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September 6

French gerund

In French gerunds are in the form 'en [participle]', i.e., 'en donnant' for the gerund of 'donner'. How are these used? For this example, would we say 'L'en donnant des cadeaux' for 'the giving of gifts'? Thanks. 76.229.214.25 (talk) 00:30, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

No, in that case you just use the infinitive as a noun, "le donner de cadeaux" (although sometimes there is already a noun derived from the verb, like here I think "le don de cadeaux" is more correct). "En donnant cadeaux" would mean "while giving gifts" or "by giving gifts". Adam Bishop (talk) 00:38, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

"En donnant cadeaux" is a subordinate clause, and needs to be attached to a main clause... AnonMoos (talk) 03:57, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

The upcoming Hebrew year

The Hebrew calendar year 5771 begins this week. If I understand correctly, the year will be written תשעא in Hebrew numerals. How is that pronounced? Tasha'a? Thanks -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:49, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Most of the Hebrew speakers would simply say: "tav shin 'ayin aleph". If you insist on pronouncing it as one word, you will say "tash'a" (note that I've used here the sign ' for denoting the consonant 'ayin). Eliko (talk) 01:29, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

So would 5770 and 5771 have the same pronunciation if spoken as words? -- Mwalcoff (talk) 02:28, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

In formal pronunciation there would probably be a syllable-break difference: ta-sha vs. tash-a... AnonMoos (talk) 03:46, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

It depend on whether you know to pronounce correcly the 'ayin, as a different consonant from aleph. Most of the Hebrew speakers know how to pronounce the 'ayin correctly, though not using this pronunciation in everyday life, so if a Hebrew speaker doesn't say tav shin 'ayin aleph, then they will probably say tash'a, while pronouncing the 'ayin correctly (see our correspondent articles about both consonants and about their correct pronunciation). I personally pronounce 5770: tesha' (i.e. tehsha' ), because the acronym of 5770 (as one word) is an existent Hebrew word pronounced tehsha' (that means: nine), and I pronounce 5771: tav shin 'ayin aleph, like most of the Hebrew speakers. If I had to pronounce 5771 as one word, I would probably pronounce it: tash'a, which is not only different from tesha' (the way I pronounce 5770) but is also different from: tasha' (the way you suggest for pronouncing it). If you both pronounce 'ayin like aleph, and also want to pronounce the year as one word, and you don't want to pronounce 5770 as I pronounce it (i.e. tesha' ), then you will probably have to adopt AnonMoos's suggestion, but I never heard people say tash-a (i.e. not tash-'a but rather tash-a). Eliko (talk) 10:09, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Eliko -- insofar as the aleph א and ayin ע consonants have any realization in mainstream non-Sephardizing non-archaizing modern Israeli Hebrew pronunciation, it pretty much comes down to changing the syllable breaks. I don't know about year gematria acronymic pronunciations, but in more ordinary words, the difference in pronunciation between לירות ("liras/pounds" or "to shoot") and לראות ("to see") is [li-rot] vs. [lir-ot]. Of course, even this distinction can disappear in casual pronunciation... AnonMoos (talk) 16:59, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

AnonMoos -- you're absolutely correct as far as "lir-ot" is concerned. However most of the Hebrew speakers, who really don't use the correct 'ayin in everyday life (although a considerable minority may use it in their everyday life), would try to pronounce the 'ayin whenever pronouncing it like aleph may bring about a misundersanding, e.g. in: "I'm destitute", for making a distinction between ani ("I'm") and 'ani ("destitute"). They may say ani for both "I" and "destitute", when no misunderstanding may arise (e.g. in: "I saw a wretch"). With regard to the 5771st year, they may say: tash'a, or even tash-'a (if not: tav shin 'ayin aleph), but I've never heard tash-a, probably beacuse tash-'a is clearer (most of the speakers being able to pronounce the 'ayin correctly), and because tav shin 'ayin aleph is much more common. Eliko (talk) 19:57, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

So what is the "proper pronunciation of ayin?" In Hebrew School in the U.S., we were told that both aleph and ayin are "silent letters." -- Mwalcoff (talk) 20:33, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Hear. Eliko (talk) 10:51, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like a French "r." Certainly nothing like I was taught. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:30, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

No. Hear the French r (which is identical to the r in Modern Hebrew), and now listen again to the Hebrew 'ayin. Eliko (talk) 08:17, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

French Language learning

OK I know I should be studying instead of hanging around here, so let me ask this quick question then get out of your hair. My school recently lost the French program :( I've already had 4 years and I want to continue learning French on my own, but obviously I won't have many contexts to actually have a spoken conversation. My best resources are limited to recordings of native speakers talking (via the internet and the library) and to other French-speakers on Facebook/chat where I can type out conversations. What would be the best way for me to continue my French education without spending any money? 76.230.209.53 (talk) 01:55, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Get Skype so you can have real conversations with your heretofore online friends. Read a lot—that's my advice for building vocabulary in any language. Lastly, look for a local French society. Even Milwaukee has its French Alliance. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 02:13, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

There must be web sites intended for the use of people learning French, where among other things they can ask questions. Use Google..... Michael Hardy (talk) 06:33, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

RFI have free podcasts on their website on a huge variety of different subjects, including all their news bulletins. They have a Journal Français Facile podcast which comes with a transcript, this might be too easy for you though. Tinfoilcat (talk) 10:35, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

This might interest you, [1] . Rishi.bedi (talk) 19:11, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

communication

what is impression management in non-verbal communication?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tapyboi (talk • contribs) 06:12, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

See Impression management -- Q Chris (talk) 10:30, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

give up, etc.

To give up does not mean to donate in a vertical direction. To set out to do something does not mean to place things in an external location. Etc. The English language has lots of phrasal verbs of the kind that consist of a verb followed by a small word that in other contexts may usually be used as either a preposition, an adverb, or a conjunction. In some cases it matters whether the latter word comes before or after the object of the verb; e.g. "I see through him" does not mean the same thing as "I see him through". And then there are cases like "I overlooked it" and "I looked it over".

Two questions:

• Is there a list of such verbs somewhere? On the internet or in a book?
• Is this a result of the Germanic roots of English? In particular, is it really the same phenomenon that manifests itself in the form of verbs with separable prefixes in German?

Michael Hardy (talk) 06:39, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Regarding your first question, in the "external links" section of our article on phrasal verbs there are some links which seem to be lists of phrasal verbs, although I can't vouch for their completeness. Maybe one of them will help you? — QuantumEleven 07:16, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Some books I happen to have include "A Dictionary of Idioms for the Deaf" (ISBN 0-8120-0613-5) and "English Verbal Idioms" by Frederick T. Ward (ISBN 0-671-47894-X ??). As for the historical linguistics question, English has two residues of the ancient Indo-European adverbial / adpositional modifying verb construction: Where the preposition is compounded as a prefix to the verb ("to understand"), and where it's a separate word after the verb ("to give up")... AnonMoos (talk) 17:10, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

The word "up" is sometimes used a a preposition ("He went up the ladder") but in "give up", I don't think it makes sense to call it a preposition. Wikipedia's article on phrasal verbs does say that things like "give up" are related to German separable prefixes. Michael Hardy (talk) 00:52, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

"I see through him" is not exactly a phrasal verb like "look up", "call up", etc. For true phrasal verbs, a pronoun can't follow the particle (c.f. "*look up him" vs. "*look up his number", "*call up her" vs. "call up her roommate", etc.). Also, in phrasal verbs the particle is not actually a preposition and doesn't contribute much semantically to the verb, whereas in "see through" there is definitely some semantic contribution of the "through". rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:15, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Osmosis

What, if anything, is the verb form of "osmosis"? Osmose? Osmote? Osmosize? And if there is no verb form, why the bleep not? 71.104.106.143 (talk) 07:16, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Wiktionary has osmose Rojomoke (talk) 07:21, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. 71.104.106.143 (talk) 07:35, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

"Osmose" definitely feels like a back-formation (in particular, there's a mild desire to laugh at it. Back-formations do that. I remember how hilarious an Arab thought it was when I told him the etymology of the Swahili word darasa.). Is it? Michael Hardy (talk) 17:11, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Have no idea on that, but one often-repeated example is that English "keep left" was supposedly borrowed into Swahili as kipilefiti "traffic sign", and the ki- interpreted as a class prefix, giving the plural vipilefiti... AnonMoos (talk) 17:22, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

If you understand ki- and vi- in Swahili, then you might appreciate this one: the plural of "darasa" (classroom) is "madarasa", from the Arabic "madrassa". Michael Hardy (talk) 00:49, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Osmose is actually the older word; it was originally a noun, then turned into a verb, while the noun changed to "osmosis". Lexicografía (talk) 17:58, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Why is "Jew boy" considered derogatory?

