Welcome to the language section
of the Wikipedia reference desk.

Select a section:

WP:RD/L

Want a faster answer?

Main page: Help searching Wikipedia

How can I get my question answered?

Select the section of the desk that best fits the general topic of your question (see the navigation column to the right).
Post your question to only one section, providing a short header that gives the topic of your question.
Type '~~~~' (that is, four tilde characters) at the end – this signs and dates your contribution so we know who wrote what and when.
Don't post personal contact information – it will be removed. Any answers will be provided here.
Please be as specific as possible, and include all relevant context – the usefulness of answers may depend on the context.
Note:
- We don't answer (and may remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or legal advice.
- We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate.
- We don't do your homework for you, though we'll help you past the stuck point.
- We don't conduct original research or provide a free source of ideas, but we'll help you find information you need.

Ready? Ask a new question!

How do I answer a question?

Main page: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines

The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.

June 16

Gerund +ing in lists

When to write "by" in gerunds:

"by doing,... by writing..., and by talking..." or
"by doing,... writing..., and talking..." or
"by doing,... writing..., and by talking"

Regards.--Tomcat (7) 12:24, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there is any rule, just personal choice. At least without more sentence context. Consider "I travel by walking, by biking, and by swimming." -- "I travel by walking, biking and swimming." Both are grammatically correct. When I search for /gerund preposition/ I mostly get sites for English learners telling them how to write sentences like those above... SemanticMantis (talk) 14:20, 16 June 2014 (UTC)\[reply]

The third example has incorrect parallelism, and would be considered wrong in careful usage. In the first example, "and" joins three adverbial phrases; in the second, it joins three gerunds within a single phrase; but the third doesn't work either way. (But it's a very minor error and wouldn't be at all surprising in speech or casual writing.) --69.158.92.137 (talk) 04:18, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The issue isn't gerunds, it's parallelism; the same question arises in I make my stew with tomatoes, with beans and with onions versus I make my stew with tomatoes, beans and onions.

It's equally legitimate to write either

I accomplish this

by doing,
by writing
and by talking.

or

I accomplish this by

doing,
writing
and talking.

Note that, if not for the and, it would be possible to arrange the bullets in any order – which would not be the case if you write by exactly twice. This is one way to detect a faulty parallel.

Do you want to put the by inside or outside the bullet points? It's up to you. There is a difference in connotation: the first suggests that the three actions or vegetables are independent and each may be sufficient on its own (resulting in three different stews), while the second suggests that each is necessary to reinforce the others (as in my chili). —Tamfang (talk) 05:28, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Correct usage of " effect" and "affect"

What is the correct usage- is it "effecting arrest" or "affecting arrest". Can you explain in detail?RegardsSumalsn (talk) 16:24, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Probably "effecting arrest," but I can't tell for sure without seeing the full sentence. In the sense you are using them, "effect" basically means "to bring about or cause" and "affect" basically means "to alter or change."--Dreamahighway (talk) 16:33, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Which is correct depends on what you mean the phrase to convey. For most common usages, 'effect' is a noun, and 'affect' is a verb [1] [2]. "His speech had a great effect on the audience", and "Obamacare has affected millions of Americans." But-- there are less common usages when 'effect' can be a verb that means "to bring about", and 'affect' can be a noun, with a meaning from psychology. Examples are "effect a change" and "He showed a displeased affect". So, if you mean "to bring about an arrest" you can say "The detective was critical in effecting arrest". If you mean "the arrest was influenced by some factor", they you can say "The nearby police presence was a factor affecting arrest of the suspect." See the subtle but important difference in meaning? See more here [3]. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:40, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Why an aadvark I'm not really sure: [4] Martinevans123 (talk) 16:49, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

But it doesn't show how the arrow effected a change in the aardvark's affect :-) --Trovatore (talk) 16:56, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

He married her. He married them.

How do you know if the subjective pronoun of the sentence is a participant in the wedding or the wedding officiant? The latter seems to be ambiguous. It may either mean that he is a wedding officiant or that he is participating in the wedding as the groom. The former seems also to be ambiguous. It is possible that he is participating as the groom or that he solemnizes a woman's wedding with some unknown suitor. 140.254.226.242 (talk) 17:19, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It is ambiguous. You have to use context to figure out which meaning is intended. Angr (talk) 17:28, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's even more ambiguous than the OP describes. It has also meant "to marry off".[5] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:45, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This is a known ambiguity in English, leading to the riddle "Who may have married many a wife / Yet still be single all his life?" AlexTiefling (talk) 09:13, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And to some elaborate trickery near the end of As You Like It. —Tamfang (talk) 05:15, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What is the best way to describe the many Chinese dialects?

I am not sure if it's best to say:

He spoke Chinese in the Shanghai dialect, and nobody in Wuhan understood him.
He spoke Shanghainese, and nobody in Wuhan understood him.

