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November 5

Threat?

I have a question. What could be considered a threat? Here are some possibilities:

• If you touch that cord, I will make you regret it.
• Ricardo, if I ever hear you talking about Keynes's opinions again, I'm going to close this classical thread.
• Don't come close to me, or else I'm going to scream.

I think all 3 of these things are threats. Some are worse than others (I'd rank 1st, 3rd, and 2nd, in terms of "threath seriousness"). What do the rest of you think? Can anyone provide me a good definition for "threat"?

Thanks in advance.--MarshalN20 | ^Talk 03:04, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

There is obviously a fine line between a "threat" and a "promise". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:41, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Often dictionaries are good with definitions: "A declaration of an intention or determination to inflict punishment, injury, etc., in retaliation for, or conditionally upon, some action or course." Threats can be conditional statements (if X, then Y) or they can omit the conditional with the assumption that the conditions have already been met.

By the way, Bugs, I find the distinction between threat and promise to be disengenuous. Threats and promises are not mutually exclusive from each other. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:49, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

That would be the point. In essence, they are the same thing: a pledge to take action of some kind. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:59, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

... except that a threat is always a pledge to do something bad, whereas a promise may be (and often is) a pledge to do something good. Mitch Ames (talk) 09:25, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

... except when someone says, "That's not a threat, it's a promise!" Which is what I was originally alluding to. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:23, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

If a sadist said to a masochist that he/she (the sadist) was going to deny him/her (the masochist) sexual favours, that could be said to be a threat from the sadist's perspective, and a promise from the masochist's perspective. -- JackofOz (talk) 09:33, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. So, based on what has been argued here, the 3 statements I posted could be considered threats (or promises, which depends on perspective). Yes, dictionaries are good with definitions, but the discussion here was better.--MarshalN20 | ^Talk 13:20, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Sometimes there is a fine line between a "threat" and a "warning". "Warning" meaning a statement that is made in order to protect someone. -- Irene1949 (talk) 22:55, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, that just makes it a tad more confusing. Wouldn't a "warning" be something along the lines of the common Wiki warning: "Please don't vandalize articles in Wikipedia, further disruptive behavior may result in a block." The effective uses of "please" and "may" are effective ways of warning without being threatening, but the three options I originally posted at the start of this discussion are not warnings (they're threats). Or, does anybody have another opinion?--MarshalN20 | ^Talk 23:05, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I imagine that one may "warn" (as opposed to threaten) of both potential (rather than absolute) negative consequences as well as those that are not caused by the speaker (e.g. Don't play in the street or you'll get run over). — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 00:07, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I think that it is the intention which makes the difference between a warning and a threat. A statement like "If you do A, then B may happen to you" is a warning when it is made in order to protect someone from B–and it is a threat when it is made in order to prevent someone from doing A. It is possible that a statement is a warning and a threat: somebody might dislike A just as B. For exemple, a wikipedian might dislike disruptive behavior just as he dislikes blocks. -- Irene1949 (talk) 19:04, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Old Norse

I'm curious about the meaning of the *, R and RR symbols I found in a lot of Old Norse given names and common words. For example: *SvartgæiRR, HrókR, ÁvæiRR. Do they have a specific influence on pronunciation? --151.51.14.218 (talk) 11:09, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

The * will be asterisk#Historical linguistics. Algebraist 11:16, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

The R is the transliteration of the Younger Futhark rune "yr" (an upside-down algiz), which represented a sound that is reconstructed as z in Proto-Germanic but is spelled r in Old Norse texts written with the Latin alphabet rather than runes. It's uncertain what its exact pronunciation was; all we know is that it's a sound that used to be /z/ and later turned into /r/. +Angr 14:36, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Spanish Main

Does the Spanish have an equivalent for the English Spanish Main? (By the way, I don't find a Spanish Wikipedia. Is there one?)--Omidinist (talk) 12:36, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

In answer to your second question, the Spanish Wikipedia can be found here. You can get to it from Wikipedia's main page and clicking on the bit where it says 'Español' on the right. --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 12:41, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Anthony Trollope's book The West Indies and the Spanish Main seems to be translated in Spanish as Las Indias occidentales y el continente español. Actually, continente means continent, mainland, but not coast, so I'm not very sure about it. --151.51.14.218 (talk) 13:15, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

The English is a romantic phrase without equivalent in Spanish, AFAIK. I've only ever heard it referred to it as las costas del Caribe, even with reference to pirates and the like. Continente in the context above obviously doesn't refer to the coastline at all, and perhaps shows the English phrase to be understood as a descriptor for the whole region. mikaul^talk 19:34, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

So far, so good. Thank you all people. More comments are welcome. --Omidinist (talk) 19:43, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Tierra Firme.[1] —eric 20:23, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Tierra firme is a general nautical term. Maybe tierra firme de las Indias Occidentales can be an option. As it has been said, there is no direct equivalent in common use. Up to now, the most precise term in general use I have found is es:cuenca del Caribe, but I'm not convinced. :( 200.49.224.88 (talk) 22:21, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

The central response is that there is no direct translation to Spanish Main. Las costas del Caribe español (The coasts of the Spanish Caribbean) is the closest translation.--MarshalN20 | ^Talk 23:08, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I've seen "Tierra Firme" used on some maps as an appareant equivalent for "Spanish Main". --Lazar Taxon (talk) 05:23, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Switching syllables in two words to comic effect

I'm scratching my head here, because I should know this, and it's on the tip of my tongue... What's the term used when someone switches syllables in two words giving an amusing result? One of the anchors on the BBC just said "snifer riples" instead of "sniper rifles" and for the life of me, I can't think of the term. -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 21:22, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Spoonerism. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 21:27, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I knew that I knew it. -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 21:49, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd've said that was wrong. While some people use the word in an extended sense, a real spoonerism is a swap of the initial sounds -- in this case giving "riper snifles", which isn't bad either! The general term for a switching-around of sounds is metathesis, a word that (considering that the accent is on the "tath", not the "the") might be quite a bit easier to pronounce if some metathesis was applied to it... --Anonymous, 04:32 UTC, November 6, 2009.

Wow! I've never seen two apostrophes in the same word. Is that grammatical? Clarityfiend (talk) 05:32, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Wiktionary describes that one as nonstandard. However, forecastle can be contracted with three apostrophes as "fo'c's'le", and this you will find in dictionaries. --Anonymous, 07:58 UTC, November 6, 2009.

Interesting. It might not be suitable for professional writing (which may explain why it's described as "nonstandard"), but in a film script or play text, it could be very appropriate, and I'd've thought there's no better way of writing it. -- JackofOz (talk) 08:08, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I was curious what other languages called this. Most have their own native terms, but Turkish has just "spoonerism", and Polish has "spuneryzm", while Russian has "cпунеризм" (spunerizm). -- JackofOz (talk) 22:39, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

If you go to the spoonerism article and look at the links to other languages down the left-hand side (below the toolbox and stuff) you can see the names for whatever language currently have a WP article like this. (If you hover your mouse over each language, you should be able to see the name in a tooltip, status bar, or whatever, depending on your browser.) Some appear to be transliterations of the word "spoonerism", whereas others have their own words (like 'Antistrofe', etc.). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:00, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Yep, that's how I got the results I reported above. -- JackofOz (talk) 00:55, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

It's the first time I heard of the word spuneryzm in Polish. If it's actually used, then only in specialist literature, but the common expression is gra półsłówek (literally: "play of half-words"), the spoonerism of which is sra półgłówek ("a dimwit is shitting"). Kpalion 194.39.218.10 (talk) 12:02, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

The Polish article acknowledges gra półsłówek. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:53, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Such things are also common parts of word games in other languages, such as Verlan and backslang —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.56.65.25 (talk) 01:55, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Verlan and backslang both apply within a single word, whereas spoonerisms are generally switching sounds across two words. They also have different stylistic effects—spoonerisms are usually either slips-of-the-tongue, or jokes; verlan is a form of slang that is used in all seriousness. Back slang isn't really used except in a couple words that have already been lexicalized. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 02:48, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

November 6

Dumb words and expressions

Sort of related to the above question. There's a suite of words and expressions that have achieved currency here, originally as jokes or casual colloquialisms, but I'm hearing them more and more, and for some people they're almost at the point of replacing their originals. Examples include "ginormous" (a hybrid of "gigantic" and "enormous"), "Brisvegas" (apparently coined in a nod to Las Vegas when Brisbane gained its first casino), "Taswegian" for Tasmanian, "one foul swoop" (instead of "one fell swoop"). And many others. I don't know how one might classify these other than as "words and expressions that some dickheads constantly and irritatingly use". Is there a more professional way of describing them? -- JackofOz (talk) 04:33, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

They're a sort of mix of different word formation processes. Ginormous and Brisvegas are examples of blending and I know that one foul swoop is an eggcorn. I'm not sure what Taswegian is an example of; it might also be a blend.

Unfortunately, there's no objective classification of your examples. One man's dick-head term is another man's vocabulary choice. What do you make of burger or the use of fridge for any refrigerator that isn't a Frigidaire? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 05:13, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd assume that "Taswegian" is a blend of "Tasmania" and "Glaswegian", suggested by the rhyme, although I don't know enough about mainland Australians' views of Tasmanians or English folks' views of Scots/Glaswegians to know whether there is some disparagement intended. Deor (talk) 05:30, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

'Ginormous', 'Brisvegas', and 'Taswegian' are all meant to be humorous, or at least slightly amusing. Other words that would probably bother you, besides the aforementioned eggcorns, would be unnecessary or redundant back-formations, most notably orientate. —Akrabbim^talk 05:33, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd always assumed - and the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary agrees - that fridge is simply an abreviation of refrigerator, not derived from a particular brand name. Thus presumably it might once have been ’fridge’, with apostrophes indicating the missing letters (much like influenza -> ’flu’ -> flu), although note that the fridge has an extra letter "d" in it. Mitch Ames (talk) 05:44, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

"Ginormous" is a great word. I accidentally said that to one of my thesis advisors and he gave me a funny look, but didn't say anything, heh. Adding "Vegas" to a dinky little town is kind of common, and doesn't always have anything to do with a casino. I've heard the little town of Strathroy, Ontario referred to as "Strathvegas", for example (just as a sarcastic remark about how dinky and unglamourous it is). Adam Bishop (talk) 05:52, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't know where Adam Bishop is from (too lazy to look at userpages right now) but I've also heard this used for dinky little towns. Around here, Morrisville, Vermont (article?) is referred to as "MoVegas". Dismas|^(talk) 06:22, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

'Taswegian' seems to be used by Tasmanians and mainlanders alike, without anything pejorative intended. The first few times you hear it, it's slightly amusing, but after that ... I never knew whether it's connected to 'Glaswegian' or 'Norwegian', to both, or neither. There are far more people of Scots descent in Australia than of Norwegian descent, but apart from that I can't see any obvious connection between Glasgow and Tasmania. It seems to hook into an Australian penchant for finding ways of saying things in a non-standard way (but the new way then becomes the standard for a lot of people - which doesn't seem to matter because anything goes, as long as they're not being seen to be kowtowing to authority, except the peer group they wish to be associated with, i.e kowtow to). I'd guess that very few people who regularly use this expression have ever asked themselves "Why am I saying 'Taswegian', rather than 'Tasmanian', other than because other people are saying it?" -- JackofOz (talk) 05:57, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Sadly, "eggcorns" are all too common and annoying for language pedants (no names mentioned...) One that seems to have a fair deal of currency here that makes me wince every time is "the proof is in the pudding". As for the blendings/conflations, the constant reference to all political scandals as "X-gate" and all film industries as "X-llywood" (e.g., Bollywood, Wellywood) wears a bit thin after a while... Grutness...wha? 08:42, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

