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October 24

Need a blindingly good word, please

It's for a book title; a novel set in the 18th century, and filled with wonders and phantasmagoria - it was initially called Phantasmagoriana, but this was decided against by editors etc. It'll be one of those two part titles - the wincingly good word, then the more descriptive part afterwards. Latin words are welcome, as are latinish neologisms, as is anything, really.

Thanks

Adambrowne666 (talk) 03:43, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

• Are you looking for a rough synonym for phantasmagoria, like hallucination, fantasy, or mirage?
• Do you want the title to convey an idea of "wonders and phantasmagoria"? I don't really know what that phrase means: It could be anything from ghosts to automatons to opium trips to decorations.
• Is Phantasmagoriana a play on the word "Victoriana"? If so, do you really mean 19th century?

• No connection to Victoriana, Card Zero. See -ana for a history of "ana" and "iana" words. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 18:43, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

• Can you give some examples of "those two part titles"? What might the descriptive word descibe?
• What's your book about? What happens in it?  Card Zero  (talk) 12:50, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Imbrogliana? Prodigiosity? Chimericae? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.23 (talk) 18:28, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Not knowing what the book is about, the abbreviations of your chosen title Phasm, Ago, or Goria seem catchy. μηδείς (talk) 18:39, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks heaps, everyone, for your patience with me; I know it's a vague question, but as a rough guide, The Poster Formerly Known As is definitely on the right track - rich fruity adjectival overblown nouns, evocative of bigness, hallucinations, dreams, grand madnesses; by two part title, I mean the sort of title that theses so often have - THINGIE: THE STORY OF THE THINGS IN THE THING. Adambrowne666 (talk) 20:19, 24 October 2011 (UTC) PS - I wonder if there might be usefully grand latin terms hiding away in species names...

You may have hit upon it without quite realising it, Adam: "THINGIE: THE STORY OF THE THINGS IN THE THING". What bookshop browser would fail to be thoroughly intrigued? I love it. It's perfect. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 20:48, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Ha!Adambrowne666 (talk) 04:07, 25 October 2011 (UTC) - by which I mean to say, yes, it is a brilliant title, and would certainly cause a browser to stop in his her tracks, but doesn't suit this...

I have a list of non-words (all failed guesses in Boggle) which I will offer to you now in case it is inspiring. Here is the list: pantismo, randigo, canalet, togasm, rantasy, rhubats, nudistic, starehen, dreme, moronet, erratica, hatories, ectopath, screwist, roqueteer, outpee, erminal, nautimen, tardrace.  Card Zero  (talk) 22:11, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Nudistic and outpee are words. μηδείς (talk) 01:05, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I love that you collect Boggle failures, Card. The novel is an 18th Century space opera - the main character is a braggart, and the adventures might all be false. I'm starting to think something ending with -iad, like Braggadociad... Hmmm Adambrowne666 (talk) 04:07, 25 October 2011 (UTC) Oh, and also, it's set in France, so the neologisms can be Frenchified...

After an interlude, my subconscious has also come up with Miraculaneum and Miraculennium. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.23 (talk) 05:00, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Magnificatus? Grandiosus? Clarityfiend (talk) 20:16, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Hypnerotomachia Poliphili - I want me a title like that. Magnificatus pyrotechnorium. Magnificatus miraculaneum. Like a latin species name for a book. A love story built of magnificent lies and dreams, wherein the hero learns to give up the sword and take up the word instead. Adambrowne666 (talk) 21:11, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Probably not quite there, but Kaleidentosteria - made up of kalos, eidos, entos, beautiful form within. It's been emotional (talk) 21:17, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Not quite there, but definitely on the way - the hero of this book was educated in the Humanities - would have known ancient Greek, Latin, French - I like the kaleid there - it's only recently that I learned what it meant; made sense of the word callipygus. We don't have to concentrate overly on the wonders in the story, despite my earlier stabs at a title - if we're doing the Hypnerotomachia thing, assembling words out of Greek or Latin (coining from the Koine) - then any or all of the above story-elements would do. Thanks yet again for all this, everyone. Adambrowne666 (talk) 01:14, 27 October 2011 (UTC) PS - if people want to continue this conversation elsewhere, let me know, and we can exchange addresses.

Y as initial letter of a name in Polish or German

In romanizing the author's name for a document handwritten in Yiddish from pre-WWII and Nazi-occupied Warsaw, the first name is indicated only by the initial letter yodh. In either Polish or German, I would transcribe this as J rather than Y (per the YIVO table presumably geared for English speakers). Could Y ever be the initial letter of a Polish or German name? -- Deborahjay (talk) 09:46, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, Yvonne Catterfeld is German, but Yvonne wouldn't be transliterated into Yiddish with initial yod anyway. Certainly no native German first names begin with Y, but Germans are not necessarily restricted to native German names. Nevertheless, the chances that yod stands for initial J are astronomically better than that it stands for initial Y, and I bet that's as true of Polish as it is of German. Angr (talk) 10:19, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. Polish alphabet says that <Y> has phonetic value of /ɨ/, while Polish phonology#Vowel distribution says that "The vowels /ɨ/ and /i/ have largely complementary distributions [...] however, /i/ is usually restricted to word-initial position [...], while /ɨ/ cannot appear in those positions " Therefore, <Y> can never start a native Polish word, and I suppose only imported names such as Yvonne could. No such user (talk) 14:23, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

"Yvonne" is spelt "Iwona" in Polish. It's a pretty common name. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 14:56, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I would have said that "Yvonne" is absolutely the only first name starting with a Y in German. And by the way, you cold spell it "Ivonne", too. After looking up this list I would like to correct this: There is no first name with the initial Y in German that would have been in use in Germany before 1945 except Yvonne.--Zoppp (talk) 22:47, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Why not before 1945? If Yvonne was in use, why not the male equivalen, Yves? I found one since 1945, Yves Mankel. --Jayron32 00:26, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

"Yves" is the French spelling of the German name "Ivo", which is spelled "Iwo" in Polish. Similarly "Yvonne" and "Yvette" are also French spellings (both are feminine diminuatives of "Yves"). None of these names would be transcribed with a "yodh" in Yiddish. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 00:44, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I'd hoped it was clear in my initial query: the name would begin with the consonant represented in English by the letter Y. Thanks to all for your input! -- Deborahjay (talk) 09:27, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

The only name I can think of that would be spelled in Polish with an initial Y representing a consonant is Yeti. — Kpalion^(talk) 11:22, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

In other words, Deborah, there really aren't any, certainly not ones likely to have been used by native-born Germans and Poles before the trend toward foreign names became popular (well after the war). There may well be Germans and Poles named "Yannick", "Yolanda", and "Yusuf" today, but in the era you're talking about it would have been extremely unlikely. If you transliterate the yod as "J.", you have (by my estimation) a 99.8% chance of being right. Angr (talk) 18:14, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

What is it?

Whats Ponch mipe (not sure of spelling). I know its a mixture of mashed vegetables, but which ones?--92.25.104.152 (talk) 16:51, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Google searching finds it variously spelled "ponch meip", "ponsch meip", and "ponch mipe". It seems to be a Welsh analogue of the Scottish clapshot—basically a mashed combination of potatoes and turnips, with optional additions such as cream, pepper, bacon on top, etc. Deor (talk) 17:09, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I know it as "punchnep". Basically equal parts of potatoes and swedes mashed together with cream and seasoning. --TammyMoet (talk) 17:43, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Repeating the message

In newsspeak, we often see a statement made in indirect speech, immediately followed by a quote that uses almost exactly the same words.

Here's an example from today’s news:

• Ms Plibersek hit back saying she hopes when she retires she does not make money trashing the party.
• "I hope when I retire I never make a buck trashing the Labor Party," she said.

Is this a recognised journalistic technique and does it have a name, or is it just poor writing? -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 18:49, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

err… both, I think. The technique is one used by academics and old-school journalists, where you will summarize an idea in a source and then provide an extended quote which shows that idea being laid out. however, in modern 'sound-bite' journalism the 'summary' doesn't have much choice except to be the entirety of the sound-bite, so it becomes redundant. but it's a trap: journalists can't say someone said something without showing them saying it, and they can't show someone saying something without explaining it, and heaven forbid they invest more than 15 seconds in a clip (that goes past the attention span of their viewers), so the silliness is locked in. --Ludwigs2 19:13, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

This form (I hesitate to call it "style") of writing is frequently parodised in Viz "They do this a lot in Viz", said Wikipedia editor Tonywalton Tonywalton ^Talk 23:06, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

As well it might be. Monty Python had a go at it in The Brand New Monty Python Bok (alas, no longer in my personal library). Thanks for the answers. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 08:14, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Chinese translation of characters on a wall hanging

What do the characters say on this picture (download it for a larger version)? I know the first four refer to Sun Wukong's nickname "Great Sage Equaling Heaven." I can't read the rest since they are too sloppy. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 20:20, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Here you go, 齊天大聖 歲次甲申年秋月瑞？於天津美院. Direct translation "Great Sage Equaling Heaven", In the year of Jiashen (i.e. 2004), Autumn, Rui ?(it should be the given name or style name of painter, I can not identify that character) in Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts, sealed (scripts illegible). I should say this painter's calligraphy is not as good as his painting.--刻意(Kèyì) 21:04, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 21:12, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

The first seal maybe his/her name Rui ?, the last are his/her full name, I can identify the family name 楊. The unidentified character looks like 芬. There is a painter named 楊瑞芬/ Yang Ruifen. She is good at Gongbi, that is the style of your picture. If you can make a clear photo of the seals then it would be the best way to determine the painter.--刻意(Kèyì) 21:37, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Here is a close up. Those do look like the characters for her name. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 21:59, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

That's 楊瑞芬's painting. See this auction page. Translation is here (See the description at the bottom). Oda Mari (talk) 05:41, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Yah, I found some of her paintings last night. The crappy handwriting looked very similar. I can't believe that someone who paints this beautifully writes so badly. Thanks for the confirming links. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 13:15, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

What's so wrong with the calligraphy?? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 16:20, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

his gang vs. the gang

There is a song I just can't get out of my head. It's the theme song of „Bob the Builder“ (one of the hazards of having children they never tell you about in the parenting books). Here's part of the lyrics:

Bob and the gang have so much fun

Working together, they get the job done.

