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August 27

Italian question

I asked sometime earlier about the meaning of a quote from an Italian Donald Duck comic by Giorgio Cavazzano something like this: "A che cosa servire?" direte voi! "Serve, serve!" dico io! but I remembered the quote too badly for the question to be answered.

It just happens that I have recently bought a Finnish Roope-Setä comic which appears to have a Finnish translation of the story this quote appears in. Here's my rough translation to English from the translation from Italian to Finnish:

"But what use could such a thing be of?" you may ask! "A great deal!" I reply!

Based on this, could anyone manage to reconstruct the original Italian quote in perfectly grammatical Italian? JIP | Talk 18:00, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I probably won't be able to help, but could you give the story code, please? (In the first panel, presumably starting with I-...). --Wrongfilter (talk) 18:33, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There doesn't seem to be anything like that on the first panel, but at the lower left corner, where Cavazzano is stting at his desk, facing the viewers, is a code saying "?-262-A". I can't make out the first glyph. It could be a capital "I", or the digit 1, or the digit 5. JIP | Talk 18:39, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's I AT 262-A, right? That's a Mickey Mouse story, though. --Wrongfilter (talk) 21:11, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's the one. Donald Duck is more popular here in Finland than Mickey Mouse so we call the comic books "Donald Duck comics" even though they also include Mickey Mouse stories. There are scans of the original Italian version here, but the text is very small. From what I can make out, I remembered the original Italian quote quite well, but not perfectly. JIP | Talk 04:15, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ha, amusing to learn that Donald Duck is especially popular in Finland in light of this pervasive urban legend. -Elmer Clark (talk) 05:54, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Here's something similar: Donald Duck is trying to sell a pen to a Bedouin in a desert: ""Che cos'è? A cosa serve?". Paperino pensa: ecco, sono arretrati, non sanno manco cos'è una penna, di certo farò affari. Quindi spiega: "Serve a tracciare dei segni sulla carta, delle lettere, serve a comunicare…". "Insomma - risponde il beduino - serve a scrivere". E Paperino, stralunato, "Ma come, conosce la scrittura e non riconosce una penna?". Il beduino fa "mi segua" e lo conduce nella sua tenda. Dove gli mostra un computer superattrezzato. "Ecco - conclude - io uso questo"." = ""What is it? What use does it have?" Donald thinks: look, they are backwards, they don't even know what a pen is, I'll definitely make a good deal. Then he explains: "it's used to draw marks on paper, letters, it's used to communicate..." "In short," answers the Bedouin, "it's used to write." And Donald, bewildered, says "What, you know about writing and don't recognize a pen?" The Bedouin says "follow me" and leads him to his tent. Where he shows him a super-equipped computer. "There," he concludes, "I use this."" Lesgles (talk) 23:27, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Native Italian here. One of the possible translations: ""Ma a cosa potrebbe servire una cosa del genere?" Ti potresti chiedere! "Un vero affare!" Sarebbe la mia risposta!"--151.41.160.11 (talk) 19:35, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I am totally confused. I can read but not speak Italian, and comprehend what has been said above. Why are we offering an Italian translation of an Italian utterance? BTW, the original English translation of the Italian (which makes perfect sense to me when I pretend it is Spanish) is loose, but seems fine. μηδείς (talk) 20:06, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The OP indicated that they could not remember the original Italian phrase, so they are trying to derive it from an English translation of the Finnish translation of the original Italian phrase. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 20:47, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Translations aren't always faithful. I have in mind a scene in Asterix in Britain: there's a quarrel between a fruit vendor and a customer, and in the next panel Obelix asks (in French) "Why is that Briton wearing a melon on his head?" — but in the English version he asks an unrelated question. (Usually such changes are due to the difficulty of translating a pun.) —Tamfang (talk) 21:56, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, that's a 30-year flashback. Are you telling me there really is something called Asterix? I always though my French 101 teacher was making that up, lol. μηδείς (talk) 01:48, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Asterix has been going since 1959. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 02:27, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I was told in the early 80's that if I persevered and took four years of French I could go to Paris as a senior and buy these French comics about a Celt named Ass Tey Reeks. I did take four years of French, but also took three years of German, and instead toured the Alps, and came home with various liqueurs and a switchblade I smuggled in my lead-lined film case and a rather kinky Austrain porn stash, all of which I resold to my classmates in the airport as we arrived home at a nice profit. μηδείς (talk) 02:53, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(PS, not that I was a total cretin. I bought various collected works of Sartre and Hugo and two plays by Rostand and even Le Seigneur des Anneaux in French translation for my own pleasure. (also, Der Wuesten Planet, and Der Kleine Hobbit, two great German originals.) μηδείς (talk) 02:58, 28 August 2012 (UTC))[reply]