It is perfectly acceptable to refer to a boy who is Christian as a Christian boy, a boy who is a Muslim faith as a Muslim boy, and the same for most other religions. Why is it considered offensive to refer to a boy who is a Jew as a Jew boy? Is it the history of usage or is there an alternative meaning? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.38.213.226 (talk) 07:22, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Why is "Democrat Party" considered derogatory? -- AnonMoos (talk) 08:42, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

It's considered offensive because it's intended to be offensive, regardless of the claims of the speakers notwithstanding. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 20:31, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

The adjective form of the noun "Jew" is "Jewish," and there's nothing at all wrong with referring to a boy who is a Jew as a Jewish boy. "Jew boy" has historically been used as a taunt or insult. 71.104.106.143 (talk) 07:34, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Consider, although they do not have the same history colouring them, "Christianity boy" and "Islam boy". While they lack the powerful feeling of having been used despicably in the past, they still have less dignity and more of a derogatory feel than "Christian boy" and "Muslim boy". 86.164.78.91 (talk) 14:57, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Those would correspond to "Judaism boy," surely. And actually I think they sound like superheroes. The difference between "Jew boy" and "Muslim boy" is that Muslim is definitely a noun adjunct, and Jew might not be, since there exists the adjective Jewish. Calling somebody by an unexpected noun often sounds like an insult, desk-reader. 81.131.68.139 (talk) 16:06, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with 71.104.106.143. AnonMoos points to a parallel in American politics. "Democrat" is a noun ("I am a Democrat," as in, "a member of the party") but is often used as an adjective where Democrats themselves would use "Democratic" ("the Democrat Party" rather than "the Democratic Party"). Former Senator Bob "Democrat Wars" Dole, always adept with the rhetorical shiv, enjoyed both the usage and the reaction of his more easily-riled opponents.

When the people being discussed wouldn't use the same label, and when the one using it leaqps quickly onto the High Horse of Disingenuousness ("Isn't the boy a Jew? Isn't the senator a Democrat?"), there's more going on than simply description. --- OtherDave (talk) 16:14, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

"Jew boy" has often been used as an insult, and is not often used in any other sense, so it is insulting. A Jewish mother would more likely refer to her son as a "Jewish boy," or "Steve." It isn't insulting because of the grammar- it's insulting simply because the people who use it are using it as an insult. In the same way, no one uses "Democrat Party" except Republicans who are trying to be insulting, and so it is insulting. The insult is in the intent, and in the most common usage. Black Boy, which is neutral when referring to a child but insulting when referring to an adult, is a pretty good novel. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 18:03, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Hmmmm...I've lived in US all my life and never realized that "Democrat Party" is considered derogatory. Of course, I never heard of "kike" until that Michael Jackson song. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:12, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Being oblivious to the meaning of insults is not necessarily a bad thing. :) Republicans say "Democrat Party" to imply that the Democrats don't believe in "democracy", while the G.O.P. supposedly does. (G.O.P. stands for "Grand Old Party", but Pat Paulsen said it stood for "Group of Old People"). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:37, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Early documented usage in English was already derogatory, according to M.E. Sharpe, An Encyclopedia of Swearing: The Social History of Oaths, Profanity, Foul Language, and Ethnic Slurs in the English-Speaking World, 2006 - Language Arts & Disciplines, page 270:

"The literal origin of jew boy is explained in a British Police document of 1796. ”Jew boys Boys . . . go out every morning loaded with counterfeit copper, which they exchange for bad silver, to be afterwards coloured anew, and again put into a circulation.“ Within a few decades the term was used offensively of grown-ups. The sense that the Jews were ”different“ or ”alien“ is shown in the considerable number of compounds such as Jew-butcher, Jew-physician, Jew-pedlar, and Jew-fencer (buyer or seller, generally of stolen goods)." ---Sluzzelin talk 18:31, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Note: I mistakenly spelled "boy" with a minuscule initial letter. The text I was quoting has "Jew Boys", and so do other quotes of this document I found. I'm pointing this out because the capitalization might be evidence that it is indeed used as a label, not as a synonym for "Jewish boys". ---Sluzzelin talk 07:51, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

As a rule, referring to any adult male as a 'boy' will be considered insulting, regardless of race, because it implies that the person should (for some reason) be treated as incompetent and irresponsible, without the consideration and respect that adults receive. Adding a racial qualifier of any sort only serves to imply that the man in question should be treated as a child because he belongs to that race, which is an inherent racial slur. the same is true of 'girl', of course, but most societies are historically less sensitive about asserting that women should be treated as children (see patriarchy). --Ludwigs2 18:54, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Ludwigs2: I don't know where you live, but here in the US it's common for women 18 and over to be referred to as girls in casual settings and not considered offensive or to mean they should be treated as children. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:12, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

In America, notably in the south, white men often refer to other white men as "boy", and it's considered folksy and friendly; but calling a black man "boy" (especially with a certain tone of voice) is highly insulting. Likewise, across America, women often refer to each other as "girl", while men have largely gotten away from that except in certain contexts that are considered safe. "Girlfriend" and "boyfriend" are still in common usage regardless of age. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:34, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Even "man" isn't used a lot in informal contexts. People tend to use "guy" instead. I'm in the midwest US. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:38, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Guys and gals. Informally, I think I hear "man" more often as part of an exclamation than anything else, like, "Oh, man!" or "Hey, man!" (much the way "dude" was used before it took on a more specific implication). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:51, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

"parashah" + "portion" etymology

Is there an etymological link between these two similar-sounding and similar-meaning words? ╟─TreasuryTag►estoppel─╢ 12:04, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

According to Wiktionary Portion traces back to a (similar) Latin word, which strongly suggests it's Indo-European. Parashah seems to have a long history as a Hebrew word (predating the Greek and later Roman hegemony over the region), and there is an evidently cognate Pasha in Arabic, another Semitic (i.e. not Indo-European) language, suggesting this is unlikely to be an IE->Semitic loanword. Such resemblances in sound and meaning between two words in unrelated languages are statistically likely to crop up occasionally. However, a definitive answer would require the input of a knowlegeable historical linguist. (87.81 posting from . . .) 87.82.229.195 (talk) 13:02, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

The word "Portion" didn't even have a "sh" or [š] sound until relatively recent centuries. In French, it had an [s] sound, in early medieval French or Late Vulgar Latin it had a [ts] sound, while in classical Latin it had a [t] sound. Also, Hebrew etymologies proceed by triconsonantal roots, except in certain out-of-the-norm cases (loanwords, etc.), so the basis of parasha is actually p-r-sh... AnonMoos (talk) 16:35, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Looking for a Spanish word

I've been trying to find a word in Spanish that has the same shades of meaning as English "run". I.e. running, and perhaps (but not necessarily) running away. Do any of y'all know of such a word? Lexicografía (talk) 12:10, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean a single verb that is used in all the different ways that "run" is used in English? Or just a subset? Because "run" is pretty diverse:[2] It comes from old English, and the common ground of all of the usages is the idea of "flowing", as with a stream or river. My Spanish/English dictionary has a full page of different words that relate to the English "run". Correr, "to run", seems to be a fairly diverse word in Spanish, and its root connection to English words like "courier" and "course" seem fairly obvious. However, to run something in the sense of managing a business are terms like dirigir (to direct, also cognate with "dirigible") and administrar. Likewise, idioms such as "run away (from)" don't use those terms, they use more specific terms, such as fugarse (de) (obvious cognate with "fugitive") and evadir (obvious cognate with "evade"). You can also use correr and fluir for "to flow". I don't think there's a single word that answers your question, but the family under correr might be the closest. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:21, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Note that there are no phrasal verbs in Spanish (or if there are, they are tiny exceptions). English creates lots of verbs from a core verb and prepositions, Spanish uses instead a huge number of different verbs, each one with its own specific meaning. MBelgrano (talk) 20:38, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. You can go back to the old English root and see what the original usage was, and the subsequent diverse usages can generally be tied together. And of course we use both approaches in English, it being a hodge-podge of Latin-based and Germanic-based words. We "run" things or we "direct" things or we "administer" things. How foreigners ever figure out how to speak English, without going crazy in the process, is a wonder. I noted with some amusement that the book translated "to run well" as ir bien. That literally means "to go well". I wonder if the languages arrived at that expression independently, or if one borrowed from the other. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:44, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

No, not all of English "run"'s senses, just those two. I found "huir" but it doesn't seem to have the sense of merely running, and not running away. Lexicografía (talk) 21:29, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

According to this[3] huir is derived from the Latin fugere, probably via another route than the one that created fugarse. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:38, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

How go languages deal with template messages?

It is quite common for software systems to provide templates for messages, which have parameters.For example a template might say:

Dear ${title} ${surname}
Thank you for your order. Since you have specified that you want to collect the order from a nearby
store, it will be sent to our ${storename} store, the closest to ${address.town}. Please let us know if 
we can assist you or ${spouse-title} ${surname} in the future....

