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January 21

She's True... of what?

Lately, I've been creating stub articles about True and the Rainbow Kingdom on non-English editions of Wikipedia. But because I'm not that fluent in languages other than English and Korean, I can only add basic facts like translated episode titles and character names, and local voice cast.

I want to make sure that all the stub articles won't have citation and notability issues at least. So I want this paragraph (which will be the lead section)

[Local title] (English: True and the Rainbow Kingdom) is a Canadian animated series which is based on the works of American artist duo FriendsWithYou. The series was produced by Guru Studio in Canada for American subscription streaming platform Netflix, and participated in development and production by Home Plate Entertainment, FriendsWithYou, and I Am Other (a Pharrell Williams venture).^{1) 2) 3)} The series was first released on Netflix on August 11, 2017.⁴⁾

to be translated in following languages:

Chinese (小真與彩虹王國)
Danish (Gry og Regnbueriget)
Dutch (True en het Regenboogrijk)

True en het Regenboogrijk (English: True and the Rainbow Kingdom) is een Canadese animatieserie gebaseerd op het werk van het Amerikaanse kunstenaarsduo FriendsWithYou. De serie werd in Canada door Guru Studio geproduceerd voor de Amerikaanse streamingdienst Netflix. Aan de ontwikkeling en productie werd ook meegewerkt door Home Plate Entertainment, FriendsWithYou en I Am Other, een bedrijf van Pharrell Williams.^{1) 2) 3)} De serie werd op 11 augustus 2017 vrijgegeven op Netflix.⁴⁾ PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:54, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Finnish (Tuire ja Sateenkaarimaa)
French (Talia et le royaume Arc-en-ciel)

Talia et le royaume Arc-en-ciel (English: True and the Rainbow Kingdom) est une série animée canadienne basée sur l'œuvre du duo d'artistes américains FriendsWithYou. La série a été réalisée au Canada par le Guru Studio pour la plateforme de diffusion en mode continu sur abonnement Netflix. Home Plate Entertainment, FriendsWithYou et I Am Other (une entreprise de Pharrell Williams) ont participé à son développement.^{1) 2) 3)} La série est sortie pour la première fois sur Netflix le 11 août 2017.⁴⁾ --Xuxl (talk) 19:22, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

German (True und das Regenbogenreich)
Italian (Vera e il Regno dell'arcobaleno)
Japanese (トゥルーと虹の王国)
Norwegian (Sanne og Regnbueriket)
Polish (Tru i Tęczowe Królestwo)

Tru i Tęczowe Królestwo (ang.: True and the Rainbow Kingdom) – serial animowany produkcji kanadyjskiej oparty na pracy amerykańskiego dwuosobowego zespołu artystycznego FriendsWithYou. Serial został wyprodukowany przez Guru Studio w Kanadzie dla amerykańskiej płatnej platformy strumieniowej Netflix, we współpracy z Home Plate Entertainment, FriendsWithYou oraz założoną przez Pharrella Williamsa firmą I Am Other.^{1) 2) 3)} Po raz pierwszy ukazał się na platformie Netflix 11 sierpnia 2017 roku. — Kpalion^(talk) 12:53, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Portuguese (Vera e o Reino do Arco-Íris)

Vera e o Reino do Arco-Íris (English: True and the Rainbow Kingdom) é uma série de animação canadense baseada nas obras da dupla dos artistas americanos FriendsWithYou. A série foi produzida pelo Guru Studio no Canadá para Netflix, a plataforma de streaming de assinaturas americana. O desenvolvimento e a produção também foram contribuídos pelo Home Plate Entertainment, FriendsWithYou e I Am Other (uma empresa do Pharrell Williams).^{1) 2) 3)} A série foi lançada pela primeira vez em Netflix em 11 de agosto de 2017.⁴⁾ —Stephen (talk) 15:18, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Spanish (Vera y el Reino Arcoíris)

Vera y el Reino Arcoíris (English: True and the Rainbow Kingdom) es una serie animada canadiense que se basa en los trabajos del dúo de artistas estadounidenses FriendsWithYou. La serie fue producida por Guru Studio en Canadá para Netflix, la plataforma de streaming de suscripción estadounidense. El desarrollo y la producción también fueron contribuidos por Home Plate Entertainment, FriendsWithYou y I Am Other (una empresa de Pharrell Williams).^{1) 2) 3)} La serie se lanzó por primera vez en Netflix el 11 de agosto de 2017.⁴⁾ —Stephen (talk) 14:46, 21 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Swedish (Sanna och Regnbågslandet)
Turkish (True ve Gökkuşağı Krallığı)

