Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 November 11

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November 11

Prison learning

Imagine this Kafkaesque scenario: A man is locked in a prison cell for a very long time, let's say a life sentence. He is given plenty of food, water, light etc. The cell is large enough for him to do some exercise, but he is never let out. He has no reading or writing materials, sees no TV or movies, and hears no music. His guards are under strict orders not to talk to him, ever. Piped into his cell 24/7 is an unending stream of conversations and monologues in a foreign language that he does not understand at all, not a single word. It's always the same foreign language. Remember, he has no visual cues to go on, just the sound of people speaking all day and all night about god-knows-what in this utterly incomprehensible language. Assume he knows his own language fluently and has a good grasp of grammar, but has never studied his own language past secondary school and has never studied any other languages at all. Assume he remains in good physical and mental health, doesn't go deaf, and doesn't kill himself. Assume he quickly learns to sleep through the broadcast for as long as he needs. How long would it be before he begins to understand what's coming through the speaker, if ever? -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 02:48, 11 November 2009 (UTC) (JackofOz not signed in) Added link: Kafkaesque Mitch Ames (talk) 12:05, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Never- how would he, without any context, ever come to the conclusion that foobar means tree? Nadando (talk) 02:52, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

He might learn a few functional words ("the", for example) and work out some of the grammar, but while he might work out that foobar (to use Nadando's example) is a singular noun, there is no way he could ever work out which singular noun it is. --Tango (talk) 02:55, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Ah, except that's assuming no common heritage with the language he speaks. Once he's tuned in, he has a good chance of picking up on any similarities with words he knows. Certainly he'll be at the mercy of false friends and suchlike, but it does give him a crack to start working at. And a crack is all he needs if this is all he hears for years on end. That is assuming his language shares some vocabulary similarities with the foreign language. 86.142.230.196 (talk) 03:04, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I interpreted "a foreign language that he does not understand at all, not a single word" as meaning there were no such clues. If there are, then it becomes vaguely possible. --Tango (talk) 04:32, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

The problem your hypothetical prisoner comes up against is that he is bombarded with purely passive learning. He has no instruction, nor feedback to help him understand. A related experiment is the child who is brought up with television in a foreign language, but that is their only interaction with that language (i.e. the parents use a different one) does not learn the television language. This is again different from the Egyptian universal language experiment. Steewi (talk) 04:22, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I think, given enough time, you could learn quite a lot from foreign television. Since you can understand the images you have a starting point. You could learn the names of foods fairly easily by watching cooking programmes, for example. The word they say as they pick up an ingredient is probably the word for that ingredient (you would want to watch multiple programmes involving each ingredient to make sure you've got the right word, eg. you want the word for "almonds" not "handful", so given just the phrase "add a handful of almonds" wouldn't give you enough information, but if you then heard in another programme "mix in two hundred grams of almonds" you could make an informed guess than the word both phrases have in common is the one you want). If all you have is sound, though, it is much harder. If whenever a new voice starts they say the same word you could guess that was a greeting, but getting much further than that would be hard. --Tango (talk) 04:32, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't see how it's possible to learn an unfamiliar language by hearing it over and over. Even if you could pick up some words, with no visual aids how would you deduce what the other words meant? It would be as futile as trying to decipher Hieroglyphics without a Rosetta Stone. The TV approach has much better possibilities. Decades ago there was a series of books called [language] Through Pictures, with simple line-drawing illustrations captioned by phrases or sentences without otherwise directly explaining what the words meant (except in the glossary). A simple Spanish example would be a man indicating himself and saying Yo soy un hombre. Then a photo of a woman indicating herself and saying Yo soy una mujer. It wouldn't take much imagination to grasp that they were saying "I am a [man/woman]." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:48, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

You would have a little information about meaning, in terms of connecting words that are often heard together. For example if you often hear noun A and verb B together, you can be pretty sure that A = "apple" and B = "ride" is wrong. Although you might not ever be able to distinguish between A = "apple" and B = "eat" or A = "bus" and B = "ride". Even if you could keep very careful track of how words tend to sit in relationship to one another, there may still be many different plausible maps between words and concepts that would make sense. As you got more information you might be able to weed out choices, but there would likely be far more than you could reasonably keep track of, especially without being able to keep records. Rckrone (talk) 07:20, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I guess it separates into two questions:

• Is the information present to eventually produce a unique map between words and concepts that has a high likelihood of being correct?
• Could a human realistically perform this task, especially without anyway to record information or ideas besides their memory?

