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February 16

proto-language

How many is the proto-languages?--95.251.179.126 (talk) 19:04, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Just the one, I'm afraid. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 27 Shevat 5775 19:09, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

If the OP meant how many branches there are from the original proto-language (that is, how many language groups like Proto-Indo-European language or Proto-Semitic language there are), that part of the tree hasn't been figured out yet. Ian.thomson (talk) 19:33, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I would interpret the question as meaning "How many times (do we know about) that language has independently developed?" This is a perfectly reasonable question, and the answer is, we don't know. Proponents Proto-World believe that the answer is once, and that we can go some way to reconstructing the one. Most linguists, I think do not accept that. My opinion is that all known languages probably do go back to a single proto-language, but that we will never be able to demonstrate this. But nobody knows, and I suspect that nobody ever will. --ColinFine (talk) 23:28, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

List of proto-languages --— Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 03:19, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

• Caveat lector: what is ranked as a proto-language is almost always a matter of current reconstructed knowledge, not of any necessarily important node in actual history. See, for example, Ritwan and Algonquin versus Algonquian-Ritwan and Anatolian languages and PIE versus Indo-Hittite. μηδείς (talk) 02:14, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

The number of proto-languages is actually quite large, if you consider all the intermediate proto-languages such as Proto-Germanic. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:21, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

February 17

Gars and Sharks?

The accepted etymology of the very sharp-toothed predatory fresh water gar is the PIE root *ghaiso-, meaning "spear". But the word carchar- is accepted as meaning "sharp (toothed)/maneating shark" in Greek. Is it possible there is a root *ghar- (PIE or not) connecting the two terms? See Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science#Genus species. Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 01:57, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I took the liberty of fixing your link. An offshoot - you mention the root "ghaiso". In German, the word for fish is Fisch and the word for shark is Hai or Haifisch. Might that root be the source of the German word? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:51, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I cannot answer your question, but according to Wiktionary's entry on χάρτης the Ancient Greek χαράσσω (to scratch, to inscribe) is connected to PIE *ǵʰer- which it translates as "to scratch". The entry in Wiktionary's PIE-appendix I linked to gives "to enclose" for *ǵʰer-. So, ... %-) (Also, I'm not even sure κάρχαρος is related to χαράσσω, I only found something in Wilhelm Pape's Griechisch-Deutsches Handwörterbuch which is obviously not the latest in linguistics. — Bugs, Wiktionary has something on the etymology of "Hai"). ---Sluzzelin talk 19:26, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, I'm royally pissed off now. Whenever I tried to use "gar" as a word in Scrabble, my dictionary told me there was no such word, the marine creature actually being a "garfish". So I got the message and stopped going down that path. Time for a new dictionary, methinks. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:58, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

• Bugs, the usual development of *ghar- in Greek would be *khar-, and, according to Grassman's Law a reduplicated form would lose the aspiration (the h) in the first syllable. So *ghar-ghar- would become καρχαρ- ("carchar-" when latinised). In Germanic, the normal development would be PIE *ghar- > PG *gar-. And PIE *ghaisos would become proto-Germanic *gaizaz with intervovallic z > r and final z lost in Western Germanic, giving the *ger- root for spear which shows up in the name of Germany itself. EO. PIE *gh- does change to h- in Latin, and there are other exceptions, but they are usually explained as dialect borrowings.

Sluzzelin, that just makes me think all the more that carcharos is a reduplictaed form meaning bite-bite.

Jack, I am surprised your dictionary has this lack, in America I have seen these fish on occasion; they frequesnt the banks of slow streams and freshwater lakes, near the edge where they can see you through the refraction of the water's surface, and they are always called gars, never garfish. (See German Walfisch.) μηδείς (talk) 00:19, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I must be losing my mind. I've just consulted my dictionary, the same trusty one I've been using since 1975, and there it is, "gar", large as life, as a noun with 3 meanings, and also a transitive verb. "Garfish" is a separate entry. I swear I've checked this multiple times previously and "gar" was never there. Thanks for the enlightenment. (I've recently entered the hallowed halls of grandparenthood; I blame everything on that now.) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:14, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Don't worry, it is simply due to the fact that garfish comes before gar alphabetically. μηδείς (talk) 00:17, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Not usually. I actually prefer to go from the back of the dictionary forward, though, so for me it would. StuRat (talk) 17:36, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I'll have to check to see if there's a cognate in any of the other Eurasiatic languages for gar. The words squalus and whale have cognates meaning large fish, (Finnish kala, Turkish balıq') clear across siberia to Eskimo, where wikt:iqaluk means "salmon" μηδείς (talk) 00:19, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Gar meaning spear is in garlic -gar-leek and in Roger -hrothgar. Itsmejudith (talk) 00:50, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Iqaluk can mean a fish in the salmonid family such as the Arctic char, also known as an iqalukpik (same external as before) or lake trout also known as ihuuqiq (same external as before). But it can also be a generic name for any fish. And of course a salmon can be called an iqalukpik. But there are other names as well for the trout and char never mind the Arctic grayling. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 04:35, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Itsmejudith and CBW. What I am wondering is, is there a KAR like word in any language of northern Eurasia besides "gar" which means something like predatory fish. By capitalizing the consonants, I mean to indicate phonetically similar sound sequences, like /qor/ /har/ or /ger/. It's entirely possible that, as conventionally assumed, gar(fish) and Ger(many) are cognates with the word for spear as part of their base. That would be the null hypothesis. But it is also possible the connection is a coincidence and a folk etymology. PIE has plenty of homophones. Maybe there were two roots, one meaning garfish and one meaning spear that were conflated because the garfish is spearshaped. See folk etymology and false etymology for cases where this has happened. Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 02:11, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Probably a coincidence, but 'ika' means 'squid' in Japanese. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 08:49, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, KageTora. Having looked it up, the suggested Altaic cognate in Japanese is kara "plaice". μηδείς (talk) 19:31, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

It's actually 'akagarei' (with the 'aka' meaning 'red') KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 20:05, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes? That still works as a possible cognate, given many g's in Japanese originate from a k that is in intervocalic position, and what you are suggesting is a compound of two roots. proto-Macro-Altaic (Turkic, Mongol, Tungusic, Korean, Japonic) is supposed to be as old as or older then PIE. If PIE can give

Avestan: kara- `a mythical fish'

Old Greek: áspalos = ikhtǘs (Athaman.) Hsch.; aspaliéu̯-s 'angler'

Baltic: *kal-[a]- m.