And "the devil is in the detail", and somebody has "signed off on" some proposal, and "we've done the hard yards". Oh, they're endlessly mindless and mindlessly endless. -- JackofOz (talk) 08:56, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Would that be a Tasmanian devil in those details? Come to think of it, has the use of "Tasmanian" as an adjective for an animal influenced the use of a different term to apply to the people? Contrast that with Canadian people and Canada geese. The latter are often mistakenly called Canadian geese, as if they were citizens, eh? As for words like "ginormous", that's kind of a portmanteau, as Lewis Carroll's Humpty Dumpty explained to Alice about words like "chortle", which is a combination of snort and chuckle. I looked for "fridge" in my old Webster's, and it's not there - so the unanswered question now is whether "fridge" came before or after "Frigidaire". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:31, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Or independently? As a Briton I've seen plenty of fridges but never a Frigidaire, and it might explain the Webster's/Oxford difference. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 14:38, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

The wikipedia article, as well as this one[2] indicate that the Frigidaire was the first commercial refrigerator. Wiktionary is of no help, as it basically says "we need an answer". I've got a hunch that Frigidaire became synonymous with refrigerator, and hence "fridge" actually stands for both of them. Like "Victrola" as a synonym for "record player", even if it was a Columbia Grafonola, for example. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:53, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

But if the brand name didn't cross the Atlantic either as effectively or until much later, it's not inconceivable that the slang would develop independently of it. I've not heard of a Victrola either, but I'm not willing to rule out being born after their demise as a reason for that. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 15:04, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Ironically, although "Hoover" is an American brand, it's never used by Americans as a generic term for a vacuum cleaner. 99.166.95.142 (talk) 17:11, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I brought up fridge as an example of a brand name being applied to similar products made by other companies. Other examples include xerox, iPod, and possibly Tivo. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 23:23, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I think Jack is just noticing the normal progress of language. I don't think it's uniquely Australian, since I see it happening all the time in the UK. Even online: I now find I default to 'internets' rather than 'internet', which is slightly scary. Different language fits different registers, and a lot of these words and phrases that start out as clever jokes become gently humorous or light-hearted markers that indicate light-heartedness of the conversation. They aren't necessarily meant to be funny any more, just indicators that the conversation is in a lighter register. 86.142.224.71 (talk) 15:06, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

That makes a lot of sense, thanks 86.142. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:50, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

isn't the original question's classification of people who use such words itself dumb and irritating?--80.189.132.211 (talk) 17:08, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps. That's why I was after a more appropriate description of these forms of expression. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:50, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Is the following sentece acceptable?

I would like to know English native speakers opinion about the acceptability or grammaticality of the following sentence:

For what did you hit me?

Thanks 121.242.23.197 (talk) 11:43, 6 November 2009 (UTC)Vineet Chaitanya

It's not really acceptable. You would say "What did you hit me for?" or "Why did you hit me?" instead. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 11:58, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Very technically, you aren't supposed to end a sentence with a preposition, such as for, but almost all native speakers I know ignore that rule when speaking. Falconus^{p t c} 12:15, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

For very good reason, as there is not, and never has been, any such "rule". AndrewWTaylor (talk) 16:39, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Andrew beat me to this: it's not a rule. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 20:52, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

It's back-to-front, but in terms of being understandable it's fine. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 12:19, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

"For what did you hit me?" would be considered a funny way to say it, by someone being pretentious or something. There's a quote somewhere about Winston Churchill being criticized for his grammar, for ending a sentence with a preposition, and responding that that was a complaint "up with which I will not put!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:21, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Looking at Language Log for what they say on ending sentences with prepositions, I found this investigation of that anecdote.

On topic, Language Log unsurprisingly says that it's perfectly fine to end sentences with prepositions. They quote The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (co-written by a Language Logger) saying the rule against ending sentences with prepositions is a made up one,

"apparently created ex nihilo in 1672 by the essayist John Dryden, who took exception to Ben Jonson's phrase the bodies that those souls were frighted from (1611). Dryden was in effect suggesting that Jonson should have written the bodies from which those souls were frighted, but he offers no reason for preferring this to the original."[3]

AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 14:27, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

The Churchill quote is fun, but apocryphal. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:34, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the sentence can be understood easily as it is than if it were grammatically correct. However, the sentence is grammatically incorrect. That is: a) if ‘for’ is a preposition, it cannot begin with an interrogation; b) if ‘for’ is a particle, it has to follow the verb in order to complete the sentence. Allthough if a deixis can be understood anaphorically as an ellipsis, but here again, the ‘wh’ interrogation ‘what’ is not a correct semantic substitution. Is this correct?--Mihkaw napéw (talk) 17:46, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Either I'm misunderstanding you, or almost all of that comment is wrong. First of all, the sentence is not grammatically incorrect (see my other comment below). Secondly, a prepositional phrase can begin an interrogative sentence ("With whom did you go to the party?"—slightly uppity, but not awkward like the 'for what' sentence here). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 21:07, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment. You are correct. However, a preposition does not always not act as a prepositional phrase, i.e. it can be of verb particle, ect. And the question and many comments here are about the treatment of ‘for what’ in the context of an interrogation. So my comment was that a preposition cannot begin an interrogation. However, a prepositional phrase does. Let me simplify this further. That is, ‘whom’ is a pronoun but ‘for what’ as it is mentioned here for ‘why’ is not a pronoun. Is this makes sense now, or do you have further comment?--Mihkaw napéw (talk) 22:18, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

If something is acting as a particle, then it's not a preposition, it's a particle. And in any case, I don't see how that's relevant, as the "for what", "for what reason", "for whom", and whatever other thing you use in this sentence is a prepositional phrase. Structurally (i.e., from a word category point of view]], "for what" and "for whom" are absolutely no different. The difference is semantic: they're both prepositional phrases made up of a preposition head and a noun complement (in this case, a wh-word). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:04, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Let me ask you this question. Can you begin an interrogation in English with any prepositions plus ‘why’ like, in why…, to why…, with why…, etc.? However, the answer is, yes, if there is pronoun like, what, whom, etc. Why do you think these are different?--Mihkaw napéw (talk) 00:35, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Again, yes, a question can begin with a preoposition. More specifically, a question can begin with a prepositional phrase, and a prepositional phrase begins with a preposition. (For example: "At the football game, what did you eat?") rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:32, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Your first sentence doesn't really make sense to me: I'm not sure what you were trying to say. As to "what for": "what" by itself would not be the correct interrogative word, but "what for" means the same as "why", as does the archaic "wherefore". Using "what for", or "for what" as the sample sentence does, is unusual and sounds slightly arch, but is understandable and grammatical to a native speaker. However, it would be more natural (and pretty common) to separate them as "What did you hit me for?". 86.142.224.71 (talk) 18:35, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

it would seem that the passage is arranged so forth because it is archaic. the other would be for emphasis. 'For what' would ask the reason directly why you hit someone- for what gain, for what purpose. i would agree with the text on one point- that is the contextual use of 'wherefore' by Shakespeare in "Romeo and Juliet" which indeed asks why are you Romeo and not where Romeo is. 80.189.132.211 (talk) 20:38, 6 November 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.189.132.211 (talk) 20:36, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

It's possible to ask "For what reason did you hit me?", but "For what did you hit me?", while comprehensible, is ungrammatical. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:45, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

If you find "For what did you hit me?" ungrammatical, what do you think of the (twice) suggested "What did you hit me for?" -- 128.104.112.237 (talk) 20:57, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I have no issue with that. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:34, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

@JackofOz: it's not ungrammatical. It's just bad. The grammatical structure itself is fine (real ungrammatical would be something like "Max's of pizza" or "He's in the going").

@ 128.104.112.237: it's just like people said, "what did you hit me for is fine". More specifically, "what for" (or "what...for") in English generally means the same as "why". But "for what" can't be extended like that. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 21:04, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

In many European languages, the question "why" is expressed as "what for"/"for what". English is a bit of an exception in having a distinct word. Vadför?, pourquoi?, почему?/зачто?, perche?, ¿porqué? So it would be quite natural for a learner to construct "For what...?". But in English For what did you hit me? would be understood as "for what thing" not "for what reason". It could be answered by "For a bet" or "For you kissing my girlfriend just now" or "For a hundred dollars". Not a usual construction. Sussexonian (talk) 21:47, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

"Not ungrammatical", Rjanag?: It's certainly not prescriptively grammatical, and it's such an unusual formulation that it would hardly have been recorded descriptively. So how does it get to be grammatical? You say it's grammatical but "bad"; I say it's comprehensible but ungrammatical. Maybe we're really agreeing without appearing to. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:34, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't violate any grammatical rule. It has a well-formed prepositional phrase ("for what") acting as an adjunct, and the rest of its structure is also well-formed. The reason it's awkward is that the preposition phrase "for what" doesn't have the meaning you want it to. As a linguistic example, it would probably be written with a # mark rather than a *. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:00, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I am a non-native of English, and I think the expression is a ellipsis in colloquial English. In grammar, it can be:

• For what purpose did you hit me?--purpose in question
• Why did you hit me?--reason in question. Nevill Fernando (talk) 04:18, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

No, it's not ellipsis. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 04:50, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the helpful comments. By the way, "For what did" occurs some 3 to 4 times in the corpus at http://www.americancorpus.org 121.242.23.197 (talk) 11:16, 8 November 2009 (UTC)Vineet Chaitanya

Medieval word meaning

What is the meaning and etymology of "discryued" and "discryuying"? 64.138.237.101 (talk) 13:17, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

What is the context? Looks like an alternate spelling of "describe", with a V instead of a B (and with the V spelled as U). Adam Bishop (talk) 13:40, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

In this[4] comparison between Old, Middle and Early Modern English (BCP), "discryued" is translated as "taxed".Alansplodge (talk) 13:47, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

There it's used in translating the Latin "ut describeretur universus orbis" and "haec descriptio prima facta est praeside Syriae Cyrino", referring to the taking of the census (for the purpose of taxation). The basic meaning of the Latin and the English is nonetheless "described" and "description"—although a better translation might be "enrolled" in this case. An example of a more normal use is The Assembly of Ladies, ll. 512–13: "Of this lady hir beauties to discryve / My konning is to symple verily." Deor (talk) 14:05, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Since the OP asked for the etymology, I should have added that it is, of course, from Latin describere, "to write down". Deor (talk) 21:14, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the meanings and etymology. 64.138.237.101 (talk) 23:23, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Palatalization in English

Is it acceptable to pronounce the word “never” with a word-initial [nʲ]? --88.78.239.53 (talk) 14:45, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

What Not where I am (in the south of England). Algebraist 15:05, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I think Algebraist means "Not where I am" (based on his/her edit summary). It would sound odd to me (a Northerner) too. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 15:12, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I can't think of any variety of North American English that would have that pronunciation. In fact, it doesn't sound like a pronunciation I would associate with any part of the world where English is spoken as a native language. That pronunciation, however, is pretty common among people whose first language was Russian or another Slavic language. I think that most native speakers perceive it as a foreign accent. Marco polo (talk) 16:08, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

It's a hang up linked not to the n but to the e. In Russian the letter е in нет starts with a y sound (yes I know, I really should learn IPA). -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 14:12, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Which of the following words are pronounced with a word-initial [kʲ]: key, cue, coo? --88.78.228.228 (talk) 20:41, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Cue. --TammyMoet (talk) 21:20, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

These sound like homework questions. Check out palatalization and English phonology. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 23:06, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Is it acceptable to pronounce the word “knee” with a word-initial [nʲ]? --88.78.2.122 (talk) 08:26, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Well a native English speaker wouldn't, if you did it would definitely mark you out as being foreign. Whether that equates to "acceptable" I really couldn't say.--TammyMoet (talk) 12:59, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Because English-speakers tend to blend their segments together, I wouldn't be surprised if English dialects that didn't undergo yod-dropping would have a palatalized coronal before the yod so that new would be pronounced [nʲju]. No guarantees, though. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 01:37, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

These questions seem to be coming from the IP range 88.77.144.0 - 88.78.255.255, the same range where the repeated "Why can't **** be a German/English/whaterver word?" questions came from. --Kjoonlee 07:35, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Term/name for different "flavors" of a (math) denotaton?

