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November 30

U Thant

Given that the MLCTS version of his name is u:san and the IPA of the Burmese pronunciation of his name was Burmese pronunciation: [ʔú θa̰ɴ], why is there a "t" on the end of his name in the Latin alphabet, and thus why do we pronounce his name /ˌuː ˈθɑːnt/? Nyttend (talk) 06:02, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

In non-scientific transliteration of Burmese, syllable with creaky tone that end in a nasal are often transcribed as ending in nt because creaky-tone syllables are shorter than high- and low-tone syllables and end with slight glottalization. A more narrow phonetic transcription of /θa̰ɴ/ would be [θã̰ˀ]. Adding a t in the transcription encourages English speakers to cut the syllable short and glottalize it a bit, allowing it to come closer to the Burmese pronunciation. It works the other way round, too: English syllables that end in /nt/ in English are usually rendered into Burmese with a creaky tone and final nasal, e.g. the Burmese word for pint is /pa̰ɪɴ/, while pine is /pàɪɴ/ with low tone. Angr (talk) 07:16, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

It should also be noted that the "nt" bit in Burmese is very close to the way that syllable would be pronounced in French. English is not the only language which uses the Latin alphabet, and if I were pronouncing the "Thant" name in French, I'd get that last sound almost correct. --Jayron32 07:19, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

English isn't the only language which uses the Latin alphabet, but it's the Latin-alphabet-using language with which Burmese speakers were in longest and closest contact. And in French, it wouldn't matter whether you transliterated it thant or than; the two transliterations would suggest the exact same pronunciation. In English, on the other hand, you can use than to transliterate /θáɴ/ and /θàɴ/ (both of which are much longer in duration and have no glottalization) and thant to transliterate /θa̰ɴ/ (which is shorter in duration and has glottalization). Angr (talk) 07:30, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

She had a good innings

My friend rang me last weekend to tell me his 94-year old mother had died. He said what a lot of people say about recently departed loved ones who reached a substantial age: "Well, she had a good innings".

I got to thinking about this expression. It's redlinked at wiktionary. I feel certain it's a cricketing analogy, mainly because it's always innings the way I hear it, and not the baseball word inning. Do Americans use this expression, and do they singularise it to inning? If not, what would be an equivalent expression in countries that do not play much cricket? -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 08:28, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I can't imagine an American saying of a woman who died at 94, "She had a good inning" (or "innings", for that matter). I think we would just say "She had a good life". No sports metaphor occurs to me at all. Angr (talk) 09:48, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I've never heard it either (I'm not American but we don't play cricket in Canada either). We could say "had a good run" (or a "long run"), but I don't know if that's actually a sports metaphor. Adam Bishop (talk) 09:50, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

According to Innings, the literal baseball equivalent is At bat, but I've never heard the phrase "had a good at bat" used to describe someone's life. It stands to reason, given that a "good at bat" is not defined by the length of stay at the plate, whereas staying at the crease for a long time is part of a good innnings.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 09:58, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Would it be fair to say that for non-cricket followers this expression would go straight through to the keeper? HiLo48 (talk) 10:40, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

It's certainly a common phrase in England (and Australia) - [1]. Cricket was the first organised and well reported sport in England, much more widely understood, popular and central in English social life 100+ years ago than it is today. Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:46, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure HiLo48 can verify it's an expression that's known to all Australians. I can only assume it's known wherever cricket is a national sport, but that awaits confirmation. Now we have to track down its first use. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 11:45, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely. It's one of dozens of wonderful metaphors our language has taken from cricket. There's a goodly collection here. HiLo48 (talk) 15:54, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

The earliest use of this particular sense that the OED records is from 1870: "She's had remarkably good innings, and persons can't be expected to live for ever" (Mary Bridgman, Robert Lynne). Note the plural rather than singular use of innings in this British novel, where the singular "a remarkably good innings" might be expected. The earlier metaphorical uses cited refer to a particular "turn" or opportunity, as in The Pickwick Papers: "It's my innings now, gov'rnor, and as soon as I catches hold o' this here Trotter, I'll have a good 'un." Deor (talk) 12:42, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't think the plural in the 1870 source is remarkable. If you look at the etymological explanation in the innings article ("a gathering in"), it appears to be basically a Germanic word for collection(s), which would of course have been "in-ing" at the start, formed from in as if it were a verb. I think it would make sense to say that an innings consists of several collections (or collection phases) distinguished by the different batsmen. Hence innings in the plural, which then gradually became a singular in the UK but remained a plural in some of the colonies. Hans Adler 13:09, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Interesting question, this. I'd like to know if it's used in India or Pakistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa, etc. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 12:18, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

In baseball an "inning" typically only lasts for a few minutes, so it would not be a very natural metaphor for a full lifetime. A cricket innings, as I understand it, typically last for a lot longer. Looie496 (talk) 18:05, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

The longer the better, just like lifetimes. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 20:27, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

According to this, Hanif Mohammad of Pakistan batted for 970 minutes against the West Indies in Bridgetown in 1957-58. THAT was a good innings.

Of course, in actual cricket it's not so much the length of time you stay in but the number of runs you get while your'e there that matters. A quick scoring batsman can achieve the same results in half the time as a slow scorer. In life, though, someone who achieved great things in a remarkably short life would never be said to have had "a good innings". The expression applies only to people who reach an advanced age, regardless of their achievements or lack thereof. In some cases, just about the only thing that can said of a non-descript non-achiever of great age is that they had a good innings. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 22:11, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

The length of time you stay at the crease can matter an awful lot, if you're playing for a draw. Perhaps you remember Defiant England cling on for draw? Alansplodge (talk) 00:43, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's true. Staying in at all costs, even at the cost of getting no runs at all, is sometimes crucial. But typically, it's runs that count. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 01:44, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

In which case Atherton's Jo'burg knock satisfies both criteria. Ericoides (talk) 07:07, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

The numbers might also be relevant - a long life is around 80-100 years, which would be considered a good score for a cricketer, while a baseball player's score is more likely to be single digits. 59.108.42.46 (talk) 07:13, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

But in life, 97, 98, and 99 are considered a good innings while in cricket these scores are often a disappointment, such is the importance of a century. Ericoides (talk) 07:42, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

The batsman may indeed be disappointed to be dismissed in the "nervous 90s", and it's possible that the batsman could be criticised for slow scoring or a poor dismissal, but objectively and in the match context, scoring say 90+ will still nearly always be "a good innings". Geoffrey Boycott did once get dropped by England for making a large score too slowly for the needs of the team, but that must have been 30 years ago and it sticks in the mind for being unusual. --Dweller (talk) 17:06, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I'll confirm that I've not once heard this phrase in the U.S. Wnt (talk) 14:22, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Why isn't Cricket played in Canada?

Did Canadians play similar games to Cricket but fail to codify it? Did they accept codified cricket in limited circumstances, but fail to generalise it? Why isn't Canada a great test cricketing nation? Why is my vision of Canadian cricket equivalent to my vision of United States of American cricket? Fifelfoo (talk) 10:50, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Further, why aren't Malaysia and Singapore real forces in international cricket? Fifelfoo (talk) 10:53, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

We have an article about Cricket in Canada, which I actually might as well not even link to, as it's not particularly informative. It used to be more popular, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, at least in Upper Canada/Ontario where there was a larger British population. I happened to be reading the sports sections of early twentieth century Canadian newspapers a few weeks ago, for an entirely different purpose, but I noticed that they did report on cricket games in Canada (and abroad). I wonder if it had anything to do with Charles Lennox, 4th Duke of Richmond, who was governor of Canada and a cricketeer in the early nineteenth century. But baseball has been popular in Canada since the 19th century as well - see the slightly more informative Baseball in Canada. There was a Canadian form of baseball that was a mix between American baseball and cricket, but the American form was adopted in Canada fairly early. Apparently it was also in Canada that a modification of rugby became Canadian/American football in the nineteenth century. I guess we just like to make up our own rules! In my experience, the only people who play cricket in Canada today are southeast Asian and Caribbean immigrants. Everyone else plays hockey, baseball, soccer, and (Canadian/American) football. Adam Bishop (talk) 11:14, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

You might want to look at the website of Cricket Canada; "Formerly named the Canadian Cricket Association (Established 1892)". They seem to be doing they're best: "In 2009, over 20,000 children throughout the country played cricket in both school and community based development programs.". We do have an article on Cricket Canada. It says; "Cricket was once the most popular sport in Canada until the early 20th Century before it was overtaken by hockey. Cricket was so popular it was declared the national sport by John A. Macdonald, the first Prime Minister of Canada. Cricket, today, is a popular minority sport in Canada, although it is growing. Cricket is the fastest growing sport in Canada. Canada has well over 40,000 cricketers across Canada." Alansplodge (talk) 12:08, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I can't really give you the "why" you're looking for, but international cricket is divided into the first-class nations (England, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh and possibly Zimbabwe), and the Associate nations (which is basically everyone else). The International Cricket Council is the governing body. I suspect the answer is more to do with the history of cricket rather than anything intrinsic to the nations you mention. However, both Malaysia and Singapore aren't exactly populous countries, and with cricket, the more population a country has, the more likely that country is to be successful. --TammyMoet (talk) 13:32, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Malaysia has a larger population than Australia, so that argument doesn't really work.... Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:52, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Aren't we missing a fairly obvious element here – the weather? Cricket needs sunshine and dry wickets. I would have thought the Canadian climate would be a factor. --Viennese Waltz 14:50, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

"Sunshine and dry wickets" being a well known feature of England, of course.....  ??!! Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:06, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I was going to insert a caveat along those lines, actually. But in the end I couldn't be bothered. England has a temperate climate with just about enough sun and absence of rain in the summer months to enable a full season's cricket to be played. I'm no expert on the climate of Canada, but I would have thought there was too much snow and ice there all year round. --Viennese Waltz 15:12, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, not really, and other summer sports like baseball, soccer, and football are popular. It's not climate, as much as geography and culture (being close to and influenced by the US). (Oops, as Marco has already explained below.) Adam Bishop (talk) 17:34, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Average max temp in July: Toronto 25C, London 22C. Average rainfall in July: Toronto 62mm[2] London 57mm[3]. Alansplodge (talk) 17:29, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

According to some Singaporeans I've been talking to, cricket in Singapore has always been dominated by the direct British influence; for example, the coaches (and teachers at schools that took charge of cricket) were often British. This gives a facade without cricket really catching on among the populace. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 13:35, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Shouldn't this thread be at WP:RD/E? Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:45, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Or possibly even Humanities or Miscellaneous. Curious how a cricket question ended up here. -- the Great Gavini 10:42, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Entertainment : Sports, popular culture........ Because User:Fifelfoo started it, probably following the previous thread, and no-one has moved it..... Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:46, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think climate is really an issue in Canada. The regions where most Canadians live do not have snow and ice year round. These regions have mostly mild and pleasant weather from late May through September. Probably a bigger issue is cultural differences from other Commonwealth countries. Since the late 19th century, Canada has had neither a substantial body of English troops and colonial administrators, who were instrumental in spreading cricket in Asia and Africa, nor, relative to the population, a large influx of migrants from England. (More so from Ireland and Scotland, where cricket is less popular, or from continental Europe, where it was almost unknown.) Meanwhile, baseball, a similar sport, was indigenous to Canada, and radio and TV broadcasts from the United States (within range of Canada's largest cities) would have boosted baseball's popularity and done nothing for cricket. As Adam Bishop says, cricket's recent revival in Canada is largely due to recent immigration from Commonwealth countries in Asia and the Caribbean. Marco polo (talk) 16:06, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

The question isn't "why is cricket unpopular in Malaysia?" but why is cricket so popular in the Indian subcontinent. Outside there (and the West Indies where cricket is fading in popularity), cricket is largely confined to the British and their descendents. Other more populous British colonies like Nigeria and Tanzania play cricket a bit but prefer other sports and aren't leading forces in the game. Malaysia may seem close to India but it has a very different culture both from India and from the UK. Canada, as already mentioned, is subject to vast influences from its south, which is also why they tend to speak American English rather than British, and have a few other American traits. --Colapeninsula (talk) 17:07, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Fifelfoo -- as a practical matter, cricket and baseball seem to occupy somewhat the same sporting niche, so that countries that enthusiastically embrace baseball don't usually seem to be cricket powerhouses... AnonMoos (talk) 00:57, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

This is veering even further off-topic, but my impression has been that most of the West Indies are split between great interest and talent in baseball (supplying many recruits every year to U.S. Major League Baseball, especially from the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Cuba) and great interest and talent in cricket (I remember the astonishment on The Times [of London]'s sports page twenty-odd years ago when The Ashes (England) actually defeated the West Indies!) Obviously this has much to do with differences between British-colonised islands and those dominated or occupied by the U.S. after the departure of Spain, Denmark, France or other Continental powers. I have no idea if the Virgin Islands' athletic interest is split between the U.S. and U.K. halves, nor what the sporting preferences are in current and recent French or Dutch possessions.

