this meaning, I would prefer the pluperfect because it emphasises the sequence, but I agree that either can be used here. As Jack said, for some sentences the pluperfect is not needed, but, in your sentence, the emphasis seems to be on September, and the Katrina had finished its destruction by then. Dbfirs 20:07, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

The rule is quite simple: after I did, and: after I had done, are always interchangeable. Eliko (talk) 20:22, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree that they're both acceptable. Since after by itself indicates the temporal position of the event denoted by the verb in the following clause (whereas other such subordinating conjunctions, like when, may not), I myself tend to use the simple past. Cf. "After I ran five miles, I vowed never to exercise again" and "When I had run five miles, I vowed never to exercise again." Deor (talk) 20:38, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

¶ There's a real difficulty here, and it's not just a matter of style or the enquirer's grammatical skills. Katrina happened after 9/11/2001 but before Rita. However, although 9/11/2001 preceded both hurricanes, the proposed sentences can't use reasonably use the pluperfect for the terrorist attacks of 2001. My weaselly solution that at least preserves the force of the main point would be something like:

Four years after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on Manhattan, and two weeks after Hurricane Katrina had destroyed New Orleans, Hurricane Rita devastated the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana.

If you don't mind the breathless style of British documentaries and Dateline NBC, you could use an (anticipatory) subjunctive and write "Hurricane Rita would devastate the Gulf Coast".—— Shakescene (talk) 21:22, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to everyone for their input. Ultimately I went with the pluperfect, perhaps more for sentimental reasons (I feel the pluperfect is underused nowadays, so I wanted to give it a chance to stretch its legs) than for grammatical ones. Shakescene, I do mind the breathless use of "would" in that way and stamp it out wherever I encounter it at Wikipedia. I wouldn't be caught dead using it in my own writing. And Dbfirs is right that the emphasis is on September; indeed, September is the topic of the paragraph. This sentence appears in a blurb I was writing for a September newsletter where I wanted to talk about the poignancy of September's memories in recent American history as well as September's use as a nostalgic metaphor for the passage of time in songs like "September Song", "Try to Remember", and "Wake Me Up When September Ends". —Angr (talk) 13:36, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Alternation

Why do some people alternate between Commonwealth and US spellings? jc iindyysgvxc (my contributions) 13:13, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Do you have a concrete example? Keep in mind, some people are Canadians, and Canadian English uses some Commonwealth spellings and some US spellings. (A place that sells those rubber things that go around the wheels of cars might be called a "Tyre Centre" in the UK and a "Tire Center" in the US, but would be a "Tire Centre" in Canada.) —Angr (talk) 13:22, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

As one of those Canadians, I object to the term "Commonwealth spelling". Canada is a Commonwealth country, remember. I personally refer only to American spelling or British spelling -- I say two standards are more than enough and anyone in another country should be free to pick and choose as they wish. --Anonymous, 15:45 UTC, August 28, 2010.

Yes, well, apply that theory to accents and see how far you get. And what about a people's right not to feel they have to slavishly identify with exactly one of the trans-Atlantic extremes? Each country has the freedom to have its own home-grown words, its own pronunciations, and, in some cases, its own spellings. Remember, there's a very great overlap between UK and US spellings, and the differences, which get all the attention, are marginal in the overall scheme of things. Australian English follows the broad train of international standard English spelling, but is selective about which of the marginal differences it uses. "Labour" is still the spelling for the general term, but the Australian Labor Party adopted the American spelling about a century ago, on the recommendation of King O'Malley, who hailed from North America (his birthplace is still a matter of dispute between Quebec and Kansas). -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:17, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Do Irish people object to the term "Commonwealth spelling" too, on the grounds that they spell everything exactly the same as the British, but aren't in the Commonwealth? —Angr (talk) 21:49, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I have a concrete example: an administrator on this wiki whose username starts with "H". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jc iindyysgvxc (talk • contribs) 13:29, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure my spelling isn't consistent, as I'm not a native speaker. Well, it's also riddled with mistakes because I'm not a native speaker, but my point is that I don't really have any preference, nor was I ever trained to use one spelling but not the other. I try to follow American spelling, just to be consistent, but I often type "colour" instead of "color", and with some words I don't know even know which variety is supposed to which. ---Sluzzelin talk 13:36, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

This goes for me as well. TomorrowTime (talk) 07:26, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure my spelling isn't consistent either, and I am a native speaker. I was born, grew up, and was educated in the U.S., so U.S. spelling is what used to come naturally to me, but now for a variety of reasons a lot of what I write is expected to use British spelling, so that's starting to come naturally to me too. Sometimes my "what looks right" instinct just isn't reliable anymore and I have to look things up in the dictionary to make sure I'm getting them right in the variety of English I'm writing at the moment. —Angr (talk) 14:22, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I mainly use U.S. spelling, with a few exceptions which seem to make sense to me (such as "worshipper")... AnonMoos (talk) 17:32, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I nearly always use UK spelling, but, occasionally, as a matter of courtesy, I reply to a question using matching US spelling. It is very rare to see mixed spelling in print (except as a result of error). Dbfirs 19:51, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