The idea is that a different template could be used for different languages, but the parameters stay the same. Someone pointed out to me that in some languages verbs, etc. change ending depending on the gender of the person, and in others the name ending itself may change depending on the context in the sentence. Is there a way of wording template translations in these languages to avoid this sort of problem? Is it something that people are used to computers "getting wrong" where the language has these additional changes? -- Q Chris (talk) 14:07, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Article is Mail merge, but it doesn't seem to have directly useful info or pointers... AnonMoos (talk) 16:28, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I would imagine that, when someone creates a Chinese (for example) version of this template, he would have to add a new parameter specifying the gender of the recipient, and that parameter would control the way the pronouns are displayed. As for things like discourse factors you mention, that shouldn't be a problem, since the actual translation from one language to another would have been done by a human and thus any discourse-critical stuff would already be hard-coded into the wording of the template; the only stuff that's variable is stuff linked to the names in the parameters. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:45, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Chinese, being an isolating language, is easy. The thing is that in order to make it work correctly for inflected languages, the database of recipients would have to contain the complete declension of their names (or at least, some indication of the declension paradigm), and the template would have to do stuff like "Dear ${title-vocative} ${surname-vocative}" and "we can assist you or ${spouse-title-dative} ${surname-spouse-dative}". Sounds like lot of hassle, and like something which could not be readily used for several languages simultaneously. I don't know how they actually do it in practice.—Emil J. 17:04, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

(Yeah, Chinese [traditional] was just the first example I could think of in which the pronouns in question have different variants for genders. For other languages, of course, there are other issues to consider.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:21, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

In Finland the usual approach is to word the text so that declined word forms are not necessary. Basically, names are used only to say "Dear {recipient}". It helps that Finnish doesn't have a special vocative form for names. It would probably be too much effort to have data entry clerks enter declined forms of names in any case. 130.188.8.11 (talk) 08:41, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

An approach that has been used (can't remember where; Perl?) is to use functions. Bear with me here, because I don't know any languages where this applies, but consider:

$name, you can $KOREAN_GENDER($gender, collecto, collecta) the goods on Monday.

The function $KOREAN_GENDER would use "collecto" if $gender equals "male" and "collecta" if "female", so you'd get

John, you can collecto the goods on Monday.
Laura, you can collecta the goods on Monday.

As the name indicates, this function $KOREAN_GENDER would be language-specific.

83.81.60.233 (talk) 17:24, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

What is a hyponym to another hyponym?

Dear Wikipedians! I have a problem in my English class... I've been explained the relationship of hypernyms and hyponyms, but a nuisance of a nuance attempted to avoid my focus! What, pray tell me, is a hyponym to another hyponym? Such as... I wouldn't know, "teal" to "aurora", under their hypernym "blue"? If the colours are slightly unlike each other, nevermind please! What I know is they -may- by some stretch be synonyms, but I am more concerned with a hyponym-to-hyponym relationship. Is there a term coined for this yet? If not, can I please get to name it? Badassinym, they would be called. Much obliged for any answer! 88.90.16.109 (talk) 19:28, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

According to the article WordNet, they're "coordinate terms". That's a bit of jargon unique to the context of WordNet, though, I think. Badassinym still has a chance to take root. 213.122.12.95 (talk) 20:30, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

We use "coordinate term" on Wiktionary too. —Internoob (Talk · Cont · Wikt) 22:53, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

If you want to be specific on the fact that there are exactly 2 levels of hyponymy between them, we could coin the phrases grand-hyponym and grand-hypernyms, based on grand daughter / grand-father etc. --Lgriot (talk) 08:07, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Chinese phrase - what is a proper translation?

What is the specific meaning of the phrase 自有永有. The best I can come up with is "perpetual self possession," but I'm sure this is incorrect. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 22:01, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't know the best English way to translate it, but what it seems to mean is basically "innate"--自有 means something is innate and 永有 means it always will be that way. For instance, God's line "I am what I am" from the Old Testament is translated as "我是自有永有的" (I am 自有永有). This search on baidu zhidao (like Yahoo Answers for China) turns up a lot of uses of the term, including one explanation that basically describes it as "something that just is, and will never change, like 2+2=4". rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:52, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

That's very interesting. As a Korean, it's easy to reach the wrong conclusion: in Korean it means "To have freedom forever." I guess it's totally different in Chinese. --Kjoonlee 08:33, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Hm...in [old] Chinese that might be 自由永有? Almost the same but not quite. rʨanaɢ (talk) 18:29, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

It might help if I told you the context in which the phrase was used. The Chinese history forum I belong to has an "off topic" area where anything can be discussed. One member posted an online article about Stephen Hawking's new book where he claims God was not needed to create the universe. I posted that, as an atheist, I am always interested to hear about the most current scientific theory on the subject. Another member posted that my comment "hinted even atheists can not avoid 自有永有." The member is a polite intellectual, so I doubt it was directed in anger. I just want to make sure I have a firm grasp on his implied meaning meaning I reply. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 18:42, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Eeeeek! I take it back. I didn't know the correct spelling for 自由. Please ignore what I wrote above. Thanks. --Kjoonlee 13:53, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

September 7

You don't dip your bread in, you mean?

What on earth does "You don't dip your bread in, you mean?" mean? The context is an interview written up in a UK newspaper: Morrissey interview: Big mouth strikes again. More fully:

Interviewer: "And presumably it would be a problem now, walking down Deansgate. Because of the fame?"

Morrissey: "Yes, but I don't really do all the things that famous people do."

Interviewer: "You don't dip your bread in, you mean?"

Morrissey: "Yes. That's very well put. I can see why Faber jumped on you."

Clearly I shall never work for Faber --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:04, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

To "dip your bread in"; It seems to be (somewhat rare) British slang for "be involved in" from a quick Google and Google books. Lexicografía (talk) 00:50, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

My guess is that the reference is to the practice of fancy restaurants of giving their guests a pre-appetizer of bread with a dish of very high-end olive oil or some fancy sauce to dip it into. I suppose it means passing up on luxuries that are available as free temptations to famous people. Looie496 (talk) 02:06, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Could it be a reference to Morrissey's famous celibacy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.171.56.13 (talk) 09:47, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

The general sense of the reported interview is that Morrisey feels he is not acceptable in 'famous' society. For this reason I strongly suspect that The interviewer was referring to an old 'low class' English hadit of dipping bread which was frequently stale into whatever drink was in use in order to soften it. I have even seen it done by modern day 'lower class' people as a way of softening the crust on their bread. As this habit is common knowledge in Britain and as the sense of the comment is about being socially unacceptable, this is the only interpretation that I think fits. Gurumaister (talk) 11:37, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

PS: Dipping a biscuit (US = 'cookie')in one's tea in order to soften it, is still a common habit in Britain and is also not acceptable in 'polite society'. Gurumaister (talk) 11:43, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

There's an article, of course. Bazza (talk) 14:15, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Yeah but that doesn't make sense in the context of the interview snippet quoted by the OP (I also read the interview and wondered about that). What Moz is saying is not that he's not acceptable in famous society, but that he hasn't fallen for many of the trappings of celebrity that other famous people have. The phrase remains a puzzle to me, although I like Looie496's guess. --Viennese Waltz 15:05, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure he was speaking metaphorically. Reading it in context, it seems to me that he's saying he's tempted to partake of the luxuries that fame and wealth allow, but doesn't actually do so. I haven't heard the phrase used that way before (I'm in the UK), but, again from the context, it seems that he congratulated the interviewer for coming up with a phrase that was "well put" and novel. But that's all WP:OR! Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:20, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Reading it again and the comments in this thread, I think I finally get it. The line "I don't really do all the things that famous people do" sounds a little snobbish (especially because Morrissey can come across rather arrogant in interviews), and the interviewer took that one step further by saying, right, you're not like the proles who dip their bread in. (The joke being that Morrissey is from a working class background himself.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.171.56.13 (talk) 19:42, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that's right. He's saying "I don't really do all the things that famous people do" and [I] "don't dip [my] bread in.." "Dipping bread" is not something that "proles" do, it's a metaphor covering the things that other famous people do. Ghmyrtle (talk) 19:58, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

In the modern world we have reality TV stars and people who are famous for being famous, so it's certainly possible to look down on the other famous people as being ordinary, gluttonous and crass. (Looking down on them is made easier by being Morrissey, I suspect, to whom looking down on people comes naturally.) 213.122.34.79 (talk) 13:36, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

This is mentioned in Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger, about half way through the third chapter The Sands Of Ghanin. In the desert the author is trying to behave exactly like a Bedouin to gain their trust, including uncomfotably sitting in the same way as them. One of the Bedouin would make a kind of camp-fire bread roll. "When we wished to feed he would give one to each of us, and we would sit in a circle and, in turn, dip pieces of this bread into a small bowl containing melted butter, or soup if we happened to have anything from which to make it." I suspect that this book could be the kind of thing that Morrisey and his arty interviewer may read, with a lot of time on their hands. 92.15.12.54 (talk) 20:10, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Red (given name)

Under Red (given name) there is an impressive list of people named Red, mostly from the USA. What is the origin of the name Red? Is it a native american name or a translation thereof? Your virtually, 134.96.51.209 (talk) 09:08, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

The three people I know called Red all got the name as a nickname because of their red hair. A look at many of the links under Red (given name) show Red in quote marks, telling us that it's a nickname, so quite possibly the same connection. As an Aussie, I have no idea about any Native American use of the name. I suspect that's an entirely different thing. (Of course, again as an Aussie, I also know two people with red hair who have the nickname Blue. We do that kind of thing here.) HiLo48 (talk) 09:27, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I'd agree that it usually has to do with hair color. Red Buttons mentions his red hair and Red Barber says that he was first called the "Ol' Redhead". I didn't see anything about his hair but he did work as an announcer for the Cincinnati Reds. So there's a possible (probable) connection there. Although rare(from my experience) for a black man, Redd Foxx had reddish hair and that was actually his stage name and not his legal name. Red Grooms was given the nickname "Red" by a friend according to his article but it doesn't say why. And you're partially right in that there are a few Native American names on the list. Dismas|^(talk) 09:54, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

"Aussie" – that word reminds me of Ossi, a nickname given to former residents of East Germany -- Irene1949 (talk) 09:59, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

