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February 17

What to say if you are greeted with "How are you"?

I know you're not supposed to actually give an honest answer, but what should you say? Some answerish thing like "Fine, thank you" or could you also say something like "Hi, so nice to meet you", acknowledging that it wasn't really a question at all? Just "Fine, thank you" leaves me with a feeling I should somehow show interest, too. Joepnl (talk) 00:27, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Standard response is, "I'm fine, thanks. How are you?" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:33, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia article is phatic expression... -- AnonMoos (talk) 00:57, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

• I absolutely hate, hate, hate this custom. But about one in fifty people including register clerks (!) will get really nasty if you don't say "fine thanks, how are you." I try to stave this off with a peremptory "Happy Monday!" (Insert appropriate day of week) which usually gets a chuckle, a "Happy Monday!" in return, and throws the compulsive how-are-you-ers off balance. grumble...grumble...μηδείς (talk) 01:15, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm with you. If you answer "Fine, thanks", "Good, thanks", or "Well, thanks", they'll like as not come back with "That's good", as if they really were enquiring about your state of being, which they weren't. In the good old days, people didn't go in for this silly pretend-caring about total strangers. They'd say "How do you do?", to which the one and only proper response was "How do you do?". Nobody ever felt it was appropriate to take the question literally. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:47, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

As with the moment in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy and the scarecrow formally meet. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:08, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

This topic was discussed here within the last year or so. As for "How do you do?" it always makes me want to respond, "Nooo. How do you do?" μηδείς (talk) 02:17, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

A few years ago there was a beer commercial where these big-city types were sitting around the bar, continually saying, "How ya doin'?" with no expectation of an answer - until the friendly Texan walks in and starts a minute-by-minute of his trip so far. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:26, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

They are North Jersey types. You do realize, every commercial ever is at youtube pt. 1, pt. 2. μηδείς (talk) 02:35, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

I usually say: "Horribly! My miserable life is going straight to the hell! Don't you lend me some money until the next Monday? Please, I swear I'll return! Of course, if they don't kill me before that..."--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 02:44, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Lol, yes, very East European. μηδείς (talk) 02:58, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't think this has something to do with Eastern Europe particularly. Do black humour and satire exist only there? I don't think so. --Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 09:28, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

It's not a point I want to argue, or offend you with, but it is considered stereotypical from an English-speaking point of view. See these hits at google, as well as references to black humor in our articles Russian humour and Russian jokes, for example. See also this quote from Kurt Vonnegut in the article Black Humor:

The term [Black Humor like; I say what, what in the butt] was part of the language before Freud wrote an essay on it -- 'gallows humor.' This is middle European humor, a response to hopeless situations. It's what a man says faced with a perfectly hopeless situation and he still manages to say something funny. Freud gives examples: A man being led out to be hanged at dawn says, 'Well, the day is certainly starting well.' It's generally called Jewish humor in this country. Actually it's humor from the peasants' revolt, the thirty years' war, and from the Napoleonic wars. It's small people being pushed this way and that way, enormous armies and plagues and so forth, and still hanging on in the face of hopelessness. Jewish jokes are middle European jokes. And the black humorists are gallows humorists, as they try to be funny in the face of situations which they see as just horrible.

and google "dark Jewish humor". μηδείς (talk) 18:45, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Medeis, we have had conversations many times, that I almost consider you my pen-pal, you should try very hard to offend me. Moreover you are partly a Slav that adds my sympathies for you. I just think that when everybody everyday asks you about how you are doing not caring really about how you are really doing and expecting "Fine!" or something it's sometimes funny to respond unexpectedly and humorously. Obviously nobody will think these absurd things as true, it's just a joke. And I really think that black humour is international, at least Pan-European. What I sometimes don't like is to hear about "the uniqueness of Russians" especially from Russians themselves.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 01:08, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I can only repeat that there was no intent to offend you, and that if you read the quote of the very famous writer Kurt Vonnegut, I was neither only speaking of Russian humor, nor making a point others haven't before. Nor did I say that you don't find black humor everywhere. But your comment reminds me of something the very funny Jackie Mason would say, and I have paid to see him perform. You made me laugh. I hope that's clear, and you can have the last word if you want. μηδείς (talk) 02:21, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

My last (in this conversation!) words will be: I'm glad I've made you laugh. It is always interesting to speak with you. :) --Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 05:20, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

In Yiddish, the habit of over-the-top complaining like above is known as kvetching, a word Americans should be familiar with. It's as stereotypically German as it is stereotypically Slavic or Eastern European, I suspect, which would cause Eastern European Jews to be doubly predisposed to it. (Or triply, if it is also rooted in ancient Jewish culture.)

Personally, I'm annoyed by empty phrases like "How are you?" just like you, but I've finally started to overcome my discomfort and answer "Fine, thank you" when it's not a close friend. I'm not surprised that in a geeky place like Wikipedia, this discomfort is shared by many. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:59, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

See also this archived question "How are you? Ça va? etc."". ---Sluzzelin talk 03:02, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

You could always use the George Carlin line, "I am not unwell, thank you". He claimed it made the other person stop and figure out what he meant. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 04:17, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

While responding with your life story is certainly inappropriate, I do think you can give some short answers besides "I'm fine". Some examples are "Tired", "Hungry", "Ready to go home", etc. StuRat (talk) 05:52, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes I agree, but I try and inject a little (Northern) humour into my response, using phrases such as "fair to middlin" or "Fair to crap". Another phrase to use is "I'm very well thanks, how are you?" if you don't want to engage the questioner. --TammyMoet (talk) 09:44, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't like this question either, because I am compulsively honest, but honesty isn't really wanted. Rather than reveal or conceal whether or not I'm "fine" to someone who doesn't care, I prefer a noncommittal and minimal "Okay, and you?" This works really well because it says, "My well-being isn't important, but what about yours?" Also, unless you are dying, you're in some sense okay, so it isn't dishonest, either. Marco polo (talk) 16:41, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

I must try responding with I'm OK, You're OK and see where that leads us. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:38, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

God, that book nearly drove me to suicide. "Your mother drank, so you're fucked up for life." Probably true, but having it spelled out like that is rather more than one cat can take... Tevildo (talk) 00:50, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm a coward. I read the opening sentence of M. Scott Peck's The Road Less Travelled: "Life is hard". Then I closed the book and never reopened it. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:27, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Very sensible. "And see ye not yon narrow narrow road, so thick beset with thorns and briars? That is the path of righteousness, but after it but few enquires." Considering the identity of one's interlocutor, is "spelled" preferable to "spelt"? Tevildo (talk) 01:49, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm not the one to ask. I always spelled it "spelled" (reserving "spelt" for the grain) until after I became a regular here, but I'm now convinced that "spelt" is a valid way of spelling the past tense verb. But that doesn't mean that "spelled" is invalid.

However, I do believe "spelled" is the only valid past tense of spell meaning to give a team player a rest: "Watson was spelled for the first test, but now he's fresh and ready to bowl again". You can't have "Watson was spelt ...". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:08, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

I habitually say "So far so good" or sometimes "Can't complain." If the question comes in the form "How's it going?", I answer "Bit by bit!". —Tamfang (talk) 01:06, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks all, I guess I'll be saying "I'm fine, thanks. How are you?" though I'm glad also native English speakers don't like it either. Only today I realized my native language, Dutch, does have the exact same expression "Hoe maakt u het" ("how do you do"), which is also supposed to be answered by "Goed, dank u", "Fine, thank you" no matter what horrible disease the doctor just told you about. But that's a phrase you would find in books called "Dutch for dummy's", it's really old fashioned. For English, I'll stick to the approved dialogue. Joepnl (talk) 02:44, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm talking nonsense. There is another expression "Hoe gaat het", "How is is it going" that is still in use and when I google it the exact same answers come up. Joepnl (talk) 02:55, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Actually, it's not that unusual to answer the question with something like "unfortunately, not so good". So, it's not really true that you are not supposed to give an honest answer. Count Iblis (talk) 00:07, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Prefigure v. foreshadow

In what situations is either word the better usage choice over the other? Gullabile (talk) 06:53, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Personally, I would avoid using "prefigure" for the "predict" or "foretell" sense unless there was some aspect of shaping the future, but perhaps I am being unduly influenced by the obsolete meaning of "shaping at the front"? I think that most people regard the two words as synonyms, and I can't give a general rule about which is better. Have you some sample sentences? Dbfirs 15:40, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

I would use "foreshadow" for the literary technique, where an author provides hints or symbols of events to come. I would use "prefigure" for an analysis of history, where one event is seen (in retrospect) as pointing the way to a later event or trend or state of things. I would not use either for a prediction of future events. But that may be just my own personal prejudices. DES ^(talk) 17:47, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

• If you are trying to avoid repeating the same word, feel free to use prefigure to do it. There are also the helpful nouns premonition and foreboding depending on the connotation. μηδείς (talk) 18:21, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

at random

I'm not sure if there is any problem with the use of "at random" in "The boys pissed against the bushes at random."? Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.249.216.54 (talk) 09:39, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

There isn't, although it implies that the random element is the selection of the bush as a micturition-target; if you intend to emphasise the random nature of the excretory act itself, "pissed randomly against the bushes" might be better. Tevildo (talk) 22:22, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Indiscriminately would probably be a better word for what is most likely intended. But the whole statement isn't particularly useful anyway.--Jeffro77 (talk) 09:14, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I was thinking of a sentence in The Old Man and the Sea that referred to him standing up and "urinating indiscriminately over the side" or something similar, but I can't seem to track that down online. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 10:55, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

why are UK accents far more diverse within a shorter distance than N. Am. accents?