What is the term/name for a math (or other) character/symbol that has a modification to denote a relationship to a base character symbol? The most common example is the appostrophe or "prime" to denote a function's derivative: F = function; F' = the function's derivative. Another example would be a reduction or expansion of a variable:

$\scriptstyle {{\widehat {Q}}=\arctan(\cos(M)\tan({\tilde {Q}}));\qquad \;{\tilde {Q}}=\arctan(\sec(M)\tan({\widehat {Q}}));}$

I'm not sure if it was somewheres here in Wikipedia or an 1800's book from Google.Books, but I believe the word is "s___" or "sa___" something. ~Kaimbridge~ (talk) 15:56, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

In general language use, a symbol added to a letter, often to modify it, is a diacritic. For Unicode names of mathematical symbols, you can visit Code Charts, scroll down to the heading "Mathematical Symbols" in the second of four columns, and select from various charts. You might find what you are seeking. -- Wavelength (talk) 00:55, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

If forced to give it a name, I would call them modifiers. Diacritic is a better word for those which are indeed diacritics, like the ${\widehat {Q}},{\tilde {Q}}$ above, but the prime symbol $f'\,$ is not a diacritic. — Emil J. 14:31, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

The word modifier is used at SESSION 6: MODIFIERS AND MISCELLANEOUS SYMBOLS. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:32, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

subject vs citizen

Are the people who live in Canada subjects or citizens? Googlemeister (talk) 16:38, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I suppose in some arcane way we are subjects of the Queen, but otherwise there is normal Canadian citizenship. Adam Bishop (talk) 16:48, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree, they are subjects of the Queen and citizens of Canada. --Tango (talk) 17:32, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

In older Canadian passports( until the 1970s I think), it was written that "the holder is a British subject". This is no longer the case. --Xuxl (talk) 18:34, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

That would be until the British Nationality Act 1981.Sussexonian (talk) 21:54, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

See also History of Canadian nationality law —— Shakescene (talk) 07:19, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Bird law

what does it mean to refer to something as "bird law" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.201 (talk) 16:48, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

(Added title to question --Lesleyhood (talk) 17:17, 6 November 2009 (UTC))

In what context? --Tango (talk) 17:32, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

A quick Google suggests either a firm of lawyers from Atlanta, Georgia[5] or law relating to birds (the feathered kind).Alansplodge (talk) 19:51, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

What does khazh mean?

What does the word khazh mean? Is it really an English word? It is used in something called a khazhsuit, which is a form of one-piece suit I think. The Great Cucumber (talk) 18:33, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean a Hazmat suit ? --Xuxl (talk) 18:35, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

No, I have taken the word litterary from the name of the group http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/snowkhazhsuit/ The Great Cucumber (talk) 19:15, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

And there is the slang term khazi, meaning lavatory. 86.142.224.71 (talk) 18:42, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Seems to be a Warcraft character[6]. Whether he wears a one-piece suit or not I don't know!!!!Alansplodge (talk) 19:44, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

And there is the fabric, khaki, which could certainly be used to make a one-piece suit if you wanted to. --Tango (talk) 19:58, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Are these guillemets?

《 》 . These are often used in Chinese (around book and movie titles, for instance), and are bigger than normal guillemets (which look like «» ). I'm just curious, is there a name for this punctuation? (Typing them in the search box just redirects to Bracket.) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 19:46, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

They are given a mention in the article on Chinese punctuation, but unfortunately there is no name given. Maybe this could be added when you find one. --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 20:54, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Unicode has "300A 《 LEFT DOUBLE ANGLE BRACKET" and "300B 》RIGHT DOUBLE ANGLE BRACKET" (http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U3000.pdf). -- Wavelength (talk) 21:36, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

The Chinese Wikipedia has the article zh:書名號, which discusses them. Maybe someone reading this Reference Desk page can provide a translation of the most relevant information. The one interlanguage link is to the English Wikipedia article Quotation mark, non-English usage, which seems to have no mention of them. -- Wavelength (talk) 00:25, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Hello? 書名號 literally means book name mark, and is used around the names of books, articles, journals, music, pictures etc.F (talk) 09:33, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Rusyn people

I'm trying to find a list of people capable of speaking (preferably at a native level) Carpathian Rusyn and/or Pannonian Rusyn, either ancient kings, saints, politicians, modern writers, actors... --151.51.14.218 (talk) 20:56, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I suppose most of the people listed at Category:Rusyn people were able to speak, or at least understand, Rusyn. — Kpalion^(talk) 22:18, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I fixed your category link, Kpalion - you have to put a colon before it in the link or it just adds this page to the category instead -Elmer Clark (talk) 23:33, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

good fricative luck!:)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.125.97.141 (talk) 16:23, 8 November 2009 (UTC) 

Geographic appositives

I have a question about what you might call geographic appositives - putting a city's location immediately after its name, for example "Boston, Massachusetts", "San Francisco, California", "London, England" or "Paris, France". Is this a distinctively American thing? I ask because I often hear British people use the preposition "in" in these cases - for example, the Scottish-born talk show host Craig Ferguson will say that he's reading an email from "Springfield in Missouri" or "Toronto in Canada". --140.232.10.216 (talk) 21:22, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I think it is mainly a North American thing (not just the USA but also Canada) to use these appositives outside of postal addresses, for example in conversation. These appositives do occur in postal addresses elsewhere in the Anglosphere, but occur less commonly in sentences elsewhere, at least in Britain. Marco polo (talk) 21:32, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

We do use them in Britain but they aren't needed as often since we don't duplicate place names as much as the US does. To us, "London" unambiguously refers to the British capital city, similarly with Paris. In the US there are often multiple places with the same name so specifying the state is necessary. --Tango (talk) 22:06, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the question is about exactly how the British specify the different places. For example, if it were necessary for a Britisher Briton to distinguish Paris, Texas from any other Paris, would they tend to say "Paris, Texas" (U.S. style) or "Paris in Texas" or "Paris (the one in Texas)", or what? -- JackofOz (talk) 22:22, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Britisher? What's wrong with Briton? 86.142.224.71 (talk) 23:23, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Nothing, really. I've changed it now. -- JackofOz (talk) 00:28, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

At least you didn't go with "pommy bastard". ;-) -- 128.104.112.237 (talk) 01:02, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Any one of those could be used. The first one feels a little more formal to me. In informal speech you might hear something like "Paris (the Texas one, not the real one)" - we don't like to miss an opportunity to insult America! ;) --Tango (talk) 22:38, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

The British have never been known for their warm and cordial relations with the French (and vice-versa, I hasten to add). So it's interesting that they'd opportunistically pal up with the French when it comes to a chance to insult Americans.  :) -- JackofOz (talk) 22:43, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Don't forget Paris, Illinois! Regarding Texas, your typical Texan will say, "[city name], Texas" to anyone who's not a Texan, because they like to brag about being from Texas. And you wouldn't want to hear what they would probably say about "Gay Paris" in France. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:08, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

(after ec) FWIW, I'd say that - here in New Zealand, at least, but possibly elsewhere - the usual system is to use the appositive you mention but only when the place mentioned is a less well-known one either through importance/"well-knownness" (San Francisco vs San Francisco in Colombia) or through it being in this country (Hamilton vs [[Hamilton in Scotland or Hamilton, Ontario). We would talk about London (meaning the one in England), but of "London, Ontario" or "London in Canada". Oddly, it seems to be common, when needed, to refer to "Foo, X" when X is a subdividion of a country and "Foo in X" when X is a country, but that may just be me. Given that a surprising number of placenames are either unique or only have one really frequent usage, they're not used particularly often. There's seems little point in saying "Melbourne in Australia", "Los Angeles, California", or "Kathmandu in Nepal" if "Melbourne", "Los Angeles", or "Kathmandu" alone gets the point across 99.9% of the time. Grutness...wha? 23:19, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Dialogue from All in the Family:

Mike: A lot of places have the same names; like Portland, Maine, and Portland, Oregon.

Gloria: Birmingham, England, and Birmingham, Alabama.

Edith: New York, New York.

←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:26, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

In the UK, duplicate names often have a descriptive tag added: hence Newcastle-under-Lyme, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Newcastle Emlyn. In normal speach you would just say Newcastle unless you needed to clarify. You're right, I would say "in" too. Reading the para above I was thinking "Ah yes, and there's Portland in Dorset too..."Alansplodge (talk) 09:55, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Maybe this is too far off on a tangent, but... when talking about the entire set of British islands, how common is for a place name to be exactly duplicated? I believe all US states and Canadian provinces expressly forbid exact duplication within their own borders. So, while there are many Springfields, there's only one Springfield, Illinois. What I'm getting at is that if it had been the norm for there to be a London, England and a London, Wales, and a London, Scotland, etc. that the UK would probably have adopted the same kind of pattern you see in NA. On the other hand, if it was the case that only one city on the entire set of islands could have a particular name, there'd obviously be no reason to use the comma-subregion form. Matt Deres (talk) 13:20, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I must disagree. Go to http://factfinder.census.gov/ and look up Greenville in New York (Greenville, New York. There are two towns in different counties with that name (ignore the CDPs, as they are for statistical purposes with no government of their own). Additionally, you can have villages that have the same name of the town that they are in, even though they are not coterminous or may extend into neighboring towns (e.g., Mamaroneck). (New York is a messy state: Administrative divisions of New York) --Nricardo (talk) 15:12, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Their only purpose isn't to disambiguate between similarly named cities, they serve to give a more general idea of where the city is. The United States is huge - the chance that everybody you speak to has any idea of where a particular city is is pretty small, so we narrow it down by adding the state. It's probably less common in England, where there aren't any divisions similar to the American state (especially since England is about the size of some America states). —Akrabbim^talk 15:36, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

There are duplicates in Britain, but usually only for small places (there may be one big place with the name, which takes priority over the others, but there will rarely be more than one big place). Often it is due to them having very unoriginal names - for example, several new ports have been named Newport. --Tango (talk) 18:14, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

We actually have two Newports in Wales, the big one in the southeast, 3rd largest town in the country, and a little one in the southwest - though we might disambiguate them by using their not-at-all similar Welsh names, Newport/Casnewydd and Newport/Trefdraeth. -- Arwel Parry (talk) 01:11, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

There are loads of small places with identical names, but they are mostly places nobody has ever heard of anyway. The larger places that started out with the same names tend to have been differentiated later: apart from Newcastle, as above, there are examples like Northampton and Southampton; Poole and Welshpool; East Grinstead and West Grinstead. Examples of those that have not been differentiated are Newport, Gwent and Newport, Isle of Wight; various Whitchurches (Whitchurch, Hants; Whitchurch, Salop etc); Wellington, Salop and Wellington, Somerset; and for these the usage is the same as that in the US. Ehrenkater (talk) 23:03, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

There are a couple of duplicates that are notable, but mostly - as pointed out - only one will be well-known. Bangor (one in Wales, one in Northern Ireland) is one fairly notable one which has not been mentioned. Other than that - as Alansplodge points out - "disambiguators" are used, as in Kingston-upon-Thames and Kingston-upon-Hull. Grutness...wha? 23:47, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Another one, which illustrates another method of disambiguation, is the village of "Kingston near Lewes" in Sussex. Among lots of other Kingstons, there are also two plain "Kingston"s within about 20 miles of one another in Dorset Ehrenkater (talk) 16:53, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

And it's not just settlements that get duplicate names. There are three River Rothers, for example (two of which are pretty close together). "Rother" apparently means "cattle", so it's not even just a local word for "river" (a lot of rivers are just called "river" in a local old language). --Tango (talk) 01:28, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

See List of the most common U.S. place names. -- Wavelength (talk) 00:59, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

The British Isles have ambiguous river names.