I'm never quite sure whether it's „Bob and THE gang“ or „Bob and HIS gang“. Which got me to wonder if there is actually a slight difference in meaning between the two. „Bob and his gang“ sounds to me like Bob is the leader of a couple of thugs, (And entirely by the way, I never seem to encounter the word „gangster“ for anybody active after Al Capone got locked away. Does somebody know a good reason for this?) whereas „Bob and the gang“ is just Bob and a couple of people who are well known and therefore don't need to be specified.

Is this difference real or is it just me making it up?--Zoppp (talk) 22:32, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Every lyrics site I've looked at says "Bob and the gang", and it's pretty clearly "the" gang here. Whether "the" or "his", in this context "gang" is a recognised and non-pejorative term for a group of labourers working for a foreman (though generally the workers aren't anthropomorphic tractors), see for instance Wiktionary or this. Close to this though with slightly different connotations is Gangmaster; probably the only one qualified for low-wage agricultural work is Spud. Tonywalton ^Talk 23:25, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

It is you. Whether its "an 'e gang" or "an' 'i' gang" it simply means the ones he goes with. Gang is derived from go. See the German. μηδείς (talk) 23:31, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Not just in German, but in northern English dialect too, "gang" = "go". Dbfirs 18:19, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

As in gangway and gangplank. Mikenorton (talk) 18:57, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't agree. For me, "the gang" is subtly but unambiguously distinct from "his gang", although the exact nature of this distinction depends on the context. Generally speaking, "the gang" conveys a mood of collegial informality. It carries overtones of friendship and, in certain contexts, criminality. "His gang" is more literal and unmarked, and could also refer to a group of subordinates rather than to a group in which the subject is an equal member. LANTZY^TALK 01:09, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

And just because the word is ultimately derived from a form of the verb "to go" doesn't mean that it retains this meaning exclusively, or even primarily. Etymology does not govern usage. Pontiffs no longer build bridges, and candidates are not necessarily white (or candid). LANTZY^TALK 01:17, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

It's not just you. "The gang" is just the group of people who work with (or "hang out" with) the person mentioned. "His gang" would have the suggestion that he led the gang (maybe the "ganger"). The distinction isn't absolute, but I think most people in the UK would probably read the situation this way, in the absence of other evidence. Dbfirs 06:30, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Agreed; until very recently in the UK, a "gang" could be an innocent group of friends - see Gang Show. Alansplodge (talk) 08:04, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but here the meaning is not a gang of friends, and definitely not a criminal gang, but a work gang. A gang of builders, ordinary UK English. Bob is, of course, the ganger. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:17, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

According to the wiktionary entry this use of gang comes from 'a number going in company'. Mikenorton (talk) 18:57, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Serbo-Croat spelling

As I wrote above that Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian employ very shallow phonemic orthographies and generally every letter writes only one phoneme and every phoneme is written by only one letter, it came into my mind that there is, or could be, at least one notable exception.

This principle means that if a root beginning with a voiceless consonant is prefixed by something that ends in -d, the -d- is written as -t-. But it is not when it would be followed by one of S, Š, C, Č, in order to avoid the occurrence of the clusters ‹ts tš tc tč›, which would then have to be simplified, per language rules, to ‹c č c č›. Therefore, combinations ‹ds dš dc dč› can occur word-medially, and, for example, the Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian term for "president" is spelt predsednik (predsjednik, predsidnik), and not "pretsednik" or "precednik".

My question to those who are competent in Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian is: What is the standard pronunciation of such a "d"? I have never managed to pay attention to this while listening to Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian speech. Thanks in advance. --Theurgist (talk) 23:14, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, missed this one, and I usually at least skim over whole RDL.

‹ds› is pronounced [ts], I would say; [ds] looks pretty unpronounceable. It does tend to blend into [t͡s], especially in quick speech, thus the "precednik" as a common misspelling, or an imitation of folksy speech. Thus, spelling ‹ds› is more like a systematic exception from the rule "write as you speak" (which tends to be exaggerated in our schools). Similarly, ‹dš› goes into [tʃ], but not quite into [t͡ʃ]. They used to be written as ‹ts› and ‹tš› for some time before 1960 Orthography (ca. 1920-1960), at least in Serbia.

However, ‹dc› and ‹dč› are not subject to that exception. They are written as ‹tc› and ‹tč›, but not reduced further into ‹c› and ‹č› esp. on morpheme boundary: od+cepiti > otcepiti (tear off), od+čepiti > otčepiti (to uncork, to open). That's to reduce the mutilation of orthography (e.g. there's verb očepiti, meaning something else). That ‹tc› is pronounced variously as [tt͡s] (if you're really careful), but more naturally as [t͡sː] or [t͡s]. No such user (talk) 16:12, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

My mistake about ‹dc› and ‹dč›; incorrect stricken out now. But I got to think about another question, as I realised where another exception could come from. Does external sandhi work in Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian exactly in the same way that word-internal sound assimilations take place? For example, I'm listening to Željko Joksimović's song Leđa o leđa (live, studio) and trying to focus on how he sings the phrase "misliš da spavam", and as far as I can perceive it, at least in the live performance he keeps, or tries to keep, the [š] as such, instead of singing it out as [misliždaspavam]. Is this what everyone would normally do in speech, or is Joksimović enunciating? In standard Bulgarian, oddly enough, assimilations across word boundaries extend even further than assimilations within a word: -св- and -шв- have the values [sv] and [ʃv], but -с_в- and -ш_в- (the underscores standing for spaces) are usually realised as [zv] and [ʒv]. --Theurgist (talk) 22:59, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, external sandhi works as usual in BCS. However, I hear Joksimović, at least in studio version ([1] 1:07; tip: append &t=1m05s to YouTube URL to start from a specific time) pronouncing [misliʒda] rather than [misliʃ.da]... or at least something in-between (if there is such thing as "half-voiced" :D ). Yes, enunciation is possible (thanks for reminding me to that term), but I don't think he's really doing it here.

I suppose the phenomenon of additional assimilation across word boundaries is at least plausible in BCS, but I wouldn't really know, as I've never paid attention to the phenomenon. Those are all allophones to me... No such user (talk) 10:21, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I sort of fail to see what you mean by "works as usual". The usual way of working is š > ž right before a voiced stop, as in duša > zadužbina, and if the same applies across word boundaries, [misliʒda] could be expected... (like in Bulgarian: можеш да [-ʒd-])

Anyway, I meanwhile came across some articles like sr:Једначење сугласника по звучности, sr:Једначење сугласника по месту творбе, hr:Jednačenje po zvučnosti, sh:Pravopis srpskohrvatskog jezika, where there is pretty much information on the spelling and pronunciation peculiarities and their exceptions. Hvala lepo. --Theurgist (talk) 21:00, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I meant, "Works as usual" => pronunciation follows the natural laws of phonology and physics. Those assimilations are not recorded in the orthography, of course. No such user (talk) 13:29, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

October 25

English translation of SARFT Chinese film law

Somebody told me about:

• http://www.sarft.gov.cn/articles/2007/02/16/20070913144431120333.html

It is: "中华人民共和国国务院令 （第 342 号） 《电影管理条例》已经2001年12月12日国务院第50次常务会议通过，现予公布，自2002年2月1日起施行。 " Do you know if anybody has translated this law into English? I checked the SARFT website and could not find a translation.

Do you know if the PRC government, a UN agency, the US or UK governments, or an NGO has an official English translation? Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 00:06, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Here's a translation from CNCI, which is operated by the Ministry of Culture. It's also available as a PDF from WIPO Ironfrost (talk) 05:29, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you so much! WhisperToMe (talk) 05:49, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Word for Phenomenon

I'm wondering if anyone knows a word for the following phenomenon in any language (akin to deja vu or schadenfreude, sometimes other languages perfectly capture a specific feeling)

So the phenomenon in question is when you've never heard of a book/show/movie/cultural artifact, then when you (for whatever reason) hear of it, suddenly you see it everywhere. Now I'm not looking for an explanation for why it seems that way, I understand that part. I'm just wondering if anyone knows a word for it.

thanks!71.232.14.6 (talk) 00:23, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Try epiphany or gestalt effect for starters. Textorus (talk) 00:52, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

This is called The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. Bus stop (talk) 01:17, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Ahh yes. I vaguely recall that several attempts have been made to create a Wiki article on the subject, but on every occasion it has been deleted for some reason. LANTZY^TALK 01:19, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I think it would be better to just add something to the Baader-Meinhof article on this other use of the term. Bus stop (talk) 01:23, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

But the concept is only arbitrarily associated with the entity for which it is named. If the phenomenon is notable, it should have its own article, either under that name or some other name. LANTZY^TALK 03:50, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

This phenomenon has been given the name "frequency illusion" by Arnold Zwicky. See here. In my opinion it is a good term, and I try to use it myself, but it has not gained as much currency as one might wish. perhaps we ought to have an article on it, but I wonder if there exists enough material on which to base it without going all OR. Zwicky has also coined the term "recency illusion" for a related phenomenon on which we do have an article.--Rallette (talk) 10:42, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

It seems to have been deleted because of WP:NEO. It's an internet meme of uncertain origin, so it's hard to find a reliable source to cite. The Damn Interesting article [2] is citable, I think. That article links to the wikipedia article synchronicity. How about this plan: create the page Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, again. Make it a redirect to synchronicity. Mention the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon somewhere in that article, and cite it with a link back to the Damn Interesting article. For a bonus, also mention the term "frequency illusion", linking to Arnold Zwicky.  Card Zero  (talk) 12:12, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure how this is a meme... It's been happening to me since long before the internet. Mingmingla (talk) 00:26, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good. I was thinking about how to do something like this too. What I was wondering about is if there perhaps already exists an article which has as its purpose the collecting of mental phenomenon in which we seem to be mislead by our own subjectivity, or that our newly-sensitized awareness makes us more keen observers. Or simply that the frequency of occurrence of certain phenomena is on the ascendency. Or a combination of factors. For instance I think a related phenomenon is that we see patterns where those patterns might be barely suggested if at all. For instance randomly dispersed objects might be mentally processed so that we view them as a more rational arrangement. At the least there could perhaps be an article in the List format to gather together in one place such related phenomena, as long as they have been given some sort of name in citable sources. Bus stop (talk) 17:13, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

There's a box at the bottom of hidden message (what are those kinds of boxes called?) which lists a bunch of related articles, including pareidolia (seeing things in randomness) and clustering illusion (seeing clusters in randomness). Now I'm not sure whether it's correct to see a pattern in these articles and regard them as forming a group. Perhaps it's an illusion. Oh wait, here's what you want: List of cognitive biases. Do you think Baader-Meinhof should just be mentioned in there, without an article?  Card Zero  (talk) 20:30, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I've added both to that list, under "Biases in probability and belief".--Rallette (talk) 06:04, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

"Behind the door when the anoraks were being handed out"

In McDermid's The Wire in the Blood, I found the sentences as follow:

"Sorry for disappoint you. I was behind the door when the anoraks were being handed out."

