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February 23

Seasonal colouration

What is the term for a seasonal colouration of an animal? The article snowshoe hare uses the terms "summer morph" and "winter morph", but the article Morph (zoology) discourages this use. If we have an article about seasonal colouration in general, I can't find it. 205.193.96.10 (talk) 00:22, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Polyphenism? Adam Bishop (talk) 00:47, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That doesn't look it. Neither do color phase or polymorphism. The specific mechanism, in mammals, is moulting, or, more specially, shedding, but I haven't found a general article on seasonal animal color changes, either. StuRat (talk) 23:41, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh my. WP:WHAAOE fails then? No such user (talk) 08:14, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The polyphenism article says "Birds and mammals, however, are capable of continued physiological changes in adulthood, and some display reversible seasonal polyphenisms, such as coat color in the Arctic fox." Adam Bishop (talk) 09:10, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Skočná and sousedská

How would you pronounce the dances skočná and sousedská? They are Slavic folk dances. I do not understand IPA so a simple English pronounciation would be appreciated. Thanks in advance! 27.32.104.185 (talk) 09:21, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Skočná: SCOTCH - nah.

Sousedská: SO - sed - skah.

The stress is on the first syllable, as indicated by the capital letters. The "so" is like the word "so". The "sed" is like the word "said". If you're interested in details, the "o" in "so" sounds more like most American English speakers' pronunciation of "so" (not as in Australian English, RP, nor as in Scottish English). That is, the first half of the "o" sound is more like the "o" in "dog" (as pronounced in Autralian or RP), and then comes the "w" part. --91.148.159.4 (talk) 11:12, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just a little correction: according to the rules of Czech pronunciation, regressive assimilation of voice should occur in the cluster ‹dsk›, making the "d" sound like "t": SO-sett-skah. The accents above the á's indicate that those syllables are long rather than short, and have nothing to do with the stress, which in Czech always is carried by the first syllable of a word. Here is the IPA anyway, even though the OP didn't request it: [ˈskot͡ʃnaː], [ˈso͡usɛtskaː]. --Theurgist (talk) 04:47, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, much appreciated. 27.32.104.185 (talk) 06:38, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

[I am minorly revising my comment. --Theurgist (talk) 12:50, 24 February 2011 (UTC)][reply]

Desert's son in Arabic

Recently, I see Gaddafi being referenced (at least in the German speaking press) as "desert's son". Is that a common, or at least possible, way of referencing towards someone in Arab speaking countries? Is it offensive, like calling someone 'hillbilly'? I know that Arabs do not associate the desert necessarily as something good, but Gaddafi is Beduin, so, it may be different in this case. Quest09 (talk) 14:12, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I always thought that those expression like "sons of the desert" were a Western romantic view of Arabs, not meant to be offensive, but also not accurate. 212.169.188.102 (talk) 14:46, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Think it has as much to do with Rudolf Valentino era "sheikh" movies as anything; The Sons of the Desert is actually a Laurel-and-Hardy fan club... AnonMoos (talk) 14:50, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's sort of a pejorative nickname for Bedouins, which Gaddafi is, as you mentioned. I'm not entirely certain, but apparently he also calls himself that? (Also, interestingly, if you search Google Images for the Arabic, "ابن الصحراء", you get lots of pictures of Zinedine Zidane!) Adam Bishop (talk) 16:41, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have the impression that a Bedouin or desert origin is idealized, not derogated, in Arab society. In the Arab view, I think, the truest, purest Arabs are Bedouins, whose independence, code of honor, and freedom from cosmopolitan corruption are seen as ideals. Marco polo (talk) 17:11, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

True, but I thought it also had a pejorative meaning now, in the sense of being backwards and uncultured...not quite the "hillbilly" stereotype that Quest mentioned, but maybe like a cowboy, kind of archaic. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:13, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It can be both simultaneously: On the one hand, as an abstract cultural symbol, Bedouins are the original source of Arabic culture, and supposedly speak the purest Arabic (or did so in the past). But on the other hand, in some areas of the middle east the bedouin are the traditional enemies of the settled agriculturalists, and when a modern educated Arab city-dweller encounters specific illiterate nomads in the concrete, he may be filled with feelings more of contempt than reverence... AnonMoos (talk) 21:33, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So it's sort of like white Americans' view of American Indians: on the one hand, peaceful noble savages in touch with nature; on the other hand, impoverished alcoholics. —Angr (talk) 09:31, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Punctuation after italics

I see the MOS says that punctuation should not be italicized unless it belongs exclusively to the section of italic text, rather than affecting the sentence as a whole. Outside of Wikipedia, though, how wrong is it to do it the other way? Italic text followed by a non-italic semicolon or question mark looks awful, since the last letter usually overlaps with the punctuation. 213.122.19.152 (talk) 17:20, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In my experience this is quite usual in style guides. Try it out with common typefaces like Arial or Times New Roman in your word processor - it should print okay even if it looks a bit strange on screen. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 17:23, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh yes, it was the font's fault, you're quite right. Dammit Baskerville, I thought I could trust you. 213.122.19.152 (talk) 17:29, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Translation of Japanese term into English

Any Japanese speakers out there? At "commons:File:Tokugawa Yoshikatsu (1824–1883).jpg" I am trying to find out the appropriate English translation for "徳川林政史研究所藏", which is the source of the photograph. The closest I got with the help of Google Translate was "collection of the Tokugawa rin (?) History of Governance Institute". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 19:57, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"collection of the Tokugawa forest management and historical research institute"163.1.231.43 (talk) 21:12, 23 February 2011 (UTC)vika[reply]

Brilliant. Thanks very much! — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 07:41, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I read it as a research institute for the history of forest management, not for forest management and history in parallel. I would suggest "From the collection of the Tokugawa Forest Management History Institute". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 14:19, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A little odd, perhaps, that a forest management history institute would have a photograph of Tokugawa Yoshikatsu in its archives? But who knows? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:40, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps it's part of their collection in relation to the history of the institute or its namesake and family of its founder, rather than part of their professional collection? ja:徳川林政史研究所 and their official site (http://www.tokugawa.or.jp/institute/) shed some light on the institute's history and evolution. It seems that it was founded for research about forest management but because of its connection with the Owari Tokugawa family (it was founded by the 19th head, Tokugawa Yoshichika), came to hold a substantial volume of historical material relating to the Owari clan. That's my understanding anyway, perhaps one of the native Japanese speakers here will come along and shed more light. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 18:02, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One of the holdings of the "The Tokugawa Institute for the History of Forestry" is "A catalog of historical materials concerning the Owari Tokugawa family". Yoshikatsu appears to have been something of a historian with a special interests in photographs, judging from [1] this, the bottom half of which is conveniently in English. -_jpgordon^{::==( o )} 18:32, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, good job with the research! — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 18:38, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

February 24

Québécois or Gaspésie expression

My spouse uses an expression he learned as a youth growing up in Montreal. It sounds like the English words "on way don", except with a nasal ending to "don". (Sorry, but I can't do IPA.) He says it is spelled "en oui dans" and means something akin to "are we good to go" or "can we go now". As his spelling in English is, shall we say, suspect, I have little confidence in the French. Does anyone else recognize the expression? Thanks, Bielle (talk) 02:59, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"En oui dans" doesn't make any sense. The closest expression I can think of is "on y va" /ɔ̃niva/, "let's go", which can also be used as a question: "On y va?" = "Shall we go?" There is also "Va t'en!" /vatɑ̃/ = "Go away!" Lesgles (talk) 04:09, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In non-IPA, those two expressions are roughly ohng-nee-va and va-tahng". It's possible there's some franglais going on, but I can't imagine what. Lesgles (talk) 04:15, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I thought that was what he meant, too, Lesgles, but he and I both know the "On y va?"/"Va t'en!" expressions, and he maintains they are not the same. I know that "en oui dans" makes no sense; "on yes in" or similar is meaningless in either language. (While his spelling is awful, his ear is excellent and he has a very good québécois accent. It is my transliteration, as well as his spelling, that may be faulty.) Bielle (talk) 04:47, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Could the first part be ennui, as in "I'm bored, let's go" ? StuRat (talk) 06:17, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The sound is right, StuRat, but I can't make it into a phrase that works. For a start, I think "I'm bored" is reflexive (or whatever it might be called today) as in "je m'ennui". Bielle (talk) 06:37, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Passive, surely, not reflexive - the active equivalent being something like "things are boring me". AndrewWTaylor (talk) 08:47, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, passive would be "je suis ennuyé(e)". "Je m'ennuie" is indeed usually called reflexive, although some linguists distinguish between a true reflexive "je me lave" = "I wash myself" and other constructions like this that don't necessarily imply some action done on oneself (see reflexive verb; I think this would be an example of an "autocausative" verb). In French, it is usually called a fr:verbe pronominal, which refers simply to the fact that it contains a reflexive pronoun. You are right, however, in the sense that passive verbs in English are often translated by reflexive verbs in French. Lesgles (talk) 18:20, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See Devant La Télé | Aurélien | Ah oui donc c'est a la dernière coupure pub qu'ils allument la flotte de portables pour "voter" automatiquement ? #DALS. Ah, oui, donc means "Oh, yes, then".

—Wavelength (talk) 06:49, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think you've got it! Thanks, Wavelength, and to all who have puzzled over this. Bielle (talk) 07:11, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And I think you're wrong. "On way don" is an English speaker's approximation of "Envoye-donc". In Québécois French, the "v" is pronounced almost as a "w", and the "oye" is somewhat close to "ail" (i.e. the French equivalent of garlic). Plus, the final "c" is silent. Envoye-donc means something like "Go ahead" or "Do it already!", but can also mean "Are you kidding?" if used interrogatively. --Xuxl (talk) 19:16, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

From my Google search for envoie donc, I found 2 Chroniques 2:13 Je t'envoie donc un homme habile et intelligent, Huram-Abi, where Je t'envoie donc means "I am sending you therefore". The expression vas-y means "go ahead; go on".

—Wavelength (talk) 20:17, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In the OP's case, the expression is in the imperative, whereas "je t'envoie donc" is in the indicative. I don't think you will find many examples of the imperative use in print, as it's very much an oral expression used in informal contexts. --Xuxl (talk) 21:03, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See also this thread at wordreference where one contributor translates it as

"In a Quebecer's mouth, Envoye donc! often means come on! When we want to convince someone to do something. As in "Please, pretty please".