So far, I have found one Red < Redmond (which is a place name as a given name, as popular in the anglophone world; or maybe a connection to the Old German name Ratmund), namely Red Symons. As Aussie, incidentally, although born british. 134.96.51.209 (talk) 10:17, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

It could have some connection with the name Rufus. I don't mean the obvious fact that Rufus means 'red' in Latin. But maybe some relatively modern-day people named Rufus were nicknamed 'Red'. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 10:34, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Willow was nicknamed Red by Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Quadrupedaldiprotodont (talk) 14:10, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Let us not forget Eric the Red, whose son had early American connections, but who was certainly not a Skraeling. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 17:06, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Mocking the "Red Scare" of the 1950s, The Wizard of Id once featured Eric the Red. They asked him why he was called Eric the Red. He said, "You go to a few meetings, and you're marked for life!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:31, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

"Red" as a nickname (as with "Whitey") nearly always has to do simply with hair color. It can get funny when guys whose red hair turns gray or white and they're still called "Red". Nothing to do with "redskins" (Native Americans) as such - with one exception I can think of. I recall reading an interview with Redd Foxx, who said his nickname came from being relatively light-skinned, not to do with his hair. He said "Red" was a common nickname among black people for lighter-toned African Americans. He made it a double-d and double-x just as a "brand". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:16, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Must be dating myself, can't believe no one has mentioned Red Skelton yet. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 17:19, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

He was a great entertainer. There are some youtube clips from his old TV shows. He was popular in radio before that. Another "Red" that comes to mind is Woody Allen, who had reddish hair when he was younger, and in his standup days told of a classmate who taunted him by calling him "Red". He never used that as a nickname, though. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:29, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Red Barber called himself "The Old Redhead". That refers to hair. His broadcasting for the Cincinnati Reds was a coincidence, and their "Red" referred to their stockings - hence their temporary nickname of "Redlegs" during the Red Scare of the 1950s. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:50, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Ballplayers named "Whitey" included Whitey Lockman, Whitey Herzog, and Richie "Whitey" Ashburn. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:52, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

The character in The Shawshank Redemption Ellis Redding is usually called Red by the other characters, presumably adapted from his last name. rʨanaɢ (talk) 18:33, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

The blues pianist Rufus Perryman, who was an African American albino and (I assume) was so named when his condition was recognised at birth, became known as Speckled Red, and his younger brother Willie, also an albino, became known as Piano Red. Ghmyrtle (talk) 18:38, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Re Bugs's comment on "Red" being a common nickname among black people for lighter-tone African Americans. Often, this actually did have something to do with hair color as well. The most famous example is perhaps Malcolm X who was nicknamed "Red" for his reddish hair during childhood and adolescence. Jazz musician Red Rodney was not African American, but he was billed as an African American named Albino Red when touring the South with Charlie Parker's combo (all other members were African American, and they had to pretend that Rodney was too, because of Southern customs of racial segregation on stage during that time. This anecdote is also featured in the movie Bird). ---Sluzzelin talk 19:07, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I was merely reporting what Redd Foxx said, but it could certainly be true that either reddish hair or reddish skin could encourage that nickname. Same with "Whitey" and "Blondie". You don't hear "Brownie" or "Blackie" too much, probably because those are more common hair colors. (Although there's an old song about women titled "Vanilla, Chocolate and Strawberry".) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:16, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Middle name derivative. This may concern only a very few of the people named "Red". But there is a tradition of giving the mothers family name as a middle name to the firstborn child. (Or similar naming conventions elsewhere.) Then there's another tradition to keep first names or middle names through several generations. These names occasionally got shortened and eroded and some families switched around middle name and first name between generations. So surnames like "Reddick" ended up as someone's middle name or fist name "Red". 99.11.160.111 (talk) 07:58, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Up and down, the verbs

I used the expression "up the ante" on another desk a few minutes ago, and it got me thinking. We "up the ante" and "up the dosage" (of a medicine), but I can't think of any other ways of upping things in the sense of increasing them. Are there any others?

Then there's the verb "down". We can "down a beer", but that means "drink whatever's left in the glass". Is "down" ever used to mean "decrease", cf. "up" meaning "increase"? -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:21, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Wiktionary has other examples for "down", but not in the sense of decrease (wikt:down#Verb). For "up" in the sense of increase it has "up the volume". (wikt:up#Verb). ---Sluzzelin talk 21:27, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

How about "downsize"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:02, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

"Downgrade" too. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:37, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Also "downplay". --Frumpo (talk) 10:13, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

To down a proposal (to defeat it); to down a helicopter (cause it to fall); to down a(n American) football (to cause it to be out of play). None of this is really like decrease; it's a bit of a stretch to say you're decreasing the helicopters. --- OtherDave (talk) 00:53, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

"Up the priority" --Frumpo (talk) 10:15, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I think you could up the pressure. --Tagishsimon (talk) 10:26, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Up the Irish? Probably a loose translation from Gaelic, though, so it might not count. Etymonline [4] has a few others under "up (v.)". Well, one other: up the price. Seems you can generally rely on being able to up any type of amount; but you can't down them. 213.122.34.79 (talk) 12:56, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, that's the impression I've got too. Funny thing, this English language. Eclectic randomness, wildly illogical spelling, unpredictabilities and dead ends at every turn - no wonder it's become the world's most dominant language. :) Thanks everyone. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 18:35, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

September 8

Japanese pronunciation

At Japanese language it says:

Some Japanese consonants have several allophones, which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the 20th century, the phonemic sequence /ti/ was palatalized and realized phonetically as [tɕi], approximately chi ; however, now /ti/ and /tɕi/ are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī [tiː] "Western style tea" and chii [tɕii] "social status".

Have these distinctions evolved only to allow loanwords (especially English loanwords) to be pronounced more accurately, or do they affect native words too? For example, are any native Japanese words now pronounced with /ti/ as distinct from /tɕi/? 86.184.238.200 (talk) 11:52, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

The /ti/ does exist in native words, but only jokingly or when spoken childishly. Same with /si/ (actually many people pronounce this more like /sɯi/). Both of these sounds, however, do exist in modern Okinawan dialect/language. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:16, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Do you know whether the joking/childish /ti/ and /si/ pronunciations (as opposed to the pronunciations in loanwords) has also arisen only since the second half of the 20th century? Do you think it is under the influence of sounds appearing in loanwords, or do you see it as a separate phenomenon? 86.185.79.68 (talk) 18:34, 8 September 2010 (UTC).

I don't know if they are entirely separate, but I will hazard a guess at the appearance in loanwords, plus the wider availability of foreign language education in recent years, certainly have had some influence. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:09, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't think I know any Japanese people who can pronounce or hear /si/ as distinct from /ɕi/. I also know people who can't pronounce ふぁ differently from は. Paul Davidson (talk) 07:42, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I knew a girl whose name was 'Yoshi', and her friends always called her 'Yossii' (with a slight glide between the 's' and 'i'. In fact, I knew plenty of people with such nicknames. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:09, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Xury

In Robinson Crusoe, there is a Moor boy named Xury. May someone know how his name is pronounced in Arabic or English? Thanks. --Omidinist (talk) 13:43, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

If the spelling is meant to be English, then [z] would be the most traditional pronunciation; if it's meant to be Portuguese, then presumably [š] would be most likely... AnonMoos (talk) 16:18, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I found two books stating that Xury is "a name that suggests usury" [5] [6]. I don't know whether these were Defoe's intentions, but if so, another possible pronunciation of the initial 'X' could be a voiced postalveolar fricative (like the 's' in "usury" or "vision"). ---Sluzzelin talk 18:55, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

However, I really don't think that [ž] occurred in the most common or standard English pronunciation of the word "Usury" around the beginning of the 1700s... AnonMoos (talk) 19:07, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

After a google search: [7] suggests "zoo-ri"; This one is hard to decipher, but seems to give it a "z" and a vowel that is found in French and Dutch. Lexicografía (talk) 19:34, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Looks like those are from two different editions of the same book. They both indicate ZYOO-ree (like the word "fury" with a z instead of f).--Cam (talk) 23:53, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

September 9

" Ridiculously hot"

"Ridiculously hot girl" - is it grammatically correct? What is the purpose/meaning of "ridiculous" here? --Galactic Traveller (talk) 05:52, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's correct. "Ridiculously" means "very" here. rʨanaɢ (talk) 06:22, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

It is one of the many words in English which have over time acquired a second use as an intensifier, though in this case with a connotation of "excessive". --ColinFine (talk) 21:10, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it excessive. That means there's a negative quality about its muchness; it's an undesirable amount. (Unless you're talking about the excess like which nothing succeeds - that's not a true excess, because it's fully accommodated, the more the merrier.) I can't imagine someone preferring to exchange their image of a "ridiculously hot" person for one who's clearly less attractive. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 02:52, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I think there is a negative implication, but the term can be used jocularly. If I say that a political party's position is ridiculously wrong, I mean it negatively. If I say that I did ridiculously well in a game, I'm joking that other people would think it ridiculous. --Anonymous, 03:43 UTC, September 10, 2010.