Is there a term for the language of the Shanghai people? of the Wuhan people? 140.254.226.243 (talk) 19:57, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I know, Shanghainese is a thing. I suppose you could consult the Wu Chinese article for more details. →Σ σ ς. (Sigma) 20:05, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Though there is much debate about the nature of Chinese (1 language, many dialects? Many languages? 1 or 2 written forms shared across dialect/languages?), it seems reasonable to many to conclude that the Varieties of Chinese can be considered different Languages of China. Cantonese, Fukien, Manadain, etc, are often as different from each other as Italian and Spanish. Mingmingla (talk) 20:13, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)Both sentences make sense, though many would challenge the use of 'dialect' in the fist and in your heading, as to many a dialect is a variety of a language that's not too far from it and so would be understood by another speaker. With this usage the branches of Chinese are too mutually incomprehensible to be called dialects. To avoid this the word 'varieties' is preferred. See varieties of Chinese for a full discussion.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 20:17, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If your first sentence was transfered into the European realities it would sound like "He spoke Romance in the French dialect, and nobody in Spain understood him." Quite acceptable for European scholars of the I millennium AD.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 20:24, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Victor Mair regularly uses the word topolect for the different Chineses spoken in different parts of China. This is one of many LanguageLog posts on the subject (note that the first section of that post is reproduced from an article that he is criticising quite heavily). --ColinFine (talk) 08:26, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Word for spring flower scentr

There is a word that describes the perfume, scent, fragrance, of wild spring flowers. does anyone have any suggestions? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.18.143.6 (talk) 22:45, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, "vernal" means spring, so a "vernal fragrance" might work, although that's 2 words. If it's not clear from the context that you mean the flowers' fragrance, then you'd need to add a 3rd word and call it a "vernal floral fragrance". StuRat (talk) 03:20, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

June 17

Opposite of tonogenesis?

I was recently reading a description of a relatively obscure Southeast Asian hill-tribe language. The author described a complex contour tone system (I think he classified it somewhere in the Tai-Kadai family) for all dialects he encountered except one, which he mentioned in passing, that "had lost all phonemic tones". Thanks to the likes of Haudricourt, Matisoff, etc., we understand the processes of tonogenesis (the development of tonality). Is there a similar word for the loss of tone? Has there been anything published describing the processes by which a (contour) tone language evolves into a non-tonal language. For example, are there regular phonological developments that would arise to distinguish/prevent the unwieldy amount of homophones that could result when a monosyllabic tonal language becomes non-tonal?--William Thweatt ^Talk^Contribs 06:09, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Khmer is a very well-known and well-studied language that has lost tone, so you may find more information on tone loss (the only term I can think for what you're describing) in the published research on that language. According to Khmer language#Phonation and tone, one of the old tones resulted in diphthongization, while the other (another?) didn't, so the diphthongization prevented widespread homophony when tones were lost. There are other methods of avoiding homophony too, such as compounding; a famous example from English is the use of the terms "sewing pin" (or "stick pin") and "writing pen" in the parts of the U.S. where pin and pen are homophones. I bet some languages with tone loss have resorted to that, too. Angr (talk) 09:32, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Khmer happens to be a language with which I am intimately familiar. In fact I wrote the section (and most of the article) you linked above. Khmer was never actually tonal. Like most Mon-Khmer languages, it had a contrast of phonation (for Khmer, breathy voice vs. clear voice). Voiced consonants of Old Khmer merged over time with the unvoiced series as the "voicedness" transferred to the following vowel, manifested as breathy voice with slight diphthongization while the vowels following the original unvoiced initials remained "normal" or "clear". Throughout Middle Khmer, the diphthongization was cemented in place and the breathy voice lost any contrastive significance. My question was specifically about contour tones, excluding voice quality and pitch-accent. I, too, thought of compounding, as well as replacing ambiguities with borrowings from an areal language as possibilities. I'm just curious if an actual process has been observed/described (I can't recall having read anything similar) or is the subject ripe for research/publication?--William Thweatt ^Talk^Contribs 23:19, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding a "word for the loss of tone": Apart from silly suggestions at linguistic fora ("tonogeddon", for example), the only single word I found was "detonematization", apparently coined by Alfons Weidert, but it hasn't gained a lot of traction in scholarly texts as far as I can tell ([6]). Most works (comparative or not) seem to use "tone loss", "loss of tone", "loss of lexical tone", and so forth. ---Sluzzelin talk 11:47, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Request for transcription of Urdu and Hindi

May someone please transcribe the Urdu and Hindi in this sign? File:Digraphia in Hindustani.png

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 12:45, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Here is the Hindi. पार्सल कार्यालय (pārsala kāryālaya) "parcel office". रेल आरक्षण केन्द्र (rēla ārakṣaṇa kēndra) "rail reservation centre". I don't read Urdu well enough to give you a confident transcription however. Maybe somebody else will be able to do that part.--William Thweatt ^Talk^Contribs 19:34, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Annotated the Hindi! WhisperToMe (talk) 00:00, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Is it okay if I get transcriptions of "IInd Class Booking Counter" at File:Jammu_Tawi_to_Delhi_-_Rail_side_views_01.JPG? WhisperToMe (talk) 00:06, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

