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June 13

writing systems

What is the most complicated writing system? Carllica4 (talk) 11:39, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Of those in use today, Japanese would almost certainly take the prize. To be literate in Japanese, you have to master two separate syllabaries of almost 50 characters each, plus a minimum of about 2,000 kanji. Furthermore, the Kanji have two different types of pronunciations (on and kun), and an individual character can have even more than two different pronunciations, due to historical factors. See the account in Chapter 9 of Writing Systems: A Linguistic Introduction by Geoffrey Sampson ISBN 0-8047-1756-7... AnonMoos (talk) 15:21, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

P.S. If you confine it to quasi-alphabetic writing systems, then the Tibetan language is written with an orthography based on the pronunciation of many centuries ago, which is extremely divergent from the pronunciation of the modern Tibetan language. The Irish language of the early 20th century had similar problems before certain reforms... AnonMoos (talk) 15:32, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Don't forget that Japanese also uses the latin alphabet, mostly for company names or for emphasis, so the Japanese have to use four different writing systems... KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 17:06, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

I would suggest Chinese is more complicated by some measures than Japanese. For one you can do a lot in Japanese without learning any kanji. Not only is much of Japanese written in hiragana and katakana, but where it isn't furigana can be used, just for less common characters or for all when e.g. you're learning. More importantly more Chinese characters are used in China than Japan, in e.g. government or education. See Chinese characters#Number of characters. The difference is hundreds if not thousands, far more than the hiragana and katakana Japanese has but Chinese doesn't.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 21:27, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

I would definitely disagree -- the number of characters required to achieve basic newspaper literacy is not overwhelmingly greater in Chinese than it is in Japanese, but characters are used in much more complex ways in Japanese writing. In Chinese writing, most characters have a single pronunciation, while in Japanese writing the majority of characters can have more than one (kun vs. on, or sometimes three different types of on); and in Japanese writing the characters are used in somewhat complex ways in relation to syllable symbols used to write inflectional endings. Also, the so-called "phonetic" elements of characters are actually sometimes useful in Chinese to indicate approximate pronunciation, while in Japanese they're almost always useless. Hiragana-only writing would work OK for writing some types of colloquial speech, but could create problems when any kind of technical vocabulary is used. Katakana-only writing is fine for writing onomatopoeia and startling cartoon speech bubbles with lots of exclamation points, but has a somewhat outlandish appearance when used to write extended passages. One reason why Japan was behind the U.S. and most European countries in office computerization in some respects is that early 1980's dot-matrix printers in Japan had only Katakana and the Latin alphabet, which was totally unacceptable for most kinds of business communications. The furigana would be great if they were somewhat consistently used, but in post-WW2 Japan they've generally been used quite sparingly outside of very specialized contexts... AnonMoos (talk) 06:30, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I completely disagree with that. Japanese still uses katakana for official documents, bank statements, electricity bills, and so on. My first phone in Japan which had text messaging used only katakana. Later versions used hiragana and kanji, which is what they do now. Computers in Japan use all systems - not exactly "unacceptable for business communications". If they can read all systems, then what is the problem? They learn it at school!! Plus, having only katakana and the Latin alphabet for DM printers is unacceptable? I can't see how. We use the Latin alphabet all the time. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 17:03, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Utility bills are a highly restrictive format with little scope for serious ambiguities, and where the sender has the balance of power over the receiver/reader. I remember reading a news story to the effect that inter-office memos and such in many Japanese companies were commonly handwritten into the 1990s, because the alternative was all katakana... AnonMoos (talk) 21:48, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

I wrote 'by some measures' because I know that's not the only way to look at it but I stand by what I wrote, and your reply does not refute it. The question asked for the most complicated writing system, not the easiest to read. Having multiple readings for a character means you need fewer characters so reduces the number needed. Using hiragana and katakana for many common words means less characters are needed. I didn't mean you can get by just using them, but you can get much further without using kanji.

One further complication is which sort of Chinese. Traditional Chinese characters, still used in Hong Kong and Taiwan, has a few more characters many of which are much more complex than the simplified Chinese characters used in China, and than kanji which have undergone their own simplification. Hong Kong uses additional characters to represent Cantonese, in addition to those used for written Chinese, so arguably has a more complex writing system than most varieties of Chinese.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 18:29, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Having fewer but highly-ambiguous symbols is really not an indication of a "simple" system by most valid criteria of simplicity. The Pahlavi alphabet reduced the 22 letters of the Aramaic alphabet to 16, so that some letters were highly ambiguous (for example, one letter wrote "g", "d", and "y"), but this did not make the Pahlavi writing system simpler than Aramaic (in fact, Pahlavi was significantly more complicated than Aramaic)... AnonMoos (talk) 21:48, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

If you want a really complicated writing system, try Mayan. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 17:24, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Or even Maya script. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:41, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Usage of "cloister" for monastic buildings that may not have a cloister?

I know the word "cloister" can be used for "monastery", because the iconic European monastery is one with a cloister architecture. Now, since the term is a metronym for a monastery, can it be used for Buddhist monasteries? I recently learned that my mother went to a Buddhist sangha (before I was born) just to take a look, because there were so many of them in China. My mother used the term seng jia, where Buddhist monks and nuns bow down to the Buddha and have incense sticks. Anyway, can this metronym be applied to non-Christian monastic buildings? Or is it more appropriate to call a Buddhist sangha sangha instead of a Buddhist cloister? 140.254.226.243 (talk) 19:22, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Also, is the sangha actually used as a metronym for the Buddhist monastery/temple? 140.254.226.243 (talk) 19:38, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

It could possibly be confusing, so it would be better to use a term that is either specific to Buddhism or is neutral. "Pagoda" may not be accurate, but would be understood in the West as a Buddhist place of worship. "Temple" is neutral. "Monastery" you use yourself, and references to "Buddhist monks" and "Buddhist nuns" are frequent in English. "Sangha" isn't so widely known but would probably be understood in context. If I was reading a travel book about Thailand I would expect to encounter terms like "wat". By the way, it's a metonym not a metronym. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:23, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

"Sangha" (Pali: सङ्घ saṅgha) refers to the group of ordained monks/novices, not a building or a place. "Sangha" would be the equivalent of the "priesthood". In Theravada Buddhism "wat" refers to the whole of the temple grounds in general, including the monks' residence. The building where the Buddha image is housed and worship is conducted/performed is called the Vihara ("sanctuary").--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 21:54, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

The English language term for a Japanese emperor who abdicated and retired to a Buddhist monastery is Cloistered Emperor. Alansplodge (talk) 19:43, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

June 14

Subject-object-verb construction

I know that the subject-object-verb construction is a rare construction in the English language, but I want to know why the following sentence is grammatical or at least accepted as "correct".

• I thee wed. (Note the objective pronoun is placed between the subjective pronoun and the verb.)