And gives the example:

Envoye-donc p'pa! Donne-moi 20 piastres! (Come on dad! Give me 20 bucks!)

---Sluzzelin talk 21:14, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See Actes 10:32 Envoie donc à Joppé, et fais venir Simon, surnommé Pierre; il est logé dans la maison de Simon, corroyeur, près de la mer.

—Wavelength (talk) 23:25, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is also a "Bible". See the translation of "enwaille (donc)" / "envoye (donc)" in the article about Joual — AldoSyrt (talk) 08:24, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Rhotacism among native speakers of Spanish

The Spanish article is vague and useless, but the English article claims that native speakers of Spanish often have difficulty mastering the trilled R, as in "perro", and sometimes substitute some other sound, namely a velar approximant, a uvular approximant, or a uvular trill. But I've never heard a native Spanish speaker who had difficulty with the trilled R, and I can't imagine what sound they would substitute. (Certainly I can't imagine a Spanish speaker using a uvular R except if he were mimicking French or German.) So if a Spanish-speaking child can't articulate "perro", what sound does he produce? As a non-native speaker, I occasionally find myself saying something like "persho" - have native speakers been known to do that? Or do they simply substitute an untrilled R, so that "perro" and "pero" become homophones? LANTZY ^TALK 13:39, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not a Spanish answer, but some speakers of other languages with trilled R have similar issues. For Serbo-Croatian, some (in)famous examples are Vojislav Šešelj, whose /r/'s are mostly [ɰ], as far as I can hear. Here is a YouTube clip of his flame speech, titled Kavlobag-Kavlovac-Vivovitica after the purported bowdews of Gweat Sewbia. Another one is Milo Đukanović, who usually goes with a [ʀ] (Youtube). When I was a kid, I used [ð], but mastered the proper trill around the 1st grade. In Serbo-Croatian phonology, the trill and the tap are allophones, so I wouldn't know about "perro" vs. "pero". Anyway, the failure to produce a proper [r] (or [ ɾ ]) is considered speech defect. No such user (talk) 15:43, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Anecdotally, a professor of mine from Guatemala said that he did indeed have trouble producing the trilled R [r] as a child and produced the uvular approximant [ʁ] instead. He said that this was a reasonably common speech impediment among children, but that it rarely if ever lasted into adulthood. -Elmer Clark (talk) 23:33, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've known at least four people who couldn't pronounce the trilled R and all of them pronounced instead a voiced uvular fricative 'French' R. --Belchman (talk) 17:48, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A semi answer - I have never heard anybody use a uvular sound for that purpose. One option that I generally recommend is a dentalized version to substitute the trilled r and a guttural sound for the non trilled r ("perro" would be something like "perdo" with a very light d, by cause of the dentalization and the "pero" would just be "pero" with no solid hard attack on the r").

This section explains the fenomenom. I have seen quite a number of people using the French sound Belchman describes. It is considered a mild speech defect, or just a funny trait, so to say. Pallida Mors 15:04, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

English for Chinese word 干爹

I am wondering how to put Chinese word simplified Chinese: 干爹; traditional Chinese: 乾爹; pinyin: Gāndiē to English. Basically Gandie should be some kind of father, but it is neither the true father, nor adoptive-, step-, foster-, -in-law, foster-, cuckolded-, social-, etc. A Gandie doesn't necessarily adopt or foster a child. Some online dictionaries suggest that godfather, this may be helpful to understand the relationship, but Gandie is non-religious. The relationship between the 'father', Gandie, varies from adoptive father to a common uncle.--刻意(Kèyì) 14:03, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The literal meaning is closest to "adoptive father" but the social equivalent is probably most like godfather. Another possibility, depending on context, is patron, in some senses of that word. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 14:16, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The role of a "Godparent" is not necessarily religious, although it started that way. The traditional purpose of godparents is to "sponsor" a newborn, in terms of baptism (which is obviously religious), to ensure the children are well cared for, and also possibly to assume the responsibility of raising the children if the parents die and leave the children orphaned. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:20, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I see a similar parallel in the evolution of the role of "干爹", which is the vernacular version of "义父", which traditionally would have been recognised via a religious ceremony, but has nowadays become an almost purely social covenant, sometimes quite casual. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 15:49, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Word for 24-hour period

As I speak Finnish natively and understand Swedish well, I have noticed that both Finnish and Swedish have a word that unambiguously means a 24-hour period from midnight to midnight. In Finnish this is vuorokausi, in Swedish this is dygn. As far as I understand, these are only used when disambiguation is necessary - in colloquial speech, both languages use the word for "day" (Finnish päivä, Swedish dag), but "day" can also mean the part of a 24-hour period when the sun is shining, in every language that I understand. What is the case in other languages, is there a specific word meaning a 24-hour period, or does the word for "day" have a more precise meaning? JIP | Talk 20:15, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I sort of recall we had that question before, so someone please check the archives. (It's inconvenient for me to do at the moment, using a cell phone) No such user (talk) 20:54, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Our article on nychthemeron has further examples (Dutch, Bulgarian, Esperanto). ---Sluzzelin talk 20:59, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As you probably know, the word day in English is somewhat ambiguous in this regard. If it is necessary to make a distinction, the terms daytime and calendar day will do the trick. Marco polo (talk) 21:01, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You may also want to check out the Wiktionary translations at nychthemeron and day, although I can't vouch for their accuracy. Lexicografía (talk) 21:54, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here is the link to the previous discussion: Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Language/2009_August_9#A_kind_of_lexical_gap.3F - with details for some more languages. Jørgen (talk) 09:22, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Grammar - "without me having to"

Three questions about the phrase "[...] without me having to [...]". 1) Is that correct? Should it be "without my having to"? 2) What's that construction called? and 3) How do you say it in the Romance languages (especially Spanish)? Lexicografía (talk) 23:32, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Those who believe that "correct" and "incorrect" are meaningful concepts in this context usually insist on "my". Gerund#Gerunds preceded by a genitive, but there's little text and no references. --ColinFine (talk) 23:46, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The waters are perhaps muddied a bit by the colloquial pronunciation of "my" as "me". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:01, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, interesting. I'm translating a video transcript from English to Spanish and got hung up on that phrase. At first I hadn't even entertained the possibility that it was 'correctly' "my" (the speaker does say 'me' in the video, though). Lexicografía (talk) 01:07, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's not prescriptively (i.e., pedantically) correct, but is common even in non-colloquial, written language.

As for Romance languages, that might depend on the language, and I'm not a native speaker of any, but I believe in French it would be something like sans que je [...] (literally, "without that I ..."). rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:09, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In Spanish you could do much the same thing, using a subjunctive: "sin que tenga que..." (literally, "without that I have to...") or "sin que me oblige a...", which is a bit more formal. There's also an infinitive expression that is basically a verbatim equivalent of the English gerund expression: "sin mi tener que..." However, this locution is somewhat colloquial and stigmatized by prescriptive grammarians. LANTZY ^TALK 12:44, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I see no objective reason why this should be considered incorrect (and a more authoritative source than Wikipedia would be desirable). "Without me doing X", and the phrase it negates, i.e. "with me doing X", are just as logical as the Latin ablative absolute and the Ancient Greek genitive absolute, which they closely resemble (the preposition being replaced by case markers). Treating the entire group of subject plus predicate (the latter being transformed into a participle) as the complement of a preposition is a fine way to express that it is the entire situation expressed by the (non-finite) clause as a whole that the preposition refers to. --91.148.159.4 (talk) 00:12, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Furthermore, by the same logic, one would have to object to "I saw him doing this" or "I saw him do this" and instead insist on "I saw his doing [of] this". In both cases, we are talking about strategies for the nominalization of a clause, making it non-finite in order to be able to use it, in one case, as the complement of a preposition, in the other, as the object of a verb. There's absolutely no reason why one should only be allowed to make the verb and not the subject the formal head of the phrase that represents the clause; in both cases, we are expressing indirectly, through pseudo-subordination, what is actually the subject-predicate connection. The fact is that most languages tend to regard a finite clause as the ascribing of the property/condition of Predicate P to Subject S, and this logic, typical for nominative-accusative languages, justifies the same subject-centredness in the non-finite clause, rather than treating the subject as a mere dependent of the verb.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 00:41, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, well if you want sources, Burchfield in Fowler's Modern English Usage, 3rd edition, s.v. "Possessive with gerund", devotes more than two pages to the historical (about Fowler's dispute with Otto Jespersen) and current statuses. His "Further outlook" section says "The possessive with gerund is on the retreat, but its use with proper names and personal nouns and pronouns persists in good writing. When the personal pronoun stands in the initial position it looks certain that the possessive form will be preferred for a long time to come, eg His being so capable [rest of examples omitted]. The substitution of Him [...] would take [the sentence] into a lower level of formality." --ColinFine (talk) 00:02, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, this was informative. Note that saying that the possessive persists in good writing is not the same as saying that the non-possessive form is bad writing; the author feels the need to add a case where the construction is "really" wrong, namely initially. "Merriam-Webster's dictionary of English usage" (1995) has a very informative article about the hysteria about this construction (ironically, it seems to have started in the 18th century with people trying to ban the variant with the possessive). The article ends up recognising pretty much everything as correct, but observing that the non-possessive with pronouns is less common in formal writing and conveys emphasis (but their example of emphasis, "I can't see me letting X do this", does not seem very convincing). All in all, the whole thing seems to have been a typical case of a prescriptivist phobia that people slavishly follow just to make sure they err on the safe side and aren't labelled ignorant.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 17:58, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation - related to question above

In "...without me having to...", I pronounce it haffing (voiceless), but in "...without my having to...", I pronounce it having (voiced). What is going on here? I know I read something ages ago about haff vs have, but why does it change when I change the pronoun? (I am not Lexicographia) 86.166.42.200 (talk) 00:19, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Unverified speculation based on self-observation: you (and I) think/know that it should be pronounced v; when speaking unselfconsciously the more colloquial "me" and unthinking use of the f predominate, but when consciously using the more correct "my" - perhaps in more formal contexts - we also speak more carefully and deploy the v. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 00:56, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The verb have in the phrase "have to" has become grammaticalized into a separate auxiliary verb independent of other instances of have. Over time, the v has assimilated the voicelessness of the t so that it's pronounced more like haff, even when there is a pause between the words. This, and the lack of such assimilation in a phrase like "I have two bees" (vs. "I have to be") shows that this is /f/ pronunciation is part of the deep structure, rather than because of a rule that devoices a /v/.

