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June 13

A far

Which is the better placement of the article a? The plague is far worse a disease than the common cold. / The plague is a far worse disease than ... --Pxos (talk) 05:39, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I would prefer the second, because that's where I normally put the article when adjectives qualify an noun. But it's easy to think of examples (eg "It's not that good an idea") where the article stands between the adjectives and the noun, so this isn't definitive. Go with whichever flows best, and conveys the emphasis you're looking for. AlexTiefling (talk) 07:04, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, especially since the first is missing the "of" 165.212.189.187 (talk) 17:42, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that what you refer to as "the of" is an idiosyncrasy of American English. AlexTiefling (talk) 06:54, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have found the answer myself, what a great joy! According to Fowler, in his dictionary of Modern English Usage (my version reprinted in 1961), the first variation is to be avoided – or, as Mr. Fowler puts it, «the late position [of the article] should not be adopted with other words than as, how, so, too; e.g. / Have before them far more brilliant a future /, the normal order (a far more brilliant) is also the right one.» If I read Mr. Fowler correctly, the first version is not ungrammatical or decidedly wrong, it just isn't good English. --Pxos (talk) 05:57, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Use of possessive pronouns as (?) intensifiers

Consider these pairs of sentences:

He loves jazz vs. He loves his jazz.
She loves sport vs. She loves her sport.
I love vegetables vs. I love my vegetables.

Seems to me the second examples suggest a more active involvement in whatever it is, while the first convey a more passive love. But not necessarily. One would really need to know the context to be sure.

A person who "loves her sport" might be involved in various sporting activities, or they might just be a passionate but passive TV watcher of many sports. That latter activity would also apply to someone who "loves sport".

A person who "loves his jazz" might be a player of jazz, or a regular attendee at jazz concerts, or simply an avid collector of jazz recordings, or simply a listener to jazz radio, or simply someone who appreciates jazz whenever he happens to hear it. Very hard to tell without context.

So, I'm wondering what the purpose of the possessive pronoun is. Is it simply an intensifier? When would it NOT be used? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 06:00, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think the question is whether there is a differentiation between the object of the love in general or the narrower class of the object of the love that is applicable to the individual. As such differentiation is not indicated in the sentence, I see little reason to refer to the narrower class. But as you say there could be context in surrounding sentences that could justify the possessive pronoun and its reference to a narrower class of jazz, sport, or vegetables. Bus stop (talk) 06:59, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Is this the same as the 'your' in "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy", or "Now, You Take Your Average Rock"? -- Q Chris (talk) 09:00, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No, I don't think so. That is restricted to "your", while the examples I'm talking about can appear in any person or number.

Compare Americans love sport with Americans love their sport. What is the function of "their" there? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 09:09, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, Americans love their sports. Come on, Jack, do the math. --Trovatore (talk) 09:51, 13 June 2013 (UTC) [reply]

There's actually a semi-serious point here. If you say someone loves "his sport", in American usage, that probably doesn't mean sporting activity in general (which would be described as "sports"), but rather his particular sport; that is, the one he's best at or plays the most. I suppose in Rightpondian or Underpondian usage you'd probably say "his game" for this.

So that may be confounding your ghit results. If you look at the first hit on the "love their sport" search, for example, it's referring to American football, not sports in general, as the Americans' sport. --Trovatore (talk) 09:57, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I would rather call it 'term of endearment' than an 'intensifier'. No such user (talk) 12:14, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is merely my impression, but I have a sense that the personal pronoun is often used as a mild form of distancing. If Mary loves jazz, a fellow jazz lover would normally just say that she loves jazz; but a person who finds a love of jazz inexplicable or prefers other types of music might say, "Mary sure loves her jazz." Deor (talk) 17:42, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That's exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about. It can also be used in the opposite sense: such as when a mother or a wife is making her child or husband a special dinner because they've come through some sort of rough patch, and she'll say "I'm making Fred his favourite dinner tonight. He loves his roast lamb and baked potatoes". In my experience it's most often used in this endearing sense (per No such user), but also sometimes in the distancing sense you cite. Suffice to say it's always something other than neutral. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 19:49, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's not necessarily endearing: "My Jack spends his time in that pub. Eeh! 'e loves 'is drink, does Jack" may be more a heads-up about Jack's potential alcoholism than a term of endearment. As in "Dylan Thomas liked his drink". As Papyrus says, "always something other than neutral". Thinking about it, it may simply mean "X is more fond of Y than I am fond of Y", with the degree of fondness and its potential results (in the speaker's opinion) only determinable from context. Tonywalton ^Talk 23:02, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My name is not Papyrus. :) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 10:57, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Compare the use of "My" in the names of some entities.

—Wavelength (talk) 20:55, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Feminine pronoun as gender neutral pronoun

From [1]:

This could be a feature deserving of the name, as long as the user is able to authorize the programs she wants to use, so she can run free software written and modified by herself or people she trusts.

Why is the feminine pronoun "she" and it's forms "her", "herself" used here to refer to the computer user, whose gender is unknown? Normally you would use "he", "they", "it" but never "she". Czech is Cyrillized (talk) 09:49, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"He" would sound just as odd as "she", and "it" would practically never be used. "They" is by far the most common solution. As for your question, the answer is that the writer is simply being cute to make a point. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 10:03, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"They" might be common in your world, but not where I come from. The main place I see it is here, and when I see it it looks like incredibly awkward PCness. Just making the point that language usage is not uniform around the world. Agree about the "cuteness" of the use of "she". HiLo48 (talk) 10:09, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

'Political correctness', or as most of us call it, traditional common courtesy. Try not reinforcing sexism some time. AlexTiefling (talk) 12:08, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, political correctness, enforced by browbeating outrage. There's nothing sexist about using he for the animate singular. This has bee discussed ad nauseam here, suggest the OP search the archives. μηδείς (talk) 16:58, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

At present, the 'browbeating outrage' seems to emanate mostly from people bewailing 'political correctness (gone mad)' when someone tries doing something different. I agree with you that there's nothing meaningfully sexist about generic 'he'; I just don't think there's anything wrong with generic 'she' or singular 'they' either. And it's very tedious to be hectored for this imaginary crime of 'political correctness' for expressing this view. AlexTiefling (talk) 23:14, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Because modern speakers tend not to think of "he" as a gender-neutral pronoun, and we don't use "it" to refer to a person. Sometimes we use "he/she", "his/her", or something similar (I like "s/he" but that doesn't work for "his/her"). If it doesn't matter what gender the user is, why not use the feminine? Why default to what are now considered masculine pronouns? A woman could very well be the user and the writer. If you think that "he" is gender-neutral and includes women, why can't "she" be gender-neutral and include men? I don't think it's "cute" but it is a bit confrontational, in a good way, I would say. If it makes you stop and think about why we use pronouns like that, and about why you might be opposed to a feminine pronoun there, or offended by it, then maybe someday it will seem normal to everyone. (As DominusVobisdu says, I would personally use "they", but that might be even more controversial...) Adam Bishop (talk) 10:12, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

So either "he" or "she" is OK, but I would like to ask whether the use of either pronoun convey the attitude of the writer/speaker? Czech is Cyrillized (talk) 10:38, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Depends where the speaker is from. (As I said above.) HiLo48 (talk) 10:48, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

She is cute and a bit pointy, but with my girl hat on I don't care which the speaker chooses as long as they (it's OK to use it where I come from) don't start using abominations like xe. Ugh! - Ka renjc 16:21, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, most people around the world seem to use "they" at least informally. Is Australia an exception, or was HiLo48 insisting on formal grammar? Dbfirs 07:33, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"They" as a singular is not at all common in Australia. It just looks and sounds weird to me. Why it makes sense to replace possibly sexist language with appalling grammar is also beyond me. Surely there's a better way. HiLo48 (talk) 07:46, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'd have to disagree about singular they not being common in Oz, HiLo. It's all too common for my liking. We must move in different circles. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 08:30, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What I see here that I don't see or hear in the day to day language I encounter is something like "HiLo is ill informed on this matter. They are clearly wrong." It avoids a gender oriented pronoun but, to me at least, it's gruesome grammar. HiLo48 (talk) 13:16, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think singular they is normally used when talking about a "named" person, even if we happen not to know that person's sex. We had this problem on some discussion page (WT:MOS, I think) when discussing what pronoun to use with antecedents such as "Black" or "North" when describing chess or bridge respectively. It doesn't sound right (probably to most people) to say things like "Black moves their king" or "North leads their last trump", even if we're discussing a purely theoretical game position. Victor Yus (talk) 13:49, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Here is an example of what I'm talking about. This post uses "they" to refer to an editor whose name is known but whose gender may not be. Avoids any gender confusion or offence, but refers to a single, known person in the plural, thereby replacing one linguistic sin with another. There has to be a better way. HiLo48 (talk) 23:33, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If you know a better way, then we'd all no doubt love to hear it. Experience suggests, though, that all possible solutions have their downsides. If the use of singular they is coming to be extended even to named persons, that may be a welcome trend - once we hear it enough times, it will stop grating, and it will become a potentially useful tool for use in a whole new set of gender-ambiguous situations. Victor Yus (talk) 10:48, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It will always grate for me, because it will remove the certainty I once had that when I heard the word "they" I knew it involved more than one person or thing. Those who use "they" that way are degrading the value of the word. HiLo48 (talk) 23:35, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Degrading" is an awfully judgmental and inflammatory way to describe this, as is your notion that some words have more "value" than others. Language changes. And one of the most basic concepts taught in any introductory linguistics class is that all idiolects are valid (just because someone's way of speaking differs from the standard form of language prescribed by textbooks does not mean that way of speaking is less grammatical or less "valuable"). Language was not designed to convey the maximum amount of information in the most economical way possible; if it were, all human languages would look like predicate logic. It's ridiculous to think that pronouns should convey every possible aspect of their referent (which is what you're suggesting when you say that removing the plural-ness of "they" is 'degrading' it). Our pronouns also do not convey social status, as do 2nd person pronouns in French and Spanish (see T-V distinction), Japanese, and some dialects of Mandarin. Pronouns in spoken Mandarin do not convey gender like ours do. In written Mandarin, the 2nd-person pronoun (="you") conveys gender, which our 2nd-person pronoun doesn't. Pronouns in French don't convey animacy, whereas those in English do ("he/she" vs. "it"), as do those in written Mandarin. The pronoun vous in French is ambiguous between being a singular formal pronoun, or a plural pronoun. As you can see from this very limited sampling of languages, there are many pieces of information that are conveyed by pronouns in one language and not another. But I would never dare to suggest that any of these languages has more "value" than another. rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:57, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is not incidental evolution of language. Some speakers don't like one word in a particular context, so are choosing, and encouraging others, to misuse another word, thereby reducing the usefulness of the second word. Using "they" to mean a single person is simply incorrect. It damages our language. Since it's a deliberate choice by those users of the language, and it's about how we use English here in Wikipedia, I have every right to point out that it's wrong. HiLo48 (talk) 01:08, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Singular 'they', 'them', 'their' and 'themselves' have been around since the 14th century. They've been used by great writers of the likes of Lewis Carroll, Jane Austen, the King James Bible, Shakespeare, William Thackeray, George Eliot and Walt Whitman – and, I'm sure, a multitude of others. Clearly, greater minds than ours have considered it an acceptable solution to a tricky linguistic and grammatical issue. On what authority does your objection rest? (PS. "It's just wrong" is not an acceptable answer.) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 01:27, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(editconflict) Firstly, I don't see how this discussion was ever about how we use English on Wikipedia in particular.