Since such a large proportion of the world over many races, cultures and continents (India, Japan, Jamaica, Mexico, New Zealand, Taiwan, Zimbabwe) seems divided between baseball fanatics and cricket fanatics, I've often thought that the two sports should unite to gain representation in future summer Olympics. Men's baseball and women's softball were represented for a few Olympic Games (1992-2008, most won by non-U.S. teams), but they've since been demoted to secondary status and will not be played in the 2012 or 2016 Games. Cricket, now followed by a billion people, was scheduled for the 1896, 1900 and 1904 Games, but only played in 1900, although more as part of the 1900 World's Fair (Exposition Universelle) than of the concurrent Paris Olympics. —— Shakescene (talk) 23:18, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

"The Ashes" is a biennial competition between England and Australia - not another name for the England cricket team. But you're right, the West Indies cricket team is a side made up of Commonwealth nations in the region, including Guyana which is on the mainland of South America. "The Windies" used to regularly beat England at cricket, much to the delight of the UK's large Carribbean community. They do indeed play cricket in the British Virgin Islands and apparently the US Virgin Islands too - see Leeward Islands cricket team. Alansplodge (talk) 10:36, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

"Since such a large proportion of the world over many races, cultures and continents... seems divided between baseball fanatics and cricket fanatics, I've often thought that the two sports should unite..." LOL. The two sports may once have had a common origin, but they are now radically far distant from each other in rules, styles and procedures. Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:48, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't suggesting that cricket and baseball should become a single sport, just that (since they have very few turf wars) they might unite in asking/lobbying the IOC to admit both sports (or counting softball, all three) as separate, individual events. —— Shakescene (talk) 04:39, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I regularly see cricket being played here in Surrey, always by Indian guys mind you. So it's not unheard of. As for why we don't play it much, I think climate probably has something to do with it. We're more into hockey, don'tcha know. Vranak (talk) 22:30, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm guessing you mean Surrey not Surrey ;-) Alansplodge (talk) 02:29, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Hush now team my baby's a sleepin'

Maybe got a dream worth a keepin'

Just cut down the steam till you're creepin' at a slow clip clop

In that shiny little Surrey with the fringe on the top

"Surry down to a Stoned Soul Picnic" —— Shakescene (talk) 04:49, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

"Playing The Race Card" equivalents?

On Race card, it is stated that "Playing the race card is an idiomatic phrase that refers to exploitation of either racist or (more frequently) anti-racist attitudes to gain a personal advantage, typically by falsely accusing others of racism against oneself." What happens if a person is falsely accused of sexism or homophobia? Are there linguistic equivalents to the race card but applies to sex and sexual orientation?

Something that would mean the following: "Blah blah is an idiomatic phrase that refers to exploitation of either sexist or (more frequently) anti-feminist attitudes to gain a personal advantage, typically by falsely accusing others of sexism against oneself," OR "Blah blah is an idiomatic phrase that refers to exploitation of either homophobic or (more frequently) anti-gay attitudes to gain a personal advantage, typically by falsely accusing others of homophobia against oneself."

For example, suppose a young male student (who happens to be gay) likes to play video games and ignores doing his homework assignments. His grade drops sufficiently, and he fails the class. He cares less about his grades, because he is so obsessed with video games and those things cause his downfall, not his gayness. But he accuses the teacher of "homophobia". What is the terminology for this kind of situation? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.107.190.84 (talk) 16:56, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Also, is this solely an English expression? Are there foreign equivalents that mean roughly the same thing? 164.107.190.84 (talk) 16:39, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I think that "playing the race card" is itself a series of words of questionable significance. But when calling someone "homophobic" I think one is raising the same specter of "false accusation" unless substantiation is included. Bus stop (talk) 16:45, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Playing the gender card, playing the homophobia card. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:59, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

In German we don't say "the race card" specifically, we use the more general term "die Opferkarte spielen" (literally "playing the victim card"). This can encompass race/gender/ sexual orientation/any other issues - is "playing the victim card" idiomatic in English? I always assumed it was, but seeing your question I'm not so sure anymore -- Ferkelparade π 17:00, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Playing the victim. We do not have the equivalent of "race card" in our languages, but we do have the more generalized equivalent nagpakamartyr. Derived from English and roughly translated as "to act as if you were martyred", used in situations where someone deliberately adopts the position of the downtrodden in the hope of gaining sympathy.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 17:08, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't think "playing the victim" is quite the same, as it fails to convey that the person is accusing somebody of attacking them for a class to which they belong. I concur with "playing the X card", where X is racism, sexism, homophobia, or any other class which is traditionally discriminated against. StuRat (talk) 04:16, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

There is a distinction to be made between playing a role (like an actor, e.g. as a victim) and playing a card (i.e. making a move in a game such as poker). The latter is (perceived as) a deliberate decision.

Also, I think the OP's examples are muddled. I too understand "playing the race card" as "exploitation of either racist or (more frequently) anti-racist attitudes to gain a personal advantage". The parallels you propose, "exploitation of either sexist or (more frequently) anti-feminist attitudes" and "exploitation of either homophobic or (more frequently) anti-gay attitudes" should surely be reversed? The opposite of racist is anti-racist. The opposite of sexist is not anti-feminist but feminist. The opposite of homophobic is .. I'm not sure there is one word in common use, but for the sake of the argument, homopositive. BrainyBabe (talk) 13:35, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Since these terms are based in discrimination, why not "playing the discrimination card"? 85.151.166.212 (talk) 12:27, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Origin of word blackleg

What is the origin of blackleg, the alternative word for a scab during a labour strike? Thank you.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 17:50, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

The origin is somewhat obscure, but the derivation is probably Scottish, according to the OED. Originally "black nob" from before 1838 (nob in the sense of knobstick, but possibly associated with "nob" in the much older and still current dialectal sense of a person of some wealth or social distinction, possibly a shortening of "noble"), with the single word "blacknob" first appearing in print in The Scotsman in 1834 (" All the men employed by the iron companies were on strike, with the exception of six ‘blacknobs’."). The word then became "blackneb" and seems to have been corrupted to "blackleg" by 1844, possibly by amalgamation with the older word "blackleg" meaning a swindler. Whether the word has any direct connection with the disease in cattle or plants is anyone's guess. Dbfirs 19:01, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I haven't even heard the word before, but based on what you say one might speculate that a black nob was one who was on the side of the nobs, but whose skin colour (dark from sun and dirt) showed that he was not one of them. Hans Adler 19:16, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Not a Steeleye Span devotee then?[4] Alansplodge (talk) 23:07, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I had assumed black trousers came into it somewhere. Could nob be dialect for a cap?--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 19:37, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Well "neb" is dialect for the peak of a cap, and "nob" is slang for "head", but exactly how "blackleg" came to mean "scab, strike-breaker" is not clear. Dbfirs 22:45, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Just a guess, but the "black" might come from the custom of putting soot on your face as a disguise, a tradition still kept by mummers and molly dancers.[5] In the Rebecca Riots of the 1840s; "not all (male) members of the mob would wear women's clothes, those that did, often in white gowns, would also blacken their faces or otherwise wear masks." Or it could have been just an insult, like "blackguard". Alansplodge (talk) 22:52, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

One of the Kai Lung books has a ridiculous yet entertaining explanation purporting to trace the origin of the word to ancient China... AnonMoos (talk) 00:49, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

LOL. Seriously, though, could the etymology be idea that the blacknob/blackleg gets dirty at work and is thus recognisable? The lyrics of the folksong The Blackleg Miner seem to support this. In the case of a coal miner both head (nob) and legs get seriously black. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:02, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

The origin for "blackleg" as a strike-breaker is surely a direct derivation from the old usage of the word to mean a swindler. To union members, someone who worked for an employer whose employees were on strike was seen as swindling them out of their wages. The question is rather why the term "blackleg" was used to mean a swindler. This site claims that it derives from "ancient antipathy to the rook or crow because of its ravenousness and its feeding off cornfields. 'Rook' was initially a term of abuse or disapproval and in the 16th century came to mean a cheat, anyone who took advantage of others or lived on his wits. As the rook is black and has black legs, swindlers/rooks became known as blacklegs; it was then natural to use the same term for strike-breakers, who were believed to be cheating their fellows." The word "rook" itself can mean to cheat (Wikt:rook), and the bird known as the rook has black legs. "Blackleg" could well have been a dialect word for the bird. Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:04, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

That might well have been the case for the original word meaning swindler, but the OED thinks it can trace a separate Scottish origin for the strikebreaker sense. I expect the similar meanings quickly became confused. Eric Partridge suggests (quoting Parsons in 1771) that the original swindler sense might have come from the black legs of the game cock because it was originally a gambling term. Dbfirs 20:32, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Names like "Frasier" and "Luthor"

Luther is not uncommon as a given name or surname, and there are prominent historical figures who bore it - Martin Luther and Martin Luther King spring immediately to mind. As far as I know, all examples in the real world spell it -er. The only person who spells it -or is Superman's arch-enemy Lex Luthor, who is obviously fictional. Yet the internet is crawling with references to Martin Luthor and Martin Luthor King, not to mention the Idris Elba-starring TV series Luthor and Bryan Talbot's graphic novel The Adventures of Luthor Arkwright. Similar is the perfectly normal name Fraser, which nobody used to have a problem with, but one successful sitcom later and everyone who bears it has to put up with it being misspelled "Frasier".

Is there a term for this sort of thing, where one prominent use of an unusual word or name overrides many examples of a more usual word or name? --Nicknack009 (talk) 21:48, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

• The ignorant or accidental substitution of one word with a similar-sounding but wrong alternative is called a malaproprism. That really applies to wholly different words, though, not cultural transmigrations of spelling. I'm not aware whether there's a specific name for the phenomenon you describe. - DustFormsWords (talk) 05:26, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

• Names often change spellings for trendy reasons. Sometimes a mother will intentionally choose a common name and give her kid a strange spelling of it; other times a name with an established spelling will become changed, maybe because the old spelling is hard for people. Consider the name Schuyler, a Dutch name which has become spelled Skylar and Skyler much more commonly now among English speakers. The old English name St John can sometimes be found as the name Sinjin (c.f. Sinjin Smith). I don't know that the phenomenon has a name, nor that it necessarily represents anything. --Jayron32 05:50, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

• I wonder how many poor little Britneys are out there now, given their names by mothers who have never even heard of Brittany but have sure heard of Britney Something-or-other. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 08:20, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
• And how many "Danual"s will read the Bible or E. L. Doctorow? --Shirt58 (talk) 11:43, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

December 1

Delikatesswarengeschäfte? etc.

I am working on a translation of de:Adolph Friedländer at a subpage here. The sentence below is giving me a bit of trouble.

Mit einer nach dem Tod des Vaters geerbten alten Steindruck-Presse ließ sich Friedländer in der Thalstraße 22 in Hamburg-St. Pauli nieder und begann mit dem Druck von Etiketten für Kolonial- und Delikatesswarengeschäfte.

"Grocery shops and delicatessens"? Babel fish translates Delikatesswarengeschäfte (as opposed to Google which doesn't recognize it) as "delicate goods business". I have the translation right now as:

"After his father died, Friedländer inherited his old lithographic press and set up shop in the St. Pauli quarter of Hamburg. He initially concentrated on label printing for grocery shops and delicatessens."

Help?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:40, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Kolonialwaren weren't just any groceries; they were foods imported from European colonies in the tropics: bananas, coconuts, spices, and so on. Delikatesswaren can be translated into English as "delicacies". I don't think there is an exact equivalent in English for these kinds of businesses. You could roughly translate both types of business collectively as "gourmet grocers". In that case, I would suggest the following: "With an old lithographic press that he inherited after his father's death, Friedländer set up shop at 22 Thalstrasse in Hamburg's St. Pauli quarter and started out printing labels for gourmet grocers." Marco polo (talk) 02:50, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks much Marco. I think I'm going to go with leaving in the German original and parenthetically state they are types of gourmet grocers. As a reader I don't like it when someone simplifies something specific from a source to something that's sort of close but not exact because there is no direct translation.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:52, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Delicatessen is itself (old) German for "delicacies".  Card Zero  (talk) 05:03, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

@Fuhghettaboutit: Grocery shop may not be a perfect equivalent of Kolonialwarengeschäft, but I'm pretty sure Friedländer never refused to deliver labels to a customer if the customer did not sell colonial products or delicatessen. Kolonial- and Delikatesswarengeschäfte were the two major types of store at the time because most products grocery stores sell nowadays were sold at other places, at markets or directly from the producers and they did not need elaborate labels. Only colonial products and delicatessen needed dedicated stores and labels. In the end Friedländer made labels for everybody who needed labels. So it should be fine to use "grocery shop" or something like that without much need for parentheses. --::Slomox:: >< 12:27, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Hamlet

Hello all. I am reading Hamlet and I have come across the interesting line 110 (AIII S1), where Ophelia says "Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?" Is this a sexual reference? In these lines the word "honesty" is used frequently to mean "chastity" and "commerce" (in French at least) is an old, very formal euphemism for "intercourse" (i.e. commerce charnel), so she is basically saying "Can beauty do better than chastity?" or more faithfully "Could beauty find better "commerce" than it presently has with chastity", no? Thanks. 24.92.85.35 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 02:58, 1 December 2011 (UTC).

I really think she is just saying "Is there any better quality than honesty (chastity) to connect to beauty?" In other words, she is suggesting that honesty (chastity) and beauty should be connected and implying that they are connected in her. Marco polo (talk) 17:46, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

On second thought, considering his flirtatious approach, she may also be saying that "my beauty has commerce (relationship) with my honesty (chastity)" and this "commerce" is better than any "commerce (sexual relations)" that you might want to offer. Shakespeare is of course famous for polysemy and word play. Marco polo (talk) 17:58, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

The statement is a bit puzzling but I don't think it's a sexual reference. I've checked four translations of Hamlet into Russian and all four translate it as "is there a better companion for beauty than honesty?". --Itinerant1 (talk) 03:26, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Though the Russian translators may have chosen the word "companion" recognizing that there is at least a romantic implication. I think another way to interpret her question is the implicit question, 'would your commerce (sexual and romantic interaction, perhaps implying marriage) be a better companion for my beauty than honesty (chastity)?' Marco polo (talk) 16:21, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

She's essentially telling him the best thing is to be beautiful and honest.68.32.251.73 (talk) 16:09, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

What is this called?