• River Inny, River Inny, Cornwall
• River Bann, River Bann (Wexford)
• River Blackwater, Essex, River Blackwater (River Loddon), River Blackwater (River Test), River Blackwater, Northern Ireland
• River Dee, Aberdeenshire, River Dee, Wales, River Dee (Lune), River Dee, Galloway, River Dee, County Louth
• River Don, Lancashire, River Don, South Yorkshire, River Don, Aberdeenshire
• River Eden, Cumbria, River Eden, Kent, River Eden, Fife
• River Avon, Devon, River Avon (Warwickshire), River Avon (Hampshire), River Avon (Bristol), River Avon (Falkirk), River Avon (Strathspey)
• River Tweed, River Tweed, England
• River Ouse, Yorkshire, River Ouse, Sussex
• River Wye, River Wye, Derbyshire, River Wye, Buckinghamshire

-- Wavelength (talk) 06:49, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

As a minor but possibly useful point of usage, it's quite common practice in the UK, when referring to one of these name-duplicating rivers, to use the formulation "The Yorkshire Ouse", the Sussex Ouse", etc. This might also be used to refer to a particular section of a river that flows through more than one county. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 06:22, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Americans have the Red River and the Red River of the North. -- Wavelength (talk) 21:37, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

[7]See this 2degrees ad on Cambridge, England, Cambridge, Australia and actual Cambridge. F (talk) 06:54, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names)#Disambiguation. -- Wavelength (talk) 23:02, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

So when the Beatles reported four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire, was that an Americanism? —Tamfang (talk) 00:55, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

November 7

English - "Metropolis" or something else

When we talk about colonies of some centuries ago, which is the correct english word to denote the country that they depended from? For example in the Americas, England for north america, Portugal for modern Brazil, or Spain for the rest of south america. I though that "Metropolis" was the word for it, but checking the article metropolis, which is mainly about a completely different thing, it seems that such a use would be outdated for this modern one. Is there then a better word for this concept, or should I use "metropolis" anyway? MBelgrano (talk) 01:09, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I've never heard of metropolis meaning anything other than a big city. It was apparently used in the way you describe in Ancient Greece, but they were all about cities and city states, so they would have come from a specific city, rather than a country. "Polis" means city or town, so it wouldn't make sense to describe a country as a metropolis. I would say "homeland". When referring to them in the context of a now independent country a common term is "former colonial power". --Tango (talk) 01:19, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Metropolis is not an incorrect term, but I think Metropole would be clearer; however it's a rather specialized term that wouldn't be apparent to those who don't study history, geography, politics or international economics at least in an amateur sort of way. See Wikipedia's article on Metropole which should give you more of the information you're seeking. You might even put a WP:disambiguation note at the top of Metropolis to save others who might be making the same search from the confusion you just encountered. ¶ As for the substance of your question, there's no single term that's in common use: there are several, which differ slightly depending on the relationship. "Mother country" applies better to the home of colonies settled by those from the mother country (e.g. Britain in relation to the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand); and "colonial power" is a term that many Americans would not accept in regard to the U.S.'s relation to Cuba, Panama, Puerto Rico or the Philippines. "Imperial power" is often accurate, but again sometimes resented by its citizens, e.g. those of Russia or China. —— Shakescene (talk) 02:17, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Who would describe the US as Cuba's colonial power? The US never colonised Cuba, it was colonised by Spain... The US took control of it later, that wasn't a colonisation. --Tango (talk) 02:26, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I can't think of a commonly used neutral term for this, but "mother country" is a somewhat positive term for the relationship while "colonial masters" (referring to the people rather than the country) is a negative one. Or that's how they seem to me, anyway. --Anonymous, 03:02 UTC, November 7, 2009.

I don't think either of those really fit, though. No native would refer to the colonizing country as his/her "mother country", while no settler would use "colonial master" to describe, well, themselves. Matt Deres (talk) 13:27, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. I think maybe we just have to accept that we need to use different terms in different contexts. An additional context you didn't mention is the children of colonists - they might well feel a greater attachment to where they were born than where their parents (or grandparents or whatever) came from, so might not like the term "mother country". --Tango (talk) 18:17, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

In Swedish we use a word which translated would be "colonial power", so that Spain would have been the colonial power of Mexico e.g. Would that be a possible word for this in English? The Great Cucumber (talk) 13:47, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

It's not surprising to see a country referred to in English as "a colonial power", but we wouldn't say it was "the colonial power of" its colonies, in my experience. --Anonymous, 23:32 UTC, November 7, 2009.

"Metropolitan France" is sometimes used to describe the European mainland core of France, perhaps this is where you got the idea of "Metropolis"? -- Arwel Parry (talk) 01:14, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

It's called that because it's a big-powerful-city part of France.

It doesn't look like there's a term that wouldn't potentially connotate a city rather than a country. If it's necessary (and I doubt it is), we could coin a new word like metrokhoros (from χώρα, 'country'). — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]}`

Arwel means France, the country, as opposed to its overseas departments etc. (In that case it's probably because French uses "metropole" differently than English uses "metropolis".) Adam Bishop (talk) 03:17, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

something from Orson Welles and Citizen Kaine refers my mind to Metropolis- i'm kind of confused over it. As to colonial powers it again is context -we refer to colonies and colonial powers, etc, while those under such influence refer to us differently. the mother country is confusing and irksome as natives and colonials of those countries don't accept such a term: the natives to subsequent colonials, and colonials with further generations from settlement. some of this is exampled by Australians and Aborigines in Australia and native Americans and Americans in America, and everyone else between who is old or new to their shores .--91.125.97.141 (talk) 13:28, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Latin ↔ Cyrillic converter for Tatar

I want a converter between the Latin and Cyrillic orthographies for the Tatar language. --88.78.13.59 (talk) 14:32, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

This article is a bit poorly organized, but Tatar alphabet#Cyrillic version appears to have a table of Latin and Cyrillic orthography, which you could use for converting short things. As for an automated converter for larger texts...I don't know about any (although this is not really my area), but if you have any programming experience it would be relatively simple to create one. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 18:26, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

November 8

Full stops

Why in 19th century book covers or sheet music have full stops just after short phrases or titles, such as the "Meno mosso." in ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mikespedia (talk • contribs) 01:58, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Title as shown in sheet music

And not just in German, either. I don't know why, but it's a practice that continued into the 20th century and his since faded. Comiskey Park used to say "Home of the White Sox." with that period at the end,[8] which was dropped over time when the park would get repainted from time to time. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:56, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

It was common in the mid-19th century for people to put a period after everything. A store sign might say "DRY GOODS." for example. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 06:16, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I suspect that the "why" of it at this point would be speculative. Maybe the rise in literacy made folks feel compelled to put a punctuation mark at the end of every complete thought, even if it wasn't a sentence. And it wasn't just with sheet music. Newspaper headlines read that way also. Papers of the day might have several heading lines for one article, each a little smaller and more detailed than the previous, leading the reader toward the story - and with a period at the end of each of the little headlines, whether they were proper sentences or not. I can get a sampling of this from a 1970s book called The Scrapbook History of Baseball, which is a collection of newspaper articles reprinted as if they were cut and pasted into a scrapbook. This continued into the 20th century. Here's an example from late September of 1908, illustrating the Fred Merkle incident. It also illustrates the editorializing that routinely turned up in news stories - and this was written by the Chicago writer, Charles Dryden. Caps and punctuation reproduced exactly, except for [my comments] inserted, and each sentence is a different headline: GAMES ENDS IN TIE [separate line] MAY GO TO CUBS. "Bush League" Baserunner [Merkle] Costs Giants a 2 to 1 Victory in the Ninth. DISPUTE UP TO PULLIAM. [National League President] Chicago Claims Forfeit on Account of Interference; O'Day [umpire] Says "No Contest." Standings of the Clubs. [standings follow] BY CHARLES DRYDEN. [story follows - with several little embedded headlines, all ending with periods.] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:53, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Because the book is "anecdotal", it's hard to tell precisely how the practice changed, but within a few years, true headlines were generally omitting the periods, and the periods were only being used with sub-headlines that were complete sentences. By about 1920, even the complete-sentence sub-headlines were generally omitting the periods. Newswriting by the 1910s was getting to be much "punchier" and modern vs. the stodgy writing style of the 19th century, and that may have fed into this change over time. The last example I'm seeing of using the period at the end of a sub-headline was in 1938. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:03, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

With all due respect, there was a pretty clear purpose to the full-stops when headlines were written as nearly-complete sentences: they separated one sentence from another. It's true that typography (size, font and weight) do all that now, but it's also true that earlier headlines and sub-headlines were often stacked over four, six or ten lines. The reason is clear, even if different reasons are applied today. The more interesting question is why titles and names on signs used to be followed by periods/full-stops when the names or titles ("Main Street.", "The Royal Crown.", "Post Office.", "Fine Groceries.", "The Raven.", even newspapers' own logos, such as the "The Wall Street Journal.") were clearly not full sentences. I think that some of my teachers in primary/elementary school in London and New England in the 1950's told us to put a full-stop/period at the end of a title. If you're writing in manuscript and not centering or underlining your titles (or if the title takes up a whole line), a closing stop helps to distinguish the title from the beginning of the first sentence; it also introduces the spoken or mental pause that follows a title. —— Shakescene (talk) 07:39, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

When Bill O'Reilly says "with all due respect..." just before he rips into a guest, I feel as if he ought to say, "with all undue respect..." :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:11, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

We were also told in school to capitalize all the words in a title except for articles and conjunctions (unless they were the first word of the title). Now we've gone to the other extreme, capitalizing the first word only except for proper names, as if the title were a sentence. Maybe wikipedia should revive the practice of adding periods to those kinds of phrases. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:14, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

So, when did the prescriptivist stance that you only put a full stop after a complete sentence arise? Or was the idea always there, and simply not paid attention to by anyone? Were there any early writers who would consistently put a full stop after a complete sentence only? --84.239.160.214 (talk) 07:59, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

In the second example above, the stops actually convey useful information I didn't have before. We all refer to "The Washington Post March", which plays along with the credits at the end of the film, All the President's Men. But the sheet music shows that the title was "The Washington Post", and that it was a march (and not, say, a waltz or a polka). —— Shakescene (talk) 07:46, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

The article The Washington Post (march) discusses that, and it's true that the periods erase any question that the title is simply "The Washington Post". However, "March" being on a separate line and in smaller print also conveys that point. Also notice that everything else has a period after it also, including "Sousa." Styles change, and it's often easier to track the "when" than the "why". I have a photo of my company's building from ca. 1910 that shows its name in big bold letters - followed by a period. Just one of those things that no one questioned, apparently. Like when did people stop the common practicing of writing "&c." and begin write "etc." all the time, despite the fact they are precisely the same thing - while continuing to use "&" (stylized "et") for "and"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:09, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

The U.S. Declaration of Independence ends its first line with a period, even though the title is centered. Curiously, the second line ends in a comma. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:19, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

It might be of interest to note that many people in China learning English are taught to (or at least they all pick up the habit of) write a period/full stop at the end of individual words -- for example, if they're writing out a single English word (or possibly even their name in English), they put a full stop at the end. --71.111.194.50 (talk) 17:45, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

i would put the words into context: that of music. having had an Italian music teacher, Miss Pecorini, for ten years as a teacher, I know that these short command phrases were in vogue at her time-she was 65/70 years old- and maybe at the time of the music sheet itself. learning to play the piano is guided by short terse statements from a teacher or written commands on the script. It would be no different than instructions on a road or in the air- complexity confuses the situation. the periods may mark a stop from one command to the next.--91.125.97.141 (talk) 10:23, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

MEANING OF £ IS ?