My knowledge of Arabic scripts is shaky so take this with a grain of salt, but it appears to me that the Urdu consists of English loanwords except that the last word certainly is not centre. —Tamfang (talk) 05:13, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, but I suspect that the last word actually is "centre". The dot indicates an "n", but if that were initial it would be a tight curve: I think the longer curve is actually 's-n'. Then I think the mark above the final 'r' is the mark (derived from an Arabic 'ṭa') which marks retroflex consonants in Urdu. I confess I can't see a 't' under it, but that may be another example of the same sort of minimising as happens with the 's'. I'm not certain of all this, though. --ColinFine (talk) 08:46, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That's interesting! I still would like the transcription even if it has loanwords WhisperToMe (talk) 15:40, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Article writing

An article on how to make the complex attractive for night tourism.⟨‹›⟩ -- 14:58, 17 June 2014 14.98.33.160

What are you talking about? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:06, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Are you asking for help writing an article on how to make a building complex attractive for night tourism ? If so, take a shot at it, post it here, and we will critique it for you. If you are searching for such an article, then Wikipedia isn't the right place. You might try a Google search. If you want to post an article about that topic, permanently, I suggest WikiHow, which is more for tutorials like that. StuRat (talk) 03:25, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Post a link to it here, don't paste a whole article to the RD. —Tamfang (talk) 05:08, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

They might not know how to post a link, and we can always put a collapse box around it here. StuRat (talk) 09:41, 18 June 2014 (UTC) [reply]

June 18

Is "northeast" a word?

My spellchecker (set to Australian English) doesn't think so. I tend to agree. But another editor thinks it's fine. (It was only a minor Edit skirmish.) Our manual of style includes such words. Is such usage common anywhere? HiLo48 (talk) 09:01, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's fine for this American English reader. Especially since I live in the Northeastern United States. Google thinks it's fine as well. Dismas|^(talk) 09:09, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In the States, it's not only a word, it's pretty much obligatory. "North east" as two words is simply incorrect, and "north-east" with the hyphen looks affected. --Trovatore (talk) 09:22, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

When did the two words get joined up? HiLo48 (talk) 09:24, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

According to Dictionary.com, before 950. Dismas|^(talk) 09:35, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Then I wonder why my Australian spellchecker objects? HiLo48 (talk) 09:38, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

HiLo48, your spellchecker won't object to that last sentence, but I will. Do you mean "why my Australian"? For a counterexample, see North East, Pennsylvania and comparable communities in New York and Maryland; I had friends in college from the Pennsylvania community (which is in the state's far northwest!), and my spellchecker never liked the name of their hometown. Nyttend (talk) 11:30, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say the evolution of the phrase or word is ongoing and has not reached a conclusion yet. Separate 'north east' and 'north west' are commonplace in the UK. Richard Avery (talk) 12:15, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Just noting that the Wikipedia Manual of Style (at MOS:COMPASS) says: "Notice that compound compass points are usually concatenated in American English, for example northwest, while in British English they are sometimes written as separate words or hyphenated, as in north-west. This also affects names of regions such as Southeastern United States and South East England." Deor (talk) 13:01, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if Hitchcock had to have his movie title translated for UK audiences? Wouldn't want them taking the wrong direction to the theatre and getting lost. Matt Deres (talk) 14:28, 18 June 2014 (UTC) [reply]

@Matt Deres: As a point of interest, the title "North by Northwest" is malformed, insofar as it doesn't mean anything with respect to direction! See boxing the compass. Sort version: following conventions, only the cardinal direction names can come after "by". So "Southwest by South" is a valid direction, but "South by Southwest" is not. Point is, it can't be 'translated' into a direction, because it never was ;) </tangent> SemanticMantis (talk) 15:18, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@SemanticMantis:Well, if we're going to be really picky, the title isn't malformed at all - just confusing. The character flies "north" by "Northwest". Well, kind of. :) Matt Deres (talk) 16:55, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Does not. He flies from Chicago to Rapid City, South Dakota, which is approximately west, more accurately west by north. The choice of airline was probably a play on the movie's title. --70.49.171.225 (talk) 07:24, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Off-topic personal observation — was there ever a filmmaker more uneven that Hitchcock? He made one stunning, timeless masterpiece, probably the best movie of all time. That was Vertigo. He made one more truly remarkable film, namely Rear Window. And he made one thoroughly entertaining piece of fluff, which was North by Northwest. If he did anything else that was even worthwhile, I'm not aware of it (I admit I haven't seen The 39 Steps or Rope; I feel like I ought to, but what if they turn out to be overrated dreck like Psycho or The Birds?). --Trovatore (talk) 08:35, 19 June 2014 (UTC) [reply]

As this was a response to me, I figure I get one chance to reply. I've seen almost everything Hitch made since the mid-1930s and a couple of earlier ones. I say Vertigo is badly overrated, while Rear Window and North by Northwest are my favorites. But I also love The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes, Foreign Correspondent, To Catch a Thief, and for real fluff, The Trouble with Harry. In the next group I'd put Sabotage, Saboteur, Suspicion, Strangers on a Train, and also a couple that don't start with S, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) and Lifeboat. And most of the others have their moments. Including Psycho, with its two very unexpected deaths and its surprise ending. Yeah, he did a lot that was worthwhile, whether it's to your taste or not. --70.49.171.225 (talk) 18:18, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have to speak up in favor of Vertigo here. To me it's a brilliant movie for (at least) two almost unrelated reasons, one about content, the other about the technical craft of storytelling.