I blame Astérix for such fluency in French as I have. —Tamfang (talk) 21:02, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Moved my question here for better visibility. Judging by the rather low-resolution scan, the original Italian quote is: "A che cosa servira'?" direte voi! "Serve, serve!" dico io! Now could anyone tell me a direct translation of it to English? And by the way, I've heard the story of Donald Duck being banned in Finland (which is not true) so many times I've become bored of it. JIP | Talk 17:44, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"'What's it good for?' you say! 'It's useful, it's useful!' I say!" ... Unfortunately I can't think of an English translation that preserves the parallel use of the verb. — May I presume that by servira' you mean servirà? —Tamfang (talk) 21:51, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I mean servirà. The text in the scan was a bit difficult to make out. JIP | Talk 04:24, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Three days I have been trying to find an elegant translation of the Italian phrase into English. It's easy to translate it to Spanish. To English impossible. μηδείς (talk) 16:41, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"To google" or "to Google"?

Google has become such a de-facto standard among web search engines that it has become a verb in common usage. This may be against Google's wishes, while they would prefer such constructs as "make a search with the Google search engine". But this question is specifically about Google as a verb. Is it written "to google" or "to Google"? In my native Finnish, I would definitely always write googlata, not Googlata, because in Finnish, the only words that are capitalised (except when beginning a sentence) are proper names. Any derivatives thereof are non-capitalised. But I think the capitalisation rules in English are different. For example, in Finnish we say Suomi (Finland) but suomalainen (Finnish) because, as my grade school teacher said, there's only one Finland, but many Finnish people. (Not to be confused with Kari Suomalainen, which doesn't mean "the Finnish Kari", but Suomalainen is his actual surname.) But how is it like in English? Is it "to google" or "to Google"? JIP | Talk 18:27, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

See http://www.onelook.com/?w=google&ls=a.

—Wavelength (talk) 18:31, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Formal English style would currently require this to be capitalized, since Google is a proper noun. (Much communication in texting and on the internet is purposefully informal.) That may change over time as with band aid or kleenex as it becomes a genericized trademark. μηδείς (talk) 18:34, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have not heard of genericized trademarks of other search engines (see List of search engines).

—Wavelength (talk) 18:58, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that Google is commonly used as a verb suggests the process has begun, but check back in 20 years. The important thing is to capitalize it in formal usages at this point. μηδείς (talk) 19:04, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wiktionary:google doesn't seem to support that. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 20:14, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What is the that that wiktionary doesn't support? μηδείς (talk) 16:39, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In "formal" usages, I would say it shouldn't be used as a verb at all. --Trovatore (talk) 20:37, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, the OED capitalizes Google in its two definitions relating to the search engine, but also has a note: "Forms: also with lower-case initial." Of the six quotation examples given three are capitalized and three are not. They also occur as Google, Googled, and Googling. Oddly in the quotations only "google" is shown lowercase only, the others occur both ways. Pfly (talk) 00:44, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@ Trovatore, if you were referring to Michael Crichton's Next you might have to refer to Googling and Wikipedia in a formal context. You could always use scare quotes if you had to. μηδείς (talk) 01:45, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have adopted the habit of telling people to Search for something in emails, etc, implying that I intend them to use one of the proprietary search engines without advertising one or the other. --Mirokado (talk) 16:36, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have heard several youngsters say that they "will Wikipedea that" (ie look it up on Wikipedia). That's an argument for another day. Alansplodge (talk) 18:14, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How to formulate a sourced lack of source?

Hello everyone!

I have a source which says that the father of Francis Marrash remained in Paris for some more time after his son's departure, but he remained in Paris for reasons which are unknown to us (those reasons may very well have been known to his family and friends but no source has been found mentioning them). So I'm not sure how to formulate this:

"His father remained in Paris for some more time, for reasons which are not known to us.[reference]"

Is it acceptable? Is there a way of writing this without using the pronoun "us"? (WP:FIRSTPERSON) Thanks for your help! Bryan P. C. C. (talk)

Just leave out the "to us". Clarityfiend (talk) 22:18, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just leave out the whole "for reasons...". —Tamfang (talk) 22:33, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Removed that part of the sentence completely. It does look better now haha! Thanks to both! Bryan P. C. C. (talk) 00:08, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