JSH-alive/^{talk/cont/mail} 13:03, 20 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think it will be Notable in all these foreign language Wikipedias? That might be worth checking before spending a lot of effort just to have them removed for WP:NOTE -- Q Chris (talk) 13:03, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. From now on, I'll consult WP:EMBASSY for respective editions before creating one. JSH-alive/^{talk/cont/mail} 13:48, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

How does notability depend on language? — Kpalion^(talk) 13:58, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Each separate language Wikipedia makes its own rules, including criteria for notability. A "not-English" Wikipedia's notability threshold for a given category might be more or less stringent than that here. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.200.41.3 (talk) 15:46, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

January 23

Scoff who may

I recently had occasion to use the phrase in the subject heading, and it got me thinking about the structure. The verb scoff is clearly in the subjunctive mood. But what sort of subjunctive?

My first thought is that it's a hortative, as in let him scoff who may. But it occurs to me that, alternatively, it might be the same as come in come rain or come shine — or is that also a hortative?

Secondly, what about may? If we replaced it with a verb where you could tell, would it also be subjunctive? So for example, would you say scoff who scoff or scoff who scoffs?

And what if you change the second verb, so that the scoffer is no longer the subject? Scoff whom it please or scoff whom it pleases?

And finally, if you were to use the subjunctive in the last two cases, what kind of subjunctive would it be? --Trovatore (talk) 08:26, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As I've said before, it's very very doubtful whether there's a coherent synchronic morphological subjunctive conjugation in modern English. There are a few isolated constructions of limited productivity (mainly "If I/he were" and "I insist that he be removed from the room), and some archaic relics with zero productivity ("howbeit" etc.). There would be nothing to connect these various minor anomalies together without diachronic information from earlier historical stages of the language, so it's very difficult to say that any meaningful morphological "subjunctive" exists in modern English at all... AnonMoos (talk) 20:54, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

OK, your opinion is noted. Any views from those who don't reject the premise? --Trovatore (talk) 20:57, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(To be explicit, I am not interested in restricting to "synchronic" or "morphological". Diachronic is fine; cross-linguistic is fine, deep structure is also fine.) --Trovatore (talk) 21:07, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If you're not taking morphology into account, then you're ignoring verb-conjugation inflections, so that "subjunctive" becomes a somewhat free-floating semantic term, not necessarily tied to any particular specific concrete verb forms... AnonMoos (talk) 08:43, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That's fine. Now, do you have any response to the actual question? --Trovatore (talk) 09:06, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Since your question is apparently based on using the word "subjunctive" in a sense rather different from its most usual meaning, it therefore required a certain amount of clarification. AnonMoos (talk) 15:05, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The answer is that the phrase is idiomatic, which means it resists useful grammatical analysis. There are older varieties of English which may have had constructions that were common like this, but that is not the language we speak today. This sort of Literary language is purely idiomatic in modern English; consider phrases such as come what may which dictionaries clearly define as "idiomatic". This construction you used is just a parallel construction based on that well known idiom. --Jayron 32 14:57, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Come on, you can do better than that. Get all diachronic and analyze the structure. I don't care whether it's productive today. Or don't; maybe you're not interested and that's fine, but maybe someone else is. --Trovatore (talk) 19:47, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I thought about not insulting you by actually quoting an article you would just read, but since you can't be bothered to read, I guess I'm going to have to quote the source directly. "In linguistics, idioms are usually presumed to be figures of speech contradicting the principle of compositionality... Arriving at the idiomatic reading from the literal reading is unlikely for most speakers. What this means is that the idiomatic reading is, rather, stored as a single lexical item that is now largely independent of the literal reading." And later in the article "The non-compositionality of meaning of idioms challenges theories of syntax. The fixed words of many idioms do not qualify as constituents in any sense...The fixed words of [idioms] do not form a constituent in any theory's analysis of syntactic structure." Or idioms cannot be analyzed. QED. --Jayron 32 05:56, 26 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's your assertion that this is a non-analyzable idiom. I don't think it is; I've given a couple of potential ways of analyzing it. If you don't care to engage on that level, no one is making you, but it's kind of boring to see you keep repeating the same party line.