Secondly, this is exactly "incidental evolution of language". Many things we say or write now were "wrong" in the past--that's where our language came from. A few hundred years ago it would have been wrong to use the word "dog" to refer to any dogs other than a particular breed. French (which over half of our vocabulary comes from) is basically the result of people speaking Latin wrong for a few hundred years.

Thirdly, I was not talking about wrong vs. right in my previous message, nor were you. You explicitly made a statement about the value of one dialect vs. another, and I explained (I thought pretty clearly, but apparently not) that there is no such thing as more or less "valuable" forms of language. rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:31, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting blog post there Jack. I'm comfortable with their as a singular, but didn't know that they as a singular used to be more common. I'm still concerned that's it's a deliberate misuse of one word because people don't like another one. I'd rather they invented a totally new one. (And that's a plural use of they!) HiLo48 (talk) 01:51, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Feel free to try. Many have failed before you, but you may just be the one to succeed. It seems the anglosphere has always enjoyed having certain problems that resist any and all attempts at resolution. Certain words do get created because there's a vacuum to be filled ("blog" is one such; only pedants would insist on "web log", which is where it came from). But when it comes to pronouns, there's a very exclusive club of them cemented into all our brains, and strangers are just not welcome in those parts. But, as I say, why not have a go at proving it can be done, rather than making it the responsibility of the nameless "they"? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 02:08, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As I said earlier in the thread, i don't personally see the need. I'm sure you're familiar with "he or she" in Australian English when we're not sure of the gender of the individual we're discussing. It's works for me. As far as I know I've never offended anybody using that expression. And it breaks no grammatical rules. My concern is with those who find a current word unacceptable, for reasons I disagree with, so they deliberately misuse another word instead. On your other point, I have no objection to new words for new things. "Blog" is fine. (Even though my spellchecker has just objected to it. And to spellchecker!) HiLo48 (talk) 07:45, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I understand your position. "He or she" is the standard default expression, but there are some circumstances where it becomes incredibly cumbersome and clunky, particularly where it has to be repeated a number of times in a short block of text, so some other solution must be found. Singular they has a long history, so it's available. It might suffer from overuse, but it's acceptable in principle. I'd rather hear that than people talking about themselves in the second person (using "you" where they mean "I" or "me"). -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 12:10, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's clumsy too. I try to avoid it. I find that one can if one tries. (Does that work for you?) HiLo48 (talk) 12:14, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that works for one. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:47, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Generally I find that writers or speakers that use 'she' are actually women themselves. Take, for example, "when you find your baby is [something or other] then she is [something or other]." We have male babies, too, though, ladies :) I work as a translator from Japanese, and I just put '(s)he' or 'he/she', because Japanese hardly uses pronouns and it's difficult to know who the bloody hell they are talking about. Even the Japanese complain about it. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 01:19, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's extremely common for linguists in the field of language acquisition to refer to children generically as she. The problem is that using she generically excludes males, while using he generically does not exclude females. That may seem unfair, but that's the way the language works, and you can't change language use by fiat. Angr (talk) 08:44, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well... sometimes he does exclude females, or may be perceived as doing so, at least subconsciously. Mixing it up with uses of generic she to redress the balance seems a positive move (though not the only option). If enough people follow this lead, then language use can be changed, not exactly by fiat, but by a body of feeling. Victor Yus (talk) 13:59, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see where you people get the idea that using she as a generic pronoun is being "cute". Most people who do this are doing it on purpose and for good reason: as others have pointed above, it's not necessarily fair that male is the 'default', and people are making a conscious decision to try to counter that trend. As Angr pointed out, language can't be changed by fiat, but it can be changed by its users gradually using language in a different way (some might argue that's the only way language changes). Case in point: I am a man, and in much of my writing I use she as a generic pronoun (sorry, Kage)--the reason I do this is because in middle school I was taught that using he generically was grammatically correct, and so that's what I did, but many years later I decided I owe it to the world to make up for my years of writing androcentrically. (I use forms like "he or she" in very formal writing--the pseudo-legalese that I sometimes have to use in my line of work--; "she" in somewhat formal writing, like journal articles; and mostly "they" in speech.) But my point is, people who use generic she aren't not just being "cutesy", and suggesting that they are is belittling a legitimate (albeit not universally accepted) point of view.

Czech is Cyrillized, as for your questions: 1) you suggest that "she" can never be used as a gender-neutral pronoun. Why do you say that? "'He' is the gender-neutral pronoun" is something we learn in school, just like "don't end sentences with prepositions" and "don't split infinitives"--it's made-up prescriptivism. 2) You ask whether pronoun usage can convey something about the writer's/speaker's attitude; of course the answer is obviously yes. As you can see from my message and from the interaction between AlexTiefling and Medeis above, a person's use of "she" as a singular pronoun might suggest that the person is feminist (although that is not always the case). As you can see by other users' messages above, a person's avoidance of singular "they" might suggest that the person has more of a conservative grammar (although this is not always the case--they might just be writing in a context--like a very formal context--where they have no choice but to follow prescriptive rules for now). rʨanaɢ (talk) 14:35, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"'"He" is the gender-neutral pronoun' is something we learn in school, just like 'don't end sentences with prepositions' and 'don't split infinitives'--it's made-up prescriptivism." No, it isn't. We don't learn that he is the gender-neutral pronoun in school, we learn it the same way we learn that he and she take singular agreement with the verb—by the normal process of first-language acquisition. And since English speakers don't use she generically (unless they're trying to prove a point), we don't acquire that. Angr (talk) 17:14, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, I guess we have had different educations. I was specifically taught in school to use "he" as the gender-neutral pronoun. (In my natural language acquisition, I learned to use singular "they" as the generic pronoun, because that's what was being used around me--in school I was taught that that was wrong and I should use "he".) rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:20, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In modern times, one occasionally sees the female gender used as the male gender was once exclusively used; it is fine. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:58, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with what Rjanag said. In my writing, I consciously rephrase sentences so that they use the plural they and them, or by using he or she and him or her (although the latter can sometimes be clumsy if repeated numerous times in the same sentence). Particularly when discussing a particular scenario, I'll mentally assign genders to particular persons (e.g., the plaintiff will be a woman, the defendant a man, and the judge a woman), and then use the appropriate pronouns to refer to them. Some people might say this is being too politically correct, but I see it as just trying to be inclusive and not assuming, for example, that judges are always men. — SMUconlaw (talk) 16:32, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I work in law/legal translations (amongst others), and in this case I would use the titles of the persons involved, such as "If the plaintiff decides to retract the allegations, then the presiding judge can offer said plaintiff the option to...." etc, or "The employee shall receive a bonus of upto £XXXX every year depending on performance, and shall be paid into an account specified by said employee, on [date]." KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 17:38, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Complex sentence

Don't go out,without leave. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 8.37.228.6 (talk) 10:19, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Your wish is our command. Is there anything else we can help you with? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 11:00, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In that case, may I please have permission to go out? — SMUconlaw (talk) 11:35, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The OP may be struggling to make sense of the sentence, since one meaning of leave is the phrasal verb "go out". However, as Smuconlaw has neatly illustrated for us, in this case leave is being used in its noun form and means "permission". The sentence is an imperative instruction not to go out unless permission has been given. - Ka renjc 16:08, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And the comma is not required. - Ka renjc 16:10, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As with AWOL. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:42, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

But where a comma is appropriate, it's followed by a space. Except in numbers like 1,047,639. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 01:02, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Chinese name of Tigger