MEANING OF £ IS ?MRLuCkY7777 (talk) 11:15, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Pound sterling. Karenjc 11:25, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Historically the same symbol was also used for the Italian lira and for other countries' pounds (major currency units): Australia, Ireland etc. -Ehrenkater (talk) 17:03, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

From "libra", meaning "scales" or "weight". A number of terms for money, in various languages, use words that have to do with weight. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:37, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

So the two meanings of "pound" (lb and £) aren't coincidence? Vimescarrot (talk) 11:57, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Right, not a coincidence. The Spanish coin called the peso also means "weight". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:13, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Shekel also means 'equivalence,' as in weighing. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 20:25, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

If you look on a £5 £20 note, you will see that some guy's signature is there, along with the promise 'to pay the bearer five pounds of gold' - although this promise is never fulfilled because the Bank Of England wouldn't have enough gold to pay everyone if we all asked at the same time --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 13:09, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

And presumably not literally 5 pounds of pure gold, but of cold coins? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:15, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Very possibly, but considering gold coins are actually made of gold, I don't think it really matters. --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 13:37, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

And considering that the pound is a unit of force and not of mass, they could give a very tiny amount of gold and say that it weighs a pound on the surface of the sun (I haven't seen that piece of currency myself, but I bet it doesn't specify '5 pounds near the surface of the earth.')20.137.18.50 (talk) 18:20, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Nice theory, but unfortunately pound really is a unit of mass. There is indeed a derived unit of force, however the primary meaning of pound is a unit of mass. — Emil J. 18:28, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

See Promissory note. Malcolm XIV (talk) 13:11, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't know about the promise to pay holders of the £20 note 5 pounds of gold, but I do know that originally, in late medieval and Elizabethan times, a pound sterling was equivalent to a pound of sterling silver. It was a unit of account. A person might have an assortment of silver coins. I don't think that there were even £1 coins because they would have been too heavy. However, the value of those silver coins was in their weight. They would be weighed, and their value measured in pounds. It was only later in the modern era (perhaps as recently as the early 20th century; I don't have time right now to check) that the value of a pound sterling (as a unit of currency) became separated from the value of a pound (unit of weight) of sterling silver. Marco polo (talk) 16:31, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

The answer is contained in our article on the gold standard. Malcolm XIV (talk) 16:38, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I've never heard of a silver £1 coin. As you say, it would be very heavy. They tried to make £1 coins using the equivalent value of gold, but the relative values of gold and silver kept changing so it was rarely worth exactly £1 (see Guinea (coin)). --Tango (talk) 01:22, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

To clarify a couple of points: as Marco says, when a pound sterling was worth a pound weight of precious metal, the metal was silver, not gold. Therefore KageTora's memory of the wording "pounds of gold" is wrong. It could conceivably be "pounds in gold" (referring to pounds of monetary value) but from my own memory it's just "pounds".

Also, it was not a pound avoirdupois (the one still used in some countries, 7000 grains or about 454 g) nor was it a pound troy (5760 grains, 144/175 of a pound avoirdupois, or about 373 g). It was the still smaller pound in the "Tower weight" system. Russ Rowlett's web site says this was 5400 grains, 27/35 of a pound avoirdupois, or about 350 g. Wikipedia says at pound sign that it was 326 g, but at pound (mass)#Tower pound that 5400 grains is correct. --Anonymous, 19:53 UTC, November 8, 2009.

The £10 note in my wallet (I'm too poor to have £20 notes!) says "I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of ten pounds". There is no mention of gold. --Tango (talk) 20:29, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I often wondered what I would be paid if I turned up on Her Majesty's doorstep and demanded my 10 pounds. Not Sterling Silver, I assume? So why keep the wording. Is there any meaning to the wording these days?195.128.251.193 (talk) 23:43, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I once actually tried that at a bank (the teller was someone I knew, so I knew it wouldn't be taken the wrong way). I pulled out a £5 note and said "you promised, where's my five pounds?" In response, my friend the teller exchanged it for five nice shiny £1 coins. Grutness...wha? 00:06, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Pound coins are not made of gold, so you've been robbed! On a side note, the Daily Mail says that one in four pound coins is fake, making it 'the most counterfeited currency in Britain' (What other currencies are we using, then?). --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 00:57, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Pound coins are worth a pound, though, by definition, so you haven't been robbed of anything. Also - robbery requires violence, you mean "stolen from". --Tango (talk) 01:19, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Neither the Queen or your high street bank have promised anything. The notes are signed by the governor of the Bank of England. If you go to the Bank of England and try and claim your £10 they will probably give you what they owe you - £10. They will do that in the most efficient manner they can, with a £10 note (a nice crisp new one in exchange for your old crumpled one) - if they refuse, rip your note in half, then they are obliged to replace it, although you may have to fill out a form first. --Tango (talk) 01:19, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I thought that wilful defacement of the currency was actually an offence in the UK. We are certainly not allowed to draw or write on notes, and I would have thought that ripping them up would come into that category. I know it's possible to get money replaced if the serial number is still visible after an accident, but I don't think that doing it in front of staff at the Bank Of England would constitute as an accident. --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 10:09, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Destroying currency is certainly illegal in Australia. Mitch Ames (talk) 10:14, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

When I was much younger, a shop (it could have been Argos or Index...or not) scribbled on any paper money they were given before storing it away. Vimescarrot (talk) 11:31, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Paul Keating once signed an Australian 5 dollar note - technically defacing it - and he was Prime Minister of Australia at the time, and had previously been Treasurer! Mitch Ames (talk) 06:13, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

In an Irish bank I have knowledge of, bundles on notes are routinely marked with highlighter before filling the ATM, in order to make balancing the machine quicker. Stanstaple (talk) 18:17, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

"Wanna"

I've heard that in colloquial English, it's possible to say "wanna" as a shorthand for "want to". Can it also be used as a shorthand for "wants to"? JIP | Talk 16:53, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I think it can in AAVE, but not in standard English. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 16:55, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

(after ec)Never heard it myself but then I'm an old fart who's way out of touch with street speak - or so my nephew tells me. --TammyMoet (talk) 17:00, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd never call a lady an old fart. --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 19:26, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Our article on AAVE states: Present-tense verbs are uninflected for number/person: there is no -s ending in the present-tense third-person singular. Example: She write poetry ("She writes poetry"). G**gling for "he wanna" / "she wanna" turns up thousands of hits in various pop lyrics and forums, so it seems normal in colloquial (US? / AAVE?) English. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 17:34, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

You can also hear the opposite, usually in jest: "I wants to go home." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:31, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

That's a normal inflection in Newfoundland English. There is only one verb form, and it's the one that ends in -s, sort of the opposite of AAVE. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:32, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

It appears in the term "wannabe", which can be used in any tense ("JackofOz is a wannabe expert"). -- JackofOz (talk) 20:49, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

But "wannabe" is not tensed, it's an adjective or noun. In the sentence above, it isn't a shorthand for "JackofOz wants to be an expert", it's its own word. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 20:51, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

It's "want to be" or "wants to be" slurred and converted into a noun or adjective, kind of like the synonym often used for mystery novels or detective novels, a "whodunit" ("who done it?", slangy English for "who did it?") ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:02, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Not exactly, it is derived from "want to be" but is now lexicalized and has a meaning of its own. Saying "That guy is a real wannabe" is not the same as saying "That guy wants to be...". The main point is, it's not a verb and thus is not an example of "wanna" used for "wants to". rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 21:06, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and I think you would say "he is a wannabe" and "they are wannabes". Yes? Just like "those books are 'whodunits'". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:14, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

But I don't see how that's relevant to the OP's question, which is essentially "can you say 'He wanna'?" rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 21:16, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

In colloquial English, you can say most anything you want, as in "Day-O! Daylight come and me wanna go home." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:21, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but the form that Baseball Bugs cites is from a calypso song and uses a Caribbean patois, which, like, AAVE, does not conjugate verbs for person. The answer to the poster's question is that, apart from creole-influenced dialects of English, wanna cannot stand for wants to. This rule holds for nearly all varieties of English in North America apart from AAVE and for all varieties of English I know in Europe and the Antipodes. Marco polo (talk) 00:05, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

(And, as a side note, "me wanna go home" doesn't illustrate anything about how the verb is conjugated in that dialect. It's a perfectly fine first-person singular; what's 'different' about it is that "me" is used instead of "I". So it's still not really comparable. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:12, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

"You wanna go home?" -- "Yeh, I wanna go home." -- "Does he wanna go home?" -- That's the way around it in third person. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:23, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

"Does he wanna go home" != "Does he wants to go home". rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:13, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Bugs, I think you want to drop the matter at this point. In "Does he wanna go home" it's the helping verb does that's inflected for the third-person singular, not the following infinitive; no verb would take the -s inflection in the construction "X does —". You're just pushing this beyond anything that's linguistically justified. 00:32, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Since the very first response directly answered the question, perhaps you could close this entire discussion. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:44, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the first couple of responses said all there is to say about the matter, but I am not willing to assume the responsibility of closing any discussion here. I was merely suggesting that you avoid confusing the OP, who is not a native speaker of English. Deor (talk) 01:11, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

In any case, this is all based on a mispronunciation - JackofOz is a wallaby expert! ;) Grutness...wha? 00:09, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Aha. So is a wallaby a kangaroo wannabe? Or is it the other way around? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:23, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm more like a wobbly expert! Or, as I proudly proclaim on my user page, a "pauper's polymath".  :) -- JoO in disguise as 202.142.129.66 (talk) 02:03, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Wanna, gonna, etc. are actually grammatically somewhat complicated. You could say "I wanna win the race" (if you are running in one), or you might ask "who do you want to win the race?" (if you are a spectator), but "who do you wanna win the race?" sounds wrong (example from here). "Wanna" would not replace "wants to". See also trace (linguistics). 69.228.171.150 (talk) 03:42, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

It's been a long time since I paid attention to this, but if I remember correctly, the generative account for that is something to do with the PRO operator in the "to..." clause (or something equally fun/arcane). Arnold Zwicky has written several papers on "gonna". rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 04:15, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the closest you would hear (besides in AAVE and similar) is something like "wansta". The 's' really has to be there or else it sounds wrong, like you don't know how to conjugate verbs. Rckrone (talk) 06:33, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

November 9

Duck Duck Goose

I'm dating a Minnesotan (I'm from Boston) and it recently came to my attention that she calls the beloved children's game - Duck, Duck, Grey Duck

Naturally, I'm concerned that our future children will be confused and scared in an already harsh world.