I think the answer to the second one is probably no. The first one I'm not sure about. Rckrone (talk) 07:38, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

i agree that it would seem impossible, except if both the foreign and native language had some root language , such as latin. i wonder how pigeon English is learned?91.125.34.20 (talk) 12:02, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

This would be most likely deemed cruel and unusual punishment if you tried such in the US. Googlemeister (talk) 15:03, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

If it appears to be a 24-hour radio show, he would soon pick up the words for "good morning" and "good evening", and if there appeared to be regular features like weather and traffic reports, he could pick up words for "rain", "breakdown", etc. If there were news bulletins which mentioned well-known foreign countries or cities, that would help too. If there were a man and a woman conversing in sexy-sounding voices, he could probably pick up "I love you". There are other expressions that he could probably guess the meaning of from the context, such as "Don't shout!" and personal pronouns from exchanges like: "Are you hungry?" "Yes, I am hungry.". All this would be a good starting point. -Ehrenkater (talk) 17:55, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

But as said above, he wouldn't pick those up because he wouldn't have the necessary cues and feedback to let him know what they meant. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:25, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Even with visual cues it cannot be taken for granted that he would understand. Consider the scenario from Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations that Stoppard based Dogg's Hamlet on.

I know you are asking about an adult, and language learning by adults is entirely different from how children learn language; but an observation reported by Stephen Pinker somewhere in The Language Instinct is nevertheless interesting. At one time deaf parents with hearing children were advised to let their children watch a lot of television, on the assumption that they would learn spoken language from it. According to Pinker, this did not work, apparently because the speech they heard had no relation to their immediate environment. --ColinFine (talk) 23:23, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Hmmmm. So, the opinion seems strongly that it would never happen. I just have this idea that the brain could somehow, somehow, eventually make sense of it all. We'll never know for sure without a real-life trial, though. Any volunteers? -- JackofOz (talk) 08:05, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Our article on Language deprivation experiments gives some historical and fictional examples, though again these are for babies. BrainyBabe (talk) 14:45, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

the true answer

JackofOz, you're right, and they're wrong. I'll tell you the real answer right now. The answer is: if the conversations come from Harvard's, Yale's, Oxford's, whoever's language faculty, written to be authentic, and then recorded in a studio by voice actors (or, equivalently, written by staff writers and voiced in a studio by sitcom actors), then the answer is never.