I note from zh:小熊維尼 that the Chinese name for Tigger is 跳跳虎, and some further searching shows the last character 虎 means "tiger". What does that repeated first character 跳 mean? I'm guessing Tigger in China is "bounce bounce tiger" or "boing boing tiger" or the like? -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 11:25, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

跳 (tiào) means "to jump, to leap". I guess the connotation is of a tiger who is always jumping around. — SMUconlaw (talk) 11:34, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And the general connotation is indeed something like "boing boing tiger". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 16:57, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

When coming up with a Chinese name for Tigger, the translator may also have been conscious about reproducing the "T" sound of the name. — SMUconlaw (talk) 17:32, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks everyone, that was very instructive. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 08:56, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Go along to get along

I'm trying to determine the earliest usage of the phrase 'go along to get along' in any English-speaking region. Any leads would be appreciated. jameslucas (" " / +) 13:20, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's a little tricky to pin down. Google Ngram Viewer suggests 1950, but viewing the actual results shows that the books in question were actually printed in the early 70s. However, the quote appears to be attributed to Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Sam Rayburn, who died in 1961, so it's reasonable to suppose that, if he said it, he did so before then. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 16:47, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Looking more closely, I can't find a definite date when Rayburn may have first used this. It appears to be something that is often attributed to him, but without a particular context. The story seems to be that he would say it as part of his advice to young first-time senators. If so, and if he was giving the advice in his role as Speaker, I guess we can say it was first used between his first appointment in 1940 and his death in '61. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 16:58, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Cucumber Mike! —jameslucas (" " / +) 17:29, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Similarities between eastern Wisconsin and New England

I was looking at Joshua Katz's maps of Bert Vaux's US dialect surveys, and I've noticed that the eastern half of Wisconsin seems to stand out from the rest of the Midwest on several questions, and with an odd affinity for New England. For example, on question #103, the term "bubbler" (for "water fountain") predominates only in Rhode Island, nearby parts of Connecticut and Massachusetts, and eastern Wisconsin. On question #86, the use of the term "cruller" predominates only in New England, the New York metropolitan area, and eastern Wisconsin. And on the infamous question #105, eastern Wisconsin forms an island of intense "soda" preference (shared with the Northeast) in a heavily "pop"-favoring Midwest.

It may seem trivial, but I was struck by how clearly eastern Wisconsin sticks out on some of these maps. Does anybody know of reasons for its "New Englandy" preferences on some of these questions? Did the area attract an unusually great number of New England migrants? Or seeing as how the usages in question all relate to manufactured items, is there a history of close commercial ties between the two areas? --Lazar Taxon (talk) 16:49, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure I can answer directly, but will note that the Greater Milwaukee area's connection to New England in terms of language extends mainly to vocabulary and not accent. Eastern Wisconsin is firmly within the area that speaks Inland Northern American English, and has experienced the Northern cities vowel shift, whereas the core of Eastern New England (the stereotypical Boston accent) has a very different vowel structure. As a total aside, if you like this sort of stuff, This set of maps is also an excellent resource. The most interesting bit of that map is that it correctly identifies the "Brooklyn accent" found in eastern New Orleans (note the dialect described as 4. GNYC for Greater New York City found there), which is another one of those linguistic-geographic oddities. --Jayron32 17:53, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And to the question of connections between Milwaukee and New England; again a lot of this is speculation on my part, but some connections I can find are the large numbers of French Canadians involved in the settlement of the areas (see History of Milwaukee and New England French which describes that connection). I have no idea how that may affect the dialects, but it's something. --Jayron32 17:57, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Nevermind. Smoking gun can be found at Wisconsin#Demographics (should've looked there first) which notes that, following the initial settlement by French Canadians, the next wave of settlers came from New England and Upstate New York. --Jayron32 18:00, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

But that was centuries ago, long before words like "bubbler", "cruller", and "soda" had come into common parlance. Angr (talk) 08:39, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That was not that many years ago, give the conservatism of language. You seem to have a bizarre idea of how recently crullers came into the human diet. Well into the mid-19th century, most Wisconsin settlers were coming via Great Lakes boats from western New England/New York, even if they had come into the U.S. from Ireland, Germany, etc. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:27, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A bit of this phenomena may play into the distinguishing choice of vocabulary. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:24, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Jayron32 is right that the first large group of English-speaking settlers in Wisconsin (especially eastern Wisconsin), and the entire upper Great Lakes region, was from western New York and New England. Western New York, likewise, especially the area near Lake Ontario, was mainly settled by New Englanders. The New England dialect that formed the basis for the Inland North dialect that underwent the Northern cities shift, however, was not the eastern New England dialect. It was the western New England dialect, since most of the Great Lakes settlers came from western and not eastern New England. Eastern New England's dialect evolved from the 17th century East Anglian dialect of most of its settlers. This dialect was probably already non-rhotic in the 17th century. By contrast, western New England's speech was modified by later arrivals during the 18th century who originated in (rhotic) western England, Scotland, and Ulster and who, upon arriving in the New England colonies, traveled inland through the already settled coastal areas to the then less densely settled land in western New England. It was the descendants of these settlers who later migrated west to the Great Lakes region. Marco polo (talk) 15:09, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

None of which explains why Wisconsin has different words then Chicago, Detroit, etc. which had the same settlement patterns. Rmhermen (talk) 17:47, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

One thing to remember about those dialect survey maps is the relatively small sample size. According to [2] there were only 948 respondents from Wisconsin. I find the maps interesting, but one should perhaps be careful about drawing too much from them. Pfly (talk) 03:47, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Another thing to remember is that there are sometimes reasons for such similarities in vocabulary other than migration patterns. The Dictionary of American Regional English, for example, characterizes bubbler (in the relevant sense) as "Nth, N Midl; esp. freq. in WI", so it's possible that this term was formerly more widespread and that it survives mainly in Wisconsin, where it was always popular, and parts of New England (for unknown reasons). Perhaps the two regions share a linguistic conservatism that has led to their being resistant to certain changes in other parts of the Northern region. I myself originally hail from the other anomalous "soda" pocket in the Midwest (St. Louis), and I'm fairly sure that migration patterns don't account for that preference. Deor (talk) 19:32, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Korean place names

Are Chungcheongbuk-do and Chungbuk two names for the same place? If so, what's the distinction? Are "cheong" and "-do" just designations, i.e. "Gangnam-Gu" appears to mean "Gangnam District." Asked by: 150.148.14.96 18:18, 13 June 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.148.14.96 (talk) [reply]

북 'buk' means 'northern' and 도 'do' means 'city'. 청 'cheong' means 'administrative'. So the whole name would mean 'Northern Central Adminstrative City'. I don't know if they are the same place, but I would imagine they are, because the short name just means 'Northern Central'. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 01:31, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As with other many other Asian languages, the same sound can mean lots of different things in Korean. Our North Chungcheong Province article has the following Hanja for Chungcheongbuk-do: 忠清北道. "Chungcheong" is just a place name, the characters individually literally means "loyal" and "clear". "buk" means North, and "do" is province, not city. It is the province which descends from the northern part of the old Chungcheong province. (The Chungcheong article explains that "chung" and "cheong" come from the names of the two principal cities in the former province - Chungju and Cheongju respectively (something like "the loyal prefecture" and "the clear prefecture" if you want to take things literally.)

We have other articles that suggest that chungbuk is indeed used as an abbreviation of Chungcheongbuk-do, by taking the first character of the place name, plus the "buk" or "north" to differentiate it from the "south" province, which is correspondingly abbreviated to "chungnam". Thus, for example, Chungbuk National University says its name comes from an abbreviation of the name of the province. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 16:31, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

June 14

"Big red box"?

Hi, ignorant American here. I was following the progress of the run-up to the General Election in Australia and the hot "incident" right now seems to be menugate. What is the "big red box" in reference to? I assume it's some political symbolism that's lost across the (other) pond. Thanks. 72.128.82.131 (talk) 17:45, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing political, just misogynistic. A woman's "box" is her vagina. Ms Gillard has red hair. Rojomoke (talk) 17:53, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The quality of political discourse in Australia right now is not something we Australians are all proud of. HiLo48 (talk) 21:41, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Don't mistake this crap for your actual political discourse. The media tends to focus on rubbish like this, and the Howard Sattler sacking. I'm not saying it was wrong to take a stand against the misogyny or the homophobia inherent in those people's actions, but they're very minor matters in the grand scheme of things. It seems that, to get any sort of attention, you have to do the wrong thing. Those of us who spend our lives doing right things are nobodies as far as the media is concerned. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 22:36, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