If you feel like playing along and seeing where it takes you, pretend I'm asking the question in 1850, when the relevant constructions are more common than they are today. --Trovatore (talk) 06:56, 26 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Fair point. Mea culpa. --Jayron 32 11:48, 26 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the discussion of the meaning of “subjunctive mood”, when morphological inflections are not involved the phrase “modal verb” and the noun “modality” are used. You might find your answer in English modal verbs or Linguistic modality. Loraof (talk) 16:56, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't say morphology wasn't involved. You can tell "scoff" is in the subjunctive because it's not "scoffs", even though the subject ("who") is third-person singular. It's certainly not a modal verb.

I said I didn't want to restrict to morphology. Sometimes you can tell, sometimes you can't.

So for example it is important that he go and it is important that he goes are both grammatical sentences, but they mean different things. The second presumes that he does in fact go, and expresses the importance of that fact. The first makes no commitment at all as to whether he goes, but expresses that he'd better. This is one use of the English subjunctive, and you can distinguish them morphologically.

Now, what do we do with it is important that I go? Now, you can't distinguish the two senses by morphology. But both senses are still available, and depending on which one I mean, the sentence is either in the indicative or in the subjunctive, even though morphologically they're identical. --Trovatore (talk) 19:47, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Please understand that "scoff" is an infinitive, not a subjunctive. The verb of the sentence is "may" - the non-idiomatic form is "whoever may scoff", from which you will see that it is a normal indicative. 86.169.56.163 (talk) 20:13, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think so. "Who may" is a relative clause which is the subject of "scoff". That's how I read it, anyway.

I suppose your construction is another possibility. But you couldn't do that with scoff whom it please to scoff, which sounds correct to me. --Trovatore (talk) 20:16, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe one way to analyze “Scoff who may” is that “who may” = “who may (scoff)” is a subordinate clause serving as the subject of the main clause, whose verb “scoff” (at the beginning of the sentence) is in the imperative mood. Loraof (talk) 00:04, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if it's an imperative, it's a third-person imperative, which is one kind of subjunctive. --Trovatore (talk) 01:22, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think the article is on rather shaky ground when it talks about challenging "theories of syntax". The syntax is perfectly regular, it's just that the words do not have the meaning you expect. For example, my big German dictionary has examples of idiomatic usage for practically every entry. The grammar is impeccable, but each example has to be individually translated. 92.19.172.194 (talk) 15:46, 26 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Chinese to POJ

Hello, can someone tell me what this is in POJ (for a new article I'm writing):

三鶯線

Thanks! Gmc600 (talk) 09:39, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a reason you don't think it is the Sanying Line? That is a real rail in Taipei. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 17:38, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think Gmc600 wants to know how to write Sanying Line in POJ. As it's a name, you should be able to read it as it is (according to the dictionary). My guess would be saⁿ-eng-sòaⁿ. Alex Shih (talk) 17:57, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

January 24

Universidad EAFIT

Does "EAFIT" stand for anything, and if so, what? Nyttend backup (talk) 20:41, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"The word EAFIT is a Spanish abbreviation for Escuela de Administracion y Finanzas e Instituto Tecnológico" (from an old version of our article). DuncanHill (talk) 20:51, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, and now I see that in the first sentence of the Spanish Wikipedia article. I checked our article and their website, but completely forgot to check the es:wp article, and I'm surprised that such a thing would have been removed from our article here. Thank you. Nyttend backup (talk) 21:06, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, it looks like it was removed from the infobox in this somewhat spammy edit. Nyttend backup (talk) 21:08, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Why are there no male coeds?

It may be a bit dated these days, but the term "coed" (sometimes "co-ed") was used in reference to educational institutions that had both male and female clientele. For an adjectival example, "I learnt about the birds and bees early because I went to a coed school".