This is a reply to the speaker's boss who thought people at her age were good at computers.

I think the expression has some background, but don't know what it is. Please let me know.

--Analphil (talk) 09:36, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

See Anorak (slang) Roger (talk) 09:40, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

(e/c):In English parlance, to be (somewhere else) when the (something) is handed out is to be deficient in some way. For example:

"He was at the back of the queue when the brains were handed out." = "He has no brains."

Anoraks are associated with trainspotters, and from that are extrapolated to be a symbol of a nerd. In the context of the Wire in the Blood quote above, the character is thus saying that she is "not a nerd" and hence is not good with computers.

Hope that helps! Yunshui 雲水 09:43, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your help! --Analphil (talk) 13:56, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Question about whether a decimal fraction is singular or plural at WP:MOS

Please participate in the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#0.1 seconds or 0.1 second? - it could really use some input from English experts. Roger (talk) 13:50, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

• See Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 October 12#"0.57 second" or "0.57 seconds"?. --Theurgist (talk) 14:14, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I participated, thanks for the tip. Textorus (talk) 15:00, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Secretaries

I am wondering how the word "secretary" which appears to be predominantly associated with low-paying (and stereotypically female) assistant positions, and yet also came to be associated with the heads of major organizations, e.g. Secretary General of the United Nations or Secretary of State. Secretary in the former sense has become so unpopular that its usage is borderline inappropriate, with terms such as "administrative assistant" or "executive assistant" or "office manager" replacing it, and yet we also have the same term used at the highest levels of government. What is the history / etymology that would explain the diversity of ways that "secretary" has been used? Dragons flight (talk) 16:18, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

It would seem from the article that the terms "Secretary General" and "Secretary of State" were created when "Secretary" was a 'high' position, and the latter has since slid. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 16:21, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

(ec) does the "Origin" and "modern development" sections of the first article you linked to not explain it sufficiently? At first, only the very mighty and very important had "secretaries" - e.g. a king might have a secretary just to handle his foreign affairs. Over time such secretaries became powerful positions in their own right. At the same time, people lower down the rungs also started to use secretaries, eventually evolving someone who takes calls and types. It may be helpful to compare and contrast the historical development of, for example, Secretary of State (United Kingdom) and Private Secretary to the Sovereign. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 16:27, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

The job of secretary did not become a "stereotypically female" occupation until the 20th century... AnonMoos (talk) 17:17, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

The classic exploitation of the ambiguity:

-

Jim: Who else is in this department?

- Sir Humphrey: Well briefly sir I am the Permanent Undersecretary of State known as the Permanent Secretary, Wooley here is your Principle Private Secretary I too have a Principle Private Secretary, and he is the Principle Private Secretary to the Permanent Secretary, directly responsible to me are ten Deputy Secretaries, eighty-seven Undersecretaries and two hundred and nineteen assistant secretaries, directly responsible to the Principle Private Secretaries are Plain Private Secretaries, and the Prime Minister will be appointing two Parliamentary Undersecretaries and you will be appointing your own Parliamentary Private Secretary.

- Jim: Can they all type?

-

Sir Humphrey: None of us can type Minister, Mrs McKay types, she's the secretary.

-

From Yes, Minister. I hope adding it isn't a copyvio; it's easily findable on the Web, and only a small proportion of the episode. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:18, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for the spelling and punctuation errors in the version I accessed. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:20, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

It's my understanding that a secretary is an assistant. In the sense of a Government, said secretary assists the executive by taking a specific role of the executive portion of the Government's duties. In an office, the secretary assists by taking dictation, organizing appointments, etc. Its all forms of assisting the primary; just different forms of assistance. --Jayron32 03:39, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

The common ground of the two usages is noted in EO's writeup of the term.[3] It's important to note that prior to women entering the workforce, secretaries in an office were typically male. And part of their job was to be a confidant of the boss. That's still kind of an assumption, despite the existence of the redundant term "confidential secretary". It's also important to note that the term "secretary" in private business has often been displaced by the term "administrative assistant". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:17, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Indo-European loans in Hungarian

For example. I've just learned the Hungarian word for a chicken is csirke. Is there any way this could be cognate to the English word and its Germanic and Indo-European roots or is it more likely just coincidence? I know more sophisticated words often make their way from Indo-European languages into Hungarian, but I would expect basic vocabulary wouldn't need to be imported. - filelakeshoe 20:13, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't know about csirke, it could be a cognate, or the sound resemblance could be due to a coincidence; hopefully someone more knowledgeable than me will elaborate here. But you shouldn't be too bewildered to realise that some languages may contain non-native basic vocabulary. Romanian is a Romance language, but has undergone considerable Slavic influences - notice the numerous examples of basic vocabulary listed at Slavic superstratum in Romanian; even the affirmative particle "yes" in that language is thought to have Slavic origins. Turkish, a Turkic language, owes to Arabic its words for concepts as basic as "world", "animal", and even the conjunction "and". I can't confidently comment on Hungarian, but I can say that Hungarian, much like Romanian, abounds with Slavic vocabulary, which shows up for example in names of some days of the week (szerda, csütörtök, péntek, szombat). But I don't know whether csirke could share a common etymology with English chicken. --Theurgist (talk) 22:28, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

There is barát, 'friend', coming from Russian (or Slavic) брат, 'brother'. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 08:50, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

And the Romanian is prieten, cf. Bulgarian приятел, Russian приятель, Polish przyjaciel, Czech přítel. And also, in all Turkey, Kenya/Tanzania and Indonesia, they have very similar words for "book", and greet each other with "What's the khabar (= news)?", thanks to Arabic. --Theurgist (talk) 20:22, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Can you be more specific as to what you are looking for? There are words that are considered loans from PIE or Indo-Arian into Finno-Ugric or Ugric. There are later borrowings from specific attested languages into Hungarian. Björn Collinder lists a lot of the former in his Fenno-Ugric vocabulary: An etymological dictionary of the Uralic languages (A Handbook of the Uralic languages; pt. 1) [4]. For more recent borrowings you'd need to get a Hungarian etymological dictionary. Rutgers New Brunswick has a good Hungarian library. As for csirke with its internal /r/, any relation to chicken, which comes from W. Ger. *kiukinam, PIE *keuk, is highly unlikely. μηδείς (talk) 20:06, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, that answers my question. I know languages next door to each other swap words, but I wasn't sure whether it would be possible to have a loan from PIE into Proto-Finno-Ugric or similar, which is what csirke would have to be if it corresponded to chicken. - filelakeshoe 11:55, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

The word for 'chicken' in proto-Celtic is 'kerka'. In most Slavic languages, the root 'chicken' is 'kur(k)-'. So there must be a link. It is unlikely that there was a word for 'chicken' in proto-Finno-Ugric, it is more probable that we have direct borrowing into Hungarian from a Slavic language. Chickens were domesticated in Southeast Asia and they came to Europe relatively recently from the south. There simply weren't any chickens in the proto-Finno-Ugric homeland. Chicken is 'kana' or 'hana' in Estonian and Finnish (borrowing from 'hen'). --Itinerant1 (talk) 05:28, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Garrigue

Can people help me unpack the etymology of the above. There seems to be more than one hypothesis. 1) Gascon for rock, 2) Swiss German for rock, 3) Quercus, oak tree. My inkling is for Quercus, because garrigue is scrub, a kind of vegetation, not the underlying rock. If "quercus", is it then cognate with "Derry"? And with river names like Derwent? The article says it is equivalent to "jarrie" in French, and that much is clear, "jarrige" is a common placename in the langue d'oil. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:47, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Why do you think that "quercus" might be cognate with "Derry"? Granted, they both mean "oak", but it's hard to see any phonological correspondence beyond both containing '-r-'. Garrigue says that 'quercus' "perhaps comes from an older, pre-Indo-European, root, kar, meaning to be hard", but Pokorny derives it from "perkʷus" which also underlies English "fir". (The change "qu-" < "p-" is found in other Latin words before a "-qu-" in the next syllable: "quinque" < "penkʷe" ("five") and "coquo" < "pekʷo" ("I cook"). --ColinFine (talk) 22:51, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

If it did come from kar, however, as I read it the implication of the Garrigue article is that this root is cognate with the terms meaning "rock" in Gascon and Swiss German. That section of the article is just written confusingly --Miskwito (talk) 22:58, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

The word would in no way be a regular development from Latin quercus within French. Harald Sverdrup lists Pictish cair, Basque *karri, Iberian karr, Caucasian χHerχV', and Etruscan ceri, all meaning "stone" in his article "The Pictish Language" in Languages and their Speakers in Ancient Eurasia, Shevoroshkin and Sidwell, editors. μηδείς (talk) 23:55, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

This isn't the first time this or a related question has come up; see Talk:Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk#Garrigue. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 01:54, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

See garrigue (French), I use this website for reliable etymologies of French words. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 07:36, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Great resource. Interesting that it gives the oak derivation but without connecting it to quercus. μηδείς (talk) 16:14, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Gothic placenames