The technical coup is the absolutely masterful misdirection, which I have never seen equalled (or, really, even attempted) in any other film by anyone. When you think the movie is over, that's when it's really just getting started, and what it's really about has nothing to do with what you thought it was about up to then. If that had been done less than perfectly, it would have looked like a silly stunt — but it was done perfectly.

The content point is the exploration of the nature of good and evil, and specifically how a good man, Scotty, falls into evil through misguided pursuit of the good. It's a very Catholic theme. I am not Catholic personally but find this very well done and thought-provoking in this film.

Too bad about the ending, though. Call it wabi-sabi. --Trovatore (talk) 20:34, 19 June 2014 (UTC) [reply]

I think Wolfgang Petersen fits this bill. Though not nearly as prolific as Hitchcock, his films have tended toward either excellence or godawfulness, with only one middle of the road entry that I can think of (...that I've seen). On the one hand, you've got Das Boot, The Neverending Story, and (for some, anyway) The Perfect Storm. But on the other hand, you've got Enemy Mine, Air Force One, Troy, and Poseidon. Outbreak was enjoyable but not spectacular. I've seen all of these except Enemy Mine and The Perfect Storm; but that strikes me as some heavy weighting toward the extreme ends of the good-bad spectrum right there. ☯.Zen Swashbuckler.☠ 19:06, 19 June 2014 (UTC) [reply]

Since we have directions like "north by north northwest" ([7], page 45) I think more than one system of names is in use. Rmhermen (talk) 19:22, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Your link seems to stop at page 40, but anyway, the phrase gets lots of other ghits. Both "north by northwest" and "north by north-northwest" seem pretty clear, though; I imagine they both mean the direction that's officially called "north by west", but really they make more sense than the shorter form. I guess the first form, "north by northwest", is a little problematic in that some people probably use it to mean "north-northwest", and given that it's not a standard form, it's hard to tell. --Trovatore (talk) 20:03, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that's not part of the 32 point compass, nor the 128 point system in our article (which gives the US Navy and Royal Navy systems). It seems to indicate a direction between North by West and North. But I have no idea if it's supposed to mean NbW1/4N, NbW1/2N, NbW3/4N, or perhaps something else entirely. Perhaps there is a system in which that phrase maps unambiguously to some direction, but it's also possible the author or copy editor of that article didn't use the conventions properly... Post EC with Trovatore, we can see that reasonable people have very different guesses as to what this might mean :) I completely disagree that putative "NbNW" and "NbN-NW" should mean the same thing though! I am also completely unimpressed with Ghits and usage as evidence that these forms make sense, in contradiction to our excellent and well-sourced article points of the compass. Navigators throughout history have devised a very sensible and consistent system. The fact that many people don't do it right doesn't give legitimacy to nonsense. (NB the pdf is searchable, and when I downloaded it I found the ref on page 45.) I am interested though, if anyone has a WP:RS explaining these forms that I claim are incorrect. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:13, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I thought about it a little, and here's why I think the official system is counterintuitive. First you learn north, west, south, east, all good. Now "northwest" is halfway between north and west, makes sense. "North-northwest" is halfway between north and northwest, sure, why not.

Now what do you call halfway between northwest and north-northwest? Surely not "northwest-north-northwest"; no one can keep track of that. So, brilliant idea, call it "northwest by north" -- that's now a *quarter* of the way from northwest to north.

Alright, so what's a quarter of the way from north to northwest? "North by northwest" makes perfect sense; it has a pleasing symmetry with "northwest by north".

Instead, the official nomenclature is to call it "north by west", which now looks like it should be less northerly than north-northwest, because it has fewer norths in the name.

Of course, none of that matters to mariners. They have a system that works for them, and it's more efficient because it requires fewer words. It's systematic within its own paradigm; you just remember that "by" means π/16, and Bob's your uncle. But it is not necessarily the most natural-seeming extension of the simpler forms. --Trovatore (talk) 21:01, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

10,000 beheaded in Iraq, 35,000 a day smuggled without papers, cash , friends,ffamily or support into Texas, and my damn spellchecker is causing me problems? Is this a ref desk question? μηδείς (talk) 20:31, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Please see WP:PAPER; we are not exhausting a precious resource by discussing a question that interests the asker and respondents. Also recall that no question needs to meet any standard of importance or interestingess to be asked here. If anyone is wasting your time, it is yourself, by typing up an irrelevant comment. Finally, aren't you a bit of a linguist? Seems like anyone who is interested in languages should be a little more tolerant of curiosity about history of spelling and orthography. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:15, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Remember "Your message will cost the net hundreds if not thousands of dollars to send everywhere"? —Tamfang (talk) 00:49, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