Germanic: *xwal-a-

Latin: squalus

Then Altaic's turkic balIk, Mongolian xol and (aka)-garei seem unproblematic. But I am still interested in the English "gar", which would imply a root like *ghar- if it were not related to the word "spear" found in Al Gore or Germany. μηδείς (talk) 01:33, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Not sure if this is relevant, but bulls can 'gore' people. This, however, may be a loanword from French. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 07:49, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Etymonline says c.1400, from Scottish gorren "to pierce, stab," origin unknown, perhaps related to Old English gar "spear" (see gar, also gore (n.2) "triangular piece of ground"). KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 07:53, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, the roots dealing with stabbing and spears, gore v., German, etc., are derived from a PIE root *ghaisos where an intervocalic /s/ often becomes an /r/ in Germanic. The word gear is also related. The normal assumption is that gar as in fish comes from it's spearlike shape: "spearfish". But it is also possible gar comes from a separate root, and that the association with a spear is just a folk etymology based on the name. μηδείς (talk) 19:33, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Human languages

I once asked the BBC- Post Mark Africa- this question, and I am going to ask again. Suppose two dumb People are isolated lets say an island where there are less contact with normal people, but are provided with all human needs and are left to bear children. can their children also be dumb, gesticulate like their parents? If they can be normal and can speak, can they develop their own speech or languages?12:19, 17 February 2015 (UTC)12:19, 17 February 2015 (UTC)~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Momoh G. Musa (talk • contribs)

Nicaraguan Sign Language answers the second part of your question. As for whether the children of these two hypothetical non-speaking people would also be unable to speak would be depend on a number of factors, one of which would be a genetic link to their parents' deafness. It's likely that the children would start off in life using their parents' sign language, and then gradually develop their own 'ideolects'. If they can hear and speak, it's possible that a spoken language would arise, but I guess it would take at least a few generations for that to happen, as the original children would not have used spoken language - not having been taught to - and therefore would not regard it as a normal method of communication, as they already have sign language. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 13:07, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

It's hard to find a direct answer to the question, because it almost never happens that a group of children are exposed to no spoken language at all. However, there is a related phenomenon that might be of interest. When a group of adults who share no common language are put together and forced to communicate as best they can, they tend to develop a pidgin, which is a very simplified form of language, with a small vocablulary and very crude grammar. In the next generation after a pidgin is formed, it develops into a creole language, a fully complex language with a sophisticated grammar. This "creolization" is done spontaneously by the children who grow up learning the pidgin form -- the adults who formed the pidgin never do learn to speak the creole properly. So the inference is that whether or not children have a capability of inventing a spoken language from scratch, they do have an innate capability for elaborating a grammar. (Derek Bickerton has written extensively about this process.) Looie496 (talk) 14:54, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Some content at feral child may be relevant. --70.49.169.244 (talk) 19:07, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Poto and Cabengo might also be of interest. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 07:02, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

The phenomena of idioglossia and home sign also show that constructed languages can arise spontaneously, although I have no idea what twin languages are actually like and how much they differ from the surrounding language(s), especially structurally (maybe they're only created via some form of relexification, much like some secret languages). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:26, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Ancient script

What can anyone tell me about the script on the image half way down the page here? (The image I refer to is the one with the person carved in relief, with an amazing hairstyle). What language is it and what does it say? I thought it could be Aramaic in Hebrew script, but if so I can't decipher it. The penultimate word looks like "tomato"! Cheers --Dweller (talk) 13:51, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Far from being able to read it myself, but the statue is described elsewhere on the web as being from Palmyra ([1]; this would match the filename chosen by the BBC article, "_81049540_palm-stat-1_464.jpg"), and the overall character of the letters would seem to match the Palmyrene alphabet ([2]), which was presumably used to write Aramaic. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:17, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh good call. I'd love to know what it says (both transliteration and translation). --Dweller (talk) 14:33, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

The last word appears also in File:PalmyraWoman.JPG. --84.58.246.235 (talk) 15:02, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Looks a bit like (right to left) aleph vet lamed, which is Hebrew for mourning, but that's too neat to possibly be right. --Dweller (talk) 15:08, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

The first letter is definitely not Aleph, but probably Ḥet. - Lindert (talk) 15:36, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

You could be right. Or even taf. The first word in our BBC image looks like "v'aveylat" or possibly "v'achalta". But I wish someone with some expertise would show up! --Dweller (talk) 15:46, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Looking at this article, it seems likely that the image contains a funerary inscription, the final word חבל, translated "alas!" is found in other such inscriptions as well. Additionally, the ligations found on the second and third line appear to form בר, or "bar", the Aramaic for "son". So, although I cannot make out all the letters, it seems to me that the gist of the inscription is this:

"[name]

son of [name]

son of [name]

alas!" -

My best guess at a transcription would be "והבלת/ברשמכוד/בראמתא/חבל". Lindert (talk) 16:02, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

February 18

Help locating possibly Arabic tweet?

I've been having a bit of trouble believing The Daily Mail, as strange as that may seem. They've said an al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula-linked Twitter account called the killing of Muath al-Kasasbeh "conclusive proof of Isis' deviance". Those English words only show up on the web in reference to their story, as far as I can see, and searching for the Google Translation (دليل قاطع على الانحراف إيزيس) doesn't find anything.

Is that translation accurate, and is there any evidence of something like this being said by someone like who it's attributed to, or is this another hazy "Too extreme for al-Qaeda" deal? InedibleHulk (talk) 23:35, February 17, 2015 (UTC)

I don't know what إيزيس is, but it's certainly not the Arabic quasi-acronym corresponding to ISIS/ISIL, which is داعش... AnonMoos (talk) 00:28, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

According to Google, it's lowercase "Isis" (like the goddess), which is actually the form The Daily Mail used. Tweaked my capitalization above. How am I supposed to paste the new word in place of the old one? Goes at the "front", regardless of where I try, and I can't type it. Even trying to highlight it is confusing. Can you (or someone) try looking for the correct phrase on Twitter, and tell me what you find? InedibleHulk (talk) 00:56, February 18, 2015 (UTC)

There are well-known browser interface issues when editing mixed LTR and RTL text (due to the fact that the Unicode "bidi" algorithm is applied recursively each time a character is added or deleted), which you may be encountering. I would feel it necessary to do some intensive dictionary work to verify whether the rest of the Arabic makes any sense before I did any searching, and right now a nap sounds more appealing, sorry... AnonMoos (talk) 01:04, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

No, that's fine. I completely understand napping, even when dreams don't reveal the truth. Thanks for the Isis/ISIS distinction. Every bit helps. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:25, February 18, 2015 (UTC)

This is the best I can do without expending an inordinate amount of time: site:twitter.com انحراف OR تحريف داعش site:twitter.com. The phrase تحريف داعش appears to get some results on Twitter... AnonMoos (talk) 15:15, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

"Distorts Syria", eh? InedibleHulk (talk) 23:22, February 18, 2015 (UTC)

Nope, تحريف داعش is a plausible rendering of "ISIS/ISIL deviance/deviation" (though I don't know if it's what was used in the tweet). In general, Google translate cannot override dictionaries. AnonMoos (talk) 00:59, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

I meant the last thing you said. What appears to get some results. What's that by the dictionary? InedibleHulk (talk) 02:24, February 19, 2015 (UTC)

I really don't know what you're trying to say. As I mentioned, تحريف داعش is a plausible rendering of "ISIS/ISIL deviance/deviation". If Google translate gives a radically different translation, then Google translate is flat-out wrong... AnonMoos (talk) 07:33, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, brainfart. That last phrase is the same as the second. I could've sworn I looked twice before my last comment, and they looked different. Weird. Anyway, yeah, Google Translate's apparently not up to that task. A lot of what I read on the Twitters sounded like nonsense, too. I've asked the writer. He should know. Thanks for your patience. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:39, February 19, 2015 (UTC)

I don't think that Google Translation is going to be useful - whatever its merits, it's extremely unlikely that something translated into English and then back into Arabic is going to have any resemblance to the original Arabic. In any case, do we have any idea what this AQ Twitter account might be? If we knew that first, it would be certainly be easier to find. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:51, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

If I knew that, I wouldn't have gone the long route. It's possible they're trying to avoid driving traffic to what could be seen as enemy propaganda. Or they could just be making it up. But yeah, machine translating something back and forth is often better for shits and giggles than anything helpful. (But yes, something translation back and forth often the best machine for shits and laughter of anything useful.) InedibleHulk (talk) 23:21, February 18, 2015 (UTC)

Just spent a good while longer than I should have auto-translating what I found through the above terms and the various names AQAP uses. Aside from maybe getting on a few watchlists, I'm still at square one. For a few of them, the relevant dates are beyond where Google lets me scroll, so maybe there's hope there.