I'd like to know why in the U.K. accents are so diverse, within just a stone's throw, and people can fail to even understand each other sometimes. Whereas in English-speaknig N. America,

A) you would be hard-pressed to find average people speaking in a normal way as they learned in school, but NOT being able to understand someone from a different area

B) Even if that were to happen, it would be a very large geographic divide. A given small area (as small as the UK) would have one accent, not 400....

Why this difference? Why is N. America so homogenous. I didn't even realize someone was Canadian until they told me! They sound the same as people from coast to coast in the U.S., and even regional variations are over a much larger area, and a smaller effect overall.... --91.120.14.30 (talk) 09:58, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Most likely due to the amount of time for regional development of dialects.--Jeffro77 (talk) 10:03, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

I guess. But that would not explain why the people who emigrated in the first place didn't maintain the lineage to any extent...are all the immigrants from the same homegenous very small pool, and cut out all the rest of the history (of dialects) instead of continuing them? --91.120.14.30 (talk) 11:32, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Mobility? Lack of communication? Long periods of immobility, and lack of extensive inter-communication, would tend to create regional peculiarity in culture and in cultural artifacts like language, which over-time would be self sustaining. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:46, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Colonialism. Australian is one language, different to American but similarly uniform because it was made at approximatly one time by people who moved around the continent. New World Spanish is descended from Andilucian, with somewhat greater regional (now national) differences than American English, developed during the somewhat longer time since the major foundation colonists arrived. Brazilian Portuguese, similar. Eastern American English, being founded some three centuries ago, has some diversity but beyond the Alleghenies you find 19th and eventally 20th century colonies of mixed ancestry (Texan is mostly but not entirely Dixie; Michigander shows Yankee roots) and Southern Californian became thoroughly blended at its foundation a century ago. This is also when Hollywood became the capital of the United States, thus its dialect is the standard or "neutral" language of mass media. Jim.henderson (talk) 13:09, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Quite, so. Even though, technically 100 years ago Hollywood was silent. Radio was probably the first extensive mass communicator of spoken language, although many Americans would have some experience talking on the telephone by then, or listening to recordings. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:41, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Fascinating response, Jim, thank you. But does this mean that before the advent of mass communciation, regional differences would have been more pronounced? (e.g. bostonian accent was stronger pre hollywood)--91.120.14.30 (talk) 14:06, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

In the 1930s, the Margaret Dumont type of dialects (East Coast, upper class, non-rhotic, slightly influenced by British) were still considered prestigious by many. It was TV which helped set the seal on a non-eastern "General American" type of dialect becoming the prestige standard. AnonMoos (talk) 14:16, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

91.120.14.30 -- In the settlement of North America, speakers from various regions of the UK would often be thrown closely together. Their children would naturally arrive at a common dialect which would be based mainly on the dialects spoken by the majority of the parental generation in a locality, but which would smooth out peculiarities. This process is known to linguists as koineization. When you combine the effects of dialect-mixing and koineization with the fact that in North America literacy was relatively high from the start as compared with medieval Britain, and long-distance travel and communications steadily improving, it's not surprising that there's less dialect diversity than in the UK... AnonMoos (talk) 13:19, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, in the past, areas of the UK had very stable populations with only a very few people moving between regions. Over the last 150 years (since the coming of the railways, then easy road transport, then broadcast speech, then films & TV), there has been incresing mixing of populations and accents, so regional accents are gradually disappearing. Despite this, I still have difficulty in understanding a strong Glaswegian accent (from less than a hunderd miles away, though it might soon be a different country). Dbfirs 15:27, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree with most of the answers so far, but I would also say that, as in Britain, North American accents were in fact more diverse before the era of mass communications, especially on the east coast, though even here the differences were seldom enough to impede mutual intelligibility. For example, there used to be differences in the pronunciations of different neighborhoods of Boston. These have virtually disappeared among people aged under 40 or 50. There are still recognizable differences between the working-class accents of Rhode Island and the Boston area, just 50 miles away. But differences from General American are diminishing, I think under the influence of TV and increased mobility, with each generation. While it is unusual for me to have trouble understanding another native-born North American whose first language is a version of English, it has happened. My own accent is an idiolect that is close to General American, but with a few small regional variations from places I've lived (New York, northern California, and Massachusetts). The one place I had serious trouble understanding people was rural eastern Tennessee. Southern Appalachian speech diverges rather far from the standard. This is a community that was settled about 220 years ago, mostly from western Virginia and Maryland and largely by people of Ulster Protestant descent, and that was then relatively isolated until well into the 20th century, with very little in-migration even since then. One other comment I'd make is that, while California developed a koine close to General American when it had a rapid influx from different parts of the United States 100 or so years ago, California has, in fact, developed a subtle regional accent, or maybe two or three (more along ethnic lines than regions of the state). Having lived there, I can recognize a (relatively) strong Californian accent. Marco polo (talk) 16:33, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

If one thinks of the voices of American Presidents in the era of mass communication (roughly FDR to Obama, including a father and son), while all mutually intelligible (most the time), their accents seem distinct. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:29, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

• American dialects are not converging. This is a common assertion among laymen, but it is not born out by researchers such as William Labov. Dialects are changing, so certain old stereotypical accents from movies of the 1930's may no longer be common. People who speak with strong accents like Rosie Perez, or the typical brooklyn dialects of Seinfeld's George Costanza ("Mom's downsteahs, I just soaw huh") or Joe Pesci's Cousin Vinny ("Da tree yutes ennid da stoah") or various deep southern accents will change their speech when the move up in class or out of their home area.

But in older and more densely populated areas "urban vernaculars in different regions of the United States are diverging from one another, so that the varieties of American English spoken in New York, Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles are phonologically more different from one another than they were a century ago." U of Penn. Look at the accents of Sarah Palin, Frances McDormand in Fargo, John Goodman's Chicago (with the a in the city's name pronounced as in cat) "Da Bears" skit from SNL, Indianans saying Harry to rhyme with hairy, not marry, so that the had to scrap the name of the Harry Baals Government Center, named after the longtime governor.

A Pittsburgh accent differs greatly from a Philly accent. A Buffalo accent from a New York City one. We just heard the "How ya doin?" Bud commercial knock-off of the Sopranos. In NYC you can tell Brooklyn from the Bronx, and Harlem from Queens by the accent. This is distinct still from Long Guyland.

You run into the same, with what are called Southern Dialects vastly different from Texas, to Louisiana, to Appalachicola, to Atlanta, to Charleston, to Roanoke, the from Baltimore to Scranton, to Albany and up the coast of New England from the Rhode Island of Family Guy through Boston and into the Maine of Jessica Fletcher and Stephen King. "Researchers say most regional accents are alive and well, even in the digital age, but they're always changing." NPR on paper by William Labov

μηδείς (talk) 18:10, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Wow!! This was an amazing write-up, Medeis, a tour de force. Loved every word and line, a lot of it made me laugh / I hadn't heard before. How do you know all this?? Did you travel a lot, or read about it, or just pay a great deal of attention or what? Many of your references are from media, past Presidents even... So do you pay much better attention, and keep better track, than the average person does? How did you learn things like the "Harry Baals Government Center"? Very good write-up and examples. Do you live in New York, where you gave particular specific examples? On your basic point, count me among those who thought American accents were converging. Simply very, very interesting write-up. 212.96.61.236 (talk) 00:38, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, I was born in and live in NY, although I grew up in NJ near Philly. It was actually Alan who mentioned the Presidents, but a very valid point. Reagan and Nixon both had "General Western" style California accents, although hugely different voices. But listen to the difference Between the Bushes, or between GWB and Clinton in neighboring Southern states, and Carter in Georgia. Harry Baals was in the news, and it's just not the sort of thing you forget. Regarding the accents diverging, it is mostly due to the Northern cities vowel shift, and the various outcomes of the Mary-marry-merry merger, the caught-cot merger, fronting of long o and tensing of short a, as well as Canadian raising. μηδείς (talk) 01:41, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm not so sure, Medeis. The neighborhood accents in Boston are definitely merging, most kids in the working-class suburb where I live, unlike their parents, are speaking rhotically, without upward social mobility, and all of the eastern New England accents seem to be fading in the direction of General American. It would be interesting to see some citations. Marco polo (talk) 02:45, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

You're talking Boston neighbourhoods versus the country as a whole. And I did give you citations which you obviously didn't follow. Of course gentrification breaks up old working class accents in small areas, and rhotacism has been spreading since independence. But the old arhotic Mainline Philly/FDR/Boston Brahmin accent is gone (since the death of Thatcher Longstreth and Pat Moynihan) and is split up into regional Philly, NY and Boston accents. The NPR piece you ignored has recordings of older and newer Philadelphia accents--they are not moving towards, but are moving away from General American. Jerry Stiller, Jerry Seinfeld, and Rosie Perez are all from New York, and have hugely different dialects, although Stiller's is disappearing, with, perhaps, the exception of Hasidim who speak with a similar accent. California used to have one accent, now, in addition, it has Valley Girl, East L.A. (for an early version, think Cheech and Chong) with its diphthongs monophthongized and its voiceless finals, and the surfer speak common with Hawaii, versus the Western speech of Napoleon Dynamite. But don't take my word for it, take the most famous working linguist in America's, that of William Labov. For an artistic take, listen to the beginning of the absolutely brilliant Fires in the Mirror by Anna Deavere Smith. μηδείς (talk) 03:14, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Medeis, if you look at the classic mid-20th-century U.S. dialect atlases, you'll see all kinds of old-timey pronunciations which are now semi-defunct or insignificant. It's true that the rise of television etc. has not resulted in the near-total homogenization of U.S. speech, in the way that some people in the 1960s thought would happen. On the other hand, I would be rather suspicious of any claim that overall there's much more localistic dialect particularity in the United States than, say, 100 years ago... AnonMoos (talk) 00:07, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Do you mean "if one looks" or are you actually aware of what I have read and haven't, AnonMoos? Your constant condescension is extremely tiresome, and you might point out where I have said things like saying "how?" to mean "what did you say?" are still common in the Philadelphia dialect after 100 years, for example, before expressing your suspicion of claims that I haven't made. There's very little point in denying that people still talk like John Facenda or W. C. Fields and even less in denying there's been a continuing divergence of dialects in the US and a great divergence in the West since WWII. μηδείς (talk) 02:53, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