So it would appear. In the UK the Chancellor of the Exchequer waves his Red Box at the crowds every year and nobody turns a hair. I'll be interested to see the headlines should we ever have a female Chancellor. Was the original intention of the newspaper article perhaps a pun on "box" (the female pudenda) and Red box? If so, it's lost travelling over more than one ocean.Tonywalton ^Talk 23:16, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It wasn't a newspaper headline. It featured in a menu used at a fundraising function for the Liberal Party of Australia (the Opposition). There are various versions of how much the local Liberal candidate and host of the function, Mal Brough, knew of the menu, and when he knew of it. One version has it that it was created by the chef as a private joke and never even made it out of the kitchen. Other versions say very different things. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 23:28, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Understood. I now see what it was about. I still wonder if it was intended as a seriously rubbish reference to ministerial paperwork. Poor taste, whichever way one looks at it. Tonywalton ^Talk 23:31, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Some of us are aware of red boxes from programs like Yes Minister etc, but that tradition never made it here. The allusion was entirely biological in its intent. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 23:34, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Which is why it's seriously rubbish. Tonywalton ^Talk 23:38, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Jack is failing to understand the full depth of the joke (it works on so many levels). It is indeed a reference to ministerial boxes: the joke was used to more satirical effect by Julian Clary about Norman Lamont a few years back (before anyone asks, the satire was about the homophobia of Lamont's party). Henry ^Flower 05:06, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"It was indeed a reference to ministerial boxes" - you say this with such conviction. How do you know this was in the author's mind? Ministerial red boxes mean nothing to most Australians, so I'm inclined to believe this is coincidence. You may be right. But I guess we'll never really know. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 05:42, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's an old joke, of specific application to politicians. Henry ^Flower 09:23, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Box", in the sense that Rojomoke gives, would be understood by some in the UK, although it's not really mainstream slang. Alansplodge (talk) 12:59, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That usage would be considered essentially obsolete in America. Don't know about other countries. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:11, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's alive and well in Australia, where this issue is located, whereas ministerial red boxes are unknown here. I had a search around for any commentary on the matter that made mention of how "big red box" was an allusion to ministerial red boxes, but I found nothing. Here are two British sites that fail to mention it: [3], [4]. All the commentary I've seen is on the vulgarity, the sexism and the offensive references to body parts, one in particular. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:48, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. Regional usages. Like the "fanny" reference a few days ago, which is G-rated in America and X-rated in some other parts of the English speaking world. And I recall there was some overseas snickering in the early 1970s about the phrase "Watergate buggers" which was often appearing in American newspapers. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:20, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yep. heard the term gang bangers in an American movie last night, and wondered what having consensual sex with several individuals at the same time had to do with their alleged crime. HiLo48 (talk) 23:31, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That's more of a play on words. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:46, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the contemporary American version. μηδείς (talk) 01:07, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

How is it a play on words? Do those you use it to describe a member of a gang really think of the multiple sex partners version when they say it? It didn't seem that way when I heard it used. HiLo48 (talk) 01:18, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's a play on words in the same way "Deep Throat" was. Even if you don't know about the X-rated reference, it still works. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:41, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What I didn't understand, though, was why the quail was described as being in a big red box - was it served in a box? - it seems doubly gratuitous.Adambrowne666 (talk) 22:11, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Don't take it literally. It was just a way of introducing an offensive remark under the ostensible guise of a menu description of a dish. The point was to get "big red box" in there somewhere. Anywhere would do. People would make the desired connection and get the double meaning. The author was relying on what Ronnie Barker said: "The marvellous thing about a joke with a double meaning is that it can only mean one thing". -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 08:26, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

According to the restaurant's version of the story anyway, it wasn't actually used, just an (offensive) in-joke, so there was no actual box and probably no actual quail. For what it's worth, I thought "big red box" referred to (1) the red box used by KFC and (2) Gillard's Communist past and nominal Socialist Left affiliation today. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 16:19, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Politicians don't tell the truth. This restaurateur is a strong supporter of the politicians involved. (Donor to the party involved, I believe.) I see no reason to believe him either. I shall continue to observe, and draw my own conclusions. HiLo48 (talk) 20:10, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes they do tell the truth (about themselves, anyway) if they think no one's recording it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:35, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Brennero

How do Italians pronounce "Brennero", the Italian name of Brenner, South Tyrol? Is the stress on the first syllable or the second one? darkweasel94 (talk) 19:37, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The stress is on the first syllable. ---Sluzzelin talk 20:21, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. darkweasel94 (talk) 21:34, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

June 15

Nom plural of Iesus

Is this Latin word ever pluralized? If so, what is its declension pattern? Wikt:Iesus suggests that it isn't ever pluralized. If it isn't, then, hypothetically, would it just follow regular fourth masc and be Iesūs? ÷seresin 07:50, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Rarely, but the plural 'Iesus' is used by Tertullian, in book 4 of Against Marcion, he writes "Atque adeo si et Christus Marcionis natus ex homine diceretur, tunc et ipse caperet appellationis communionem, et essent duo filii hominis, sicut et duo Christi et duo Iesus.". - Lindert (talk) 08:21, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I found an accusative multos Iesus, "many Jesuses", in Calvin, Ad quaestiones et obiecta Iudaei cuiusdam, 15. Iblardi (talk) 08:29, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Why why?

I was wondering how do you question a why in the shortest possible manner when you want to ask why the other person has asked why and you don't understand it? An example: Jack says "I used to play the piano when I was young." Jill says: "Why?" Jack: "Why why? / Why what? / What do you mean why?" --Pxos (talk) 14:33, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You could answer back with a properly-emphasized "Why?" and wait for them to elaborate. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:10, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Alternatively, you could say 'Eh?' or 'Hm?'. I believe saying "Why?" back would have your interlocutor expect you to have an explanation. E.g. "Why? Because I did." KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 17:55, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Why what?" rʨanaɢ (talk) 18:04, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There are ways of enunciating "Why?" that will indicate you're questioning the other guy's "Why?" You can do that with any sentence: Echoing it back to them with the right inflection delivers the message just fine. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:10, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A puzzled look uses no words, and is therefore the shortest. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:44, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent point. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:12, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Except in writing, where almost anything trumps "He gave her a puzzled look" for conciseness. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 22:13, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it depends on the medium. In a cartoon, putting a large question mark in a balloon over someone's head expresses it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:18, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Or you could just wait and say nothing. If they really want to know, they will ask you again, possibly with an clarification. Nothing much shorter than that. This action does not even have to be written down. "Because I said so!" was the usual response from my mother when I was a kid. That was the shortest she could manage. Too busy watching soap operas to explain anything to me. :) KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:26, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

? Clarityfiend (talk) 01:25, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 02:31, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thx. Ta. :) ! --Pxos (talk) 21:27, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

To the question "Why?", the question "Why not?" is sometimes the response.

—Wavelength (talk) 04:47, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hebrew help

What does it mean? ?שלום. אנ' מ'כל. מ'את — Preceding unsigned comment added by LoweIan (talk • contribs) 22:29, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not a Hebraist, but it appears to say: "Hello, I am Michael. Who are you?" Iblardi (talk) 22:51, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

However, prime marks are used in place of the letter Yod. Under that spelling, it technically says Michal (feminine name), not Michael... AnonMoos (talk) 23:47, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

More specifically, the pronoun "you" is feminine singular. See wikt:Appendix:Hebrew pronouns.

—Wavelength (talk) 05:19, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

June 16

bloody

I was surprised to hear Martha Reeves say in an interview "We just thought it was a bloody shame...". I am British and therefore very familiar with this use of "bloody", but it sounded very strange to hear it from an American, even more so a black American woman. The article bloody says "In the US the term is usually used when the intention is to mimic an Englishman" but that would not really fit the context (which was an interview in a film about Marvin Gaye, with no obvious connection to Englishness). Any other reason why she might have used this word, and did she mean it as a relatively mild profanity per British usage? 86.128.1.7 (talk) 01:52, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Usually" is a key word there. If an American is in the habit of peppering his or her speech with Britishisms, they might start to pop up unconsciously. Maybe she has a bunch of English friends. Regardless, I'm sure the meaning was the same. --BDD (talk) 03:18, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

From the article you linked: "In January 2012, Martha held court at London's Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club with a sold out six-show stand that drew celebrity friends like Phil Collins and Boy George. [.......] In September 2012 Martha performed at the Freedom Festival, Kingston-upon-Hull, England." My guess would be that one of these (probably the former) is the source of the expression. Dbfirs 06:25, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That sort of thing is easy for an American to pick up if they've been living around Brits for a while. Although I live in Germany, I go to a Church of England church on Sundays and work with several Brits during the week, so my speech is more peppered with Britishisms than it was when I lived in the States. I haven't picked up "bloody", but I have picked "I couldn't be arsed" (which I always pronounced [ɑrst], never [æst]) because we don't have a sufficiently vulgar equivalent in American English. Angr (talk) 13:54, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Angr is right. Americans pick up British words quite quickly (and vice-versa), and start using them when around Brits. When I was in Japan, this was happening a lot. However, in response to Angr's comment about "I can't be arsed" (which is my version), I was once with an American teacher in a school, and there was some evaluation we had to go through, routine stuff, and I'd said "I can't be arsed to do this", and he said emphatically "I can't even be BOTHERED!", because apparently he'd misunderstood what I'd said, and thought I'd said "I can't be asked" (with a southern British accent, even though I'm from the North). KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 15:31, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think I picked it up primarily from a co-worker from Middlesbrough. She pronounced it [ɑːst], but I do know enough about Northern English accents to know that if she'd meant asked she would have said [as(k)t]. (Also, I've seen it written down, probably mostly here at WP.) Angr (talk) 19:59, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's usage is becoming more common. I had never heard the term in elementary school. I first learnt it from a friend in 7th grade whose parents were Scottish. I use it not too rarely now as a minor emphatic. I hear others using it occasionally. There's no sense of trying to mimic a Brit unless the accent's also done. "Spot on" is another phrase I hear all the time as a nativized Americanism.μηδείς (talk) 16:47, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A variation on it is 'bleeding'. We use both interchangeably here in the UK. Always makes me smile when the BBC says 'There was a bloody massacre in [wherever]' and when songs have the lyrics 'my bleeding heart'. :) KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 17:10, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There's a good blog about British words crossing the Atlantic. Here is the item on "bloody". Interestingly the blogger hadn't noticed bloody being used in the US. Thincat (talk) 20:34, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We've had a similar conversation before. 'Bloody' is used far more in Australia than in the UK, and the Australian tourism advert "Where the bloody hell are you?" illustrates the point. It was banned in the UK, for containing 'profanity' (even though we in the UK use the term all the time). Another one that was banned was this, which is another word we use all the time. I don't know why the TV censors have to bow down to little old ladies who don't understand language change and development. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 12:31, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In a similar vein, see this Australian ad about bloody idiots. The bloody idiot is also well known to everyone in Victoria, Australia, from our Transport Accident Commission's anti-drink driving ads. Here is an early example from an ongoing series. HiLo48 (talk) 05:11, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Synthetic drugs