But if instead we take the man's ear, and continually, after a random amount of time in each place, connect it to a randomly chosen (this is important) site from among all locations on Earth in which utterances in the target language are being produced, have just been produced, or are about to be produced by native speakers, and we make it so that the man's (invisible) ear is now so he can hear these clearly (but he doesn't get to look or feel or smell, only listen), then he will "begin to understand" the conversation in as early as before the first syllable (before any utterance). How can you "begin to understand" a conversation that is about to take place? If the rest of what you hear makes it obvious you're probably at a cafe/restaurant (utensils clinking, distant laughter, cars outside), then you already understand that (probably) everything you are about to hear is appropriate for a cafe/restaurant (though you could be mistaken that it was a cafe/restaurant, however you would not always be and eventually you really would listen in one). Secondly, once he hears people talking, the condition above that he will hear for a random amount of time means that he just might get a chance to hear how they part, and eventually will. Likewise, there are only so many things he is likely to repeatedly hear a woman yelling out during coitus (which he will come upon sooner or later, so to speak). If all you hear is an orgasming woman screaming: "xireixyd! xireixyd! xireixyd! xireixyd! xiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiireixyd", a word you hear all the time anyway, for example as a short utterance the other person clearly pauses for, and upon hearing it continues talking, and at other times a person can comment the other's speech with xireixyd while the other person doesn't even stop talking, now you know what it means. The point is, if what the man listens to is a representative, random sample of the world at a location where native speakers are at the moment and have just talked, are talking, or are about to talk, and he gets to listen to them for a while but not so long that he is deprived of other contexts, then he WILL learn the language, guaranteed, and as for a literal answer to your question "how long would it be before he begins to understand" I would say: as early as before the first syllable, as listening to whatever context his ear happens to be teleported into counts for beginning to understand the speech he then hears. And no, all you other (wrong) readers, the above isn't tentative, it's reality. You want proof? I never told you what xireixyd means. 85.181.150.6 (talk) 20:13, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that ... interesting viewpoint. Yes, I imagine that greetings and farewells would be picked up soon enough, as they almost always start and begin conversations and don't occur in the middle. But I figure there's at least a million things people can be talking about while sitting in a restaurant. Just knowing they're in a restaurant gives you no clues about their conversation. As for knowing what they're about to say before they've uttered a syllable - I'm afraid you've completely lost me there. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:25, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

As for "interesting viewpoint", this isn't a viewpoint, it's the fact of the situation, it's the reality. It's the answer to your question. It boils down to: yes, there are things you can never find out, like what color "mauve" is exactly (I don't know). But for almost all things, you can find them out, it just might take you a hundred thousand hours. If the time is a few hundred years ago and the language you're listening in on is an eskimo one in a tribe that lives in isolation/has no contact with anything you recognize, you will never learn what the different fish are that they eat, and it might take you a hundred thousand hours before you catch a mother scaring the child by imitating a predator, and then using THAT WORD, that word you've heard so many times!!! Now you finally know that it's a ... polar bear? Whatever it is, it's something they always talk about, beats me why, but damn, it would have been nice to hear the mother imitating it about a hundred thousand hours ago (this is a faceslap moment) as you had no idea what they were talking about, all you've known is that they "say it like it's a bad thing", but you've really been scratching your head as to the specifics, could be anything from an ice storm to a disease for all you know. Until you finally hear the imitation. 85.181.150.6 (talk) 21:11, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

by the way, don't think you won't catch little kids asking what stuff means. they'll ask about anything! "dad, what's a traffic."

You say it's "fact" and "reality" - but how do you know? Has this ever been objectively tested, or is this simply your strongly held belief? -- JackofOz (talk) 21:22, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

has what been objectively tested? Learning in only a target language, and passively? Yes, it has. 85.181.150.6 (talk) 21:36, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd love to see some detailed information about that. Do you know where I can find it? -- JackofOz (talk) 21:49, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

IPA - terribly confused

I've been trying to work out how to pronounce things based on the IPA in articles, and have found myself distracted by a puzzle.

I was looking up some symbols in Wikipedia:IPA, and saw some had audio attached. To check I was getting the distinctions right, I clicked on the audio for:

[ ɒ ] RP cot

This sounded just like the vowel I have in caught. But I don't have the cot-caught merger, I speak something RP/Estuary-ish. So then I wondered what the symbol was for the actual vowel I have in cot, but I can't see one for it. I had a look at what we have on the cot-caught merger, and it says:

But in Received Pronunciation, there are three sounds distinguished: the long /ɑː/ of cart, the long /ɔː/ of caught, and the short rounded /ɒ/ of cot.