There's actually no contradiction whatsoever between the idea that many prominent current U.S. speech varieties are diverging somewhat (at least in their "basilectal" forms) and the idea that many former speech varieties have now been effectively eliminated, or are just barely hanging on until their last few speakers die. I strongly suspect that the majority of dialect historians of American English would not agree with the idea that overall dialect diversity in the United States has increased over the last hundred years. If I'm sometimes "condescending", it could be because you sometimes present stuff which is not mainstream in linguistics as the undisputable truth (such as on the Nostratic front). I'm sure that you know much more than I do about several subjects, but when it comes to having received a well-rounded linguistics education which helps in discerning what is part of the accepted scholarly consensus in linguistics, you unfortunately do not surpass me. AnonMoos (talk) 15:41, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

As a general rule, for evolutionary processes (like language evolution), diversity is greatest in the oldest populations. The main reason is the founder effect - the group that establishes a new colony only exhibits a subset of the diversity in the original population. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:30, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

That analogy is basically valid as far as it goes, but there are significant linguistic processes for which there is no real parallel in evolutionary genetics (for that matter, the basic mechanism of language transmission is quite different from the basic mechanism of genetic inheritance)... AnonMoos (talk) 23:58, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Von Bismarck died 20 June 1815

A Oberst (Colonel) von Bismarck was killed in an attack on the French held town of Namur on 20 June 1815 at the head of his regiment, the 1st Elbe Landwehr.

• " 1st Elbe LWIR: In 1814, Oberst-Lt von Bismarck,Uncle of the future Chancellor of Imperial Germany.... Their commander, Oberst von Bismarck, was killed at Namur (20 June). ( Prussian Napoleonic Landwehr Infantry and Cavalry 1808-1815: Landsturm, Volunteer Cavalry and Streifkorpsmore by Stephen Summerfield, page 46)
• "Also killed was Colonel von Bismarck, commander of the 1st Elbe Landwehr and uncle of the future Chancellor of united Germany" (On the Fields of Glory: The Battlefields of the 1815 Campaign, by page 313)

Two sources that note his death also mention that he was an uncle of the famous Iron Chancellor. The trouble for me is because he died the year his more famous nephew was born I have been unable to find out what his full name was or when he was born. I would appreciate it if someone can have a look at German sources and seeing if they can find his date of birth and his first name(s). -- PBS (talk) 19:01, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

• PBS, It's Ernst Ludwig Wilhelm von Bismarck, who this source says was "felled by the enemy in an attack on Namur". I found this searching for "20 Juni 1815 von Bismarck Oberst" in google. He doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere in English or German wikipedia. μηδείς (talk) 19:43, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Oh, and he was born April 7, 1772 in Magdeburg, same source. μηδείς (talk) 20:18, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks μηδείς, unfortunately I can not access that volume from where I am located (Google places restrictions on access in different countries if an old volume has been republished (see ISBN 1148231285)), but hopefully you have given me enough information so I can find another source. -- I am working on a several detailed articles based on a PD source, I have just written a stub for Colonel Alexander Heinrich Gebhard von Zastrow who was killed in the same attack -- PBS (talk) 20:41, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

• The entire entry is rather small, less than half a page, but it is in a fancy Fraktur script, and I can't make it all out with 100% certainty. You might ask User:Klimov, User:Favonian, or User:Drmies, who are some of our German experts if they would translate the material at this link on him for you. I can take a snapshot of the entry and mail it to someone if necessary. The entry gives a bit of the military career and the names of family and offspring. μηδείς (talk) 21:36, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
• Here's a little bit: "Ernst Ludwig Wilhelm, Son of Georg Wilhelm I. and Frederike Luise Eleonore v. Alvensleben, born in Magdeburg 7 April 1771, felled by the enemy at the attack on Namur 20 June 1815, Colonel, and since 4 July 1800 Johanniteritter [...?] [Don't understand the 1785 sentence'] 1799 Grenadier-Captain in the regiment of Kleist in Magdeburg. 1811 "Sergeant-Chef" ("Oberwachtmeister") in His Majesty "Fußgarde" (infantry?) in Potsdam. 1815 Oberleutnant and very shortly thereafter Colonel." Drmies (talk) 22:07, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

"Fußgarde" would be Foot Guards wouldn't it? Most likely the 1st Foot Guards (German Empire), which was formed in 1809. Alansplodge (talk) 21:04, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Attempted transliteration with continued translation:

Ernst Ludwig Wilhelm, S. des Georg Wilhelm I. (Nr. 174) und der Friederike Luise Eleonore v. Alvensleben, geb. zu Magdeburg 7. April 1772, gefallen vor dem Feinde beim Sturm auf Namur 20. Juni 1815, Oberst und seit 4. Juli 1800 Johanniterritter auf Briest und Demker -- 17. Oktober 1785 wurde er auf die Kommende Werben expektoriert. 1799 Grenadierkapitän beim Regiment v. Kleist in Magdeburg. 1811 Oberstwachtmeister im Regiment Fussgarde Sr. Majestät zu Potsdam. 1815 Oberleutnant und sehr bald darauf Oberst.

...since 4 July 1800 Knight of the Order of Saint John (Bailiwick of Brandenburg) of Briest and Demker. (These may have been places in Prussia. There is a city in Germany named Briest. I can only find Demler as a last name.)

Gemahlin: zu Bittlau 10. November 1807 Sophie Charlotte v. Plotho, T. des Edlen herrn auf Bittlau und der Charlotte v. Itzenplitz a. d. h.(?) Grieben.

Wife: at Bittlau 10 November 1807 Sophie Charlotte von Plotho, Daughter of the noble lord/gentleman of Bittlau and Charlotte von Itzenplitz....?

Kinder: 1. Pauline (Nr. 280), 2. Levine Mathilde )Nr. 281), 3. Amalie Ottilie(?) Marie (Nr. 282), 4. Tassilo(?) (Nr. 283), 5. Hugo (Nr. 284), 6. Luise (Nr. 285).

Children: 1. Pauline, 2. Levine Mathilde, 3. Amalie Ottilie(?) Marie, 4. Tassilo(?), 5. Hugo, 6. Luise.

Note, the effs and esses are almost indistinguishable, so the instances of "auf" and "aus" are unsure. The numbers refer to entries in the book, of which this is entry 225. μηδείς (talk) 22:44, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Briest and Demker are localities associated with the Bismarcks (see here). The "expectoration"(?) apparently took place at the Kommende of Werben. Iblardi (talk) 23:17, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, Demker must be right, the ells and kays are also almost indistinguishable. I am not even going to guess what is meant by expektoriert, although he would have been 13. Maybe it's a Prussian sort of coming out? μηδείς (talk) 01:16, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

OK, here's the transliteration:

Ernst Ludwig Wilhelm, S. des Georg Wilhelm I (Nr. 174) und der Friederike Luise Eleonore v. Alvensleben, geb. zu Magdeburg 7. April 1772, gefallen vor dem Feinde beim Sturm auf Namur 20. Juni 1815, Oberst und seit 4. Juli 1800 Johanniterritter auf Briest und Demker. — 17. Oktober 1785 wurde er auf die Kommende Werben expektoriert. 1799 Grenadierkapitän beim Regiment v. Kleist in Madgeburg. 1811 Oberstwachtmeister in Regiment Fußgarde Sr. Majestät zu Potsdam. 1815 Oberstleutnant und sehr bald darauf Oberst. Gemahlin: zu Bittkau 10. November 1807 Sophie Charlotte v. Plotho, T. des Edlen Herrn auf Bittkau und der Charlotte v. Itzenplitz a.d.H Grieben.

And the translation:

Ernst Ludwig Wilhelm, son of Georg Wilhelm I (No. 174) and Friederike Luise Eleonore von Alvensleben, born in Magdeburg 7 April 1772, fallen before the enemy during the storming of Namur 20 June 1815, colonel and, from 4 July 1800, knight of the Order of Saint John in Briest and Demker. [Briest, like Demker, is now part of the town of Tangerhütte. This region was the base of the Briest line of the Bismarcks. See the German genealogy here.] On 17 October 1785 he was commended [? - this is a strange usage of "expektoriert" and I'm not sure of the translation] to the Kommende of Werben [the headquarters of the Order of Saint John]. 1799 grenadier captain in the regiment of Kleist in Magdeburg. 1811 major in the regiment foot guard of his majesty in Potsdam. 1815 lieutenant colonel and soon thereafter colonel. Wife: In Bittkau 10 November 1807 Sophie Charlotte von Plotho, daughter of Edler Lord Bittkau and of Charlotte von Itzenplitz of the house of Grieben. [Medeis correctly conveyed the names of the children.]