It might be easier for me to just ask the guy who wrote the article where he'd heard it. I'll try that, if nobody else yells eureka soon. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:20, February 19, 2015 (UTC)

Pronouncing /sts/ in English

As a non-native English speaker, I'm having trouble with pronouncing /sts/. When I try to pronounce it, such as in 'lists' or 'costs', I end up mumbling some sort of /s/ with a partial stop.. it doesn't sound right and my tongue fumbles. If I pronounce it slowly, I can pronounce the full /sts/ with the back of my tongue touching the roof and blocking air / producing a stop, but when I pronounce it quickly and try to do that I just end up mumbling. I've read that some speakers skip the /t/, is that common for BrE (specifically Australian spoken English)? How exactly should my mouth positions be for pronouncing /sts/? ☃Unicodesnowman (talk) 13:34, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

The important thing is whether you systematically pronounce this differently from /s/, /st/, and /ts/, not whether you can identify three clearly distinct segments in sequence in your pronunciation of /sts/... AnonMoos (talk) 15:18, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I suspect that [tɛksː] would be interpreted as texts by those around you with no trouble. Now, if you started saying [ˈtɛksəs], like my brother does, then there might be some confusion. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 15:36, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Can you say "tsar" and "star"? How about "boots"? I'd work on those, then move to "boosts" - and I totally second AnonMoos - intelligibility is what you're after, and that comes from making the proper distinctions, not from pronouncing things exactly the way a native speaker does. In case it helps, when I say "boosts" the stop is very brief, and though the whole tongue is engaged, the back never fully hits the palate, and the main action is on the sibilant, with the front of the tongue. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:48, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it is hard to pronounce, and requires slowing down to do so clearly. So, if preparing a speech, say, I'd look for another word with the same meaning. For example, in "John boosts many charitable causes", I would substitute "promotes". StuRat (talk) 17:23, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

• Can we ask the OP's native tongue? See Blackfoot language if you want to see more interesting consonant clusters. μηδείς (talk) 23:02, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

There are artifacts of an earlier-learned language that don't hamper comprehensibility of a later-learned language so I would just "pronounce it slowly" as you say "If I pronounce it slowly, I can pronounce the full /sts/..." Bus stop (talk) 23:14, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Slowing it down will produce better results in general. As with the "I'd've / Ida" discussion recently. Talking at normal speed, words like "costs" sound a lot like the "t" has been dropped. I'm reminded of how Victory Borge used to say Franz Liszt: "List-s-s-s". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:22, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

• My advice would be to repeat the sentence "List six best songs" or the like (make up your own) over and over (a dozen times each, a few times a day, for week) until the sequence becomes easy. Russian has the consonant shch as one sound (shchistya "happiness"). English speakers can learn this by repeating "fish chips" and gradually deleting the fi- and changing it into "'sh chips". μηδείς (talk) 02:01, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

• • Or she thrusts her fists/against the posts/and still insists/she sees the ghosts. --Trovatore (talk) 05:54, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

• What I was trying to suggest was putting together two separate words of which neither has the full /sts/ sequence in it, but which, like "best" "songs", Unicodesnowman could probably pronounce separately without trouble.

The sequence would be to say "best s/ongs" then "best/s ongs" then drop the ongs and now, with practice, you can say bests.

This is how you can learn difficult initial sounds in Russian and Zulu. "And where...?" In Russian is "a gdye...?" Gdye is impossible in English, but "a/g dye" is not.

Likewise in IsiZulu, Mina ngifunda... "I read..." has the impossible ngi- sequence for English speakers. But "Mina/ng ifunda" is quite easy, and with practice one can drop the "mina" and just say ngifunda. μηδείς (talk) 19:17, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

And then you can jump straight to Polish and try to pronounce words like kostce [ˈkɔst.t͡sɛ]. — Kpalion^(talk) 10:15, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Ah, yes, the people who say psziepsziepszie according to my grandmother. μηδείς (talk) 19:19, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for all the help! I can say tsar, star, etc fine, just /sts/ bothering me. I'll just concern myself with making myself intelligible, I've practiced it more and I think I'm getting the hang of it. ☃ Unicodesnowman (talk) 10:17, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

That's funny, I thought /θs/ is a lot harder, but then I'm German and I don't know what your native language is ... --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:30, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Is the sentence "He have bought a new car last week" grammatical?

Is it right the sentence "He have bought a new car last week". -- 17:13, 18 February 2015 117.194.152.25

Only if you remove "have". (You could put "had" in place of "have", but it's better without it, in my opinion.) StuRat (talk) 17:16, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. "He bought a new car last week" is better, because it specifies a definite point in time (i.e. 'last week'). If you replace the 'have' with 'had', then that would require an explanation of context, such as "and that's when he used it as a security for a loan", for example - i.e. another action which happens after the original action of buying a car. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 17:26, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

For reference: simple past, pluperfect, past perfect. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:48, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

117.194.152.25 -- Verb agreement requires "He has"... -- AnonMoos (talk) 01:10, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

"Has" could work, but it still sounds awkward, like a non-native speaker saying it. Kage's initial response is the better way to say it, i.e. leave out any form of "have". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:18, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

It's still a grammatical error. "Has" is present tense, but "last week" is in the past. Unless the speaker has a time machine, I don't see how that could work. — kwami (talk) 01:23, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Leaving it out was my initial suggestion. StuRat (talk) 01:25, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Oops, yes, it was your comment first. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:32, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

The present perfect is not used when an adverb of past time is also used. In a declarative sentence, "has bought" and "last week" are normally mutually exclusive. The pluperfect, "had bouht" can be used with "last week" as long as another verb more recent is given. "The car he had bought last week got stolen yesterday." μηδείς (talk) 01:50, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

I can think of an example where it kind of makes sense: "He has bought a new car just last week." However, it's still awkward phrasing. Your counterexample works. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:32, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

It's arguably grammatical with a very strange meaning. If you interpret the word have as being in the mandative subjunctive mood, you could read the sentence as "let the past change to make it the case that he bought a car last week". Of course I'm really just quibbling here as that's not a meaning that really even makes sense, as the past to the best of my knowledge is immutable, and even if the meaning did make sense, I don't think there are many sane native speakers who would naturally produce that sentence to express it. But I like quibbling :-) --Trovatore (talk) 05:30, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Keeping in mind that "He have..." does not work. "I have..." or "He has..." or "I/he had..." are grammatically valid in the right circumstances. "He have..." isn't. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:34, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Bugs, I don't think you really read and understood my point. --Trovatore (talk) 05:50, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

• Unless "He" is the name of a band, and we're speaking BrE... — Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:46, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Let's put it this way. "He has bought a new car" on it's own, without an actual time reference is fine, as it means 'he bought a new car sometime fairly recently and still has it'. Compare "He has gone to the bank" (implying he is still there) and "He has been to the bank" (implying he has visited the bank recently and has returned). However, when a time reference is added, we use the simple past - "He bought a new car last week." - as it is a specific point in time, rather than a continuous experience. "I have been to China", for example, means that I actually have the experience of going to China still in my mind, but when adding a specific point in time, "I went to China in 1992" would be correct. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 08:42, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Spanish phrase

Hi. Trying to verify a translation for líneas tiradas a hilo sobre tabletas. Might it mean 'lines drawn continuously (e.g. boustrophedon) on tablets'? Currently translated as "lines drawn with a string". — kwami (talk) 21:16, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I'd need the wider context to be sure. It seems to mean lines drawn on tablets by thread, which is what I would go with without a wider context. μηδείς (talk) 00:08, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

I concur with Medeis. Hilo generally means "thread" but can also mean "wire" (electrical wiring, etc) or "cable" (internet cable, telephone cord, etc). AFAIK, it doesn't have the sense of "threaded" as in English "a threaded conversation", making "boustrophedon" unlikely. Tirada a hilo translates directly to "drawn by thread" or "thread drawn". But, as Medeis also points out, more context would help pin down the meaning.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 00:31, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

The context is our article Rongorongo, I would assume. Tevildo (talk) 01:19, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes.