My view is one of awareness, acceptance and locally conforming. My biggest annoyance in this area is those from any one spelling sphere who aren't even aware that other perfectly valid spellings of English exist around the world, and who go around incorrectly correcting others' work. (Happens quite often on Wikipedia.) Obviously we need to accept the differences. And I always try to write in a way that causes the smallest waves among the expected audience of what I am writing. HiLo48 (talk) 22:02, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Part of the answer is that language is a fluid thing, and there are constant pressures to change. Some pressures are resisted, others are succumbed to. You ask about alternating, an interesting word in itself. In the verbal sense, it's only ever spelt "alternate". In the adjectival form, it was traditionally "alternative" (and that's also come to be used as a noun). But "alternate" is now the recognised US form of the adjective. Australians haven't generally used that form, but I see evidence that it's changing. I hear more and more Australians talking about "alternate opinions" etc, when until recently it would only ever have been "alternative opinions". The Aussie pronunciation varies between ALL-tə-nət and all-TER-nət (probably because it's a very newly used word over here and those who choose to use it aren't quite sure how it should be pronounced; my preference would be to avoid it entirely and stick with "alternative", but who am I to tell others which words they may and may not use); Americans always say it the first way, I believe. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 22:09, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Based on this post from the OP, it looks like the goal of this thread was not actually to learn the answer to a question but to pursue a vendetta or settle an argument or something. Do we really need to indulge? rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:35, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

August 29

What sound would you say cicadas make?

Would it be "chirping"?

Also, do we have any onomatopoeia for it? (I told my friend that we don't, but maybe you guys can think of something I couldn't.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:50, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

To me it sounds like a buzz. Before I knew what cicadas were (when I was a small kid) I always thought that it was the sound of electricity going through the power lines. It made sense to me since the noise was coming from the general direction of the lines above my head. Little did I know that it was coming from bugs in the trees near the power lines... Dismas|^(talk) 03:03, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

As a kid I was told that that sound is made by "tree frogs", which I assumed were literally frogs who lived in trees. It was only in the past couple of years that I realized that didn't make any sense (and that other people looked at me funny when I mentioned it). I'm still really disappointed that there are no tree frogs...Adam Bishop (talk) 06:08, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_frog Rimush (talk) 06:35, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Right, sorry, that was poorly worded, I mean, what I thought was a tree frog is not a tree frog. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:27, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I just call it bloody loud! I know we have a very loud variety around these parts (SE Australia), but it's so loud it's almost impossible to discern a particular sound to be onomatopoeic about. It's a kind high pitched squeal. HiLo48 (talk) 04:39, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Rrrreee rree rree rree rree rreeeeeeeeeeee!!!

In Japanese it's ミーン　ミン　ミン　ミーーーン (miiin min min miiiin).

Shrill? Whir? Exploding Boy (talk) 06:19, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

There are many onomatopoeia of cicadas sounds in Japan. It depends on species. "Miiin min min miiiin" is one of them. Onomatopoeia of Tanna japonensis are "KIKIKIKIKI", "KEKEKEKEKE" and "CANNAT KANAKANA ...". Graptopsaltria nigrofuscata is "G...jijijiji/jirijiri". You can listen to the different calls at here. Put the cursor on the image. Oda Mari (talk) 08:15, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

From our article: "The name is a direct derivation of the Latin cicada, meaning "buzzer". In classical Greek, it was called a tettix, and in modern Greek tzitzikas—both names being onomatopoeic." Rimush (talk) 13:50, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I was really asking about current English onomatopoeia, not etymology. But thank you guys for your comments. rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:39, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I call it a high-pitched whine. Matt Deres (talk) 14:41, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

"Sire" vs. "Your Majesty"

Are there any rules regarding when one of them is preferable to the other in a dialogue with the king/Emperor? K61824 (talk) 04:58, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Our articles Style (manner of address), Royal and noble styles, Sire... don't deal with this. AFAIK, I think Your Majesty is used for the first address, Sire being used thereafter; I'm assuming it is the male equivalent of ma'am (see Wiktionary:ma'am). Of course, this would only hold in English; the only current monarch styled "Emperor" in English is that of Japan. If you're writing fiction or similar, you have poetic licence, naturally. -- the Great Gavini 07:35, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I believe "sir" would be used nowadays (from memory of reading reported conversations with George VI). But we haven't had a king for 70 years, so who knows. "Sire" certainly has an over-archaic ring to it. I'll try to find a reference later. Alansplodge (talk) 09:19, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

...fifty-eight. And of course that king was also an emperor. Marnanel (talk) 15:42, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh yes, sorry, s/b nearly 60 years. Doh! Alansplodge (talk) 20:48, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

girls

If a girl with blonde hair is a blonde, and a girl with brown hair is a brunette and a girl with red hair is a redhead, what do you call a girl with black hair? What about pink hair? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.144.125.153 (talk) 19:16, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I personally also call girls with black hair brunettes. Rimush (talk) 19:30, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