August 28

the phrase "You don't talk about anything"

I've heard the people told me "You don't talk about anything", I wonder what does that mean? I just don't know that metaphor "You don't talk about anything", I just heard that phrase when I ramble about blue lights, red lights, green lights, purple lights without regarding people's annoyance level when I talk. --69.228.146.54 (talk) 00:03, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why not just ask the person making this observation to clarify, to a greater extent, what is meant by it? It sounds like someone is saying that your topics of conversation are not recognized as being valid in some way but the person making such a comment would be the best person to expand upon it if asked. Bus stop (talk) 00:06, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In your case, it sounds like it means you don't talk about anything important to them. StuRat (talk) 00:09, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've heard a similar phrase used on three occasions: when someone is unwilling to talk at all (and usually this is the person who won't tell you what s/he wants, but gets toweringly furious bordering on abusive if you don't magically guess correctly - in other words, setting you up for failure so they can play the martyr); when someone drones on and on about things no reasonable person cares about (usually out of cruel malice or snot-nosed dismissive spite, to show how superior s/he is to others); and when someone replies to questions with grunts and shrugs because s/he thinks telling the truth will get him/her in trouble, not realizing that not telling the truth will get him/her in even more trouble. --NellieBly (talk) 02:40, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So, you've met my mother? Snap! μηδείς (talk) 02:43, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Latin translation needed

For work in progress at Pantheon of Asturian Kings, can anyone translate from Latin the following inscription? As so often with Latin, it makes some sense to me, but not enough: INCLVSI TENERVM PRAETIOSO MARMORE CORPVS AETERNAM IN SEDE NOMINIS ITHACII - Jmabel | Talk 03:25, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect that tenerum should be tenuerunt or even the passive in a different person. It is like "e plebnista" form The Omega Glory. Something like, "they have enclosed in this precious marble the eternal body in the seat (throne, place?) (in) the name of (the) Ithaca(n)." Literally, and quite ungrammatically, it is "included pl.--they held--by the precious marble--the body (nom)--eternal (acc)--in the seat--of the name ithacan." It is about as confused as you can get. You cannot really translate it from standard Latin. You would have to have an expert in dark ages "Latin". μηδείς (talk) 03:58, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Tenerum" is simply an adjective describing "corpus", referring either to the general weakness of the flesh, or maybe that this is the grave of a child. It could be mistranscribed, or there are sigla in the inscription that have been left out here..."aeternam in sedem" would seem to make more sense, for example. "Inclusi" seems to be the verb "I have enclosed". So I would suggest "I have placed the tender body of [the person named, or someone from the lineage of] Ithacius in this precious marble, [so that he may reach] the eternal seat". I don't know who "Ithacius" is...is it a spelling of Isaac? Hydatius? A form of Diego? Also, I wouldn't say it's particularly bad "dark ages" (ugh...) Latin, it's just that even classical inscriptions are hard to interpret. Adam Bishop (talk) 06:43, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps the reference is to the fourth-century bishop Ithacius of Ossonoba mentioned in Priscillianism#History. Deor (talk) 15:02, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Emil Hübner notes here (p. 46 if the link doesn't land you on the correct page) that "aeternam positum est pro aeterna", so he concluded that the ablative sede was correct. Fortunato de Selgas (p. 80), on the other hand, interprets the inscrption as "INCLVSIT TENERVM PRAETIOSO MARMORE CORPVS AETERNAM IN SEDEM NOMINIS ITHATII" and records various speculations about the sarcophagus and the identity of its original occupant, including one to the effect that Ithacius may have been the name of the tomb's sculptor. Myself, I can't see that the 3rd-person inclusit clarifies matters much; "I have enclosed a tender body with precious marble in the eternal abode (or 'resting place') of the family (or 'name' or 'fame') of Ithacius" may be the best that one can do. Deor (talk) 16:38, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It does make a lot more sense with tenerum not as a misspelled third-person plural verb! μηδείς (talk) 17:23, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks all. After looking at the above, I don't feel at all bad about having had some difficulty understanding this! I've used some of the above, especially from Deor (whom I credited in an edit summary) in Pantheon of Asturian Kings. If anyone wants to review/edit what I wrote there, that would be welcome. - Jmabel | Talk 00:35, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Portuguese help re: File:Af447diag.svg

Hi! I want to put in an image request to make a Portuguese translation of File:Af447diag.svg, but I need to confirm what the following are in Portuguese before I submit the request:

Exits - Saídas
Toilet - Banheiros
Recovered (as in recovered a dead body) - recuperado
Unrecovered (as in did NOT recover the body) - não recuperado
Galley - galera
Storage - Armazém

Brazilian terms would be preferred over European ones since AF447 was a Rio to Paris flight

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 14:59, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Update:

Commons:Commons:Esplanada#File:Af447diag.svg - All of the terms except for "galley" are positively correct - the only one in question is galley, and the Brazilian Portuguese term is needed WhisperToMe (talk) 19:59, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Users answered my questions, so I started Commons:Commons:Graphic_Lab/Illustration_workshop#Make_Brazilian_Portuguese_version_of_image WhisperToMe (talk) 23:10, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Navajo language

The article on "Navajo language" contains a list of metropolitan areas and micropolitan areas where the Navajo language is spoken, with a percentage, in parentheses, following the name of each of the four areas. However, no explanation is given as to what the numbers are percentages OF, so the numbers are entirely meaningless to anyone who reads them. Please clarify! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.52.208.193 (talk) 23:58, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Percent of the total population of these places, according to the cited source. I'll clarify in the article. - Jmabel | Talk 00:43, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

August 29

Arabic song lyrics

Any help getting the lyrics (with translation) of the following song: [1] Thank you! Mo-Al (talk) 02:46, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This site had the lyrics to Inta Omri: http://www.arabiclyrics.net/Oum-Kalthoum/Inta-Omry.php There are likely different spellings, success in finding the lyrics may depend on what spelling you look under. μηδείς (talk) 02:02, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but this doesn't help me. I think the song I'm looking for is called "ana mali fiash" or something like that. Mo-Al (talk) 03:42, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I tried just about every spelling variation search I could in French and English. Your going to have to get an Arab speaker's help. μηδείς (talk) 18:01, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Here are the lyrics (I think) with French translation.--Cam (talk) 05:31, 2 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Mo-Al (talk) 23:12, 2 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Which language?

Can a reader please tell me which languages the following three poems are written in? Thank you. 1. Doch bald kam sie wieder, Da kniete er nieder... 2. Fólyomentén öreg tölgyfa Nyari zöldös kabat hordja Fal nélkűli karja helyett... 3. Die skape luister, Bome fluister En kriekies sing hul lied....Simonschaim (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:30, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

1 is German, 2 is Hungarian and 3 is Afrikaans. --Viennese Waltz 13:33, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ja, das war eigentlich vielleicht. μηδείς (talk) 23:05, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Das war eigentlich vielleicht was? Angr (talk) 18:15, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Möglicherweise meinte Medeis "sehr leicht" statt "vielleicht". ---Sluzzelin talk 18:22, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ach, Gott im Himmel.... μηδείς (talk) 17:59, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Following the comments of a Viennese Pommy, a Ruthenian, a Texas German :o) and a Swiss: I still don´t get it. The fragment Doch bald kam sie wieder, Da kniete er nieder... is BTW not part of a poem but a bit of the lyrics of an old "Schlager", composed and sung by Leo Leandros. Schlager were a profoundly vomitorious style of German commercial crap music in the 1950s and early sixties. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 21:02, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Simonschaim (talk)

August 30

a or an for words starting with h

For typo correction purposes I'm trying to make a complete list of 'h' words which do not always have 'a' as the indefinite article. i.e. all the words starting with h which are the exceptions to the rule. Even those where both a and an could be acceptable.

So far, words with 'an' as the correct indefinite article

~~starting with 'haug' i.e. 'an haughtily'~~ was incorrect

starting with 'haut' i.e. 'an haute couture'

starting with 'heir' i.e. 'an heiress'

starting with 'hones' i.e. 'an honest'

starting with 'hono' i.e. 'an honor'/'an honour'

starting with 'hors ' i.e. 'an hors d'oeuvres', but not horse

starting with 'hour' i.e. 'an hourly'

Words where both 'a' and 'an' seem to be acceptable

starting with 'herb' i.e. 'an herbalist' or 'a herbalist' (an herb in American English, a herb in British English)

starting with 'histor' i.e. 'a historic' is normal but 'an historic' is accepted, not similiar histogram

starting with 'hosp' i.e. 'a hospitable' is normal but 'an hospitable' is accepted

starting with 'hote' i.e. 'a hotel' is normal but 'an hotel' is accepted

starting with 'hallu' i.e. 'a hallucination' is normal but 'an hallucination' is accepted but uncommon in modern use

starting with 'hara' i.e. 'a harassment' is normal but 'an harassment' is accepted but uncommon in modern use

starting with 'hyst' i.e. 'a hysterical' is normal but 'an hysterical' is accepted but uncommon in modern use