I thought a hilo was an idiom for "continuously".

Not much of a context: it was a translation of the Rapa Nui kohau. They might have been aligned by thread, I suppose, but that seems odd. — kwami (talk) 01:22, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

I suspected, and from the above it is obvious, they are talking about a thread drawn taut and used to make a straight line. See chalk line, where a carpenter snaps a taut inked or chalked thread to make a straight line on the underlying surface. This has nothing to do with boustrophedonic writing per se, just the way of making the lines. (What threw me was a hilo, which is not an idiom I know, I would simply have said hilo tirado. The curve you see in the image at rongorongo is simply due to the curvature of the surface. I would go with "lines drawn on a tablet using a taut thread." As my father's eldest child and, hence, little helper I used to use this method with him whenever he was doing a project that needed a temporary plumb line represented on a flat surface. μηδείς (talk) 01:38, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm familiar with that from carpentry, but have not come across an account of doing that for rongorongo. (If anything, one would be more likely to draw or score the wood along a thread.) I'll leave the translation alone, though. — kwami (talk) 03:09, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Tirante means taut, so I think you would be justified in changing it to a taut string. The problem is that tirar means draw as in pull, but not as in make an image. (Perhaps the spanish is a bad translation from English, and we are looking at a reverse translation.) Again, the terms lineas and hilo seem reversed. Otherwise I don't disagree with you. μηδείς (talk) 05:24, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

The Spanish is the original. If anything, it's the English which would be bad. It can't be the string that's taught taut, and "lines pulled with a string" doesn't make any sense. — kwami (talk) 18:09, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

I am assuming taught is a typo, and you do realize I have been talking about a taut (tight) string? A taut string over the curved surface you see depicted in the article rongorongo would give the lines shown. μηδείς (talk) 01:08, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

But if that's not what the Spanish says, what difference does it make? The string isn't taut, the lines are, and that doesn't make any sense. — kwami (talk) 02:14, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Variants of tirar a hilo get less than ten hits. In any case, lines (meaning straight marks on surfaces) cannot be taut, only string can. μηδείς (talk) 18:40, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Exactly. So tirada can't mean "taut". So if it doesn't mean "lines drawn with a string", and it doesn't mean "lines with a taut string", what does it mean? — kwami (talk) 18:49, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

"Drawn" in English means both taut and sketched. So tirada can certainly mean drawn in the sense of stretched. There's still something funny going on, since like I said, tirar (or a variant of it) a hilo gets nowhere near 10 hits on gogle. I expect the Spanish is a poor translation from the English, or we're dealing with a dialectal or archaic for. A link to the original Spanish source might help. μηδείς (talk) 23:51, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

The original "Spanish" source was a description of Rongorongo made by Sebastian Englert, a German Franciscan Friar who presumably learned Spanish in Chile where he spent many years as a missionary to the indigenous peoples there. Spanish was not his native language and his acquired Spanish was probably a Chilean dialect of the early 1900s. This may contribute to the difficulty here. The WP article notes give the quote as "Kohau are defined as "líneas tiradas a hilo (hau) sobre tabletas o palos para la inscripción de signos" (lines drawn with a string (hau) on tablets or sticks for the inscription of signs). Englert seems to be using the Spanish word he knows as "hilo" to translate the Rapa Nui word hau. So IHMO, it's really anybody's guess as to what Englert was trying to say.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 01:17, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps it is a problem with his Spanish. Though, since he wrote an entire dictionary, I would think his Spanish was generally pretty good. — kwami (talk) 04:58, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

The problem is that tirar means "to draw" in the sense of "to pull, drag"; not in the sense of "to sketch". So "líneas tiradas a hilo sobre tabletas o palos para la inscripción de signos" means "lines pulled by string over tablets or wood [i.e., pieces of wood] for the inscription of symbols." The word línea is ambiguous in that it can mean straight mark in the geometrical sense or it can mean a physical line, like a phone line or a power line. Given hilo means "string, thread, wire" we would have to assume línea means "straight mark" hear, not thread. So we get "marks pulled by thread over tablets or [pieces of wood] for the inscription of symbols". The meaning is still obvious, they used taught threads to make the lines used to guide the inscription of symbols, even if someone might have editted it for clarity if they had read the remark. μηδείς (talk) 18:25, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

I have found the usage of lineas tiradas meaning lines drawn from a point and lines of text removed from a source. But a line drawn from point a to point b is again more analougous to a string tied to post a and pulled tight connected to post b than it is to a line depicted in a sketch. μηδείς (talk) 22:46, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

February 19

Chinese translation

Could anyone please translate what's written in this image: http://img.redocn.com/sheji/20140818/2015chunjiegongxifacaihaibao_2920203.jpg I want to post it to someone and I'm scared I might offend. I know the middle says Happy New Year, but what do the scrolls say? Thanks in advnace! 15.227.185.74 (talk) 10:52, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

On the left: I think that is in traditional form "八方財寳進門庭" (simplified "八方财宝进门庭") which looks to be a set phrase that means "wealth come through house from everywhere" or something along those lines, which I guess just means "be prosperous". ("八方" is literally "eight directions", but it means "all directions".) --Shirt58 (talk) 06:45, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

On the right, "四面貴人相照應" - huh? "elegant echos on all four sides?". I must definitely have that wrong. --Shirt58 (talk) 07:03, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

"四面" literally means "four sides" but, like "八方", is an idiomatic expression meaning "all sides" or "everywhere". "照應" (simplified Chinese version: "照应") means "to look after, to take care of". I believe "四面貴人相照應" means "noble people everywhere care for each other". — SMUconlaw (talk) 11:01, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

The middle really is an idiomatic salutation that blesses people with great joy and prosperity, not necessarily "Happy New Year". "新年快乐" translates literally as "Happy New Year" and may be used to refer to New Year's Day on the Gregorian calendar, which most people in the developed world use. I have no idea what the scroll on the right means. 71.79.234.132 (talk) 17:31, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

The phrase in the middle is "恭喜发财" (in Mandarin, gōngxǐ fācái), and means "congratulations and prosperity [to you]". As pointed out above it does not literally mean "happy new year", but it is a very common new year greeting. Having said that, nowadays some people find the reference to gaining wealth a bit crass, and use a variety of other expressions to greet others. — SMUconlaw (talk) 11:09, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Sort question

Adding a DEFAULTSORT to article Los de abajo (film), should I sort on "Abajo", or "de Abajo" ? Thanks GrahamHardy (talk) 12:12, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

You may want to look at WP:MOS and see how they recommend dealing with foreign articles (a, an, the in other languages). As an example, Arabic words starting with "al-", it mean "the-", but Wikipedia style might indicating treating it like any other word. Either way, it could be educational to go to the Spanish Wikipedia and see how they handled it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:26, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

It definitely needs a defaultsort (as Los = The) but the issue is with the 'de' in the middle, is it part of the sort ? GrahamHardy (talk) 13:23, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