See also this archived question. ---Sluzzelin talk 19:37, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

And people who color their hair pink or blue or whatever you can just call idiots, no offence. Rimush (talk) 19:45, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

And people who judge others based on something as stupid as their hair color can equally be called idiots. 82.44.55.25 (talk) 22:35, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

This [3] lady might disagree with you there. ;-) Let's see, does she have her own Wikipedia entry yet? if not, someone should create it, as she is already mentined in another entry. -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 21:14, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Being mentioned in an existing entry is not in itself a qualification for a Wikipedia page. See WP:BIO for the full details. Marnanel (talk) 10:23, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Not in itself, no, but if you do look her up, you'll notice she might be relevant enough for her own Wikipedia entry. That said, there are more skilled editors than me, and it was only meant as a heads-up for those - I have no intention of writing the entry myself. Being a "fanboi" doesn't go well with WP:NPOV. ;-) -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 13:17, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Neat trick that, Rimush. Calling someone an idiot without intending to offend them. You must let me into your secret.  :) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:43, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh, that's quite simple. They should know they're idiots, however they shouldn't take this personally... Eliko (talk) 21:50, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Another neat trick: being an idiot, but still having enough self-awareness to know you are one, and also having the skill not to take it personally or be offended when people call you one. I wouldn't mind being an idiot under those conditions. Where do I apply? -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 03:40, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Raven-tressed. Bus stop (talk) 22:07, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh the humanity! 86.161.108.172 (talk) 01:48, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

When I lived in Tennessee, I heard the term "blackhead". When I first heard it, I asked for clarification and was given "redhead" as a related example. Dismas|^(talk) 01:56, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

French the odd one out?

The major romance languages are Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and Romanian. I know that Spanish and Portuguese are very close, due to goegraphy and stuff, and they are probably upward of 70-80% mutually intelligible. My Spanish teacher recently said of Portuguese that she could "speak Spanish and be understood by a Portuguese waiter [who spoke only pt]" and of Romanian that she could have a broken dinner conversation using Spanish with Romanian-speakers. THis reminded me of one of my Hispanic friends saying earlier that Italian is "very much like Spanish". But my teacher also said that though she could see similarities between written French and Spanish, when she went to France she was like (and I'm quoting) "W.T.F." because there was virtually no mutual intelligibility in spoken French and Spanish. Why is this? French doesn't have any major influences from other language groups, and Romanian is mixed with the Slavic languages. 68.248.229.115 (talk) 19:20, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think Romanian is a problem for other Romance speakers because of the Slavic influence, but because of the weird pronunciation of words inherited from Latin that are otherwise quite similar. Same goes for Portuguese, which in its written form is much more similar to Spanish than in the spoken form (same with Danish and Norwegian, from what I've heard - you also get asymmetric intelligibility in the two cases: Portuguese and Danes understand Spanish and Norwegians respectively better than the other way around). To stay on topic, I can say that from my experience with French, as a guy who speaks no French at all, I can understand a lot of written French (although I'm not sure which of Romanian, Spanish, or English helps me more), but spoken French is a b*tch. Rimush (talk) 19:28, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I once heard a Portuguese friend hold an apparently productive conversation with an Italian ice cream salesman, each in their own language. A Romanian friend says that he can understand spoken Spanish but they can't understand him. Alansplodge (talk) 20:46, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

It's fairly notorious that Portuguese-speakers can understand Spanish more easily than Spanish-speakers can understand Portuguese, but there's not full comprehensibility either way. In any case, the great difference between French and the other well-known Romance languages is its strongly altered phonological system -- a great reduction in the number of syllables in words as compared to ancient Latin, the deletion of many word-final consonants in pronunciation (which correspond to medial consonants in ancient Latin), etc. So where Spanish has agua and Italian has acqua, French has monosyllabic eau (pronounced [o]), etc. etc. ~

"eau (pronounced [o])" - this is why I don't want to learn French Rimush (talk) 19:46, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

It gets worse, Rimush: the plural 'eaux' is also pronounced [o], but the word following it, if any, can sometimes change its pronunciation. But not always. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:52, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Anthony Burgess also complained about eau, saying that if the French could have contracted it further they would have done so. French words, he writes, are at their most French when they are monsters with heads but no tails. Living in Monaco, he could not entirely avoid speaking French, and shuddered every time he had to turn Jesus Christ into Jésu Cri. — Mu (talk) 21:10, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

My favorite is the response to a sneeze: souhaits /swɛ/. Eight letters for just three sounds. Pais (talk) 11:32, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

In "ils mangeaient", the second word is [mãžɛ]... AnonMoos (talk) 14:50, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Then there are the question particles: Qu'est-ce qu'on... [kɛskõ].—Emil J. 15:05, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Another French peculiarity that I love is when the addition of "s" results in the deletion of a sound, as in œuf [œf]/œufs [ø] or cerf [sɛʁf]/cerfs [sɛʁ]. Pais (talk) 16:04, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