Marco polo (talk) 02:35, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Ah, Bittkau, not Bittlau? What were those typesetters thinking? μηδείς (talk) 02:54, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

You can see his ancestry (actually that of his brother Levin, but nonetheless also his) at Leo van de Pas's Genealogics website. - Nunh-huh 06:40, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I think I found the meaning of expektoriert at http://www.littre.org/definition/expectorer

Terme de cour romaine. Rendre publique une nomination qui est in petto ("Term of the Roman court. Make public a nomination that is in petto"). See also In pectore. I am still not sure how this is meant to be understood in this particular case. Maybe he was proclaimed/"disclosed" to be a (prospective) member (in some form or another) of the Kommende on that occasion? Still rather vague... Iblardi (talk) 07:19, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you all for your help. I have more than enough to write a small article, but one question: Is the information taken from page 155? What seems to be the same source (But scanned by the University of California instead of the Harvard University) is available to me in snippet format ([1]) -- PBS (talk) 13:28, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it is page 155 of the original source I quoted: Das Geschlecht von Bismarck, Georg Schmidt, E. Trewendt [Pub.], 1908, http://books.google.com/books?id=IDoPAAAAYAAJ&dq=von+bismarck+20+juni+1815+oberst&source=gbs_navlinks_s. μηδείς (talk) 19:48, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Again thank you all. The article now exists see Ernst Ludwig Wilhelm von Bismarck. I look forward to seeing it improved and copied over to de:Ernst Ludwig Wilhelm von Bismarck and his name added to de:Bismarck (Adelsgeschlecht) -- PBS (talk) 14:58, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately I cannot access the referenced volume from where I am located, nevertheless the claim in the article that he is an uncle of the famous chancellor is unsubstantiated. He seems to be a rather distant relative, see Bismarck family or the family of his father in relation to the family of the chancellor. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 13:06, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

February 18

Capitalization of on board

Hi,

I have a question about the idiom on board. More specifically, my question has to do with how it should be capitalized when used in the titles of books, etc.

Some people seem to capitalize both the O and B as in Life On Board a Cruise Ship. Others seem to only capitalize the B as in Noise Levels on Board Ships. Then, there are others who do not capitalize either letter as in Safety Signs on board Ship. So, I am curious if there is one preferred way. Thanks in advance-Marchjuly (talk) 06:50, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

The first and third look acceptable to me (depending on your capitalisation of headings convention). The second looks misleading and I'm surprised that it was ever used. Dbfirs 08:22, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you Dbfirs. I also think the second one is strange, but it is actually something I often see used in materials (research papers, rules, regulations, etc.) I come across at work. A lot of the stuff I see using it comes out of the UK/Europe so I am wondering if it is a British English thing. - Marchjuly (talk) 10:46, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

The second parses as if it is referring to noise that occurs on ships belonging to Board. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 10:48, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

That might be the case if only 'board' were capitalised (suggesting it to be a proper noun). However, because title case is being employed, either of the first two examples would be more common (and to me, better) than the third example. Because the third example breaks typical title case, it more strongly implies that 'Ship' is to be considered a proper noun, which is kind of awkward.--Jeffro77 (talk) 11:05, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I regard "on board" as a complex preposition, but we all agree that the first example is valid. Dbfirs 13:17, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Well, yeah, and none of them are really 'wrong'. But many style guides capitalise prepositions when using title case, especially if they're longer than 2 or 3 letters. If prepositions were strictly uncapitalised, the first example would be Life on board a Cruise Ship, which to me kind of misses the point of title case.--Jeffro77 (talk) 13:29, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

The inconsistent on Board is wrong. It is a complex preposition as noted, and the two words should be either both upper or lower case, depending on context. μηδείς (talk) 19:43, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

No. It's not objectively 'wrong'. It is only 'wrong' if the particular style guide is using the rule you're asserting.--Jeffro77 (talk) 08:24, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks to everyone who replied. No. 1 On Board seems the most natural to me, but I do see No. 2 used quite a bit (probably more than Nos. 1 and 3) in official documents, etc. I use at work so I am always a little unsure when I come across it. I understand that some guides say not to capitalize two-letter prepositions in titles, etc., but I always see on board as a single set expression and not two separate words. That's why I always find No. 2 confusing. Oh well, it is good to know it is not a British/American English thing. Is there a Wikipedia rule on this? Which option would be preferred for Wikipedia articles? - Marchjuly (talk) 21:36, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

None of the above. Wikipedia article titles and section headings use sentence case, so if it were an article here is would be "Noise levels on board ships". Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 21:56, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Roger- Marchjuly (talk) 00:23, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Is the Spanish consonant "ch" sounded the same in the past?

Is the consonant "ch" (like in the word chips) in the past sounded the same as it sounds today or it sounded like the consonant "sh" (like in the word she)? I'd like to get some information about the history of this Spanish consonant. 194.114.146.227 (talk) 08:24, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Check History of Spanish#Vocalization. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:28, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

The "ch" (/tʃ/ in IPA notation) sound evolved from Hispano- (or Iberian-) Romance sometime before the Old Spanish period as it was already present in the language when it began to be "standardized" in the 13th century. As Bugs mentions above, medial -ch- results from vocalization and consequential palatalization: Latin "multu" > I.R. "muito" > Old Spanish "mucho". I don't recall offhand the origin of initial "ch". An interesting read is this 1997 dissertation by David Eric Holt. Additionally in some areas of the Spanish speaking world, the process has taken another step called lenition where /tʃ/ ("ch") is pronounced /ʃ/ "sh". I hear this especially in the Northern Mexican varieties I frequently encounter.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 09:35, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

There would likely have been a transitional, unstable stage where muito went to muitʲo then to (perhaps more stable) muitʃo then finally to the present mutʃo. However, those shifts would have occurred between about A.D. 400 and 1000, since when that phoneme has probably been stable in Castilian. There were other consonants (represented in written Spanish by j, x, z, g, s, c, and ll), that have undergone more recent change since the Old Spanish stage. Marco polo (talk) 15:30, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

In the Spanish of the 16th or 17th centuries, the letter "x" often meant [ʃ], as still in the Spanish-influenced writing systems of the Basque language and several American Indian languages today... AnonMoos (talk) 12:58, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• As implied above, there's no attested time at which ch in early or common Castillian represented the sound of sh in English--that was represented by x as in Basque and Catalan. Note that the sound did not only originate from an -lt- sequence, but many sources. I once had a Mexican friend with black ancestry who had a very wide, flat nose, whose nickname was Chato. It turns out this is the Spanish reflex of a Latin borrowing of the Greek name Plato, which means "broad". μηδείς (talk) 19:39, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

To hyphenate or not to hyphenate?

The topic is "zero(-)length launcher" a device, or rather a whole "family" of devices, used to launch missiles, unmanned aircraft, rockets, etc. The "zero length" part of the name refers to the fact that the object being launched does not travel along the length of the launch mechanism before it is released into free flight. Think of a rocket departing from a launch pad versus a rocket travelling in a tube or along a ramp or rail for some distance before transitioning into free flight. The launch-pad rocket is in free flight the moment it lifts off, as it is no longer in contact with/supported by the pad as soon as it moves. By contrast the tube/ramp/rail launcher supports the rocket for a short distance as it departs. Now after all that technical waffle comes the question: should "zero(-)length launcher" have a hyphen or not. Sources seem to be about evenly divided so are of no real help, so I'm appealing to "The Rules of English Grammar and Spelling(tm)" ;) for a "definitive" answer. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 10:39, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

It should have a hyphen.--Jeffro77 (talk) 11:09, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Definitely. See Hyphen#Compound modifiers. It's pretty straightforward and definitive.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 11:49, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Resolved

Thanks. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:23, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Arabic translation

Resolved

Hi all, Could someone provide a translation for the text, presumably in Arabic, displayed in this image?

Thanks in advance, decltype (talk) 11:16, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

This is a common Arabic saying to stress the importance of hygiene and cleanliness. It basically translates to "Cleanliness is Part of Your Faith".

A Google search of the phrase in English mainly leads you to pages discussing hygiene and its importance in Islam. _{Hia10 (talk) 12:03, 18 February 2014 (UTC)}

Thanks for your answer. I came up with the following transcription:

النّظافَة مِنَ الإيمان

decltype (talk) 13:17, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, the transcription is accurate. By the way, I remembered that there is an equivalent proverb in English: "Cleanliness is next to Godliness". This would be a perfect translation of the Arabic saying. _{Hia10 (talk) 15:57, 18 February 2014 (UTC)}

Thanks again! decltype (talk) 10:22, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

February 19

in surprised disbelief

I wonder if "She looked at him in surprised disbelief." is idiomatic? Or should I say "She looked at him in both surprise and disbelief"? Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.249.212.224 (talk) 04:04, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

The first form is fine. Looie496 (talk) 04:28, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Agreed it's fine, if redundant. Disbelief implies surprise. You can just say "in disbelief". μηδείς (talk) 04:47, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Disbelief doesn't always imply surprise. If some well known troll came along here and made trouble and then claimed they were only trying to be helpful, we'd be disbelieving but not at all surprised. "Surprised disbelief" suggests she was surprised not to believe him, as she'd never had any reason to doubt him before. If that context fits, go with it. If not, reword it. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:45, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

I'll agree one might use disbelief to mean lack of credence; but in your example I would normally say we would be unbelieving of the troll's claims, not disbelieving. Unbelievers don't go to mass. Disbelievers rub their eyes and pinch themselves. μηδείς (talk) 17:48, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

lean back halfway

One more question. Would you tell me whether "lean back halfway" is acceptable, as in "She leaned back halfway on her bed."? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.249.212.224 (talk) 04:19, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

It's not acceptable to me, because I don't know what it means. The picture it gives me is that she is in bed with her legs horizontal and the upper part of her body at a 45 degree angle, but that seems like a pretty stressful posture. Looie496 (talk) 04:30, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

• You can lean back halfway in a reclining chair, or in either an adjustable bed or if you have pillows propping you up. But if you have pillows propping you up you probably, along the lines of Looie, say something like she sat halfway propped up, because leaning halfway back in bed sounds like she's holding herself in that position unless otherwise explained. To lean back is an active, not a stative verb, and implies effort. μηδείς (talk) 04:45, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

To lean halfway back would put your back at about a 45 degree angle to the surface. To lean all the way back would put you flat on your back. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:35, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Of course, in an aviation context, the term "lean back halfway" can have a completely different meaning... 24.5.122.13 (talk) 07:13, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Comma splice?