Are there more examples? 65.24.105.132 (talk) 03:08, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

The phrase is correct because it comes from a time when such a construction was more common in English. See Early Modern English. That actual usage is not really SOV, rather it is probably a borrowing from the French enclitic form, seen in phrases such as "Je t'aime" (I love you). As you move backwards in time through English, you find that it becomes closer and closer to its Norman French. The word "thee" itself is archaic in modern English because modern English has lost the T–V distinction in its second person pronouns; though the difference still existed in Early Modern English. --Jayron32 03:35, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Aside here: It's my understanding that the T–V sense of thou/you was operative for a rather short time, a century or so only. Before that, it was just singular/plural; no distinction of familiarity or social standing implied. Even in Shakespeare, it seems fairly randomly applied; the same person will call the same other person thou or you with no clear reason for the choice. (But the distinction of number is rigorously observed, in the sense that multiple persons are never addressed as thou.) --Trovatore (talk) 21:23, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

So, if I create a phrase in English based on modern French in the enclitic form, then does that mean that people will accept my sentence as correct nowadays? 65.24.105.132 (talk) 03:48, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

An ordinary sentence would look weird unless it was being done for some sort of poetic reason. Jayron mentioned "Je t'aime" which would literally translate as "I thee love", which sounds weird. "I thee wed" sounds OK only because we're used to it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:55, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

As Bugs says, while it technically isn't incorrect, it would appear/sound weird in almost every context except poetry or song lyrics like this old hymn for example. But even in modern poetry/lyrics, such a construction can appear amateurish or indicate the writer is trying too hard to make a rhyme (unless Yoda you are)..--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 05:17, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Also "I thee wed" is understandable despite displacement of normal word order because "thee" is marked as an object pronoun. Only the personal pronouns are thus marked in English, so you can get away with violations of word order (but still sound weird). Using nouns, e.g. "Man dog bites", won't do.Djbcjk (talk) 07:42, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

I think there's more to it than that. "me" is similarly an object but "you me bore" sounds distinctly wrong/Yodaish. There's something special in "thee", as an anachronism that's still widely recognised, which in particular can still be used in marriage vows:

With this Ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow

That's almost a language lesson in itself, with repetition to get the point across. No wonder many of us recognise "I thee xxx" as a valid construction.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 08:06, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

The real answer is that all these "I thee whatever" phrases is that they are idiomatic, which means roughly that, as phrases, they take on a meaning which cannot be analyzed grammatically using standard rules of English, as we understand it now. They used to be non-idiomatic, standard English, back in the day, but they are not currently so, which is why they are generally understood idiomatically... --Jayron32 00:43, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

guessing that Jayron meant "not really SOV" —Tamfang (talk) 05:20, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

so corrected--Jayron32 00:43, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

About your earlier point, that it was originally modelled on the French use of proclitics: I don't really think so; Middle English had its own native pattern, inherited from Old English, whereby several pronouns and other light elements could cluster in front of the verb irrespective of the otherwise V2 sentence order. Anthony Warner has written quite a bit about the grammatical analysis. It was never as strict as in French, although it's typologically a similar phenomenon (but developed in parallel, not borrowed). Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:45, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Translation request: "reciting the Catholic scriptures" in Chinese

I was looking up "nian jing" on Yabla Chinese, and I got "recite or chant Buddhist scripture". Okay. The jing part means "scripture", and the "nian" probably means "recite". Apparently, it does not explicitly say "Buddhist". Still, can this term still be used for reciting/chanting the Catholic scriptures? Or is this term exclusively for reciting/chanting the Buddhist scriptures? I mean, I looked up other terms too, and it appears that Catholicism and Buddhism have separate and distinct terms in Chinese for monastery, monk, and nun. Before, I thought 和尚 and 尼姑 meant "monk" and nun", until I searched on Yabla, and I noticed the insertion of Buddhist. There are separate terms for Catholic monks/nuns. So, using different terms is possible. By the way, why does Yabla Chinese report that the Holy Bible and the Confucian Classics have the same set of Chinese characters (圣经 Shèng jīng)? How do modern Chinese people distinguish the two? Note: I am pretty sure that Catholics recite and chant the holy scriptures. They do so with rosaries over and over again. Each prayer in the rosary is thoroughly biblical; therefore, I'm pretty sure that I got that correct. 65.24.105.132 (talk) 04:09, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Jing (经) is kind of a general term for a classic work or a Scripture. It's been used to refer to Confucian classics (诗经，易经，书经), Buddhist sutras (法华经), and to the Holy Bible (圣经). However, the phrase "nianjing" actually is a Buddhist term that's been used for quite a while. I don't know any Chinese Catholics, but I've never heard such a phrase being used among Chinese Protestants. As for shengjing, nowadays it almost always refers to the Holy Bible of Christianity. Historically it did refer to Confucian works, but we refer to those now as the Thirteen Classics (十三经). bibliomaniac15 06:15, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Only the Our Father is a Biblical prayer, isn't it? Hail Mary is not exactly Biblical, although it contains a couple of Biblical phrases. The other rosary prayers aren't from the Bible either. Adam Bishop (talk) 09:43, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

The Lord's Prayer is another one. 65.24.105.132 (talk) 10:27, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

The Lord's Prayer and the Our Father are the same thing. AlexTiefling (talk) 15:43, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Biology

What is urea? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.69.12.242 (talk) 07:27, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

This question belongs on the science desk, but anyway, see urea. --69.158.92.137 (talk) 07:43, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Since OP was asking for a definition, I can see how they thought it might belong here. Dismas|^(talk) 00:18, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Confusing header is confusing. Biology would fit science, but the Q itself is actually chemistry. But since it has been posted here...

See also: wikt:urea, which includes the biochemical definition. - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 12:02, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Spanish acronyms

What are the Spanish acronyms seen in this picture? File:Pabellón coreano de la amistad en Cd. de México 1.JPG. I can't tell what they are supposed to mean. I annotated a transcription of the text on the Commons, but it seems like the periods/full stops are in the wrong places. Also I am not sure where the accent marks are supposed to be. WhisperToMe (talk) 08:08, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

What acronyms? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:54, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Never mind, here's an attempt at translating. I think some of the periods are supposed to be commas:

Pabellón coreano - Este pabellon es copia [not copa] fiel. del pabellon historico del parque pagoda de la ciudad de Seul. En el cual fue [not due] leida la declaracion de la independencia coreana. El pueblo coreano. obsequia este simbolo del espiritu [not espirity] de su independencia. Al pueblo mexicano. como signo de la amistad que los une. 8 de marzo de 1968

Korean Pavilion - This pavilion is [a] true [i.e. faithful] copy. of the historic park pavilion pagoda of the city of Seoul. In which was read the declaration of the Korean independence. the Korean people. flatter [or "give away"] this symbol of the spirit of their independence. to the Mexican people. as [a] sign of the friendship that unites them. 8 March 1968

←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:11, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you so much! WhisperToMe (talk) 11:41, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

I'd make it "of the historic pavilion of the pagoda park" —Tamfang (talk) 22:33, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Is the following sentence acceptable to the native speakers of English?

The door has been opened sinse morning.

14.139.82.6 (talk) 13:47, 14 June 2014 (UTC) Sukhada

No, it should be "The door has been open since this morning." The meaning isn't really ambiguous, and you might hear someone say that, but you wouldn't expect to see that in written form. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:09, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

It depends. The door could have been opened by someone else. Plus, 'morning' instead of 'this morning' is perfectly fine, because it is obvious which morning we are hearing about. The only problem I have is the spelling of 'since'. This is probably an advert for a restaurant or something. Better to say 'Open from morning' and specify the times. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 14:54, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree, it could have been opened by someone else, so it's not necessarily wrong. But I must admit, I find 'Open from morning' a bit strange, unless maybe it was part of "Open from morning onwards" or "Open from morning until evening", etc. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:29, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Yup. I'd agree - a bit strange, at least to my BritEng ears. And 'opened' should be 'open' too. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:37, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Do you mean "The door has been open since this morning" (it's been standing open the whole time), or do you mean "The door has been opened since this morning" (I know it was shut this morning, and now it's evening, and someone opened it in the meantime)? AlexTiefling (talk) 15:42, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Nice one, Alex. It is ambiguous after all! Martinevans123 (talk) 15:45, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Let me explain the difference between "open" and "opened". "Open" means the door is currently in the open position, while "opened" means the door was moved into the open position at some time in the past. Now, presumably, if it was moved into the open position at some time in the past, and not subsequently closed, then "The door was opened" also means "The door is open". However, it's best to say it plainly, as "The door is open".