Please, Wikipedia. Can you help me understand how the heck Minnesotans seem to exclusively play this variation? Seriously though, I'm just wondering why it seems so limited to that region?71.255.175.197 (talk) 01:43, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

"Goose" can mean "to poke someone in the rear end." Maybe someone in Minnesota substituted "gray duck" because of that.--Cam (talk) 02:03, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, that was sort of glib -- what I was trying to say was that maybe because the word has a naughty connotation, someone wanted to replace it with something else.--Cam (talk) 02:50, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Political correctness does affect children's games. When I was a lad in the 1960s, any chasing game was called "he" with the child who was doing the chasing also called "he" whether male or female. Today's children play "had" with the chaser being "it". Oh the times, oh the customs. Alansplodge (talk) 11:23, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Are you sure that's because of political correctness? I ask because I grew up in the 80s, playing "tig" with someone who was "it". Given we also had jokes about "pakis" and "spastics", political correctness wasn't exactly ruling the playground. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 15:38, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

My parents told me that "catch a tiger by the toe" used to be something else when they were children...I don't know if that's true but I suppose it would be an example of political correctness. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:43, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

We have an article at Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. The short answer is that it used to be a lot of things, but at some point an unpleasant word became the norm. That was then replaced with other things (such as tiger) after people stopped being quite so stupid. But we played 'tig' with someone being 'it' in the 80s: I don't think there is any political correctness in the wide variation children display in their local versions of it. 86.142.224.71 (talk) 16:26, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The names of chasing games are highly regionalised in the UK and can be called Tag / It / Tick / Tig / Catch etc depending on where you live. A good read on the subject is "The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren" by Iona & Peter Opie[9]. But I can't think of any other reason why a name for a game would change in a generation. Alansplodge (talk) 16:42, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

In 1980s Ohio, a popular playground pastime was "smear the queer," a game that essentially had one rule: Swarm and beat on the kid with the ball until he is forced to give it up. Of course, we had no idea what a "queer," let alone a homosexual, was, so there was no offense intended. But I'd guess that nowadays there's a little more sensitivity to that kind of thing, so I bet there's another name for the game nowadays. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:35, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Nope, from what I can tell, they still call it that. That is ok. Kids don't need political correctness until their indoctrination is complete. Googlemeister (talk) 17:26, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

But I'm not convinced that the game has anti-homosexual implications (inasmuch as the person with the ball doesn't act "gay"). Queer also means "different" which is what the person with the ball IS, and which is how I always understood the word. Kingsfold (talk) 20:33, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

audio-ization?

If you close your eyes and imagine a slowly spinning pyramid with a flashing light on top, that is visualization (the disamb points to spatial visualization, to be more specific). Is there a similar word like "audio-ization" for imagining a sound accompanying the pyramid turning? Not necessarily a musical accompaniment, but just some arbitrary pattern of sound. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 03:28, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Audiation is pretty close to what you're referring to, and auditory imagery is a related term. Grutness...wha? 05:52, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Another word, one not limited to sounds, is synesthesia. -- Wavelength (talk) 06:06, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Synesthesia is completely different - it's about mixing together your senses so you taste words or see numbers as having inherent colours. It has nothing to do with voluntary visualisation. --Tango (talk) 07:23, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, that article always struck me. I was taught that synesthesia is the technical term for a mixture of mental images of different senses, like the ones in the present example. But I was told that in my Spanish-based education: apparently, the English term is reserved for the neurological trait. Pallida  Mors 13:58, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I've smelled that that's the case.  :) -- JackofOz (talk) 18:58, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Politeness and grammar

When referring to oneself and another person in the same clause, it's considered impolite to put oneself first, although it's not ungrammatical per se. So, it's "My mother and I went to the movies today", not "I and my mother ..." or, heaven forbid, "Me and my mother ...".

Now, when referring to two third parties, what are the rules? Is "His mother and he went to the movies today" preferred to "He and his mother went to the movies today?" Or, where the person is named, "John and his mother ..." vs. "John's mother and he ..." or "John's mother and John ..."? For my money, "He and his mother ..." and "John and his mother ..." sound a lot more natural than any of the alternatives. I guess that's because we have to define who "he/John" is first, before getting to someone who's defined only in terms of "he/John". That problem doesn't exist with "My mother and I" because both can stand without reference to the other.

How would it be in something like "If it was good enough for him and his father, it's good enough for my mother and me"? There’s a non-parallel construction there, which might bother some. But the alternatives "If it was good enough for his father and him, it's good enough for my mother and me" and "If it was good enough for him and his father, it's good enough for me and my mother" just don't sit well.

Not sure what my question is exactly, but all random thoughts are welcome. -- JackofOz (talk) 07:49, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The answer is very simple: in some cases, politeness and structural accordance can't go together. You must decide which of the two you choose.

If you ask me, I prefer structural accordance, so I will never say "If it was good enough for him and his father, it's good enough for my mother and me"; Instead, I would rather say: "If it was good enough for him and his father, it's good enough for me and my mother".

By the way, how about: "John's brother's daughter, and his wife". Whose wife? John's wife? John's brother's wife? In such cases, I wouldn't say "John's brother's daughter, and his wife"; Instead, I would rather say "John's brother's daughter, and John's wife", or "John's brother's daughter, and the brother's wife".

HOOTmag (talk) 09:23, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

This isn't the first time I've heard someone say "It's considered impolite to..." before coming up with something I've never heard of. Which (to me) begs the question: is it impolite if the person you're talking to doesn't know it? Vimescarrot (talk) 11:27, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Obligatory link to Begging the question. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:46, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think JackofOz begs the question, because he doesn't intend to ask whether (nor to prove that) saying "I and he" is considered impolite. He just assumes that it's considered impolite, and then he asks how one should formulate some specific ideas, under the assumption mentioned above. HOOTmag (talk) 15:52, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I was referring (politely, I hope) to Vimescarrot's use of "begs the question". AndrewWTaylor (talk) 16:31, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I, like you, was referring to Vimescarrot's use of "begs the question", but unfortunately I had put too many ":" at the beginning of my response... HOOTmag (talk) 18:00, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Generally there's a basis to the understanding that something is impolite; in this case it is something along the lines of being mindful to mention another person before oneself. But I doubt if any large scale double blind studies of the body mind interface have conclusively found offense registered in those who were unjustifiably relegated to a later mention in a sentence than they felt was their right and privilege. Bus stop (talk) 18:10, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I really don't think it's a question of offence being caused by saying "I and <someone else> ..." rather than "<Someone else> and I ...". Both forms are equally comprehensible and are certainly grammatical. But what other than politeness could explain why children are taught to put themselves second in such constructions? -- JackofOz (talk) 20:14, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Where are children taught this? Vimescarrot (talk) 21:31, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

(JackofOz) They're certainly taught to put themselves second (or, where there are more than 2 people being referred to, last) in Australia. I was taught that way, and I taught it to my children, who will hopefully teach it to theirs. The Queen was renowned for her "My husband and I", never "I and my husband". I'm really surprised this isn't considered standard fare across the anglo-board. -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 00:54, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I disagree that "If it was good enough for him and his father, it's good enough for me and my mother" doesn't sit well. Not only is it structurally sound, it also rhymes. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 22:40, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

"What other than politeness could explain why children are taught ... "? Answer: the social imperative to teach your children to talk in such a way that those who are going to judge them will judge them favourably. <POV>Prescriptive grammar, like almost all the rest of etiquette, is for the sole purpose of distinguishing those who have had the opportunity to learn the rules from those who have not, however it may be rationalised.</POV> --ColinFine (talk) 00:36, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

"Polite" has kind of a different twist when it comes to language usage. A more obvious example of "impolite" language is "ain't". But is that impolite to the person to whom it's addressed? Or is it impolite to the language itself? In discussing Spanish with friends who speak the language natively, they've used the term "impolite" in reference to getting the gender wrong on nouns (a gross example would be "el mesa") and even in saying "de el" instead of "del". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:13, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

maths

Around here I sometimes see the noun "maths" used, but this is something I've never seen or heard before despite having some education in math. Is "maths" the same as "math" or is there some subtler meaning? Is "maths" a regional thing? (I'm from the US.) Rckrone (talk) 08:08, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

"Math" seems to be the version used in North America. Most if not all of the rest of the anglosphere says "maths", cf. "stats". -- JackofOz (talk) 08:11, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Is "math" not used in those places where "maths" is used? Rckrone (talk) 08:15, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I can speak only for Australia, where the answer is "No". -- JackofOz (talk) 08:16, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Interesting. Thanks. Rckrone (talk) 08:19, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I recall a minor dispute when editing Cockney where an editor assured me that math is unused in the UK as well. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 09:01, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Math (disambiguation) confirms the above, but it also isn't sourced. Interestingly, wikt:maths says maths can be used in North America to refer to more than one math, a course in mathematics. I couldn't find any reference to math being used outside North America, though. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 08:41, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I can confirm that it's always "maths" and never "math" in the UK.Alansplodge (talk) 09:21, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

If you had paid attention in school, you'd know that "maths" is short for "Mathematical Anti-Telharsic Harfatum Septomin", thus entirely different from "math". Or maybe you didn't have that in the U.S.?--Rallette (talk) 11:11, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

In my experience, "math" is typical usage in the U.S. and "maths" in the U.K. Hard telling why the latter, because it's harder to say than "math". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:52, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

If the "subs" is short for "submarines", then it's logical that "maths" is short for "mathmatics". I suspect you're right about the pronunciation difficulty though. Perhaps that's why we only had "arithmatic" at primary school.Alansplodge (talk) 16:12, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

"Maths" would be kind of slobbery, especially for someone with a lisp. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:18, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

That would make sense if "mathematics" was a plural word, but it isn't. You can't say "One mathematic, two mathematics." It's not unusual to abbreviate words by taking the middle out and leaving the beginning and end. We usually spell such contractions with an apostrophe, but over time they can become words in their own right (I don't know if "math's" was ever correct, I haven't studied the history of the word). --Tango (talk) 19:45, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Surprising as it may be, language is never a totally rational thing in terms of predicting one word's formation from a basic structure...either way, "maths" is extremely well established in UK and Commonwealth English -- that's just how they say it. Again, like one poster said above, look at "stats" (even though stastics is singular not plural) as an example -- we do the exact same thing in the US with this word as they do in UK with "maths". Remember, to British people, we in America wipe our mouths with diapers (just kidding -- but napkin is historically the root of the word nappies). --71.111.194.50 (talk) 19:51, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Mathematics, in the sense of a discipline one studies (like statistics, chemistry or history), is also singular, not plural. However, statistic exists as a singular word ("This is an interesting statistic"), and its plural is statistics ("These statistics are rather revealing"). Disraeli used the plural form of the singular statistic in "There are 3 kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics" -- JackofOz (talk) 20:06, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

In the US we always say math. As soon as I hear "maths" I know that the person saying it is from the UK or someplace that speaks British English. I'm not sure if the converse is true: I believe they say math in Canada. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 19:55, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

We do say "math" in Canada. I've never heard "maths" except in British books. Cherry Red Toenails (talk) 06:32, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

"Math" is never used in New Zealand either - presumably because there is no such thing as a mathematic. I must admit I'd never come across the term Math except on US television until the internet came along. Grutness...wha? 23:16, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

That would be a sound argument, about plurals, apart from the number of people who use the singular verb "is" with "maths" [10]. Particularly people who would say things like "Arsenal are full of confidence" [11]. Really it's just a dialect difference without any justification on either side. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:04, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

There is such a thing as a "mathematic"; it's an adjective, from the French mathematique, and now rare, the preferred form being "mathematical", which is from Greek mathematikos, which means "disposed to learning", and mathemata, "things learned". "Mathematics" came to mean the study of equations, just as "Physics" is the study of the physical universe, and similarly "physic" is a now-rare term. The difference is that folks simply say "Physics", they don't typically shorten it to "Phy" or "Phys". Another seemingly-plural word like that would be "logistics". The singular forms exist, they're just little-used. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:19, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Sure. I'm just saying that if people used "maths" because "mathematics" is plural, then they would say "maths are important" as well. But if they want to treat "maths" as a singular noun, it's hard to argue that the plural nature of "mathematics" is the reason for including the "s". — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:21, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