This is not necessarily definitive, but if you look at "Category:Spanish musical duos" you will see that the group Los del Rio is alphabetized as if "Los" were any other word. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:08, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Los is not an article in this case but a pronoun, cf. [3]. The literal translation would be "Those from below" or something like that. --Wrongfilter (talk) 15:17, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

D'oh! Good point. "Los" is used both as pronoun and article in Spanish. So it should be alphabetized simply as "Los de abajo", the same way "Los del rio" is taken as-is... and which literally means "Those from Rio". (Presuming "Rio" is a city name - "rio" itself means "river".) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:21, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

The article has Los de abajo translated as 'The Underdogs', is that correct ? Thanks GrahamHardy (talk) 15:53, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

That would be an idiomatic translation. The literal translation of those three words would be "the ones / those -- [from / of] -- below / down." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:28, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks GrahamHardy (talk) 21:24, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Resolved

Pronunciation of "miso"

How is "miso" (the Japanese fermented bean product) pronounced: . Does the "mi" rhyme with "we" or with "why"? . Does the "so" rhyme with "go" or with "goo"? Bh12 (talk) 14:39, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Roughly speaking, the syllables rhyme with the "we" and "fee" of English and the "go" and "dough" of English respectively. But the latter isn't a diphthong. I mean, whereas the vowel sound of "dough" starts off as a kind of "o" and turns into a kind of "u", the "so" in "miso" is just a kind of "o" (there's no "u" sound of any kind in it). -- Hoary (talk) 15:01, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Would it be like the "mi" and "so" in "do re mi fa so la ti do"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:05, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but the simplest way to describe it is just as saying "me" and "so" together. As Jar Jar Binks would say: "Me so want some miso". StuRat (talk) 15:24, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Jar Jar came to my mind also (despite my effort to prevent it). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:44, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

My brother absolutely loved that character, so that makes a total of one. StuRat (talk) 15:56, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Resolved

Is there any reason not to assume that miso is a Japanese word, in a transliteration that uses IPA vowels? —Tamfang (talk) 09:16, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Generally speaking, if you want to know how to pronounce culinary terms, just do a Youtube search for them, and you'll find a large number of knowledgeble chefs who are pronouncing them. For example, here is Gordon Ramsay saying "miso" [4], and here is a program called "Japanese Cooking 101" talking about it [5]. You always have to be careful about ignorant people and trolls, but if you watch a number of different videos, most of the time you can quickly tell what the most common English pronunciation is. -- 162.238.240.55 (talk) 14:50, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

A Certain Old Norse to Icelandic Shift

Why did Icelandic gain more instances of /þ/ and /ð/ than its source language already had? Was it due to hypercorrection? Was it due to a process similar to what English went through for a while (the one that caused Old English fæder, mōdor, slidrian, gaderian etc. to have their Proto-Germanic /ð/s restored in Modern English, resulting in father, mother, slither, gather, etc.)?

Examples of what I am talking about are (note: these transcriptions are broad, not narrow):

Old Norse þat /θat/ ("that") → Icelandic það /θað/ ("that")

Old Norse vit /wit/ ("we two") → Icelandic við /við/ (we)

Old Norse at /at/ ("at, to") → Icelandic að /að/ ("to")

Old Norse ér /er/ ("you") → Icelandic þér /þer/ ("you")

etc. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 16:19, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

You have to understand that there were lots of dialects of both Old English and Old Norse. In both cases, some phonemes remained in the standard modern languages of today. Also, some were words developed by analogy. It was not hypercorrection, as both languages did not have a written language in proto-germanic. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 16:56, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

You are exemplifying two unrelated phenomena here. One is the weakening of Old Norse final /t/ to /ð/ after vowel (only in unstressed, clitic words?), which is simply a form of lenition. The other is the addition of the /θ/ in þér, which is due to word boundary shift, a kind of morphological reanalysis (the 2nd person plural ending -þ was misinterpreted as part of the following pronoun; a similar phenomenon resulted in the addition of /t/ in the Old High German and Old English 2nd person singular, such that OHG nimis became nimist by way of nimistu "nimst thou, takest thou", modern German nimmste, re-analysed nimmst du). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:41, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Interesting. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 22:17, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

February 20

Pronunciation of "Catholicism"

Usually, the word is pronounced by stressing on the second syllable. This source agrees with my statement. The website provides US speakers and one UK speaker, and all of them stress on the second syllable. Now, recently, there was one guy I met who pronounced "Catholicism" by stressing on the first syllable. He's a professor of English, but when he's overseas, he'd teach American Studies in collegiate classrooms. Is this a common pronunciation? What dialect is this? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 01:06, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Did he pronounce the second "c" like a "k" or an "s"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:47, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

I think he pronounced it with a s. 71.79.234.132 (talk) 02:01, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

off-topic and does not assume good faith 71.79.234.132 (talk) 01:21, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Bugs, geolocate, and see this user's previous questions on Pietism before you waste mental energy on parsing his BS questions. μηδείς (talk) 01:52, 20 February 2015 (UTC) I've expended about as much mental energy on this issue as I felt like - i.e. not much. :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:05, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

I wondered if they emphasized the first syllable, maybe they would have said it as "Catholikism". That would be more logical. (Not that English is particularly logical.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:05, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

I do not think the pronunciation is idiosyncratic. This video on the French Revolution does pronounce "Catholicism", while emphasizing the first syllable in the phrase "Catholicism is dead". It is an American video, made by a studio based in Hawaii. I don't want to say it's a Hawaiian accent, but it may be Western United States? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 02:09, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

I've never heard it pronounced with the stress on the first syllable. Maybe another expert here can help. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:12, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

English has a general practice of moving the stress one syllable towards the end of the word when appending suffixes. Thus... "ge-OG-raphy" but "ge-o-GRA-phic". The moving towards the end of the word works for any number of suffixes, so we only tend to move towards the end one syllable regardless of how many suffixes we add to the root, so "ge-o-GRA-phic-al" and "ge-o-GRA-phic-al-ly" are all standard stress patterns. You can find this pattern all over English. "CA-tho-lic" and "Ca-THO-li-cism" matches this pattern well. --Jayron32 02:56, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Hmmm... I believe that some people may have subconsciously refrained from moving the stress forward, creating an unusual pronunciation. 71.79.234.132 (talk) 13:09, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Apology to all who had to witness this. It was unbecoming of me, and for that I am sorry. --Jayron32 01:20, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I would have said that Jay was talking about moving the stress backward, not forward. Is "forward" what actual phoneticians say to refer to later syllables? --70.49.169.244 (talk) 16:41, 20 February 2015 (UTC) The forward direction of time is always later. The arrow of time is generally considered to be "behind = past" and "in front = future". Later syllables in a word are said after the earlier syllables, thus "forward" of them. Am I really explaining the concept of time here? Or does time work differently for you than for the rest of us? --Jayron32 22:23, 20 February 2015 (UTC) But the front of the word is the first letter. Am I really explaining the concept of space here? Or am I asking for references on how actual phoneticians describe this? --70.49.169.244 (talk) 01:04, 21 February 2015 (UTC) Look, we're not treating each other respectfully, and I'm to blame for that. I apologize first to you, and secondly to our readers. This side discussion has nothing to do with answering the OP; we both understand what I meant, and what you mean, and debating the inconsequential isn't a good way to move forward. I apologize to you for treating you with disrespect, it was inexcusable on my part. I'm hatting this to avoid any further trips down this unnecessary road we're traveling on together. I've changed my original post to avoid ambiguity. I don't need to be right here, it's not useful to you or others for me to continue to press forward in this direction. I hope you can accept my apology and we can move on. --Jayron32 01:20, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