The really odd thing is that we don't have the same situation with "closed". There you can say either "The door was closed" or "The door is closed", but you never say "The door is close" (pronounced "klōz"), although you might say "The door is close" (pronounced "klōs"), meaning the door is nearby. StuRat (talk) 15:53, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

That's interesting. I never thought of that. Bali88 (talk) 17:30, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Curiouser and curiouser:

An open door may be close. A close door may be open. And I won´t even start on the open doors of closets... --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:48, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

When I hear "has been opened" (verb), I think of a door that's been busy, people in and out, since morning. "Has been open" (adjective) makes me think the door was opened in the morning and stayed that way. Open is continuous, opened is continual. Here's that difference. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:26, June 14, 2014 (UTC)

"When one door closes, another opens. Or you can open the closed door. That's how doors work." Martinevans123 (talk) 19:50, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Good point. In some rooms, opening one door closes another, by suction. But I've yet to see it the rhetorical way. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:05, June 14, 2014 (UTC)

I have the situation where closing one door opens another. It requires that the door which is to open be unlatched. It's a common situation on a refrigerator with a freezer on top, as the air pressure from closing the large fridge door pushes open the smaller freezer door. My magnetic closure mechanism is too weak to prevent it, so I rigged my freezer door with a more powerful magnet and bungee cord combo to keep it from doing that. StuRat (talk) 00:09, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

But is an unlatched/unlocked/demagnetized door truly closed, or just parallel? Though now we're just moving into a land of both shadow and substance. In this dimension, my freezer door closes when I open my fridge hard. My condolences on yours. That bungee sounds like a hassle. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:53, June 16, 2014 (UTC)

When the magnet is strong enough, I've also seen a freezer door "burp". That is, the air pressure from closing the fridge door opens it up, then the air pressure differential is relieved, and the magnet pulls it back shut again. StuRat (talk) 09:46, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Part of this language oddity is that "open[ed]" and "close[d]" are from different language groups - Germanic and Latin respectively.[1][2] We think of them as antonyms, but they and their construction have separate origins. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:00, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

The difference in origins doesn't really explain anything; if the meaning of close (adjective) had not drifted since it was borrowed from French, it would mean the same as closed. —Tamfang (talk) 22:37, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

The etymological opposite of the adjective "open" is not "close", but rather it's "shut". Those two words have consistent usage. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:27, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "etymological opposite", but "shut" is entirely analogous to "closed", both are the past participles of verbs, the verbs "to close" and "to shut" [3] respectively. It just happens that as "to shut" is an irregular verb "shut" doesn't look like a typical past participle. I don't think there is a (commonly-used) antonym of "open" which is - so to speak - an adjective in its own right rather than a derivative of a verb. Valiantis (talk) 13:41, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

I mean that they both come from Germanic languages, whereas "close" comes from Latin. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:36, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Latin caption (translation needed)

What is the translation for the caption of this image on Commons?   ("deua intrare nella Elephantina machina exui{f?}cerata")  —  Thanks, ~E:71.20.250.51 (talk) 19:45, 14 June 2014 (UTC) — P.s.: Google translate didn't help much: "God was taken off the machine, enter in your ivory wax" ~E:20:08, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

In my non-expert, Wiktionary Googling opinion, this is some sort of machine for putting female elephants into the sky and taking them out again. At least those words are (basically) in there. The grammar probably makes all the difference to clarity. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:17, June 14, 2014 (UTC)

The caption is "deua ad intrare nella Elephantina machina exuiscerata", but I'm afraid I can't make sense of the Latin. I've never seen "exuiscerata" and I'm not sure what it could mean.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 20:16, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

I read that as "exuis cerata" (extracting wax?). Maybe not. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:19, June 14, 2014 (UTC)

The image is from a book, and the caption is part of a sentence which starts on a previous page. You can view that page here. It seems to say "Et táto habile íteruacuo se præstua, Che peralcuni slipiti di metallo al modo scalario infixi per gliquali cómodo ascenso, seconce deua intrare..."

I'm still none the wiser though... - Cucumber Mike (talk) 20:35, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

(ec) I'm afraid I can't say much about the translation, but I doubt whether the text is actually a caption. looking at the source it seems to be a page from a book. Most likely the text is to be understood as a continuation of the previous page, and it may not be directly relevant to the image at all. - Lindert (talk) 20:47, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

That explains it. From the date, it appears to be Renaissance Latin (could possibly still be Medieval Latin) in which every region (in fact, every author) had their own peculiar styles influenced by the vernacular. Unfortunately my working knowledge of Latin ends at the Classical period.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 21:11, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Okay, thanks!  It looks as though translating this won't help answer the question:  "What is the symbolic meaning of this object?" —I'm working on the Cultural depictions of elephants article, relating to Dali's elephants (e.g.: here and here) which relates to that image (via this from here ... etc.) ...  ~E:71.20.250.51 (talk) 20:59, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

It's not even Latin; it's Italian. "nella" ("in the") is the give-away here. And if you google for the phrase, you'll find out that it is indeed not a caption, but part of a longer text, with "-deva" being only part of a word after a line break. The full sentence is "commodo ascenso, se concedeva ad intrare nella Elephantina machina exviscerata" [4]. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:18, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Uhmmm, ... must be Latin (or an archaic Italian?) because when I Google translate the title (Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, ubi humana omnia non nisi somnium esse docet. Atque obiter plurima scitu sane quam digna commemorat) I get gibberish from Italian, but something (somewhat) meaningful from Latin: "Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, where he teaches that all human there is nothing but a dream. And by the way, of course, but not worth much learning to recalls. ~E:71.20.250.51 (talk) 21:26, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Our article on this work, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, says "The text of the book is written in a bizarre Latinate Italian, full of words based on Latin and Greek roots without explanation. The book, however, also includes words from the Italian language, as well as illustrations including Arabic and Hebrew words..." It's a reasonably well-known Italian Renaissance mind-screw, simultaneously beautiful and baffling. AlexTiefling (talk) 21:59, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

I corrected a typo in your link, Alex, to make it operative. Deor (talk) 22:14, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

The previous page and the page itself are also transcribed within the Italian wikisource project. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 23:54, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Is there male equivalent of "mumsy"?

The English word, mumsy, is a cute pet name for mother. Is there a masculine equivalent, and if so, what is it? Please don't suggest "popsy". I tried that, and I got "an attractive young woman". o_O 65.24.105.132 (talk) 20:10, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Wouldn't "daddy" do? Strictly speaking, seems an opposite of "mommy", but cute enough for me. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:21, June 14, 2014 (UTC)

No, the equivalent for daddy is mommy, not mumsy. It does not have the -sy ending. 65.24.105.132 (talk) 20:48, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Fair enough. No idea, then. Here in Canada (and the US, I think), we generally don't even use "mumsy". Unless it's someone playing Prince Charles in an Air Farce sketch. Just mommies and daddies here. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:20, June 14, 2014 (UTC)

Muffy Crosswire on Arthur (TV Series) calls her mother, "Mumsy". It is definitely an American children's TV show, and Muffy lives in Elwood City, a fictional city in the United States. 65.24.105.132 (talk) 21:37, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Muffy might count as a Canadian, too. I'd often watch that show. Didn't like it, but we didn't have many channels. But we generally don't use the word. If I did, personally, I'd go with "popsy". Doesn't seem like an attractive young woman to my ears, or likely those I'd speak to. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:47, June 14, 2014 (UTC)

I found this (Papsey), but it may be just isolated to that particular family as I don't see any other reference to its use.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 21:43, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