As a verb, it is still possible to add -ing. Since there isn't a regular grammatical rule of voicing /f/ when adding -ing (chaffing, miffing, toughing, coughing, etc), it would be unintuitive to pronounce it with a v , though prescriptive grammar might prescribe this pronunciation (as well as weighing in on the me/my usage in this context) so that the variation is one of style shifting between greater and lesser formality. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 15:49, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

February 25

w.r.t. or i.r.o.

"With respect to" or "in respect of"? Which one is more grammatically correct and why? I've always had a pet hate for one but would like to see a few responses before disclosing which... Sandman30s (talk) 11:08, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've never had a problem with either of them, as long as they don't get mixed up to "In respect to" etc, or get overused. Fowler doesn't like either of them, asking they be used as little as possible. He gives the example: Rules for making provision with respect to any matter with respect to which the Council thinks that provision should be made - and asks "Why was about not good enough?". Hear, hear. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 11:36, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, they both have potential to be grammatically correct; there's nothing innately wrong with either phrase. However, they probably can mean different things. Consider "In respect of the recent death in your family, you can have the day off". Substituting "with respect to" for "in respect of" would change the semantics. "With respect to" is very common in formal and scientific writing; "in respect of" not so much. Re: Fowler: 'About' is not good enough for saying things like "Differentiate a function f with respect to y", or "{foo} must be measured with respect to {bar}". Personally, I use w.r.t. often, and never i.r.o. The preference for w.r.t. in math is substantiated by our redirect on With_respect_to. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:17, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, for what it's worth, my copy of NOAD has entries for "with respect to" and "in respect that", but not "in respect of". SemanticMantis (talk) 20:26, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

... but the OED has "in respect of" with a long pedigree. (I share your dislike though, especially the abbreviation!) The question was asked recently in Wiktionary Tea Room. Dbfirs 22:01, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. Because i.r.o. has an entry in ODE but not NOAD, can we conclude i.r.o. is contra-indicated for common usage in American English? SemanticMantis (talk) 22:24, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In respect that? I have never in my life seen or heard that expression. How would it be used? -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 22:48, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd never seen or heard it either. NOAD says, under phrases in the 'respect' entry, "in respect that: because." --Googling turns up mostly Shakespeare quotes: "In respect that it is solitary, I like it very well; but in respect that it is private, it is a very vile life." SemanticMantis (talk) 03:58, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bah, Shakespeare, what did he know about English! :) -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 04:10, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

<drumroll> As Dr. Seuss would have said, I much much muchly prefer "w.r.t."... Sandman30s (talk) 06:14, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What letter of the alphabet is this?

On page 48 of this pdf file, we see a letter of the Greek alphabet between epsilon and zeta. What is it?

In TeX one can write

\alpha \beta \gamma \delta \epsilon \zeta \eta \theta \iota \kappa \lambda \mu \nu \xi \mathrm {o} \pi \rho \sigma \tau \upsilon \varphi \chi \psi \omega .\,

How does one code this letter I'm inquiring about in TeX? Michael Hardy (talk) 16:56, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Then on pages 55 and 56 we seem to see a letter between pi and rho. What is that? Michael Hardy (talk) 17:00, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Greek alphabet in ancient times included stigma and qoppa, which were used as Greek numerals.

—Wavelength (talk) 17:17, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. The one between epsilon and zeta does look like Stigma (letter). Michael Hardy (talk) 19:10, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

.....and the later one looks like qoppa. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:12, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't seem to be able to download that pdf file, and the question is hard to answer without it. Looie496 (talk) 18:18, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I just had this exact same question. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:15, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On page 37 at http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0370.pdf, you can see the following characters.

(03DB) ϛ (GREEK SMALL LETTER STIGMA)
(03C2) ς (GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA)
(03D9) ϙ (GREEK SMALL LETTER ARCHAIC KOPPA)
(03C1) ρ (GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO)
(03DF) ϟ (GREEK SMALL LETTER KOPPA)

—Wavelength (talk) 19:17, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

From my Google search for tex greek numerals, the first result is http://www.tug.org/texlive/Contents/live/texmf-dist/doc/generic/babel/greek-usage.pdf, which has, on page 3, instructions for encoding Greek numerals. My attempts to display qoppa and sampi and stigma by encoding in TeX have been unsuccessful.

—Wavelength (talk) 20:43, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

[Oddly, the pages mentioned in the original post have lines numbered in sets of five (with Arabic numerals familiar to us), but grouped in sets of three.

—Wavelength (talk) 22:38, 25 February 2011 (UTC)][reply]

It was Heiberg's edition of Ptolemy's writings. Apparently Heiberg decided to do it that way. Michael Hardy (talk) 02:32, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Historically, the letter that belongs between epsilon and zeta is digamma. The Greek alphabet was taken over from the Phoenician alphabet, which has the same letters in the same order as the Hebrew alphabet: where Hebrew has he - waw - zayin, Greek has epsilon - digamma - zeta. When digamma was dropped from the alphabet, stigma took its place as a number so that the rest of the alphabet wouldn't be off by one. Similarly, when the Phoenician alphabet was taken over in Italy, these letters were E - F - Z, but later Z was dropped and G (which was a modification of C) took its place. Later, Z was re-borrowed from the Greek alphabet, but had to go to the end because it had gotten out of line. (I couldn't open the PDF directly in my browser either, because it's too big; but I could download it and then open it locally from my hard drive.) —Angr (talk) 02:16, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you want the encoding of these characters on Wikipedia to be explained or enabled, you can ask at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical), with a link to the archive of this discussion.

—Wavelength (talk) 05:06, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It would be nice to be able to type these in Wikipedia's limited version of TeX, since one could use them in accounts of the use of ancient Greek numerals in books written 2000 years ago. Michael Hardy (talk) 22:50, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Would you really need TeX encoding for that? As long as they are not part of more intricate mathematical formulae, why not just use standard text encoding? Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:19, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you would need TeX if you do it in a context in which not using TeX would mean mixing TeX with non-TeX notation. On Wikipedia, mixing TeX with text usually produces horrible results in which sizes and alignments don't match. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:00, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Our articles on digamma and koppa (letter) have some info about typographical variants. The forms shown in your document should be encoded as U+03DB "Greek small letter stigma" (ϛ) and U+03DF "Greek small letter koppa" (ϟ) respectively, although the results may look rather different depending on what fonts you have. This LaTeX style doc also has some info about LaTeX encodings. Apparently, "\stigma" and "\koppa" are defined in some packages, but I couldn't tell you if there are any that have them in a style compatible with $\alpha \beta \gamma$ etc. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:20, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why is “\omicron” not a valid LaTeX entity? --84.61.155.241 (talk) 08:18, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Because, in LaTex, it's exactly the same as the roman 'o'. See [2]. Nanonic (talk) 09:28, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I used \omicron in my initial posting that started this thread, and as you see above, it worked. So \omicron seems to be perfectly valid. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:02, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia doesn't use vanilla LaTex, it uses AMS-LaTeX which contains additional packages and functionality and plugs this into texvc for rendering which also introduces its own functionality. Nanonic (talk) 17:20, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What about “\Alpha”, “\Beta”, “\Epsilon”, “\Eta”, “\Iota”, “\Kappa”, “\Mu”, “\Nu”, “\Omicron”, “\Rho”, “\Tau”, “\Chi”, and “\Zeta”? --84.61.155.241 (talk) 10:07, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(I'm pretty sure this is the usual why-isn't-X-valid-in-Y person. Probably better to ignore.) -- BenRG (talk) 02:25, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

French profanity

What are the French profanities ordered by impact/effect (in terms of the English profanities)? For my purposes I ask that racial slurs not be included unless they are very widely used (for example, if I were making an equivalent list for English, I would include a word like "nigger" but not a word like "Mick"). Thanks. 72.128.95.0 (talk) 23:30, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

FYI, we have an article on Quebec French profanity, but not one on Standard French profanity, as far. The number of profanities in French is, like in most languages, very large and new ones are always being added, so finding a list online somewhere would be more useful than asking a couple people to rattle off whichever ones they can think of. rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:39, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Harrap's Slang Dictionary: Anglais-Français/Français-Anglais (Harrap, London, 1984. ISBN 0-245-54047-4) is useful for finding specific terms (it includes the likes of "M*th*rf*ck*r"), but includes no "impact-ranking" data. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 02:13, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I found The Complete Merde: The Real French You Were Never Taught at School (ISBN: 978-0002557689) useful in this respect. Astronaut (talk) 02:41, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

French has several words which often get translated into English as "fuck"; in increasing order of offensiveness, there's

Baiser = To fuck (literally "to kiss"). Baiser can mean both kiss, as in the varients "bise" or "bissou", or to fuck, so its a word with a bit of a double standard. A "petit baiser" is the little air kisses you give on the cheek, but you can also tell someone "Baisez mon cul" which directly translated means "kiss my ass" but idiomatically means "fuck my ass".
Foutre = To fuck (literally "to fuck"). Often used reflexively, the phrase "va te faire foutre" means literally and idiomatically "go fuck yourself".
Enculer = To fuck (literally "to enter the asshole") cul = ass or arse in French, so "enculer" means literally "to do the act of entering the ass" or "to assfuck". Thus, "Va te faire enculer" means "Go fuck yourself in the ass". This is probably more offensive than mere "foutre" or "baiser".

As an aside, my personal favorite french swear is "merde ambulante", literally a "walking shit", used in places where you might call someone an "asshole" in English. --Jayron32 03:37, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In my high-school French class, we were told that "donner un baiser" with "baiser" as a noun was fine, but never ever under any circumstances to try to use baiser as a verb... AnonMoos (talk) 15:41, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There are lists of these words at wikt:fr:Catégorie:Insultes en français and wikt:fr:Catégorie:Termes vulgaires en français, though they're not ordered by offensiveness. Any such ordering would in any case be a matter of personal opinion. --Antiquary (talk) 12:43, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Shakespeare has a quick crash course in Henry V (play), in the scene where the maid is teaching the French princess some English words...