Could someone check whether I'm correct in this reversion in the article Comma splice? Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 11:06, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

You are quite correct, and it was not a comma splice. A comma splice is simply a type of run-on sentence, but one that has at least a comma separating the two sentences rather than nothing at all. The sentence in question was one sentence, not two, hence the question of run-on sentences does not arise. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 11:17, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Resolved

Cool, that's what I thought. Thanks. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 11:33, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Word Order

When drafting reports/documents containing tables or figures, I often need to refer to the upcoming table or figure that immediately follows the text. Which of the following two is grammatically correct:

(1) The table below contains .....

(2) The below table contains .....

Is the word order a matter of choice, or is there a right/wrong order? Thanks _{Hia10 (talk) 12:09, 19 February 2014 (UTC)}

The first one. Strangely, though, you can say either "the above table" or "the table above". But only "the table below" works. Go figure. --Viennese Waltz 12:31, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

You can also say "the following table", if it comes immediately after the text in question. "The table following" is just about possible, but rather stilted. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 13:02, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

February 20

one more question about "lean"

I have one more question about "lean". Can I say "He leaned back and lay down on the ground."? I'm not sure if the sentence is wordy. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.221.151.107 (talk) 01:06, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

You can say he leaned back and lay on the ground. The word down is redundant and should be left out. μηδείς (talk) 02:26, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, I don't think I agree. To me, to "lie on the ground" is static, but to "lie down on the ground" is a change of state. If you're currently lying on the ground, you can continue to lie on the ground, but if you're currently standing, that's when you'd lie down on the ground. (I'm not saying "lie on the ground" is an error as a change of state, but it doesn't seem as natural.) --Trovatore (talk) 02:35, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I think you are agreeing with me. The leaning back is the motion and the lying is the resultant state. Having the down in there is redundant, as it references the motion twice. μηδείς (talk) 17:10, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

No, the leaning back is the first part of the motion, and the lying down is the second part. By the time you start lying down, you've gone back further than can reasonably be described as leaning back. --Trovatore (talk) 10:17, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

The only remaining issue is the past tense of lean: leaned, or leant? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:09, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

The tree leant over the brook. Although my co-worker leant me $400 on payday, the bank had already leaned my house. David leaned into the camera shot, and said, "Cut!" I gave up tilting for leant. μηδείς (talk) 19:31, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

"My co-worker leant me"? Is that a joke? As far as I know, "leant" is not an alternative spelling of "lent" in any recognized English variety. --Trovatore (talk) 20:00, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

If that's the point at witch ewe stopped reading, eye am offend it. μηδείς (talk) 03:14, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Having to ask whether something was a joke is prima facie evidence that the interlocutors live on different planets. But which planets, that's the really interesting question. And is either of them necessarily Earth? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:18, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Then there was the health-conscious hunter who tilted the carcass against the wall in order to make the meat lean. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:12, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Deutsche Physik

I've often heard that the Nazis renamed the 'Hertz' unit of frequency because of the jewish ancestry of Heinrich Hertz. If so, what did they rename it? Are there other notable scientific terms that were renamed by the Nazis? A possible example I heard is 'Röntgen rays' ⇒ 'Lenard rays'. --151.41.241.93 (talk) 02:48, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

According to this article in 1939 some (German) physicists proposed to replace the Hertz with a unit called Helmholtz (after Hermann von Helmholtz), thus retaining the abbreviation Hz. The practical difference between the two is small, of course, because physical units are very rarely spelled out. According to this page the unit was probably not actually (or officially) renamed (though of course some individuals may have pronounced Hz 'Helmholtz'). It is however clear that streets named after Hertz were renamed by the Nazis, e.g. the "Hertzstraße" in Berlin became "Grammestraße". - Lindert (talk) 18:20, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

The pegion is back.

To me, the phase is simple like ' the answer is back'. During old time, people use pegions for communications, letters were carried by pegion from the sender to receiver. But some people refer that phase as bad-mouth, is it right? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.245.48.2 (talk) 04:43, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Are you asking about references to the Carrier pigeon? I've never heard the phrase, so I can't help with it's connotations. Dbfirs 07:55, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I think that this is a question about whether " the answer is back" could be confused. "The answer is back" is totally acceptable and would not be confused with the phrase "to answer back", i.e. to reply rudely. -- Q Chris (talk) 12:47, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Not sure what that has to do with pigeons? The Rambling Man (talk) 12:48, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Nor am I. If someone said or wrote "the pigeon is back", I could probably guess by the context what they meant, but I would take it as an attempt at humour or sarcasm, based on the slowness of the reply or the difficulty in obtaining it. In a formal context, and to avoid misunderstanding, I would use "a reply has been received". Dbfirs 13:19, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

There's always IP over Avian Carriers... -- AnonMoos (talk) 13:38, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Google turns up a few references to "pegion" as being some kind of alternate spelling or perhaps transliteration of "pigeon". Given that, it could refer to homing pigeons. I've never heard that expression, though. The closest I can think of is "The chickens have come home to roost", but that's not really the same idea. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:09, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

That's only in pedgin language. Clarityfiend (talk) 12:22, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Inconsistencies in Sochi Cyrillizations

In the half-pipe events at the winter Olympics, when athletes are poised to start their run, their names can be seen on the video wall behind them, alternating between Latin and Cyrillic. I've noticed that some of the Cyrillizations of originally Latin-alphabetic names seem to be based on pronunciation in the original source language, while others seem to be based on superficial Latin-Cyrillic letter equivalences regardless of pronunciation. I can understand why they might not want to transcribe some first names fully phonetically, to avoid presenting a strange appearance in Russian (i.e. Давид instead of Девид for English "David" etc.), but this doesn't come close to explaining all the inconsistencies. For example, the surname of Torin Yater-Wallace [yeɪtər wɒlɪs] was transcribed Ятер-Воллес, where the second half of the name appears phonetically (except for the ornamental double Л), while the first half of the name is based on superficial letter equivalences. Does anyone have an idea on these inconsistencies? AnonMoos (talk) 13:38, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I have no expertise on things Russian. (I can read Cyrillic, and based on a limited knowledge of Czech, can sometimes piece together meaning based on cognates.) However, according to our article Cyrillization, principles for Cyrillization vary by source language. Languages with phonetically consistent scripts, such as Finnish or Spanish, are Cyrillized mainly using character-to-character correspondences. Languages with phonetically inconsistent scripts, such as English, are supposed to be Cyrillized phonetically or phonemically. The Russian Wikipedia article on the Cyrillization of English confirms this. So in your example, the Cyrillization of "Wallace" was closer to the standard than the Cyrillization of "Yater". This suggests that Russian Olympic transcribers are unfamiliar with the rules for Cyrillization. Perhaps they lack the appropriate training, as they are sports journalists used to covering domestic sports, or perhaps the person doing the transcribing is the daughter, mistress, or son-in-law of somebody important. Marco polo (talk) 16:27, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I doubt that the U.S. delegation was asked to indicate the pronunciation of each athlete's name. "Ятер" was probably the transcriber's best guess at spelling the name phonemically. In any case, I suspect that just as English-speakers outside libraries and academia rarely consult one standard consistent set of rules for transliterating Russian, most Russians do not strictly follow one consistent set of rules when transliterating English. --Cam (talk) 17:38, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

• Mike Wallace's name in Russian is Майк Уоллес; i.e., Majk Uolles, which is based on pronunciation, not arbitrary letter equivalence, since Mike Vallase couldhave been used, although it wouldn't sound at all like the English, while the first spelling does. It seems these names are being transliterated ad hoc. The first name name of the American coach the Russians were protesting, Brad Meier, was spelt with an e: Bred. This indicates knowledge of the pronunciation. The situation is really not surprising given the horrible irregularity of English spelling. μηδείς (talk) 17:07, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
• Воллес and Уоллес are both acceptable cyrillizations of Wallace. (I personally prefer Уоллес, but I guess they have some guideline - he must have obtained Russian visa, and what is written in his visa in Cyrillic is decided by the Foreign Ministry policies).--Ymblanter (talk) 17:44, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

• There are lots of compromises that have to be made with this stuff. Eg, there is no true Latin equivalent for the Russian rolled р, and no true Cyrillic equivalent for the English unrolled r. But they're made with sort of the same parts of the mouth (although р puts the tongue to a lot more work than r does), so we pretend they're equivalent. They're certainly closer than r is to щ. Then there's rhoticism. If cyrillising phonetically, an American Yater might be Ейтер, while a British Yater might be Ейта. If cyrillising on letter "equivalents", it becomes Ятер, which when sounded out (yah-teh-rrr) is the least true of all to what we started off with. I have a Russian-origin 1st generation Australian friend whose maiden name was Leymanshteyn. That was originally the German name Lehmanstein, then it became cyrillised as Лейманштейн, which was re-romanized based on English letter equivalents rather than the original German. If there were a German person named Tschaikowsky (the German way of romanizing what we prefer as "Tchaikovsky" but should really be "Chaykovsky"), that might be cyrillised as Тсчаикоускй or Тщаикоускй unless someone twigged it was originally Чайковский. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:04, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Agreed with Jack. I just want to point out that /r/ is etymologically related (in most cases) between English and Russian (and most PIE languages), so the connection is not arbitrary. The words brat "brother" and smert' "death" in the Slavic language Russian are cognate with and show an arr in the same places as the Germanic English broth(er) and murd(er) and the Romance French frere and mort. Historically, the trilled arr is original in English as well, and is retained in Scottish dialects. μηδείς (talk) 19:35, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Also, the English and Russian rhotics still differ mainly in manner (approximant vs. trill), but not so much in place of articulation. In German dialects where a trill is used, such as Eastern Franconian, it can take an approximant-like realisation, showing how easy the phonetic transition is. Basically, it's simply omitting the trilling. There is no Russian phoneme or even phone that's closer to the English rhotic than /r/, anyway, and if one were to conceive a Cyrillic-based orthography for English (as has been done for a fictional Russian-controlled Northwest Pacific in Ill Bethisad), this one would be a no-brainer. One wouldn't use a diacritic to show that the rhotic is untrilled, one would simply use р and leave it at that, especially considering that the trill is still an acceptable alternative (or even locally dominant) realisation of the rhotic in several English dialects. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:54, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