In the song "What is this Feeling?," in Wicked, Galinda calls her mother "Mumsy" and her father "Popsicle." There seem to be other people who also have this usage, but I don't know to what extent it's influenced by the musical. John M Baker (talk) 22:28, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Only Mumsy were the borogroves. The men all fell victim to the Jabberwock, hence no cutesy nickname was needed. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:59, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

How about "pappy" ? StuRat (talk) 04:47, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

That's across from "mammy". InedibleHulk (talk) 23:53, June 15, 2014 (UTC)

Curious. The word "mumsy" in the UK is a colloquial adjective meaning "mother-like in appearance" (rarely a compliment). See Top 10 Tips to avoid looking Mumsy at work and Are you a trendy mum or a mumsy mum?. Alansplodge (talk) 14:33, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

• Urban usage in NYC is "moms" and "pops" singular with no particular affection implied, as you can hear in JUmp Around by house of pain. The Band is white, portrayed as Irish, but the "black" dialect is authentic. μηδείς (talk) 17:56, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

June 15

Sued for $1m

If an article says that X sued Y for $1m, does that always mean the suit was successful, and that $1m in damages was awarded? Or can it mean "filed suit for"? IBE (talk) 05:39, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

"Sued" always only means "filed a suit in a court of law". If the suit was successful, the language would say "X was awarded $1M as a result of a suit against Y" To sue is merely to initiate the lawsuit. The difference is between swinging a bat and hitting the ball. Not every swing results in a hit; and not every suit results in an award. --Jayron32 05:43, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Aye. If I were to claim Neil Hamburger stole my phrase "They Can't All Be Zingers" and sold it to Primus, I'd likely come out countersued for defamation and losing, on top of my lawyer's fee for both suits. As I also once said first, "You Gotta Know When to Hold 'Em". InedibleHulk (talk) 04:49, June 16, 2014 (UTC)

Alan King said that he once filed an injury lawsuit against someone. His lawyer explained the standard procedure to Alan: "If we lose, I get nothing. If we win, you get nothing." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:38, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

What is the correct form: "From where?", or: "Where from?"

Somebody says: "I came from abroad". How should I ask them? "From where?", or: "Where from?" 84.228.230.31 (talk) 06:51, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Either could work, but they're not exactly the same -- "From where" is a prepositional phrase of preposition plus interrogative pronoun, while "Where from" is an elliptic sentence with implied predication... AnonMoos (talk) 07:07, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

In other words, you mean that "where from" may be interpreted as an abbreviation of "where [did you come] from", am I correct?

Anyways, the editor who answered after you (just below), is a Brit who claims that "Where from? would be more natural in normal speech". Is this valid in the States as well? (I remember you're American, aren't you?) HOOTmag (talk) 10:37, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

"Where from?" would be more natural in normal speech. "From where?" sounds a bit stilted or formal to me. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 08:57, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

More stilted still would be "Whence?" Ericoides (talk) 10:33, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Very archaic. HOOTmag (talk) 10:39, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

My perception is opposite to AWT's. —Tamfang (talk) 22:47, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Both could sound natural in specific contexts. If someone told you, "I flew in from Shangri-La by way of Narnia", then if you wanted to skeptically question this itinerary, "From where?" would be the question to ask. On the other hand, if someone said "I arrived yesterday, and I'm still jet-lagged", and you wanted to casually and colloquially ask where they departed from, then "Where from?" would be appropriate... AnonMoos (talk) 04:44, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

"Where from?" sounds backwards to me, like something Yoda might say. That's not to say it's bad or uncommon, and shouldn't cause weird looks. "From where" seems short for implying "From where did you come?" By that logic, the other'd be "Where from did you come?". That's bad and uncommon. Some could say it's short for "Where did you come from?", but I don't think you should drop the middle in abbreviations without an apostrophe or ellipsis.

If someone told me they were from abroad, I'd simply ask "Where?" They already introduced the "from" part, so it can be omitted without fear of confusion. Otherwise, may as well go the whole nine yards and ask "From where abroad did you come?" InedibleHulk (talk) 23:46, June 15, 2014 (UTC)

I'd ask "What country?". CBWeather, Talk, Seal meat for supper? 04:36, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Inconsistency (?) at vowel

Not sure if I understand the terminology correctly, so I'm asking here first. I quote from vowel:

In all oral languages, vowels form the nucleus or peak of syllables, whereas consonants form the onset and (in languages that have them) coda. However, some languages also allow other sounds to form the nucleus of a syllable, such as the syllabic l in the English word table [ˈteɪ.bl̩] (the stroke under the l indicates that it is syllabic; the dot separates syllables), or the r in Serbo-Croatian vrt [vr̩t] "garden".

What's the difference between "r̩" and "l̩" here, and the vowels in "hurt" and "bull" respectively? I'm left wondering whether this use of consonants as vowels is actually just an orthography thing, not a matter of phonetics. Nyttend (talk) 18:28, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

It is indeed phonetics. We have an article about the topic (Syllabic consonant). Syllabic consonants are common among the world's languages. And it's not only the liquids that can be syllabic. Nasals, for example, are also commonly syllabic and in a few languages other consonants such as /ʃ/ are said to be syllabic.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 19:15, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Nyttend -- "Hurt" and "Bull" contain syllabic or quasi-syllabic consonant sounds only in certain dialects of English, while unstressed syllabic "n" and "l" (as in "table") occur in many or most English dialects. The syllabic-sonority sound in "hurt" in many American English dialects is more often transcribed as [ɝ] then syllabic "r". And as far as I know, "bull" has a syllabic or quasi-syllabic "l" consonant only in dialects where [ʊ] tends toward [ɨ] in some contexts. In standard British, these words would be pronounced [hɜːt] and [bʊɫ], without any syllabic consonants... AnonMoos (talk) 21:31, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

AnonMoos, now I think I begin to understand better. Is this something related to the merger of Mary and merry with Murray? Nyttend (talk) 00:35, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't know of any dialect where Mary/merry merge with Murray; it certainly isn't a common feature of quasi-standard American English (except as a strained joke in certain intentionally-distorted pronunciations of the word "American"). I've personally observed that in some American English dialects, [ʊ] tends toward [ɨ], or even merges with it in certain contexts, but I don't know if or where this has been described by linguists. AnonMoos (talk) 00:46, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Never mind; it's "marry", not Murray. I'm talking about the first subsection of "Mergers before intervocalic R" at English-language vowel changes before historic /r/. Nyttend (talk) 01:41, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

primigravida and primipara

Primigravida and primipara are medical/scientific terms. The former means a female (of an oviparous or viviparous species) who is pregnant for the first time. The latter means a female ~ who gives birth for the first time. If a viviparous female is pregnant but does not give birth to viable offspring, then does that mean that she is "primigravida" and then "nullipara"? What is the female called when a viviparous female is pregnant and does give birth to viable offspring, but the offspring only survives a short time (due to biological defects or infanticide)? Is she still nulliparous? 65.24.105.132 (talk) 20:59, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Our article suggests no to the first question (Gravidity and parity: 20 weeks gestation mentioned for primipara). Rmhermen (talk) 21:12, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

How did this Engrish mistranslation come to be?

"Wikipedia fried with eggs". It appears to me that this couldn't come from a machine translation, because the word "Wikipedia" in this context appears ridiculous. Please explain how this translation was made. 171.226.35.245 (talk) 23:37, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Not sure, but you could search for "Free optical character recognition" and run the picture through whatever option you find. Then machine translate it to see whether it's merely ridiculous or impossible. If you use Google Translate, try to use the version for the country this is from (China?), rather than .com. Not sure it makes a difference, but maybe. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:03, June 16, 2014 (UTC)

All your translation are belong to us. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:58, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't know the answer, but there are two phenomena which I have often seen invoked in LanguageLog postings about this sort of thing; I suspect that one or both of these was relevant here. 1) Most modern Chinese words are polysyllabic, and are written with two or more characters; but in some circumstances (eg common phrases) they may be abbreviated to a single character (single syllable). Where the word is a foreign name, written phonetically, the abbreviation may out of context mean something quite different. (See this posting, for example) 2) Google Translate has a set of heuristics, by which it chooses among possible translations of an ambiguous word according to the feedback it has received from users.