An obvious analogue is Protestantism, which (as far as I can tell) remains stubbornly stressed on the first syllable. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 13:40, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Here in Detroit, I stress the 2nd syllable, and pronounce the first as "pra". StuRat (talk) 18:09, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Compare "PRO-test" with "pro-TEST-ant" and "pro-TEST-ant-ism". The first clearly uses a stressed vowel on the "pro" syllable, the second clearly uses a schwa. --Jayron32 01:23, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Wurstkissen to mean "toilet paper to stop the water from hitting your ass"

This guy[6] claims that the Germans have a special word, Wurstkissen, to describe "toilet paper to stop the water from hitting your ass". Is this true? Googling "Wurstkissen" and "Wurstkissen Toilettenpapier" yielded nothing useful. WinterWall (talk) 06:57, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Google translate yields "sausage cushion". Sounds like a joke. Like the fake German word for brassiere: "Schtoppenderfloppen". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:29, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

But the German for "exhaust" is "auspuff" and "glove" is "handschuh". Wierd? Widneymanor (talk) 11:05, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

German is a very straight-forward language many times. Skunk is das Stinktier, for instance. Also, capitalise your nouns! Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 1 Adar 5775 13:59, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Germans do have a bit of an obsession with avoiding splashback - viz the German step toilet - see Terrifying German Toilets - Ach mein Gott! Alansplodge (talk) 13:50, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

I thought those were Austrian. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 1 Adar 5775 13:59, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

There's a horrible pun about Pan-Germanism there somewhere, but there is much cultural commonality between Germany and Austria. About half of the toilets in Luxembourg are of the Germanic type, in my experience. Alansplodge (talk) 17:28, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

According to our Flush toilet article, it's called a Flachspüler and may be found in "...the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and some regions of Poland". Alansplodge (talk) 17:36, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

These toilets haven't been produced since the 90s, so you can still find them in older houses (Toilette). As for "Wurstkissen", it's just a pillow for your excrements (sausages). You have to consider that in Germany, some renown publishers actually print youth dictionaries, which you can get in bookstores. They are collections of words people think the young say since they are made by adults. Another example is "Ticketficker" (ticket fucker) for train conductor. No one really talks like that, not even the worst self-proclaimed "gangsters" (probably because they aren't smart enough to invent these words anyway). They omit letters and ignore grammar, but if they really used such words, it would just sound wrong. People even try to decode that so-called slang on game shows. Just some comic relief. --2.245.101.41 (talk) 17:53, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Danke schön. Alansplodge (talk) 22:54, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Slightly off-topic, but in Japan, the Japanese use toilet paper placed into the toilet to mask the sounds of their 'deliveries'. Some also flush the toilet while doing their 'business' so no-one can hear them. One thing I have noticed, however, is that both Germany and Japan have a lot of toilet humour on TV, despite being so reticent about letting people know about their own toilet habits. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 01:00, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Can someone translate this English sentence into actual English please?

Positivist assumptions provided the epistemological foundations for Social Darwinism and pop-evolutionary notions of progress, as well as for scientific racism and imperialism.

Many thanks, as I find it slightly internally contradictory, or making somewhat contradictory claims within the single sentence. Readability is negative 30, and a grade level of 22. Collect (talk) 19:29, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Hard to say without context. I think it is referencing Logical positivism, and claiming that the assumptions made by that school of thought have provided a basis (i.e. and epistemological foundation) for the concept of social darwinism. Additionally, it is claimed, these unspecified assumptions provide a basis for imperialism and scientific racism. So that's what the sentence is saying, but I certainly wouldn't believe that claim without a lot of further evidence and rationale. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:00, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh, the quote is from here [7], if anyone wants to read the whole piece. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:01, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

As I understood it, Positivism relies only on empiricism and rejects "assumptions" and are the four results all going to arise from it in unison, or is the writer only saying Positivism may result in one of the four listed? The quote appears to be sought as a basis for saying that Positivism results in scientific racism, which I found a bit of a stretch here. Collect (talk) 22:48, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

The author is using "epistemological foundations" as a (rather inaccurate) circumlocution for "excuse". The basic argument the author is condemning goes something like "Positivism enables us to reject as unfounded traditional moral platitudes such as 'All men are created equal' and look only at the facts. The facts are that poor people are less healthy and have shorter lifespans than rich people, and therefore must be genetically inferior (Social Darwinism), and that black people are less successful, less powerful, and worse at IQ tests than white people, and therefore must be genetically inferior (scientific racism)." Tevildo (talk) 02:13, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

• Sounds like a good reason to cancel your subscription. In any case "positivist assumptions" is ambiguous. "Assumptions that were positivist" is a possible, but irrelevant statement (it's like saying English assumptions, when you mean assumptions written in English. Likewise "the assumptions of Positivism" would simply be a false claim. Perhaps the author uses the postmodernist essay generator to create articles for which he gets paid by the word? This is nothing we can provide references for, other than asking you to look up our articles on Positivism and so forth. μηδείς (talk) 23:46, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

The review of Harris is an interesting read, but the main idea I get from it is that both Sam Harris and Jackson Lears are bozos in their separate and distinct ways. I'm mainly familiar with Positivism in the context of mid 20th century linguistics, where it decreed that any hypothesis which was not stated in terms of concrete measurable quantities or entities was "unscientific" (also known as methodological positivism or operationalism -- see my old comment at Talk:Operationalization#1950's social sciences). The Jackson Lears quote appears to have more to do with the 1960s Positivism dispute (as far as I can tell)... AnonMoos (talk) 06:38, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

For an early, and well written, critique of "positivism" in sociology see C. Wright Mills on Talcott Parsons. A few years ago I had really had it up to the neck with the post-modernist crowd and their obsessive rooting out of supposed positivism everywhere. Then I had to read a load of econometrics and suddenly understood that the po-mo people, though wrong about so much, did have a real quarry. The two sides can be summarised as "never measure anything" and "we don't have a clue what it is but we're going to measure it anyway". Thank goodness that we have critical realism to take a middle road between them. I find the original sentence to be quite comprehensible and its main point plausible although somewhat sweeping. The person who it is mainly aimed at is Francis Galton. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:09, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

An Empiricist Empire Exemplar? Interesting fellow! Collect (talk) 00:46, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

February 21

German. IPA for the name in the Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau article

Hey. Know anyone who could contribute IPA for the name in the Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau article? Tks! • Serviceable†Villain 04:00, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Presumably along the lines of [diːtrɪç fɪʃɐ diːskau] (may need to be modified slightly to accord with a German pronunciation transcription standard, if Wikipedia has one)... AnonMoos (talk) 06:23, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

I would say [diːtʁɪç fɪʃɐ diːskaʊ̯]. A trilled R is only found in dialects and considered archaic in the standard language, people use it for broad transcription in English as well. As for diphthongs, it's conventional to indicate their weaker parts. A look on the German Wiktionary might help. --2.245.151.57 (talk) 16:33, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Psychic

Does describing someone as a "psychic", without other comment or qualification, imply an acceptance that they have supernatural powers? Should a term such as "claimed psychic" or "supposed psychic" be used instead? 109.153.229.129 (talk) 12:37, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Not necessarily. Everyone (mostly) knows that these so-called supernatural powers are a humbug, so "psychic" implies how they make a living, it doesn't necessarily imply they have actual powers. Certainly you could have a context where "claimed" or "supposed" might go along with it. But as there is no such thing as a "real" psychic, those adjectives could be considered redundant. In fact, their real "powers" are psychological - the ability to trick people. As a mild comparison we often call illusionists "magicians", even though we know there's no actual "magic" involved. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:13, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