surfer rosa

hello wikipedia community, can someone tell me what does Surfer Rosa mean? i'm not english. 2.181.97.247 (talk) 11:23, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, according to the article, 'Black Francis described the concept as referring to "a surfer girl," who "walks along the Beach of Binones, has a surfboard, very beautiful." ("Binones" is most likely Piñones, one of several Puerto Rican references). A "surfer" is someone who surfs, and Rosa is a female given name. No doubt, it's also a reference to Surfer Girl, released 25 years earlier. ---Sluzzelin talk 12:04, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Also according to the article, "The "name" of the cover woman, and the album title, comes from the "Oh My Golly!" lyric, "Besando chichando con surfer rosa."" "Oh My Golly!" is the 10th song on the album. Without any knowledge of where the name came from, my mind immediately went to a play on words involving sub rosa. Dismas|^(talk) 13:39, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Couldn't it also be "pink surfer"? Maybe the female counterpart to the Silver Surfer :-) --Trovatore (talk) 21:15, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

June 19

‘someone or something’

This is a very common locution, but it always seemed redundant to me. Aren’t people technically things? Why don’t we just say ‘something?’ --66.190.99.112 (talk) 01:51, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"Yes", "yes", and "Because people don't like to be referred to as an it." It's no different than the use of the word who - technically, it could always be replaced with a what, but people don't like that. Luckily this is the only illogical situation that's ever arisen in language. Matt Deres (talk) 02:20, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wait—"thing" is an English word and you're claiming that it's used illogically in English? Is that even possible? I think that people are technically not things in most contexts, with exceptions like "poor thing" and "pretty young thing" seeming to involve a certain amount of objectification. There's nothing illogical about a category that excludes human beings. -- BenRG (talk) 06:18, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The evolution of "thing" is enlightening.[8] As you all suggest, "thing" and "it" and similar terms are usually directed at humans only in some sarcastic way, or in a very generalistic way. "Living things" (including humans) are often referred to as "individuals". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:47, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Some people get upset when they even see "something" else counting as "someone", notwithstanding whether "they" were ever called "that".

Theory of Forms may have answers, or may be confusing. Depends on the thing processing it (or "them", if an article is a sum of editors' minds). InedibleHulk (talk) 07:25, June 19, 2014 (UTC)

We can probably all agree that humans are animals. You might be interested in this essay by Temple Grandin, "Animals Are Not Things" [9]. Of course, there are multiple angles on this sort of thing, and but it's hard to completely separate the linguistics from the ethics. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:29, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So far, nobody has mentioned the principle of animacy. English is a language that makes a distinction between animate and inanimate subjects and objects. This is a linguistic (and therefore essentially arbitrary) distinction rather than a scientific or logical one. Plants and non-living things are classed as inanimate, while people are classed as animate. Animals fall into a grey area and may be classed as animate or inanimate depending on the situation. (For example, people nearly always class their own pet mammals as animate but nearly always class invertebrates encountered in nature as inanimate.) Subjects and objects with animacy in English have to be referred to with gendered third-person pronouns rather than it. That said, someone usually is limited to human subjects and objects, though people may still object to their pets being labeled something. Marco polo (talk) 17:23, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The term "animate" or "animated" has to do with having breath, live, soul.[10] In addition to the usual debates about what "life" and "soul" really are, there's the complication that animate objects are often called "living things". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:45, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Corals are particularly confusing sorts of animals, especially considering mushrooms aren't any sort. Still, humans much quicker imagine anthropomorphic "mushroom people" than recognize their closer, weirder cousins as family. No eyes, no soul, it seems. Where would we even draw the eyes on a cartoon coral character? At least starfish (the "cool" kind, anyway) are pentagonal. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:49, June 20, 2014 (UTC)

[ɹ] and [ɻ]

[ɹ]
[ɻ]

Good afternoon, what is the difference of [ɹ] and [ɻ] ? These two recordings don't have the standard sound. Fort123 (talk) 16:24, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Does this discussion [11] from last week help at all? AlexTiefling (talk) 16:39, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This pronunciation is [ɹaɪt] or [ɻaɪt] ? Fort123 (talk) 17:17, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's [ɹaɪt]. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:38, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You should look at the definitions of alveolar and retroflex, there is a difference but difficult to distinguish for untrained ears. As for English, the standard is usually [ɹ] (alveolar). Retroflex consonants are one reason for the typical sound of Indian English. --2.245.76.23 (talk) 16:35, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Everybody and nobody

Among the native English speakers reading this, does everyone agree that sentence (1) sounds more idiomatic than sentence (2)?

(1) Nobody could enter the house because the doors were locked.

(2) Everybody couldn't enter the house because the doors were locked.

If so, what are native speakers' opinions of sentences (3) and (4)?

(3) Nobody could wait until the big day!

(4) Everybody couldn't wait until the big day!