To be fair, we have Ough (orthography), pronounced oo, aw, o, off, uff, ow and uh. 81.131.53.18 (talk) 11:06, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

My impression is that before the Renaissance French was pretty similar to the others. Maybe the cultural dominance of France during the period 1600-1800 caused it to undergo more rapid changes. Looie496 (talk) 23:06, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

In the late middle ages, French pronunciation was a little bit like Catalan with nasal vowels (to greatly oversimplify). It would be very difficult to correlate rather purely phonological changes (such as the last few rounds of final consonant dropping) with external cultural factors, and except in certain cases where sound-changes are driven by contact between different languages, most linguists don't even try... AnonMoos (talk) 05:19, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm Italian. Italian speakers have usually a good understanding of spoken Spanish, expecially if spoken slowly. The understanding is even greater if Spanish is written (you have problems almost only with different etymologies, like estate and verano). With Portuguese it's a bit more difficult, because of the apparently strange pronounciation of words that, if written, would be more recognizable. With spoken French, you usually understand only some word here and there. This is because of the aforementioned French custom to make almost every word monosillabic (It: es-ta-te, Fr: été). Luckily, written French is more conservative of its Latin origin, so it's a lot more understandable. To my ignorant eye, Catalan looks like a mixture of Spanish and French. I don't have much experience with Romanian, but it's not very intuitive for an Italian eye/ear, maybe some very Latin-like words. I had a look at the Corse Wikipedia and I can safely say that I can read every single word of it. --151.51.145.104 (talk) 23:10, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Back to the original question: the answer probably has a lot to do with the fact that after the Roman Empire subsided, modern French evolved from the Vulgar (spoken) Latin dialects in Northern France - which were heavily influenced over the centuries by Gaulish (Celtic), Frankish (Germanic), and Norman (Scandinavian) speakers. So you are mistaken in thinking that "French doesn't have any major influences from other language groups" - it does, quite a lot. See French Language, History of French, and Old French for more details on these historical developments. Textorus (talk) 01:31, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

And Occitan in southern France is a lot like Spanish and Italian. (Or more like Catalan, really.) Adam Bishop (talk) 02:21, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

August 30

Chinese root

In Vietnamese, the term "hàn lâm" means "academic" and it seems to stem from a title for a mandarin during feudal times. I'm guessing that it originated from the Chinese term "寒林", but that term means "winter forest". Is there an instance where the term "寒林" is used in any academic sense? DHN (talk) 07:11, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

My guess is that it's 翰林, hànlín, i.e. a member of the Hanlin Academy, where scholar-officials who had passed the Imperial examinations would be assigned before being appointed to government posts. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:34, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! DHN (talk) 19:51, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

One more question: does "Hanlin" literally mean "a multitude of quills"? DHN (talk) 15:30, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I doubt it. In modern Mandarin, 寒 means 'cold' and 林 means small forest. rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:35, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

We're talking about "翰" DHN (talk) 18:12, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Japanese translation help needed

Hi, over at the computing RefDesk, a question has cropped up dealing with a router that has a Japanese-only manual. We need to disable DHCP on the router. If you're able to translate the relevant parts of the manual, please stop by here - the link to the PDF is in the paragraph starting with the word "Supplemental" - and help us help User:Hoary. Thank you! -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 12:32, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Is this an example of pathetic fallacy?

Hello, ants. I know you love the smell of the durian mooncakes, but they are to be eaten by me, not you. Please find food elsewhere. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.189.216.150 (talk) 15:58, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

The "fallacy" would be the assumption that ants understand English. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:02, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

"Who would have thought that the rabbits understood Latin?" LANTZY^TALK 16:29, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Walter. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:46, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't know about Latin, but they can certainly understand Lapine. —Angr (talk) 17:03, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to me that the pathetic fallacy is really much of a fallacy anyway, at least not in the sense of unsound or mistaken logical reasoning. When you address ants directly, you may be anthropomorphizing them or apostrophizing them or personifying them, but you're not committing a fallacy. —Angr (talk) 16:51, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I'll concede that they might understand antonyms. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:53, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Homo Sapiens. Sorry, but I don't accept your opinion about who the durian mooncakes are to be eaten by. Hence, I'm not going to find my food elsewhere. I eat whatever smells sweet and tasty. Take care, good luck. Eliko (talk) 17:32, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Why "Homo Sapiens"? He didn't call you Lasius flavus or something. Also, it's Homo sapiens or even Homo sapiens sapiens. Rimush (talk) 19:50, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh man, we didn't like the way they'd called us ("ants", as if we were ants, while we are Lasius flavus), so we responded them in such a way they wouldn't like either. Sapiens or double sapiens or triple sapiens, who cares? The taste of mooncakes is more interesting... Eliko (talk) 20:41, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

United States presidential election, 2012

There's a section in United States presidential election, 2012 called "speculated candidates". That seemly wrong, grammatically, I'd think "speculated-on candidates", but that sounds awkward. Any ideas? Everard Proudfoot (talk) 18:36, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Speculative candidates? Rojomoke (talk) 18:39, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Possible candidates. --- OtherDave (talk) 18:47, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