I don't get that. Colin correctly said it's an intensifier. It makes negative things more negative; and it makes positive things more positive. It can't be used to make negative things less negative (= more positive), or to make positive things less positive (= more negative). -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 04:44, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I think Colin's connotation of "excessive" is possible. If you mean ridiculously as in over the top, implausibly, even freakishly!. There is that kind of hot that turns you off (or me at least). ---Sluzzelin talk 04:56, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

In the case in question, the closest term would be extremely. There's no "negative" or "excessive" connotation to it. Also, in my experience, it seems to be used more often with positive adjectives ("that girl is ridiculously hot", "the food there is ridiculously good", "wow, he is ridiculously fast", etc.), not negative ones (some things, like "man, that class was ridiculously long", sound ok, but a lot don't—"#she's ridiculously ugly", "#dinner was ridiculously bad", "#that runner is ridiculously slow" all sound strange to my ear). rʨanaɢ (talk) 05:04, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I guess I've been reading it too literally then. I thought it could also be interpreted as "hot to the extent that we find ridiculous", thinking that the axis of this intensifier could go beyond an optimum. ---Sluzzelin talk 05:09, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

More likely it's an abbreviation of the phrase "It's ridiculous to think that anyone could be that hot" - i.e., closer to 'unbelievable' than 'extreme'. By the way, I didn't think the girl in that link was all that hot. may be she's just too young for my tastes, but still... --Ludwigs2 05:25, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

(after ec #4) Yes, I think that is a too-literal reading. It's not that the person is in any sense ridiculous. The speaker is bereft of suitable adjectives with which to describe this ravishing creature, and that paucity of his vocabulary, which he interpolates as a general inadequacy of the language itself, is what he's saying is ridiculous. In the turn-off scenario, would you use the word 'hot' at all? I think it's reserved for people who the speaker considers are actually currently somewhere in the hot zone, not those who've passed right through it and are now exhibiting unnatural freakishness or whatever. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 05:28, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Making "ridiculous" into an adverb is actually an expansion of vocabulary, isn't it? Anyway, I do agree that this is being analyzed too literally. "Ridiculously" means "extremely" and there is no conscious connection to "ridiculous" when it is used. (And it can be used both positively and negatively, in my experience - "ridiculously ugly" or "ridiculously stupid" or similar phrases are also possible.) Adam Bishop (talk) 12:50, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Existential Threat

On the BBC today there was was talk about Pakistan facing an "Existential treat" because of the floods, terrorism, and even cricket match fixing. This contours up images of people looking for meaning in a meaningless world, and whining about the angst of existence like in a Jean Paul Satre book, but from the context I gather it simply means "threat to existence". Is this normal usage of the term? -- Q Chris (talk) 07:36, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's an abbreviated way of saying "Threat to one's existence". In reference to nations, it's more often used in connection with Israel (see Policide). For another possible meaning of the term existential threat, there's a classic ca. 2002 joke that develops at some length a scenario about how the French are invading Afghanistan by dropping in beret-wearing baguette-carrying café philosophers, but I can't seem to find it by Google searching right now... AnonMoos (talk) 12:40, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Here's a version of it: [8] -- AnonMoos (talk) 12:47, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Everybody Hurts

What does it mean? Everybody hurts (other people) sometimes. Everybody feels pain. Both?--80.58.205.34 (talk) 11:50, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

It's a matter of interpretation of course, but I'd be very surprised if it wasn't intended to mean that everybody feels pain - specifically, emotional pain. --Viennese Waltz 11:54, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

From the lyrics I'd say "Everybody feels pain". -- Q Chris (talk) 11:55, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

http://www.lyricinterpretations.com/rem/Everybody-Hurts Quadrupedaldiprotodont (talk) 14:14, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Bestemor

What does "Bestemor" mean in (presumably) Norwegian? 79.123.57.130 (talk) 14:26, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Grandmother. See, for example, Wiktionary: wikt:bestemor. See also mormor and farmor. ---Sluzzelin talk 14:33, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Perfect. Thanks. 79.123.57.130 (talk) 14:58, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

What Is The CP

What does CP mean?199.126.224.245 (talk) 22:42, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Control point. What that means, don't ask me. Looie496 (talk) 23:36, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

In games, a control point is a point on the map/battlefield that players must take control of in order to get a step closer to winning the game - very often they are marked with a flag, hence the phrase 'capture the flag' when referring to this type of game. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 12:46, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

September 10

Antonyms

Hi,

What are the antonyms for the greek prefixes "endo-" and "sym-"? They don't have to be commonly used, I'm trying to make a new word. Thanks. Aaadddaaammm (talk) 12:37, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

The opposite of endo- is exo-. Syn- (or sym-) doesn't really have a direct antonym, but ana- or apo- would probably usually fit. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:43, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the perfect answer in only 6 minutes! Aaadddaaammm (talk) 12:58, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Sometimes the prefix "anti-" is used antonymously for syn/sym. Examples: synonym/antonym or syn and anti addition in organic chemistry. ---Sluzzelin talk 13:50, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Language

What is the most efficient language? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Myname12029200 (talk • contribs) 14:04, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Hard to say, and depends on your definition of efficient. You might be interested in archived questions from Sep 2008, Oct 2008, and July 2009. ---Sluzzelin talk 14:09, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Sign language. 0 consonants. 0 vowels. a large number of words. Googlemeister (talk) 14:59, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

There are many signed languages, though, so who knows which one you're referring to. Also, in place of consonants and vowels, sign languages have numerous cheremes. rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:04, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

It's hard to answer the question too meaningfully in the current state of knowledge, but if you mean which language has the least inessential distractions which appear to serve no absolutely necessary communicative functional purpose (such as irregularities of inflection, morphophonogical alternations, grammatical gender classes, etc.), then the answer could very probably be one of the creole languages... AnonMoos (talk) 17:46, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Do any of them have an army and a navy, though? It's certainly a tricky question; for example, English might have "efficiency credit" for not having genders and "efficiency debit" for having so many near synonyms (Latin v. German, etc.). How would you balance something like that? And is Russian "efficient" or "handicapped" for their (non)use of articles? If you're counting words rather than syllables, something like German might appear very efficient... Matt Deres (talk) 18:29, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Using AnonMoos' criteria, would one of the artificial languages such as Esperanto score highly? Rojomoke (talk) 18:30, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

First of all I have no idea what an army and a navy have to do with anything; languages would be just as efficient or inefficient (however that may be defined) with or without such military appurtenances...

Rojomoke -- The Esperanto plural accusative adjective ending -ajn is the kind of thing which probably serves no "absolutely necessary communicative functional purpose"... AnonMoos (talk) 23:34, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Matt is refering to the difference between a dialect and a language, summed up (for some) by "A language is a dialect with an army and navy". - Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 13:16, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I've been well aware of that quote for probably almost 30 years now, but I fail to see what relevance it has in the current context... AnonMoos (talk) 13:37, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

My mistake. I think the suggestion is that Creole languages might not necessarily be the sort of "languages" the OP is after. Perhaps Matt can clarify. - Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 15:14, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

The relevance was simply a small jest that the languages (in the most inclusive sense) that do the best job of being a language (in the sense of being efficient) might not qualify as a language if you used the old saw about requiring an army and navy. Matt Deres (talk) 02:39, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

My initial take was that the OP was asking which language can convey meaning in the smallest number of words. Chinese, for example, generally requires fewer words than English, while French typically requires somewhat more. If this is the meaning, I suspect that the answer would be one of the dialects of Chinese or another Asian language. John M Baker (talk) 18:57, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Mine own take was that the OP is a redlink with 1 contrib, fitting the pattern of a certain compulsive poster we have been experiencing for quite a while. Forgive me if I am wrong, and I will attempt to add an answer to this part of the discussion. I do not think that using the smallest number of words is necessarily an indicator of an 'efficient' language, whatever the OP meant by that, because a certain element of ambiguity then arises. Take this extreme example from Japanese: 'Inu, tabeta?' (two words) can mean either 'has the dog eaten?' or 'did you eat my dog?' (and plenty of other meanings, too). The same thing(s) can be said in exactly the same way in Chinese. Normally the context will supply the meaning, but not always. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 21:50, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Practically speaking, the most efficient language is the one in which you and your audience are most fluent. Having to stop to repeat, explain or translate something makes communication far more difficult than any intrinsic limitations of a language. -- 174.21.233.249 (talk) 19:41, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Spanish phrase

What does this Spanish sentence mean? "Quiero que me llame." It seems to be "I want to talk to myself" but I'm sure that's not right. Lexicografía (talk) 19:33, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

It means "I want you (singular, polite)/him/her/it to call me."—Wavelength (talk) 20:12, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

See wikt:llamar and es:wikt:llamar (section: Conjugación) (part: Modo subjuntivo).—Wavelength (talk) 20:20, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Muchas gracias, Wavelength Lexicografía (talk) 22:52, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

"I call myself" would be me llamo. That's the way Spanish speakers tell you what their name is: Me llamo Juan or whatever. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:57, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Languages in the USA. English in the world

I've realised that this is probably a better place to ask a question I just put in Discussion on another article...

Often in Wikipedia, when different versions of English spelling are an issue, some posters love to point out that the majority of native English speakers are American. Seems a possibly reasonable claim, but I'd like to see some figures. Recent trips to the US have shown me that a lot of American residents now would be native Spanish speakers, rather than English. I suspect there would still be other significant other language groups.

Is there a good place to tell me, firstly, what is the breakup of "native" languages in the US, and, secondly, how the US percentage of native English speakers really does compare with the rest of the world?