I am of course using "couldn't wait" in its idiomatic sense of "was eagerly looking forward to". To me, (3) sounds much better than (4), but I've heard (4) from other people and am wondering how widespread it is. Logically, I can understand it since "couldn't wait" doesn't really have a negative meaning, so the negation shouldn't leave the idiom and attach to the subject the way it does in a truly negative sentence like (1). So what do other people from various parts of the English-speaking world think? Are you more likely to say (3) or (4)? Does the one you're less likely to say sound wrong or funny to you, or do they both sound acceptable? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:03, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

AmEng here, lived in many states across the country. While "they couldn't wait for..." sounds fine and common to me, I still prefer 3 to 4. I actually disagree about the movement of the negation to "outside" the idiom. It is not a true negation, yes, but to me the idiom survives the moved negative. 4 sounds like it is awkwardly forcing the "couldn't wait" phrase. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:16, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't mean the idiom can't survive having the negation moved out; I only meant that the nonnegative idiom might be a factor discouraging some speakers from moving the negation out. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:55, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

UKEng speaker here. (1) is definitely more natural than (2). I prefer (3) to (4), but I'd find "No-one could wait..." to be even more idiomatic. AlexTiefling (talk) 21:29, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"Everybody couldn't enter the house" is ambiguous, but probably means "it wasn't possible for everyone to enter" rather than "everyone found it impossible to enter".

Like Alex, I'd prefer "no one" to "nobody" in sentence 3, but would leave out the hyphen. --Trovatore (talk) 21:50, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not interested in the "everyone/no one" vs. "everybody/nobody" debate at this point; for purposes of this question, consider "No one could wait" (with or without a hyphen, which has nothing to do with language) to be equivalent to "Nobody could wait" (and "Everyone couldn't wait" to be equivalent to "Everybody couldn't wait"). —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:55, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

OK, let's put that aside then. My point is that 1 and 2 do not mean the same thing. In first-order logic, it seems like they should, but they don't, at least not as they would ordinarily be read. Sentence 1 means not even one person got inside; sentence 2 means that at least one person was not able to get past the locks. --Trovatore (talk) 00:39, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sentence (1) is the only one I'm comfortable with. I would find another way of saying (3) and (4). HiLo48 (talk) 22:31, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What 48 said. —Tamfang (talk) 00:29, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, that's interesting. Using the "couldn't wait" idiom, how would you say "Everybody was eagerly looking forward to the big day"? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 06:31, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't. That's the point. HiLo48 (talk) 07:33, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

(2) and (4) are but two of the many variants of the "all ... not" construction, which is inherently ambiguous. Example: "All the children did not like the broccoli they were served". Does this mean that all the children disliked it, or that not all of them liked it, meaning that some were OK with it? No way to tell. Example: "The whole family is not coming to the wedding". Is that "some but not all are coming", or "none are coming"? No way of knowing. Avoid these expressions if you want to make yourself understood. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 02:06, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I concede that (2) is ambiguous, so to clarify, I'm only interested in the meaning that's identical to (1). And I do think we can all agree that (1) is the preferred way of saying that. And I suppose (4) could also mean "Not everyone could wait" (as in "Some but not all people were eagerly looking forward to it"), but when I've heard the construction used by native speakers, it's always meant the same thing as (3). —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 06:31, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Canadian speaker. I would understand and have probably heard both 3 and 4, but my preference would be 4 with "everyone" rather than "everybody". Between 3 and 4, I'd switch depending on what I wanted to emphasize; to me, 4 stresses the opening while 3 stresses the people. Matt Deres (talk) 13:28, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

OK, cool, somebody for whom (4) is not only acceptable but even preferable to (3) under certain circumstances. It has occurred to me since starting this thread that if you put just in (as in I just couldn't wait!), then only the version with everybody is grammatical:

(5) *Nobody just could wait until the big day!

(6) Everybody just couldn't wait until the big day!

Unfortunately I'm not sure of the syntactic significance of that fact, though. ("Just nobody could wait..." is grammatical but there the scope of just is different.) —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:50, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting, the 3/4 re-wording keeps the idiom intact, but the "just" (acting as intensifier here?) breaks it! SemanticMantis (talk) 19:59, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

June 20

Does grammar change when a word in brackets is added?

This is an (pointless) application. vs.
This is a (pointless) application. ----Seans Potato Business 09:13, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I reformatted your question for clarity

Grammar doesn't change. The choice between 'a' and 'an' is purely phonological, and depends only on the following sound, irrespective of how it is written. When reading your sentence out, the following sound is /p/, so the normal choice is 'a'. If you omitted the parenthesised word in reading it, then 'an' would be the usual choice. --ColinFine (talk) 11:18, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. It is a bit of a quandary, and doesn't seem to be mentioned in my usual English language reference books, but since the reader will read what is within the brackets, treat them as you would any other parenthesis, whether indicated by commas or dashes, and use "a". If you're uncomfortable with this, it might be better to recast the sentence.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 12:50, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely "a". To me, "an" looks glaringly wrong. 86.179.119.9 (talk) 19:01, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