But when applied as a noun to an individual, it only ever meant a girl. "Three coeds were walking down the hallway" meant three girls, not three boys or any boys at all. It was a girls-only term. Why would that be? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:47, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Because in the old days, universities tended to be men-only, except maybe for teachers' schools and expressly women-only schools. And it looks like Louisa May Alcott may share in the blame for this old-fashioned term "co-ed".[1] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:07, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

One simply cannot calculate the utter ruination wrought on Western civilization by LMA! μηδείς (talk) 07:07, 27 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) It was a neologism that became vernacular. Standard rules don't apply for such evolutionary linguistics. —107.15.152.93 (talk) 21:11, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note that the adjectival form isn't really dated. Consider this press release, May 2007, from when Randolph-Macon Women's College became Randolph College and started admitting men. Nyttend backup (talk) 21:12, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Bugs has it. When a group is historically composed of only one gender, it's the new gender that gets a marked term. In many cases, it seems mostly where the new term just adds the gender (e.g. "male nurse"), it has gradually been removed as people become more accepting of the role. In cases where a new word was coined ("co-ed", "actress") this seems less consistent. Sometimes the words survive, perhaps because they have more clearly defined connotations, perhaps because they're less clunky than adding "female..." to everything. Matt Deres (talk) 19:52, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Some good stuff here (not an RS itself, but links to sources). Matt Deres (talk) 19:57, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to all for your enlightening answers. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:22, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

January 25

Francophone needed

Desertification#Areas affected says that the Sahara has expanded 250 km southward since 1900, and the end result is a further 6000 km² of desert. I find this hard to believe (the Sahara would have to be 24 km wide), but the source mentions both numbers in a single sentence. Problem is, it's in French, which I don't understand, and I don't want to rely on Google Translate. So...does the source really say that 6000 km² of desert has been created by the Sahara expanding south by 250 km? Nyttend (talk) 01:50, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I understand that the total area as a result of the 250 km expansion is now 6000 km², which makes even less sense… MuDavid (talk) 02:26, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This was just a confusing and apparently misleading writing in the source itself. I've corrected that by adding the original.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 03:49, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

". . . a stetch of land . . ."? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.0.128.132 (talk) 05:57, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that the source of the source is the French Wikipedia (Sahel). Quote: "À partir de 1900, le Sahara a progressé vers le sud de 250 km sur un front large de 6 000 km." The phrase: "a stetch of land" is an attempt to translate "un front large de 6000 km" ~ "a 6,000 km front line". --AldoSyrt (talk) 08:28, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Presumably a stretch of land. There's no such word as "stetch". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:08, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Typo introduced by this edit[2] and now fixed. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:12, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Two points. First, it doesn't say "since 1900", it sais "depuis les années 1900", which is "since the 1900s". Second, it doesn't say 6000 km². Although it uses the word "superficie", meaning "area", it says 6000 km. This supports the interpretation that the number actually refers to the length of the desert's southern boundary and the article is badly written. --70.29.13.251 (talk) 10:50, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That source indeed says 6000 km², but it is badly written, and the 250 x 6000 km sentence on the French entry about Sahel predates it (cf. [3] vs. source dated to 12 Feb 2010). Almost certainly the 250 x 6000 km over 100 years sense is correct (which goes well with 650000 km² over 50 years mentioned earlier in the savezvousque.fr article); that would mean that Sahara has gained 1.5 million km² (about 600000 mi²) over the past 110 years. 93.142.116.5 (talk) 01:10, 26 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what you mean by "that source indeed says 6000 km²". I was talking about the savezvousque.fr article that the original poster linked in the question, which says 6000 km. "Since the 1900s" is rather vague and I don't see it referring to 100 years. --70.29.13.251 (talk) 07:44, 27 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The relevant passage of the original source reads:

Selon certains experts, le continent Africain a perdu environ 650 000 km² de terres productives depuis 50 ans, soit l’équivalent d’un territoire comme la France.

La progression de la désertification vers le sud est tellement importante qu’elle atteint la Steppe du Sahel (zone marquant la transition entre différent climat et végétation). On a pu relever que depuis les années 1900, le Sahara a progressé de 250 km vers le sud, ce qui nous donne un total de 6 000 km de superficie.

On French Wikipedia the phrase fr:Années 1900 refers to the first decade of the last century. 92.19.172.194 (talk) 14:50, 27 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

January 26

H. Congreso de la Unión

I almost came here to ask what "H." stands for in this context, but eventually I noticed a footnote in Library of the Congress of Mexico and was able to confirm the full meaning, "Honorable", without difficulty. But I still wonder at its use — it's easy to find lots of references to "H. Congreso de la Unión", and they appear to be a good deal more common than "Honorable Congreso de la Unión" (see es:Biblioteca del H. Congreso de la Unión, for example), and I'm left wondering why. Is "Honorable" normally abbreviated in Spanish titles? Is this some unusual form of legal citation? Nyttend backup (talk) 16:07, 26 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

January 27