I can imagine a very marbles-in-mouth accent using the vowel in that audio for cot, but then what is the symbol for my short 'o'? I'm a bit too overwhelmed with the symbols to look efficiently, especially as some of the symbols have strange relationships with English spelling conventions. 86.142.230.196 (talk) 02:59, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I think that audio file is an "open back rounded vowel" as the title says it is, but it is a long one. The vowel in "cot" is a short one. So in RP (which I speak), "cot" has [ ɒ ], but the symbol for the vowel in that audio file is [ ɒː ], that is a longer version of the same vowel. The vowel in "caught" is [ ɔː ], which is very similar (but slightly further forward) to [ ɒː ]. The main difference between [ ɔː ] and [ ɒ ], however, is the length (the former is still further forward than the latter, but that is much less noticeable than the length). --Tango (talk) 04:44, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Maybe it's just that I can't hear the difference, but that long open back rounded vowel sounds like my vowel in "caught" ("awe") which feels like it's using the front/middle of my tongue (making is further forward?) and has my lips in an "oo" position, whereas the "o" in my "cot" uses the back of my tongue (making it further back?) and is less dependant on my lips. So, if I'm understanding you right, the vowel in my "cot" is indeed 'further back' than the vowel in my "caught", but if I lengthen my "cot" vowel I don't get the vowel in that audio file.

I can imagine RP accents that do have that vowel in cot, and I'm prepared for the possibility that I'm just hearing it wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm using a further-back vowel: it has more of an "omicron-ish" nature, rather than the more "a-ish" "awe" vowel in "caught". Is there a symbol and audio of a short, further-back "o" vowel so I can listen for the difference? 86.139.237.65 (talk) 19:21, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

What kind of a food is Wikipedia?

Many of us have seen the menus that offer Wikipedia to eat, such as page 4 of this menu (linked by the Signpost) or the menu pictured here. Can any readers of Chinese tell me the actual meaning of the word(s) translated "wikipedia"? Nyttend (talk) 05:10, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

The Beijing menu is a joke; whoever was translating gave the name Wikipedia to a type of fungus. I can't find Wikipedia on the Massachusetts menu, though. DOR (HK) (talk) 05:29, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

[1] 花椒牛腩 or Beef brisket with Sichuan pepper F (talk) 12:24, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

花椒牛腩 is a Chinese delicalcy that anyone can eat it. It is maid from sliced Wales. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:55, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Shoogun Froid

I am interested in learning the meaning of the term SHOOGUN FROID. I am not certain of the spelling. My impression is that it refers to some type of situational delemma. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.155.78.24 (talk) 14:02, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps Schaudenfreude? --LarryMac | Talk 14:19, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Or even Schadenfreude? --ColinFine (talk) 23:27, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I bet you took great pleasure in pointing out LarryMac's unfortunate error, didn't you, Colin? BrainyBabe (talk) 14:47, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Personally I took great pleasure in picturing Freud decked out in samurai armor. :) Rckrone (talk) 19:32, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

don't I at least get props for decoding the title phrase within 17 minutes of the original post? --LarryMac | Talk 20:15, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Another Middle English word definition

What is the meaning of "meseles" which is either Middle English or perhaps more likely Medieval English? I know it is NOT measles. --64.138.237.101 (talk) 18:52, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

As always, you'd get a better answer if you gave the context in which you found the word. Middle English spelling was all over the place, and it's often difficult to identify a word in isolation, since forms of different words could be spelled the same. That said, the most likely answer is that it means "lepers". Deor (talk) 20:10, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I immediately thought "lepers" too, since "mezel" is "leper" in Old French. Looks like an obvious loanword. Adam Bishop (talk) 04:39, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Apparently it means "infested with tapeworms"[2] (good old Google). It also seems to be a fairly common surname; "Aha, Mr Infested With Tapeworms I believe!" Alansplodge (talk) 12:25, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

The OP says it is not measles, and I take it on trust that the unspecified context that led to this query is indeed measles-free . However, the OED lists "meseles" as an alternate spelling for measles, along with so many others that I got itchy just looking at them:

Forms: . (In plural form) ME maseles, ME meazeles, ME meseles, ME mesellis, ME meselyn, ME-16 mesels, 15 maisils, 15 massels, 15 maysilles, 15 meselles, 15 mesells, 15-16 masels, 15-16 measells, 15-16 measels, 15- measles, 16 maisels, 16 mazels, 16 measills, 16 measils, 16 meazelles, 16 meazells, 16 meazills, 16 meazils, 16 meezles, 16-17 meazels, 16-17 meazles, 17 meassles; Brit. regional 18 mezzils; Sc. pre-17 meassalls, pre-17 meaxells, pre-17 meazles, pre-17 mesels, pre-17 mesillis, pre-17 meslis, pre-17 messillis, pre-17 missells, pre-17 missels, pre-17 missillis, 17 meszels, 17 missellis, 18 maisles, 18 mezzles, 18- mizzles.. (In singular form) ME masyl, ME mazil, ME mesel, ME mesell, ME meselle, ME mesylle, 15 measel, 15 mesill, 15 mesyll, 15-16 meazell, 16 measill, 16 meazeall, 16 meazil, 16 meazle, 18 mizzle (Sc.), 18- measle

Not a measly haul. (The oldest OED citation for "measly", by the way, backs up the tapeworm hypothesis: "Esp. of a pig, or pork: affected with cysticercosis".) BrainyBabe (talk) 15:01, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I wonder if the French word had other meanings...it comes from Latin "misellus" which just means any sort of miserable person. If it could mean diseased in general, maybe that's how it came to mean something else in English. Adam Bishop (talk) 17:22, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I didn't think that a citation was going to be needed to back up my response, but the relevant entry in the MED can be viewed here. Deor (talk) 17:25, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Van Gogh

I have looked in the archives and cannot find an answer. I would like to know the correct pronunciation of van Gogh, i.e. how the painter himself would have said it. major difference between the atlantic Sea. I wonder whether this is an influence of the French accent on his name. Would love it if a Dutchman could write and tell me the correct pronunciation. Thanks --91.125.34.20 (talk) 20:21, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not Dutch, but I can tell you the Dutch pronunciation, and it's neither the American "van go" nor the British "van goff". It's "van ghokh" (in IPA, [van ɣɔx]), where "kh" (IPA [x]) stands for the sound found in words like "loch" and "chutzpah", and "gh" (IPA [ɣ]) stands for the same sound but voiced. There's actually a lengthy note about the pronunciation of his name, including sound files at Vincent van Gogh#cite note-1. +Angr 21:06, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

not sure how to reference the pronounciation from Wikipedia .On a wikipedia entry the Dutch way is to miss the G and pronoune the ogh as och in loch. there is a pronunciation on audio file. However it states there is contradictory evidence that Van Gogh was from Brabant and would have pronounced it differently. Any help out there, any Dutch? --91.125.34.20 (talk) 21:31, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

You can visit Dutch Public Radio: Zoek | Omroep.nl: "vincent+van+gogh" and listen to results of your choice from the column at the right-hand side of the page. -- Wavelength (talk) 00:39, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

According to our article, the Brabant dialect pronunciation of his last name would be [vɑɲˈʝɔç]. There is really no way to achieve that pronunciation using only sounds that occur in English. You will need to go to our article on IPA for guidance on how to pronounce those consonants. Marco polo (talk) 01:43, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Using comma

Isabella, Ferdinand and Francis

Which of these sentences (if any) is correct regarding the usage of commas:

• Isabella and Ferdinand, together with their cousin, Duke Francis II of Brittany, planned the alliance of their respective heirs.
• Isabella and Ferdinand, together with their cousin Duke Francis II of Brittany planned the alliance of their respective heirs.

I believe the first sentence is correct, but English is not my first language and I am not sure. In Bosnian, the first sentence would be correct and the second wouldn't. Surtsicna (talk) 21:42, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I also believe the first one is correct. The second one definitely isn't, as there needs to be something (a comma, a dash, or a parenthesis) to introduce Francis' name. Xenon54 / talk / 21:47, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I would have gone with a third option:

• Isabella and Ferdinand, together with their cousin Duke Francis II of Brittany, planned the alliance of their respective heirs.