valedictions

hello, was there a time when phrases such as "mit freundlichen Grüßen" or "sincerely yours" etc didn't have this ironic undertone (not sure about the Enlgish one, but the German surely has) of "yeah, kiss mine, too"? or have they always been formulaic? Asmrulz (talk) 13:31, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"Mit freundlichen Grüßen" certainly has no "ironic" undertone in German. It is simply the everyday, perfectly neutral salutation in formal and business correspondence. Sure, it doesn't guarantee the contents of the letter are really "friendly", but neither does it automatically imply the opposite as you suggest. I remember a time when it was still in competition with "hochachtungsvoll" ("with respect"), which was considered more stilted and more formal, giving "mit freundlichen Grüßen" a somewhat more relaxed tone; that alternative seems now to be pretty much moribund though. On the other hand, people today seem to be searching for yet more informal alternatives again. "Liebe Grüße" seems to be making inroads; I've seen it used in mails from students to their professors, where I suspect it would have been unthinkable earlier. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:50, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I had such exchanges in mind where after a certain number of "rounds" it does imply that. Automatically, too :) Asmrulz (talk) 14:41, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think hochachtungsvoll really does have that ironic undertone now; when I see it, it always sounds more like verachtungsvoll. Liebe Grüße (or simply LG) is my go-to signoff in German-language e-mails. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:58, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"Mit freundlichen Grüßen" nowadays is the standard in formal German letters. Yes, in a complaint letter you don't want the addressee to receive "friendly greetings", but you still write it. As for the question if it has an undertone, every positive comment used in a conversation between two people who don't get along with each will sound like it had one. It doesn't matter if it's "Mit freundlichen Grüßen" or something else. The expression alone is neutral. --2.245.76.23 (talk) 16:52, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tag question

Is there any valid tag question that can go on the end of these sentences?

All you can do is ask, ... ?
All we can do is hope, ....?

86.179.119.9 (talk) 18:56, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The respective subjects are All you can do and All we can do, for both of which the appropriate pronoun is It. Therefore, we can use the tag question is it not? in each example.

—Wavelength (talk) 19:11, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Or isn't it? (which I think most people today would find more natural). --70.49.171.225 (talk) 19:13, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

All we can do is hope, isn't it? sounds correct to you? 86.179.119.9 (talk) 19:23, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds correct to me, too. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:52, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Strange ... to me it sounds decidedly off. 86.179.119.9 (talk) 20:01, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, a statement like All we can do is hope is usually made with a sense of profundity that would be undermined by adding a tag question. But if you did want to make that statement in a context where a tag question was appropriate—perhaps you've been discussing several possible situations where you might be able to do something more than hope, and are starting to reach the conclusion that none of them apply—then I stand by isn't it? as the obvious and natural one. --70.49.171.225 (talk) 04:24, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tag questions such as "... no?", "... yes?", and "... right?" would work, no? Deor (talk) 20:25, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Your answers sound better. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:19, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Right? is possible for me, but no?" and yes? strike me as things a non-native English speaker would use. --70.49.171.225 (talk) 04:24, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Some native English speakers do use no?, but I believe it's usually a conscious affectation – as James Nicoll might say, an example of rifling other languages' pockets for whatever might be useful. —Tamfang (talk) 07:29, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I say (and write) that "Yes?" not infrequently, and I'm 100 percent American. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:08, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Nickelodeon network's highest rated show

The SpongeBob SquarePants article went through a copy-edit awhile back, in which the following sentence - "The series' popularity has made it a media franchise, as well as Nickelodeon's highest rated show, and the most distributed property of MTV Networks." - had the word "network" inserted after "Nickelodeon". "Nickelodeon network's highest rated show" sounds really odd to me, and I don't think that it's grammatically correct. However, I'm not enough of a grammar expert to know why it might be wrong, while the copy-editor who made the change describes herself as a professional writer/editor, so perhaps I'm mistaken. Can anyone explain? --Jpcase (talk) 19:17, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a question of grammar, but of factual accuracy. If Nick is a part of the MTV Network, then is it also a network by itself? I rather doubt it. More like a channel on the MTV Network. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:26, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There is also the question of whether it should be "the Nickelodeon network's highest rated show". Also, precise English would call for "highest-rated" to be hyphenated here. 86.179.119.9 (talk) 19:39, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"The Nickelodeon network's highest rated show" sounds better to me. "The network Nickelodeon's highest rated show" or "The television network Nickelodeon's highest rated show" both sound fine to me as well. If the official name of the television channel were "Nickelodeon Network" like "MTV Network", then that would be fine. Personally, I would prefer to just remove "network" altogether, like in the original version of the sentence. The way that it's currently written seems kind of like saying "John businessman's suit" or "Germany country's economy". I don't if it actually is grammatically equivalent, but it seems pretty similar to me. Could someone explain whether it really is incorrect or not? --Jpcase (talk) 19:53, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

June 21

Life goes on, bra

The refrain to The Beatles' Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da goes Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on, bra. What does "bra" mean here? I doubt it means a brassiere. I've always imagined it's the Swedish language word bra "good, well", but that can't be right, as The Beatles weren't a Swedish band. Does it have some other meaning or is it just a nonsense word? JIP | Talk 13:41, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Here in the US, it can mean "bro", as in (figurative) "brother", but I'm not sure if that slang would have been present in the Beatles' time. StuRat (talk) 14:11, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The article states 'The tag line "ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on, bra" was an expression used by Nigerian conga player Jimmy Scott-Emuakpor, an acquaintance of McCartney.' if that helps anyone. Nanonic (talk) 14:22, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Expressions like that probably mean about the same thing as "do do do down do be do down down, comma comma, down do be do down down, etc." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:42, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