'Presumptive candidates' would be best in this context. 'Presumptuous jackanapes' would be more accurate, however. --Ludwigs2 20:28, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

"That seemly wrong, grammatically" - that seemly wrong, too.  :) -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 22:56, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, that's because I can't type, not because I can't grammar.  :) Everard Proudfoot (talk) 18:04, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Power is my mistress

I have heared thied quiote attributed to Napoléon I. Is this an accurate attribution and what is the original in French? 76.230.225.80 (talk) 22:06, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Not an easy quotation to source it seems, though the English version is all over the internets. On the talk page of Napoleon's wikiquote page it is listed among the quotes that had to be removed because it lacked citations. This book however says it is something he said to Pierre Louis Roederer in 1804. But.. when I look for a French version I can only find "Je n’ai qu’une passion, qu’une maîtresse ; c’est la France : je couche avec elle" ("I have but one passion, but one mistress: it's France. I sleep with her"), noted down by Roederer in 1809. That doesn't mean the English quote you ask about is incorrect, of course, but I do not find anything like it in French. The book to check is probably Roederer's Bonaparte me disait (textes choisis par Maximilien Vox; Le Roman de l’Histoire, Union bibliophile de France, Horizons de France, Paris, 1942). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.171.56.13 (talk) 10:20, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Boodah?

In John Twelve Hawk's novel The Dark River,

"Boodah had an African-American father and a Chinese mother.His nickname came from his enormous stomach, which appeared to protect him from all the craziness in New York."

I don't understand how this explains his nickname Boodah. Does it mean 'Buddah'? Even if so, I don't think Buddah is famous for his enormous stomach.

Any opinion?

--Analphil (talk) 22:23, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

See Budai (aka "the Fat Buddha"). ---Sluzzelin talk 22:32, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. It makes sense.--Analphil (talk) 23:48, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Possessive reflexives

In English, several reflexive pronouns are similar in form to possessives, for example "myself" looks like "my self", "ourselves" looks like "our selves", etc. Not all of them follow this pattern, for example we have "himself" rather than "hisself" and "themselves" rather than "theirselves". In any case, this possessive-reflexive thing does not happen in any other language that I am aware of, definitely not in German, French, or Latin. Does any reader of this desk know of any language other than English in which any of the reflexive pronouns have a possessive form? (Intensive forms would also interest me.) Looie496 (talk) 23:15, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

See http://latindiscussion.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7059. -- Wavelength (talk) 23:54, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure that Latin discussion is talking about the same thing...but Latin does have a pronoun intensifier ("-met", as in "egomet", "memet", etc). French also has "moi-meme", etc. Adam Bishop (talk) 00:31, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Uyghur (and, therefore, probably Turkish and a bunch of related Central Asian languages) has precisely this. öz is the reflexive pronoun and it takes person-number agreement marker to specify my/your/him/our/etc.-self. That agreement marker happens to be the same as what you see in possessive constructions. See pp. 188-9 of this book. For a quick summary, here are some examples:

• öz-üm "myself" (compare to köl-üm, "my lake")
• öz-ingiz "yourself" (compare to kitab-ingiz, "your book")
• etc

rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:00, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

The Semitic languages. e.g. Arabic: ruhi = myself. Hebrew: atsmi = myself, etc. Eliko (talk) 06:53, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

In Finnish, reflexive pronouns are formed by declining the word itse ("self") as the object of a genitive subject, i.e. as a thing someone is possessing. For example, itseni ("myself"), itsesi ("yourself"), itsensä ("him/her/itself, themselves"). The genitive pronoun itself is omitted because the the subject and the owner of the object are the same. JIP | Talk 07:12, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Cool, thanks for the answers, it seems that examples are pretty numerous. Would you happen to know how intensive pronouns are handled in these languages? By the way it's curious that the Finnish "itse" is so similar to the Latin "ipse", given that Finnish belongs to a whole different language family. (For what it's worth, my reason for asking all this is that I'm working on book chapter on the concept of Self, and trying to get a grasp of how various language other than English handle it.) Looie496 (talk) 16:50, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

As for the Semitic languages, one simply says: "by oneself", using the preposition "b", that means both "by" and "in/at". Additionally, you might be interested to know that the concept of Self is expressed by the concept of "soul/spirit" (ruh) in Arabic, and by the concept of "bone" (etsem) in Hebrew (so that "myself" is simply "my bone", i.e. "my skeleton"). Eliko (talk) 17:41, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

In Finnish, an intensive pronoun (as in "I did it myself") is always simply itse. I think the relation to the Latin word ipse is pure coincidence. JIP | Talk 17:53, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

On the Syntax of Possessive Reflexive Pronouns in Modern Georgian and Certain Indo-European Languages by Shukia Apridonidze discusses how Russian and Georgian have "both groups of reflexives: personal and possessive". ---Sluzzelin talk 18:12, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