I think this is easiest to read. +Angr 21:52, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree. If there's a comma before "together", there must be one after "Brittany". You could get away with no commas at all, or two, but not just one. -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 01:02, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Another option would be:

• Isabella and Ferdinand — together with their cousin, Duke Francis II of Brittany — planned the alliance of their respective heirs.

Setting off the dashes is more appropriate in this case if Francis played a lesser part than Isabella and Ferdinand. I don't know the history here, so I can't speak to whether this would be a good idea. Nyttend (talk) 22:29, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the first is correct. The option with dashes is also a good option. The difficulty is that we have a dependent clause within (and the end of) another dependent clause. If we used something like brackets to delimit clauses it would be clear:

• Isabella and Ferdinand (together with their cousin (Duke Francis II of Brittany)) planned the alliance of their respective heirs.

But, since we use commas, you can't make it clear that the 2nd comma is beginning a new clause and that both clauses end at the same time. The dashes help since they allow you to use different punctuation to delimit each clause (it would be even better if we could use a comma and a dash after the name to explicitly close the inner clause, but the English language doesn't allow that - it isn't entirely necessary, anyway, since you can't have overlapping clauses). --Tango (talk) 00:02, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Since the comma in English is used for stylistic and grammatical purposes, the both sentences seem correct.

On the question of the grammatical aspect, the problem on the first sentence is the constriction of the word ‘together’ as an adjective in the phrase ‘with their cousin’. The problem on the second sentence is that hearers usually register the modifier ‘together’ as an adjective subconsciously, though ‘together’ is an adverb (which modifies the verb ‘planed’). So I think the adverb must move closer to the verb without any commas in the sentence. --Mihkaw napéw (talk) 02:59, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

According to The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed., 6.43: Appositives with or without commas. A word, abbreviation, phrase, or clause that is in apposition to a noun is set off by commas if it is nonrestrictive—that is, omittable, containing supplementary rather than essential information. If it is restrictive—essential to the noun it belongs to—no commas should appear.

The committee chair, Gloria Ruffolo, called for a resolution.

Stanley Groat, president of the corporation, spoke first.

Sheila Fitzpatrick, PhD, introduced the speaker.

Ursala's husband, Clifford, had been a student of Norman Maclean's. (In informal prose, "Ursala's husband Clifford had . . ." is acceptable.)

My older sister, Betty, taught me the alphabet.

but

My sister Enid lets me hold her doll. (I have two sisters.)

O'Neill's play The Hairy Ape was being revived. (O'Neill wrote several plays.) —Wayward ^Talk 10:21, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

So we have to know whether or not Isabella and Ferdinand had other cousins beside Duke Francis II of Brittany before we can decide how to punctuate the sentence? +Angr 10:48, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I would have to disagree with the above; on the "restrictive" issue, Chicago seems to be either wrong, or overly prescriptive. People use stuff like "My sister Enid..." all the time, regardless of how many sisters they have, because it sounds less awkward than "My sister, Enid,..."; and the "I have two sisters" interpretation is not the first one that comes to my mind for this sentence. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 14:57, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

As to Wayward's comment, I think the sentences were little bit overworked; there are not any appositives. An example of an apposition would be: Duke Francis II of Brittany, the cousin of Isabella and Ferdinand,....

On the question of restrictiveness or non-restrictiveness, yes; an other issue whether the modifier uniquely identifies the noun it modifies or provides essential information (as stated in your miscellaneous examples).--Mihkaw napéw (talk) 17:07, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that Isabella (ruler of Castile) and Ferdinand (ruler of Aragon) were one party at the negotiations and Francis (ruler of Brittany) was another party. Isabella and Ferdinand negotiated marriage between their child and Francis's child, so I don't think that the following sentence would be fine: Isabella and Ferdinand (together with their cousin (Duke Francis II of Brittany)) planned the alliance of their respective heirs. Ferdinand did not plan the alliance of his heir and Isabella's heir while Francis helped them; Ferdinand's heir was Isabella's heir, so the Catholic Monarchs (as Ferdinand and Isabella were known for expelling non-Catholics from their realms) and Francis planned the marriage of their heirs. Perhaps replacing Isabella and Ferdinand with the Catholic Monarchs would solve the problem. Surtsicna (talk) 21:57, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