A relatively simple question. Among a group of friends I have, the following sentence from a video game has them baffled: "Owning the same nail polish does not a murderer make." They claim that this sentence is either grammatically incorrect or was a result of mistranslation. I know for a fact that this sentence is grammatically correct, but is there a way to describe this unconventional rearrangement of words? --WaltCip (talk) 03:49, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

This is very conventional in that it is a rather common idiomatic construction: "blank does not a blank make". It is very versatile, as the form can be used in any number of different ways such as my use here. See this Google book search to view ammny forms. In fact, we have a essay here entitled Wikipedia:One sentence does not an article make. But of course it is unconventional when one is unfamiliar with the construction and hears it with a modern English grammar ear. I found one site discussing the idiomatic form itself, here.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:09, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

The example I immediately think of is: Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage, from 1642, so it has a long pedigree. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 04:27, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

One swallow does not a summer make is attributed to Aristole, though I guess the question there is when was the translation into English provided the framed grammatical form.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:48, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Over-proscriptive rules of grammar do not a language make... AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:02, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

It's a typical poetical trick, the verb on the end of the sentence to stick. Often found in the letters page of local newpapers. Makes me sick.  Card Zero  (talk) 06:29, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

You really German then love must. Ericoides (talk) 08:48, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I German, considered in comparison to other languages, quite honestly, without beating around the bush, at all times of day, categorically, and I can't emphasise this enough, oh wait I forgot.  Card Zero  (talk) 08:59, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Waiting for the German verb is surely the ultimate thrill. ~ Flann O'Brien, 'The Hair of the Dogma', 1977. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 09:38, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I confess, when I'm reading in German, I sometimes cheat by glancing to the end of the sentence to find out what the verb is going to be. It's a bit like reading the spoilers for a movie I haven't seen yet. Angr (talk) 09:45, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

When translating Latin, one practically has to do it - at least, from my experience.--WaltCip (talk) 13:30, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

In case anyone wonders what it's like for native speakers of German: I don't need to cheat even with long sentences. Normally, that is. Most people nowadays make sure to avoid grammatical excesses and move to what I believe must once have been a non-standard position, after the verb. In other words, German is currently going through the same natural process that English has gone through, and that Romance languages have gone through since Latin. Hans Adler 22:15, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Hans, can you give some examples of what you mean? I think Ich habe gelesen das Buch is still totally ungrammatical in German (but I'm not a native speaker). Do you mean things like Ich habe das Buch gelesen, das du mir geschenkt hast instead of Ich habe das Buch, das du mir geschenkt hast, gelesen? That's a case of heavy NP shift; I have no idea whether it's a recent development in German or not. Angr (talk) 21:44, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Has nobody mentioned snowclone? BrainyBabe (talk) 13:40, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Anastrophe this called is. Gandalf61 (talk) 13:50, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

It always helps when you can pin a label on things. As Card_Zero mentions, a common letter-to-the-editor-ism is "up with this we will not put!" Alansplodge (talk) 16:52, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Basically it is archaic grammar. In German this sort of word order is common, and in Middle English it was also pretty common. In modern English it survives only in poetic usages. Looie496 (talk) 17:12, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

WaltCip, see Hyperbaton.

—Wavelength (talk) 19:57, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Germanic ordinal numerals

Is it true that, from a morphological viewpoint, Germanic ordinal numerals are originally past participles? --Theurgist (talk) 08:03, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Not entirely sure how that would work -- ordinals have a [θ] suffix, while weak past participles have a basic [d]. Theoretically they might be related by Verner's Law, but I would tend to doubt it... AnonMoos (talk) 08:22, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

You would really have to wonder what sort of verbs they would be past participles of... I'm interested what literature asserts or even discusses that ordinals were past participles. -- the Great Gavini 10:37, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

See http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=-th and http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=-ed

They go back to very similar forms in Proto-Indo-European, but were already distinguished back then. So we don't know whether they are related. There is no way to know which came first or whether the similarity is concidence. --::Slomox:: >< 12:41, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

The second link presupposes that participial "-ed" has no etymological connection with preterite "-ed", which is not absolutely clear... AnonMoos (talk) 18:38, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses. Here is a link to the Verner's law article, for the convenience of future readers of this discussion. I'd prefer not to mention the source asserting/suggesting that, but it also suggests that Arabic ordinal numerals (ṯāliṯ, rābiʻ, ḫāmis) match the model of the active participle fāʻil because they actually were originally thought of as active participles. Not of any particular verbs, but bearing some kind of original meaning like: "fifth" = "the one making them five", "the one increasing the quantity to five", "the one turning the set of four into a set of five". --Theurgist (talk) 09:30, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

In Hebrew, they follow a CəCīCī pattern (e.g. שמיני "eighth") which really does not look like a participle... AnonMoos (talk) 10:24, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

time is not a luxury

What does the phrase "time is not a luxury" mean? Gerardw (talk) 20:06, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Usually this is used in a phrase like "time is not a luxury we can afford". Either way, it means that we don't have much time (to accomplish something). rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:46, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Will the real “Will the real ‘Will the real ... please stand up?’ please stand up?” please stand up?

Does anyone have any idea of which was the original (i.e., oldest) form of the Will the real X please stand up? idiom? Googling for "will the real * please stand up" wasn't helpful, as in the first page alone there are five different versions of it. ― A. di M.​  21:38, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

If the '50s TV show To Tell the Truth didn't originate it, it is certainly the thing that made it popular. - Nunh-huh 21:41, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

(i'm an ec magnet today) :I'm going to guess it came from To Tell the Truth. --LarryMac | Talk 21:42, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I came to the same result by using the Google search tools to restrict the search for pre-1994 hits. And there were lots of different ones, such as the 1977 medical editorial The Great Crusade (or Will the Real Pyelonephritis Please Stand Up), the 1976 theological article Will the real Athanasius please stand up?, or the 1977 Christmas comedy show Will the Real Mr Claus Please Stand Up. Superficially, it appears that the late 70s were the time when this snowclone first became very popular. This 1976 episode from Saturday Nightlive has a reference to the clone that is clearly recognisable as referring to To Tell the Truth. Hans Adler 22:03, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I remember an episode of The Monkees which featured the joke "Will the real Davy Jones please stand up?" "I am standing up!". As the Monkees series only lasted a couple of years in the mid-60s, this pre-dates Hans Adler's examples. I'm sure it's from "To Tell the Truth", although I think there was a UK equivalent (the name of which escapes me). --TammyMoet (talk) 22:10, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

OK, thank you all. ― A. di M.​  22:14, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Of course, not standing up is the best way to avoid being seen. Adam Bishop (talk) 09:25, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

See "I am Spartacus" for a possible link to McCarthyism. Astronaut (talk) 10:53, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Using the wrong word in television ads

I've noticed more and more frequently that television ads seem to use the wrong word deliberately, in a way that seems like it's not supposed to be noticed. For example, just in the past day (U.S.) I've encountered two ads - in one, a robotic babysitter says "Good Mormon, female child" rather than "Good morning...", and in the other, a pizza company representative says "Undercheesing is rancid" rather than "Undercheesing is rampant". Now maybe I'm just mis-hearing, but if so I'm only mis-hearing in advertisements, and I'm mis-hearing the same way every time. My guess is that somehow the subtle error is supposed to attract the viewer's subconscious attention, in people with a more rigid boundary between conscious and subconscious. But how/where does a person research advertising theory to see if something has been published about such a thing? Wnt (talk) 21:59, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Start by typing -- malapropisms advertising -- into Google scholar. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 02:49, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

The robot one is here. I believe it is saying good morning, just in a bad computer voice. Rmhermen (talk) 03:00, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. If anything, I hear "Good mornin'..." Dismas|^(talk) 03:03, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I've noticed bad grammar in ads, too, and not just where it's somebody trying to talk in an "ethnic" way. I have to believe that those paying millions of dollars to run such an ad campaign are capable of having somebody competent proofread the ads, so I must conclude that they either do it on purpose, or simply don't care. Those ads do grab my attention, but they don't make me want to buy their products, especially where they are selling something that requires intelligence: "We are goodly lawyers, so call us firstly." StuRat (talk) 23:52, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

You are mis-hearing. Actually, I initially heard "rancid" too and thought it odd that a word having both a basic meaning of "spoiled (pertaining to food)" as well as an extended meaning of "bad" was used--particularly when the reference was to food and thus quite ambiguous. Then I realized that what the pizza spokesman said was "rampant."

Hello

Hello,my name is Arsalan and i'm 16 years old.I live in iran.I've play basketball 9years in iran.i can play the basketball well.I've played in many tournament. may i give a test in emirates? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arsalan-Khalaf (talk • contribs) 23:34, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Hello, Arsalan. I'm not quite sure what you're asking, but I think you have come to the wrong place. This is the Language Reference Desk on (English) Wikipedia, the encyclopaedia anyone can edit. We have articles about basketball and several different meanings of emirates, but we have no connection with them. --ColinFine (talk) 00:16, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

"In emirates" surely means in the UAE, across the Persian Gulf. "May I" might mean this is a legal question, or perhaps something to do with the rules of a sport organisation. "Give a test" is the part I don't understand, particularly in the context of basketball.  Card Zero  (talk) 02:22, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

The OP wishes to make his basketball skills available to UAE teams and wants to know how to go about it? --Tagishsimon (talk) 02:34, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Arsalan, first you have to identify teams in the Emirates Basketball League. You can do that through Google. Then you have to find their email addresses and get in touch with them. Surely they will invite you if you can prove yourself. Good luck! --Omidinist (talk) 04:36, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I know in British English a "test match" is just another name for a game, so perhaps he was asking if he could play against them ? StuRat (talk) 23:46, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

A test match in cricket or Rugby is specifically a game between national teams and in cricket, national teams of a certain standard. It's more likely that he's asking if he can have a trial or tryout. Alansplodge (talk) 02:13, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

December 2

Shantideva quote - looking for the Chinese version

(already posted to the ZH reference desk, but it looks pretty dead over there...)

I'm looking for an authoritative Chinese version (Trad/Simp both ok) of the following Shantideva quote:

As long as the sky exists
And as long as there are sentient begins,
May I remain to help
Relieve them of all their pain.

Thank you for any help you can provide! The Masked Booby (talk) 01:04, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I believe that the translation is: 乃至有虛空，以及眾生住，願吾住世間，盡除眾生苦. Source: http://xiii.myweb.hinet.net/articals/budway.htm, 8th and 7th lines from the end.--Itinerant1 (talk) 05:17, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

And boy, does Google make a hack job translating any of it. Here's the translation it offers for the next two lines. "All suffering beings, willing to note times daily newspaper! Germany ready for Buddha, sentient beings enjoy happiness!" --Itinerant1 (talk) 05:19, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Word that means FRIEND or FAMILY MEMBER or Same RELlIGON

thank you, I am looking for a word which I believe means FRIEND or FAMILY MEMBER or Same RELlIGONit souns like LONSMAN ,clearly I do not know how to spell this word your help is appreciated...thank you please e-mail me at..... [email redacted] ..........many thanks lemonsalt — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lemonsalt (talk • contribs) 08:01, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I separated this into its own question, because it appears to be unrelated to the Shantideva quote question above. I have also removed your email address, per Wikipedia policy; we answer questions publicly on the reference desk - we do not contact people individually. Posting an email address on Wikipedia can also result in increased spam, as Wikipedia is very widely accessed by all kinds of people around the world, so I would advise being careful about the personal information posted here. As for your question, I'll think about it, but no word is immediately coming to mind. Falconus^{p t c} 08:18, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

"landsman" ? ---Sluzzelin talk 08:39, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Brother? ― A. di M.​  10:37, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

"Paesan"? (Sometimes "paisan") --Shirt58 (talk) 10:44, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

The only term similar to your "lonsman" would be clansman (outside the KKK context). Check clan for the various meanings. --Incognito.ergo.possum (talk) 11:34, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't know, I think that the "landsman" as proposed by Sluzzelin is also quite similar. Falconus^{p t c} 13:12, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I have a suggestion similar to that of A di M: "brethren" implies both ethnic and religious membership, although it doesn't sound like "lonsman".VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 13:32, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Agree with Falconus -- and Yiddish influence (from לאַנדסמאַן) would explain why the "o" vowel pronunciation... AnonMoos (talk) 13:51, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Man created God in his image

Ludwig Feuerbach's aphorism "nicht Gott schuf den Menschen nach seinem Bilde, sondern der Mensch schuf Gott nach seinem Bilde." is idiomatic in German. It was actually printed in 1851 in a longer version "Denn nicht Gott schuf den Menschen nach seinem Bilde, wie es in der Bibel steht heißt, sondern der Mensch schuf, wie ich im »Wesen des Christentums« zeigte, Gott nach seinem Bilde." (see wikiquote) and in a shorter version "der Mensch schuf Gott nach seinem Bilde" (en: "Man created God in his image") on Feuerbach's memorial. Is there a quotable quote in English? --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 11:01, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