And people who used to believe in 'magic' but stopped, are called 'disillusionists'.... :) KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 14:29, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

And the boy wins a cigar! ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:10, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

"Claimed psychic" and "supposed psychic" sounds like a double fraud: you're falsely claiming to be one of the people who falsely claims to have second sight. Not redundant in that usage (although bizarre; why would you claim that?), but I agree with Bugs that the suggested usage would be. Nyttend (talk) 14:49, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Nyttend, if 'claiming' in your vocabulary automatically means 'falsely claiming', then 'falsely claiming' would mean 'falsely falsely claiming, ad infinitum. A person who has arrived at an airport, but has been taken away by immigration officials because he has trouble finding his travel documents, could claim to be French, for example. The officials would say 'He claims to be French'. This doesn't make it automatically false, it just means the person has not provided any viable proof yet. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 15:38, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Want to make sure my nikkud and Arabic vowels are correct

So I've decided to vowel the Hebrew and Arabic names of a site. Do these vowels look accurate? Hebrew: תֵלְ כַבְרִי‎; Arabic: تَلْ ألْقَهوَة‎. And yes, I know that practically speaking, it doesn't matter which -a or -e sound nikkud you use so long as it's in the proper sound range, but I want to be accurate. Also, the Arabic should be in accordance with the Shaami dialect. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 2 Adar 5775 16:50, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, I was able to guess that you mean Tel Kabri (a name previously unknown to me), so it can't be too wrong. Is the šǝwa on the final lamed necessary? —Tamfang (talk) 04:19, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

The Tel Kabri article is one I focus a lot of attention on in my editting and I didn't want to annoy people by linking it over and over and over and I didn't wikilink all the terminology as I figured anyone familiar enough with Shaami would know what all the various terms mean anyway. You mean at end of tel/tell? That's a schwa? (I admit not being as familiar with the schwa as I should be) I thought it was a sikkun and its Hebrew equivalent meaning no sound after. Can't I fully vocalise as if it were something in the Holy Qu'ran? Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 3 Adar 5775 06:17, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Per Even-Shoshan's "New Dictionary" (1999) Tamfang is correct about the superfluous schwa under the final lamed and I've already removed it from the page. "Kabri" being a proper name, I have no vowelized reference text indicating the first-syllable vowel. If there's no definitive reply here soon, I can cross-post that part of the query to the Language refdesk on the Hebrew Wikipedia. -- Deborahjay (talk) 09:09, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Sure thing, my Hebrew arguing skills are in need of some practice. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 3 Adar 5775 14:08, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Is that the name of Tel Kabri in Arabic? It looks like it says "Coffee Hill". The vowels are right though - but don't you need a sukun over the H? Adam Bishop (talk) 14:03, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

It would literally be mound of the coffee. That specific translation is sourced to Khalidi 1992, click the ref link. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 3 Adar 5775 14:08, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

See the article Tell, which explains what תל is, and cites its vocalized form as תֵּל. It is also there in תֵּל־אָבִיב (Tel-Aviv).

Regarding כברי, there's the article Kabri, Israel, which gives the vocalized version as כַּבְּרִי.

As seen in these spellings, dageshes (central dots) inside the letters כ and ב indicate that they are hard ("k" and "b"), as opposed to soft ("kh" and "v"). The same goes for ת, although the historical hardness-softness distinction with that letter is no longer there in Modern Israeli Hebrew.

The book Практическая грамматика языка иврит (Practical Hebrew Grammar) by Baruch Podolsky (1985), too, agrees that the schwa (shva) under the ל is superfluous. It says that a shva is not normally written under a final letter, except under a final ך (e.g. בַּעֲלֵךְ), or when two consecutive consonants occur world-finally (e.g. אָמַרְתְּ), or in the pronoun אַתְּ.

As far as the Arabic is concerned, the definite article al- has a hamzat waṣl, which may optionally be indicated with a ص over the alif (ٱ), but is never represented with a ء over the alif (أ).

There indeed should be a sukun over the ـهـ.

The ل in تل is geminated, so there should be a shadda indicating that. However, no sukun should be there in that word, because after the geminated ل there is a case-dependent vowel.

The fully diacriticized version of تل القهوة, for the nominative case, would be تَلُّ ٱلْقَهْوَةِ, pronounced tallu-l-qahwati (or, utterance-finally, tallu-l-qahwa) in the standard language.

Given that there are two historical /l/'s in the root of tel/tall, I'd think that the ל in תל must be geminated as well, like the ل in تل is (a gemination would likewise be indicated with a dagesh in Hebrew: לּ). However, the above articles and citations show no indication of that. I can't comment why this is so. --Theurgist (talk) 18:26, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Theurgist -- Already in the recitation pronunciation of Biblical Hebrew transcribed by the Masoretes, word-final geminates were simplified in pronounciation, so dagesh can generally occur only in the word-final consonants בגדכפת (where it does not indicate gemination), and in ה (where it's actually mapiq, not dagesh). AnonMoos (talk) 21:09, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

"So"

Why do Americans very often start a sentence - and completely new topic - with the word 'so', which in British English means 'the next sentence I am going to say is a consequence of the one previous, for which you will already have been informed of the context', whereas, typing something here, like 'So, I went to the store...' when starting a post, is really nonsensical. It means the same as 'Therefore, I went to the store'. 'Therefore'? 'WHEREFORE'? KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 17:47, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

You find the same thing in Italian. In my experience, it's not uncommon to begin a sentence with allora which is the same as so in that use (quindi is how you express the idea of one thing having relation to another—Piove, quindi porto il mio ombrello—it's raining, so I bring my umbrella). I don't know if it's the same in French, but a lot of expressions and idioms in American English are also found in Standard Italian and seem like they've been in Italian longer than our lexicon and so it might be the case that it started with first generation Italian-Americans and then became part of the normal way of speaking. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 2 Adar 5775 17:58, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

But quindi isn't always about a causal relationship. Sometimes it just means that something came after something else.

Oh, I thought you were saying that people started a sentence with quindi without justification; you meant allora. OK, that's a different question. I usually interpret that allora to mean "yeah, so what I'm about to say is not directly related to what we've been talking about, which honestly I don't care about, and I'm going to say this instead". That seems different from the English "so" under discussion. --Trovatore (talk) 19:34, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

French speakers will also commonly start a conversation with "alors" the way english speakers do with "so" and italian speakers with "allora".--Cfmarenostrum (talk) 18:58, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Now that I think about it, I often hear the same thing in portuguese with "então". Is french contaminating my portuguese or do spanish speakers do the same with "entonces" ? Use it as an interjection? --Cfmarenostrum (talk) 19:06, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

I have never heard entonces "then, therefore" used to start a conversation out of the blue in Spanish. μηδείς (talk) 19:31, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

In Spanish pues is used in this same way like "so" in English. Vrac (talk) 21:10, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately it is not only Americans who have developed this intensely irritating habit of beginning sentences with inappropriate "so". I increasingly hear it in the UK too. 109.153.229.129 (talk) 18:06, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

You're welcome for that, McDonalds, Burger King, and Krispie Kreme as well. Oh, and Whole Foods. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 2 Adar 5775 18:17, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Obviously so has meanings other than the two you mentioned, as in phrases like "so be it", "so long as", "it's been so long since...", "so long" [goodbye], etc. What's one more? It annoys you not because of any intrinsic illogicality but simply because you hear it in adulthood and didn't hear it in childhood. Be careful lest you turn into that stereotypical old guy railing against today's youth (such people have existed in every generation, of course). Anyways, wikt:so's earliest (and only) citation for this usage is from 1913 (in a novel by Joseph C. Lincoln). -- BenRG (talk) 18:37, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

It's best to put such things in small text so they can't be interprated as incivility or attacking the OP. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 2 Adar 5775 18:42, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

I smallified one sentence that I didn't need to write. -- BenRG (talk) 19:08, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

It's not completely clear from the entry, but it looks as though the "so" of "so be it" may be the earliest Old English meaning of the word. Since you speak Japanese you know that Japanese sō has a similar meaning, but it can't be used to mean "therefore"—that wouldn't make sense. It's not immediately clear how one gets from that sense of "so" to "therefore", but I'd guess (with no evidence) that it might have evolved from a phrase like "that being so". "That being so" could plausibly also be used to cancel the previous topic of conversation, which is one aspect of the sense of "so" that you asked about. The broader meaning "apropos of nothing" could derive from that. But I'm just guessing. -- BenRG (talk) 19:08, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

I suspect that the phenomenon is much older, it's just deprecated by grammarians as "colloquial" and unsuited for written English. As there is no such thing as punctuation in spoken language, sentence boundaries are often marked by some kind of clitic.