August 31

Learning English

hi how you i am sukhi so i speaking no english .but i understand english . and i read english .i want speak english.so i ask you .aduelt school is open / no open / what is the time open. morning.afternoon.evening.so pleage my quest the answer. i speak english.i good speaking english. thankes.good bye. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.174.46.131 (talk) 00:25, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

[I added a heading ("Learning English") to this section.—Wavelength (talk) 00:35, 31 August 2010 (UTC)]

This reference desk is not a place to help you find language classes. Locations, times, and dates for language classes are not the same everywhere; you should ask for help from someone who lives in the same city as you. rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:49, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

What's a sukhi? 92.80.21.55 (talk) 07:21, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

From the context, it is obvious sukhi is the OP's name. The IP address sahows Sukhi is in the United States, but it is a big country and without knowing which city and state they are in I don't think we will be able to help. Astronaut (talk) 09:32, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia's default geolocator puts the IP to Sacramento, if it's any help. I'm not sure how reliable this is.—Emil J. 11:17, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

How is it obvious that it's his/her name? "i am sukhi so i speaking no english" sounds to me as if being (a) sukhi means that you don't natively speak English very well - because sukhi is an ethnicity or something, even though apparently it isn't. Rimush (talk) 12:35, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Given the OP's acknowledgment that their English is far from great, we can expect them to use words in a way we would not. But look closer in edit mode. "i am sukhi" is separated from "so i speaking no english", which says to me they're not meant to be read together. Sukhi is an Indian name. Lots of people come here and start their question with "so" - "So, I'm majoring in Latin this year and I need to know blah blah". Apparently Sukhi has seen this and done the right thing by copying them. That's my take. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 14:20, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Granted, but not knowing English is no excuse for not using punctuation. Rimush (talk) 14:24, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Several questions bother me:

• On one hand, the OP writes (in the beginning): i speaking no english; On the other hand, they write later: i good speaking english. Not knowing English is no excuse for bad logic...
• As User:Rimush has pointed out, not knowing English is no excuse for bad punctuation (e.g putting full stops when unneeded, avoiding full stops when needed, putting redundant double blank spaces, and avoiding blank spaces when needed)...
• The OP writes: so pleage my quest the answer. Which human language can permit such a syntax? Additionally, they say: what is the time open; Not knowing English is no excuse for an impossible syntax in any human language...
• How about the OP's grammar? On one hand, they say: how [are] you[?]...i [am] speaking no english, so they are not aware of the copula are and am; On the other hand, they say: i am sukhi...school is open...what is the time, so they are aware of the copula am, and is...
• How about the OP's spelling? On one hand, their spelling looks satisfactory: afternoon, answer, but, bye, english, evening, good, how, quest, read, school, speak, time, understand, what, you. On the other hand, The OP "misspelled" three words: aduelt, pleage, thankes. If they opened dictionaries, then how could they misspell so many words (aduelt, pleage, thankes)? If they opened no dictionaries, then how did they know the correct spelling of so many words as mentioned above?
• The OP's IP proves they are in the States. If you were in Germany and didn't speak German, would you refer to the German Wikipedia for finding schools that teach German? Even in my homeland I wouldn't refer to Wikipedia, but rather would use Google instead. Much simpler...

Eliko (talk) 17:12, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Is this some kind of conspiracy theory?

• It's perfectly possible that last part was intended to mean "Please answer my question so that I can [learn to] speak English well" or something, that is, the "bad logic" is only insufficient grammar.
• Not being a native speaker of any language written in the Latin alphabet is an excellent reason for not knowing the rules of punctuation common (more or less) for languages written in the Latin alphabet, the OP may be used to a completely different punctuation system.
• It's quite odd to assume that when someone struggles with the syntax of an unfamiliar language, they replace it with a coherent syntax system of their own devising.
• People are not always consistent.

—Emil J. 18:03, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

What bothers me the most is the grammar (see my 4th question.) and the spelling (see my 5th question). Eliko (talk) 18:24, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Seems to me you're subjecting the OP to more scrutiny than you would to native English speakers who spell atrociously and whose grammar makes one want to puke. Why the 3rd degree in this case? -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:24, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Susan Howatch

Does anyone know why Susan Howatch (English author) has not published any new books since "The Heartbreaker?"Small text —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.123.109.173 (talk) 03:01, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

This is the language reference desk. You may want to try asking at the Humanities desk. rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:04, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Laissez-passer in English

Is there a corresponding term in English (intelligible to ELF readers) for the borrowed laissez-passer? The context: a document issued to health care personnel for repeat visits to a British detention camp for enemy aliens in WWII. -- Thanks, Deborahjay (talk) 07:16, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Transit permit (although laissez-passer is much more common) Eliko (talk) 07:22, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I've never heard "laissez-passer" here (North America). I think we'd just call it a pass. "Transit" permit sounds like permission to enter a restricted place for getting to the other side, not for getting inside. --Anonymous, 19:40 UTC, August 31, 2010.