If you're looking for aphorisms along that line then there's always Xenophanes, who almost two-thousand years prior to Feuerbach quipped that

if cattle and horses and lions had hands

or could paint with their hands and create works such as men do,
horses like horses and cattle like cattle
also would depict the gods' shapes and make their bodies

of such a sort as the form they themselves have.

according to our article on him. Or were you asking for an English translation of the German quote? Gabbe (talk) 13:43, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I was looking for an English translation that can be used in Wikiquote. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 13:48, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Weird. On top of the Feuerbach article I see the personal appeal of Wikipedia programmer Brandon Harris and he looks like a re-incarnation of Feuerbach. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 14:00, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

There's a translation in footnote 47 here - "It was not God who created man in his image, as it is written in the Bible, but Man created God in his image, as I showed in 'The Essence of Christianity'" - but are you looking for a translation in a verifiable source? --Colapeninsula (talk) 14:35, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

There's another translation here [6] - it is quoted in translation in Church dogmatics, Volume 2, Part 1 By Karl Barth, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, Thomas Forsyth Torrance. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004, p 282: "For God did not create man in His image, as the Bible has it, but, as I have shown in Das Wesen des Christentums, man created God after his image." --Colapeninsula (talk) 14:41, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

The first translation that Cola gave is the best one and does come from a verifiable source. The source is given here: [[7]] Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 14:56, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I always wondered with that sentence whether there was some possibility of mistranslation from the original text, but I don't know anything about ancient Hebrew to check. Is it possible that it could also be interpreted that God made Man in his imagination? Wnt (talk) 15:29, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you all. Unfortunately the English quote found in wikiquote by Dominus Vobisdu above is not verifiable. The German quote appeared in 1851 in the book "Vorlesungen über das Wesen der Religion", Lecture 20, on p. 241, and the only English translation of "Lectures on the Essence of Religion" that I can find is from 1967, translated by Ralph Manheim. Google book search shows the text in there, For God did not, as the Bible says, make man in His image; on the contrary man, as I have shown in The Essence of Christianity, made God in his image. but I cannot see the page number or the page itself in ordfer to verify it. Can you? --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 03:22, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I finally managed to see it in "Lectures on the Essence of Religion" on p. 187 (and also in "The Ring of the Nibelung") and inserted quotes in [[8]] and [[9]]. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 00:58, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Stone stripes on buildings.

On some large neoclassical type buildings you see a feature where alternating rows of stone blocks protrude from the walls to make broad horizontal stripes of raised stone that go across the entire wall of the building. Kinda like the feature labelled "19" in the image at right. What the heck is that called? I've crawled through a bazillion architecture pages here and I can't find a name. 216.136.51.242 (talk) 15:02, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

And how is it called in vertical? de:Lisene has interwiki-links to 17 languages, but not to English. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 15:51, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

The image description page says that number 19 is called bossage. Angr (talk) 16:15, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

First off, according to the German Wikipedia article, Lisenen are vertical. In English, I believe that such vertical protrusions are called pilasters. As for the horizontal protrusions you mention, according to this source, they seem to be called "belt courses". Marco polo (talk) 16:16, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Or string courses. See "Course (architecture)". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:53, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I think the general term is just "banding", whether it's accomplished by differences in materials or in profile. See the photo here, for example, where the blogger refers to the treatment of the ground-storey wall as "banded rustication" (similar examples can be found through a Google Images search for "banded rustication"). It's also used to produce banded columns, which I think is what the use in the OP's photo is intended to recall. A string course is usually a thinner and less repetitive element; see here, where the thin, lighter band between the ground storey and the upper ones is referred to as a string course, whereas bulkier banding is visible on the ground-storey wall. Deor (talk) 17:33, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

More German help

This may not be a problem with my understanding but a contradiction or ambiguity in the German article I am translating here, but anyway, I am having trouble with understanding a fact at the end of this paragraph:

• Max-Otto Friedländer (1880–1953) war, nachdem er auch das Flora-Theater betrieben hatte, 1934 zu Sarrasani nach Südamerika gegangen. Da er dort keine Existenzmöglichkeit fand, kehrte er 1935 nach Deutschland zurück, wo er kurzfristig in einem Konzentrationslager interniert wurde und anschließend emigrierte. Ludwig Friedländer (1877–1953) hatte die Produktion auf den modernen Offsetdruck umgestellt und konnte mit dem Chefzeichner Wilhelm Eigener (1904–1982) die Druckerei insbesondere in der Titelblatt- und Tierillustration weiterführen. Als „Devisenbringer“ wurde die Druckerei nach 1933 noch knapp zwei Jahre von der nationalsozialistischen Regierung geduldet; das traditionelle Friedländer- Druckersignet, ein herzförmiges Blatt mit gezacktem Rand, hieß nun die „Judenkirsche“. 1935 erschien das letzte Plakat der Firma Friedländer mit der Nummer 9078; 1938 wurde der Betrieb endgültig geschlossen.

My understanding is that this says the business was allowed to continue by the Nazi regime because it was a Devisenbringer only for two more years after 1933, and was shut down in 1935. But then it seems to say it was finally closed in 1938. Maybe the last part is about the physical building? Anyway, I don't know how to reconcile the contradiction I see between the shutting down two years after 1933, in 1935, and the final closing in 1938.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 18:12, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

The text says that the firm produced its last placard (and presumably its last print job) in 1935 and that the business was permanently closed in 1938. This suggests that the business remained on the books as a shadow entity after it ceased production in 1935. Possibly royalties it received were used to pay off creditors during this period, or physical assets such as printing presses or real property may have been sold off, though the text does not elaborate on the intervening years. The permanent closing in 1938 may have been a merely administrative and/or bureaucratic act. Marco polo (talk) 18:27, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks again Marco. Having read other sources that just say the business ended in 1935, and given the ambiguity, I am going to remove the material on 1938 and state something like that its last printing occurred in 1935.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:39, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

The German article on Wilhelm Eigener, the graphic artist, states that he was working as a designer with Friedländer until 1938. It is possible that the printers produced placards / posters only until 1935, after which they may have switched to different print products. Maybe a note on the German page can clarify the matter. --Incognito.ergo.possum (talk) 13:12, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Spastic

Does the word spastic come from the word spasm?--92.25.106.108 (talk) 20:10, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes. —Akrabbim^talk 20:58, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

It used to be the layman's term for a person who has Cerebral palsy or a similar condition, in which the sufferer's muscles are in uncontrolled tension or spasm. See also Spastic. Alansplodge (talk) 14:04, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

The Theory of Evolution -- "believe" or "accept" or "support" or "does reject" or "prove"?

In Science, I am unsure how to describe agreement when one finds evidence that supports the theory of evolution. Is it correct to say "I believe in Darwin's theory of evolution, because I have evidence it does", or "I accept Darwin's theory of evolution because of this evidence", or "This evidence suggests that it supports that natural selection is occurring among the population", or "This evidence does reject the null hypothesis that evolution is not occurring among the population; therefore, the population of the species is indeed evolving due to selective pressures to fit in its surroundings", or "This evidence is proof that evolution exists, that species can evolve, and there is no counter-evidence to deny this claim"? I have been told that I should not use the word "proof" or "belief" and should use alternative terms, "support" or "does reject". Should I use the term, "accept"? Does the term "accept" give any connotations of a dogmatic, unscientific belief that cannot ever be changed or questioned or doubted despite the overwhelming evidence that really favors it? I hope to write in a manner that refrains from talking like a dogmatic scientist who is close-minded to the possibility of evolution not occurring, despite the overwhelming evidence says it does. 164.107.189.253 (talk) 20:20, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Evidence supports the theory of evolution, which is why scientists accept it. Science never proves anything, and in a strict mathematical sense does not even disprove anything. It is based on induction, i.e. generalization, which is not logically sound ("in Scotland there is at least one sheep that looks black on one side", not "in Scotland all sheep are black" (in the strict sense, not even the first claim is "proven" by an observation - maybe you've had a small stroke that changed your color perception, or maybe the master programmer running the World Simulator had a joke on you)). What science delivers is a series of increasingly better models of the world that allow us to make and test predictions about it. The more predictive power a model has, and the more of its predictions have come true, the stronger the trust in the theory. However, that trust is always provisional. Almost all of our scientific theories are almost certainly wrong - even the most successful ones like general relativity and quantum dynamics. However, they are typically not wrong in the obvious "they are useless" manner, but rather in subtle details and very unusual situations. Even Newtons theory of gravity, while strictly wrong, is good enough for nearly all everyday situations. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:50, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

So, the most incorrect statement that I can make is "I believe in the theory of evolution" or "I have faith in this theory". Those two statements would imply something untrue, right? 164.107.189.253 (talk) 21:46, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I think you might get some benefit from http://www.notjustatheory.com/ and our article Evolution as fact and theory.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 21:50, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

This article says, Faith is confidence or trust in a person or thing, or a belief that is not based on proof." So, maybe I can say, "I have faith in this theory," after all, due to the evidence. Thanks! 164.107.189.253 (talk) 21:55, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Compare wikt:believe with wikt:believe in. To say that you "believe in evolution" is not really scientific, though it might come up in a dispute against people with a conflicting religious belief. It is proper to say that you "believe the theory of evolution" or "believe that evolution is the correct explanation" within the normal context of scientific opinion. IMHO. Wnt (talk) 00:34, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Another way to say it would be, "I believe in science, and I accept evolutionary theory." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:25, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

A better way to say it is "I believe in my senses, but I cannot absolutely prove that they are correct". Ultimately, there is no way to "prove" anything, even that your own experiences are trustworthy. Can you prove to yourself that your entire experience is not an elaborate hallucination? Not really. So, at some level you need to trust what your senses are telling you, not because you can prove that they are correct, but because you cannot operate in the world under the assumption that you can't trust your senses. You also have to trust other people's senses and what they tell them; there's no way that you can contain all of human knowledge in your head, so at some point you have to trust that other people aren't all lying to you 100% of the time, even if you have no absolute proof that they are not. There is no absolute proof of anything, there is just an acceptable level of evidence. As stated above, science develops models that make predictions about how the world should work; as long as those predictions are correct, we go with that model. The theory of evolution is accepted because it works, it is a productive theory insofar as it makes predictions about the world that come true. All models are wrong, some are useful. --Jayron32 05:37, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually I don't like "accept" so much, because it makes it sound like you have some arbitrary choice to accept or reject, whereas the scientific perspective is simply that you want to know whether something is true or false and once that's out of the way your reaction is obvious. Of course, every now and then people break with a purely scientific perspective for one reason or another. I would use it in certain instances, e.g. that Einstein didn't accept probabilistic interpretations of quantum mechanics, to highlight the difference between someone seeing what appears to be sufficient evidence versus being philosophically unwilling to believe it. Wnt (talk) 14:12, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

December 3

Cursive letterforms

I was wondering about the origins of some cursive letterforms.

I wonder how the shape of lowercase "r" came about. It looks nothing at all like capital "R"! The cursive form of this letter (at least as used in the USA) does not even resemble either of these two. I was also wondering about cursive lowercase "s" and capital "G", which also look nothing like their print forms.

The Cyrillic alphabet seems a bit humorous to me in this respect. For example, a letterform looking like Latin "g" is actually a form of "д", and a letter looking like "m" is a form of "т", so the word "redaktor" comes out looking like "pegakmop"!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.37.236.70 (talk) 07:24, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

The two shapes of the letter R, as they exist in modern Latin-based alphabets, go back to the way the Romans wrote them. It's not quite this simple, but majuscule letters come from Roman square capitals, and minuscule letters come from Roman cursive. Minuscule r in particular comes from uncial script, a late ancient/early medieval form of writing (as opposed to inscribing in stone) Roman capital letters. That form of writing had had a "half-uncial" variant where the tops of some letters were sometimes omitted, so the lowercase r is basically a majuscule r with no round part. That minuscule form survived in other medieval scripts like Carolingian and Gothic, and was eventually copied by printers in the Renaissance, which leads to our modern typefaces. But where did they Romans get the letters from? From the Etruscans, who got them from the Greeks, who got them from the Phoenicians. See Old Italic script for more about that process. I'm not sure about modern cursive, although surely it's just the regular minuscule and majuscule letters connected by fancy lines and loops. Adam Bishop (talk) 17:33, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

It seems much more likely that the original questioner was asking about letter shapes such as those seen in File:Cursive.svg, rather than conventional typographic "r", "s", "G", etc. AnonMoos (talk) 20:06, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Obviously it was the result of the French Revolution. The Jacobins sent the aristocratic upper case/class R to visit Madame Guillotine, resulting in the headless remnant. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:12, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

The chart at right may be misleading. As I recall from my youth, the miniscule script "r" has a small loop at the top left side, so, running cursive writing together, imagine coming up from the baseline, then looping counterclockwise to create the bowl of the "R," then stopping that looping when you get to where the right descender comes down, then doing the descender back to the baseline. As you write more quickly, the loop grows smaller and the spot where you stop to follow with the right descender pulls out to the right, remember "cursive" means "running hand". And so you get the sweep of the upward stroke, followed by the movement to the top of the right descender, followed by the down stroke—which results in the cursive "r" we're familiar with. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 19:06, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

The image represents one particular semi-"simplified" form of cursive as somewhat recently taught in the U.S. (before schools here started doing away with teaching of cursive altogether). I myself remember the lower-case cursive "r" as having more of a "plateau" shape (i.e. a horizontal or only slightly-sloping line approached by curves on both sides)... AnonMoos (talk) 21:35, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

sich (German)