I'm searching for names of cities in Gothic and in other East Germanic languages, expecially for Italy, Spain and North Africa. I know they are poorly attested languages, but Barbarian kingdoms covered most of Western Europe, so it would strike me as strange that none of the original Germanic toponyms is known (even if Gothic was only the language of the elite and never really replaced Latin). --151.41.239.148 (talk) 21:54, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't think East Germanic speakers founded hardly any new settlements in Mediterranean Romance-speaking areas, and existing settlements already had names. The Visigoths came in as a small Arian minority wanting to keep Romance-speaking Catholics at a social distance, and also keep what was left of the Roman government system in place in order to use it to extract taxes. The book Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World by Nicholas Ostler has a brief discussion about how no real Visigothic loanwords exist in Spanish... AnonMoos (talk)

The name Gdansk (Danzig) is usually derived from the Gothic Gothiscandia. μηδείς (talk) 00:04, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Usually, no. That is one minority theory, and a pretty farfetched one at that (Occam's razor slices it apart). Much more plausible is that it derives from a local river name, as do the names of many settlements in this area. It's more likely that "Gutiskandja" refered instead to a region rather than a particular settlement. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 03:18, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, I can't remember if it was Winfred P. Lehmann or Oswald Szemerenyi in whom I read the derivation of the Slavic name due to reduction of the yer vowels (I suspect the latter). But neither of them is a fringe academic. If you have a source saying it is a minority view or, better, explaning the source from the river name, can you give it? Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 03:28, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Apparently there are quite a few in the Iberian Peninsula. Burgos is the only one I know offhand. Catalonia might have originally meant "land of the Goths". Andalusia might come from "land of the Vandals". A book on the topic is: Piel, Joseph M. / Dieter Kremer (1976): Hispano-gotisches Namenbuch. Der Niederschlag des Westgotischen in den alten und heutigen Personen-und Ortsnamen der iberischen Halbinsel. Heidelberg: Carl Winter. As I understand there are very few in Italy and North Africa, although Italy has a lot of Germanic names, they mostly date to a later period, after the Ostrogoths. Pfly (talk) 16:17, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

October 26

Swedish pronunciation

Does this pronunciation of Raoul Wallenberg sound right, in particular the trailing off at the end without a distinct "g" sound? Clarityfiend (talk) 04:42, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't know about the correctness, but it does have a distinct "g" - but it's [ɣ] rather than the American 'hard' [ɡ], and difficult for a native English speaker to pick up on. At a glance with Swedish phonology, it looks about right. Lsfreak (talk) 05:00, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

wikt:berg has a recording of somebody saying berg in Swedish.  Card Zero  (talk) 07:01, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Clarityfiend, as far as I'm concerned, it sounds perfectly correct. The last part is heard as Swedish pronunciation: [ˈ-.-ˌbærj]. In Swedish, syllable-final -rg and -lg are realised as [rj] and [lj], cf. e.g. Björn Borg. (The IPA symbol [j] = the "y" in English "youth" and "yacht".) Also, the Swedish vowel /ɛ/ (as in English "beg") is realised allophonically as [æ] (as in "back") when it precedes an /r/, including when, in most varieties of the language, the combination of /r/ plus a dental consonant produces a retroflex realisation of the latter. Hope that helps. --Theurgist (talk) 10:20, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

[j]umpin' [j]iminy. Thanks to you both. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:03, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Simpsons in French, Marie Curie

In the episode "Lisa's Sax", Homer asks Marge to name someone who ever lived without air conditioning. She says "Balzac", and he thinks she is being rude, which is pretty funny in English. In the French version, the dialogue is otherwise basically the same, but Marge says "Curie". I didn't get it, and some French colleagues that I asked about it thought that the joke had just been lost in translation. Is there anything particularly rude about "Curie"? Is it supposed to remind of us "cul", the word for "ass"? Adam Bishop (talk) 15:13, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure in French the sound of the "u" in Curie is quite distinct from the sound of the "u" in "cul", which would make it unlikely that the two would be confused. The Balzac (ball sack, aka scrotum) joke is quite obvious in English; perhaps the French translators completely missed it, and made a random substitution to the name. --Jayron32 15:20, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually, it is the same phoneme: /kyri/ and /ky/ (the l is not pronounced). Possibly "(mon) cul rit", "(my) ass laughs" (??). Another possibility is "curry", but I'm not sure how this would be taken as rude. Lesgles (talk) 16:24, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

See, when I hear them said, I hear the glide coloring the vowel in each case. The U in "curie" sounds more r-colored, and the u in "cul" has an l-color to it (though, as happens in french, the l is not actually pronounced). But you may be right. It may be a pun on "ass laugh", that sorta works, but I don't know if a native speaker would find the pun too "strained"; the Balzac pun is much more natural in English... --Jayron32 16:53, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't have access to the audio, but cul rit and Curie would normally have slightly different pronunciations. Cul rit would have a little more stress on the first syllable (or maybe the first syllable would be a little longer or both) than Curie. I'm guessing that Lisa gives Cu- added emphasis. I do think it's a bit more contrived than Balzac in English, since cul rit is not a phrase that would normally occur in French, though it is similar to Balzac in being the sort of thing that 12-year-olds find hilarious. Marco polo (talk) 17:44, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Ah, it's still hilarious...I had to explain the joke to my French colleagues and I couldn't stop laughing at it (but I guess that was more because of having to explain what a "ball sac" is). I can't find video/audio online, but here is a transcription of the episode, if that helps. Adam Bishop (talk) 18:07, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I am reminded obliquely of the time, when we were in the "Animals" chapter of my French class in High School, how much amusement we had in getting our French teacher to tell us what "seal" was in French. Still gives me chuckles. --Jayron32 18:14, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

"Phoque"? That reminds me, a French-speaking co-worker blushed when she saw the name of Grand Teton National Park. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:43, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Were they surprised when it wasn't a topless beach? --Jayron32 16:45, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

She simply exclaimed, "I can't believe they named it that!" I opined that the explorers who named it had been away from home for a long time, and their imaginations were probably working overtime. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:39, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Agree with all above. It was the translator's attempt to find something similar, doesn't work nearly so well, but then you can't find a good translation for every joke. Some viewers will have followed it, others will have missed it, but then there is enough entertaining stuff in every Simpsons episode even if you miss the odd joke. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:24, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

October 27

Chinese reading

A Chinese name is 陳進興 - It's Chen Chin-hsing, one of Pai Hsiao-yen's killers

What is the reading of "興" in this context? Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 08:05, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

It's Chen Jin Xing. The Chinese Wikipedia has an article on him, which insanely doesn't show the pronunciation, but a Google search verifies the pronunciation I gave. however, I am unable to find the tone for the final 'xing', which can be either 1st or 4th tone. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 08:47, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your help! I started this topic in order to get the final "xing" tone, so I would like to wait until that question in answered. WhisperToMe (talk) 13:32, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

This source gives the pronunciation for the name as Chén Jìnxīng. This is not the same person, since the birth dates are different, but the pronunciation is almost certainly the same, especially since the meanings associated with the pronunciation xīng ("rise," "flourish," etc.; also the pronunciation for a surname using that character) are much more likely as elements of a Chinese name than the meanings for xìng ("desire," "excitement"). Marco polo (talk) 15:12, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Agree with Marco - while both readings are positive, the former is "auspicious" while the latter is merely happy. When used as part of a personal name, it is most likely intended to take the first tone. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 15:43, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

What-all

My family's southern and western members often append "all" to the words "what", "who", and "where" to produce a slightly different meaning than if one were to use the pronouns alone. (I have never heard it appended to "why", "how", or "when".) For instance, "What-all did you buy?" / "Who-all was at the party?" / "Where-all did you go?" feel somehow distinct from their "all"-less equivalents. Specifically, they are more emphatic and inquisitorial, and imply that the questioner wishes to be fully informed, at length if necessary. The "all" also seems to emphasize that the question is genuine and not an empty pleasantry. The "all" is unstressed and closely connected to the pronoun, almost like a suffix. I associate this vaguely with the south, or perhaps the southwest, or even the Appalachian region, but it doesn't seem to be widely parodied in popular culture, as, for instance, "y'all" is. So maybe my impression is inaccurate, and the usage is not widespread. What precisely is the geographical or ethnic origin of "what-all" and the like? Is a similar usage found in any dialect of English outside the United States? LANTZY^TALK 18:18, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I always thought the "all" interrogatives are just plurals. That is, something like "Who all was at the party?" or "What all did you buy?" is prompting for a list of answers rather than just a single one (and thus is exactly parallel to you > you all). I also thought this sort of thing was actually quite common in the US (it certainly is where I'm from, in Maryland), and that's how I typically use them. Voikya (talk) 18:24, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

This isn't really a very helpful answer, but I can confirm that it's very common in (at least southeast) Texas. And I concur with Lanyzy's basic analysis of its meaning: I might paraphrase "what-all did you buy?" as "what is the precise catalog of all the items you bought?" But in a sense that's a logical extension of Voikya's meaning --Miskwito (talk) 18:28, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Merriam-Webster (sense 5) does label it "chiefly Southern", though I've heard it frequently in the Midwest. Deor (talk) 18:31, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Having lived most of my life in New York and New England, I would say that this particular usage is rare in the Northeast (at least, north of Philadelphia and outside of African American communities). However, it is very common in my mother's extended family, which originated in Texas. Marco polo (talk) 19:01, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

My understanding of it as used in the South (I grew up in places ranging from Tennessee to Florida) is that the querent is seeking a more-or-less complete list of the subject queried; i.e., what are all the things that you bought? who were all the persons that were at the party? where are all the places you went? --Orange Mike | Talk 19:58, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Growing up in Ohio, I heard this usage frequently, with the same meaning as Orangemike gives it. Nyttend (talk) 01:16, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

So, does anyone know if this usage occurs anywhere outside the United States? LANTZY^TALK 21:00, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Never heard of it in the UK. Astronaut (talk) 16:02, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

It's used in parts of Northern Ireland (and maybe northern parts of the Republic as well). The syntactician Jim McCloskey has written about the construction in West Ulster Irish English, where you can also find the all to the right of the verb. Thus in that dialect, all of the following are possible:

• What all did you give to the kids?
• What did you give all to the kids?
• Who all did you send to the shops?
• Who did you send all to the shops?
• Tell me what all you got for Christmas.
• Tell me what you got all for Christmas.