Yeah, laissez-passer is less common in Canada, where you were born. I've been referring mainly to US, where the OP was born. Eliko (talk) 20:40, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

In the context of the United Nations, a laissez-passer is a travel document like a passport, which in theory enables staff members to cross borders without hindrance. (I have one and it's never been very useful to me, I must admit.) This term is widely understood throughout the UN and there is no corresponding term in English. --Viennese Waltz ^talk 20:59, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

"On pain of"

As for an adverb "on pain of," can it be used as "on the following pains"?

For exmaple: "Parental authority shall be exercised by both parents. On any of the following pains, parental authority shall be exercised by either parent: (1) Where the other parent is deceased; (2) Where the other parent is placed in a hospital by reason of mental infirmity; (3) ..."

182.52.101.91 (talk) 11:01, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

"Pain" did mean "punishment" in the 1300s, but this usage is now archaic, so no, it can't. The phrase "on pain of" is a fossil. Marnanel (talk) 11:26, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Speaking to a point

From time to time, I hear the phrase "I'd like to speak to that point" when someone is about to give their view on an issue. It always sounds strange to me. After all, you're speaking to someone about the point, not speaking to the intangible point/argument. When did this start and why? Is it another example of corporate jargon? Dismas|^(talk) 11:42, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

"speaking to the point" means not getting lost in (semi-)irrelevant details, but I don't know about "speaking to a point". Rimush (talk) 12:32, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah I've heard it and I agree, it's pointless management speak. They should be saying "speak about that point" or "speak on that point", but it seems those constructions aren't whizzy enough for these jargon freaks. --Viennese Waltz ^talk 20:55, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Motherboards and pigs

Mother and baby pigs

Motherboard with space for daughterboards

1. There's a question on the Computing desk about the word "motherboard", and its relation to "political correctness", in case any of you want to hop over there.
2. But I do have a question. When I first learned about the innards of a computer, back in the eighties, I asked where the terminology of "motherboard" and "daughterboard" came from, and the other person said that it looks like a mother pig with her piglets, which it rather does. Was this just something my interlocutor made up, or was there actually once a standard porcine metaphor? Marnanel (talk) 11:47, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I think that might have been a way of illustrating a more mundane explanation. A mother pig is a big pig that has little pigs attached, a mother ship is a big ship that has little ships attached, a motherboard is a big board that has little boards attached (even more so in history, as the article observes). More mysterious to me is why, in biology, parent cells have daughter cells and not child cells. A binary tree has parent nodes and child nodes, but isotopes, languages, and, delightfully, cysts, can all be mothers and daughters. I guess it just sounds more technical. The pig metaphor goes some way to combating accusations of sexism, since if the board is named for the typical situation of a generic female mammal, that raises no moral issues; and it does seem rather unlikely that whoever first named it was thinking "Hey, that piece of electronics resembles a barefoot and pregnant wife with a dozen kids which by the way is a woman's proper role". 81.131.45.95 (talk) 13:28, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I've always assumed it was 'daughter cells' because of the idea that female is the default, and male is the gender that must be added to go from asexual reproduction to sexual reproduction. Tied in with the Y chromosome being different to the others, whereas females have a full complement of 'normal' chromosomes. Not advocating this idea, but I assumed that was the thinking. 86.161.108.172 (talk) 17:30, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I thought it was because "son" would be easily confused with "sun" (and that would be especially confusing in reference to computers). Adam Bishop (talk) 19:00, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Senostoma is in French...

I need to ask a big favour, :) I'm working on a genus article, Senostoma, and am struggling to find information, particularly regarding morphology. I finally managed to track down the original 1847 work in which the genus was first described, along with the type species. The catch is that it's in French, and my French is almost but not quite limited to politely telling French speakers that I don't speak French. Due to the technical vocabulary, you can imagine what online translators do for me here.

The document is huge and takes a long time to load (for me, anyway) so I've pasted the text below. Here's a link to the document if you're interested, page 96, Diptères Exotiques.

So you know where this is going . . . could I have a translation, please? I know it's big, but the phrases are short and uncomplicated, mostly, and it's for the good of those lovely parasitoid flies! Perhaps the biology terms will be a little challenging.

(If I get any bites, the article's talk page is fine, to save cluttering the language desk.)

Thanks in expectation, :P Maedin\^talk 20:15, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Trompe dépassant un peu l'épislome. Palpes cachés. Face à carène assez large avec un sillon longitudinal ; épistome fort saillant; périslome alongé, étroit. Front large, $, saillant; dessous de la têle droit. Antennes atteignant à peine la moitié de la face ; deuxième article un peu allongé :, troisième double du deuxième; style brièvement velu. Yeux obliques, nus. Abdomen ovale, déprimé. Ailes : première cellule postérieure aboutissant près de l'extrémité ; une petite pointe ù l'extrémité de la nervure médiastine extérieure. Ce nouveau genre , à tous les caractères des Dexiaires, en joint d'autres qui lui sont propres. La saillie de l'épistome, la forme étroite et alongée de la bouche, lui donnent un faciès remarquable qui le rend étranger aux autres membres de celte tribu. Nous n'avons pas pu observer sufBsamraent la trompe et les palpes.