Hi, I'm wondering what sense, if any, "<person's name> sich" has in German (without any other words or context). I've looked up "sich" in a German dictionary, and it apparently means "him/herself". So, would "Boris sich" mean "Boris himself", for example? 86.179.6.72 (talk) 13:51, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

In most cases, sich is connected to the verb, namely in reflexive verbs. An example would be sich hinlegen, i.e. "to lie down" (literally "to lay oneself down"). It can also be seen as a dative or accusative pronoun that refers to the subject of the sentence (in contrast to ihm/ihn or ihr/sie that refer to another person). The (stand-alone) combination "Boris himself" would be Boris selbst. --Wrongfilter (talk) 14:00, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Much more than "Boris selbst", "Boris sich" is two words taken seriously out of context, not anything that makes any sense on it own. The only context in which just saying "Boris sich" would make sense is if you asked, "Who has done it to whom?" To which you could, in principle, respond "Boris to himself", or in German, "Boris sich". But you would be more likely to say "Boris sich selbst". Hans Adler 14:06, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks guys! 86.183.128.75 (talk) 21:38, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps the construction is easier to understand if you put my, your, him/her/its whenever you encounter "mich, dich, sich" in a German sentence. So it is: Boris cuts bread - "Boris schneidet Brot", Boris cuts him - "Boris schneidet sich", Boris cuts himself -->means Boris cuts him self - means "Boris schneidet sich selbst" --> "Boris schneidet sich". Here the clauses are ordered SVO as in English. In German, however, the word order can change, and does so regularly in questions or relative clauses. Then you find "sich" positioned after a name, still meaning him/her/its (reflexive), translated as himself/herself/itself. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 15:05, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Grammatical mood

What is the classification of the moods? I mean is it a tense?position? Exx8 (talk) 17:05, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Neither of those. Have you read the article Grammatical mood? Deor (talk) 18:41, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I realize that it is not a tense but it does have usually its own declension. Why by the way those mood are not define as tenses? Is negtive a mood?Exx8 (talk) 23:42, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

In older Indo-European languages, mood is often somewhat orthogonal to tense. So in Greek, subjunctives and optatives can be formed from all three types of stem (i.e. present, aorist, and perfect), while Latin has present subjunctive, imperfect subjunctive, perfect subjunctive, and pluperfect subjunctive. Negative is not generally considered to be a mood in Indo-European languages, but in some of the languages which have special negative verb inflections, these might be considered somewhat similar to mood inflections... AnonMoos (talk) 08:42, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

An easy way of understanding the difference between tense and mood is thinking about what they actually mean, I guess then it becomes obvious that verb mood is (generally) independent from tense:

indicative mood:

• present: something happens today
• past tense: something happened yesterday

subjunctive mood:

• present: (I believe/hope/have heard that) something might happen today
• past tense: (I believe/hope/have heard that) something might have happened yesterday

The details of usage can vary quite a bit from language to language, but that's the general idea -- Ferkelparade π 13:38, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

This is an interesting question, because there are several complexities and assumptions in it. The idea of "mood" is traditional in describing classical Indo-European languages, specifically, Latin, Green and Sanskrit, where it referred to a classification of inflectional endings. These categories tended to have particular kinds of meanings, to be sure (for which reason they were classified as 'indicative', 'subjunctive', 'optative' and 'imperative'), but it was the inflectional patterns which the term referred to. As AnonMoos says, this category was separate from other categories such as tense, since a mood and a tense could be combined (though not necessarily all conceivable combinations existed).

But Ferkelparade's examples above are not inflectional at all: they use auxiliary verbs to express a difference in meaning. Now it is true that the examples Ferkelparade call "subjunctive" are how we would express in English things that in some other languages are expressed with the subjunctive mood. But the actual sentences quoted are not grammatically subjunctive, because in modern English the subjunctive (insofar as it survives at all) is not used for those meanings, and only for wishes and demands, and then only in relatively formal use ("I demand that he be removed!") So Ferkelparade is using the word "mood" as a semantic category.

There is no fundamental reason why 'interrogative' should not be a mood, nor really why 'negative' should not (though 'negative' can occur with other moods, so perhaps it is useful to treat it as something separate) but they have never been treated as such, perhaps because classical European languages do not express these properties by inflection.

In many non-Indo-European languages, there is no inflectional category called "mood" at all (in fact, in some languages there is not such thing as inflection).

--ColinFine (talk) 20:40, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Christmas pickle

What is the origin of Christmas pickles? The first reference for the word "Christmas pickle" that I find is a 1966 pickles promotion: "Pick a Christmas Pickle from Crosse & Blackwell", then the word reappears again in the 1990's as a Christmas custom. Was the word or custom known before 1990? --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 17:12, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I doubt if that Crosse & Blackwell reference is to a Christmas tree ornament in the shape of a gherkin. Rather, it is an advertisement for Crosse & Blackwell's range of chutneys and pickles popular in the UK: pickled onions, pickled red cabbage, piccalilli, Branston pickle. UK shoppers can be induced to get one or more of these in for Christmas, for example to eat on Boxing Day with cold turkey. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:23, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Never heard of it. Is a "Christmas pickle" one of those round ornaments you hang on a Christmas tree? If so, they're called "baubles" in the UK. Itsmejudith is right about Crosse & Blackwell. Alansplodge (talk) 02:16, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

A Christmas pickle is, indeed, a gherkin-shaped ornament. It apparently represents good luck. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 05:51, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

For German speakers, there is a relevant thread on the de:WP (equivalent to the ref desk). --Incognito.ergo.possum (talk) 15:42, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

That links to this article: "All I can say for certain is that to this day almost no one in Germany has ever heard of the German Christmas pickle custom. So far I have found no historical or other evidence to indicate that the Weihnachtsgurke is a genuine Christmas custom from Germany." Alansplodge (talk) 16:16, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

have I used the semicolons correctly in this sentence?

I was often admonished never to grumble: firstly, because it is a sin to be ungrateful for God’s bounty, and secondly; because there is always someone worse off than oneself.

Thanks Adambrowne666 (talk) 19:47, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

No. Why would the semicolon be correct after secondly if it's not correct after firstly?

The most usual place to use a semicolon is to make one sentence out of two related complete sentences; you show a greater connection between them than you would if you wrote them as separate sentences. --Trovatore (talk) 19:50, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Reversing the comma and semicolon would make more logical sense (though it still might not be considered fully correct by punctuation arbiters). AnonMoos (talk) 19:57, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm leaning towards AnonMoos's answer - these days, it's less usual to use them as I have, but I feel I've seen them used similarly in 19th Century writing; wasn't sure if my memory was off, though. Adambrowne666 (talk) 20:05, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I think AnonMoos means the comma after "bounty" rather than the one after "firstly". Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 20:07, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm wondering why you ask about the "semicolons" (pl.) when you use only one of them, Adam. The colon after grumble does not count as a semicolon. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 20:10, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Woops, yes, I should have used the singular, Jack. And what I mean when I say I'm leaning towards AnonMoos is that punctuation arbiters might see my way of doing it here as correct, though Anon didn't actually say that - woops again. (The reason for this whole question is because I'm writing something in an antique voice, and was wondering if this was a legit olde worlde style of punctuation) Adambrowne666 (talk) 20:18, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

The sentence doesn't look right to me even as old-fashioned style. 86.183.128.75 (talk) 21:42, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Better: I was often admonished never to grumble: first, because it is a sin to be ungrateful for God’s bounty; second, because there is always someone worse off than oneself. (Note that I have dropped the and, and changed firstly and secondly to first and second.) Looie496 (talk) 22:32, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, all, for the answers - I'm pretty sure I've used the semicolons incorrectly, as you all say; just wish I could find an example of what I'm vaguely thinking of - thanks for the suggestion, too, Looie - I used it, with the difference that I stuck in a "for two reasons: the first whereof is" - can't resist a whereof, whereupon, whoeversoever, etc etc Adambrowne666 (talk) 03:02, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

(Being a fan of semicolons and long sentences myself, Looie496 would be correct. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 18:48, 5 December 2011 (UTC))

I think it's important to avoid terms of judgement, here. The question is what is most likely to be understood in the way you want it understood by an ordinary reader in a particular time and place. The full colon, for example, was customarily used in British English contexts to separate complete independent clauses, where modern American usage commands the use of semi-colons, e.g.,

John plans in English: Maria dreams in Italian.

There are only a limited set of commonly used and understood punctuation marks (points or stops), so their usage has stretched and shifted with time and need. It was also common when quotation marks (inverted commas) were less frequently used, to set off titles with directly preceding commas (as in quotations in the 1611 Authorised King James Version of the Bible, which uses no quotation marks). Were Shakespeare being published for the first time today, we'd most likely print Twelfth Night, or What You Will, or "Twelfth Night" or "What You Will" or Twelfth Night or What You Will, whereas the editions of four centuries ago (which should govern how to format this particular play title today) were entitled Twelfth Night or, What You Will. —— Shakescene (talk) 06:04, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

For the German experts out there

I speak German pretty well, but I've always been dumbfounded when it comes to country names in German: why Indonesien, Rumänien, Albanien, but Malaysia, Nigeria, Somalia? 80.122.178.68 (talk) 21:48, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I've wondered that too (other examples of the second group are Namibia and Tansania) and don't have an answer for you. I've also wondered why it's Indones-isch, Rumän-isch, and Alban-isch, but Italien-isch and Brasilian-isch (cf. Italien and Brasilien). Angr (talk) 22:49, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

(Not an expert here, but a native speaker and pretty good at introspection.) I think these things depend a lot on where we got the names from, and when. I think Malaysia, Nigeria and Somalia simply have the English ending because we got the names via English and they are not sufficiently important within German-speaking contexts to change them in any way. French likely brought us Indonesien (from Indonésie, colonial influences?) and Rumänien (language of diplomacy when the national state was formed?). Note that the adjective for Roumanie is Roumain, likely explaining why it is Rumanien. There are also a number of countries that oddly end in -ei rather than -ien or -ia. This is an odd bunch including Tschechoslowakei, Türkei, Mongolei, Mandschurei, Tatarei, Walachei. After the split of Czechoslovakia, the Czechs felt that they weren't in particularly good company and officially made the German version of their country's name Tschechien rather than the previously used Tschechei. But Slovakia is still Slowakei in German.

The difference between Italien/Italienisch and Brasilien/brasilianisch isn't so surprising if you keep in mind that the former word must have existed in German for far over a thousand years and had plenty of time to undergo a vowel shift italianisch(?) -> italiänisch -> italienisch. (Not sure if there is any vowel shift rule that actually explains this, though.) Whereas Brasil is a very recent country. A fairer comparison would be Italien/italienisch and Spanien/spanisch. But I guess spanisch is the result of dropping the weird "ol" which we got from Spanish/French: español/espagnol -> spaniolisch? -> spanisch. (Nowadays, spaniolisch means Judaeo-Spanish. This makes sense, because Judaeo-Spanish for Judaeo-Spanish is probably something like "espagnolo", and any foreign weirdness is more likely to survive in the rarer and more recently acquired word.)

Added after edit conflict with Angr's clarification: I think the main difference between Xien/xienisch and Xien/xisch is that in the first case the adjective is derived from the country, and in the second the country is derived from the adjective. As in Italy/Italian vs. Germany/German. You don't speak of Itals or Germanians in English, either. Hans Adler 23:36, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

An interesting example concerns Pennsylvania, which formerly used to be refered to as Pennsylvanien; nowadays the latter form is considered obsolete and it's always Pennsylvania in German. On the other hand, California is still exclusively called Kalifornien. Frequency of use may be the dominant factor here: we speak about CA more often than about PA. Hawaiian is an example for a language where the two forms Hawaiisch and Hawaiianisch are roughtly equally current nowadays; there is a tendency to consider Hawaiisch more "correct". There have been long discussions on the German WP. --Wrongfilter (talk) 11:37, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

How often do Germans still speak of Virginien, Westvirginien, Nordkarolinien, Südkarolinien, and Neumexiko? Angr (talk) 12:32, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Neumexiko is common alongside New Mexico, the others are completely uncommon in modern writing and speech. If you would use the word Nordkarolinien people would immediately start to suspect that you have some kind of weird agenda (e.g. anti-foreign language purism or nationalist). --::Slomox:: >< 12:54, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Nordkarolinien and Südkarolinien sound really outdated with only ten google book search hits, the usual German names (now obsolete) Nordkarolina, or Nordcarolina, get ten thousands. The th is not a native German consonant, so Nord-Dakota, Süd-Dakota, Nord-Karolina, Süd-Karolina are easier to pronounce. Pennsylvanien is used in historical contexts, and most speakers will use Neufundland or Kalifornien. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 13:59, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Indonesia was a Dutch colony and the Dutch word for Indonesia is "Indonesië". S_peakF_ree ^(talk)_(contribs) 15:04, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

The situation with German country names is, interestingly enough, very similar to that in Swedish. Most of the well-known and long-established country names end in "-ien" in Swedish, while non-European countries often take "-ia". And the "-iet" ending in Swedish seems to be a correspondence for the German "-ei": Turkiet, Mongoliet, Manchuriet, Tatariet, Valakiet (= dt. Türkei, Mongolei, Mandschurei, Tatarei, Walachei). I checked sv:Tjeckoslovakien, where the alternative form Tjeckoslovakiet (= dt. Tschechoslowakei) is given, citing a publication by Mikael Reuter, a Finnish Swede, author, philologist and linguist. The material begins with what looks like a letter or a note by a resident of Helsinki (Helsingforsbo) enquiring why a country is called "Somalia" in Swedish when he or she feels it more correct and natural to say "Somalien", like "Spanien" and "Sardinien". The text tells that there is a strong tradition to use the "-ien" ending for country names in Swedish, following the German practice, and contrasting with the "-ia" practice in English and other languages. It then discusses that all Swedish "-ia" country names refer to overseas countries (Bolivia, Malaysia, Gambia, etc), which are most often independent since relatively recently, and suggests that Swedish has adopted the "international" names for those nations; and the "-ien" group includes countries located in Europe or around the Mediterranean region (Etiopien, Jordanien, Mauretanien, Syrien, Tunisien), as well as some older historically established names (Australien, Brasilien, Indien, Indonesien; also Arabien, Persien, Kalifornien). And then it mentions the "interesting circumstance" that the "-iet" ending (Mongoliet, Turkiet, the former parallel form Tjeckoslovakiet) is obviously understood as the neuter definite article, and a kind of neuter form for the "-ien" naming pattern. In Swedish, the definite article is postfixed, and is (usually) "-en" for the common gender and "-et" for the neuter. The last two paragraphs tell that newly independent European states (Armenien, Bosnien) take "-ien" like the rest of Europe, and that there still are some doubts regarding the names of certain states, like Moldova and the Czech Republic.