Reference: McCloskey, James (2000). "Quantifier float and wh-movement in an Irish English". Linguistic Inquiry. 31: 57–84. (Apparently, Jim McCloskey's dialect also allows "Irish English" to be a common noun governed by the indefinite article.) Angr (talk) 16:38, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm from SW Ontario and I wouldn't be surprised to hear "who all", "where all" or the other variants in anything but the most formal of speech. We-all don't use "y'all" except when trying to play a stereotypical "suthen" accent, though; it would be marked as quite informal. Matt Deres (talk) 21:48, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Latin/Greek scholars please?

This is a continuation of a [[5]] question above; I'm trying to coin a two word 'species name' to serve as a title for a novel. The important elements are a large nose, miraculously beautiful prose, a litany of wonders, romantic love, and perhaps the theme of transformation.

It doesn't need to include all of these elements, thouugh. If the 'species name' translates vaguely as 'splendid book of the beautiful nose', or something like that, I'd be happy.

What do you scholars think of Magnificobilios proboscidea? Or Miraculebiblium euprobosccidae? Am I anywhere near something ok? Am I right in thinking that species names are sometimes a mix of Greek and Latin?

Thanks - and thanks to everyone who helped in the previous posting too Adambrowne666 (talk) 22:27, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Thaumasibiblos cyranoides? Deor (talk) 22:58, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

::Ha! - cyranoides! I like it! Cyraniad, maybe? - the iad suffix to suggest a journey? But then oides is more suggestive of a species name - sorry, just thinking aloud here...Adambrowne666 (talk) 23:32, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Or perhaps callirhina thaumateucha. I'd definitely want "thauma-" in there somewhere. But there's a lot of room for creativity in this case. And macaronic language is very common in scientific nomenclature. LANTZY^TALK 23:21, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Does thaum=death? - thanks for these - I'm having a great time! Adambrowne666 (talk) 23:32, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Thaum = magic or miracle, see wikt:thaumaturgy. --Jayron32 23:57, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Thaumasi- would be an adjectival stem, from the adjective thaumasios, "wondrous" or "marvelous". Deor (talk) 00:08, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

(I just realised I was confusing thanatos with thaum, by the way)

Ah, thanks, Jayron. I'd prefer if the language was more similar to English, or more familiar Latin/Greekisms, to help people a bit with the meaning - makes it harder, I know, because it's sometimes hard to guess what people are familiar with... Adambrowne666 (talk) 23:59, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

If you have an actual image of some animal in mind can you describe it? There is Hallucigenia, you know. μηδείς (talk) 00:11, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I love Hallucinogenia, and Anomalocaris, but I'm not really thinking of any animal in particular - just a fantastic beast that happens to belong to the bookly phylumAdambrowne666 (talk) 02:38, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

My scholarly opinion is that Magnificobilios sounds a bit like cobblers, and therefore I like it ... is it a typo for -biblios, though? That spoils the effect.  Card Zero  (talk) 08:32, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Much as I like to invoke cobblers, it was a typo, sorry, Card0 - so I'm thinking Magnificobiblios cyranoides or Miracubibulum cyranoides - something like that - I'm wary of the bibulum though - is that verging on something related to alcohol? forgive my almost total ignorance here... Adambrowne666 (talk) 20:59, 28 October 2011 (UTC) -- or Magnificobiblios proboscidae...

Biblios = papyrus, hence scroll, book. Cf. Bible (Eng.), biblioteca (Span.), and many other derivatives. Textorus (talk) 07:08, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks heaps everyone - I've come up with something I like - Hallucinogenia Proboscoides - it's coming out next September, here in Australia - the WP Research Desks will get a big thanks.

2-part Chinese question

1) What is this company? They made this (brass?) statue of the Monkey King. The characters are too vague for me to read. The last one could be 道 (I'm not an expert).

2) This seems to be a common pose for the Monkey King in several of the more modern drawings/paintings and statues that I've seen. Are there early examples of this, say from the pre-20th century? Is it a martial pose related to some staff method? --Ghostexorcist (talk) 23:08, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

It looks like made by 美富达. The logo matches.--刻意(Kèyì) 13:44, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. I was way off on the last character. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 15:35, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Latin prefix 'in'

As a new latin student I'm curious about something--- there are many words in English which seem to have been formed by marrying the 'in' preposition with a verb

Ex: in + bibo = imbibe, in + fluo = influx

but there's a whole slew of English words where the 'in' preposition is clearly being used as a negation

Ex: in + lego = illegal, in + possum = impossible

I'm not asking about the letter change, I understand how that works--I'm just wondering when 'in' started being used as a negation, because I don't think i've ever seen it used that way in Latin.71.232.14.6 (talk) 23:28, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

The in- negation form is indeed a native development within Latin from PIE which is cognate with the English un- and Greek an- prefixes. It didn't start in Latin but was inherited from the proto-tongue. See here: [6], although be aware the form actually developed from a syllabic n- prefix, not ne- as such. (Syllabic /n/ is the same sonorant sound you hear in button where the o is not actually pronounced.) I strongly suggest you purchase Calvert Watkins' The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, Third Edition if this sort of thing interests you. μηδείς (talk) 00:09, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

See previously Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Language/2007_September_9#Confusion_about_in-_and_un-... -- AnonMoos (talk) 01:33, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Just a few Latin adjectives with the negative in-, all of which have descendants in English: innocuus, inimicus, insanus, infinitus, impurus, impunis, integer. Angr (talk) 14:14, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

October 28

Arabic error?

What's happened with the Arabic name of Harun al-Rashid, as seen in the first line of his article? I've never before seen Arabic look like this on Wikipedia; it always looks like it does in the article on Al-Amin, Harun's son. Nyttend (talk) 01:22, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

The letters certainly look correct to me (هارون الرشيد); however, in my browser it displays in a sans-serif font in the first line of the article, but in a normal pseudo-"naskh" font at the top of the infobox... AnonMoos (talk) 01:28, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Seems to be caused by use of the {{Script}} template with Arab parameter. Doesn't seem like an error, just different type style. --130.216.172.3 (talk) 06:28, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Maźitakǘ from Caucasus mountains

An editor has been adding incomprehensible messages to my talk page and apparently saying that they are in a language he calls "Maźitakǘ from Caucasus mountains" -- the editor has also added Maźitakǘ and Ṍlup to List of languages by name. Does any of this ring any bells for anybody? Am I being trolled? Looie496 (talk) 01:34, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't recognize the names, they would have to be obscure sub dialects. Mazitaku has no hits anywhere. If it's made up he obviously has put a lot of effort into it--most North Causcasian languages don't have common Latin alphabet standards. It does strike me as possible trolling but nothing phonological sticks out to me as obviously fake. He does seem to repeat roots at a highly suspect rate though. It's most definitely not a NWCaucasian language. See here to compare the Chechen language which does have umlauted vowels. But looking here [7] the text is dissimilar to Chechen and the Lezghian language. I suggest you go to google translate and get the Russian, Turkish and Farsi for "I do not understand. Please Speak English, Russian, Farsi or Turkish." and post that message to him in those languages. The chance a literate person with internet accesss in that area wouldn't respond to one of those languages is very small. μηδείς (talk) 01:46, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

If Keç means sorry in "Mazitaku", then it has something to do with Karachay-Balkar or the extinct Cuman language. 80.122.178.68 (talk) 12:14, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Ḩ

The "Maźitakǘ" messages frequently use Ḩ and ḩ. I've never before seen these characters; in what language(s) are they used? Ḩ is a redirect to Cedilla, while my computer doesn't know what to do with ḩ: it displays it properly, but when I go to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ḩ, it treats the link as if I'd linked to ? and accordingly redirects me to Question mark. Nyttend (talk) 02:05, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I have seen hooked letters like that used in Latin alphabets adapted to languages of the Soviet Union—but I can't remember exactly from which. It didn't raise any flags. The umlauted vowels which are typical of Chechen don't go with the long and apparently agglutinative word forms. You never know with the Causcasus unless you are an expert, but my impression is some sort of hybrid of a Turkic language morphology and North East Caucasian language phonology. μηδείς (talk) 02:40, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Here is a sample of the NE Caucasian Tsez language from its article: Zewnoƛax zewčʼeyƛax bˤeƛon bocʼin zirun qayno. Sidaquł šigoħno sadaqorno boyno ħukmu: yaqułtow begira bocʼi ħonƛʼār miƛʼeł xizāz xizyo rišʷa yoł. Bˤeƛā begirno qay łˤāł xizāz, bocʼin zirun regirno ħonƛʼār miƛʼeł xizāz. Ɣudod, žedi raynosi beƛʼez reqenyoxor, ziru boqno uhi-ehƛada buq boƛāxzāzarno boqno.

Here is some of the text at question from Looie's talk page: Marasiḿat! Marasiḿatta sḩo larada, sḩo böttǜ laradainǜ, mak Halafḩasimatta mölökodǜ laradainǜ. Zölottafḩi maraida sḩo malüttmalütta haḿaźalú Tatamasama Poroźekka Ḩwýkkipidiyainü. Somoralara sḩo marupta, aksattamalara samado. Fḩaemaz taye mattamatta mofḩotte. Hafkafe hafkafeyadü mayadü.