-- AnonMoos (talk) 15:37, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Le Foot, & le Count: O Seignieur Dieu, ils sont le mots de son mauvais, corruptible grosse & impudique, & non pour les Dames de Honeur d'vser: Je ne voudray prononcer ces mots deuant les Seigneurs de France, pour tout le monde."

I believe that "Nick tou" means "Fuck you" (I'm not sure of the French spelling however). Flamarande (talk) 19:09, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

February 26

"Sandboxing" in general

Can you use the word "sandboxing" in a more general sense outside computer related stuff? Like in "sandboxing a new employee" (until he proves savvy), or "sandboxing a tool" (until it proves safe). Quest09 (talk) 01:52, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You could, but how many people would understand what you meant? Clarityfiend (talk) 03:05, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can :) "I was just sandboxing my model train set until I decided on the final layout." SemanticMantis (talk) 04:04, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You could, but it would be a terrible shame. What's wrong with "trying out"? -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 04:07, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Trying out" is not testing in a secure environment. Quest09 (talk) 14:29, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Sandboxing a new employee" would make me think of kitty litter, an analogy too far to my mind. meltBanana 04:27, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It would make me think of sandbagging, which is probably not what's meant. —Angr (talk) 13:30, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK, those are not the concepts I wanted to convey. But, then, what are the alternatives for a testing in a secure environment? Quest09 (talk) 14:29, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Testbed, test track, proving ground....--Shantavira|^{feed me} 14:50, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Guys, he is specifically talking about the computer science concept. He wants to sound like a psychopath. I suggest you use the FreeBSD concept then, and say "We should jail the new employee until we feel comfortable having him around our stuff." 109.128.182.182 (talk) 17:31, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's exactly the idea. But I don't want to sound like a psychopath, quite in contrary. Quest09 (talk) 01:08, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Quarantining" is a more common word with a similar meaning. Looie496 (talk) 23:50, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds like "for sick people/mad dogs". Quest09 (talk) 01:08, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Testbed is OK. Quest09 (talk) 01:08, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Formal usage in the UK is a "probationary period", during which the employer and employee can terminate the employment contract with little or no notice, and which generally lasts for 3 or 6 months. After the probationary period has been successfully completed, the employee's contract changes (and sometimes they get a pay rise). Why would you wish to use anything different? --TammyMoet (talk) 09:41, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's a different concept. The essence of sandboxing is that the entity operate in an environment that is isolated from the outside world except for a specific set of permitted interactions. A clean room, for example, is a type of sandbox that has nothing to do with probation. Looie496 (talk) 18:58, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hindi translation

Can anyone translate the Hindi text found in ~~this picture?~~edit: see link below Thanks Lexicografía (talk) 17:36, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's a "members only" site so we can't see the picture. Roger (talk) 18:31, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, okay, try here then. Lexicografía (talk) 18:57, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can't tell you what it says, but I can tell you it's Bengali and not Hindi. —Angr (talk) 19:20, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

amay bhalobase? --Soman (talk) 19:39, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Or amar bhalobase? I don't know Bengali, but Wiktionary tells me that আমার amar means "my" and ভালবাসে bhalobase is the 3rd person informal present of ভালবাসা "to love". But "I love you" is reported to be আমি তোমাকে ভালবাসি, which isn't what's in the picture. If Amar or Amay is a name, it could just mean "Amar/Amay loves...". The text in the photo does seem to end in an ellipsis... —Angr (talk) 20:24, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can't read Bengali but due to a thread on this desk a month ago I can tell you that Ami tomake bhalobashi is a common transcription of a Bengali phrase that means "I love you". Looie496 (talk) 23:46, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

on vs l'on

In French, how does one know when to use 'on' and when to use 'l'on'? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.128.95.0 (talk) 19:40, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was under the impression they're completely interchangeable, although I have heard that people prefer que l'on to qu'on because the latter is a homophone of con. —Angr (talk) 20:06, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

They're interchangeable in meaning, but "l'on" usually appears after a conjunction ending in a vowel (at least in written French). By the way, the syllable [kõ] is rather commonly-occurring and unavoidable in French (unlike the syllable [fʌk] in English)... AnonMoos (talk) 20:16, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was given the same advice as Angr, but I think it's a rule that is paradoxically followed more in writing than in speaking, where the homophony would actually more noticeable. "Si l'on" is also pretty common in the written language. In other contexts, "l'on" can have an old-fashioned flavor, e.g. "Sur le pont d'Avignon, l'on y danse, l'on y danse..." Lesgles (talk) 21:37, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See also French Wiktionary's entry on "l'on". It says that the usage of "l'on" instead of "on" is considered to be literary. In the 18th Century, grammarians saw its usage as euphonic, intended to avoid a hiatus. They recommended using it after "et", "ou", "qui", "que", "quoi", or "si". These recommendations weren't followed often, and these days, both forms are in usage ("si on veut" and "si l'on veut"). "L'on" should be treated as an elevated stylistic variation. (my rough and not completely literal translation). ---Sluzzelin talk 00:02, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Word for expert on medals

What would be the word for a scholar of or expert on medals, their histories and so forth? I actually need this for a Wikipedia article I am writing on Julius Iversen. I assume it would some sort of word ending in "ologist", and even if it doesn't exist it could be formed from a Greek root (but I don't know Greek, and my machine translator just gives a result in Greek alphabet characters).

According to the article medal, our word derives from the Greek "metallon" (μέταλλον) - but that means "mine", not "medal". So I'm stumped! Thanking in advance anyone who can help, Herostratus (talk) 20:37, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Exonumist (more specific than numismatist), or medallionist (although this refers specifically to makers, not experts) - I don't know of any that end in -ologist. Lexicografía (talk) 20:52, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not "medallurgist", then? ( Sorry, couldn't help myself. ) But good on you, Lex. Who knew!? – OhioStandard (talk) 20:56, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, Wiktionary does claim there's such a word as medallurgy. —Angr (talk) 21:01, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, yeah. I was just going by the ones listed in M-W (which has excellent search features). None of the terms are very common, though. Lexicografía (talk) 21:04, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To judge by this page the word phaleristics is used to mean the study of orders and decorations, but no-one yet seems to have coined phaleristicist or phaleristician (apart from me of course). --Antiquary (talk) 21:08, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, the etymology on the medal article seemed to be mistaken. The OED and other dictionaries now derive it just from medalia, "half a denarius", which in turns comes from the same root as the word medial (it's now fixed). That doesn't help answer your question though. Ancient Greek doesn't seem to have had an exact equivalent for our word medal. I like all the suggestions above, or we could turn to Modern Greek, which seems to use both μετάλλιο and παράσημο. Maybe parasemologist? (no g-hits for that, unfortunately) Lesgles (talk) 21:26, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We have an article on faleristics. Sigillography is also a possibility, depending on what kind of medals you mean. Adam Bishop (talk) 22:48, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Faleristics. That seems the closest description of Iversen (you can see for yourself, I've just published the article: Julius Iversen). And I used the term "faleristicist" to describe him. There is a problem with that though: Pilc only established faleristics as a science in 1937, and Iversen died in 1900. But its very close to "phaleristicist" which is apparently proper Latin, so I suppose we're OK.

Thank you all for a most interesting and productive discussion which contributed to making a Wikipedia article better! Herostratus (talk) 02:39, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

According to this, a person knowledgeable in faleristics (which they spell 'phaleristics') is not a 'faleristicist' or even a 'phaleristicist', but a 'phalerist'. That word gets another 137 ghits. Given the fluidity between the f- and ph- spellings, I suppose it could also be spelt as 'falerist'. That word gets 34,700 ghits, but most of the early ones seem unrelated to faleristics (let alone phaleristics). -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 04:50, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK, that makes sense, I changed it to "phalerist". Herostratus (talk) 15:11, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

February 27

Cyrillic text help

Resolved

What is the Cryllic text at http://www.newgracanica.com/ ? I want to put it in the Diocese of New Gracanica - Midwestern America article. WhisperToMe (talk) 05:00, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean the words at the top of the page? They're СРПСКА ПРАВОСЛАВНА ЕПАРХИЈА НОВОГРАЧАНИЧКО-СРЕДЊЕЗАПАДНОАМЕРИЧКА. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 05:16, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I meant the words on the page. Thank you very much! WhisperToMe (talk) 05:22, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, what's the cyrillic text at http://www.westsrbdio.org/images/zaglavlje_plavo_a.jpg ? WhisperToMe (talk) 05:34, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Западно америчка епархија. Lesgles (talk) 06:28, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! WhisperToMe (talk) 06:31, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"A discussion that resulted in his being sanctioned."

Resolved

– by Jack of Oz, IP 87.81.230.195, Deor, and Herostratus. Thanks!

Oh, help! I think I'm going to have to give up trying to speak English, and just resort to grunts and hand gestures. It's just too hard. ;-) Can anyone help me determine which is correct, between these two sentences, when referring to a discussion that took place in the past?

(A) "I took part in a discussion that resulted in his being sanctioned."

(B) "I took part in a discussion that resulted in him being sanctioned."