My thought is that if one or two of the characters in the example form part of a common way of writing Wikipedia in Chinese, then Google Translate may choose that as the translation rather than their literal meaning. However, none of the characters in the example are in the standard way of writing Wikipedia in Chinese, so I may be wrong. --ColinFine (talk) 23:16, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

June 16

Gerund +ing in lists

When to write "by" in gerunds:

• "by doing,... by writing..., and by talking..." or
• "by doing,... writing..., and talking..." or
• "by doing,... writing..., and by talking"

Regards.--Tomcat (7) 12:24, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't think there is any rule, just personal choice. At least without more sentence context. Consider "I travel by walking, by biking, and by swimming." -- "I travel by walking, biking and swimming." Both are grammatically correct. When I search for /gerund preposition/ I mostly get sites for English learners telling them how to write sentences like those above... SemanticMantis (talk) 14:20, 16 June 2014 (UTC)\

The third example has incorrect parallelism, and would be considered wrong in careful usage. In the first example, "and" joins three adverbial phrases; in the second, it joins three gerunds within a single phrase; but the third doesn't work either way. (But it's a very minor error and wouldn't be at all surprising in speech or casual writing.) --69.158.92.137 (talk) 04:18, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

The issue isn't gerunds, it's parallelism; the same question arises in I make my stew with tomatoes, with beans and with onions versus I make my stew with tomatoes, beans and onions.

It's equally legitimate to write either

I accomplish this

• by doing,
• by writing
• and by talking.

or

I accomplish this by

• doing,
• writing
• and talking.

Note that, if not for the and, it would be possible to arrange the bullets in any order – which would not be the case if you write by exactly twice. This is one way to detect a faulty parallel.

Do you want to put the by inside or outside the bullet points? It's up to you. There is a slight difference in connotation: the first suggests that the three actions or vegetables are independent and each may be sufficient on its own (resulting in three different stews), while the second suggests that each is necessary to reinforce the others (as in my chili). —Tamfang (talk) 05:28, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Correct usage of " effect" and "affect"

What is the correct usage- is it "effecting arrest" or "affecting arrest". Can you explain in detail?RegardsSumalsn (talk) 16:24, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Probably "effecting arrest," but I can't tell for sure without seeing the full sentence. In the sense you are using them, "effect" basically means "to bring about or cause" and "affect" basically means "to alter or change."--Dreamahighway (talk) 16:33, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Which is correct depends on what you mean the phrase to convey. For most common usages, 'effect' is a noun, and 'affect' is a verb [5] [6]. "His speech had a great effect on the audience", and "Obamacare has affected millions of Americans." But-- there are less common usages when 'effect' can be a verb that means "to bring about", and 'affect' can be a noun, with a meaning from psychology. Examples are "effect a change" and "He showed a displeased affect". So, if you mean "to bring about an arrest" you can say "The detective was critical in effecting arrest". If you mean "the arrest was influenced by some factor", they you can say "The nearby police presence was a factor affecting arrest of the suspect." See the subtle but important difference in meaning? See more here [7]. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:40, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Why an aadvark I'm not really sure: [8] Martinevans123 (talk) 16:49, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

But it doesn't show how the arrow effected a change in the aardvark's affect :-) --Trovatore (talk) 16:56, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

He married her. He married them.

How do you know if the subjective pronoun of the sentence is a participant in the wedding or the wedding officiant? The latter seems to be ambiguous. It may either mean that he is a wedding officiant or that he is participating in the wedding as the groom. The former seems also to be ambiguous. It is possible that he is participating as the groom or that he solemnizes a woman's wedding with some unknown suitor. 140.254.226.242 (talk) 17:19, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

It is ambiguous. You have to use context to figure out which meaning is intended. Angr (talk) 17:28, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

It's even more ambiguous than the OP describes. It has also meant "to marry off".[9] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:45, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

This is a known ambiguity in English, leading to the riddle "Who may have married many a wife / Yet still be single all his life?" AlexTiefling (talk) 09:13, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

And to some elaborate trickery near the end of As You Like It. —Tamfang (talk) 05:15, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

What is the best way to describe the many Chinese dialects?

I am not sure if it's best to say:

• He spoke Chinese in the Shanghai dialect, and nobody in Wuhan understood him.
• He spoke Shanghainese, and nobody in Wuhan understood him.

Is there a term for the language of the Shanghai people? of the Wuhan people? 140.254.226.243 (talk) 19:57, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

As far as I know, Shanghainese is a thing. I suppose you could consult the Wu Chinese article for more details. →Σσς. (Sigma) 20:05, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Though there is much debate about the nature of Chinese (1 language, many dialects? Many languages? 1 or 2 written forms shared across dialect/languages?), it seems reasonable to many to conclude that the Varieties of Chinese can be considered different Languages of China. Cantonese, Fukien, Manadain, etc, are often as different from each other as Italian and Spanish. Mingmingla (talk) 20:13, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Both sentences make sense, though many would challenge the use of 'dialect' in the fist and in your heading, as to many a dialect is a variety of a language that's not too far from it and so would be understood by another speaker. With this usage the branches of Chinese are too mutually incomprehensible to be called dialects. To avoid this the word 'varieties' is preferred. See varieties of Chinese for a full discussion.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 20:17, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

If your first sentence was transfered into the European realities it would sound like "He spoke Romance in the French dialect, and nobody in Spain understood him." Quite acceptable for European scholars of the I millennium AD.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 20:24, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Victor Mair regularly uses the word topolect for the different Chineses spoken in different parts of China. This is one of many LanguageLog posts on the subject (note that the first section of that post is reproduced from an article that he is criticising quite heavily). --ColinFine (talk) 08:26, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Word for spring flower scentr

There is a word that describes the perfume, scent, fragrance, of wild spring flowers. does anyone have any suggestions? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.18.143.6 (talk) 22:45, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, "vernal" means spring, so a "vernal fragrance" might work, although that's 2 words. If it's not clear from the context that you mean the flowers' fragrance, then you'd need to add a 3rd word and call it a "vernal floral fragrance". StuRat (talk) 03:20, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

June 17

Opposite of tonogenesis?