Obviously not the same language, but a real feat if it's made up. The Fḩ in words like Fḩaemaz looks like a possible diagnostic feature.μηδείς (talk) 02:53, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

The Ḩ article was created by User:에멜무지로 who has been indef blocked for creating vandalistic redirects. I wonder if this current situation is related or not. --Jayron32 02:56, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I am very surprised (or not at all surprised) that this user was indefinitely blocked. There is not a single warning on his talk page, and no evidence his edits were not in good faith. μηδείς (talk) 05:44, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

There were many warnings on his talk page. Just not on the most recent version of it. --Jayron32 12:54, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Nyttend, FYI, ḩ is just the lower case of Ḩ. On my computer, both links lead to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ḩ which in turn redirects to cedilla. I've seen that letter as a possible transliteration for Arabic ح, for example the Estonian Wikipedia uses it for that purpose, as in et:Ḩizb Allāh. --Theurgist (talk) 10:31, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

My opinion: text looks like transliterated (see ISO 9). The inverse transliteration yields the text in Cyrillic. Some words are capitalized in mid-sentence. The word Ḩwýkkipidiyainü should be googleable, but it is not. A prankster. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 15:12, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

"Ḩ" may appear when some Caucasian or Arabic languages are transliterated into Latin. A better question is, are there any languages where you can find even two, let alone three, of "Ḩ", "ḿ" (M acute), and "ǘ" (u with diaeresis and acute)? As far as I can tell, there aren't. --Itinerant1 (talk) 03:40, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Looking for deverbal "reversible" adjectives that can take "-able"

I'm looking for a word like "unlockable"--i.e., a word that's part of a 4-word set like {lock, unlock, lockable, unlockable}, where all those words are real words. (So, for instance, something like wash/washable would not work, since there's not unwash/unwashable; likewise wrap/unwrap aren't good since there's not wrappable/unwrappable.) I've already thought of undo, untie, unlock, unload, and unscrew (although I am a bit skeptical about "screwable/unscrewable"); I just need one more.

I'm not sure exactly what it's for--a friend of mine is teaching a class and asked me to help come up with some. I assume she probably wants to illustrate the ambiguity in these compounds (i.e. un-lockable vs. unlock-able).

Thanks, rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:29, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Do, doable, undo, undoable. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 05:08, 28 October 2011 (UTC) I see you've already thought of that one, sorry. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 05:11, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

screwable and unscrewable are okay to me. Here are some other examples I can think of break, unbreak, breakable and unbreakable/ like, unlike, likeable, unlikeable/ cover, uncover, coverable, uncoverable/ load, unload, loadable, unloadable/ train, untrain, trainable, untrainable/ teach, unteach, teachable, unteachable  Meerkatakreem (talk) 07:06, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

How does one unbreak, unlike, untrain or unteach smb/smth, Meerkatakreem? -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 07:36, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

hhhhhmm remembering Toni Braxton’s song, can’t we say Unbreak my heart? :) Sample sentence of unlike and untrain is here [[8]]. The word unteach is also used here [[9]].-Meerkatakreem (talk) 09:35, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Unfriend works, thanks to facebook.μηδείς (talk) 10:19, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

• Clean, unclean, cleanable, uncleanable.
• Elect, unelect, electable, unelectable.
• Imagine, unimagine, imaginable, unimaginable.
• Mute, unmute, mutable, unmutable.
• Pot, unpot, potable, unpotable.
• Cape, uncape, capable, uncapable.
•  , un, able, unable.
• Bear, unbear, bearable, unbearable.
• Ring, unring, ringable, unringable. (OK, those last two aren't in dictionaries.)

I hope that was helpable.  Card Zero  (talk) 11:23, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Unclean isn't a verb, and potable doesn't derive from pot (that would be pottable). Angr (talk) 11:32, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Bah! I'll do some sensible ones to make up for this... furl, knit, fold, bend, reason (yes, unreason can be a verb), say, suit, wedge, work.  Card Zero  (talk) 11:38, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Hm... for some, the "un-" adjective isn't actually the reverse of the plain adjective (e.g. workable/unworkable, the un- adjective means "not workable", not "able to be *unworked"; likewise for likeable/unlikeable); sorry I didn't specify that in mmy first message.

But regardless, I think this is enough to work with. Thanks for the suggestions, everyone! rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:21, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, perusing wikt:Category:English_verbs&pagefrom=um could be a good start. There, one can readily find unbind, uncheck, undefine, unerase, unmask, which look like plausible candidates to be ableable [sic] No such user (talk) 15:58, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

English grammatical question

I recently received a grade for a midterm essay. I was docked a few points (well... only one, really) for grammatical errors that I feel might be challengable. For instance:

What I wrote: "The scenario states for the sake of argument that the exact opposite occurs, and the criminal element in fact returns to this neighborhood.

Corrected version: "The scenario states, for the sake of argument, that the exact opposite occurs, and the criminal element, in fact, returns to this neighborhood."

Are the corrections my professor made particularly critical? Can the added commas be omitted, still making the sentence grammatically correct?--WaltCip (talk) 17:41, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Hmm. When I went to school, I learned long lists of rules for commata in German, but I was essentially told to apply commata in English "wherever you would take a breath when speaking". By that rule, yours is a bit breathless, but not actually wrong. However, your professor's version does read slightly better. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:53, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

It could also be argued that "for the sake of argument" and "in fact" are parenthetical, i.e. they could be safely excluded without altering the essential meaning of the sentence. Therefore, they must be marked as parenthetical by the use of surrounding commas (or parentheses). -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 21:15, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I prefer it with them but it looks fine without, too; to me it's a stylistic difference and I wouldn't consider the former "incorrect".

(That being said, in a classroom setting what the professor wants is what is correct. It wouldn't be appropriate to ask your professor for more points based on the advice on some random nobodies on Wikipedia.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:41, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Jack of Oz is technically right, but I'm not sure that in this day and age such phrases must be marked using parenthetical commas. I would have accepted WaltCip's version as correct, though perhaps the phrases are a bit long. To avoid using too many parenthetical commas, dashes or parentheses can sometimes be used instead: like this: "The scenario states – for the sake of argument – that the exact opposite occurs, and the criminal element, in fact, returns to this neighborhood." — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 05:29, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

My "they must be marked as parenthetical" followed upon "It could be argued that" and was meant to be seen in that light, i.e. not considered mandatory these days, but traditional grammar still has its place for those inclined to partake of its joys. Your dashful solution is just as good, btw, but it is still marking the phrase as parenthetical, which is the main issue here. The way to do it is less important. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 09:23, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I was using the dashes parenthetically in the example. My point was simply that one can relieve the tedium of too many commas with a sprinkling of paired dashes or parentheses (in the sense of round brackets). But I note that it seems fairly common nowadays to see parenthetical phrases embedded in sentences without separating punctuation. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 14:28, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I know, I know, Jack. Don't get me started. Restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses are hardly ever distinguished anymore either. A very sad development, imho. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 21:24, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm - I'd be inclined to say that 'in fact' was redundant. If the 'exact opposite' has occurred, the facts are self evident. But yes, if in doubt, say it out aloud, and if you have run out of breath halfway through your sentence, you probably need another comma or two - or some other appropriate form of punctuation (not that I'm any sort of expert...) AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:50, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Walt, in this day and age, people like to think grammar rules that they didn't make up are ridiculous and unnecessary. Or - In this day and age, people like to think grammar rules, which they didn't make up, are ridiculous and unnecessary. The difference the OP is puzzled about concerns restrictive and non-restrictive modifiers - but as the grammar police lost funding many years ago, I suppose once outside of your classroom, you can do what you please and not worry about being jailed or fined. Pity. Textorus (talk) 05:58, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I didn't say the rules were "ridiculous". :-) — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 07:00, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Nobody thinks 99% of the grammar rules they didn't make up are ridiculous and unnecessary, because they aren't consciously aware of them. Not even the most flagrant antiprescriptivist violates rules of English grammar like "the subject precedes the verb and the object follows the verb" or "You must not extract a wh-word out of a conjoined phrase" (which would result in sentences like *Who did you see John and?) or "You must aspirate voiceless stops at the beginning of a word and at the beginning of a stressed syllable". Even three- and four-year-olds, whose mastery of English is a bit wobbly, don't violate these grammatical rules. Angr (talk) 09:50, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

No offense intended, Jack; I was just thinking in general terms with my tongue-in-cheek statement. I realize that texting has made the rules of punctuation, spelling, and grammar utterly obsolete, and soon they will all be considered ridiculous relics of a vanished time, like fountain pens and buggy whips, except for a dwindling few antiquarians like me. Textorus (talk) 09:54, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Walt, please don't confuse grammar with orthography. Whether to put commas in or not is a question of orthography, not grammar. If you are native speaker of English, you will never get the grammar of (your dialect of) English wrong, although your grammar (as well as your orthography) may deviate from that of the written standard. Angr (talk) 10:05, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

If what you're saying is true, then I did not confuse grammar with orthography. My professor, however, did.--WaltCip (talk) 19:44, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

"Doesn't" vs. "does not"

This edit to Utopia: The Creation of a Nation had the edit summary of "Tone" and changed all of "doesn't use fuel" to "does not use fuel". Now bear in mind I am not a native English speaker. Is there really such a big difference between "doesn't" and "does not"? From what I have learned in school, they are pretty much interchangeable. What is the situation really like among native English speakers? JIP | Talk 20:09, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

They are interchangeable, but in more formal situations many people avoid contractions, which I'm guessing led to the "tone" description. I remember in school and college where papers wouldn't be allowed to use contractions, and many or most news articles will avoid them. Generally, contractions are fine in conversation or things like this discussion but not in more formal situations. AlexiusHoratius 20:16, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

In speech "does not" is more emphatic or imperative than "doesn't". Roger (talk) 20:22, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Contractions are much more common in spoken English. As Dodger67 says, the unshortened form is often emphatic in spoken English. However, written English is different. Contractions have an informal tone in the written language. They are appropriate for e-mails and other informal writing. I may be old-fashioned, but I don't think contractions generally work in writing that aims for an encyclopedic style. Marco polo (talk) 20:39, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Is this the same case as in colloquial Finnish? I would not think twice about saying "voiksä" to someone in person, but were I to put in writing, were it e-mail or a written or printed letter, I would always write it as "voitko sinä". But from what I learned in school, contractions in English were a fully grammaticised feature, and thus I learned I could use them just as well as the full forms. JIP | Talk 20:45, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