• The problem exists not only in Russia but in every country not using a Latin-based orthography, and is enhanced by the general lack of knowledge of rarer languages providing names to be transcribed. Sometimes multiple variants of a foreign name exist. Sometimes a foreign name that has been mistranscribed in the first place has become so popular that it is hard to suddenly introduce a new, albeit correct, transcription. --Theurgist (talk) 19:42, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

As exemplified in Note 2 @ Muammar Gaddafi: Due to the lack of standardization of transcribing written and regionally pronounced Arabic, Gaddafi's name has been romanized in various different ways. A 1986 column by The Straight Dope lists 32 spellings known from the U.S. Library of Congress,[7] while ABC and MSNBC identified 112 possible spellings. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:14, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Theurgist -- speaking of Cyrillization problems, the one of the main catalysts of the Old Believer split was introducing a new Greek-to-Cyrillic transliteration of the name of Jesus (though of course the dispute was more about who had the authority to order such changes than the technical linguistic matters involved)... AnonMoos (talk) 04:18, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

How old is the Arabic language?

Just how old is the Arabic language? Venustar84 (talk) 18:49, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Did you read the article? μηδείς (talk) 18:57, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Classical Arabic (or actually Pre-Classical or Old Arabic at the time) is attested as early as 328 AD (there's an even older inscription from the 1st century BC, and in the 5th century BC, Herodotus mentions Ἀλιλάτ, which is clearly Arabic, not North Arabian or South Arabian, judging by the definite article al-), but certainly Allah didn't conjure it out of thin air. It must have diverged from other Semitic languages, such as Ancient North Arabian, sometime in the Bronze Age. 4000 years ago there was probably no Arabic language in the same sense as 2000 years ago there was no English or French language (in any meaning I can think of).

Are you aware that questions like "how old is language X" are notoriously hard to answer because there is more than a single possible interpretation of the question? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:52, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Questions of the form "how old is X language" hardly ever have a clear-cut answer. How old is English? If you go back a thousand years, you'll find a language which scholars call "Old English", but you'll hardly understand a word of it. It's called "Old English" (sometimes, "Anglo-Saxon") because it demonstrably developed into modern English, and into nothing else (in contrast to, say, Vulgar Latin of 1500 years ago, which developed into French, Spanish, Italian etc); and also because we know that at the time it was referred to as "Ænglisc". So is English older or younger than a thousand years? It depends on which starting point you want to focus on. --ColinFine (talk) 19:50, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

English is a bad example for your point. It's rather clear that it began when the Anglo-Saxons landed in Britain and severed the direct continental influence, while acquiring a Brithonic and Latin sub/adstrate. The earliest attestation of Chester will be diagnosticof the birth of English, separate from Continental West Germanic. μηδείς (talk) 20:05, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

While English isn't the best example, there is also the issue of Scots. Many consider it a separate language from English, if closely related. If so, then Old English is not only the parent of modern English but also of Scots. In which case, English with its modern identity is only as old as the split with Scots. It probably wasn't until the Great Vowel Shift that mutual intelligibility was seriously compromised.

A better example of the difficulty of answering the question "How old is X language?" might be German. There is no obvious point when German became distinct from the western Germanic dialects that gave birth to it, nor did those western Germanic dialects ever have a real identity distinct from other Germanic dialects. One might say that German is as old as Proto-Germanic. Alternatively, one is forced to use political developments to mark the beginning of German as a distinct language, such as the founding of the Kingdom of Germany at the Treaty of Verdun. But such developments did not mark any change in the language. 67.132.19.18 (talk) 21:02, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

True, but (unless you count Low German and perhaps Dutch as fully part of German) one would find it difficult to identify any Germanic dialect as "German" prior to the High German sound shift. I doubt most people would consider unshifted inscriptions like the one on the Pforzen buckle as being written in a form of German. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:10, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

"knight-rider"?

Is there an expression or word knight-rider or knight rider in actual use in English? de:Knight Rider literally translates the name of the show as "knight-errant". On Talk:Knight Rider (1982 TV series)/Archive 1#Name, I've found the claim that the allusion is rather to Night Rider, which rings more plausible, although which character or term exactly is referred to mystifies me – perhaps the chess term or the Mad Max character? Or is there a more general meaning to nightrider (somebody who drives a car or other vehicle in the dark? Or is it related to fly by night or free rider? Or is there a sexual connotation?) or riding the night? It seems there is some cultural importance behind it that completely eludes me.

This is a very common occurrence for me with titles of songs and albums (and song lyrics in general), band names, book/film/etc. titles, names of characters, slang terms and the like: you suspect there is a cultural meme alluded to (often in the form of a pun), but you have no idea what, even though at the time of publication it was presumably obvious to a large segment of the domestic population, or the target group (oblique references to drugs or sex, but sometimes also religion, politics, race and the like being particularly notorious, these often being insider gags opaque even to many adults). Usually I'm completely oblivious to such references, and I don't like the feeling I'm being excluded from a joke or withheld from getting a reference. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:30, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Please don't disembiggen your script when unnecessary, it becomes difficult to read. I suggest you consider the serious of purpose of someone who is willing to risk riding a horse at night. He must be on some serious mission. μηδείς (talk) 19:34, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

OK, I've dedisembiggened it. So the original expression is literally about riding a horse? Any idea what I might translate the intended metaphor as? It seems the term is also used in the sense of "sleepwalker". --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:05, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the undisembiggening.  :) My comments are speculation, but consider the serious yet sinister connotation of Strider as the name for Aragorn, and his reputation for travelling in dark, dangerous places. Or the name The Dark Knight for Batman. Even the description of a stranger as tall, dark, and handsome. There's a bad boy image of someone dangerous, yet attractive and, perhaps, heroic. μηδείς (talk) 20:12, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

That makes sense, thank you. :) So, a night-rider would be (roughly) an archetypical "bad boy", a harter Junge or harter Kerl in German? (Who may also be a seducer/playboy and generally a hedonist who cares little about conservative morals.) Can you imagine the expression night-rider being used with this meaning or connotation in conversation? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:36, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Not unless it was an allusion to something, like "That curly-haired guy with the Corvette who stopped to help us with our flat tire was a real night rider." It wouldn't be used in normal speech without some odd context. It is too poetic for that. μηδείς (talk) 20:51, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Hmm, if it has a poetic sound, it should be fairly old. Time to check the OED, perhaps? From searching the web, there does seem to be a sexual connotation, but it appears to be a stock character of Westerns, too, a kind of outlaw (who may use the veil of night more as protection and for mystique), so perhaps it is a distinctly American concept. By the way, your description also made me think of Johnny Cash. :) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:12, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, Cash at 40 would have been perfectly cast as Strider. I wonder if you have seen Bakshi's animated Lord of the Rings? μηδείς (talk) 22:49, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Speaking of the Man in Black, in country music the term "night rider" or "midnight rider" almost always connotes an outlaw (sometimes a bootlegger). 24.5.122.13 (talk) 07:27, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Ah, yes! Valuable information! But wait ... Michael Knight is not an outlaw, he's a law enforcer! Or perhaps the allusion is ironic? Or playing on the fact that Knight is a crime-fighter outside government-sanctioned law enforcement?

Medeis: Actually no, I haven't. I should do that sometime. :)

OK, but back to my original question: Is knight-rider or knight rider an actual term, meaning "knight-errant", or is it not? Could anybody check a larger dictionary? I can't find any indication in the English-language web that such an expression exists, and if it is really a misinformation, I don't want to see it perpetuated. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:37, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Michael Knight is a vigilante. That is an outlaw. Outlaw doesn't mean criminal per se or de facto, but oustide the law de jure. μηδείς (talk) 22:48, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Good point. Thank you. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:16, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

It does appear that this is a real thing, with a cromulent etymology: [2]. AlexTiefling (talk) 00:43, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

For "night rider", the OED says "A person who rides by night, esp. on horseback; (U.S.) spec. a member of a mounted gang committing acts of violence, esp. as a means of intimidation. Also (occas.) Brit.: a kind of fairy that is said to ride at night." with cites from 1856 onwards, but it has no mention of "knight rider". I like Alex's find of the London street along which knights rode. Dbfirs 12:53, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you both very much (and of course Medeis and the IP too)! So the claim found at German Wikipedia is most likely wrong; there appears to be no word knight rider in the sense of "knight-errant", and the real origin appears to be a pun on night rider in the sense of "a kind of outlaw", alluding to the fact that Michael Knight is a vigilante operating outside established government structures (in fact, for the government he doesn't even exist, so he is an outlaw in the classic sense); in a way he's a good, chivalric (knight-like) variant of a night rider. Moreover (as pointed out at German Wikipedia) he rides a sentient car (which is black as night), thus a modern, updated version of a horse, making him a futuristic or sci-fi version of a medieval-fantasy or Western-story archetype (a typical trope of 1980s pop-culture), the lone rider who is "dark" (outside regular civil society, and acting in secret, according to his own rules) but heroic (and might ride a black horse) – not unlike Batman, who is also a vigilante with a futuristic black car, and called the "Dark Knight" (compare the ambiguous stock character black knight as opposed to the clearly evil robber knight). Excellent!