My inclination is to go with "A"; that's the way I'd probably say the sentence out loud. But it also introduces the possibility that it was his being, his soul that was sanctioned, rather than just "him", i.e. it raises the possibility that "being" could be construed as a noun. Can anyone clear this up, and perhaps explain why his preferred choice is correct? Thanks, – OhioStandard (talk) 09:04, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is related to the Grammar - "without me having to" question above. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 09:07, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Jack. I read that thread after you pointed me to it. I'm definitely going to go with my grunts and hand gestures idea now. – OhioStandard (talk) 09:39, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If further explication helps, I would say that (A) would be considered by many to be formally correct, though (B) would be acceptable and unremarkable in less formal writing and speech. The ambiguity in (A) you suggest exists in theory, now that you point it out, but in practice would not arise because although the term "a being" in the sense of an entity or a (human or non-human) person is common usage, one does not refer to the being of somebody or belonging to somebody as a synonym for his/her soul or related concepts. To put it another way, a being is someone in their entirety; it cannot be a mere part or attribute of somebody. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 12:09, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In our desire not to be seen as old-fashioned prescriptivists, we at the language desk sometimes provide somewhat equivocal and bewildering answers, I think. The simple fact is that no one can go wrong with A here; if I were still working as a copy editor, I would emend B to A without even thinking about it (unless it occurred in a direct quotation). If, for some difficult-to-conceive reason, what was sanctioned was the guy's being, one would have to say ". . . that resulted in his being's being sanctioned". Deor (talk) 13:31, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any ambiguity in A. Consider if we replaced "being" with "soul":

"I took part in a discussion that resulted in his soul sanctioned"

This is clearly incorrect, as would be "I took part in a discussion that resulted in his being sanctioned" if "being" is taken to mean his soul or self. Instead one would say

"I took part in a discussion that resulted in his being being sanctioned"

I think. At any rate, the whole problem can be avoided by simply refusing to take part in such discussions, especially if it is a matter of imposing sanctions on a person's eternal soul. Even the ArbCom doesn't do that (I hope). Herostratus (talk) 14:41, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Jack, IP 87+, Deor, and Herostratus! Now I won't have to resort only to grunting after all! And excellent points re the usage of "being", too. @Herostratus: I think there was a proposal recently to set up a new board as part of the dispute resolution process that would have allowed that, but only if the people who proposed it didn't like you. ;-) Best, – OhioStandard (talk) 14:54, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It would only work if both sanctor and sanctee believe in the existence of eternal souls. Such people seem to be a dwindling bunch, while those who believe in the impending end of the world in December 2012 are legion. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 19:06, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hanzi and pinyin for Ms Wenwen Han please!

Hi all,
Going by her name and the context, it would appear that one of the bilingual Ms Han's native language is Mandarin Chinese . (Article could do with some work too, if you are minded to so do. The lass in question is only 16 years old - WP:BLP concerns a fortiori.) As always, your help and guidance greatly appreciated!
--Shirt58 (talk) 09:44, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

韓雯雯. 韓/Han, 雯雯/Wenwen. [3] Oda Mari (talk) 10:39, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

御苦労様、まっちゃん.--Shirt58 (talk) 11:39, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Mnemonic for semantics of "to trade A for B"

Resolved

This will sound beyond silly, but I'm not a native speaker and when I read something like "Will you trade A for B?" I'm never 100% sure whether I have to provide A and then receive B or vice versa. Is there some kind of mnemonic for this, like a saying or the title of a book or film? Thank you in advance. 83.81.50.146 (talk) 14:03, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

it just means give. "I'll trade you my ____ for your _____". You can tell it can only be that way from these " two links. Okay, WTF. I expected the second link to have like 13 results, because it's ridiculous. I guess some people just make a mistake. Just think "trade = give" I'll trade you my __ for your ____ = I'll give you my ___ for your ____ . 109.128.182.182 (talk) 14:19, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You made that sound simple. Which it is, I guess. Thanks! 83.81.50.146 (talk) 14:37, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think that it commonly goes either way, as those Google searches suggest. I'm a native speaker and I get confused. -- BenRG (talk) 02:40, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Pawn to Rook Seven?

What does "Pawn to Rook Seven" mean?

I don't know much about chess. --Analphil (talk) 16:08, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See Descriptive chess notation. Deor (talk) 16:12, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It means a pawn moves to the seventh square ahead of the original position (called "rook one") of a rook (also known as a castle) of the same colour. The statement assumes there is only one pawn that can legally do this, otherwise it would have to specify which of the two rooks is meant, the queen's rook or the king's rook.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 17:03, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks all of you.--Analphil (talk) 17:55, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ol Chiki and Avesta fonts

In spite of I have got several types of Ol Chiki and Avesta fonts installed in my computer, I cannot read the (anyway rare) words of santhali and avesta languages in wikipedia's articles. What kind of font files are used in Wikipedia and Wiktionary? Thank you in advance for any indications. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.131.139.33 (talk) 17:13, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think Wikipedia and Wikisource specify any particular font. They just use Unicode characters, and rely on users to install fonts capable of displaying them. If your fonts are Unicode-compliant, I don't know why they don't work. You might get better help at the help desk than here at the reference desk. Pais (talk) 18:37, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See Help:Multilingual support.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 10:04, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much for both of you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.131.138.111 (talk) 10:29, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A gang of fifty strong?

Strong has a meaning "said of a group, etc: made up of about the specified number".

I wonder how 'strong' became to have such a meaning.--Analphil (talk) 17:54, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I believe this is generally used when the number is large enough to make the group strong in the usual sense. In any case, the meaning goes back at least to the 1700s, since Samuel Johnson lists it in his dictionary. The OED might give more info but I don't have access to it at the moment. Looie496 (talk) 18:52, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's exactly the derivation. From the OED, "strong" in the sense of "powerful" has been used in English for nearly 900 years, and the specific sense applied to a group (meaning "powerful to the extent of") is first cited from 1589 (R. Greene Menaphon) ("... in that place within three dayes with tenne thousand strong"). Dbfirs 20:38, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Polish translation needed

I took this picture of a statue of Josef Pilsudski, the marshal of Poland, in the Wieliczka Salt Mine last July. There is some Polish text written on the base of the statue. What does it say? JIP | Talk 17:57, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Appears to be "To be defeated and not give in is a victory. To win and rest on your laurels is a defeat.". Achieved from google translate followed by an appropriate google search. It's a phrase attributed to JP. --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:39, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Native Polish speaker confirms. — Kpalion^(talk) 20:23, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Latin translation

Hy there, could someone help me? I need a translation into Classical Latin of the verb 'win' in the 1st person singular past tense (i.e.: I won). Much obliged. Flamarande (talk) 19:04, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hard to beat "Vici"...

-- AnonMoos (talk) 19:27, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe also "superavi"? It might depend on what is being won. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:33, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In case the OP does not know much Latin, it might be worth pointing out that 'vici' means 'I won (in battle or similar), ie I was victorious. Superavi means more like 'I overcame' which again implies we are talking about some kind of competition. If the context is something like 'I won a prize' then the usual phrase would be 'adeptus sum' (or adepta sum if the winner is female). As Adam points out, the context would be helpful here. Maid Marion (talk) 15:48, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In any meaning of English "win" which involves exerting effort to prevail over rival competitors, I think that vici is at least as good a translation of English "I won" as any other simple one-word Latin rendering... AnonMoos (talk) 08:49, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wrinkly grandmother...

Due to a bet, a friend of mine needs translations of the sentence "Your wrinkly grandmother buried the cook and played with the goats" in as many languages as possible. Please help, mates. :) --KnightMove (talk) 23:55, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Do they need to be a good translations ? If not, perhaps Bablefish automatic translations will do: [4]. StuRat (talk) 06:14, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, I'll give you two. One obscure, one not. Both irregularly represented at this desk, as far as I can tell. (I know you speak German, so I won't give you that one)

Zurich German: "Dis runzlige Groosi hät de Choch vergrabe und mit de Geissli gschpilt."
Italian: "Tua nonna rugosa ha sepolto il cuoco e giocava con le capre." (colloquially, the last part reads more easily as "colle capre"). ---Sluzzelin talk 07:45, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Lantzy makes some good points, and others have accordingly given varieties. Grumpy for having applied a sexist reading, I'm now delivering the versions for a female cook:

Zurich German: "Dis runzlige Groosi hät d'Chöchin vergrabe ...". Further correction: "Groosi" actually means "Granny". It should be "Dini runzligi Grosmuätr hät...". Note also, that I used an informal tone and singular, not the formal (singular and plural) "Sie" (>> "Ihri runzligi Grosmuätr...")or informal plural "Ihr" (>> "euri runzligi Grosmuätr"). I guess I was quite liberal with this one.
Italian: "Tua nonna rugosa ha sepolto la cuoca ..." For formal singular "Lei": "Sua nonna rugosa ..." ("Sua" capitalized). For formal plural "Loro": "Loro nonna rugosa..." ("Loro" capitalized). For informal plural "voi": "vostra nonna...". ---Sluzzelin talk 18:07, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Afrikaans: "Jou verrimpelde ouma het die kok begrawe en met die bokke gespeel." Roger (talk) 10:27, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Swedish: "Din rynkiga mormor begravde kocken och lekte med getterna."Sjö (talk) 11:01, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Quick and dirty Middle English: "Hir ywrinkeled grandmoder biried the cook and pleyed med the gootes" --Shirt58 (talk) 12:05, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Hir" doesn't mean "your", it means "her" or "their". I'd go with "thin". Pais (talk) 12:12, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You're right, and I'm wrong. I have only the tiniest bit of Englisc, my Middle English is read-only, and as for my Early Modern English... ah, but that's another story ;-) --Shirt58 (talk) 14:00, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: That Middle English looks a lot like modern Scots. Roger (talk) 14:15, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There's reasons a-plenty for that....--Shirt58 (talk) 15:42, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

French: Ta grand-mère ridée a enterré le cuisinier et joué avec les chèvres. Latin: Ava tua caperata coquum sepelivit et capris lusit. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:57, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Japanese: "皺だらけのあなたのお祖母さんは、料理人を土のなかに埋めて、山羊たちと遊びました。" Oda Mari (talk) 15:23, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