In spoken English, you can, but in written English contractions are quite colloquial and tend to be avoided in formal writing such as encyclopedia articles. For Wikipedia's rules, see WP:CONTRACTION. When I was first learning French at the age of 15, I asked whether contractions in French are also avoided in formal writing, i.e. whether it's acceptable to write Je ai écouté le oiseau. It isn't, so that was something I had to learn: contractions are obligatory in French, but optional in English (being used in some registers more than others). Angr (talk) 21:27, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I advise my law students to avoid contractions in their essays, as they often create an incongruous sense of informality. However, I have seen them being used in law journal articles, particularly those published in US journals. (I think my PhD supervisor would have a fit – she still feels it is better to write in the passive voice ("It is submitted that ...") rather than the active ("I submit that ...").) — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 05:33, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Watt =Vatio

In Spanish, the unit of power, Watt, is given as the Vatio, while keeping W as the symbol.Spanish language#Writing system says that "W" is only used for foreign words like "whiskey." Why wasn't "watt" given this treatment? Is "Watt" hard to pronounce in Spanish? Was there controversy when this decision was made, sometime after the 1889 standardization of the Watt as the unit of power? It seems like an unnecessary hurdle for students to learn the symbol W and unit vatio, with a different initial letter, but I suppose no worse the us learning that electrical "current" in "Amperes" is represented by "I". Edison (talk) 23:19, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Not that this necessarily helps, but the Spanish wikipedia says this spelling resulted from the Castellanización of the word, i.e. its assimilation into Castilian Spanish. My guess would be that although it was derived from James Watt (which the article states), it by itself is not a proper noun, so they were free to drop the "w" and convert it into what they thought was a good Spanish-sounding equivalent. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:34, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I have my doubts that any decision was made about the pronounciation of the word. Language generally is driven by usage and almost certainly the word was pronounced with an initial 'v' for ease and this became the norm, (as BB says). There are other examples, 'váter' (toilet) is a corruption of 'water' from 'water closet', 'Varsovia' for 'Warsaw' and 'vagón' from 'wagon'. Richard Avery (talk) 08:02, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Nah, “Varsovia” is not the right example, for “Warsaw” is originally pronounced with a “v”, even if English has butchered it. – b_jonas 09:03, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

• Also, Vatio is not an exception in Spanish. For example: Ampere – Amperio, Coulomb – Culombio, Curie - Curio, Farad – Faradio, Henry – Henrio, Hertz – Hercio / Hertzio, Joule – Julio, Newton - Neutonio / Neutón, Ohm – Ohmio, Volt – Voltio, Weber – Weberio. Vatio is probably just the most evident one. This kind of adaptation is also present in English: after all, volt should actually be volta. --151.41.239.148 (talk) 10:58, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Heh. We could probably have dealt with it better if Volta had been an Englishman named Bassingthwaighte-Featherstonehaugh. Also, "amp" is much more common colloquially than "ampere" (let alone "Ampère"). -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 21:15, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

AFAIK "amp" normally means amplifier rather than Ampère. --Belchman (talk) 12:23, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

October 29

"irreversible" word pairs

The question above about reversible verb/adjective combinations made me think of something only tangentially related: there are a number of suffixes and prefixes which usually invert the meaning of an adjective (the prefixes "un-" and "in-", the suffix pair "-full"/"-less", etc), but there are a couple words that for various reasons work differently. The first example that comes to mind is "valuable" and "invaluable" meaning basically the same, my native German has the wonderfully mysterious pair of "willkürlich" meaning "arbitrary" and "unwillkürlich" meaning "immediately". I am sure there are a number other word pairs like these, but I'm not sure what I would call such a pair so I find it a bit difficult to search for a list. Is there a list like that somewhere? Or, failing that, how many such pairs can you think of? I'm just asking out of idle curiosity, so examples from any language are welcome. -- Ferkelparade π 00:13, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Most common is "flammable" and "inflammable." More fun are words which are their own antonyms - like "fast." Which can mean "not quite" or "entirely", "rapid" or "immobile" etc. Collect (talk) 00:23, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Ferkelparade, the valuable/invaluable pair don't really have the same meaning, although they are related. Valuable usually means it has a high value; it could also mean it's capable of being valued but its value per se may be quite low, e.g. a newspaper. Invaluable means its value is so high it can't be measured, or its quality is such that it's beyond measure. Everything that's invaluable is by definition valuable (1st defn), but not everything that's valuable is invaluable. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 00:55, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your invaluable comment, Jack, but I'm well aware of that - that's why I said "basically" :) Something that's invaluable is so valuable it becomes in-valuable - I love the way of thinking behind that. Flammable/inflammable is a good example, although I guess the in-prefix in "inflammable" only looks like a negation (if my tiny bits of half-remembered Latin can be trusted, in-flammare almost literally means "set on fire", the in- in this case marks direction, not negation). The funny thing about English "fast" is that it works almost exactly the same as German "fix", although the words are not etymologically related -- Ferkelparade π 02:38, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

"Valuable" and "invaluable" would correspond to "pricey" and "priceless". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:09, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

This source says that "inflammable" was the original word, but American industrial leaders switched to use of "flammable" in the 1950's, to avoid dangerous confusion by the public. I do remember seeing gasoline trucks marked "inflammable" as a kid, which was indeed confusing. Textorus (talk) 05:48, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

That has been my impression for some time too, and I'm glad you've found some evidence that confirms it. (Of course, it would be rather strange to have signs telling people that something was not likely to go up in flames.) — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 07:03, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Yes, I was familiar with "inflammable" (= able to be inflamed or set on fire), and I remember being confused by the new word "flammable" -- did it mean able to be "flamed" without being set on fire? I am no longer confused, of course (at least, not about flammable). "Inflammable" has been used since 1605, and "flammable" since 1813, but the latter rarer usage was revived in the UK by the British Standards Institution in 1959, probably following the American lead. Dbfirs 07:09, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Finnish has some of this kind of weird word pairs. The suffixes (suffices? suffigi?) "-kas" and "-llinen" usually mean "with", and the suffix "-ton" means "without". However, "onnekas" means "lucky" but "onnellinen" means "happy". "Onneton" means "unhappy", there is no single word for "unlucky". Also, both "lapsekas" and "lapsellinen" mean "childish", but "lapseton" means "childless". JIP | Talk 09:54, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Only slightly related, but when I was in Germany this weekend, my friends kept misunderstanding my use of the phrase 'not bad'. While an American might say 'freaking awesome', a Britischer would say 'not bad'. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 10:04, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

When people answer "Not too bad" to being asked how they are (a very common response down here), they're actually using a triply negative construction to get across that they're OK and have no particular complaints. Strange how language works sometimes. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 21:09, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

(see our article on litotes, though the reponses "not too bad" and "not so bad" are not used in quite the same way as true litotes) Dbfirs 00:17, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

German translation help

I made a few recent edits in the article Boundaries between continents. One subject that caught my attention was the history of the boundary between Europe and Asia. The article contained an unsourced claim about the boundary proposed by Philip Johan von Strahlenberg in 1725 which appeared dubious to me. Internet search produced a few different accounts with varying degrees of credibility. I've updated the article to include the choice that seemed most credible, but I think that it would be best to verify against the primary source.

Here's the problem. The primary source is written in 18th century German. I've been unable to find any recent translations into languages that I know. I've been able to find the original text:

http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader?id=EPMOAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader

My German is very poor, the blackletter typeface throws me completely off balance, Google text recognition is not always reliable, and there seem to be quite a few 18th century words which aren't recognized by Google Translate. Nevertheless, I've been able to find and roughly translate the relevant section: Section VI, paragraph XVI, page 106.

I'd like to ask a native German speaker to review the page and nearby pages and confirm or deny these statements:

• The section discusses a boundary between Europe and Asia that follows Ural mountains, Samara river, Volga river, jumps from Volga to Don (Tanais) around 49 degrees of latitude, and then goes down the Don River to the Black Sea.

• This boundary is presented as an author's proposal rather than a discussion of someone else's work.

Many thanks. --Itinerant1 (talk) 01:35, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Your interpretation is almost correct, he follows the Ural from North to South, then he says that the mountain range forks at about the Samara river and continues westward as a series of smaller mountains (he counts the hilly west bank of the Volga as a continuation of the mountain range), then becomes a series of higher mountains around 49 degrees latitude (he then says that that mountain range reaches up to the Don, but that's rather incidental to his argument - he follows the mountains, not the rivers). For context, in section 15 he talks about other geographers wanting to move the boundary between Europe and Asia eastward to the Ob river, then rejects this idea because the mountains are in his opinion a much better natural boundary (and quips that the other geographers apparently didn't know about this convenient mountain range). In section 16, he proposes a boundary following the mountain ranges and says that his proposal has the added benefit of matching the Europe/Asia border as defined in antiquity (without quoting any specific authors, he just mentions "die Alten" - the old authors, a standard phrase for everyone from classical antiquity) -- Ferkelparade π 02:29, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Great, thanks a lot. --Itinerant1 (talk) 03:42, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Translation into Latin

What is the general practice for making up new Latin words, to be used in narration (as opposed to taxonomy)? For example, Winnie ille Pu is a Latin translation of a Winnie the Pooh book. Winnie and Pu are both obviously not Classical Latin words, and both look like they'd be third declension nouns (I can't check). Since writing something in Latin about modern things would necessarily require some creation of new words, as well as fitting proper names into a declension system, are there generally accepted practices about going about this? Would you just use the English word as a third declension nominative and then devise a genitive for the stem? Or do you try to make it fit first or second declension if it sounds good? Or are there no practices, and it's just a free for all? Any information on this will be appreciated! 68.54.4.162 (talk) 06:55, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I can't speak to the general question, but in the book, Winnie and (surprisingly) even ille are undeclinable, while Pu takes second-declension endings outside nominative and vocative, thus: nominative/vocative Pu, genitive Pui, accusative Pum, dative/ablative Puo. Angr (talk) 09:38, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