You can put it all into Google Translate to view how the machine comes up with a decent translation of the full text, although the machine does fail here and there. I only retold what is most relevant and interesting, as opposed to making a full and literal translation of the text, but my Swedish is unfortunately getting rusty these days (as it has already been visible on the RDL), and I know there are a few native and otherwise advanced Swedish speakers who frequent the RDL, so they could elaborate on my retelling if this is necessary. --Theurgist (talk) 13:37, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

As a native speaker myself, I can reveal that Theurgist's retelling is correct. To the article I can add that Tjeckien is by now the predominant way of referring to the (then newly independent) Czech Republic. An interesting note is that Georgien in present-day Swedish and German refers to Georgia (country), while Georgia refers to Georgia (U.S. state) in both Swedish and German. With regards to Wrongfilter's observation, I once encountered an 18th century Swedish text that referred to Pennsylvania as Pennsylvänien, but that would come across as very archaic today. Gabbe (talk) 11:25, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Occasionally, uncommon germanised forms are employed as a deliberate archaism. An example is in the title of one of my absolute favourite books, H. C. Artmann's Der aeronautische Sindtbart oder Seltsame Luftreise von Niedercalifornien nach Crain. Ein Fragment von dem autore selbst aus dem yucatekischen anno 1958 ins teutsche gebracht. It translates as: "The aeronautical Sintbard or Curious Air Journey from Lower California to Carniola. A fragment translated by the author himselfe anno 1958 from Yucatecan to German".

(I am aware that this comment was quite off-topic. I just wrote it as a plug for this fantastic work on airships, the bear as man's best friend and synthetic honey.) Hans Adler 11:52, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

The following lists of country names are relevant:

• de:Liste der Staaten der Erde (-ien/-ia/-ei)
• sv:Världsgeografi (-ien/-ia/-iet)
• da:Verdens lande (-ien/-ia/-iet)
• nl:Lijst van landen in 2011 (-ië/-ije)

--Theurgist (talk) 22:48, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

December 4

What is the difference between "choice" and "selection", or are they synonyms?

• Anti-gay activists say "homosexuality is a choice".
• Pro-gay activists say "homosexuality is not a choice".
• A biologist may say that in sexual selection, the peahen may choose the best-looking peacock as a mate.
• A website-hosting advert may say "Choose a template" or "Select a template" interchangeably.

In any case, are the words "choice" and "selection" the same or treated differently? What connotations lie behind the terminologies? SuperSuperSmarty (talk) 13:41, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

The difference is not clear-cut, but "choice" tends to have more connotations of an intelligent (usually human) agent making a conscious decision about something that affects them in some way. "selection" tends to feel more mechanical or dispassionate. 81.159.107.98 (talk) 15:02, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

So, if a choice is making a conscious decision about something that affects the chooser in some way, then are you suggesting the following?

• Choice - making a conscious decision about something that affects the chooser in some way
• ______ - making an unconscious decision about something that affects the chooser in some way
• ______ - making a conscious decision about something that does not affect the chooser in some way
• ______ - making an unconscious decision about something that does not affect the chooser in some way
• Selection - a mechanical or dispassionate choice (how is this different from "unconscious"?)

Also, if "choice" is a conscious decision, then an unconscious decision would mean making one in one's sleep?

SuperSuperSmarty (talk) 16:00, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

"conscious decision" does not highlight a contrast with "unconscious decision". At least, I didn't intend it that way. 109.151.57.10 (talk) 22:34, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

To me, "choice" connotes a discrete set of alternatives, while "selection" can be made from a continuous domain. For example, in a program like PhotoShop there are tools to let you select arbitrary parts of an image, but it would feel unnatural to say that they let you choose arbitrary parts of the image. Looie496 (talk) 16:44, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

It helps if you examine their etymons to see the difference in connotation.

Select has the connotations of 'apart'. Strictly, it would mean something like "to pick out", from its etymons se- ("apart") and legere ("gather, select"). It does not imply anything about the reasons (if there is one) for doing so, merely that you separate one from a group [of choices].

Choice has the connotations of 'free will' and 'preference'. In contrast to select, it originated from Germanic for "to taste", implying that you favor one choice over another for a reason (originally, of course, the one that tasted good).

But this is not always so clear cut of course, as their meanings overlap. They are synonyms, but they are not absolute synonyms. Compare with other words like 'amble' and 'walk'; 'eat', 'devour', 'wolf down', 'dine' and 'consume'; 'view', 'look', 'gaze', 'stare', and 'see'; 'poo', 'shit', 'excreta', 'poop', 'stool', and 'excrement'; 'firm', 'stubborn', 'resolute' and 'pigheaded'. They are all synonyms of each other, but some are used more in some contexts than another, have other meanings, or have different connotations.

Absolute synonyms are actually believed to be non-existent in natural languages, as no two words will ever have absolutely the same meanings. Also see this paper for a more technical description of synonyms.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 17:59, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

A conversation might go: "Do I get a choice?" "Yes, all right, I'll let you choose." "Thanks, now I'll make my selection.". And something - was it an airline? -used to be advertised "We never forget you have a choice". "We never forget you have a selection" wouldn't work at all. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:21, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Both choice and selection have several meanings. Some of them overlap, but not all, so these two words are not always interchangeable.

#	Meaning	Choice	Selection
1.	An act or instance of choosing	I've made a choice.	I've made a selection.
2.	The right, power, or opportunity to choose	You have no choice.	—
3.	An alternative option	There is another choice.	—
4.	Somebody or something you can choose	He is one of many choices for the award.	—
5.	An abundance or variety from which to choose	A wide choice of candidates	A wide selection of candidates
6.	Somebody or something (or a number of things) you have chosen	These three are my choice.	These three are my selection.
7.	A natural or artificial process that results in differential reproduction among the members of a population	—	Natural selection

Going back to SuperSuperSmarty's examples, in "homosexuality is a choice", it's the meaning no. 3, so you can't substitute it with "selection". Choice or selection of a template is the meaning no. 1, interchangeable. "Sexual selection" is, of course, the meaning no. 7. — Kpalion^(talk) 20:20, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Deciphering Chinese characters

Hello, please take a look at:

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/7038/starfullsize.jpg

I hope you can read it OK; I can't find a bigger picture. I recognise 星, star. Then I'm guessing the thing that looks a bit like a plus sign is the product logo, and not supposed to mean anything in Chinese, but I'm not sure. I can't seem to find the last character. Can anyone help decipher this? 81.159.107.98 (talk) 14:45, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

For any Chinese speakers who come along, there's a clearer rendering at the very top of the manufacturer's home page (after you shut down the overlying ads). Presumably it's the "Pai" in "Xing Pai", but I don't know Chinese and so can't help with the meaning. Deor (talk) 15:03, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

星牌, xīng pái. rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:14, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

星牌=Star Brand.--刻意(Kèyì) 17:52, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Otium#Etymology

Can I get Ennius' Iphigenia (241-248) translated from Latin and placed next to the Latin as a second column for direct line-for-line comparison. Thanks.--Doug Coldwell ^talk 15:04, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

There is a fairly literal line-by-line translation in Mario Erasmo's Roman Tragedy here. --Antiquary (talk) 17:22, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks.--Doug Coldwell ^talk 17:55, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Whats the rest of this ditty?

The working class can lick my arse, I ve got the foremans job at last....--92.29.199.115 (talk) 17:36, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Various parodies of the The Red Flag are listed here, including a number of alternative continuations of the one you've started. Mikenorton (talk) 17:52, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Italian question

I saw something like this written by an Italian Donald Duck artist as a greeting to Finnish Aku Ankka readers:

"A che cosa salvare?" direte voi! "Salve, salve!" dico io!

With the help of my Latin and French skills and Google Translate, I have found out that it means something like [...] you say! "Hello, hello!" I say!. But is this correct, and what does the first part mean? JIP | Talk 19:32, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Out of context it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Could be something like

"But what should I save?" you'll say

Not really grammatical, because salvare takes a direct object, so the first A is out of place. --Trovatore (talk) 19:38, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't remember the verb of the first sentence exactly, but it was something beginning with salv-. I'm fairly sure the question part started with A che cosa. All the context I have is a single picture, which the artist drew of himself, with the text in a speech bubble. JIP | Talk 19:51, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Do you still have the picture available? If the verb was salvare, it would make sense as a pun (something like "But what should I salvage?", you'll ask - "Salvage!/Hello!", I say), but as Trovatore said, the "a" is ungrammatical. Is it possible the first sentence was "Ma che cosa salvare"? -- Ferkelparade π 20:02, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Well, it could be a sort of pun. Salve is a greeting, but it could also be heard as a command, "save!", addressed to someone the speaker would say lei rather than tu to (that is, formal address). Seems a little forced. --Trovatore (talk) 20:04, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

No, the third person imperative of salvare would be salvi. ― A. di M.​  20:10, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Whoops, of course. Where'd that come from? --Trovatore (talk) 20:16, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Also, for some reason Disney comics use the old-fashioned voi (2nd plural person, hence salvate) rather than the modern lei as a formal address, or at least they did until about a decade ago–don't ask me why. ― A. di M.​  20:21, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Might it have been salutare ‘to greet’? (Salutare is supposed to be transitive too, but using it with an indirect object instead for some reason doesn't sound as wrong as salvare.) On the other hand, I can't imagine a context when someone would say such a thing as “‘What to greet?’, you will say.” ― A. di M.​  20:08, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

It could make grammatical sense if it's a response to an answer like: "Vuoi ripensare a cosa salvare?" (Do you want to rethink what to save?). Thus "A cosa salvare?" means "What to save?". It's worth noting that "salve" could mean "hello" (formal), "safe/saved" (female plural adjective) or "blank ammunitions".--151.41.139.7 (talk) 20:13, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

It might be that I remember the verb wrong. It could also be:

"A che cosa servire?" direte voi! "Serve, serve!" dico io!" JIP | Talk 08:51, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Serve, serve would be even weirder... ‘It serves, it serves’ (i.e. ‘it's needed’ or ‘it's useful’)? ‘[Female] servants, [female] servants’? ― A. di M.​  10:54, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

And I immediately think of, "I don't know why you say goodbye, I say hello; hello hello!" --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 16:27, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Short Telugu Indian translation

What does this say?: "ఓటమి ఎరగనివాడు బోది ధర్ముడు." I imagine that it probably isn't positive since it was posted on Bodhidharma, where a lot of people have disagreed with the NPOV stance on the historical records mentioning him. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 20:35, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

The first word means either "failure/defeat" or "fear", the second word is translated by Google Translate (probably incorrectly) as "incognizant", and the remaining symbols spell "Bodhidharma" with suffix '-du' (డు). What this all means, I have no clue. Telugu grammar informs me that the standard word order in Telugu is subject-object-verb, which would make "incognizant" the object and "bodhidharma" the verb, but that makes no sense. --Itinerant1 (talk) 11:15, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I got the same, but now looking at it, could it be 'Bodhidarma never knew defeat (or fear)', assuming that the word order is non-standard of course. Mikenorton (talk) 15:16, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

December 5

Knowledge me up

Consider words such as 'employable', 'doable', 'payable', 'moveable', 'taxable', 'changeable', 'breakable' and so on. Even 'wikifiable'. These all have the form Xable, and mean 'able to be Xed' or 'there is a requirement they be Xed'.

Now consider the word 'knowledgeable'. It refers to one who has already acquired considerable knowledge. It does not mean "able to be knowledged", except that by making certain assumptions it might mean the person is capable of being knowledged further, and even that assumes the existence of the verb "to knowledge", which would be a false assumption even in these days of rampant and wanton verbification.

I note that wikt: -able provides more than one meaning for -able, but none of the meanings seem to fit 'knowledgeable'.

I wonder why we use the -able ending in 'knowledgeable' when the -able does not imply what it does in other words of this form. Are there any other words like this?