A's name, A's title, and B's name

I find sentences like these all over Wikipedia: He was the second child of Richard of Conisburgh, 3rd Earl of Cambridge and Anne Mortimer. I have a strong feeling that there should be a comma after Cambridge: He was the second child of Richard of Conisburgh, 3rd Earl of Cambridge, and Anne Mortimer. However, there are so many sentences similar to the one I quoted (eg. Charles, Prince of Wales is the son of Elizabeth II instead of Charles, Prince of Wales, is the son of Elizabeth II) that I am not sure anymore. Surtsicna (talk) 21:51, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

You're right. It's a common mistake but it's still a mistake and one that can easily confuse readers. Unfortunately, it's about as easy to eradicate as the equally inaccurate use of "however" as a pseudo-pretentious synonym of the word "but". --NellieBly (talk) 11:27, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I think this is being (or has been recently) discussed at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. I think that there should clearly be commas on both sides of such appositional phrases, in this case titles. Otherwise Barack Obama becomes President of Mrs. Obama in "Barack Obama, President of the United States of America and Michelle Obama" (compared to "Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland"). There are two slightly trickier questions about whether one puts commas after years in full dates and after states in city-state combinations. "Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961, and attended schools in Hawaii, Kansas and Indonesia." I think succeeding commas are called for in both cases, but some feel they make sentences too choppy. —— Shakescene (talk) 23:05, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Then, though the use of parentheses is now being avoided in modern writings, in order to avoid the choppiness of a sentence, the solution is the use of parentheses for two reasons: a) parentheses have no grammatical rules in a sentence as in commas, b) parentheses avoid the grammatical interconnectivities of a sentence.

I think the commas on the following sentences can be replaced with parentheses for better grammatical correctness:

Isabella and Ferdinand with their cousin (Duke Francis II of Brittany) together planned the alliance of their respective heirs.

He was the second child of Richard of Conisburgh (3rd Earl of Cambridge) and Anne Mortimer.

And the comma (bolded) on the sentence bellow is a style comma; neither of grammar nor of manual style (e.g. Chicago, MLA, APA).

Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961, and attended schools in Hawaii, Kansas and Indonesia.

--Mihkaw napéw (talk) 03:29, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean when you say it's a "style comma" but not a "manual of style" comma. In fact, the Chicago Manual of Style does say that in the month-day-year order of giving dates, there needs to be a comma both before and after the year: "The ship sailed on October 6, 1999, for Southamption", "The April 1, 2000, press conference elicited little new information". (However, in the day-month-year style, no commas are needed: "See his journal entries of 6 October 1999 and 4 January 2000", which to this American is a good argument in favor of the day-month-year style.) +Angr 12:11, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Wait, your evidence that is it not a "manual of style" comma comes from it being a comma recommended in a manual of style? 86.149.189.52 (talk) 13:13, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

A style comma (an idiosyncratic speech sometimes) is an interruption in an utterance that causes no grammatical errors. A manual of style is a conventionalized set of rules in speech (for wittings). For example, the sentence "Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961, and attended schools in Hawaii, Kansas and Indonesia." has two sets of series rules in the manuals of styles; one is for ‘date and time’ and for series of three or more words, phrases, or clauses is the other. That is, Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961 is one series (with the ‘date and time’ rule) and and attended schools in Hawaii, Kansas and Indonesia is the other (with a series rule, but it has only two series). And the latter clause is not an independent clause for coordinative conjunction to be used with a grammatical comma. Is this correct Angr?--Mihkaw napéw (talk) 17:49, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Right, the comma before the "and" isn't there to separate two independent clauses, since what follows isn't a complete clause. If the sentence were "Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, and he attended schools in Hawaii, Kansas, and Indonesia", then the comma in bold would separate the second independent clause from the first. +Angr 18:06, 14 November 2009 (UTC)