That's weird, since ille is fully declinable otherwise. Anyway, the best person to contact here might be Iustinus (talk · contribs), who knows a lot about composition and conversation in modern Latin. We also have a contemporary Latin article which might help. The Vatican has a "Lexicon Recentis Latinitatis", and there is also a popular online "Vocabula Computatralia". For the creation of new words, there is some disagreement about what to do...for example, Mountford's Bradley's Arnold Latin Prose Composition (a complicated title, but a good textbook) claims that any modern English sentence can be translated into Latin using purely classical words. As proof, it translates a sentence about bullets using the Latin "sagitta", which normally means a dart or arrow. Personally I think that's a bit preposterous, and making up Latin words is perfectly legitimate, as long as it's still clear what you're referring to. There are hundreds of medieval and Renaissance Latin words that didn't exist in classical Latin, so we should still be able to invent new words if necessary. As for what declension to use, well that depends on the word. In late classical Latin, and also in medieval and Renaissance Latin, they often used the fourth declension to create new words. But if a word fits into a first or second declension pattern, there's no reason you couldn't use those. I imagine the third declension would actually be the hardest and least useful for new words. But to get the best answer, definitely contact Iustinus, he can help, and put you in touch with other neo-Latinists. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:45, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Why do you think third would be the most difficult? I figured the flexibility of the nominative would make it the most attractive. Do you know why they, as you say, used the fourth declension to make new medieval and Renaissance words? 68.54.4.162 (talk) 20:30, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually I have no idea, now that I think about it. The third is a rather weird declension, since things can be masculine, feminine, or neuter, and there are more variations in the endings than in the other cases. But then, the fourth is a little strange too, since it borrows some forms from the third declension, and it can also be all three genders. Newly-created fourth declensions were always masculine though (apparatus, pontificatus, etc). I don't know why they would choose that over the second declension. Adam Bishop (talk) 23:14, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

In ancient Latin/Greek translations of the Bible, some names were treated as indeclinable (e.g. Moab), while some were given case endings and declined (e.g. Jesus). I'm sure there are discussions of what to do with new words on Latin Wikipedia... AnonMoos (talk) 15:03, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

So was Iesvs treated as a regular 2nd-declension noun, then? Textorus (talk) 18:53, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Interesting example. Iesus (as a loanword from Greek) is declined in Latin using a conversion of its Greek declension. Nominative Iesūs, genitive Iesū. This happened, I'd say, only because Greek was a language widely familiar to Romans. Words from other languages didn't get to retain their original declensions in that way. Andrew Dalby 19:12, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

In fact, it's Iesu in all cases except nominative (Iesus) and accusative (Iesum). Angr (talk) 19:42, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Ah, that must explain uses like "Jesu [sic], Joy of Man's Desiring"; they're using the vocative case ending of the Latin/Greek word even they're actually writing in English. Weird. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 21:02, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I think in that case they're just copying it from the German: Jesu, meiner Seelen Wonne. ElMa-sa (talk) 22:38, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

OK, thanks. But whatever the reason, why would they choose to render "Jesus" in a foreign language, when creating a title in the English language? -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 22:59, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Textorus -- It was effectively treated as an irregular 4th-declension noun... AnonMoos (talk) 23:12, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I've been asked to comment. In short there is no one way to do this. Some possibilities include:

1. Just use classical terms. There is a long tradition of attempting to compose this way, and it has mixed results. The Vatican dictionary for instance, is notorious for using long circumlocutions like valida potio Slavica or tabula dilucida descriptoria. But often a suitable classical term can be found, for instance infurnibulum "a device for inhaling the smoke of burned herbs" can easily be used for pipe. Sagitta for "bullet" is of course absurd, but given the history of the term, it is perhaps unsurprising that glans "sling bullet" is the most common translation. Likewise raeda for "car," both of which originally meant "carriage."
2. Latin didn't fall out of common use until about the 19th(±1) century, which covers an awful lot of things Cicero had no inkling of: stapes "stirrup," sclopetum "gun," scacci "chess."
3. Borrow from Greek, e.g. autocinetum "automobile," tromocrata "terrorist," both terms used in Modern Greek.
4. Coin something new, preferably something plausible, e.g. motorium "motor." (Most neo-Latinists seem to prefer the totally obscure suffix -trum, but I eschew it except in the word computatrum "computer")
5. Don't Latinize the word at all. This is a last resort, but occasionally trying to come up with a Latin word at all is absurd or a waste of effort, e.g. "cosplay," "quark," "uruk-hai" (which is not to say no one's tried to Latinize those ;) ). These are normally left indeclinable, and in my opinion should be written in Italics.

There are different schools of thought as to how often one should use each of the above methods, and there is no one authority for Neo-Latin (but for a good list of reference books, see la:Lexica Neolatina.) On the Latin wikipedia we'll generally accept any term found in a reasonably reputable source, and wherever possible we list alternate terms too.

I hope that helps. --Iustinus (talk) 05:43, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

When the name is evident from the description

I'm looking for a word or phrase that is used in etymology when the name is evident from the description. For example you could say the big-headed turtle is so named because it has a big head. There is some word or phrase to cover this (I've read it in some articles but can't remember where). Thanks for any help. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 12:40, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Judging by a Google search, a term that seems to have some currency is "self-descriptive name", as used here with regard to warblers, for instance. The only significant use of it I can find in Wikipedia, however, is at Street or road name#Self-descriptive names. This may be more informal than what you're looking for. Deor (talk) 13:29, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Definitely not it. When you find the word(s) it will occur on wikipedia articles about animals to explain the etymology of it's name. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 14:26, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Something like 'allegorical' or 'figurative etymology' Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 14:26, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Onomatopoeia is a meaning based on a sound. I'm looking for a similiar word or phrase that is a meaning based on the visual features. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 14:50, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

"Ostensive", maybe? --Itinerant1 (talk) 21:16, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Pretty good effort, but not quite it. Thanks for your effort. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 22:47, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Antonym of Populous?

Is there an antonym for populous that means thinly populated rather than uninhabited? --CGPGrey (talk) 13:03, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

"One-horse" works for small towns. "Underpeopled" seems to be dead on, however. Collect (talk) 13:43, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

"Sparsely populated" or just "sparse" seem like often used terms as well. --Jayron32 14:13, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Nitpicking here ... "sparsely populated" is an antonyom of "populous", but "sparse" alone is not, because it describes the people not the place. (Ie "populous city", "sparse people") Mitch Ames (talk) 22:33, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

At first I thought this is about some Presocratic philosopher, like Thales of Miletus or Pythagoras of Samos. Antonym of Populous - sounds about right, doesn't it? 80.122.178.68 (talk) 18:53, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, none of his works survived, so our knowledge of him is very sparse. Textorus (talk) 19:00, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Flummery

There is a group of vaguely similar words related to foodstuffs and nonsense: the Irish "plámas", the French "blancmange" and "flan", the Welsh "llymru", and the English "flummery". Which of these are etymologically related, and in what way are they related? I'm particularly curious about "plámas", which is absent from the OED. LANTZY^TALK 15:47, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

"Flummery" is an old borrowing from the Welsh word (which is pronounced something like [ɬəmɾi] i.e. "hlum-ree"). "Flan" is ultimately cognate with the word "flat" (it's an old borrowing from French, and Romance langs got it from Germanic langs). "Blancmange" just means "white food" or "white eating." So there's three unconnected things there. I don't know about "plamas" though... --Miskwito (talk) 20:53, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Dictionary.com is often a good resource for etymology stuff, because it shows you the RHD info, the Merriam-Webster info, and the etymonline info for each word. Frankly I don't trust the OED as much as some of those other sources! --Miskwito (talk) 20:55, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

... even though it is the source of much of the information in etymonline? I agree that comparing opinions on lost etymologies is useful. "plámás" means flattery in Gaelic. Dbfirs 23:53, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Possesive proper nouns in the genitive

If you have King's College, shortened to merely "King's", and King's has some students, are you to say "King's' students", "King's students" or something else (if you don't want to say "students of King's")? I've read about this before, but it's very hard to search for. I'm sure there's a discussion out there. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 16:10, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Just King's. The extra apostrophe would be ghastly overkill. Personally, if I were writing a very formal paper, I would either use "students of King's" or "King's College students." By the same token, you would not want to write something like "My Levi's' zipper got stuck." Enuf is enuf. Textorus (talk) 18:49, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

It's not overkill, it is just wrong. In the second case the name of the school is being used as a noun adjunct, not a possesive. You don't say "Cambridge's Students" or "Harvard's Students", you say "cambridge Students" or "Harvard Students". μηδείς (talk) 19:03, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Modern custom in speech and writing prefers the phrase "Harvard students," but you might very well at some time want to say "Harvard's president," Harvard's faculty," "Harvard's reputation," etc. Textorus (talk) 19:11, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

See:

• Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 September 7#Possessive form
• Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 October 31#Reese'ses

--Theurgist (talk) 21:06, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

As a King's College alumnus, I have wondered this many times myself. (It not only applies to the college, but to businesses such as McDonald's.) μηδείς's explanation for formal usage makes sense, but not all writing is formal. For example, one may speak of Harvard's football team. But what of the equivalent team at King's? Is it necessary to use the full appellation, as in King's College's football team? One usually doesn't go so far as to say Harvard University's football team. (By the way, Go Monarchs!) — Michael J 09:23, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Hungarian pronunciation

How is János Bolyai pronounced? --70.141.193.98 (talk) 20:50, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article actually has the IPA pronunciation, which is [ˈjaː.noʃ ˈboː.jɒ.i]. A very rough equivalent, if you're not familiar with the IPA, would be something like "YAH-noesh BOE-yaw-ee".

October 30

Another Chinese reading question

• Wai-tung Gao (高伟同) is a character in The Wedding Banquet - Is the final character read as "tóng" or "tòng"?

WhisperToMe (talk) 00:13, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

At least two easy ways exist to find out the pinyin of a Chinese character.

Google Translate suggests "tóng", and so does wikt:同#Mandarin. It may need to be confirmed by a Chinese speaker. I can't do it, because I'm not one. --Theurgist (talk) 11:54, 30 October 2011 (UTC)