+ humble i.e. 'a humble'or 'an humble' see discussion below

+ hypothesis i.e. 'a hypothesis' or 'hypothesis' see discussion below

Anything missing or incorrect? Regards, Sun Creator^(talk) 14:00, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As our article a and an says: "The choice of "a" or "an" is determined by phonetic rules rather than by spelling convention". So any rule based on spelling will have to accommodate many specific exceptions. I think "an haughtily" is definitely incorrect, and your "starting with 'hors'" rule works for an hors d'oeurvre, but does not work for a horse. Gandalf61 (talk) 14:14, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the exceptions are based on phonetic rules. I've adjusted the 'hors' to 'hors ' above, that was an oversight of horse. Regards, Sun Creator^(talk) 14:23, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For me, aside from words that have silent Hs (like "heiress" or "honor" or "honest", as you have listed), I find that I say "an" if the word isn't stressed on the first syllable (so, "a history" but "an historian"). So "haughtily" would never take "an". I imagine the list would be quite different if you accounted for particular dialects/accents. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:17, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

[Edit conflict] I agree with Gandalf61. "An haughtily" seems wrong (assuming haughtily is the adverb form of haughty). I have not come across the use of an with hallucination, harassment or hysterical before. Note that both "a historic" and "an historic" seem to be commonly accepted, but I don't think anyone says "An history". What about the very common "an hour"? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 14:24, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for hour. I've added it to the options. Regards, Sun Creator^(talk) 14:28, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

striked 'an haughtily', on additional checking that just seems incorrect. Regards, Sun Creator^(talk) 14:53, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keeping a list like this overlooks the simple generalizations:

where the letter h is silent, the allomorph selected is always an
where the letter h is pronounced /h/ and the first syllable of the word is stressed, the allomorph selected is always a
where the letter h is pronounced /h/ and the first syllable of the word is unstressed, either a or an may be used, depending on dialect and personal preference of the writer/speaker.

Generalizations 1 and 2 also depend on the writer/speaker's dialect: people who pronounce words like humble and herb with an initial /h/ sound will also say and write "a humble man" and "a herb"; people who pronounce such words without an initial /h/ sound will say and write "an humble man" and "an herb". (Disclaimer 1: in some nonstandard varieties of English, the allomorph an doesn't exist at all, and a is used even before vowel-initial words. Disclaimer 2: in some nonstandard varieties of English, the sound /h/ is dropped in some positions where the standard language requires it, and added in some positions where the standard language omits it; I don't know the extent to which the selection of a vs. an is affected by this.) Angr (talk) 18:13, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the examples, so 'humble' and 'hypothesis' can be either. I did find 'an humble' used in some recent news media items. Regards, Sun Creator^(talk) 14:09, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Stress is the key, but Rule 3 is finessed a bit in my dialect: if the word bears primary stress on the second syllable ("hypothesis"), I generally slip into "an"; but if on a later syllable (so that the first syllable is not completely unstressed: "hypothetical"), I stick with "a". -- Elphion (talk) 19:50, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Angr's third rule specifically says it depends on dialect and individual preference - plenty of dialects are going to have more specific rules. I (broadly speaking, an RP speaker) almost always use 'a' if the 'h' isn't silent. The only exception is if the 'h' is only barely pronounced and I'm being a little lazy (I might say "an historian" for instance, but I'm almost dropping the 'h' when I do so - if I'm being careful to enunciate, I would say "a historian" with a definite 'h'). --Tango (talk) 12:33, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"an historian" is not uncommon. Do you have more? if your being a little lazy would it be 'an habitual'? Regards, Sun Creator^(talk) 14:09, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My third rule says "the first syllable of the word is unstressed", not "...does not bear primary stress". Syllables with secondary stress (and tertiary stress, if you believe in it) are not unstressed. Angr (talk) 18:33, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is it really more complicated than "if the H is pronounced, us "a", and if the H isn't pronounced, use "an"? While many dialects will differ on when the initial H is or isn't pronounced, don't most of them follow the trend of using "a" when it is an "an" when it isn't? --Jayron32 14:17, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't state it that way because I'm not convinced that everyone who says "an historical event" actually drops the /h/ in "historical". Angr (talk) 18:33, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I do. But true, there are many different dialects of English, so like many other issues, I doubt you will get any sort of agreement on this. In my dialect, an is only used for articles before vowel sounds regardless of how the word is spelled. Thus, an historian, an herb, an unforgivable thing, but a hockey stick, a unicycle, etc. But I suspect you won't find perfect, 100% universal agreement on that. Have you looked in any relevent style guides or other language experts as to how this is dealt with in formal writing and speaking, which is codified and much more likely to have some expert agreement on? --Jayron32 18:48, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is "hieress" an elevated "heiress"? It's "an heir/ess", in any case. Bazza (talk) 18:02, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Good catch 'heiress', Regards, Sun Creator^(talk) 00:48, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Khud = ?