HiLo48 (talk) 23:57, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

In relation to Wikipedia articles, Wikipedia:Manual of Style (spelling) and Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#National_varieties_of_English 82.44.55.25 (talk) 00:06, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) According to the 2000 census, 215 million Americans speak English at home, while 28 million speak Spanish. The Census does not care whether the language is native or not. 215 million is roughly 3.5 times the population of the United Kingdom.

Although they are still very much in the minority, Spanish speakers (especially those who don't know or are bad at English) are becoming an important niche population. This was evidenced in September 2009 and 2010, when Univision, the 600-pound gorilla of Spanish television, beat the English-language networks in primetime ratings for a couple of weeks. (To be fair to the English networks, they were showing reruns while Univision shows new programming all year.)

To compare to other countries, a negligible amount of Britons (less than 5% of the population) speak languages other than English at home. The largest group is Punjabi speakers, who number just over 500,000. In Canada, according to the 2006 census, 58.8% spoke English at home, 21.6% spoke French, and 19.6% spoke "other" languages -- presumably indigenous languages. Xenon54

While the majority of native English speakers may well be in the US, the number of people who speak English as a second language probably dwarfs the number of native speakers, and many of them learned British English. So using those kinds of numbers as an argument in favor of using AmEng on Wikipedia doesn't make much sense. That's why there is no formal rule on Wikipedia; as you can see in the links the IP gave, we handle things on a case-by-case (article-by-article) basis. rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:35, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for those responses, but I'm not sure we've got there yet. I'm quite comfortable with Wikipedia's spelling conventions. Most spelling discussions re articles are pretty quickly settled based on the subject of the article. But it's those broader questions of who actually speaks what that intrigue me. It seems to me that American English is spoken in America and not many other places with large populations. British English and similar variants are spoken in lots of places. As an Australian, I am used to some less well educated Americans thinking we speak Austrian, hence the funny accent, but really there are 23 million of us and we almost all spell (nearly) British English. 5 million New Zealanders would probably like to be counted too. Because of their colonial histories British English would be common enough in India and many African countries, with a total of over 2 billion to be a "small" percentage of. Has anyone ever done the Maths? (Yes, we put an "s" on the end of Maths! ) HiLo48 (talk) 01:55, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

I am a Brit, born and bred, and have been ever since I was born, and I do not care one iota which version of English is spoken here, so long as it gets the point across. Problem with that? I am a professional translator, and never - I repeat in italics never - have I come across anyone who has insisted that '[blah blah blah] dialect is better than [blah blah blah other] dialect because it is spoken by more speakers/the King uses it/Britney Spears uses it' or [whatever-insert-your-personal-vogue-of-choice-here]. Language is language. Its purpose is to communicate. Some people do it slightly different from others. Live with it. It's surprisingly not hard (and quite fun at times). Seriously. </soapbox>. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 06:17, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Giggle: "...a Brit, born and bred, and have been ever since I was born". Thanks for the concept of a changeable birthplace, Kage Tora.  :) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:50, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

No worries, Jack. It was purposeful. I always find a bit of humour takes the edge off what would otherwise be conceived as a pointless rant :) --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 21:35, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

List of countries by English-speaking population breaks it down by native speakers and non-native speakers, for what the numbers there are worth. ---Sluzzelin talk 08:16, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Linguists such as David Crystal and Braj Kachru demonstrate that English is developing in a lot of different directions, and the UK and USA have little control over its future. Native English speakers in the US, and worldwide, are a minority of those who use the language. David Graddol has written at least two reports for the British Council about the role of English globally. Hope this leads you towards an answer. BrainyBabe (talk) 14:38, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

(Rethinking where best to place this contribution) I have to refute Xenon54's assertion above, wrt Canada, that "19.6% spoke "other" languages -- presumably indigenous languages". Our article Aboriginal_peoples_in_Canada#Demographics, referring to the Canada 2006 Census, states that aboriginal people are under 4% of the population; there is no way that the First Nations, Inuit, and Métis have been anything like 1 in 5 of the population since before Canadian Confederation in 1867. Also, many aboriginal people, especially the Metis, speak English (or French) as their mother tongue, or possibly their only language. It is not clear from looking at Indigenous languages of the Americas how many indigenous Canadians speak an indigenous language. The 2006 Census figures make it clear that the "home languages" (their phrase, meaning "the language spoken most often or on a regular basis at home by the individual") are predominantly those of relatively recent immigrants, with Chinese languages bundled together being the largest (3%). BrainyBabe (talk) 14:38, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

September 11

Linguistic Change

Hello Wikipedia! I recently returned one of my student's short story assignments, with some points docked for overly informal language (i.e., 'gonna', 'ain't', misc. youth slang terms and Afro-American Vernacular) outside of thoughts and dialogue (this was clearly not intentional, as she acknowledged). Naturally she complained and I listened, and while I'm fairly sure she was just saying things to hopefully get some points back, she brought up a very good point. She asserted that languages change over time and we should embrace these changes; otherwise we might still speak Latin or Indo-European or some original language. I wasn't sure how to respond to that. My question to the watchers of Wikipedia is: Is linguistic change, focussing on spoken language, a 'good thing', or should we try to slow it or embrace it? On one hand the best literary works (Beowulf, Chaucer, Shakespeare's plays) are products of various linguistic periods and undoubtedly contain much of the slang of that period. On the other, I certainly don't want to start saying things like 'finna' or 'ain't', etc. In other words, should as much attention be paid to speaking in formal standard English as writing it? [This post has been edited to clarify the original question] 24.92.78.167 (talk) 00:13, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

It's not a matter of "should" and "allowed". Languages aren't "allowed to change" or "prevented from changing", it just happens on its own. Even staunchly guarded languages like French (which has its own academy for preserving it) still change. Sometimes the change in spoken language isn't reflected in the written language, but the language is still changing nonetheless. rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:31, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

While languages change, and it is possible that your student will be able to write a successful story in vernacular, she also needs to be able to write in formal, standard English. At the moment, she is accidentally writing in informal vernacular when she intends to write in standard English: once she can reliably write in standard English, she can choose to use vernacular whenever she wants. Formal, standard English is not static, it changes and is changing, and the vocabulary is not the same everywhere. Nonetheless, she will be judged by many people in her life on her ability to write in formal standard English, and it won't make any difference that she can argue for language change. On top of that, formal standard English is clearer when writing for people who aren't part of your specific subculture: if she wants or needs to write things which people outside her friends at school can understand, she needs to be able to use formal standard English. If she wants a decent job, she needs to be able to write formal standard English: at least enough to write a CV! 86.164.78.91 (talk) 00:40, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

As a high school teacher in Australia, with many students from a lower socio-economic background, if I was to try to speak the same vernacular as these kids I would replace most of the adjectives I know with f**kin'. Hard to tell if it's a long term change in the accepted language. HiLo48 (talk)

I personally believe that the goal of writing is to connect with readers, and anything that doesn't come across as awkward or jarring to readers is okay. To me, the words you cite would be jarring. Looie496 (talk) 00:48, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Although 'gonna', and, to a lesser extent, 'ain't' have made it into mainstream spoken English, they haven't yet reached the point of being acceptable in formal written English (although they seem to be OK in the news), so although the language definitely is changing, it hasn't changed that far yet. It is right for you to correct your student using such terms in non-dialogue school writing. Lexicografía (talk) 01:12, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your responses. I'm sorry, but my question was worded poorly. Of course I realize that being able to write formal Standard English is important and I was right to correct the student, and that languages change whether or not we want them to. My question was actually intended to be more general than this specific case. Reworded, my question is: Is linguistic change, focussing on spoken language (since that's where changes begin), a 'good thing', i.e., should we try to slow it or embrace it. I apologize for any ambiguity. 24.92.78.167 (talk) 01:31, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Ah! Steve Pinker has dealt with that question in some of his books, and I believe he makes a pretty convincing case that we should embrace it. Looie496 (talk) 01:41, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

I think it depends which camp you're in. Simplistically, there are 3 camps:

• (a) the people who either initiate change or immediately jump on the bandwagon
• (b) the people who resist any change until either they're convinced it's a good change that deserves to be championed, or they realise it's now become the norm so it's futile to resist it anymore; and
• (c) the people who adopt language change without ever really thinking about it. They like to think of themselves as modern and up to date with fashions of all kinds, so it just sort of happens unconsciously.