I have begun to hear and read the above term used by journalists and politicians to apparently refer to an evil new set of anti-social drugs, which should all be made illegal for the benefit of society (according to the users of the term). See here for an example. To me, as a once-upon-a-time chemistry student, the term has always meant any drug made in a laboratory, including all the good ones. Is this a new usage? What does it really mean? (And how can I now describe good drugs made in laboratories?) HiLo48 (talk) 01:53, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I would guess that it means artificial recreational drugs. The unspoken implication is that they are somehow more dangerous than "natural" recreational drugs such as cannabis. Scientifically, I doubt if there is much difference between taking poisons "as natural intended" as opposed to "in their pure form". Bluap (talk) 02:38, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think that most often it's more or less a synonym for designer drugs... AnonMoos (talk) 07:22, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

deck in spanish

how do you say deck in spanish? the type of deck that is a a flat raised wooden area attached to the backside of a house made of wood? i know its not cubierta which is only a deck on a sea vessel, is there not a proper term? is the portuguese form deque or spanglish deckue at all in common use?108.212.70.237 (talk) 02:48, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds like you may have already checked Google Translate. How about piso? (more translations). --BDD (talk) 03:26, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'd use cubierta del patio, which is what GT gives. The word piso would be okay, but it is pretty generic, and means floor as opposed to ceiling, or floor as in level of a building. μηδείς (talk) 18:12, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

no way in hell is it cubierta del patio which means backyard-roof or backyard-cover or backyard-shipdeck. Piso could work and its normal in spanish for multi-sense words to be isolated without qualifiers that are understood contextually, however i finally found out i ask my cousin in south america and she said the term balcón is most widely used to refer to what we call a deck as they are considered 1st floor balconies, although he said those without connecting sliding doors or that have stairs are also referred to as plataforma.108.212.70.237 (talk) 23:01, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

WEll, I'd trust your cousin, since she is more likely to be a real person than google translate. But I am also sure that out of the blue, piso would be an oddly generic word to use. Instead of trusting google, whenever I have referred to what my parents have, it is a patio with a piso and a techo. μηδείς (talk) 00:54, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly that is what I meant, if you are on a deck you can refer to it as a piso but out of the blue no one knows, a lot of the time unfortunately english has an exact word but spanish has a generic one which is situationally-dependent for anyone to understand unless it gets riddled with adjectives or other qualifiers. also my other cousin (the first's cousons) who lived in Australia before moving to Chile said terraza or terraza de madera in addition to balcón and that parral is sometimes used as well although that would often be a deck with an arbor or veranda over it, she told me basically since the architecture is different the terms are never going to be perfect but that terraza was the closest by far, déck or déckue apparently are also in existence.108.212.70.237 (talk) 05:36, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think both the geographical and the specific physical contexts are going to matter. My parents (I live in an apartment) have an attached patio with a wooden floor at ground-floor level over a concrete bed and with a roof just below the house's second story. Attached to that is a small deck on the same level as the first story above ground. Separately they are called the deck and patio. Together they are called the deck, since there is a wooden covering over the entire structure. But there neighbors have an above-ground pool with a wooden walkway around it, which one accesses by walking up some steps from their ground floor. This deck is wide enough to allow walking access to half the pool, and high enough (about six feet) off the ground that they use it for storage. I could easily see four different terms being used to refer to all of these entities, only the roof of my parent's patio being exempt from being called a deck. Ironically, etymology on line shows that (thatched) roof is the original meaning. μηδείς (talk) 19:49, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like a picture to see what you actually mean. I venture terraza, porche (if it is covered) or tarima. -- Error (talk) 00:13, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Name translation

I've been told that my name when translated to Chinese (I don't know whether Cantonese or mandarin) is 克里尔熊耐寒. What is it translated back into English? Plasmic Physics (talk) 03:34, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

google translate gives collier bear hardy. μηδείς (talk) 16:41, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Foreign names are usually translated into Chinese phonetically--by taking syllables that have similar sounds to the syllables of the original name (subject to some constraints, like the syllable structure of Mandarin--more limited than English--and the inventory of sounds--they don't have some of the sounds that English has). So all I can really do is transcribe the sounds (there is no point in trying to translate the "meaning" of these characters; they were chosen for the sounds they represent). kè lǐ ěr xióng nài hán (IPA: [kɤ li ɑɻ ɕjɔŋ naɪ xan]). You can check out the articles on Mandarin phonology and Hanyu Pinyin for more about these sounds. rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:04, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I gave them my last name followed by a transliteration of my first name, in that order. So, I accept that kè lǐ ěr is the syllabic equivalent of my last name, however xióng nài hán should actually have a meaning. Plasmic Physics (talk) 04:26, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

See Transcription into Chinese characters... AnonMoos (talk) 07:28, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps I should clarify, 'transliteration' is probably not the right word. I studied the etymology of my name, and found the modern English equivalent. That is what was actually translated. For example, if I wanted to translate Schumacher, I'd tell them my name was "Shoemaker", or "Maker of shoes", or "Cobbler". So, I want to know if their translation of what I gave them is faithful or not. Plasmic Physics (talk) 07:56, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The meaning of the characters is:熊 is a bear, 耐 is to endure or to resist, and 寒 is the cold. Hope this helps. Oda Mari (talk) 08:20, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. So that means I should drop the last character to make 熊耐, which approximates Bernard? Plasmic Physics (talk) 08:57, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I only understand characters, not Chinese reading/sound. Looking at the zh:WP, the en name is 伯纳德 like zh:萧伯纳 and zh:伯纳德·赫尔曼. Oda Mari (talk) 09:35, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm just noting that 'cold' incorrectly specifies the type of 'endurance', whereas I require no specification, cold or otherwise. So, based on what you said, if I want to translate 'bear-enduring' I have to drop the character that represents 'cold'. Plasmic Physics (talk) 09:57, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The actual meaning itself would be 'Bear that is resistant to cold and works in a coal mine.' (Is your surname 'Collier'?) Kè lǐ ěr xióng nàihán is the actual pronunciation. You can actually check this on Google Translate. There is an option to give you the transliteration. The thing is, as it's a name, and names are usually transliterated and not translated, the meaning is lost, and you just have to glue it together in whichever way you think would be appropriate if you want to have an actual translation. Hope this helps. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:44, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is why I specifically said that there is no point in trying to translate meaning. As I said above, English names are translated phonetically, using characters chosen to imitate the sound, not the meaning. For example, Barack Obama is referred to as 奥巴马 (ou ba ma), which means...absolutely nothing. (There are small exceptions, where some famous people have nicknames that aren't phonetic transliterations--Britney Spears is often referred to as 小甜甜 xiao tiantian "little sweetie". And sometimes people try to choose characters that have an interesting meaning while still conforming to the sounds--Dayron Robles's name was translated as 罗伯斯 luo bo si, but then a lot of Chinese people started disliking him because he beat Liu Xiang's world record, and started referring to him as 萝卜丝, which is still pronounced luo bo si but means "turnip strips". The point is, sound comes before meaning.) Therefore, like I said, there is no point saying the translation "should" have a meaning--that's just not how it's done.

That being said, it looks like the translator did try to accomodate your request and translate the meaning of your name rather than the sound. According to our page Bernard, that name originally meant "bear" + "hardy". 熊 means bear, and 耐寒 actually means hardy (I believe this word originally did refer to cold more particularly, and was used to talk about plants that can do well in cold weather; but actually it can also be used to mean "hardy" in a general sense, for instance, you can use it to describe camels [there's an example in the link provided], and people's personalities). So it's pretty much a word-for-word translation of the name's presumed "meaning" (that being said, I don't consider most English names to really have "meaning"--they may have had meaning a long time ago, but if you have to look the meaning up then it's clearly not part of your mental representation of the name). So that is a translation of the meaning. But as I explained above, if you wanted a real translation of your name (i.e., one that Chinese people would use), it would be a phonetic one, like the ones that Oda Mari gave some links to above. rʨanaɢ (talk) 14:43, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much. I do see myself as 'hardy', just not the physical way. So, I think that an etymologically correct name is better than a phonetic one. Accordingly, no change should then be made to the name I submitted then? Plasmic Physics (talk) 21:57, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No, my last name is just Kriel, which refers to town in NW Germany. Plasmic Physics (talk) 21:57, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, my mistake. In any case, if you were to go to China, say as a student, like I did, they would give you a two or three syllabic name, which may reflect some of your name, or it may not. My Chinese name in Tianjin was 高林 ('gaolin') which approximates only my first name (Colin) and means 'Tall Forest' (nothing to do with doves, as 'Colin' is supposed to mean), and my Cantonese name was 高俊 ('gaojun' in Mandarin) which just means 'Tall and Handsome' - nothing like my real name, but more like my qualities :) My Japanese name is 影虎 ('kagetora') which means 'Shadow Tiger' - absolutely nothing to do with my name whatsoever, but reflects the fact that I work through the night. Two or three syllabic names are the norm, basically. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 22:18, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I guess Bó nà dé will do in casual circumstances. Plasmic Physics (talk) 22:46, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's amusing though, to an Anglophone, my last name would sound like 'curlier'. Plasmic Physics (talk) 22:48, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this is because Mandarin does not have the same 'o' that we have in English. It is replaced by the Mandarin 'e', which is half way between 'o' and 'e', but because of the fact that consonant clusters cannot be present in Mandarin, 'e' is sometimes used as a helper. This is why 'Kriel' is written and pronounced like this in Mandarin. This is why I mistook your name, and guessed it as 'Collier' (which is far more common). KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 23:20, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

KageTora raises a good point: that for a name someone is actually going to use in China, people will often get a name that looks like a Chinese name (i.e., it's 2-3 syllables, the first is a Chinese surname, and the rest are characters commonly used in given names). To me, 伯纳德 looks more like a translation than a possible Chinese name--伯 exists as a surname but I don't know how common it is (it seems to have been more common, there are several famous Bos in ancient times, but not so many now, although there are other Bo characters used as surnames too), plus I think 纳 is pretty much mostly used in phonetic translations of names, I don't know many actual Chinese peoples' names that have it (Chinese given names tend to come from a smaller set of characters that have meanings people like). A good Chinese name for a foreigner often somewhat mimics the sound of the original name, and looks like a Chinese name; KageTora's 高林 gaolin from Colin is a great example.