Hello learned linguists ! Ernest Hemingway uses (twice) in his short story Cross Country Snow (written about 1925) a word khud , meaning I think hillock : "his skis started slipping... ...and he went up and down the billowing khuds". What about that word I didn't find in any dic. ? Thanks a lot beforehand for your answer. Arapaima (talk) 16:25, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I searched for "khud skiing" and got http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/khud Hindi: "Ravine, precipice" μηδείς (talk) 16:29, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I went straight to Wiktionary and found wikt:khud. Angr (talk) 18:03, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a lot μηδείς & Angr. Actually, I was perplexed, since Hemingway describes skiing on small snow bulges, not over rifts (which any way are absent some miles above Montreux...) Arapaima (talk) 08:03, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Small bulges are called moguls in skiing. StuRat (talk) 07:57, 2 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Translation: German to English

A discussion at User talk:Jimbo Wales#Leistungsschutzrecht (version of 17:25, 30 August 2012) has an external link to an article at Leistungsschutzrecht: Wikipedia bald ohne Links? » t3n News. (The discussion is destined to be archived to User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 113#Leistungsschutzrecht or User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 114#Leistungsschutzrecht.) Can someone who is fluent in German please translate the external article into English, and post the translation here and also at User talk:Jimbo Wales#Leistungsschutzrecht?
—Wavelength (talk) 18:56, 30 August 2012 (UTC) and 18:57, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Does Google Translate not give you a satisfactory result? I just tried it, and although I don't understand the article that's because of the subject matter, not the language - I understand what it's saying just fine. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 19:08, 30 August 2012 (UTC) Nevermind. I just read your comment chez Jimbo - I see why you want an accurate translation. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 19:11, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't speak German natively, but I've studied it for three years, visited Germany and Austria at least once per year, and read German-language comics. So I'm fairly sure I can do a better job at translating it than Google Translate. But if I'm going to do it, it's going to take me at least one day. JIP | Talk 19:14, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Ni" vs "du" in Swedish

What is the situation with saying ni vs. du in Swedish? I read in a Swedish Donald Duck pocket book that the CEO of a factory owned by Scrooge McDuck addressed Scrooge as du, despite Scrooge being the chief owner and Chairman of the Board of the entire factory. My sister, who spent a year living in Sweden, said that in Sweden, no one says ni to anyone any more, not even to the King. But she's a Finn, and her mother tongue is Finnish. She just happened to spend a year in Sweden. In Finnish, saying te instead of sinä is mostly used for formal address, such as news reporters addressing politicians. (Although I've heard that in the army, everyone says te to everyone, to make it clear they are addressing fellow soldiers and not personal friends.) In German, you basically say Sie instead of du to everyone you aren't personal friends with. In English, the whole point is moot, because no one has said thou to anyone in several centuries. But what is the situation in Swedish? JIP | Talk 19:10, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Your sister's right. No one says 'ni' any more, not even to the king. Incidentally, though, having spoken to 'kungen', I can confirm that you don't say 'du' to him either; you refer to him as 'your majesty' ('ers majestät'): "Vill ers majestät ägg till frukost?" (this is actually what I said to him...) - Cucumber Mike (talk) 19:17, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And did he? - Ka renjc 21:57, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

He did. He got one, too. By the way, the article Rallette refers to below has reminded me of the correct protocol - I referred to the king as 'your majesty' since I was meeting him for the first time, and offering him service. My colleague, who was with him over a period of a few days and giving him a tour of the event we were at, was able to call him 'the king', as in 'would the king follow me please?'