Erm, is there a way to tell the archive bot that this section can be archived now? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:16, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Resolved

--Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:32, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Your analysis of the name is spot on. It's also fairly certain the show was called Knight Rider (with the clear aural association to night rider) to make the name more distinctive for marketing and merchandise trademark purposes. As for archiving, threads stay up until their date is archived, someone can always chime in with something unexpected. You can express your satisfaction by adding {{resolved}} after you last post, which generates a green check icon and the word "resolved". μηδείς (talk) 18:00, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

If it's resolved, then should I guess I should not mention the Kolkata Knight Riders? Pete aka --Shirt58 (talk) 06:07, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

What is the origin of the surname Soulodre and Lecuc?

Venustar84 (talk) 21:02, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Origins of the surnames "Houdek" and "Vostrejs" and "Roshak" and "Gallenstein" and "Bethel"

I have a list of surnames - Houdek, Vostrejs, Roshak, Gallenstein, and Bethel - of which I wish to find the meanings and origins. Roshak seems to be an Eastern European/Polish type of name. Gallenstein looks German. Bethel looks English? What about Houdek and Vostrejs? Is Vostrejs a made-up name, because I discovered that from The Magic Coin, written by Jessica Houdek. 140.254.227.23 (talk) 21:50, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

User:AndyTheGrump has already shut you down today, Venustar84. Please don't spam the desk with multiple questions under different user names. μηδείς (talk) 21:57, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Per the talk page, I've reverted the closure as it's entirely unclear this is Venustar84. Nil Einne (talk) 14:25, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Bethel was a place mentioned in the Bible, whose name meant "House of God". A number of places around the world have been named after it (see Bethel (disambiguation)). Three of these are in Britain, where many surnames come ultimately from placenames from which an individual came when surnames were being adopted – the same is probably true in other cultures. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 16:57, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Place-Names in Wales says that Bethel, Anglesey is "called after a Nonconformist chapel in the village" as these are "generally denominated after Scriptural place-names". I couldn't find references for the other two, but Biblical place names in Wales (and I suspect, Cornwall) are generally of recent origin, Bethesda, Gwynedd springs to mind, which the same source says was "the name of a Congregational chapel built in the place in 1819".[3] As most indigenous English and Welsh surnames were fixed by law in the 16th century, it seems this is an unlikely route. Our Surname article says "When Jewish families in Central Europe were forced to adopt surnames in the 18th and 19th centuries, those who failed to choose a surname were often given pejorative or even cruel nicknames", so if this is indeed a Jewish surname, it's possible that the family selected a place from the Bible. Alansplodge (talk) 20:56, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Have you tried the search page at ancestry.com? It searches the Dictionary of American Family Names and has entries for Bethel, Hudec -> Houdek, Roshak and Gallenstein. - Lindert (talk) 18:40, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

February 21

Фанера над Парижем

Does anyone happen to know the origin of the Russian phrase "Пролетел(а), как фанера над Парижем" ([s]he flew past like plywood over Paris)? Does it have anything to do with this piece of plywood? 24.5.122.13 (talk) 07:04, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

This website states that the phrase is derived from a "famous aviator", Auguste Faner, who supposedly crashed into the Eiffel Tower in 1908 while giving a demonstration flight over Paris, and the incident was used as a metaphor for the tsarist regime by Julius Martov in Iskra—the name "Faner" eventually becoming the Russian "фанера" (fanera), meaning "plywood". A couple of problems though: there does not appear to have been an aviator of that name, there does not appear to have been any such incident in 1908, and Iskra ceased to be published in 1905. There are several more folk etymologies around, mostly involving a "false friend" French name (such as Henri Fournier or Armand Fallières) or word morphing into "фанера"—none I've heard of seem to involve a literal reference to plywood or planes made of it. --Canley (talk) 12:10, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

resting his upper body on one straightened arm

The following sentence is what I have written to express a sitting position:“Resting his upper body on one straightened arm, he adopted a semi-reclined position.” I'm not sure if it is acceptable,so I would like you to check it and give me advice. Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.128.175.187 (talk) 09:23, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Sounds completely acceptable to me. FWiW 24.5.122.13 (talk) 10:35, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Etruscan family burial sculpture

You can say he sat propped upright by his arm. But if he is semi-reclining, he'll either be in an odd yoga position if his arm is strait, or it will bent and he will be sitting like a Roman on a couch at a banquet, propped up on his elbow. μηδείς (talk) 18:29, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

strait ≠ straight. —Tamfang (talk) 22:05, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Me not even pass nursy school, what you expect, Red Beard?

It's not wrong, but I'd more likely say something like "leaning on one hand". —Tamfang (talk) 22:05, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

• See the top figure in the sculpture image. He is resting on one arm in a semi-reclined position. μηδείς (talk) 22:43, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Central and peripheral cases

Why does Grammatical case not mention the distinction between central and peripheral (or sometimes oblique) cases? Granted, the definitions encountered in the literature are perhaps not totally consistent, but the distinction seems central (heh) enough. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:11, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Do you have an example? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Baseball Bugs (talk • contribs) 00:07, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Florian Blaschke -- I've never heard of "central" vs. "peripheral", but I have heard of "direct" (i.e. basically nominative+accusative) vs. "oblique" (all other grammatical roles). For example, the Romanian language has a basic direct vs. oblique contrast for non-pronouns, though the terms seem to be avoided on the Romanian grammar article... AnonMoos (talk) 00:32, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't mention the distinction because nobody has edited it to do so. (I'm not being funny, that is the reason - though I suppose it could be that somebody did, but somebody else removed it). Wikipedia is created by people who want to edit Wikipedia. If you think something is missing from an article, you are welcome to add it - preferably with references to reliable sources. In this case, where what you are talking about is one of many ways to analyse and discuss something, what goes in the article should reflect the prevalence of the approach; so if there are just one or two linguists who talk about case this way, the article might mention them but not spend a great deal of space on them; whereas if it is a major theoretical approach, the article should reflect this. Probably your best course is to open a discussion on Talk:Grammatical case. --ColinFine (talk) 11:04, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

• The distinction is a standard one for people who study case. The central cases are ones like nominative, accusative, dative and genitive (subject, direct object, indirect object, possessive) which are the most commonly marked in languages that have case markers. (Since I know someone will mention it if I don't there are also ergative systems, but I will not cloud the issue by going into them.) Even in languages that have largely lost case marking on nouns, central case marking are often retained on pronouns as in English (he, him, his) and French (ils, les, leur) Then there are less central cases like ablative, found in Latin, and instrumental, found in Russian, that are less common, but not rare.

The peripheral cases include things like illative, expressing motion into (into a house), or abessive, expressing a lack (without a house), that are found, for example, in Finnish grammar. It is a language universal that languages won't mark the more peripheral cases with a special suffix (rather than using prepositions, for example) if the don't mark the more central cases as well.

As for why we don't have any material on this? No one has written it. A good source are the Cambridge linguistic textbooks, especially Case and presumably Theories of Case, although I haven't read the latter. The first book treats the notions at length. μηδείς (talk) 17:50, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for backing me here, Medeis. I knew it was an important distinction, I just couldn't remember the details – syntactic theories have never been my forte. By the way, the notion of "peripheral cases" includes "local cases", which are not mentioned in Grammatical case, either. In traditional philology, "oblique cases" has a similar but broader meaning than "peripheral cases", excluding the nominative and vocative, but the accusative is sometimes excluded, too, because it is the default case of (direct!) objects (as in the definition given by AnonMoos), and sometimes not (in Romance and Vulgar Latin philology, casus obliquus refers only to the accusative in the context of a two-case system). Oblique case only has the "objective case" interpretation, which includes the accusative.

I did remember that there is a Cambridge textbook devoted to case, but I don't have access to it at home. I just wanted to point out an important gap in Wikipedia, and thought it might be more visible here than on the talk page. Also, I was unsure whether there might be a particular reason for the omission which I'm not aware of (other than the obvious reason pointed out by you guys). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:22, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Latin character names in Russian

How are Latin characters referred to in Russian - for example, if I were telling someone the address of a website, or spelling an untransliterated brand name? Is there a conventional set of Latin character names like "а бе се де..."? --Lazar Taxon (talk) 22:15, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Basically Latin alphabet: а бэ цэ дэ е эф же аш и йот ка эль эм эн о пэ ку эр эс тэ у вэ дубль вэ икс игрек зэт. I am afraid though nowadays many people would attempt to read any combination of Latin letters as if it would be an English word.--Ymblanter (talk) 23:24, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Appears to mostly be based on French letternames, with "J" and "C" probably from German... "дубль вэ" is a two-word name for a single letter, if it's not obvious, while игрек is two words in the original French... AnonMoos (talk) 00:24, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

I thought "игрек (igrek)" means y and "зэт (zet)" means z. Otherwise, how do we account for there being only 25 letter names in the list? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:35, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

I count 27 words there... AlexTiefling (talk) 00:39, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

W = "double V". —Nelson Ricardo (talk) 01:15, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

To be clear, дубль вэ is indeed "a two-word name for a single letter" (W), as Anon Moos rightly said. But "игрек зэт" is not that. It is two words, for two distinct letters, Y and Z. There are 27 words in the list, but one pair (and only one pair) of words is a double name, hence there are 26 terms for 26 letters. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:38, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

I made a mistake in the original form of my post, and corrected it a few minutes later. My correction would have come before your post, except that I got an edit conflict with "Scsbot"... AnonMoos (talk) 04:05, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

File:Latin Greek alphabets Vygodsky Elementary Mathematics.png

In Russian mathematics/geometry school text-books there is usually the table in the endpapers like this. Unfortunately very few looked there, thus explaining verbally foreign names raises great problems. Even if you try using the English letter names it also can lead to misunderstanding as most Russians especially older generations don't know English at all. Sometimes explanations give humorous moments: "ve like turned m, es like dollar, that letter, you know, like o with the tail".--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 02:05, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

That table has a discrepancy at "J" from Ymblanter's list... AnonMoos (talk) 04:37, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

I've uploaded the table from the well-known mathematics handbook by Vagodsky. It has some variations. Note while the table gives "е" in the names (бе, де, пе, те...) in fact it's pronounced with hard consonants (бэ, дэ, пэ, тэ...). --Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 05:48, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

J can be both йот and жи, and the table reflects this.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:12, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

See ru:Английский алфавит.—Wavelength (talk) 03:12, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

You confuse the English alphabet and the Latin alphabet, whereas we don’t. It is well known that English name of “E” is [iː], but any Russian speaker in a healthy mind wouldn’t use this pronunciation to refer to “E” in a scientific or otherwise non-English context. Nor would they use [d͡ʒeɪ] to refer to “J” unless in an English word. Russians, like other continental nations of Europe, perceive English pronunciation of many letters as a deviation from the international norm. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 07:12, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

I recognized the difference (between the English alphabet and the Latin alphabet) before I posted my comment, but I chose the English alphabet because of its use in web addresses (mentioned in the original post) and in chemical formulas. English letters are used in the periodic table shown in the Russian article ru:Периодическая система химических элементов. (I am aware of internationalized country code top-level domains.)