: Ano ne, Oda-sensei - Obatarian ka mo shirenai yo na--Shirt58 (talk) 12:43, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Another easy one, Spanish. Tu abuela arrugosa enterró el cocinero y jugó con la cabras. Richard Avery (talk) 16:31, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think that should be enterró al cocinero (compare [5] with [6]). NorwegianBlue^talk 21:46, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not as confident about this, but Arabic: "دفنت جدتك متجعدة الطباخ ولعبت مع الماعز" Adam Bishop (talk) 16:41, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Finnish: Ryppyinen isoäitisi hautasi kokin ja leikki vuohilla. (I understood "play with the goats" as use goats as playthings. If they were her friends and equals and they played together, replace the last word with vuohien kanssa.) JIP | Talk 18:51, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A bit of cracker-barrel translation theory which may or may not be of any concern to the OP: This accumulation of translations does not take into account the many profound ambiguities inherent in the sentence. To start with there is lexical polysemy: first the phrase "play with", which in the context of so surreal a sentence could refer not only to the act of frolicking among the animals as an equal, but also (for instance) to harassing them mischievously, or joining them in a jam session, or manipulating their genitalia. Likewise "bury the cook" could refer not only to interring the cook literally in a grave, but could refer figuratively to swamping him with work or of outliving him. (As in "your wrinkly grandmother will bury us all!") For that matter, is the cook male or female? Most European languages do not permit this kind of ambiguity with regard to professions. "Goats" may refer not to livestock but, figuratively, to a collection of philanderers or pariahs. Also, "grandmother" is, in many languages, a concept that would be expressed differently according to whether she were maternal or paternal. And while it is clear that there are multiple goats, their exact quantity is unspecified, so there would be some doubt when rendering the sentence in a language which distinguishes between, dual, paucal, trial, etc. Is this a pair of goats, a small smattering of them, or a huge flock? One must also consider the implied T-V distinction. To me, "wrinkly" suggests that a familiar or disrespectful attitude has been adopted towards the addressee, but this does not rule out the possibility of a V form. (And that's ignoring languages like Korean in which there are more than two levels of address, and languages like Japanese in which a concept like "the grandmother of the person I'm talking to" is expressed in a totally different, non-pronomial way.) On top of that, there are questions of tense and aspect. Tense seems clear enough, unless you're translating to one of those Australian languages with proximal and distal past. Still it's not totally clear just when these grandmotherly actions took place, whether they transpired yesterday or in the distant past. Am I being advised of what my grandmother did this morning, or of what she did as a free-spirited young maiden, back before I could have known her? As for aspect, while it seems clear even out of context that "buried the cook" refers to something perfective and unitary, for "played with the goats" it could be either perfective ("she just got done playing with the goats") or generic ("she was a woman of the sort that plays with the goats"), though the latter seems less likely in light of the parallelism between the two actions. Still, there are languages in which such things must be made explicit. The "and" may or may not imply a logical relationship: Are we dealing with coincidence or consequence? Other considerations are evidentiality, definiteness, register, etc. Also, I don't know how to term this concept, but the use of the adjective "wrinkly", combined with the fact that a person has two grandmothers, creates the possibility that "your wrinkly grandmother" is being used to specify which of your two grandmothers is being discussed: "Your wrinkly grandmother buried the cook and played with the goats (but your smooth grandmother behaved herself)", and in some languages there would be no such ambiguity. Figuring conservatively, and only for the ambiguities that I have mentioned here, there would be 3,328 fundamentally different and mutually exclusive ways of parsing the sentence. That doesn't, of course, translate to 3,328 possible translations, because so many of these ambiguities are cross-linguistic (because, for instance, neither English nor the Romance languages distinguish between plural and dual, or between proximal and distal past). However, the more distant the target language in terms of its structure, the more you will need to clarify these ambiguities. LANTZY ^TALK 21:25, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Lantzy. I believe thousands of students worldwide are at this very moment copypasting that into their essays..... --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 21:52, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Norwegian: Din rynkete bestemor (applies to both maternal and paternal grandmother) begravde (put in a grave) / overlevde (outlived) kokken (male or female) / kokka (if you know the cook was female) og lekte med (played like children do) / spilte med (chess, musical instruments) / antastet (played with their genitalia) geitene. --NorwegianBlue^talk 21:59, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Norwegian Blue, I ought to qualify what I said above: a lot of the ambiguities I mentioned are pretty marginal, in particular "buried the cook", which even in a bizarre sentence devoid of context can be presumed to refer to a literal interment. LANTZY ^TALK 12:26, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Did anyone do Esperanto yet? Cia sulkeca avino enterigis la kuiriston kaj ludis kun la kaproj. I think that's right, in that it duplicates most of the meanings and ambiguities of the original. LANTZY ^TALK 12:26, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Surely there must be a Klingon speaker out there to really give this discussion a real zing?--Shirt58 (talk) 12:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why sulkeca and not sulka? --KnightMove (talk) 16:45, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To duplicate the emphatic nature of "wrinkly" when the word is applied to an entire person rather than to, say, an inanimate object or a specific body part. But maybe "sulka" would be better. There are many other options: sulkoplena, sulkigita, malglata, velkita, cxifita... 129.174.54.244 (talk) 18:02, 1 March 2011 (UTC) [Lantzy, not logged in][reply]

I'll try to illustrate what Lantzy was writing about by providing two Polish translations with different sets of assumptions:

Twoja pomarszczona babka pochowała kucharza i bawiła się kozami. This one implies that you're on a first-name basis with the addressee, that the cook was male, that the grandmother was present at the burial, but was not necessarily an undertaker, that she used the goats as her toys, and that the goats were either female or of mixed sexes. Due to the ambiguity of the word koza, this sentence would be more likely understood to mean that she played with her boogers.
Pańska pomarszczona babka pogrzebała kucharkę, a grała z capami. This one implies that you're not on a first-name basis with the addressee and that the addressee is a man, that the cook was female, that the grandmother was the actual undertaker, that she played some sort of game with the goats or played music with them, that all of the the goats were male, and that you are contrasting the two facts, as if she shouldn't have played with the goats, if she had buried the cook. — Kpalion^(talk) 16:40, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Russian: "Твоя морщинистая бабушка похоронила повара и поиграла с козами." (other possibilities depending on choice of T-V distinction, aspect, gender ~~of cook and~~ goats). Lesgles (talk) 18:19, 1 March 2011 (UTC) Or actually, повар can be male or female, but there is also кухарка, which is only female. Lesgles (talk) 18:20, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And based on that, I think Ukrainian would be something like "Твоя зморшкувата бабуся поховала кухаря і пограла з козами", and Belarusian is probably "Твая маршчыністая бабуля пахавала кухара і пагуляла з козами." Lesgles (talk) 18:34, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

February 28

anyone know Russian?

Can anyone tell me what the "Barynya" song actually says? Lyrics here: [7]. They read:

“

Барыня, барыня, сударыня барыня...

Барыня, барыня, сударыня барыня!
Приехала барыня из деревни во Москву;
Становилась барыня во палатах каменных.
Мимо тех ли ведь палат шла дорожка хороша;
По той по дороженьке офицер часто ходил,
Офицер часто ходил, на окошечко глядел.
У барыни, барыни глаза разгорелися,
Глаза разгорелися, вся кровь воскипелася.
«Офицерик молодой, побывай ко мне, душа!»
У барыни, барыни, сударыни барыни,
Офицерик побывал, со барышней посидел,
У барыни посидел, с нею время препровел.
Чаем-кофием поила, в уста его целовала,
К нежну сердцу прижимала, таки речи говорила:
«Я счастлива бы была, кабы век с тобой жила!»

”

Thanks! 109.128.222.233 (talk) 01:22, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I won't translate, since it's too long, but I want to point out that this is far from canonical lyrics (there aren't any, really, since it's a folk song). It may or may not be the original lyrics, but these would be unfamiliar to an average Russian who is familiar with the song. But, briefly, it's a song about a love affair between upper-class people, but the song is clearly written by a peasant. --99.113.32.198 (talk) 02:13, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

yeah I noticed it's not actually what my song is saying (I can sound out cyrillic). Could you link a more 'canonical' version of the lyrics? Finding such is beyond my ability... 109.128.222.233 (talk) 04:38, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I won't attempt a translation either, not because it's too long, but because my Russian is really shaky. From what I was told, after hearing the song performed by the Sharomov Vocal Ensemble, the chastushka lyrics can vary, and in fact that is part of their appeal. This link has some information, and the "Saturday Affair" version in Russian and English. And "сударыня" ("sudarynya") means "madam", the link doesn't translate that part. (We also have a short article on barynya, though it doesn't answer your question directly). ---Sluzzelin talk 08:51, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Summary of the song as posted here: an officer looked at a lady through the window, she was excited, she called him, he came to her, they enjoyed each other's company. Local colour: they also drank tea and coffee together.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 16:50, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Muslim girl names

I'm writing a story and one of the characters is a Muslim girl. I don't speak Arabic, so I have no idea what to name her. --75.15.161.185 (talk) 02:34, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you could check out wikt:Category:English female given names from Arabic... Lexicografía (talk) 02:50, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Or Category:Arabic feminine given names, Category:Iranian feminine given names, or Category:Turkish feminine given names here at Wikipedia, depending on the national background of the Muslim girl in your story. Pais (talk) 12:18, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would add to the lists: List of American Muslims, Category:British_Muslims, if the story is set in the west. You could check the background of notable individuals to see if they match. --Colapeninsula (talk) 12:27, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just because she's a Muslim doesn't mean she has to have an Arabic name... 86.179.119.44 (talk) 18:42, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Seconded. My cousin is a muslim girl (with one muslim parent) and has a perfectly Han Chinese, not-even-remotely-Arabic name and also a second perfectly English, not-even-remotely-Arabic name. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 19:46, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

can past tense and present tense come togethor in a common written piece.

I have noticed in the writings of some extremely writers that they use past tense and present tense in the same article. I have also a read few stories where the narration is made with the help of both past tense and present tense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.243.44.210 (talk) 04:10, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can you provide an example? Usage of tense varies a lot with context and what the speaker or writer is trying to convey. rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:25, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't get the question. If you have noticed it, why are you asking whether it can happen? Looie496 (talk) 06:25, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Extremely what writers? -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 07:25, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Several different tenses can be used in one sentence; no problem: I saw your question, I am now typing a response, I will soon see the result.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 10:10, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that a sentence can have multiple tenses, but I would challenge someone to do that in an independent clause. That "sentence" above should ideally be separated by semicolons, making them clauses anyway. In general, mixing tenses in one clause or thought is ugly and a bit disconcerting to the reader. Badly written articles jump all over the place within paragraphs and I sometimes find that painful to read. Sandman30s (talk) 13:23, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have read the above comments, and I am now fed up with the topic. -- Q Chris (talk) 14:32, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think Shantavira's and Q Chris's examples are fine. What bugs me is when a careless author decides to use the historical present, then forgets he's doing so and lapses into the past tense for a few clauses, then suddenly remembers he's supposed to be using the historical present again. (In general, I find the use of the historical present in narrative an annoying affectation 9 times out of 10, but if you must use it, at least use it consistently.) Pais (talk) 14:42, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nicely said, thanks. This is what I was thinking of but couldn't quite place it. Sandman30s (talk) 08:18, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Americanisms... again