Are there any knowledgeable persons out there who can knowledge me up about shed light on this question? -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 04:19, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Is (dis)agreeable? Clarityfiend (talk) 04:44, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Another similar word is "sensible" when used with the meanings "having good sense" or "capable of perceiving things". Sensible actually works both ways in English - it can mean either capable of sense ("he is a very sensible young man") or capable of being sensed ("Plato distinguished between the sensible world and the intelligible world").[10] Compare "insensible" which can mean either "comatose" (being unable to sense one's surroundings) or "imperceptible" (unable to be sensed). --Colapeninsula (talk) 11:39, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Fascinatingly enough, the suffixes -able, -ible, -ability, and -ibility are actually not etymologically related to the adjective/noun able and ability. The former came from Latin pretty much as is, from -ibilis and -ābilis, suffixes meaning "ability", "worthiness", "capacity", "fitness". The latter came from a completely different word, the adjective habilis, from habeō (to have).

So while we've traditionally viewed the suffixes as "being able to X", it can be used with a noun as "the capacity for X".-- Obsidi♠n Soul 12:08, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, they're not completely different, since the Latin suffix was also originally the word habilis. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:01, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I thought that too, but no. -ābilis and -ibilis (and the unmentioned third form -ubilis) are simply different forms of the Latin adjectival suffix -bilis (equivalent to English -ble) with added vowel stems.

From the Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology:

-ble — (O)F. — L. -bilis, adj. suffix denoting tendency, fitness, ability, or capability of doing or being something; added to vb. -stems, as flēbilis lamentable, tearful. f. flēre weep; mōbilis easily moved, mobile. stabilis steadfast, stable; with vb.-stems in a, i, and u it combined to form the compound suffixes repr. in Eng. by -able, -ible, and -uble, of which the first (the only one in living use) is by far the most common, and capable of being compounded with any verb; the last is repr. only in soluble, voluble. The corr. abstract nouns end in -bility and advs. in -bly.

habilis on the other hand, is from the conjugation of hab (ēre) and the suffix -ilis (modern English/French -ile in words like docile, gracile, fragile). Very different things.

I also found this paper viewable in [frustratingly] short previews here, which discusses the Modern French and English conflation of the Latin suffix -bilis with the ME free morpheme able thus restricting its modern acceptable conjunctions only to verbs despite that not being the original case (several examples are given like OF aidable - looks like "helpable" but actually means "helpful"; decevable - looks likes "deceivable" but actually means "full of deceptions", "deceiving").

• Carola Trips & Achim Stein (2008). "Was Old French -able borrowable? A diachronic study of word-formation processes due to language contact". In Maurizio Gotti, Marina Dossena, & Richard Dury (ed.). English Historical Linguistics 2006. Voume 2: Lexical and Semantic Change. John Benjamins Publishing Company. pp. 217–239. ISBN 9789027248114.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)

-- Obsidi♠n Soul 16:24, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

The OED Historical Thesaurus suggests that the word has undergone a change in meaning over the years. Comfortable has done the same - In 1377 it had the meaning 'able to give comfort'; that is, something or someone that can comfort you. The sense of something comforting you still applies in the phrase 'a comfortable chair', although when applied to a person, as in 'I am comfortable', we now use it to mean 'in a state of comfort'. Similarly, knowledgeable originally meant 'able to be known', or, more loosely, something that can be recognized, as in this sentence, from E. Topsell's Hist. Fovre-footed Beastes (1607):

Let him but set vp a stick or staffe, or some such other knowledgable marke, in the middle space betwixt him and the wolfe, and it will scar him away.

In turn, this was derived from an earlier sense of knowledge; used as a verb to mean 'to admit to knowledge of'. In this sense, it appears in the Book of Common Prayer in 1549 thus:

[They] stode and knowleged their synnes, and the wyckednesses of their fathers.

Over time, knowledge lost the ability to act as a verb (the slack being taken up by acknowledge), and came to the meaning we now use, that of the condition of knowing something. As it did so, knowledgeable underwent the same change as comfortable; from 'able to be knowledged' (i.e. a synonym of recognizable) to 'in a state of knowledge'. The OED suggests that this change was influenced by Irish, saying

The adjective may have been formed so as to enable the Irish construction with the postposed genitive feasa (nominative fios knowledge: see wit v.1) to be translated by a premodified noun phrase (which is more natural in spoken English).

Unfortunately, I am not knowledgeable enough about C18th Irish to know how correct this might be. Cucumber Mike (talk) 22:16, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

But knowledgeable enough to have given a very good answer to my question. Thank you, everyone. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 10:06, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Standardly

Is "standardly" a legitimate word? Why do spellcheckers not recognize it? It is in Merriam-Webster's online dictionary. 205.156.136.229 (talk) 16:55, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Unlike French, the English language has no central authority with the power to decide which words are legitimate and which are not. Looie496 (talk) 17:29, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Sounds legit to me. Spellcheckers are always abridged, meaning they miss the less common words. Thus, a word flagged by a spellchecker isn't necessarily wrong, it just needs manual checking. StuRat (talk) 17:40, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Please find a way to avoid using it if you can, though. Sounds awkward. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:00, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I see an increasing use of the grammatically poor "XYZ is standardly included." There are a host of better ways to write that. Unfortunately, while the French have an institute dedicated to the preservation of (their) proper language, the English standard is that anything sufficiently repeated becomes part of the standard vernacular regardless of its grammatical worthiness. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 18:39, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Which of course pre-supposes that "worthiness" is not something which is defined by the bulk of the speakers of a language. --Jayron32 18:44, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and I'd expect that attempts to regulate the language would be about as successful as attempts to regulate prices. That is, while they can be regulated a bit in the short term, in the long term both the language and economy go where they want, and the regulators must ultimately yield to the reality or become irrelevant. StuRat (talk) 19:39, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

The catch there, Peters, is that whatever may be the standard vernacular at any point in time is the grammatical standard. It is the duty of all right-thinking people to resist disgusting phenomena like the use of "transition" as a verb, but sometimes these things acquire a critical mass, resistance becomes futile, and thus we have language change. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 18:54, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I use standardly all the time especially when I'm translating for German as there is no better English translation for standardmäßig. If my spellchecker doesn't recognize it, I add it. Angr (talk) 20:56, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

"In a standard manner"? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 21:19, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

If anything, "as a standard" or "as a default". But why not just use standardly? Angr (talk) 21:22, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Guess what? Standardly appears in the OED defined as "[i]n a standard manner; according to common practice; normally, generally", and is attested by two citations, one from 1957 and the other from 1978. Have to say I've not come across it before, though. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 21:25, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

See http://www.onelook.com/?w=standardly&ls=a and http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/standardly and http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definitions/standardly. Also, my Google News search for standardly reported 12 results, including http://spatialnews.geocomm.com/dailynews/2011/nov/14/news2.html (see paragraph 2).

—Wavelength (talk) 21:43, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

"standardly" is an abomination in my opinion. 86.148.152.251 (talk) 23:11, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

What other word would you use to describe something that had the demeanour of a Lamp standard? ;-) AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:06, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Any particular reason? I've never understood why some people pick words at random and declare they don't like them. What if I were to say, "this and do are abominations in my opinion"? Angr (talk) 06:48, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think they're chosen at random. Are you saying it's bad to have an aesthetic response to neologisms (and other words and phrases)? We mustn't confuse the principle that the language is what people use regardless of our personal opinions, with the rather soul-destroying idea that therefore we must not have feelings about the language people use. I don't have a problem with standardly, but I can see why someone else might. It's healthy to explore this side of our relationship with language, so long as we're not Nazis about it. VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 07:23, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

The process of making an adverb out of an adjective by adding -ly is fully productive in English. Why pick one such instance and declare it "awkward" and an "abomination"? It certainly seems random to me. Peters J V above calls standardly included "grammatically poor" but uses grammatically poor and sufficiently repeated himself. Why are those two okay but standardly included isn't? What's the difference? Is he going to object to my use of fully productive in the first sentence of this post? (I have absolutely no way of predicting the answer to that question.) And what's the point of having an aesthetic response to language? Do bees criticize each other's dance moves? Do birds criticize each other's songs and flight techniques? Why not focus on the content of what someone is saying instead of the aesthetics of the packaging? Angr (talk) 07:58, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Language isn't so standardificabilitous. Although -ly typically forms adverbs (it's one of the most consistent inflection patterns in English), it doesn't automatically mean that every single time it's attached to an adjective it's standard or neutral, or even acceptable. "He writes goodly" is not quite the same as "He writes well", and "She works hardly" is not accepted as an alternative to "She works hard".

As for your question "what's the point of having an aesthetic response to language?" - indeed, what's the point of fussing over whether you live in a grey concrete block or a palace, eat processed sludge or cordon bleu? It's all function, innit. The last thing we should do is worry about whether we actually like what we're consuming. That would be madness. It might lead to poetry and fine prose, and then where would we be? ;-) VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 09:58, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree, everyone is entitled to his aesthetic preferences as regards words. Personally I find whilst and amongst terribly grating. On the other hand, I'm very fond of the words chupacabra, Tucumcari, and synecdoche. But standardly? That's pretty bland; why should anyone care either way? --Trovatore (talk) 10:15, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Cryptozoological peeve: the Spanish original is chupacabras (sing.), "sucker of goats" - perhaps the usual English rendering "goat-sucker" has through its numerical ambiguity given rise to the false singular "chupacabra", but many active Fortean zoologists prefer "chupacabras." Note that even our own article is titled "Chupacabra" but begins "The Chupacabras . . . is a legendary cryptid . . . :-) .

Oh, and "goodly" may be deprecated as a synonym for "well" because of its existing if archaic usage as an adjective - "He ate a goodly portion of viands." {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.198 (talk) 11:51, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware that chupacabras is technically more correct. But it just doesn't roll off the tongue the same way. --Trovatore (talk) 20:11, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

My guess is that it appears rarely and it stands out because of this. As such, perhaps it draws more attention to itself than its use here demands and makes the sentence feel a bit awkward (after all, why choose this rare formation rather than "as standard", or in the case of the example above, "typically included"?). That doesn't make standardly wrong, and it's not grammatically poor. I'm just pointing out (a) that being ugly/unappealing and being wrong are not the same thing in language, and (b) we shouldn't suppress the validity (I would also argue importance) of aesthetic opinions about language. I don't have a problem with "standardly", but I feel a bit Voltaire-ish about the right of people to say they do, so long as they don't say it's "wrong".VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 10:33, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

But they don't have the right to say so here. This is the reference desk for factual questions, not Twitter. --Colapeninsula (talk) 11:55, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

There is no "factual" answer. It is a matter of opinion. 81.159.106.246 (talk) 14:44, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

No, it's mainly factual. Q. "Is "standardly" a legitimate word?" A. Yes, because the OP already told us it's in Merriam-Webster's online dictionary, and we also now know it's in the OED. It's a fact that we don't standardly encounter "standardly" in well-written texts. It's a fact that certain words are recognised in dictionaries but most people still prefer not to use them. Their reasons will vary, and that's the only subjective part of this issue. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 18:40, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

"legitimate" according to who? There is no definitive source to consult. In borderline cases such as this, dictionaries include or exclude words based on the opinions of their compilers. 86.177.107.177 (talk) 20:07, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I always apply the Scrabble Test in such cases. A word is acceptable in an English Scrabble game (as long as it isn't a proper noun) if it appears in an English dictionary. "Standardly" appears in at least 2 English dictionaries, and is therefore a valid, legitimate, recognised, acceptable or whatever-other-adjective-you-may-care-to-use word for Scrabble purposes. Put it this way: people may prefer never to use it, and that's their choice; but those who do should never be told it's unacceptable on the grounds that it isn't a recognised word - because it clearly is a recognised word. What's recognised does not come down to "What I personally have heard of". -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 20:33, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Some spellcheckers don't recognise my username either, even though it is a perfectly cromulent word in English: wikt:theurgist. --Theurgist (talk) 19:32, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

December 6

The water is fine

What exactly is meant by "the water is fine" in http://www.economist.com/node/21540395 (at the very bottom of the article)? I think litterally it's something like "the water is not too cold", but i guess that it's also used as a general expression like "you will like this party, you might think there are just nasty people but you'll see they are really nice"? Google just comes up with many lyrics. TIA! Joepnl (talk) 03:17, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Literally, "Come on in, the water's fine" would be used to encourage bathers into the sea (or a pool) -- usually understood to mean, as you say, that the water is at a comfortable temperature. Figuratively, the expression could be used to reassure someone that an activity is safe, enjoyable, profitable, etc., and to encourage them to participate. In your example it is used in a slightly punning way. On the one hand the usage is figurative because it is talking about entrepreneurs embarking on the construction of floating cities, rather than anyone actually going bathing. On the other hand there is an obvious connection between the literal meaning and the subject being discussed. 86.148.152.251 (talk) 03:58, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Interesting point to bring up. If something sounds cliched and trite, it's probably also corporate speak.--WaltCip (talk) 17:55, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Translation of Latin caption

What does the caption say in English?