"Math" and "Maths" are both short for "Mathematics". What's missing is the punctuation: "Math." and "Math's." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:27, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

A pedant may argue that way, but they are never written like that, and usage wins. I don't think anyone argues that "mathematics" is plural. The addition of the "s" in "maths" is not for reasons of pluralisation, but just acknowledges the full version is plural in form, like ethics, logistics etc, which are discrete fields of study. A person who is on a single medication might refer to their "meds", but that doesn't make it plural, unless they're referring to the individual pills, of which there are many. -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 02:35, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

This is clearly as UK-US as boots and trunks, bonnets and hoods or labor and labour. However, Rallette's Mathematical Anti-Telharsic Harfatum Septomin is nonsense: none of the last three words registers any google hits aside from within this phrase. DOR (HK) (talk) 03:41, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I believe that expansion comes from Look Around You, which is also to blame for this periodic table. -- BenRG (talk) 12:04, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Maths is entirely logical, and not at all hard to say. "Math" just sounds strangely quaint; or cute, like a child with a lisp. Gwinva (talk) 08:14, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

It sounds neither quaint nor cute to an American, trust me. -- BenRG (talk) 12:04, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

You go to Math(.) class, you go to Stat(.) class. No logical reason I can think of to stick an "s" on the end of either abbreviation. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:31, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I've taken stats as one of my math classes. —Akrabbim^talk 13:49, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

When I was in school we called it Stat class. "Stats" is a colloquialism and implies plural, i.e. a ballplayers stats (which aren't really "statistics" in the mathematical sense, but that's another story). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:08, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

And when I studied Maths at uni, part of my course was Stats. Arguments about illogicality or why one version "should" be preferred over the other don't wash. Different parts of the world do say different things. End of story, really. -- JackofOz (talk) 18:56, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

How about Econs? -- Coneslayer (talk) 16:50, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Never took that one. I did take Econ though. Googlemeister (talk) 17:22, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I took maths, stats, and ecs at university, FWIW. "Math, stat, and econ" seem odd to me, (unless, in the case of stat, you're referring to an individual statistic). But it's clearly a local usage thing: Commonwealth English is different from US English; US English is different than Commonwealth English. :) Grutness...wha? 00:10, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Compound sentence

The wikipedia article on Compound sentence says The clauses are joined by a coordinating conjunction (with or without a comma). But this http://www.esc.edu/esconline/across_esc/writerscomplex.nsf/0/e42f0742452027ba852569f5005c1c0d?OpenDocument reference says The two parts of the compound sentence need to be linked correctly, with a comma and then a linking word at the place where one sentence ends and the other begins. (Otherwise you will have a sentence error called a run-on sentence. Run-on sentences are typically compound sentences without the proper punctuation and/or linking word.)

If I follow the second reference i.e. Empire State College, then the wikipedia example of compound sentence (My friend invited me to a tea party; my parents didn't let me go.) becomes incorrect and run-on sentence. Please help, which reference is correct wikipedia or Empire State College? --MaxL1990 (talk) 13:06, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The Empire State one is incorrect. Claiming that "a compound sentence without a comma is a run-on sentence" is an example of prescriptive grammar; it only takes a little common sense to see that this does not reflect the actual state of the world. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 15:37, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Technically, the addition of the comma makes it a comma splice, which, according to some authorities, is still a type of run-on sentence. Whatever, but "My friend invited me to a tea party my parents didn't let me go" and "My friend invited me to a tea party, my parents didn't let me go" are just as wrong as each other. -- JackofOz (talk) 19:51, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Pronunciation of Italian (?) surname: Mucchi

...as in the artist Gabriele Mucchi. The _cch_ cluster has us stumped, and I failed to understand what's written on the Italian phonology page. -- Thanks, Deborahjay (talk) 13:53, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

[ˈmukːi]. That is, the first c is [k] as it is not followed by e or i, and the subsequent ch is another [k] because it always is, in Italian. — Emil J. 14:02, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd rather formulate it as follows: consonants normally written as digraphs (ch, gh) are by convention written as "cch" and "ggh" when geminated. But the end result [ˈmukːi] is the same as you described, at least for "ch" and "gh".
Now I wonder, what about "ggl" and "ggn"? Is the first name Magglio pronounced as ['magʎo] or ['maʎːo]? Is there an example with "ggn" cluster? No such user (talk) 14:43, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Magglio is ['maʎːo]. ggn shouldn't need to occur, since [ɲ] is always geminated word-internally in Italian. (So is [ʃ], so ssc shouldn't need to occur either.) +Angr 15:58, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, [ʎ] is also always geminated word-internally in Italian, it's the same case as gn. ['maʎːo] could (and indeed is) as well be written as maglio, I don't know where the spelling Magglio comes from. — Emil J. 16:08, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Hopefully noted for the future: [12]. No such user (talk) 17:01, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, all... And now: returning to EmilJ's initial response: is the pronunciation [ˈmukːi] or [ˈmukːki] (i.e. the second syllable beginng with the consonant)? Because if the latter, it affects my next task: transliterating this surname for readers of Hebrew. I'm considering whether the cch cluster would be best represented by a double letter /ק/...? -- Deborahjay (talk) 07:55, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

The "ː" already indicates that the consonant is long, which is generally interpreted to mean that the first syllable ends with the first half of the consonant and the second syllable begins with the second half of it. The transliteration /mukki/ is entirely equivalent, and better shows the syllabification, which is [muk.ki]. You know more about how Hebrew speakers interpret unpointed text than I do, but I'd have thought that if you write it with two qophs, it would be most likely interpreted as having 2 /k/ sounds with a vowel between them, like /mukaki/ or something. I think מוקי is less likely to be misunderstood than מוקקי. (If you're using pointed text, you could put a dagesh forte inside the qoph, which back in Biblical Hebrew did mean that the sound was doubled, just like the /kk/ of Italian.) +Angr 08:35, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

1000 words of a language

If you learnt the 1000 most common words of for example French, then in everyday conversation, what percent of that stream of words would you be able to understand? Ignoring things like place-names. 92.27.152.41 (talk) 14:35, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I wonder how the 1,000 would be counted. Does a verb count as 1? Or do the conjugations count as 1 apiece? Usually verbs are the most complex part of learning a language. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:50, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Another question: how about a very common word having many meanings, each of which is very rare? If it's counted as a "common" word, then the learner must spend very much time to "learn" it, as much as the time required for learning many words... HOOTmag (talk) 15:42, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

You probably wouldn't be able to understand anything in everyday conversation, especially since French sounds so much different than it is spelled. (I've been learning French since I was 6 and I still can't have a conversation...) Maybe if the person was speaking very slowly, and using the 1000 words you know... Adam Bishop (talk) 15:13, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The main difficulty in understanding a foreign language is not the vocabulary, but the grammatical structure (including conjugation, which is a particular hurdle in French). Knowing the meaning of individual words would not help you understand how they fit together into thoughts. So you would have a sense of what the conversation or radio broadcast or whatever was about (e.g. food, politics, workplace gossip), but wouldn't be able to understand what was actually being said. --Xuxl (talk) 15:24, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

@Adam Bishop and @Xuxl: Although I'm not the OP, I afford to respond on behalf of the OP. I think the OP refers to a learner who is expert in the French grammar, expert in the French phonology, expert in all of the relevant aspects, except for the vocabulary... HOOTmag (talk) 15:42, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Adam and Xuxl that, without a firm grasp of the phonology (how the words sound, especially when spoken together) and grammar (how sentences work), you would understand very little, even with a 1,000-word vocabulary. However, taking HOOTmag's assumption that a speaker knew not only the most common 1,000 words used in conversation but also the phonology and grammar of the language, then I think a person would understand most of what was being said. Words would come up fairly often in everyday conversation that you might not understand, but I think not so often that asking the meaning of those words would seriously disrupt the conversation. The situation would be different, I think, if your conversation were with a university professor or government official, but that's not what you asked. Marco polo (talk) 15:53, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Most languages (particularly major ones like this) have word frequency corpora available that list all words that appear in some sample of the language (for example, 50 years' worth of newspapers or fiction or something) ordered by their frequency in that sample. From there, you can snoop around and look at what sort of words pop up in the first 1000 words, and what sort pop up after that. If you're seeing a lot of words that you think are pretty important beyond 1000, that would probably suggest that the 1000 most 'common' words aren't enough. If, on the other hand, by the time you reach 1000 it's all random weird words that you'd never use anyway, then 1000 might be ok. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 16:07, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

See wikt:Wiktionary:Frequency lists. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:47, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Guys, most of y'all are answering the wrong question. The OP didn't ask how well he could get by with 1,000 words (that question is meaningless; you can often "get by" knowing no words at all); he was asking about how well represented the 1,000 most common words would be represented in everyday speech. My suggestion to the questioner is to get a list of the 1,00 most popular English words then compare it the first, say, 100 words in a random magazine article (or Wikipedia article!) or spoken conversation. That will give you a rough percentage, which you can refine by repeated experiments. Matt Deres (talk) 17:38, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

If you can find a list of words with frequencies (which isn't too difficult) then you should be able to get the precise percentage of words that were from the top 1000 in that corpus. --Tango (talk) 19:49, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Everyday conversation relies on a much more limited vocabulary than the written forms of most languages. Also, the 1,000 most common words in written French or any other written language will not be the same as the 1,000 most common words in everyday conversation. So the most common written words would not be the best basis for everyday conversation. However, I am confident that the 1,000 words most commonly used in everyday conversation in French (or any other language) account for more than 90% of the word uses in a given (everyday) conversation (counting repeated words as distinct word uses). By contrast, the 1,000 most common written words will make up a lower proportion of word uses in a written corpus. Marco polo (talk) 20:13, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

There have been studies where people have been given tape recorders to carry round with them everywhere they go to record their spoken conversations. The results of those studies include frequency tables for spoken word use, which are what we need. I agree that the top 1000 words are likely to be at least 90% of spoken conversation. I'll try and find one of those studies... --Tango (talk) 19:19, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Here is a (unlemmatised - so "jump" and "jumped" are counted separately, but I think "jump" as a verb and "jump" and a noun are separated) frequency list of spoken English (including, but not limited to, everyday conversation). It contains 4841 words that appear in the spoken part of the British National Corpus at least 10 times (I'm not sure what proportion of the spoken corpus is made up of rarer words). Out of those words, the top 1000 make up 89.7%. The top 100 make up 63.3%. Those will be slight overestimates due to the exclusion of rare words. If we restricted it to just everyday conversations (I can't find frequency lists limited to them, although I haven't spent long looking) I would expect those percentages to be significantly larger. Oddly, number 7 in that list is the verb "s". I wasn't aware of a verb "s"... Also in the top 50 are "ve" and "re", both verbs. Anyone know what these strange words are? --Tango (talk) 19:43, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

The big initial step of learning a new language is gaining the ability to hear conversations as discrete words instead of as continuous streams of sound. Once you can do that, you can follow most conversations even if quite a lot of the words in it are unknown to you, and you'll gradually fill in what the actual words mean. With a 500 word vocabulary that you can understand when spoken at normal speed, you are pretty functional, much more than you'd be with a larger vocabularity that you had acquired from written materials rather than spoken conversation. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 05:33, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

According to The Art and Science of Learning ... - Google Books, the percentage is in the low nineties for spoken words, and in the eighties for written words. My Google search terms were most common words percentage vocabulary. -- Wavelength (talk) 17:29, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

[I am removing the quotation marks and adding italicization. -- Wavelength (talk) 19:22, 10 November 2009 (UTC)]