In a school, virtually all students will be in camp (a), and virtually all teachers will be in camp (b). (A teacher who's in (c) should not be teaching language to begin with.) This tension can only be resolved if one side or the other gives way, and that ain't gonna happen. I think it's a teacher's job to inspire fluency and confidence with the language as it is today; if that means refusing to acknowledge this week's latest neologism as a legitimate form of expression, so be it. It will be taught soon enough, just as soon as it's recognised by the lexicographers. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 02:00, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

To the student's example of Latin, you could say that spoken Latin did change a lot and was quite different from classical written Latin, and that's how the Romance languages developed, but at the same time, an educated person needed to know how to read and write the proper form in order to be understood everywhere in the Roman world (and throughout history, since classical Latin is what we still learn today). Adam Bishop (talk) 12:18, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Your (c) seems to be the same as the second part of (a) (those who jump on the bandwagon)? 213.122.17.213 (talk) 14:05, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

No. The bandwagonners in (a) do it deliberately, and most importantly, consciously. They can and would discuss the change with you, and explain why they and their peers now say "<X>" where they used to say "<Y>". They could also explain why they've chosen NOT to adopt certain expressions coined by those who they consider to be the wrong people. The people in (c) are hardly even aware, if aware at all, that they're speaking differently now. The (a) people drive the change; the (c) people are like mindless victims of it. I did say it was simplistic. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:41, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Well the thing about evolution, right, is that it's a process of trial n' error. Therefore you can't "go along with it" - that would mean blindly accepting errors; but of course it would be backwards of you to completely resist it. I think we should actively participate in the evolution of language, which means both experimenting and criticizing. 213.122.17.213 (talk) 14:00, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

This argument has been going on as long as people have been writing about language! Languages change naturally, and it is useless to try to freeze a language at any one point in time. However, formal written language, while changing, tends to do so more conservatively than does informal spoken language. The word "whom," long gone from informal spoken English, is disappearing from formal written English as more publications drop it from their styles. Yet it will be a long time before we see "gonna" used in professional writing. People who buy novels expect the language (outside of characters' quotes) to read a certain way and will complain if they don't. Your student may not go on to write a novel, but she will write resumes, reports, and the like, and the audience for those things will expect the text to be written in a certain way. It doesn't mean that informal spoken English, slang or dialect is "wrong," only that it's not appropriate for certain contexts. This is not just an issue for young people for for African-Americans but for people all over the world, where people speak in one manner (a regional dialect, for example) and write in another (Standard German, Norwegian Bokmål, etc.). -- Mwalcoff (talk) 03:47, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

parsing Chinese sentence

I'm learning Chinese via Wikipedia!

(接口) (描述了) (如何) (通过 方法) (与)(类-及其-实例) (互操作)

(Interface) (describes) (how) (via method) (for?) (class and instance) (inter-operate)

The interface describes how to interact with the class and instance via the methods.

Have I figured out this sentence correctly? I'm a little unclear on the role that 与 plays in this sentence. Thanks RF volunteers Duomillia (talk) 00:57, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Looking at this I would guess it is about computers or programming. The individual translations of the phrases seem accurate, but without more context I can't tell if you are interpreting it correctly. '与' is generally a synonym for '和' and acts as a conjunction. '互操作' could also be translated as 'interact'. Intelligentsium 01:43, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

I should have included the source: http://zh.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/类_(计算机科学) Duomillia (talk) 02:14, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't speak Chinese, but see Interface (object-oriented programming) for what the passage ought to say. Looie496 (talk) 03:25, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Class (object-oriented_programming). It's the third sentence of the third paragraph. :) I guess the only thing I'm not clear on, is 与 the preposition attached to 互操作 - one interacts WITH such and such ... Duomillia (talk) 15:42, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

In this instance, '与' could also be translated 'with', though it generally means 'and'. Even in this context, '与' could be translated 'and', if one thinks of it as '方法', '类', and '实例' interacting with each other. Intelligentsium 00:39, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Correction of translation

A German editor from the German Wikipedia has made an English translation of two chapters from a German article. The translation are not perfect as he said himself, so would some English speaking persons please help. We need persons to read the two chapters and correct the English mistakes. The chapters are now on the discussion page of the article.
The chapters are:

– Talk:Steinway D-274#History
– Talk:Steinway D-274#Introduction of the type D-274 of today design

The German editor has written this notice: Talk:Steinway D-274#Addings to the history from the german WP

When the language has been corrected in the two chapters, the chapters can be copied and inserted in the article: Steinway D-274. I can do that. Peoplefromarizona (talk) 02:30, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

I am not a native English speaker, but I know the language fairly well. (I got the second highest grade in my matriculation exam about English, even.) So I have taken a try at correcting the translation. There must still be mistakes left, so a native English speaker should take a further look. JIP | Talk 06:36, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

I took a whack at it, even though I'm not a musician, so perhaps someone else can smooth out some technical terms/phrases that I puzzled over. I posted my version separately from the original there on the talk page. Textorus (talk) 11:25, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Space Languages

Did they ever explain why all the aliens in Stargate speak English? I know Star Trek had the universal translator, but Stargate didn't. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ussenterprizejtkirk (talk • contribs) 13:38, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Suspension of disbelief? rʨanaɢ (talk) 13:41, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Which worked fine until the episode that centred around them not understanding the written text of an alien newspaper article (something about the population becoming infertile), while speaking without problem to the people of the planet for the entire episode. That was a rather stupid way of putting the suspension of disbelief on its edge, and it certainly broke it for me. If you succeed in not making the viewers think about the gaps in the logic, it is usually best to stay clear of them with a bit extra distance. /Coffeeshivers (talk) 16:14, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Look at http://www.gateworld.net/the_stargate_faq.shtml#general.1 -- AnonMoos (talk) 14:01, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

In general, if you can accept the notions of the matter transporter and backwards time travel, language issues are tinker toys. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:11, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

No...Because those other concepts are explained, and the language isn't. Vimescarrot (talk) 18:40, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Those items may be "explained", but the explanations are bogus, as there can't possibly be any such thing. As for the language, maybe the answer is the "Babel fish"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:45, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Except, as explained above, babel fish doesn't really work in this case. We're shown a lot of the tech and problem solving, but we aren't shown that and so cannot assume it. We might be able to assume some magical property of the stargate translates, or that everyone randomly speaks English, but when they throw in the difficulty of reading the language, you can't assume that any more. Scifi and fantasy tread a narrow line with the willing suspension of disbelief, and remaining consistent or distracting the audience from contradictions is important. Otherwise, anything could happen and there is no tension. It's why the Harry Potter books have to establish that death is final and cannot be reversed, it's why you have to establish a technology or magic before it can be used to resolve the plot, and it's why you decide whether or not everyone can understand everyone. One of the many ways in which the film Stargate was so much better than the series was the handling of language issues. 86.164.78.91 (talk) 20:18, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

The Goa'uld seem to be one of the few races with a language, but they only seem to use it to shout "kree" and related commands. Rimush (talk) 20:23, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

I think it's more like The Time Tunnel, where they landed in ancient Rome and everyone spoke British English. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:26, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Very true. Anyone who plays Rome: Total War would know straight away that the Romans all spoke American English. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 23:10, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Naw, they spoke King James English. Anyone who's read the Bible would know that! Lexicografía (talk) 01:24, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

In The Jungle Book (the actual book), Kipling uses Prayer Book English for the reported speech of the various animals; "Now I know that thou art a man and a man's cub no longer. The jungle is shut indeed to thee henceforward.". This device shows that they are speaking the language of the jungle and not standard English. Zoltan Korda uses it in his 1942 film but sadly Disney misses the point. Alansplodge (talk) 23:19, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

They played a trick like this in "Masada", the 1981 miniseries. Peter O'Toole and the rest of the Romans spoke British, to represent Latin, while Peter Strauss and the rest of the Jews spoke American, to represent Hebrew or Aramaic. Great series. PhGustaf (talk) 23:51, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's a common device for film-makers to use British English for the bad guys (Star Wars) and good ol' farm boy American for the heroes, whatever language the originals spoke. However, we Brits, to this day, still have no idea why Robin Hood spoke American in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Imagine if that had been a film about the Alamo, and Davy Crockett was played by a Brit. The director would be laughed into early retirement. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 00:03, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Sometimes they just mix them all up willy-nilly. In The Ten Commandments (1956 film), we had the American-sounding Charlton Heston (although he could do a passable imitation of a Brit when he wanted - see Khartoum (film), where he played General Gordon), alongside the Eastern-European-Slavic sounding Yul Brynner and his American-sounding children (Yes, fatherrrr), alongside Pharaoh Seti played by the clipped-upper crust-English-sounding Cedric Hardwicke. And all of them were supposed to be Egyptians. Sometimes it just seems to work better when they don't try too hard to take themselves too seriously. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 00:49, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Jack, I was going to mention that, but I couldn't remember the name of the film, bizarrely enough. Anyway, enough of me tonight, as one has some tedious rebels one has to crack down on on Rome: Total War and one must do these things once in a while, being British Roman an evil ruler as one is. One is just waiting for the hotdogs and hamburgers with Gallic-cowboys shouting 'yiippee-aye-eh!' and such other fun stuff. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 02:35, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Nothing exciting, but since no one has linked it yet: The article on universal translator has examples from Farscape to Stargate, from Dr. Who to Google. ---Sluzzelin talk 06:05, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

The Situation

Is there an article for the modern American trend of taking a name of "The" and then an ordinary noun? Michael Sorrentino, for example. This is popular in Jersey, supposedly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lantern Red (talk • contribs) 17:09, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

That depends on how you define "ordinary". There's both a White House office and a TV show called the Situation Room. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:15, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

He's referring to Michael Sorrentino, who has decided to start calling himself - or rather, his abdominal muscles - "The Situation" and in fact recently lost his bid to get the name trademarked. Offhand, I can't think of any other examples of "The X" being used as a name like that, but I try hard not to pay attention to popular culture these days, in large part due to the efforts of fine gentlemen like Mr. The Situation. Matt Deres (talk) 02:58, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't understand. How you define "ordinary" has determined whether there is an article about this? Lantern Red (talk) 02:25, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I did not understand the original question, nor do I understand this one. This is strictly the English Language Reference Desk for questions about language, but, if you feel you can clarify in another language of your choosing, then please go ahead. Many of us here do speak multiple languages and we will endeavour to help whenever we can. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 03:33, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