See "Non-lexical vocables in music".—Wavelength (talk) 15:51, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You may also ask what Ob-La-Di and Ob-La-Da mean, too. Mingmingla (talk) 18:09, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Here is McCartney's own explanation. Stu and Nanonic basically combined to give the correct answer. --Jayron32 19:57, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

All well and good, except it doesn't explain the last lines, "If you want some fun / Take Ob-La-Di-Bla-Da" followed by a "Thank you!" and giggling on the fade-out. I always took that to mean they were passing the pipe around, hence ob-la-di etc. being some sort of drug euphemism. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:07, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously they were discussing the theme music for an advertising campaign for a new product: Life Goes On bras. :-P Clarityfiend (talk) 23:37, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

June 22

the meaning of "warren"

The following is taken from Martin Amis's latest novel "Lionel Asbo": "So Des lived his life in tunnels. The tunnel from flat to school, the tunnel (not the same tunnel) from school to flat. And all the warrens that took him to Grace, and brought him back again." I am not sure about the meaning of "warren". Could you explain it for me. Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.202.187.153 (talk) 01:51, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A warren is the underground network of tunnels that rabbits live in in the wild. --Jayron32 02:13, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Also originally when they were kept in protected areas of land supervised by a warrener Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:57, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

proud-chested bookcases

I can't find "proud-chested" in any dictionary. I wonder what it means in the following context: "But this: rank upon rank of proud-chested bookcases, like lavishly decorated generals." Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.202.187.153 (talk) 04:15, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It appears to be a nonce word and a pun.

—Wavelength (talk) 04:24, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see it as a pun, since a bookcase isn't a type of chest. More like a combination of personification and synecdoche. The bookcases contain books that the owner wants to display in the same way that a general proud of the medals on his chest might want to display them. First we pretend that it's the bookcases themselves that are proud of the books (personification). Now we might say that the general's chest, where he wears his medals, is proud (synecdoche), meaning that the general is. Combining both figures of speech, we are pretending that the bookcase has a chest where it is proudly displaying the books. --70.49.171.225 (talk) 05:26, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Brass knobs on a chest of drawers resemble brass buttons on a double-breasted uniform. (A bookcase might sit atop a chest of drawers.)

—Wavelength (talk) 05:47, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Frying in human fat

What is the proper verb in English that means "to fry [something] in human fat", or do only the languages of cannibal societies have words for such a thing? Enzingiyi (talk) 09:33, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, languages tend to only have words for things that happen in that culture. StuRat (talk) 13:36, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have my doubts that that word exists in the English language. Also...do cannibal cultures have cooking techniques such as frying? Admittedly, I don't know a whole lot about recipes in these cultures, but do they have things like frying pans that they could use to fry things in human fat? Bali88 (talk) 15:59, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

South by Southwest

I was reading this thread and people talked about the name of the music festival South by Southwest. That brings me my long confusion about its abbreviation SxSW, which the word "by" seems to be abbreviated by the letter "x". As a non native English speaker I don't find it intuitive — is it a convention of using "x" to represent "by" when talking about directions? Fdsze (talk) 20:09, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The word "by" is used in multiplication, especially when applied to calculating area; for example a room which measures three meters by four meters is often described as 3m x 4m, which would be 12m². In the U.S., standard-sized boards of lumber are described by their cross sectional dimensions, such as the ubiquitous two by four (that's a disambiguation page leading to other uses of "two by four", and in many the "by" is represented by "x"). The use of "x" as "by" is familiar in that context to native American English speakers. --Jayron32 20:27, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I don't know about directions, but I'd take it as an extension of the use of the multiplication sign to mean "by" (see Multiplication sign#Uses, fourth bullet point). One often sees the letter x casually used to represent a multiplication sign. Deor (talk) 20:30, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Excessive pride in one's culture

Is there a word for the way that humans seem to form excessive pride for custom's of one's own nation and/or culture, often when said customs are objectively trivial?

This might include taking pride in:

Entertainment systems (PC vs. XBox, Mac vs. PC)
Driving on a certain side of the road.
Use of a certain measurement system ("we still use English standard units and we're proud of that")
Sports culture ("I'm a Yankees fan", "my football is better than your football").
Language (Linguistic discrimination, Linguistic purism)
One's own nation (in certain circumstances).
Race (black pride, La Raza, Irish pride)

It seems that this us vs. them thinking is everywhere I look, and yet I cannot find a word for it. Magog the Ogre (t • c) 20:48, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

First, I question your premise that pride in one's group is automatically "excessive". As regards your checklist, I wonder how things would work out if the rule was, "Drive on whichever side of the road you like." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:17, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Nationalism--86.180.143.223 (talk) 21:19, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]