Simple Dutch translation, please

I recently took a picture of St. Augustine's Catholic Church in Minster, Ohio, which dominates the community's skyline, so I thought it reasonable to put on the (hitherto unillustrated) various languages' articles on the village. I've not had trouble figuring out the proper caption for the English or German articles, and I think I have the caption correct at the Portuguese article, but I don't know how to write "St. Augustine's Roman Catholic Church in Minster" in Dutch. How should this name be translated? I've guessed at "Sint Augustinus Rooms-katholieke Kerk in Minster", but I'm not at all sure that this is correct. Nyttend (talk) 16:49, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that it is usual to specify the denomination when giving the name of a church in Dutch. Therefore, this should be as follows:

Sint-Augustinuskerk in Minster

Incidentally, I corrected the label in the German article. You had "im Minster", which I corrected to "in Minster". Marco polo (talk) 20:23, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I've modified it as you suggested. Thanks for the help! Nyttend (talk) 23:02, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

request for advice on arabic textbooks

Hi, I'm thinking of buying textbooks from Amazon on Classical Arabic. There are two options, Introduction to Koranic and Classical Arabic by Thackston, and Arabic Through the Qur'an by Alan Jones. I have access to the former, from a library, but I want to get my own textbook, and I'm not exactly rapt by that one (general structure and layout aren't exactly selling points). Does anyone know anything about the Alan Jones one? The Amazon book reviews are largely positive, but so are those for Thackston, so I suspect they are either inflated or unreliable. What I most want is a CA textbook that focuses heavily on actual readings, and is well structured and comprehensive, preferably with exercises and answers. Also, if by any sort of luck, anyone happens to have browsed a copy of both the aforementioned books, please tell me how they stack up, side by side. Thanks It's been emotional (talk) 19:38, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't know the Jones one, but Thackston is at least better than the MSA textbooks we used in my Arabic class (the al-Kitaab ones). I learned a lot more from Thackston on my own than I did in class. If you find Amazon reviews unreliable, are textbooks like that reviewed in academic journals? JSTOR might help you out there. (You're right, I think, there is still something unsatisfying about Thackston.) Adam Bishop (talk) 00:41, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Latin and German

I'm considering learning Latin and German simultaneously because I'm really interested in both and don't wish to delay learning either. Is this possible? Is it good or bad? I'd appreciate opinions and advice. --Think Fast (talk) 19:44, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

It is certainly possible. The languages are very different (they are both Indo-European but from completely different sub-families within that family) so they won't complement each other like learning Latin and French would but they won't confuse you either (you won't have to struggle to remember which of two very similar words is the Latin and which the French). Whether it is advisable or not depends on you, really. Different people learn languages in different ways. How many languages do you speak already? Usually if you are already multilingual you find it easier to learn new languages. --Tango (talk) 19:54, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I studied Latin and German simultaneously in high school (secondary school) and had no trouble. In fact, I think that they reinforced each other and that it helped to learn both at the same time. One of the harder things to learn about either language is grammatical case. Both Latin and German have case. German has fewer cases, and German's shared origins in English helps to make case a little more accessible in German, in my opinion, since the parallels with the vestiges of case in English (our pronouns) are more obvious and intuitive. So learning German will help you master cases in Latin. The two languages have other shared grammatical features, and learning one will help you learn the other in that way. Marco polo (talk) 20:29, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, although that may be an argument for learning German first and Latin later. You'll get reduced benefit if you learn them in parallel. --Tango (talk) 20:35, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I really don't think it makes much difference. If Think Fast is eager to learn both, I think he or she should go ahead. Marco polo (talk) 21:33, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Cognate words between German and Latin include

• some German words ending in -tät and some Latin words ending in -tās (e.g., Universität and ūniversitās),
• some German words ending in -enz and some Latin words ending in -entia (e.g., Exzellenz and excellentia),
• some German words ending in -zion and some Latin words ending in -tiō (e.g., Nation and nātiō), and
• some German verbs ending in -ieren and their counterparts in Latin (e.g., addieren and addere).

See also Latin Loan Words in German - Deutsch Latein.

-- Wavelength (talk) 21:32, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I learned German before Latin and it was immensely helpful just from a conceptual point of view, because of the cases. In that sense it was more helpful than learning French or another Romance language. Adam Bishop (talk) 00:43, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

The order you learn them in wouldn't matter, I would say--if you learn latin first, your knowledge of cases would transfer to German...from that respective latin first might be best as it has a more complex case system. Either way, I've studied both and I think learning them simultaneously wouldn't be harmful -- there is some vocabulary overlap, but not enough to confuse you...and the grammatical overlap is beneficial (although, note that the first semester of German probably won't cover all the cases in great detail).--71.111.194.50 (talk) 02:12, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

November 10

other languages that can understand Romani

Could a speaker of Panjabi or Hindi or Gujarati or Rajasthani be able to carry on a conversation with a speaker of Romani? Or at least be able to figure out some basic words and communicate a bit better than other people could? Because the languages are related. Thank you. Sign your posts on talk pages: 174.92.105.240 (talk) 00:34, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Our article Romani language says: "Romani and Punjabi share some words and similar grammatical systems." That suggests to me that they aren't mutually intelligible, if they were they would share a lot of words. List of Indo-Aryan languages puts Romani, Gujarati and Rajasthani all in the "Western Zone" so they must have more in common, but I don't know if they are similar enough to be mutually intelligible. --Tango (talk) 00:48, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Our article on Romani also states that the ancestors of the Roma probably left India by the year 1000 at the latest. If the Roma had been isolated after their departure, we could expect a degree of divergence between Romani and Punjabi similar to that between Norwegian and Icelandic, which diverged around the same time. Those two languages are not mutually intelligible. However, Romani was not isolated. Instead, it borrowed heavily from the languages of the peoples among whom the Roma lived. So Romani has a large vocabulary of words unrelated (or only very distantly related) to the language of the Roma homeland. Taken together, these two facts make it virtually impossible that Romani and any western Indian language could be mutually intelligible. Marco polo (talk) 01:29, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

When the Iron Curtain was first breached, there was an article in our local (London) newspaper about a meeting between Romanian Roma and English Romanies. Although both fluent in their own Romany dialects they were quite unable to understand each other, although they could see similarities in the written forms. Alansplodge (talk) 09:26, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Translate this word

Hi-I wanted to translate this word

εΕΦΙΛΕΩ

to English. I think it's in Greek, possibly Ancient Greek. Any help would be much appreciated. Cuban Cigar (talk) 11:03, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it has a meaning, although it may be a proper name ("Efileo"). HOOTmag (talk) 11:21, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

What's with the lowercase then uppercase epsilons? —Akrabbim^talk 11:52, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

A wild guess is that the OP may have confused ε with spiritus asper: ῾ΕΦΙΛΕΩ. Not that it would make any more sense to me that way. — Emil J. 12:35, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually, ἐφιλεω could be some form of the verb φιλέω. My Ancient Greek grammar is next to nonexistent, but I observe that an ἐ- prefix features prominently in its conjugation, though I couldn't find this particular form there. — Emil J. 12:49, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Or it's ΣΕΦΙΛΕΩ. "I like/love you."?Bazza (talk) 13:45, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Hmm I think Bazza is right because the first letter was giving me a bit of trouble to type up, and given the context, his translation seems the most appropriate. Thanks to all who helped=)Cuban Cigar (talk) 08:57, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity...

Is "relatability" in the OED? :) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 11:35, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Not as a lemma, but it's mentioned in the relatable entry. The three citations of its use are from 1937, 1956, and 1964. Deor (talk) 12:30, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. And if you actually own a copy, give yourself a pat on the back. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 12:34, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

The Blower's Daughter

What is a blower? I heard this word in the song The Blower's Daughter by Damien Rice:

And so it is Just like you said it should be We'll both forget the breeze Most of the time And so it is The colder water The blower's daughter The pupil in denial

I could speculate about a dirty interpretation (about the mother of said daughter), someone how plays a brass instrument, or a glass-blower. Since the singer is Irish, perhaps "blower" has a clear meaning there. --Mr.K. (talk) 16:16, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

G**gle´s wisdom indicates this is a reference to the daughter of his clarinet teacher. Apparently, there are a few more references to this unrequited(?) love in his lyrics. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 16:46, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I've never looked into the meaning, but I had been assuming that the lyrics refer to the daughter of a glass-blower. My inference from the significance of this is that, as the offspring of a labourer, the girl rejected the love of a poor or uneducated man, in her wish for a "better" life. The music video for the song helped establish this impression upon me, I suppose, as both Damien and Lisa look somewhat scruffy, and Lisa's long uncombed hair and knitted jumper shout "simple life" to me. The rest of the lyrics also seem to more or less confirm this; I always assumed that "no hero in her sky" suggested that no one had yet whisked her away from her chilly, grim, fishing-focused and industry-heavy port town. Then again . . . I could be reading waaaay too much into the whole thing!  :-) Maedin\^talk 19:28, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

English spelling

Why is the system of spelling words in English so chaotic? Just as an example, if you have ever heard about that rule I before E, why is it not applicable with the word their or heir? Googlemeister (talk) 17:28, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

The article English orthography explains some of the reasons; see especially its Section 5. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 17:52, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

English orthography was much more phonetically accurate when the spellings of most words were established around the year 1400. Unfortunately, English pronunciation has changed dramatically since that time, while English spelling has not. Marco polo (talk) 18:25, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Specific to your example, a fuller version of the rhyme is:

"i" before "e" except after "c"

or when sounded like "a"

as in "neighbour" and "weigh"

A version which makes more sense is:

"i" before "e" except after "c" but only when the sound is "ee" and of course that doesn't get taught in schools either!--TammyMoet (talk) 19:26, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

That assumes a standard pronunciation; as noted below, "neither" and "either" can be pronounced "ee" or "eye", but your rule doesn't work for the "ee" pronunciation. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:49, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Of course, some words are just weird. 86.142.224.71 (talk) 19:03, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

But "their" and "heir" aren't "sounded like 'a'". Adam Bishop (talk) 19:09, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Neither does either. Googlemeister (talk) 19:11, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

People can't even agree on how to pronounce "neither" and "either". Having a sensible spelling for them seems like too much to ask! --Tango (talk) 19:14, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

How about: agencies, fallacies, legacies, policies, species, and the like? HOOTmag (talk) 00:46, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I've always liked this quote: "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." - A lot of the non-standard orthography in English is due to loanwords - words taken from French/Latin/Hebrew/Hawaiian/Tagalog/etc. Usually the word comes in with the spelling it had in that language, despite the fact that it doesn't match up with other English words. -- 128.104.112.237 (talk) 00:51, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

That's part of what makes English such a versatile language. It takes loan words from so many different sources that surprisingly fine nuances can be used - often more so than in languages which come predominantly from a single source. It takes words that should be - and are, in their originating languages - synonymous, and shades them in a myriad ways. It takes the words beer, lager, and ale from three different language terms for the same thing, for instance. Or, as one of my favourite quotations points out, "to know which loan-word to use and when to use it most appropriately requires both know-how and savoir faire." Grutness...wha? 01:08, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Unlike languages which have academicians obsessed with their "purity", English will gladly welcome any word that fits... and, of course, butcher the pronunciation in the process. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:25, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

And there are rules, it's just that they're not universal. For example: bike, dike, hike, like, mike, nike, pike, yike! All rhyme... except "nike", which is a Greek word meaning "expensive shoe", and as Grutness said, no-how, er, know-how is needed. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:29, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Do they really count as loanwords when 2/3 of your language is made up of them? --Tango (talk) 02:15, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

English is a hodge-podge, so it depends on what point in time you consider modern English to have begun. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:18, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

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)

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)

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)

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