A bit more du/Ni info: I remember my Swedish teacher saying that when growing up he had to address his grandmother with 'Ni'. He was in his 70s, so his grandmother was probably born in the 19th century. (She (the grandmother) also pronounced the third-person plural 'de' as it's written, rather than 'dom' in the accepted modern way. Apparently there is a polite address form of 'du' used in official letters and the like; I'm told that letters from such bodies as Skatteverket address the recipient as 'Du' - capitals obviously being more respectful! - Cucumber Mike (talk) 08:52, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at the 'your Majesty' form, there - aren't you implicitly using the 'ni' form by using 'ers' for 'your'? AlexTiefling (talk) 09:13, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe. But it's archaic, so I'd say it's in the same vein as one's implying the familiar form when telling God 'thine is the glory: most people nowadays don't remember the difference - in fact if anything 'thou' and 'thine' seem the more formal forms. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 09:40, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, so when they want a shrubbery, what do they do, then? --Trovatore (talk) 22:11, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

They waylay the nearest bunch of knights on a quest of course. Clarityfiend (talk) 01:31, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, we have an article on the subject. My experience is that in Finland, Swedish speakers can fairly often be heard addressing strangers as ni. But that is OR.--Rallette (talk) 07:38, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The debate about du vs. ni in Swedish was quite hot in the 60's and 70's. Rather than me summarizing, I suggest you read You-reform. /Coffeeshivers (talk) 21:18, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

See tutear, which address many languages. I don't use tú with someone unless I would address him by his first name. I find the use of it in Spanish advertising quite disturbing. I am used to it enough in person that I simply reciprocate when others address me as tú, which is quite common. μηδείς (talk) 22:15, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In Italian advertising tu is almost universal, unless the product is specifically aiming for snob appeal. I think the idea is that the advertiser is your "generic friend". Not a friend you actually know, of course, but a stand-in for the generic element of the class of your friends. --Trovatore (talk) 22:47, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(I should qualify that a little — some ads do use voi. But I think those ads are notionally addressing multiple persons, not using the dated-or-regional formal singular voi.) --Trovatore (talk) 22:52, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

August 31

synchronic differences in basic word order

Do dialect continua exist that include dialects that differ in their basic word order? If so, what's the transition zone like? —Tamfang (talk) 08:54, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think that sprachbunds of unrelated or not-closely-related languages very often show word-order harmonization, and a dialect continuum is effectively a sprachbund among closely-related languages, so I'm not sure how that situation would be at all probable... AnonMoos (talk) 14:39, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And yet changes of word order over time are known to have occurred, e.g. between early and late Biblical Hebrew (if I understand right), so there must have been a transitional phase. I'm hoping a spatial transition can help me understand the temporal transition. —Tamfang (talk) 09:48, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think the situation in Welsh might be a bit like that. At least, the informal language uses VSO constructions more than the standard language does, or that's my understanding as a beginning learner. There are also north Wales /South Wales dialect differences, which might also relate to the frequency of the VSO forms. As another example, in French, the SV inversion for questions is less frequent in informal speech. So I think that what the border would look like is having more than one form in possible use, with the frequency of forms varying along the continuum. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:01, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hiberno-English and Yiddish-influenced NYC English have distinctive Yoda-like word-order constructions. Can't find any good material on this in wikipedia though. μηδείς (talk) 22:09, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

But isn't that (at least in Yiddish-English) a marked (emphatic) form rather than a basic order? —Tamfang (talk) 09:48, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Can't speak directly to Yiddish, but the default word order in English influenced by Pennsylvania Dutch often differs from standard English. ("Throw the horse over the fence some hay.") -- Elphion (talk) 16:32, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) Yes, if you are going to limit the question to simple unmarked sentences. Word order is very conservative, so I cannot imagine finding two side by side dialects that vary only from SOV to SVO. If you had a language with free word order, I could imagine a slight preference for different default order in neighboring dialects. I can't think of any examples, though. Wouldn't at all be surprised if second-language speakers of Latin tend to use their mother tongue's word order when they use Latin, as with Elphion's example in Amish English. μηδείς (talk) 16:35, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"simple unmarked sentences" are implied by the phrase "basic word order". —Tamfang (talk) 21:18, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Newfoundland English has similar word order sometimes, surely adopted from Hiberno-English. Also, for Latin, yes, at least in medieval Latin writing the word order was often affected by the author's native language. Adam Bishop (talk) 07:48, 2 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How can a sign language have local accents?

Hello to many people. Please excuse my poor English, I'm a Frenchy. In an episode of the American series "Bones", they have to speak with a deaf person using the American Sign Language (ASL) but later they realise that this person has a local accent from a peculiar State, this fact is important for the rest of the episode. This leads to some questions.

Q1) Is it known that there are different accents in the AFL ?

Q2) Main question: how a sign language can have different accents?