On the other hand, for just translating a foreign name (i.e., not giving someone a name that they themselves will use among Chinese people, but just 'officially' translating a name, e.g. translating famous peoples' names for a newspaper article), they will generally focus just on the sound, and not worry about trying to make the name look Chinese. Hence names like 诺姆·乔姆斯基 (Noam Chomsky), which are very obviously not Chinese. rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:31, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

With the name 'Bernard' I would suggest changing the first character from 'Bo' to 'Ba'. It's a lot closer to 'Ber'. Your name in Japanese characters (katakana) would be クリール・バーナード (kuriiru baanaado). 'Bonered' is not the name you really want. :)KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 02:13, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

[EDIT]Actually, a native Chinese colleague of mine said 伯纳德 would be right. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 13:31, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

the meaning of Alsuhail or Suhail

The List of Arabic Star Names has the translation of all the traditional names, but in this case it's listed as untranslatable. Surely some approximation must be possible?

Thanks Adambrowne666 (talk) 12:15, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The name is applied to several bright southern stars. The original meaning may have been "bright", "brilliant", which is one connotation of the modern Arabic word. (See also Suhail.) The western understanding of the name has long been a muddle; according to Allen's Star Names, one early German philologist (Buttmann) suggested that it was related to al-Sahl (the plain), probably due to the low altitude of the stars. -- Elphion (talk) 12:54, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Suhail’s name comes from the Arabic phrase Al Suhail al Wazn, translated partially as “The Suhail of the Weight.” The meaning of this name is unclear. The word suhail had several meanings in ancient Arabic. These included “the plain” as well as the adjectives beautiful, glorious, and brilliant. Also, several other stars in the area were occasionally known as Suhail, including the brilliant star Canopus in the neighboring constellation Carina." This is a quotation from Encarta Reference Library 2003. I may add that since Suhail is rarely seen in Northern Islamic territories, there is a saying in Persian which likens to Suhail someone whom you rarely meet. --Omidinist (talk) 17:28, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Strange - looking at Suhail it feels like the word is almost untranslatable even for Arabic speakers... Adambrowne666 (talk) 22:14, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

June 17

ތަޢާރަފު

What language is ތަޢާރަފު ? -- Ypnypn (talk) 00:50, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like Maldivian. Plus if I put it into Google, most of the websites that come up have the .mv domain. rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:54, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Why would tools.wmflabs.org/wikitest-rtl use Maldivian? -- Ypnypn (talk) 01:14, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea; I don't know what that is. You should ask whoever administers that tool. rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:21, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Why shouldn't it? It's presumably something about RTL scripts, which Divehi is an example of. --ColinFine (talk) 11:38, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

June 18

the meaning of 'figario'

Please let me know the meaning of the word, 'figario' in the following passage. I presume it is an Irish word. "Aw, shut up with that workers of the world crap, will you?We all know there isn't a reason in the word for you to be going out to work. Only because you took some figario. If you'd stayed at home and minded your business we wouldn't have all this trouble now.---Maeve Binchy, Circle of Friends, p.188."123.227.223.236 (talk)dengen —Preceding undated comment added 01:44, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't that be: "... reason in the world ..."? 93.95.251.162 (talk) 14:44, 18 June 2013 (UTC) Martin.[reply]

Pure OR on my part, but it appears to mean "whim" or "wild notion", with "to take a figario" meaning roughly "to act on a whim" or "to get a crazy idea into one's head". A Google search turns up a couple of other uses in Binchy novels, including "Ah, be tolerant of her, will you, she has a mad figario in her head about men, that's all" and "You have qualifications already: a career, a job. This is just some kind of a figario you are taking". The word appears to be treated on page 161 of this book, but there's no Google preview or snippet of that. (There's also a possible hint that the word may be related to the English word vagary, but don't hold me to that.) Deor (talk) 14:59, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Given that everything the first few pages of Google turns up is names, I was at first going to say I wouldn't be surprised if it's a regional eponym. However, I found this book that has it on page 306, seeming to be a kind of hat, which doesn't make sense in the OP's context. It should be glossed on page 344, but it isn't in the preview. Lsfreak (talk) 22:01, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Languages without second person?

Are there languages that do not have a grammatic second‐person? --66.190.69.246 (talk) 02:57, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not aware of any, and I doubt that there are. Every language I'm aware of expresses person in some way (either with pronouns or with inflection--or both). For example, English doesn't have any verb suffix that uniquely indicates second person, but it has a pronoun ("you") that does. I can't imagine a language that would have pronouns and/or inflections for first and third persons and not for second-person, and thus it seems to me that a language without second-person would be a language that has no pronouns or personal inflections at all. And I'm not aware of any languages like that (although someone else might be). rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:55, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There are languages where pronouns exist, but are either not necessary or even rarely used, even in languages which have little or no verb suffixes, English included ("Not going to the park?", for example). In Japanese, this can cause a lot of amiguity (and the Japanese complain about this). For example, "Akachan, tabeta?" could mean (talking to the baby) "Baby, have you eaten?", or (talking to someone else) "Has the baby eaten?", or (again, talking to someone else) "Have you (or a third party) eaten the baby?" KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 11:48, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It all depends what you mean by "grammatic(al)". Many languages have no personal inflections at all (Japanese, Swedish, Chinese for example - English has vestigial inflection). While you can distinguish the person in these languages by the choice of pronoun (much less used in Japanese than in European examples like English and Swedish), I would say that this is a lexical, not a grammatical, distinction. --ColinFine (talk) 11:50, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There are varieties of Brazilian Portuguese in which all second-person pronouns (você, o senhor, a senhora in the singular; vocês, os senhores, as senhoras in the plural) take third-person verb agreement, so you could say these dialects have no grammatical (in the sense of morphological) second person, even though they clearly have a semantic second person. When I took Portuguese in university, we only had to memorize the 1st and 3rd persons of the verb forms for that reason. Angr (talk) 15:42, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

When I was working at a primary school in Korea, and a primary school in Hungary, I found that most of the kids referred to me as 'he', rather than 'you' (in English). This is a sign of politeness, which, interestingly, they had carried over into English from their native languages. "You" in these languages is hardly ever used, only between very close friends. Hungarian has case endings, so pronouns are not necessary, but Korean does not (but still doesn't bother with pronouns), but unlike the Japanese, which would use my name (or 'sensei) in place of a pronoun, the Koreans (when speaking English) would use 'he'. In Hungarian, the polite way to talk to someone is to use the third person, rather like "Would sir like another drink?" in posh restaurants in the UK. So, yes, I would say there are languages where the 2nd person pronoun is hardly used, but I wouldn't say they are non-existent in any language. Japanese has multiple 2nd person pronouns (many of them derogatory), but they are hardly used. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:41, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In German, as is well known, the polite form for "you", Sie, etymologically means "they". But several hundred years ago (say 17th/18th centuries), you could also address another person as "he" (or "she", as the case might be), but it wasn't especially polite. It was the pronoun for a superior to address an inferior whom he didn't know well enough to address as du. Angr (talk) 16:46, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Japanese is a little strange, in that there are multiple alternative first and second person pronoun words with various different social connotations, pronouns are used relatively infrequently in speech compared to many other languages (even though Japanese verbs are not inflected for person or number), and the pronoun words are historically somewhat unstable (in particular, second-person pronoun words that have been in use for several centuries tend to acquire derogatory connotations and fall out of use, so that there's something of a "pronoun treadmill"). In all these respects, Japanese contrasts strikingly with the tendencies in Indo-European or Semitic languages... AnonMoos (talk) 23:56, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Vietnamese is very similar to Japanese in this respect. There is an unambiguous pair of 1st/2nd person pronouns but they are highly familiar/contemptuous in use, and replaced in nearly all contexts by alternatives, such as kinship terms. Itsmejudith (talk) 06:02, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. When talking to my Japanese ex-wife about myself, I would use 'ore', but when talking to my boss I would use 'boku'. When talking to an official, I would use 'watashi' (or even 'watakushi'). When talking to the wife about her, I would use her name in place of a pronoun (as she did with me). Occasionally, I would use 'anata', or 'anta', when I was angry about her spending my money on a handbag instead of saving my hard-earned cash for our kid, for example. Normally, though, most people would refer to you with your name or job title, or a nickname. 2nd person pronouns are very rarely used in Japanese. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 12:22, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Use of "we" when referring to the human species in scientific articles