OK just some random thoughts (sigh)... why do Americans say "math" and everyone else says "maths"? After all it's short for mathematics, not mathematic. Why do Americans drop the h in herb? Then you should be calling Herbie an 'urbie' :) Sandman30s (talk) 13:10, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For the second one, it's because herb was borrowed from French herbe, which has a silent H (the H was dropped already in Vulgar Latin probably in the 1st century AD or so). The pronunciation with /h/ as heard in Britain is a spelling pronunciation (a non-historical pronunciation influenced by the spelling). For the first, it probably has to do with the fact that Americans treat mathematics (as well as other fields with apparently plural names like politics and linguistics) as grammatically singular: "Mathematics is a difficult subject", not "Mathematics are a difficult subject" (or even "Mathematics are difficult subjects"). One of the most salient differences between American and British English is in subject-verb agreement. Pais (talk) 13:25, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

British also treat mathematics as a single subject. I think the mathematic/mathematics is just a difference without reason after all Americans treat physics as a single subject without shortening it to physic. -- Q Chris (talk) 13:34, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wait a minute, are you under the impression that Americans say mathematic? No, we don't. The short form is math, the long form is mathematics; both forms are construed as singular. --Trovatore (talk) 03:28, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The word "math" dates to at least 1847 according to the Oxford English Dictionary, while "maths" is attributed to only 1911. So the question is not why the Americans say "math" but why the British chose not to use a word that already existed. Similarly, the British only started pronouncing the "h" in herb in the 19th century; the U.S. pronunciation is the original. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 15:15, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well the British already had a word "math" meaning a mowing (hence "aftermath"), and dating from 1305 or earlier. The British colloquial abbreviation (with the "s") is possibly borrowed from French who also retain the "s" and were using the abbreviation in the mid-1800s. (The French mathématiques is plural, of course.) Dbfirs 08:56, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I think the fact that "mathematics" is a singular noun is the reason why the abbreviation is "math" in American English, not "maths". There's just no reason to keep the -s when the word is abbreviated, since the word is ultimately a single morpheme (it's {mathematics}, not {mathematic}-{s}). The form "maths" would make sense to me only if "mathematics" were also treated as a plural, so that {mathematic}-{s} is shortened to {math}-{s}, without any awkward cutting out of the middle of a morpheme. But that's just my American perspective! Voikya (talk) 15:19, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can tell from Google, though, (at least some) Americans do use the analogous abbreviation "stats" for the discipline of statistics. Algebraist 15:48, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but statistics is sometimes construed as a plural noun; mathematics effectively never is. --Trovatore (talk) 23:22, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Mathematics" is usually singular, but was used as a plural as early as 1697 and as late as 1971 in OED citations. Dbfirs 08:56, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In my (UK) experience it is still used occasionally as a plural - for example "The mathematics of the situation are such that....." Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:08, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I meant in American usage. Just the same, I probably wouldn't object strongly to the example sentence, but I'd be very unlikely to produce it myself.

Statistics is an interesting case. It's true that, when used in the plural, it usually means something other than the field of study, something more like a collection of numbers. "He's one of those ballplayers whose statistics are more important to him than whether the team wins." And nevertheless, the field of study is more often shortened to stats rather than stat. --Trovatore (talk) 10:05, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I'm going to take a WAG here and propose that the reason for the prevalence of stats for the field of study is a contamination from stats in the sense of sports, which most people learn about before they learn the academic discipline. --Trovatore (talk) 10:16, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As others have said, the "h" in UK "herb" was inserted as a result of spelling pronunciation - and, like "hour", "heir", and "honour", it originally didn't have one. However, the re-introduction based on spelling has also occurred in "humble", "hotel", "habit", "horizon", "horrible", "host" etc., and all of these are pronounced in the same way by both British and American English; in fact, when you think of it, only a handful of all the Romance loans with originally mute H have preserved their H-less pronunciation in any kind of English. The preserved H-less words like "heir" and "herb" are the anomaly. BTW, contrary to the OP's suggestion, the name "Herbert" has nothing to do with herbs. Since it's of Germanic origin and French pronunciation tended to retain the Germanic Hs ("H aspiré") for quite some time, I guess it must have had an H in Norman French, and that H was safely delivered into English without further vicissitudes of fortune.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 16:35, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In the UK, the re-introduction of initial 'h' pronunciation is not universal (yet). Many people, including myself, omit it when the first syllable is not stressed, and both speak and write 'an' rather than 'a' preceding it. Thus: "an [h]oTEL" but "a HORrible . . .", etc. This is/was perhaps more prevalent in the older members of the notionally better educated classes where knowledge of French is/was de rigueur. Single syllable words in this schema necessarily restore the 'h', but a few words like "heir" mysteriously buck the trend. Doubless a professional linguist would know why - off to peruse the archives at Language Log! 87.81.230.195 (talk) 16:54, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Good point, I'd forgotten about that (or rather about how it's connected to the whole thing). I don't think this is about knowledge of French, though: after all, you don't need to know Old Norman French to pronounce the first consonant in 'gentleman' correctly, and that ~~sound~~ phoneme didn't even exist in English before William the Conqueror turned up, AFAIK. Do you also "drop" the H sentence-initially (as in "Hotels are very useful..." or "Historically speaking, ...")?--91.148.159.4 (talk) 19:36, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Touché! I do somewhat when speaking carelessly in my default inherited near-Cockney (my family was too peripetatic in my childhood for me to develop my own permanent regional accent, so I acquired my Father's), but not when speaking more carefully: evidently sentence position is also a factor in the mix. Re the French influence, I was not suggesting an 800-year-old legacy from Norman French, but rather a 19th/20th-century affectation by upper-class Francophone English (in the modern sense) people and their genteel petty bourgeois imitators like myself. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 23:03, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's the point, the pattern of spelling with H without pronouncing it is in fact an 800-year-old legacy from Norman French. If any (phonologically adapted) post-Medieval loans from French (such as "hotel", perhaps, but hardly "historical" and "habitual") display the same pattern, it's only because they have joined the old pattern of "heir" and "hour". By the way, if imitation of modern French pronunciation had been intended in most of these cases, I think that people would have also pronounced "horizon" with stress on the last syllable and a nasal; in general, such recent loans are characterised by a much more consistent French-like pronunciation, e.g. "hors d'oeuvre".--91.148.159.4 (talk) 03:16, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How interesting. I hadn't been aware of the Norman-French pronunciation retention before, but I now see that the article Phonological history of English fricatives and affricates alludes to it, though not with explicit mention of the 800-plus-year span. I had imagined that the Normans, with their own Norse/Germanic heritage, had tended to pronounce their nominally French h's, perhaps because of my familiarity with the emphatically anglicised pronunciation of English heraldic terminology which, of course, they introduced. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 21:46, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

[dʒ] did exist in Old English, but not as a separate phoneme. It was an allophone of /j/ after /n/. The modern English words hinge and singe are directly inherited from Old English words that had [dʒ]; and the Old English word for "angel" probably had it too, but the Modern English word was probably re-borrowed from Latin, not inherited from Old English. —Angr (talk) 22:09, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Right, I see that this is the most common view in recent textbooks (though specifically hinge is said to have no precedent in OE in the dictionaries I checked). Personally, I'm used to a more "archaic" interpretation of the OE pronunciation, with palatal or palatalized plosives c/kʲ and ɟ/gʲ instead of the affricates tʃ and dʒ; certainly ɟ/gʲ or something like dʝ seems a more natural allophone of /j/ than [dʒ] does, although of course it did eventually end up as a dʒ. In any case, as you said, it was just an allophone, and in particular it could never have occurred word-initially as in Norman loans like "gentle", there being neither a preceding /n/ nor a possibility for gemination there.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 03:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

An initial H is even added by some where it doesn't belong, as in the word "aitch" itself, and (supposedly) in old-fashioned Cockney. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 17:28, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, another discussion forlornly looking for logic in the English language. As an Australian, I've always felt that Math just looks weird. In fact, I'm Maths teacher who just handed my students a worksheet from the web which has Math on top. One of my students asked me about it. I just said "Americans are different". Hope no-one's offended. HiLo48 (talk) 23:39, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note that Canadians also say math. --Trovatore (talk) 23:43, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I did mean North American... thanks for an interesting discussion on a somewhat whimsical topic for me at least. Sandman30s (talk) 08:15, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note that a famous maths series from the 20th century is Bourbaki's fr:Éléments de mathématique, where the "mathématique" is singular. Apparently the goal was to emphasize the unity of the field via the title. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Maths" is harder to say than "math". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:06, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's why so many young Britons are studying maffs instead. LANTZY ^TALK 18:09, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Veni, vidi, vici - I came, I saw, I won?

I know that translations are by their very nature a very tricky business (tradutore, traitore) but could someone explain why Veni, vidi, vici is usually translated as: "I came, I saw, I conquered" instead of: "I came, I saw, I won"?

I mean I asked a couple of posts above (Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language#Latin translation) about the translation of "I won" into Classical Latin (I had a hunch but I wasn't certain) and the answers seem to indicate that "I won" is perfectly acceptable. I suspect that the translation is influenced by the context. Could someone please enlighten me about some of the details? Much obliged. Flamarande (talk) 17:20, 28 February 2011 (UTC) PS: I don't know any Latin so keep it simple, please.[reply]

This probably doesn't answer your question, but there's a common misunderstanding (at least, I assume it's a misunderstanding after having done two minutes' research on Google) that this expression refers to the invasion of Britain -- in which case "conquered" sounds much more apt than "won". 86.179.119.44 (talk) 18:43, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just one example: An Abridgment of Leverett's Latin Lexicon (J.H. Wilkins and R.B. Carter, 1840) gives the following intransitive translations of vinco (apart from multiple translations for transitive usage):

"To conquer, get the victory, be victorious, in the field, in a combat or contest; [...] To conquer or win; 1. At play [...] 2. In a lawsuit [...] 3. In the senate, To carry the day, prevail [...] and generally, To carry the day, carry one's point; hence, vince viceris, have your own way, carry your point, as you will, when a man yields unwillingly or contemptuously [...] 4. To conquer, win, gain one's end or wish"

The omissions are mostly exemplifying literary quotes in Latin. ---Sluzzelin talk 18:58, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One formal consideration choosing "conquer" might lie in the fact that it's an alliteration with "came" (though "saw" is not, so this won't reflect the triple alliteration ("v.., v.., v...") anyway. Moreover, "conquered" allows for the phrase to end in a trochee, like the Latin original. This is mere speculation though; I have no reference for either possible reason. ---Sluzzelin talk 19:04, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Another famous use is "in hoc signo vinces", where it is also typically translated "you will conquer" or "you will be victorious". Adam Bishop (talk) 19:59, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I recommend speaking both versions out loud. Though Caesar reportedly wrote it down, rather than spoke it, the sentence clearly employs rhetorical devices, and is meant to ring in one's ears. Put some gravitas and determination in your voice, pretend you're Caesar (or John Gielgud), and note the difference between the yawny double diphtongued "I won" and the crisp pair of plosives in "conquered". ---Sluzzelin talk 20:41, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Julius Caesar ... having defeated the Ancient Britons ... set the memorable Latin sentence, "Veni, Vidi, Vici," which the Romans, who were all very well educated, construed correctly. The Britons, however, who of course still used the old pronunciation, understanding him to have called them "Weeny, Weedy and Weaky", lost heart and gave up the struggle, thinking that he had already divided them All into Three Parts.