Q3) I see here [2] that the AFL is used in many countries so if there are accents inside the USA, I guess that there could be huger differences with other countries. Right or wrong? Thank you for helping.--Joël DESHAIES (talk) 13:00, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sign language is a real language, in the sense that, like all languages, it follows certain expected patterns of change and growth. Just like two populations which speak the same language can be seperated, and their languages diverge in different ways over time, until dialects and accents develop, the exact same process can go on in sign language. Different dialects can use different signs for the same concept, or perhaps the exact manner in which the sign is made can vary from place to place. The signs are formed in very exacting ways, so I don't think it is all that hard to imagine that a particular sign is made one way in California and a slightly different way in New York, and that one could recognize the difference. Wouldn't that pretty much qualify as an accent? The article and section Sign_language#Linguistics_of_sign covers the ways in which sign language parallels the way in which spoken languages work, and even has some examples of Sign Language families, whereby there is a parent sign language which has evolved, over time, into distinct languages: Pretty much exactly the way that Latin evolved into French, American Sign Language evolved from French Sign Language. In order for a language to evolve into another, there would be a time period where the differences were small; such small differences are what we could call "accents". --Jayron32 13:14, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently Auslan (Australian Sign Language) has wide dialectal variation. The article has some good information about the causes and effects of such variation. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 15:12, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, what a quick and useful answer, I hardly had time to read some articles about sign languages in the fr.wikipedia, I'm going to read the articles you suggested--Joël DESHAIES (talk) 13:33, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

September 1

A "displaced state"

In Mood (psychology) there is a sentence saying:"Good mood is usually considered a displaced state; people cannot pinpoint exactly why they are in a good mood." I wonder about the expression displaced state. What does it mean exactly? Lova Falk talk 07:54, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The term is defined by the clause that follows it. Displaced means without location (and can be used figuratively). State means a manner of being. So a displaced state means a manner of being without a location; that is it is a manner of being that exists without a known reason. --Jayron32 14:27, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As I understand by your answer and by the absence of others who answer, this expression "displaced state" is not a common expression for a manner of being. I'm thinking of removing it... Lova Falk talk 15:01, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know that that is a great idea. The statement can be true without the phrase "displaced state" being official jargon. It is a fine phrase whose meaning is clear. --Jayron32 15:03, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Because, when reading it, I started wondering if "displaced state" was a concept within psychology for a state that I was not familiar with yet. But it is not! Lova Falk talk 15:16, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, but if I say "Pete was a tall man" it doesn't mean that "tall man" needs to be a concept within anything to be a valid descriptor of Pete. --Jayron32 15:19, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would call "displaced state" jargon; it conveys nothing to this native speaker. -- Elphion (talk) 16:36, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's more like the article said "Pete was an extended man; a man of unusual height compared to the average height for men in the area where he lived." (That semicolon should be a colon really, since it introduces a description.) Card Zero (talk) 16:56, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No it doesn't. It means "moved": wikt:displace. There is the implication that something has moved it out of its proper place, but a good mood has no proper place, and there was nothing that moved it, so in the article the word is being used figuratively to mean "not having a place", where the idea of "place", as you say, is also being used figuratively, to mean "identified cause". This is what I would describe figuratively as "bananas". Since English seems to lack a word for "locationless" - not exactly a common concept - and since the idea of location is misleading in this context, I suggest editing "displaced state" into the phrase "a state without an identified cause", and then deleting it for redundancy. It does sound a lot like jargon, mainly because an odd pithy phrase has apparently been clarified with a definition following it, but also because it's redolent of jargon terms like displacement activity and referred pain. Card Zero (talk) 16:45, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I followed the first of your suggestions. Thank you! Lova Falk talk 18:01, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is a proper phrase for this idea. Most emotions are about something, one is angry about being cut off in traffic. Moods aren't "about" anything, although we may be aware of what brought them on. Probably find something in Descartes' Error or another work by Antonio Damasio. μηδείς (talk) 17:25, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Chinese help

I took some photos of some buildings. But what are the Chinese characters appearing in the following?

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 21:32, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

File:ChinatownPrintingHoustonTX.JPG is 同连印制公司
File:MTTradingCorp.JPG is 美中貿易公司
File:AFWholesale.JPG 亞美食品批發公司.

rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:50, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much! Also, in the film Infernal Affairs there is a character 徐偉強 (Tsui Wai-keung) - What is the Mandarin reading of the name? For "Del Piero" (迪比亞路) what are the Mandarin and Cantonese names? WhisperToMe (talk) 23:31, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The first one should be Xu Weiqiang. 109.99.71.97 (talk) 08:58, 2 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

September 2