—Wavelength (talk) 02:36, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

February 22

marry off

Hello! I have a question about the phrase "marry off". I know "marry a daughter off" is correct, but can I say "He has become old enough for his dad to marry off."? Thank you in advance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.221.157.191 (talk) 02:47, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Neither of those sounds correct. Americans say "marry off" to refer to a parent getting rid of responsibility for a child. "John married off all three of his daughters the day they turned 18." "Mary was married off young to a gentleman twice her age, and girth." μηδείς (talk) 03:05, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Medeis -- "marry off" carries a strong connotation of arranged marriage, and is just as obsolete. 24.5.122.13 (talk) 07:17, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, even in the UK, arranged marriages are rare (except in some communities), but the expression "marry off" is not obsolete because it is still used in jest, so the first sentence would be correct in the sense mentioned by Medeis (and in the literal sense in some communities). The second sentence sounds odd, but I suppose it might be used in some context. Dbfirs 12:33, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

In the realm of fiction (novels, films, TV shows ..) characters are sometimes "killed off". This doesn't mean the character is murdered, necessarily; they may have an accident, or simply die of natural causes. Similarly, a character who needs to be moved away from the main action can be "married off" so as not to pose a threat for their romantic rival anymore, allowing him/her to have a clear run for the attentions of the hero/ine. Or so he/she thinks. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:49, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Good one, Jack, and yes, that's a somewhat different sense from real-life parentally directed marrying off. μηδείς (talk) 02:59, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Translate 2 words of Persian?

Hi,

Can someone please tell me what this might mean - it should be the name of a place, probably;

موتور 22بهمن (موتور جليل ريگي )

Google translate isn't necessarily helping me - something about electric pump O_o

It is listed in that way on a census spreadsheet here, in row number 3118 under the heading "آبادي" which apparently means "Village".

I'm trying to work out whether the places listed are actual notable villages or not, for the purposes of a Wikipedia discussion.

It would also help if you could comment briefly in general on the names given in that column - does it seem to be a list of government-recognized "Villages" (or whatever the equivalent is)?

Thanks, 88.104.19.233 (talk) 10:35, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Can't really answer your question, but the Google thing is probably based on understanding موتور as "motor"... AnonMoos (talk) 15:11, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

They are actual villages, not very notable, in the province of Sistan and Baluchestan. The name you have mentioned means "22 Bahman Motor". The village must have been formed around a water pump named "22 Bahman" which is the day the Islamic Revolution reached its climax. And yes, it is a government-recognized village, though very small, with a population of 179, according to the general census of the year 1385 AH. Omidinist (talk) 19:22, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks very much, that makes sense. 88.104.19.233 (talk) 00:28, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Imperative forms

I've noticed that in many, completely unrelated languages, the imperative form of the verb is identical with the base of the verb, with no additional morphemes. Is there some kind of regularity? --Theurgist (talk) 22:34, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

I haven't examined it systematically, but it seems very common indeed. That's a candidate for a typological (near-)universal if there is one. It appears to have a simple practical explanation: Imperatives are common in situations of urgency, where you have no excess sounds or syllables to waste. I'm thinking of how in Latin, the four imperatives fac ("do!"), dīc ("say!"), dūc ("pull!") and fer ("bring!") are seemingly shortened even more than would be regular (compare allegro form – oh, we don't have this term). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:40, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Allegro form is another one of those terms, Florian that does exist in linguistics, but for which the epicene English Wikipedia has no entry. μηδείς (talk) 03:29, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Hey, I wouldn't have been surprised 10 years ago. But the gaps are becoming ever fewer and I'm amazed about all the obscure terms we have entries for! --Florian Blaschke (talk) 04:17, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I can't think of a reference off the top of my head, but this is pretty much a language universal--the second person singular imperative is either the stem or very close to it, and stress is often attracted to the initial syllable. Zulu mostly uses the bare stem for the second singular imperative. As Florian mentions, Latin has the four "irregular" (not really irregular, but rather, original) imperatives,dic, duc, fac and fer, which reflect the bare stem, and has ama, mone and audi as "regular" imperatives showing the thematic vowel, with -te added for the plural. Russian has -i or a soft sign (historically a weakened i) added to the stem with the same PIE -te added to make the second person plural imperative. German normally uses the bare stem for the 2nd singular, as does English, which doesn't distinguish number. The thou form is just the bare stem. So if you see Speakest! it is bad mock grammar on the part of the writer. μηδείς (talk) 02:46, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

The reason why the quattuor imperatores (a nickname I just came up with) are irregular is that the thematic vowel is missing: Regular imperatives would be *face (< *faci), dīce, dūce (both attested in Plautus) and *fere. Possibly, however, a sound-law (in the Old Latin period) resulted in the regular apocope of -e after /k/ and /r/ under certain conditions (compare hic, haec, hoc with original -ce, and the neutral i-stem noun calcar from *kalkari), but its effect was analogically undone in most cases. Frequently used forms (unlike less frequent forms, which are mentally formed by analogy whether the results are sanctioned by the speech community or not) are stored as their own entires in the mental lexicon, making them less susceptible to analogy and therefore prone to irregularity. In these cases, it came in handy that the (historically regular but synchronically irregular) forms were also monosyllabic as befits frequently used commands. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 04:11, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Well, I'll have to find my Carl Buck. But I am sure these are described as relict forms that retain the older athematic state, the same as English retains first person -m in the most common verb, to be. There would be no reason for these and only these forms to lose the thematic vowel. Are you suggesting athematic imperatives in other -r and -c stem verbs exist? (I like the four emperors coinage.) μηδείς (talk) 05:53, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

February 23

throw out his chest upward

I am describing how a man swam. I want your opinion about the sentence "He threw out his chest upward." Is it understandable? If not, could you suggest some proper expression for this idea. A lot of thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.249.239.194 (talk) 02:41, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

That makes no sense for swimming, and it would even be bad (very, very bad) form for backstroke. There's no stroke for which you want to throw out your chest. Even with breaststroke what happens follows from the arm motion, not from deliberate expansion of the chest. Idiomatically, you would not say the two words out and upward together--just simply "he threw out his chest". μηδείς (talk) 02:58, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Thrust would be a better word than throw. But it's a terrible description of swimming.--Jeffro77 (talk) 06:49, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

We agreed for him to go there.

Is "We agreed for him to go there." correct? I can't find any result in dictionaries. I'm only sure of "We agreed that he should go there." Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.249.239.194 (talk) 03:05, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

They are both fine. The second is more polished, although you will not hear British under 50 saying it, since they have lost the subjunctive. It is still used by Americans and other educated English speakers. But "for him to verb" is the usual way of expressing the subject of a verb in the infinitive. User:JackofOz is technically not British, but he uses forms like "we agreed he speak first" impeccably. See English subjunctive, English infinitive. μηδείς (talk) 10:16 pm, Today (UTC−5)

Did you miss the "should" in there? It's no subjunctive. Actually, the second sentence sounds considerably less formal and stilted. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 04:21, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

No, but I was hoping a Brit would object, not a fellow Teuton! Technically should here is the subjunctive of shall--it's just not treated that way any more. μηδείς (talk) 05:46, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

"We agreed that he should go there" sounds unexceptional to me, and I'm sure under-50 Britons would say it without batting an eyelid. Can any UKers confirm? The test of subjunctive-friendliness is sentences like "It's really important that you be at the meeting tomorrow", which many would render as "It's really important that you are at the meeting tomorrow". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 05:51, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Jack, I knew I could count on you. I'd give "I insist he is here" versus "I insist he be here" as a starker example of why the subjunctive is indispensable. They mean totally opposite things. μηδείς (talk) 05:58, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

English Englishman here. "We agreed for him to go there." is understandable, but sounds awkward. "We agreed for him to go" is marginally less awkward, but still weird. "We agreed that he should go there." is fine, although what I would actually say in real life is, "We agreed he should go". Simples. I wouldn't normally add 'there' because that infers we knew what 'there' meant, and is therefore unnecessary because we're obviously discussing someplace-he-might-be-going. If the place were not known, I'd expect the proper noun, e.g. "We agreed he should go to the chip shop." I wouldn't say "that", even in a formal situation. Maybe that's just me; it's just an opinion - but I read "Can any UKers confirm?", so there's one opinion, FWIW. 88.104.19.233 (talk) 08:32, 23 February 2014 (UTC)