This is perfectly easy to understand if you are familiar with Jersey Shore, which unfortunately Matt and I are (and it is praiseworthy that you and Bugs are not). I can't think of any other examples either though, except for wrestling nicknames and comic book characters. I wouldn't call it a "modern American trend" exactly... Adam Bishop (talk) 05:21, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

What about mobster nicknames, or The Mouth (redirect to Mike Matusow)? "Can we build a person from nicknames?" ---Sluzzelin talk 09:06, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

September 12

Reference Desk

I am in the process of building my own reference desk. I have a dictionary, atlas, and 8 or more items. The most current additions are Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon of The New Testament and a Greek-English Interlinear copy of The New Testament.
These are invaluable references, but are really not what I would prefer to use, because they must be used in tandem, a tedious task. I am a frequent user of this internet reference site. It is exactly what I want to use, but in a more tactile format.
Does anyone know of a reference which better resembles biblelexicon.org? Thank you very much Wikipedians! schyler (talk) 00:29, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

There's BibleGateway.com for different translations of the Bible.. Lexicografía (talk) 01:21, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Lexicografía. I am familiar with that website. I am looking for a reference book, though, that which I can add to my reference desk, and use when I do not have access to the internet. schyler (talk) 02:16, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not into biblical scholarship myself and so won't be of much use to you, but I think you could get better answers if you specified what you like about that website that you'd like to get in book form. I just played around there for a few minutes and it seems to have a lot of different aspects to it; if we knew what functions you were specifically looking for (parallel translations, transcriptions, etc.), it might help. Also, if you don't get a decent answer here in a couple of days, the Humanities desk might be a good place to inquire; I think it gets slightly more exposure. Matt Deres (talk) 02:52, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I see. In Thayer's it is based on Strong's Concordance, having a veritable dictionary of Greek words used in The New Testament. On BibleLexicon it has a phrase-by-phrase verse-by-verse translation, the ideal reference. It is really like an Interlinear Concordance which is what my two current references do for me (currently I look up the verse in my interlinear translation, transliterate the Greek, and find it alphabetically in the concordance, using two references in tandem). schyler (talk) 04:08, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if Cruden's concordance is online, but when I was studying theology in the dim and distant past, it was recognised as the best available.--TammyMoet (talk) 08:31, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

---

Some editions of the UBS Greek New Testament (Aland et. al.) have a Greek-English New Testament lexicon in the back (but you have to be comfortable in the Greek alphabet to use it). My edition is ISBN 3-438-05113-3, but there are probably more recent editions... AnonMoos (talk) 15:58, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Tress, trix and tor

We may have discussed this topic before, but my searches haven't discovered a full-on discussion (it's been mentioned briefly in some questions about related subjects).

Some –tor names denoting males take –trix when their holders are female:

• Aviator --> aviatrix (not aviatress)
• Dominator --> dominatrix (not dominatress)
• Executor --> executrix (not executress)
• Testator --> testatrix (not testatress)

Some other –tor names become –tress:

• Actor --> actress (not actrix; even actress is frowned upon these days, except at the Oscars)
• Elector --> electress (not electrix; we're talking European rulers here, not citizens who are entitled to vote)
• Proprietor --> proprietress (not proprietrix; but it’s more common to see proprietor used for all sexes)
• Protector --> protectress (not protectrix)
• Sculptor --> sculptress (not sculptrix)

Then there are the –tor names that never change for sex at all (or, only for humorous effect in limited circumstances), including:

• Administrator (not administratress or administratrix)
• Alligator (not alligatress or alligatrix)
• Benefactor (not benefactress or benefactrix: I seem to recall seeing benefactress, but it’s non-standard)
• Director (not directress or directrix; but directrix exists with a different meaning)
• Doctor (not doctress or doctrix)
• Lector (not lectress or lectrix)
• Legislator (not legislatress or legislatrix)
• Mentor (not mentress or mentrix)
• Monitor (not monitress or monitrix)
• Navigator (not navigatress or navigatrix)
• Orator (not oratress or oratrix)
• Proctor (not proctress or proctrix)
• Prosecutor (not prosecutress or prosecutrix)
• Realtor (not realtress or realtrix)
• (Veloci)raptor (not raptress or raptrix).

So, who or what decides which become –trix, which become –tress, and which stay –tor? -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 03:40, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

In a very general way, the ones that came directly from Latin have -trix, the ones that came through Latin by way of French have -tress (from -trice), and the ones that are gender-neutral (or almost always historically masculine) remain -tor. But a glance at the examples you gave does not really prove this general conclusion... Adam Bishop (talk) 05:17, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

By the way, I can think of some others - "empress" (from French, ultimately "imperatrix"), but also "princess" and "countess" (also through French, but they originally end in "-issa" in Latin). Hmm. Adam Bishop (talk) 05:46, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

(EC) That sounds pretty reasonable, but the OED has etymologies for all the first four on the list as being from Latin through French. Haven't looked up the others yet. WikiDao (talk) 05:51, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

The feminine suffixes ("aviatrix", "actress", etc.) are falling more and more out of use these days, though I expect "dominatrix" to stick around. A friend with good proofreading eyes calls herself an "editrix", but it's a joke. PhGustaf (talk) 05:55, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh, you can have a lot of good clean fun with these. Is mattress a synonym of matrix? Is the male equivalent a "mator"? Is the Queen a descendant of Sophia, Electrix of Hanover?  :) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 08:13, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

If a bare rocky hill in Wales is female, is it a tress or a trix? Answer: no, don't be stupid. See also list of Asterix characters - none of these really fit, but it seems in keeping with the general spirit of the question. There was a character in Asterix and the Goths called Electric, which is a near miss. 213.122.16.225 (talk) 09:40, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I suspect you know this, Jack, but it may be worth mentioning that a couple of your examples don't even involve the -or ("one who ...") suffix. Alligator is an anglicization of Spanish el lagarto ("the lizard"), and mentor is just the name of the character in the Odyssey. I'm pretty sure that I've seen administratrix used seriously, though. Deor (talk) 12:04, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

The same person that decides that a domestic canine is a "dog". No, really. All of vocabulary is arbitrary, and the fact that we can often find patterns and rules in particular areas doesn't change that. (Esperanto tries to change that by making its derivational suffixes universal and invariable, but there is still a degree of arbitrariness in the meaning of derived words.) --ColinFine (talk) 12:19, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Doctrix!! Luvvit! Now I know what to call her when I go in next week :)) --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:35, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if it's cute or disturbing that my (male) GP offered to fetch a 'lady doctor' if I wasn't comfortable talking to him. Well, I'm not now! I would have been more at ease if he'd used the humorous 'doctrix'. 86.164.78.91 (talk) 17:06, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

What did you want to hear? "Woman doctor"? Slightly ambiguous, because it sounds a bit like "tree surgeon", and a tree surgeon of course is not a tree. It's difficult to know the right thing to say.

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JackOfOz -- English-language forms with special feminine suffixes are really ever diminishing in number, except in certain specific historical, technical, and legalistic contexts (they were already diminishing during the first two-thirds of the 20th century, even before the rise of the feminist movement, though the feminist movement gave the trend a certain additional push). When people coin specific female-referring terms nowadays, they're likely to be jocular and facetious, and to end in "-ette" more often than "-ess" or "-trix" (e.g. bachelorette). Furthermore, many of the forms you listed (such as director, etc.) are not felt, from the modern synchronic English point of view, as having any special Latin suffix, but rather merely the ordinary "-er" agentive/occupational suffix with a variant spelling. AnonMoos (talk) 16:13, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Jupiter Elicius

How should/could "Elicius" in Jupiter Elicius be translated to English? ---Sluzzelin talk 07:05, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether there is an effective translation. The epithet is related to the verb elicio, "call forth"—the source of English elicit—and Lewis and Short's dictionary says of Elicius, "a surname of Jupiter, because from him celestial signs or omens were obtained (or acc. to others because he was called down by incantations)". Offhand, I can't think of an English word that's equivalent. Deor (talk) 11:46, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Google brings up stuff related to weather: Elicius supposedly means "of weather and storms" or "of thunder and lightning" (the first one stems from an older version of a Wikipedia article). Rimush (talk) 12:13, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Learning

What is the best way to learn another language on your own? Rosetta stone, books, something else?

Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ni-cadAA600mAh (talk • contribs) 13:25, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Rosetta Stone is excellent (although expensive), especially with Spanish. I don't know about other programs or books. Lexicografía (talk) 16:44, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Your vs You're

what is the differene between your and you'er —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.95.185.74 (talk) 15:18, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Your is generally used to describe possession. examples: That's your fault. There's your car! Can I borrow your laptop? Is that Yours? You're is the shortened form of you are and is generally used to describe a state of being. examples: You're sick. You're good. You're happy. L Kensington (talk • contribs) 15:24, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

There are articles whose titles begin with Your and there are articles whose titles begin with You're.

—Wavelength (talk) 15:40, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

And there is even a title containing both: You're On Your Own. ---Sluzzelin talk 15:49, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Your is the second person possessive personal pronoun. That means it's used the same way as my, his, hers, its, our, their. So: my cat, your cat, his cat, her cat, its cat, our cat, their cat.

You're is short for you are, with the apostrophe replacing the letter a. It's used where it would make sense to say you are. So: "You are despicable", "You're despicable".

86.164.78.91 (talk) 17:02, 12 September 2010 (UTC)