In case anyone asks, the unsigned above is a quote from 1066 and All That. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 21:44, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Verb objects

Is it right that in "I fell thirty feet", the phrase "thirty feet" is adverbial and not the object of the verb "fall"? If, so what sort of grammatical test can we apply to prove this? I'm looking for something a bit more concrete than just "it doesn't feel like a proper object". 86.179.119.44 (talk) 18:27, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you are correct. A few ways to see this: 'Fall' is an intransitive verb [8], meaning that there is no direct object. A (slightly informal) test we can apply is listed in our article direct object: 'A direct object answers the question "What?"'. So in "the dog bit the man', 'man' is the answer to 'what did the dog bite?'. Only Transitive_verbs take direct objects. The corresponding question that 'thirty feet' answers is "to what extent did I fall?", which indicates that 'thirty feet' is an adverbial phrase, because it delimits the action of the verb. Also, 'fall' is sightly abnormal in that the subject_(grammar) is also the patient_(grammar). Does this help? SemanticMantis (talk) 19:30, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I'm familiar with the distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs, though I would argue that "fall" is intransitive because it is observed not to take a direct object, not that "fall" cannot take a direct object because we already know it is intransitive, if you get my distinction. However, the "what" test seems good. I wonder if there are any exceptions to that? 86.181.203.84 (talk) 19:57, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes prepositions are omitted. I fell (on) Thursday (by) thirty feet.

—Wavelength (talk) 20:20, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

March 1

Needing a Specific Word

There is a phenomena described as recognizing something quite frequently after discovering what it is; e.g. learning an actor's name and seemingly seeing their name everywhere you look on the Internet. I vaguely remember it as being two hyphenated words (did it start with a "b"?), but I don't remember exactly what it was called. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.132.46.33 (talk) 02:59, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is the recency effect. What you described is sometimes also called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. See also this older thread (which links to yet an older one). ---Sluzzelin talk 03:21, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Chinese language

My friend is a Chinese native speaker and he says that in Mandarin there are not swears in the way that we as English speakers perceive them (I think what he actually said was that there are no words/characters dedicated to swearing like our fuck, shit, etc.). Even though he admitted there are expressions used in negative ways, I find that there are no real swears hard to believe in any language can someone clarify? Thanks. -- 03:30, 1 March 2011 72.128.95.0

We have something at Baidu 10 Mythical Creatures... AnonMoos (talk) 04:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think he's right, there are plenty of swear words in Chinese. Granted, a lot of them are homophonous with non-swear words (in many cases this is because people adopted the non-swear word to use as a euphemism for the real one, or because input methods for their computers or cell phones don't have the swear word; for instance 操 cǎo and 靠 kào are both used in place of 肏 cào sometimes, and if used right--in the right context--can be just as offensive). But the swear words certainly exist. See Mandarin profanity for many examples. rʨanaɢ (talk) 05:12, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note that most English swear words aren't (or weren't originally) dedicated to swearing. "Shit" even today is commonly used as a non-expletive synonym of "feces". "Damn/damned/damnation" is an entirely proper theological concept. "Cunt" at one time was a straightforward word for a body part. The history of "fuck" is a little thin, but there is no evidence that its early usage wasn't limited simply because of limitations on discussing copulation for pleasure, rather than on any specific prohibition of the word. Heck, even the words "profane", "vulgar" and "swear" originally just meant "outside of church", "of the common people" and "to make an oath (pact)", respectively, rather than being expletive-specific. - Although I'm not familiar with Mandarin, I'm sure that there are plenty of words for excrement/sexual acts/sacrilege that, while also currently holding or originally holding a non-swearing connotation, would be interpreted by most current native speakers in most contexts it's currently used in as being an expletive. -- 174.31.194.183 (talk) 06:43, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Mandarin, as with pretty much any language, does have swearwords. In fact, I'd say cǎo is used pretty much the same way as English "fuck". However, a possible reason some Mandarin speakers don't associate Standard Mandarin with having a large set of swearwords is that these Mandarin speakers are actually native speakers of another Chinese dialect/language, in which they'd prefer to swear. ʙʌsʌwʌʟʌ ^{spik ʌp!} 09:15, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

According to Ashley Montagu The Anatomy of Swearing, 'Swearing, interestingly enough, is not a universal phenomenon: American Indians do not swear, nor do the Japanese, nor do Malayans and most Polynesians.' No mention of Mandarin there. That claim about the Japanese is one I've often heard before, but, as has already been said, it must depend to some extent on what you mean by swearing. --Antiquary (talk) 19:07, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is the following pair of the sentences felicitous?

A man does not beat a donkey. He loves it.

As a non-native speaker, the above looks OK to me. Whereas, the following pair is unacceptable:

A man does not own a donkey. #It is gray.

117.211.88.150 (talk) 12:08, 1 March 2011 (UTC)Sukhada[reply]

An interesting pragmatic phenomenon. And also interestingly, it is possible to say "A man does not beat a donkey. It loves him" the reason that the second par is infelicitous is because of the meaning of the verb "own" - if he doesn't own a donkey then there is own donkey and so it can not be the subject of the next sentence, nor can it have a color. We can see that this is the reason because when we change the sentence to "The man does not own the donkey. It is gray" it becomes felicitous. It is the indefiniteness of "a donkey" coupled with the "does not own" that tells us that the donkey doesn't exist and therefore cannot be the subject of a clause.·Maunus·ƛ· 12:27, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What about "A man does not own a donkey. It would be too expensive"? —Angr (talk) 12:37, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That second "it" doesn't refer to the donkey but to the "owning of a donkey".·Maunus·ƛ· 19:11, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's ambiguous. It could mean "It would be too expensive to own a donkey" but it could also mean "The donkey would be too expensive". —Angr (talk) 19:21, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The first example is grammatical but it's hard to think of a situation where anyone would want to say it. Certainly it wouldn't be said of any particular man or donkey. It sounds as if it's trying to be a proverb, or be metaphorical, or something like that. The second example is also grammatical but doesn't make much sense because "It" does not refer to anything (the interpretation that it refers to the donkey he doesn't own seems very strained). I don't know what you're trying to signify with the # character... 86.179.0.71 (talk) 12:45, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The key question is what do you mean by "a man" and "a donkey". The indefinite article can be used both to introduce a particular example, or a general example. When reading the first as a whole, I immediately assume that what was meant was "A (specific, heretofore unmentioned) man does not beat his donkey. He loves it." that is, we are talking about a single man and a single donkey. On the other hand, if I just saw "A man does not beat a donkey. A donkey beats a man" instead, I would interpret the first sentence as talking about men and donkeys in general. The problem with the second set is that you're equivocating the two meanings of "a donkey" - in the first sentence it's referring to donkeys in general, whereas in the second the "it" is referring to a particular one. That's why the pair seems nonsensical. -- 174.31.194.183 (talk) 17:34, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Depends on what you mean by the first sentence ("A man does not own a donkey"). Do you mean, "there is a man X, such that X does not own any donkeys"? Or do you mean, "there is a donkey Y, such that the man (X) does not own Y"? Under the former reading, the second sentence is infelicitous because it has no referent ("it" does not refer to any donkey). Under the latter, it is fine for me. rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia article is Donkey sentence... AnonMoos (talk) 17:06, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Donkey pronoun has more material (The two articles should probably be merged with a redirect). Also see the article on discourse representation theory at SEP [9] SemanticMantis (talk) 21:36, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Latvian treatment of foreign names

I have noticed that in the Latvian language, foreign names seem to be "Latvianized" to some extent (e.g. Amar'e Stoudemire becomes "Amare Stademaijers"). What's going on here? 98.116.108.191 (talk) 21:38, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, as you said, it's Latvianized. It's spelled so that Latvian speakers will be able to pronounce it properly (which is actually less true of the original English spelling). The -s at the end is the Latvian nominative ending, like if his name was "Stoudemirus" in Latin, and it will change in other case endings. And if you think that spelling is weird, check out George Bush in Latvian! Adam Bishop (talk) 21:55, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(e/c) I have read that it is just "Latvian tradition" to spell foreign names as closely as possible with Latvian orthography, even if it is not required for pronunciation (most of the time it is). Foreigners were recently required by law to spell their names on all official documents "according to the spelling norms of the Latvian language". Xenon54 (talk) 21:57, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Insurance

We Brits have life assurance. Do Americans & Australians? Or do they have life insurance? Kittybrewster ☎ 21:51, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Insurance in the US, and in Canada; I don't know about America but there are some old Canadian insurance companies with "Assurance" in their name. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:56, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Foreign language help

Where do these names come from:

Rood
Brunius
Giallo
Ryoku
Gorm
Zinzolin

--75.15.161.185 (talk) 22:27, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 432: / Line 432: @@
 :Insurance in the US, and in Canada; I don't know about America but there are some old Canadian insurance companies with "Assurance" in their name. [[User:Adam Bishop|Adam Bishop]] ([[User talk:Adam Bishop|talk]]) 21:56, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
+== Foreign language help ==
+Where do these names come from:
+* Rood
+* Brunius
+* Giallo
+* Ryoku
+* Gorm
+* Zinzolin
+--[[Special:Contributions/75.15.161.185|75.15.161.185]] ([[User talk:75.15.161.185|talk]]) 22:27, 1 March 2011 (UTC)