I noticed when doing some copy editing of Causal reasoning that the article uses forms of the pronoun "we" quite a bit when referring to humans. Is this considered kosher according to Wikipedia's guidelines for "encyclopedic style"? I couldn't find a guideline or policy that specifically addressed the question, though I haven't noticed that usage in other scientific articles on WP, Typically I've seen editors word facts about our species as "Humans and chimpanzees have similar DNA",' rather than saying "we have similar DNA to chimpanzees". One of the potential problems with "we" is that it isn't clear who "we" is - the species as a whole, citizens of one country, etc. Any thoughts on this? RainbowCrane | Talk 09:27, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As one of the resident pedants around here, I cannot but agree. Such articles should always be written in the third person. HiLo48 (talk) 09:59, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As one of the resident anti-pedants around here, I also agree: Wikipedia is a domain which has, and is entitled to have, its own rules. In particular, WP:TONE says this is not acceptable. --ColinFine (talk) 11:52, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It says "follow the style used by reliable sources" and "use common sense", not "this is not acceptable". Card Zero (talk) 20:14, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The use of such terminology could mean poor writing on the part of the editor, OR it could mean it was lifted verbatim from somewhere else. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:46, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Both of which breach policy. HiLo48 (talk) 21:14, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In differing degrees. Using first or second person is merely poor writing, while plagiarism is potentially big trouble. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:37, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As a matter of interest would the use of "we" be acceptable or even encouraged in the Simple English Wikipedia? I can't find any style guides for that, but my impression is that some people use the first and second person because it seems .... easier! -- Q Chris (talk) 14:27, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

From a reliable source which uses the same style, perhaps? Card Zero (talk) 20:15, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

See MOS:FIRSTPERSON.—Wavelength (talk) 16:11, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"But these forms are acceptable in certain figurative uses". Is this particular use acceptable? As just some guy passing through, I prefer the use of the term "we", which it should be clear from context refers to all humans, over repeating "humans" over and over again. It is snappier. Card Zero (talk) 20:08, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

So far the consensus seems to be to avoid using "we" where possible, with Card Zero's noted disagreement. Thanks for the pointer to MOS:FIRSTPERSON. That policy does mention that it is ok to use first person in scientific articles, but goes on to say that it can be preferable to use the passive voice to avoid first-person pronouns. I'll copyedit with an eye towards avoiding "we" unless doing so requires uncomfortable verbal gymnastics, in which case "we" is probably a lesser evil. RainbowCrane | Talk 22:30, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"The journey took one month each way." vs "The journey took one month for each way." ?

In this book one can read "The journey took one month each way". I'd like to know whether that's grammatically correct and whether "The journey took one month for each way." could be another possibility. --Immerhin (talk) 18:10, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure "one month each way" is correct, and it definitely sounds better than "one month for each way". I doubt using "for" would be incorrect, but it's definitely cumbersome and unnecessary. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 18:13, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you. --Immerhin (talk) 18:27, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I would go further and say that "for each way" is ungrammatical. "Each way" is an adverbial phrase, not a noun phrase so cannot be governed by a preposition. ("Each way" can syntactically be a NP, since "way" can be a noun, as in "on the way"; but it is hard to make the semantics come out right with a noun "way"). --ColinFine (talk) 23:34, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A Spell checker checks for?

Spells? No, so why isn't it a spelling checker? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.60.250.93 (talk) 19:42, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is, as you add more to each term, it gets too long, so we start to drop out parts of it. English isn't the only language to do this. For example, the German unterseeboot became just the U-Boot (U-boat, in English). StuRat (talk) 19:52, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Would it correct "eye of Gingrich" to "eye of newt" ? :-) StuRat (talk) 19:47, 18 June 2013 (UTC) [reply]

This is a thread that needs to live in perpetuam. Check out Carlin and Seinfeld. μηδείς (talk) 19:59, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

See the spelling at http://www.onelook.com/?w=in+perpetuum&ls=a.

—Wavelength (talk) 20:03, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

See "Japanese abbreviated and contracted words".—Wavelength (talk) 20:01, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A glance at the linked article in the question would show a poem which refers to a spelling checker; which, given the choice, is the term I prefer in British English. Bazza (talk) 20:20, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OK, from now on we'll all be referring to "Wiki Encyclopedia". -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:28, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And we should say "electronic mail" and "specifications" all the time, along with probably countless other examples. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:31, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There's no need for sarcasm. I'm not dictating usage, just saying that (some) people who speak British English prefer "spelling checker", as borne out by Wikipedia's redirection, or "redirect", I referred to. It's a similar thing to sending "invites", rather than invitations. Bazza (talk) 22:16, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And I would prefer that Brits would say "forecastle" instead of "folks'll", but it is what it is. "Spellcheck" takes only 2 syllables instead of 4, and everyone knows what it means. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:58, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

See Clipping (morphology).—Wavelength (talk) 23:01, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It may possibly have nothing to do with abbreviation as such - it could be as simple as the need for a short filename for a program. It seems that the first spell(ing) checker was simply called 'SPELL' - see Spell checker#History. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:43, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yup. A little investigation suggests that the PDP-10 - the computer that 'SPELL' ran on - used 6-character filenames (plus a 3-character extension): see DEC Radix-50. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:57, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Difficult to understand foreign speech

I can read French, Portuguese and Spanish fairly well (I think), more often than not, I can write well in French & Spanish, but listening to these languages is difficult for me. Some people suggested that I watch Spanish television, but I’m understanding few of the words that they use; the overall messages are lost to me. Is my vocabulary still poor? Should the foreign subtitles be on? Do I (just) need to have more patience and dedication? I feel like I’m doing something wrong. --66.190.69.246 (talk) 21:24, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You can always read at your own pace, but when they throw it at you, it can be hard to keep up with them. I recommend some kind of interactive foreign language class where you can get to practice talking and listening, and most importantly "thinking in" that language. That's called "immersion". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:35, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reading/writing and speaking/listening are two very different things, and you need to practice both if you want both. Just reading will only help to a point if your goal also includes listening. Your vocabulary is probably fine, it's just that you're not used to hearing what the words sound like, and more importantly, the stress and intonation of entire phrases (and, with French, there may be a big disconnect if you learned how to read but not how the orthography maps to to the speech). I'd agree that listening to television is a good start, with Spanish/French subtitles if you need it. Better might be something designed for learners, where the speech is likely slowed down to a pace more suitable to a beginning listener; for example, the extremely corny (as I remember it) Destinos series for Spanish. The grammar/vocab will be far below you, but it'd get you used to listening to the words, at a pace where you can still understand them. Lsfreak (talk) 22:20, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Watching movies could help too, perhaps first time with the subtitles on, next time with them off. And there's so much great cinema in French, and in Spanish. Itsmejudith (talk) 05:52, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

June 19

"All your data is belong to us"

When a German says that, why is he making this mistake? How would it be in German? OsmanRF34 (talk) 00:02, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe AYBABTU — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.101.52.130 (talk) 00:08, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it's nothing to do with German. It's the (broken) English meme that the preceding poster linked to. --ColinFine (talk) 07:57, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Dock of the Bay

I have always been puzzled by the song title "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay". What exactly is the "dock of the bay"? Does it simply mean a dock (i.e. place for ships to moor) located in a bay (inlet of the sea)? If so, is "dock of the bay" normal English for such a meaning? 81.159.109.26 (talk) 00:25, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'd have the same interpretation as you, but for my (Midwestern American) dialect I'd prefer on the bay (or maybe in the bay). Lsfreak (talk) 01:04, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In American vernacular, the (nautically incorrect) word "dock" can be used to mean "pier" or "wharf". See Dock (maritime) which explains this usage. Strictly speaking, the proper definition of "dock" is "the place where the floaty things park" and is thus in the water itself, while the dry wooden place where people walk to get to the floaty things are either a "pier" (perpendicular to the land) or a "wharf" (parallel to the land). Otis Reading, not being a sailor, but being American, is using the word dock to mean a a man-made seaside structure. He's sitting on the edge of said structure, perhaps dangling his feet in the water, and enjoying the scenery. Wasting time. --Jayron32 01:28, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In that meaning, does "of" seem like the correct preposition to you? 81.159.109.26 (talk) 01:32, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Chances are it fit the meter better. Grammar gets thrown out the window when poetics are involved. Mingmingla (talk) 02:48, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

However, any single-syllable preposition would fit the meter equally well. 86.160.222.45 (talk) 03:16, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Jayron, there's a place in England called Reading, which people unfamiliar with it tend to pronounce like the verb "reading". It is in fact pronounced "redding". Across the pond, Otis Redding was, as you say, an American, and if he had spelt his name Reading, it's likely people would have called him Otis "reeding". But they never have, in my experience. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 05:22, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There is likewise a Reading, Pennsylvania, presumably named for Reading, England, and for which the Reading Railroad was presumably named, and which lives on as a square in Monopoly (game). And the word "read" by itself can be pronounced both "reed" and "red". And while "lead" can be pronounced both "leed" and "led"... and so on. Meanwhile, "Otis" is usually spelled "Otis" but can also be "Ottis", but that's typically pronounced like "oat" rather than "ott". Then there was Dock Ellis, who was pierless. The endless quirks of English. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:21, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I can soon fix that. I hereby coin the word "quirksend" (sounds like a Kiwi saying "quicksand"). :) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 11:45, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