I was recently reading a description of a relatively obscure Southeast Asian hill-tribe language. The author described a complex contour tone system (I think he classified it somewhere in the Tai-Kadai family) for all dialects he encountered except one, which he mentioned in passing, that "had lost all phonemic tones". Thanks to the likes of Haudricourt, Matisoff, etc., we understand the processes of tonogenesis (the development of tonality). Is there a similar word for the loss of tone? Has there been anything published describing the processes by which a (contour) tone language evolves into a non-tonal language. For example, are there regular phonological developments that would arise to distinguish/prevent the unwieldy amount of homophones that could result when a monosyllabic tonal language becomes non-tonal?--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 06:09, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Khmer is a very well-known and well-studied language that has lost tone, so you may find more information on tone loss (the only term I can think for what you're describing) in the published research on that language. According to Khmer language#Phonation and tone, one of the old tones resulted in diphthongization, while the other (another?) didn't, so the diphthongization prevented widespread homophony when tones were lost. There are other methods of avoiding homophony too, such as compounding; a famous example from English is the use of the terms "sewing pin" (or "stick pin") and "writing pen" in the parts of the U.S. where pin and pen are homophones. I bet some languages with tone loss have resorted to that, too. Angr (talk) 09:32, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Khmer happens to be a language with which I am intimately familiar. In fact I wrote the section (and most of the article) you linked above. Khmer was never actually tonal. Like most Mon-Khmer languages, it had a contrast of phonation (for Khmer, breathy voice vs. clear voice). Voiced consonants of Old Khmer merged over time with the unvoiced series as the "voicedness" transferred to the following vowel, manifested as breathy voice with slight diphthongization while the vowels following the original unvoiced initials remained "normal" or "clear". Throughout Middle Khmer, the diphthongization was cemented in place and the breathy voice lost any contrastive significance. My question was specifically about contour tones, excluding voice quality and pitch-accent. I, too, thought of compounding, as well as replacing ambiguities with borrowings from an areal language as possibilities. I'm just curious if an actual process has been observed/described (I can't recall having read anything similar) or is the subject ripe for research/publication?--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 23:19, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Regarding a "word for the loss of tone": Apart from silly suggestions at linguistic fora ("tonogeddon", for example), the only single word I found was "detonematization", apparently coined by Alfons Weidert, but it hasn't gained a lot of traction in scholarly texts as far as I can tell ([10]). Most works (comparative or not) seem to use "tone loss", "loss of tone", "loss of lexical tone", and so forth. ---Sluzzelin talk 11:47, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Request for transcription of Urdu and Hindi

May someone please transcribe the Urdu and Hindi in this sign? File:Digraphia in Hindustani.png

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 12:45, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Here is the Hindi. पार्सल कार्यालय (pārsala kāryālaya) "parcel office". रेल आरक्षण केन्द्र (rēla ārakṣaṇa kēndra) "rail reservation centre". I don't read Urdu well enough to give you a confident transcription however. Maybe somebody else will be able to do that part.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 19:34, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you! Annotated the Hindi! WhisperToMe (talk) 00:00, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Is it okay if I get transcriptions of "IInd Class Booking Counter" at File:Jammu_Tawi_to_Delhi_-_Rail_side_views_01.JPG? WhisperToMe (talk) 00:06, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

My knowledge of Arabic scripts is shaky so take this with a grain of salt, but it appears to me that the Urdu consists of English loanwords except that the last word certainly is not centre. —Tamfang (talk) 05:13, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree, but I suspect that the last word actually is "centre". The dot indicates an "n", but if that were initial it would be a tight curve: I think the longer curve is actually 's-n'. Then I think the mark above the final 'r' is the mark (derived from an Arabic 'ṭa') which marks retroflex consonants in Urdu. I confess I can't see a 't' under it, but that may be another example of the same sort of minimising as happens with the 's'. I'm not certain of all this, though. --ColinFine (talk) 08:46, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

That's interesting! I still would like the transcription even if it has loanwords WhisperToMe (talk) 15:40, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Article writing

An article on how to make the complex attractive for night tourism.⟨‹›⟩ -- 14:58, 17 June 2014 14.98.33.160

What are you talking about? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:06, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Are you asking for help writing an article on how to make a building complex attractive for night tourism ? If so, take a shot at it, post it here, and we will critique it for you. If you are searching for such an article, then Wikipedia isn't the right place. You might try a Google search. If you want to post an article about that topic, permanently, I suggest WikiHow, which is more for tutorials like that. StuRat (talk) 03:25, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Post a link to it here, don't paste a whole article to the RD. —Tamfang (talk) 05:08, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

They might not know how to post a link, and we can always put a collapse box around it here. StuRat (talk) 09:41, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

June 18

Is "northeast" a word?

My spellchecker (set to Australian English) doesn't think so. I tend to agree. But another editor thinks it's fine. (It was only a minor Edit skirmish.) Our manual of style includes such words. Is such usage common anywhere? HiLo48 (talk) 09:01, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

It's fine for this American English reader. Especially since I live in the Northeastern United States. Google thinks it's fine as well. Dismas|^(talk) 09:09, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

In the States, it's not only a word, it's pretty much obligatory. "North east" as two words is simply incorrect, and "north-east" with the hyphen looks affected. --Trovatore (talk) 09:22, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

When did the two words get joined up? HiLo48 (talk) 09:24, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

According to Dictionary.com, before 950. Dismas|^(talk) 09:35, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Then I wonder why my Australian spellchecker objects? HiLo48 (talk) 09:38, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

HiLo48, your spellchecker won't object to that last sentence, but I will. Do you mean "why my Australian"? For a counterexample, see North East, Pennsylvania and comparable communities in New York and Maryland; I had friends in college from the Pennsylvania community (which is in the state's far northwest!), and my spellchecker never liked the name of their hometown. Nyttend (talk) 11:30, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

I'd say the evolution of the phrase or word is ongoing and has not reached a conclusion yet. Separate 'north east' and 'north west' are commonplace in the UK. Richard Avery (talk) 12:15, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Just noting that the Wikipedia Manual of Style (at MOS:COMPASS) says: "Notice that compound compass points are usually concatenated in American English, for example northwest, while in British English they are sometimes written as separate words or hyphenated, as in north-west. This also affects names of regions such as Southeastern United States and South East England." Deor (talk) 13:01, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

I wonder if Hitchcock had to have his movie title translated for UK audiences? Wouldn't want them taking the wrong direction to the theatre and getting lost. Matt Deres (talk) 14:28, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

@Matt Deres: As a point of interest, the title "North by Northwest" is malformed, insofar as it doesn't mean anything with respect to direction! See boxing the compass. Sort version: following conventions, only the cardinal direction names can come after "by". So "Southwest by South" is a valid direction, but "South by Southwest" is not. Point is, it can't be 'translated' into a direction, because it never was ;) </tangent> SemanticMantis (talk) 15:18, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

@SemanticMantis:Well, if we're going to be really picky, the title isn't malformed at all - just confusing. The character flies "north" by "Northwest". Well, kind of. :) Matt Deres (talk) 16:55, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

• Does not. He flies from Chicago to Rapid City, South Dakota, which is approximately west, more accurately west by north. The choice of airline was probably a play on the movie's title. --70.49.171.225 (talk) 07:24, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Off-topic personal observation — was there ever a filmmaker more uneven that Hitchcock? He made one stunning, timeless masterpiece, probably the best movie of all time. That was Vertigo. He made one more truly remarkable film, namely Rear Window. And he made one thoroughly entertaining piece of fluff, which was North by Northwest. If he did anything else that was even worthwhile, I'm not aware of it (I admit I haven't seen The 39 Steps or Rope; I feel like I ought to, but what if they turn out to be overrated dreck like Psycho or The Birds?). --Trovatore (talk) 08:35, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

As this was a response to me, I figure I get one chance to reply. I've seen almost everything Hitch made since the mid-1930s and a couple of earlier ones. I say Vertigo is badly overrated, while Rear Window and North by Northwest are my favorites. But I also love The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes, Foreign Correspondent, To Catch a Thief, and for real fluff, The Trouble with Harry. In the next group I'd put Sabotage, Saboteur, Suspicion, Strangers on a Train, and also a couple that don't start with S, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) and Lifeboat. And most of the others have their moments. Including Psycho, with its two very unexpected deaths and its surprise ending. Yeah, he did a lot that was worthwhile, whether it's to your taste or not. --70.49.171.225 (talk) 18:18, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

I have to speak up in favor of Vertigo here. To me it's a brilliant movie for (at least) two almost unrelated reasons, one about content, the other about the technical craft of storytelling.