Le nom générique signifie bouche étroite. Le type est de la Tasmanie.

Senostoma variegata, Nob.

Nigra albido pubescens. Abdomine variegato. Tibiis testaceis.

Long. 4 l. • Face et carène fauves ; côtés noirs, à duvet gris. Front : bande noire, à duvet gris ^ côtés gris. Antennes fauves. Thorax à duvet gris et lignes noirâtres. Abdomen tacheté irrégulièrement de noir. Cuillerons blancs. Ailes à base et bord extérieurjaunâtres: un peu de brunâtre au bord des nervures transversales.

French country names

Why are so many French country names different than the country's English name and its name in its language? Examples: Angleterre (England), Allemagne (Germany/Deutschland), Pays-Bas (Netherlands/Nederland), etc. --75.33.216.97 (talk) 20:24, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't know but I suspect the reason is that each country refers to a nation by its own name - Angleterre means land of the Anglos (see Angleterre. Also see List of country names in various languages. Basically it's not just the French who do this - we call Italy Italy but the Italian's called it Italia. We call their cities different names (Naples vs Napoli, Florence vs Firenze for example). ny156uk (talk) 20:53, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Most of those examples are somewhat similar to the native languages' versions, but the ones I listed above are completely different. --75.33.216.97 (talk) 21:20, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

See Names of Germany. -- Wavelength (talk) 21:32, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Where did Pays-Bas for the Netherlands come from? --75.33.216.97 (talk) 21:38, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

From the same place as "the low countries" came from in English. That is still used to refer to the Netherlands, Belgium and surrounding areas collectively. It's all about topography and geography. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:42, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

The word (more specifically, the name) "Netherlands" means low lands—see http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=Netherlands&searchmode=none. -- Wavelength (talk) 23:40, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Origin of the word "Dutch"

Where does the word "Dutch" come from? Demonyms are generally somewhat similar to their country's name, but "Dutch" sounds nothing like "the Netherlands" or "Holland". --75.33.216.97 (talk) 20:55, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

See Dutch language#Names - "The origins of the word Dutch go back to Proto-Germanic, the ancestor of all Germanic languages, *þeudiskaz (meaning "national/popular"); a cognate of Old Dutch diets, Old High German duitsch, Old English þeodisc and Gothic þiuda all meaning "(of) the common (Germanic) people". ny156uk (talk) 20:59, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

See also Names for the Dutch language. Ghmyrtle (talk) 21:12, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Words for left and right in european languages

The word for right in many european languages are quite similar (actually I know that two roots are involved the latin dexter=right and the latin directus=straight) - right, droit, derecha, direita, destra, rechts, while the words for left are generally very different - left, gauche, esquerda, izquierda, sinistra and links. Is this all to do with the apparent 'oddness' of left-handedness? Mikenorton (talk) 22:35, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Gauche comes from a Germanic root (the same as English "weak") and izquierda is from Basque. Maybe it's because "sinister" in Latin developed its, well, more sinister definition, but I'm not sure. Adam Bishop (talk) 22:58, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

We have a longish writeup of all this here. Marnanel (talk) 23:54, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Cadence?

This prolly isn't the right word. I'll try to describe it. I want to know how sentences go "up and down" For example the English sentence

I am going to the store with my aunt Margaret

when speaking your voice kind of "goes up" at "go-" (as in going) and down from "to" to "store", up again at aunt and down at "-gar-" It's hard to explain! As a native speaker (GA) I know how this works in English sentences, but how do they work in French and Spanish? Thanks. PS: I want to know how this differs between statements and questions too. I know that different sentences might have a few quirks, but I'm just looking for a general outline; I can speak these two languages naturally in short phrases, but it sounds wrong in longer sentences even if my pronunciation is right. Thanks again! 76.229.235.27 (talk) 23:12, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

It is called "cadence," although it looks like we don't have an article on it yet. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:52, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Spanish quirk

On the subject of Spanish, why do they sometimes put a feminine definite article and an initial-vowel word together and sometimes not? FOr example: "agua" is a feminine word but you say "el agua" not "la agua". At first I reasoned they didn't want to put two vowels together (like in my more familiar French, you say "mon amie", not "ma amie") But then they have words like "la actividad"! Why do they do this, and how do I know if a particular word does? 76.229.235.27 (talk) 23:17, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Note that "actividad" is stressed on the final syllable, whereas "agua" is stressed on the first syllable. That was my first hunch, and that's also what this blog writer says:[4] I found that simply by googling ["el agua"]. He gives some examples. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:26, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

September 1

Meaning of Korean first name Isang

On the German Wikipedia's reference desk someone asked abotu the meaning of the Korean first name Isang (Hanja 伊桑) as in Isang Yun. The meaning of the Hanja does not give me a great clue ("He mulberry"), I was also wondering whether it might be the Korean transcription of the name Ethan, since the biblical Ethan might have been a cymbalist and since I have seen this (symbolic) transcription used for mandarin. That's just speculation though, does anybody know more? Thanks, -- Arcimboldo (talk) 01:52, 1 September 2010 (UTC)