$200 is collected

MOS:YOU suggests "When Go is passed, $200 is corrected" to avoid the second person. But shouldn't it be "$200 are collected"? Or should I just be bold? -- Ypnypn (talk) 00:25, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No, "is" is correct. Amounts of money are normally viewed as singular quantities (as are lengths of time ("three hours is a long time"), distances ("five miles is a long way"), etc.). You mean "collected", by the way... 81.159.109.26 (talk) 00:36, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That's interesting... (Thanks for your collection.) -- Ypnypn (talk) 00:45, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

But Ypnypn, I've just noticed on your talk page that you are a native English speaker (I assumed you weren't when I answered). Does "$200 is collected" not sound correct to you? 81.159.109.26 (talk) 00:57, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In text, when the $ symbol is used instead of "dollars", is seems right. But how about "Sixteen trillion dollars is owed by the American government"? Or "Twenty-six miles is run in a marathon"? These don't sound correct at all. (Of course, neither does the word coolly.} -- Ypnypn (talk) 01:33, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You wouldn't say "the amount are" or "the distance are". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:45, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

But that's because the verb follows the subject. Take "The purchase was two apples" vs. "Two apples were purchased". -- Ypnypn (talk) 02:18, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

IMO "two apples were purchased" because two apples are seen as two discrete items, but "two dollars was owed" because we focus on the overall quantity, or amount, rather than the fact that it is two items, each of which is a dollar. "The purchase was two apples" is different because the verb subject has changed to an indisputably singular noun. 81.159.109.26 (talk) 02:26, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The cost was two dollars vs. The cost were two dollars. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:34, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Two dollars was the cost. Three corners has my hat. Card Zero (talk) 13:13, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

To me "Two hundred dollars were collected" is possible, but strongly suggests that what changed hands was a stack of one dollar bills. --ColinFine (talk) 08:02, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. (As a side note, Bugs, "the cost was two dollars" has to use a singular verb, since the subject of the sentence is "cost" which is singular; the "two dollars" doesn't enter into it.) Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 13:50, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No Expressions for God in Chinese?

Is it true that Chinese has no expressions for God and creation? --Omidinist (talk) 03:35, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Google Translate gives some options. Have you tried there? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:14, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That simple! The guy is a philosopher who is making that claim. He says This is precisely why the missionaries were unable to translate into Chinese the first verse of the Pentateuch, because that language has no expressions for God and creation…. --Omidinist (talk) 04:39, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am pretty sure that the sentence "the missionaries were unable to translate into Chinese the first verse of the Pentateuch, because that language has no expressions for God and creation…" is a ridiculous claim. They may have found it hard and had to use a much longer sentence, but surely they were not "unable". "The only omnipotent being" can be used to replace the word God and "make" can be used to mean create, even though there must be a better equivalent for create, you can't claim that the concept of make doesn't have an equivalent in Chinese. --Lgriot (talk) 07:40, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Whether it is a ridculous claim rather depends on whether "unable" refers to the missionaries' inadequacy in the Chinese language or to supposed shortcomings in the language itself. 86.160.222.45 (talk) 11:51, 19 June 2013 (UTC) Sorry, ignore my comment, I didn't read it properly. 86.160.222.45 (talk) 12:36, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well you kind of have a point, if they were not good in Chinese, they indeed might be "unable". But then, they would not try to translate, they would have other concerns, like survival in China without being able to communicate with the locals.--Lgriot (talk) 14:04, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Bearing in mind there is not a clear distinction in English (apart from the spelling with a capital letter) between God "the only supreme being" and god "one of supernatural spirits or beings", and the word creation is not originally English by itself, well, thus English also has (or at least had) "no expressions for God and creation". :) --Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 10:12, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Lüboslóv Yęzýkin is right. Even in Chinese 神 can mean either 'god' or 'spirit'. However, surely, they could come up with a phrase meaning 'the highest/supreme god'. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 12:06, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe he is talking about a single word for God (with capital g) which is absent in Chinese? And Creation in Abrahamic sense? Omidinist (talk) 13:54, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Creation" in all senses, including the Abrahamic sense, is just "making stuff", I don't see why it would be impossible to translate it in any language, especially not in a culture that has an industrious history of making stuff all the time. The method of making the universe is quite different from the human method, I acknowledge that, but that method is not described in the first verse, therefore I don't see why "create" is suitable in English, but the Chinese equivalent wouldn't be --Lgriot (talk) 14:12, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Chinese has plenty of words referring to deities and the divine, but when Westerners wanted to express their religion in the Chinese language, they didn't really find a term which clearly referred to an omnipotent monotheistic God. Protestants and Catholics came up with different semi-stopgap solutions, which gave some Chinese-speakers the idea that Protestants and Catholics did not worship the same god. For further information, see Chinese terms for God... -- AnonMoos (talk) 14:19, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for all comments, and thank you AnonMoos. The very first paragraph of that article explains the whole mess. Omidinist (talk) 15:23, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Both words ("God" and "creation") are used in Colossians 1:15, and both words are used in Revelation 3:14. Each of those external pages has a Simplified Chinese version in the seventh place in the first column. That website does not include the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures used by Jehovah's Witnesses, but you can see those verses on their website at http://m.wol.jw.org/zh-Hans/wol/b/r23/lp-chs/51/1 (Colossians 1) and http://m.wol.jw.org/zh-Hans/wol/b/r23/lp-chs/66/3 (Revelation 3) in Simplified Chinese, and at http://m.wol.jw.org/zh-Hant/wol/b/r24/lp-ch/50/1 (Colossians 1) and http://m.wol.jw.org/zh-Hant/wol/b/r24/lp-ch/66/3 (Revelation 3) in Traditional Chinese.

—Wavelength (talk) 15:44, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As those sources show, Chinese certainly has a verb meaning "to create". It is 创造（simplified) [chuàngzào (pinyin)]. According to the most common Chinese story of creation, a being called Pangu created the world, but Pangu is not the omnipotent God to Chinese. The merging of creator and God into one entity would have been alien to non-Muslim Chinese when the first western Christian missionaries arrived. Marco polo (talk) 15:53, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wavelength, can you inform me (as a non-Chinese-speaker) how the Watchtower Society renders LORD/YHWH/Jehovah into Chinese? Does it use the term [[listed as sounding most like 'Jehovah', or something else? Thanks. AlexTiefling (talk) 15:56, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

ch?

Hello. I was recently playing Scrabble^® on Facebook, and my opponent played the two-letter word "ch". The word list attached to the game says it is valid, but I can't find it in the online Scrabble^® dictionary, nor in any other dictionary. Is it really a word? If not, why is it on the game's word list? → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 14:43, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Chambers Dictionary (or at least the iPhone app version), which is used to be the usual arbiter for Scrabble words in the UK, lists 'ch', with definition: '(SW Eng dialect; obsolete) A short form of the first person singular pronoun ich, always fused with the verb, as cham I am, chave I have, chill I will.' So it's not really a word in its own right, but presumably it's accepted as it appears as a headword in Chambers. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 15:01, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) First of all you need to know that there are two official word lists for Scrabble, OWL2 (formerly known as TWL) and SOWPODS. OWL2 is used in competitions in North America, whilst SOWPODS is used in Britain and internationally (sometimes under the name OSWI). Ch is only found in SOWPODS and not OWL2. This gives us a lead for the definition, since it's obviously therefore a word found in Britain and not the US. This forum post suggests that the word is an obsolete dialect form of 'I' from south-west England, deriving from the custom of using 'Ich' (as in modern German) for the first person singular pronoun. This was shortened to simply 'ch'. Here is a paper referring to the area around the River Parrett as 'the land of Utch', and noting that "Some twenty years later, in 1897, reviewing the situation in the same area, he stated that, though surviving in the locality, utch was now “worn down to a mere faint ch”". There's also a quote from Thomas Hardy showing that German pronouns were used in the West Country around his time. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 15:04, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. I may have got the information about the names of the Scrabble dictionaries wrong. I've certainly linked the wrong article for OWL2. I'm not a Scrabble player, so I was going off the info here. Maybe someone else can help me straighten out the mess. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 15:06, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

German Translation!

My girlfriend has given me a note in German (which I don't speak/read/write, but she DOES) and I have no idea what it says. I'm sure it's very nice and thoughtful, but....yeah. Normally for her one sentence things I can struggle through google translate. No such luck here, it's too long and google loses all meaning.

Da steh ich und muß denken und muß sinnen, so wie ein Traumender verloren sinnt. Mein ganzes Herze Konntest du gewinnen, in einen Augenblick, geliebtes kind. und um nun Sein die leichten Fäden spinnen, die zart and weich, doch unzerreißbar sind. In meinen Busen gleiht ein wonnig Minnen, und längst erwachten schon so sanft wund lind des Herzens süße - zartgehegte. Triebe im goldnen Morgenstrahl der jungen Liebe.

some of the lower case m's may be actually n's.

thanks!24.218.57.201 (talk) 16:09, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's a poem. A google search should identify the author. Here's google translate which gives a vague idea of the sense. gt. μηδείς (talk) 16:28, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I said above that I punched it through google translate and found it less than useful -- I appreciate the help that it's a poem.24.218.57.201 (talk) 16:37, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's by Rilke; see here. Deor (talk) 16:32, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

thanks Deor! I totally thought she'd written it though! (and that Rilke was her "german" name. Yes she added that part...RED FACED AM I)24.218.57.201 (talk) 16:37, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That she's not the original author doesn't mean she didn't mean it. Deor (talk) 16:41, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Etymology of "Homo"

Is there any connection between the greek-derived homo ("same"), and the latin-derived homo ("human")? -- 71.35.127.227 (talk) 16:43, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]