The technical coup is the absolutely masterful misdirection, which I have never seen equalled (or, really, even attempted) in any other film by anyone. When you think the movie is over, that's when it's really just getting started, and what it's really about has nothing to do with what you thought it was about up to then. If that had been done less than perfectly, it would have looked like a silly stunt — but it was done perfectly.

The content point is the exploration of the nature of good and evil, and specifically how a good man, Scotty, falls into evil through misguided pursuit of the good. It's a very Catholic theme. I am not Catholic personally but find this very well done and thought-provoking in this film.

Too bad about the ending, though. Call it wabi-sabi. --Trovatore (talk) 20:34, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

I think Wolfgang Petersen fits this bill. Though not nearly as prolific as Hitchcock, his films have tended toward either excellence or godawfulness, with only one middle of the road entry that I can think of (...that I've seen). On the one hand, you've got Das Boot, The Neverending Story, and (for some, anyway) The Perfect Storm. But on the other hand, you've got Enemy Mine, Air Force One, Troy, and Poseidon. Outbreak was enjoyable but not spectacular. I've seen all of these except Enemy Mine and The Perfect Storm; but that strikes me as some heavy weighting toward the extreme ends of the good-bad spectrum right there. ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 19:06, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Since we have directions like "north by north northwest" ([11], page 45) I think more than one system of names is in use. Rmhermen (talk) 19:22, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Your link seems to stop at page 40, but anyway, the phrase gets lots of other ghits. Both "north by northwest" and "north by north-northwest" seem pretty clear, though; I imagine they both mean the direction that's officially called "north by west", but really they make more sense than the shorter form. I guess the first form, "north by northwest", is a little problematic in that some people probably use it to mean "north-northwest", and given that it's not a standard form, it's hard to tell. --Trovatore (talk) 20:03, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, that's not part of the 32 point compass, nor the 128 point system in our article (which gives the US Navy and Royal Navy systems). It seems to indicate a direction between North by West and North. But I have no idea if it's supposed to mean NbW1/4N, NbW1/2N, NbW3/4N, or perhaps something else entirely. Perhaps there is a system in which that phrase maps unambiguously to some direction, but it's also possible the author or copy editor of that article didn't use the conventions properly... Post EC with Trovatore, we can see that reasonable people have very different guesses as to what this might mean :) I completely disagree that putative "NbNW" and "NbN-NW" should mean the same thing though! I am also completely unimpressed with Ghits and usage as evidence that these forms make sense, in contradiction to our excellent and well-sourced article points of the compass. Navigators throughout history have devised a very sensible and consistent system. The fact that many people don't do it right doesn't give legitimacy to nonsense. (NB the pdf is searchable, and when I downloaded it I found the ref on page 45.) I am interested though, if anyone has a WP:RS explaining these forms that I claim are incorrect. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:13, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

I thought about it a little, and here's why I think the official system is counterintuitive. First you learn north, west, south, east, all good. Now "northwest" is halfway between north and west, makes sense. "North-northwest" is halfway between north and northwest, sure, why not.

Now what do you call halfway between northwest and north-northwest? Surely not "northwest-north-northwest"; no one can keep track of that. So, brilliant idea, call it "northwest by north" -- that's now a *quarter* of the way from northwest to north.

Alright, so what's a quarter of the way from north to northwest? "North by northwest" makes perfect sense; it has a pleasing symmetry with "northwest by north".

Instead, the official nomenclature is to call it "north by west", which now looks like it should be less northerly than north-northwest, because it has fewer norths in the name.

Of course, none of that matters to mariners. They have a system that works for them, and it's more efficient because it requires fewer words. It's systematic within its own paradigm; you just remember that "by" means π/16, and Bob's your uncle. But it is not necessarily the most natural-seeming extension of the simpler forms. --Trovatore (talk) 21:01, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

• 10,000 beheaded in Iraq, 35,000 a day smuggled without papers, cash , friends,ffamily or support into Texas, and my damn spellchecker is causing me problems? Is this a ref desk question? μηδείς (talk) 20:31, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Please see WP:PAPER; we are not exhausting a precious resource by discussing a question that interests the asker and respondents. Also recall that no question needs to meet any standard of importance or interestingess to be asked here. If anyone is wasting your time, it is yourself, by typing up an irrelevant comment. Finally, aren't you a bit of a linguist? Seems like anyone who is interested in languages should be a little more tolerant of curiosity about history of spelling and orthography. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:15, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Remember "Your message will cost the net hundreds if not thousands of dollars to send everywhere"? —Tamfang (talk) 00:49, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

surfer rosa

hello wikipedia community, can someone tell me what does Surfer Rosa mean? i'm not english. 2.181.97.247 (talk) 11:23, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, according to the article, 'Black Francis described the concept as referring to "a surfer girl," who "walks along the Beach of Binones, has a surfboard, very beautiful." ("Binones" is most likely Piñones, one of several Puerto Rican references). A "surfer" is someone who surfs, and Rosa is a female given name. No doubt, it's also a reference to Surfer Girl, released 25 years earlier. ---Sluzzelin talk 12:04, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Also according to the article, "The "name" of the cover woman, and the album title, comes from the "Oh My Golly!" lyric, "Besando chichando con surfer rosa."" "Oh My Golly!" is the 10th song on the album. Without any knowledge of where the name came from, my mind immediately went to a play on words involving sub rosa. Dismas|^(talk) 13:39, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Couldn't it also be "pink surfer"? Maybe the female counterpart to the Silver Surfer :-) --Trovatore (talk) 21:15, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

June 19

‘someone or something’

This is a very common locution, but it always seemed redundant to me. Aren’t people technically things? Why don’t we just say ‘something?’ --66.190.99.112 (talk) 01:51, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

"Yes", "yes", and "Because people don't like to be referred to as an it." It's no different than the use of the word who - technically, it could always be replaced with a what, but people don't like that. Luckily this is the only illogical situation that's ever arisen in language. Matt Deres (talk) 02:20, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Wait—"thing" is an English word and you're claiming that it's used illogically in English? Is that even possible? I think that people are technically not things in most contexts, with exceptions like "poor thing" and "pretty young thing" seeming to involve a certain amount of objectification. There's nothing illogical about a category that excludes human beings. -- BenRG (talk) 06:18, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

The evolution of "thing" is enlightening.[12] As you all suggest, "thing" and "it" and similar terms are usually directed at humans only in some sarcastic way, or in a very generalistic way. "Living things" (including humans) are often referred to as "individuals". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:47, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Some people get upset when they even see "something" else counting as "someone", notwithstanding whether "they" were ever called "that".

Theory of Forms may have answers, or may be confusing. Depends on the thing processing it (or "them", if an article is a sum of editors' minds). InedibleHulk (talk) 07:25, June 19, 2014 (UTC)

We can probably all agree that humans are animals. You might be interested in this essay by Temple Grandin, "Animals Are Not Things" [13]. Of course, there are multiple angles on this sort of thing, and but it's hard to completely separate the linguistics from the ethics. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:29, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

So far, nobody has mentioned the principle of animacy. English is a language that makes a distinction between animate and inanimate subjects and objects. This is a linguistic (and therefore essentially arbitrary) distinction rather than a scientific or logical one. Plants and non-living things are classed as inanimate, while people are classed as animate. Animals fall into a grey area and may be classed as animate or inanimate depending on the situation. (For example, people nearly always class their own pet mammals as animate but nearly always class invertebrates encountered in nature as inanimate.) Subjects and objects with animacy in English have to be referred to with gendered third-person pronouns rather than it. That said, someone usually is limited to human subjects and objects, though people may still object to their pets being labeled something. Marco polo (talk) 17:23, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