Engraving of Osman, son of Ibrahim I

Hi, would someone like to try their hand at translating the Latin caption of the image on the right into English? I'm afraid the smaller print may be a bit hard to make out. The woman depicted is Kösem Sultan. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 09:22, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Vera effigies Turcorum Imperatoris Ibrahim filli, sultanae eiusdem matris, sub pugna navali ab equitibus Melitensibus captorum, inq. insulam Melitensem abductorum. I'd read it as: "True images of the son of the Turkish imperator Ibrahim and of the mother of the same sultan, who was captured by the Maltese cavalry during a naval battle, and abducted to the island of Malta." (How did the Maltese cavalry get into a naval battle? Don't ask me. All I know is that that "navali" is "naval" and "equitibus" is "cavalry".) I don't know what "inq." stands for, but that does not seem to be very important to understand the passage. --Itinerant1 (talk) 10:44, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Could be inque, "and in". Ab equitibus Melitensibus "by the Knights of Malta" --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 11:03, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Is Filii "son" or "sons"? Also, was it the Sultana or her grandson who was abducted to Malta? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 11:12, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Vera effigies is singular ("authentic image"), and the transcription above, although not the translation, omitted the "et" before sultanae. (Et sultanae eiusdem matris doesnt't mean "and of the mother of the same sultan", I think, but rather "and of his [i.e., Ibrahim's] mother the sultana".) To answer the questions immediately above, filii is singular "of the son"; and captorum and abductorum are plural, so the meaning is that both were captured and taken to Malta. Deor (talk) 11:44, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

So, "An authentic image of the son of the Turkish Emperor Ibrahim, and of the Sultana his [i.e., Ibrahim's] mother, who were captured by the Maltese cavalry during a naval battle, and abducted to the island of Malta"? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 12:15, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

That does not make sense from the historical perspective. Kösem Sultan was captured at the age of 15, in 1604 or 1605. Ibrahim I, the son of Kösem Sultan and Ahmed I was only born in 1615. The child depicted in this picture is Ibrahim's son, who was born no earlier than 1640. I'll defer to Deor's authority with regard to other aspects.--Itinerant1 (talk) 12:52, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

This probably refers to the Action of 28 September 1644. Mikenorton (talk) 12:59, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

In which case, the woman in the engraving would not be Kösem Sultan, but the wife of Ibrahim who was captured with the boy (according to the cited article). Eiusdem matris would then denote the mother of the "filius" rather than the mother of Ibrahim. Deor (talk) 13:38, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

The source is Theatrum Europaeum, where the two different pictures of mother Zaffira and son Osman are shown as an illustration of the news text (in German). --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 13:47, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Note that there were serious doubts about whether the boy really was the son of Ibrahim, John Evelyn 'exposed' him as an imposter in 1669 in his The History of the three late famous Imposters, viz. Padre Ottomano, Mahomed Bei, and Sabatei Sevi . Mikenorton (talk) 14:09, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

And so, summing it all up, the correct translation would appear to be "Authentic depiction of the son of Emperor Ibrahim and of the sultana his mother, [who were] captured in a naval battle by the Knights of Malta and carried off to the island of Malta". Perhaps the image should be moved to the article Action of 28 September 1644, as it's misleading in its current use. Deor (talk) 14:24, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm missing something fundamental here: Where is the filius in this picture? The small bloke on the left looks more like a servant/slave. Also, the lady looks pregnant to me, but maybe I'm just imagining that. --Wrongfilter (talk) 16:10, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Presumably the son is pictured in the other image linked to by Pp.Paul above - 'Osman', I'm further presuming that the images appear as a pair, although why one caption is in Latin and the other in German..... Mikenorton (talk) 16:37, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I concur. As far as I can tell, the Latin and German captions say the same thing. Unfortunately, our article on Ibrahim I says nothing about this particular wife of his (how do we know her name is Zaffira?), or a son named Osman. Thank you all – this has been most enlightening. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:51, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Just to confirm that the German text is the literal translation of the Latin. "Wahre Contrafactur des Türckischen Kaysers Ibrahims Sohn und der Sultanin seiner Mutter, welche in dem Seetreffen von denen Malteser Rittern gefangen und nach Malta gebracht worden." This also makes unambiguously clear that the person depicted is not Ibrahim but Ibrahim's son, and that the mother is not Ibrahim's mother but that son's mother. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:51, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

She's named 6 lines from the bottom of the first column of p. 645 in the work cited by Pp.Paul.4. Deor (talk) 17:13, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I quoted it above from the German news in Theatrum Europaeum, which is several pages long and has more images of Sultan Ibrahim I and of the battles of the Turkish-Venetian War. The English version of the name would be perhaps Sapphira, she was baptized, I do not know whether in fact or fiction, Giacometta Beccarino see, for example, her fate here. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 17:22, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Ah, great. Now, for those with German skills: how should the title of the work from which the engraving was obtained be translated? It is Theatri Europaei Fünffter Theil / Das ist: Außführliche Beschreibung Aller Denckwürdigen Geschichten. Die sich in Europa, Als Hoch- und Nieder-Teutschland / Franckreich / Hispanien / Jtalien / Groß-Britannien / Dennemarck / Schweden / Polen / Moscaw / Böhmen / Hungarn / Siebenbürgen / Wallachey / Moldaw: Jn der Türckey und Barbarey ... vom Jahr 1643. biß ins 1647. Jahr / allerseits begeben und verlauffen. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 18:06, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Theatri Europaei Part V: A detailed description of all significant events which took place between 1643 and 1647 in Europe, ie Austria, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Great Britain, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Moscow, Bohemia, Hungary, Transylvania, Wallachia, Moldavia but also in Turkey and the barbaric countries. --Incognito.ergo.possum (talk) 19:10, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Does Theatri Europaei translate as "European Theatre"? And what is "allerseits begeben und verlauffen"? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 19:19, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Theatri Europaei Fünffter Theil literally is "fifth part of the European Theatre". The convention is to recast such genitive titles in the nominative but leave them in Latin, so "Theatrum Europaeum, Part 5" is what you want. Allerseits begeben und verlauffen is what Incognito rendered as "took place"—literally something like "...occurred and came to pass everywhere [in Europe...]. Deor (talk) 19:37, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Just a few small corrections: "Barbarey" would be Barbary Coast, not "barbarian countries". There's also no "but also" in the original. "Moscaw", as a country, would probably be translated as "Muscovy". I don't think "Hoch- und Nieder-Teutschland" can be translated as "Austria and Germany"; I'd go for "Upper and Lower Germany" (or even: "Germany and the Low Countries"? Not quite sure. But "Austria" certainly wouldn't have been singled out conceptually like this.) You could also turn the main title into English: "Theatre of Europe, Part 5". Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:25, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

"begeben und verlauffen" is a hendiadyoin for "happened" (things that "occurred and transpired" or something like that). "Allerseits" would be "anywhere". Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:30, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Overseas

Here in Australia, an island continent, the word overseas is used effectively to mean (travel to) any foreign country. Its use leads to silly jokes about travel to Tasmania, an island state of Australia. But what does overseas mean elsewhere? HiLo48 (talk) 18:18, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Cue the legendary anecdote about the politician Kep Enderby, who is reputed to have once pronounced during a parliamentary debate: Traditionally, most of Australia's imports come from overseas. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 18:26, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I've also heard that (or something very similar) attributed to George Bush [11][12]. 86.177.107.177 (talk) 20:16, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I first heard about Enderby's alleged remark when he was a minister in 1974-75, well before GWB was a well-known figure. It was widely reported at the time, and ever since then it's always been the thing he's best rememebered for, but we've had no luck tracking down a citation. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 20:21, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

The Philippines is an archipelagic country. It has the same meaning here, strangely enough. When we say "overseas" we never mean merely hopping from one island to another, we mean going to another country.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 18:34, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

(EC) The UK has pretty much exactly the same usage; and the same silly jokes, but usually referring to the Isle of Wight (often, the people making the jokes also refer, hilariously, to it as the 'Izzle of Widget'). I found this page which seems to confirm that people, or at least some landlords, get confused about where 'overseas' is:

Some confusion often reigns with the following localities, Isle of Wight and Northern Ireland. These landlords are NOT classed as overseas. Southern Ireland (Eire), the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are classed as overseas. Cucumber Mike (talk) 18:42, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Here in the US it's complicated. Canada and Mexico clearly aren't "overseas", and perhaps the same is true for most of Central America. For South America and the bit of Central America beyond the Darien Gap, however, land travel is pretty much out, which means traveling "over sea(s)" (although I suppose you could manage to fly over land the whole way). The state of Hawaii is not considered "overseas" even though, technically, it is. StuRat (talk) 21:52, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

In my experience in the U.S., "overseas" usually means travel to any foreign country other than Canada or Mexico. 205.156.136.229 (talk) 21:56, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

So, is "most of our imports come from overseas" as nonsensical in the US as it obviously is in Australia? 86.177.107.177 (talk) 22:56, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

"Choose" vs. "Jews"

In the film Ghostbusters, the Traveller, Gozer the Gozerian, who during the rectification of the Vuldronaii came as a large and moving TORG, and during the reconciliation of the Meketrex supplications, came as a giant SLORR, where many Zuuls and Shubs were roasted in the depths of the Slorr (I can tell you), says "Choose and perish!" According to this page, Bill Murray said model/actress Slavitza Jovan's pronunciation of the line sounded more like "Jews and berries". Now I'm not a native English speaker and therefore unaccustomed to English pronunciation. I can understand the "perish" vs. "berries" bit, but not the "choose" vs. "Jews" bit. Particularly, I don't understand the difference between "ch" and "j". Finns pronounce both as /ts/. In contrast to Russian, which I've been told, has seven different s sounds, Finnish has all of one: /s/. I don't understand IPA or elaborate instructions of how to hold my facial organs when uttering the sound. Can anyone give me a simple description of the difference? JIP | Talk 20:28, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

The "J" in "Jews" is voiced, the "ch" in "choose" is not. Both are affricates, not particularly close to "s". — Kpalion^(talk) 20:35, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Also, in "perish", the effect could have come about because an English /p/ in that position is typically strongly aspirated [pʰ]. When a foreign speaker pronounces it as a non-aspirated but voiceless [p], as is common in many other languages, English speakers will often tend to hear it as a /b/. I have no idea why a Serbian speaker would have had difficulties reproducing the English distinction between "ch" ([tʃ]) and "j" ([dʒ]) though, because Serbian does have both these sounds too. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:43, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Neither of the two official languages of Finland, Finnish and Swedish, features affricates in its consonant inventory. Some examples of affricates are the English "ch" and "j", the German "z", and the "z" in Italian zucchero. --Theurgist (talk) 20:52, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Finnish also doesn't feature much in the way of constrastive voicing. Our article Finnish phonology says that /b d ɡ/ are distinct from /p t k/ only in non-native words and (in the case of /d/ vs. /t/ alone) under consonant gradation. But JIP, if you can distinguish bussi from pussi and gorilla from korilla in Finnish, then try applying the same distinction to the English "j" and "ch" sounds. Incidentally probably what the Serbian actress did that made her /tʃ/ and /p/ sound like /dʒ/ and /b/ to Bill Murray was fail to aspirate the sounds sufficiently since voiceless stops in Serbian (like most Slavic languages) are unaspirated. Unaspirated voiceless stops at the beginning of a word are often perceived by English speakers as being voiced. Angr (talk) 21:28, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Does this help? [13] Cucumber Mike (talk) 21:20, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your answers, this helps. Finns know the distinction between voiced and unvoiced consonants, even though native Finnish only has unvoiced consonants, but voiced consonants occur in loanwords often enough. Except for d as an inflected form of t, which many Finns outside the capital region still find hard to grasp, pronouncing it instead as l or r. I gather this is a distinction between /ts/ ("ch", unvoiced) and /dz/ ("j", voiced). Anything beyond the voiced/unvoiced distinction is lost on Finns. JIP | Talk 21:36, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Basically yeah though "ch" is more like "tš" than like "ts" and "j" more like "dž" than like "dz". If you want to make all the phonemic distinctions that English has you have to distinguish not only "choose" from "Jews" but also "eights", "aitch", "AIDS" and "age" from each other. Angr (talk) 21:44, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm just posting something I wrote while other users posted their comments above. Since this is a public forum, I thought some examples could optimise clarity. To exemplify the "voiced" thing:

• In English: the ch in "chew" is to the j in "Jew" like the s in "sewn" is to the z in "zone" and like the f in "file" is to the v in "vile".

To exemplify the "affricate" thing:

• the sh in English "shoe" is to the ch in English "chew" like the ss in German "Kasse" is to the tz in German "Katze" and like the j in French "j'aime" is to the g in English "gem".

Noticing the difference between the s in English "sell" and the sh in English "shell", or between the z in German "Zinn" and the ch in English "chin", may also pose problems to Finnish speakers. --Theurgist (talk) 21:47, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Plush candles

As I said here, I don't know what a "plush candle" is. For once on these desks, the tangent didn't get followed and I'm still in the dark about these candles (pun intended). So, could someone explain what is meant by a plush candle? Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 21:46, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I assume it means a toy made out of plush (the material used for stuffed animals) in the shape of a candle and not a real candle actually intended to be burned. Here's an example of a plush candleholder (click the image to see it enlarged) and here's the plush Advent wreath with candles the OP over at the Humanities desk was talking about. Angr (talk) 22:09, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, so what makes this a "plush" candle? It's not stuffed. Dismas|^(talk) 22:12, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

In this case, "Plush" may be the name of a scent/perfume, rather than an adjective. --Orange Mike | Talk 22:17, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I just came to the realization that they could be using plush as a synonym for luxurious. It's not a word that I'd choose when talking about a candle but I guess it's possible. I'd use plush for things like blankets or pillows but not a hard object like a candle, so it threw me off. Dismas|^(talk) 22:19, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

They have other odd ones. What makes this a "juiced candle"? Is it on steroids? Deor (talk) 22:21, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Orangemike. In the case of the APOTHIA Los Angeles Plush candle Plush is probably just a brand name. In the thread on the humanities desk plush probably means a toy candle made of plush since the OP there is talking about something safe for small children. Angr (talk) 22:45, 6 December 2011 (UTC)