The term "animate" or "animated" has to do with having breath, live, soul.[14] In addition to the usual debates about what "life" and "soul" really are, there's the complication that animate objects are often called "living things". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:45, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Corals are particularly confusing sorts of animals, especially considering mushrooms aren't any sort. Still, humans much quicker imagine anthropomorphic "mushroom people" than recognize their closer, weirder cousins as family. No eyes, no soul, it seems. Where would we even draw the eyes on a cartoon coral character? At least starfish (the "cool" kind, anyway) are pentagonal. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:49, June 20, 2014 (UTC)

[ɹ] and [ɻ]

• [ɹ]
• [ɻ]

Good afternoon, what is the difference of [ɹ] and [ɻ] ? These two recordings don't have the standard sound. Fort123 (talk) 16:24, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Does this discussion [15] from last week help at all? AlexTiefling (talk) 16:39, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

This pronunciation is [ɹaɪt] or [ɻaɪt] ? Fort123 (talk) 17:17, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

I think that's [ɹaɪt]. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:38, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

You should look at the definitions of alveolar and retroflex, there is a difference but difficult to distinguish for untrained ears. As for English, the standard is usually [ɹ] (alveolar). Retroflex consonants are one reason for the typical sound of Indian English. --2.245.76.23 (talk) 16:35, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Everybody and nobody

Among the native English speakers reading this, does everyone agree that sentence (1) sounds more idiomatic than sentence (2)?

(1) Nobody could enter the house because the doors were locked.

(2) Everybody couldn't enter the house because the doors were locked.

If so, what are native speakers' opinions of sentences (3) and (4)?

(3) Nobody could wait until the big day!

(4) Everybody couldn't wait until the big day!

I am of course using "couldn't wait" in its idiomatic sense of "was eagerly looking forward to". To me, (3) sounds much better than (4), but I've heard (4) from other people and am wondering how widespread it is. Logically, I can understand it since "couldn't wait" doesn't really have a negative meaning, so the negation shouldn't leave the idiom and attach to the subject the way it does in a truly negative sentence like (1). So what do other people from various parts of the English-speaking world think? Are you more likely to say (3) or (4)? Does the one you're less likely to say sound wrong or funny to you, or do they both sound acceptable? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:03, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

AmEng here, lived in many states across the country. While "they couldn't wait for..." sounds fine and common to me, I still prefer 3 to 4. I actually disagree about the movement of the negation to "outside" the idiom. It is not a true negation, yes, but to me the idiom survives the moved negative. 4 sounds like it is awkwardly forcing the "couldn't wait" phrase. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:16, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

I didn't mean the idiom can't survive having the negation moved out; I only meant that the nonnegative idiom might be a factor discouraging some speakers from moving the negation out. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:55, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

UKEng speaker here. (1) is definitely more natural than (2). I prefer (3) to (4), but I'd find "No-one could wait..." to be even more idiomatic. AlexTiefling (talk) 21:29, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

"Everybody couldn't enter the house" is ambiguous, but probably means "it wasn't possible for everyone to enter" rather than "everyone found it impossible to enter".

Like Alex, I'd prefer "no one" to "nobody" in sentence 3, but would leave out the hyphen. --Trovatore (talk) 21:50, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm not interested in the "everyone/no one" vs. "everybody/nobody" debate at this point; for purposes of this question, consider "No one could wait" (with or without a hyphen, which has nothing to do with language) to be equivalent to "Nobody could wait" (and "Everyone couldn't wait" to be equivalent to "Everybody couldn't wait"). —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:55, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

OK, let's put that aside then. My point is that 1 and 2 do not mean the same thing. In first-order logic, it seems like they should, but they don't, at least not as they would ordinarily be read. Sentence 1 means not even one person got inside; sentence 2 means that at least one person was not able to get past the locks. --Trovatore (talk) 00:39, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Sentence (1) is the only one I'm comfortable with. I would find another way of saying (3) and (4). HiLo48 (talk) 22:31, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

What 48 said. —Tamfang (talk) 00:29, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Okay, that's interesting. Using the "couldn't wait" idiom, how would you say "Everybody was eagerly looking forward to the big day"? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 06:31, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

I wouldn't. That's the point. HiLo48 (talk) 07:33, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

(2) and (4) are but two of the many variants of the "all ... not" construction, which is inherently ambiguous. Example: "All the children did not like the broccoli they were served". Does this mean that all the children disliked it, or that not all of them liked it, meaning that some were OK with it? No way to tell. Example: "The whole family is not coming to the wedding". Is that "some but not all are coming", or "none are coming"? No way of knowing. Avoid these expressions if you want to make yourself understood. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 02:06, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

I concede that (2) is ambiguous, so to clarify, I'm only interested in the meaning that's identical to (1). And I do think we can all agree that (1) is the preferred way of saying that. And I suppose (4) could also mean "Not everyone could wait" (as in "Some but not all people were eagerly looking forward to it"), but when I've heard the construction used by native speakers, it's always meant the same thing as (3). —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 06:31, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Canadian speaker. I would understand and have probably heard both 3 and 4, but my preference would be 4 with "everyone" rather than "everybody". Between 3 and 4, I'd switch depending on what I wanted to emphasize; to me, 4 stresses the opening while 3 stresses the people. Matt Deres (talk) 13:28, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

June 20

Does grammar change when a word in brackets is added?

1. This is an (pointless) application. vs.
2. This is a (pointless) application. ----Seans Potato Business 09:13, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

I reformatted your question for clarity

Grammar doesn't change. The choice between 'a' and 'an' is purely phonological, and depends only on the following sound, irrespective of how it is written. When reading your sentence out, the following sound is /p/, so the normal choice is 'a'. If you omitted the parenthesised word in reading it, then 'an' would be the usual choice. --ColinFine (talk) 11:18, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree. It is a bit of a quandary, and doesn't seem to be mentioned in my usual English language reference books, but since the reader will read what is within the brackets, treat them as you would any other parenthesis, whether indicated by commas or dashes, and use "a". If you're uncomfortable with this, it might be better to recast the sentence.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 12:50, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

valedictions

hello, was there a time when phrases such as "mit freundlichen Grüßen" or "sincerely yours" etc didn't have this ironic undertone (not sure about the Enlgish one, but the German surely has) of "yeah, kiss mine, too"? or have they always been formulaic? Asmrulz (talk) 13:31, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

"Mit freundlichen Grüßen" certainly has no "ironic" undertone in German. It is simply the everyday, perfectly neutral salutation in formal and business correspondence. Sure, it doesn't guarantee the contents of the letter are really "friendly", but neither does it automatically imply the opposite as you suggest. I remember a time when it was still in competition with "hochachtungsvoll" ("with respect"), which was considered more stilted and more formal, giving "mit freundlichen Grüßen" a somewhat more relaxed tone; that alternative seems now to be pretty much moribund though. On the other hand, people today seem to be searching for yet more informal alternatives again. "Liebe Grüße" seems to be making inroads; I've seen it used in mails from students to their professors, where I suspect it would have been unthinkable earlier. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:50, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

I had such exchanges in mind where after a certain number of "rounds" it does imply that. Automatically, too :) Asmrulz (talk) 14:41, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

I think hochachtungsvoll really does have that ironic undertone now; when I see it, it always sounds more like verachtungsvoll. Liebe Grüße (or simply LG) is my go-to signoff in German-language e-mails. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:58, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

"Mit freundlichen Grüßen" nowadays is the standard in formal German letters. Yes, in a complaint letter you don't want the addressee to receive "friendly greetings", but you still write it. As for the question if it has an undertone, every positive comment used in a conversation between two people who don't get along with each will sound like it had one. It doesn't matter if it's "Mit freundlichen Grüßen" or something else. The expression alone is neutral. --2.245.76.23 (talk) 16:52, 20 June 2014 (UTC)