Lookee, searching for "So I went" brought up Jeremiah 13:5. (Is Template:Bibleverse broken?) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:52, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Seamus Heaney translated the introductory "Hwaet!" in Beowulf as "So." --Nicknack009 (talk) 19:01, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 December 31#So.

—Wavelength (talk) 19:33, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, Wavelength. Discourse connective, unfortunately, has been turned into a redirect to Conjunction (grammar). Predictably, Language Log covers the topic as well. Whenever somebody complains about the way the young'uns talk, I immediately think "Recency Illusion"! Thanks, Language Log. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:10, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Redirected to discourse marker instead. — kwami (talk) 20:53, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Yes, "so" as an introductory particle is well-attested historically, having been used by Shakespeare, Swift, Sheridan and Byron (cites available in the OED), but that dictionary suggests some modern usage derives from Yiddish. Dbfirs 19:45, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Interesting point about Yiddish; is so (zo?) also used this way there or does English so copy the behaviour of Yiddish nu?

There's also wikt:so#Interjection, by the way, and note wikt:Talk:so#"So" instead of "Well". Is there a difference between this drawn-out Sooo, ... and unstressed So I went ...? Or is that one stressed, too? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:35, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

• In addition to the above link by Wavelength to the prior discussion, and Dbfirs' useful comment we have the rather poorly documented article discourse marker which largely addresses only English. Attributing this to Americans as if it were some sort of leprosy to which the British are just now being exposed is absurd. The use of discourse markers pre-dates Indo-European. According to Raimo Anttila's Historical and Comparative Linguistics, practically every sentence in Hittite begins with su "and", ta "then" or nu "and now". [Greek sentence particles (kai, gar, al, de...) are well known as are the sentence initial iam, nunc and postpositive particle tamen, autem, enim, quidem, ergo, vero, igitur, etc., of Latin. German has plenty of discourse particles, ja, aber, doch, etc.

The purpose of such particles is to place information in attitudinal relation to prior statements, or, in the case of so, to introduce a new topic:

Hi, Honey, I'm Home (attention)

So, what should we do for dinner tonight? (new topic)

Well, I'm in the mood for steak. (response to same topic)

You know, we could go to that new place downtown. (reminding of known fact)

But they are very expensive. (objection to previous statement)

Or we could go to the hibachi grill you like. (introduce alternative)

Except we just ate there last week. (objection)

So, how about chicken? (attempt to introduce new topic)

No, I really want steak (rejection of new topic)

Then what about the hamburger joint instead? (recognize consequence of prior statement)

Now that's a great idea. (emphasize response)

Okay, settled. (express final agreement).

Note that the American discourse particles could be omitted from the above, leaving the robotic RP version, with all the same factual information but all the emotion of a Vulcan marriage contract:

Honey, I'm Home.

What should we do for dinner tonight?

I'm in the mood for steak.

We could go to that new place downtown.

They are very expensive.

We could go to the hibachi grill you like.

We just ate there last week.

How about chicken?

I really want steak.

What about the hamburger joint instead?

That's an idea.

Settled.

μηδείς (talk) 20:13, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Hm? Hittite is Indo-European ... --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:36, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, I see how you could think I was implying that (it wasn't), but I was in a hurry to save what I had written before you responded in my mid argument since the current blizzard is wreaking havoc with my DSL. μηδείς (talk) 05:03, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

dozens of etymologies for nu- from Japan to Finland, and Greenland west to England, in PIE, Uralic, Altaic, Eskimo and Nivkh
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
PIE Hittite: nu 'nun; und' (Friedrich 152) Tokharian: A nuṃ, nunak, B nano, nänok (PT *nuno, -kä) 'again, even' (Adams 330); A nu, B no (PT *nū) 'however, but' (Adams 347) Old Indian: nū, nu now';nū́ tana−new, recent', nūnám `now, at present' Avestan: nū 'nun'; nūrǝm, nūrąm 'jetzt, nun' Other Iranian: OPers nūra 'jetzt, nun' Old Greek: part. nü, nün encl., adv. νn',adv.nǖ̂ njetzt' Slavic: *nъ, *nū, *nɨ̄́nē Baltic: *nū, *nu Germanic: *nu, *nū; *nu-x Latin: nunc, novus Uralic Finnish: nyky- 'gegenwärtig', tätä nykyä 'gegenwärtig, vorläufig', dial. nyt, ny, nyy 'jetzt, nun' Estonian: nüüd, dial. nüü 'jetzt' Mordovian: ńej (E), ńi (M) 'jetzt, nun; schon' Udmurt (Votyak): ni (S J), ńi (G) 'schon; mehr, nunmehr, weiter' Komi (Zyrian): ńin, nin (S), ni̮n (Peč.), ńi (P) 'schon, bereits, (nicht) mehr' Turkic: *jub-ga Mongolian: *niɣu-n Tungus-Manchu: *nebi Korean: (younger relative) *nǝ̄- (Proto)-Japanese: *nípí- Eskimo Proto-Yupik: *nuta- Meaning: new 1, just now, right now 2 Sirenik: nutǝ́ʁǝcǝ́χ, nutaʁraχ [Vakh.] 1 Chaplino: nutáʁaq (t) 1, nutān 2 Naukan: nutáʁinʁaq 1, nután 2 Alutiiq Alaskan Yupik: nuta[ʁ]aq 1, nutān 2 Chugach (Birket-Smith): nutāq 1, nuttan 2 Central Alaskan Yupik: nutaʁaq 1, nutān 2 Nunivak (Peripheral): nutaʁaq* 1 Proto-Inupik: *nuta- Meaning: new 1, young person 2 Seward Peninsula Inupik: nutāq 1, nutaʁaq 2 SPI Dialects: Imaq nutáq* 1, W nutāq* (āk, āt) 1 North Alaskan Inupik: nutāq 1, nutaʁaq 2 NAI Dialects: B, Ingl nutāq* 1 Western Canadian Inupik: nutāq 1, nutaʁaq 'infant' WCI Dialects: Cor, M nutāq* 1 Eastern Canadian Inupik: nutāq 1 ECI Dialects: Lab nutagak* 'infant', NBI, SB, Iti nutaʁaq 'infant' Greenlandic Inupik: nutāq (nutâq*) 1, nutaʁaq 2 Nivkh Naf (Gruzdeva, 40) I remain thoroughly unimpressed. The Proto-Turkic "cognate" does not even contain a nasal. But we're veering off topic, very widely, so let's better finish here. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:11, 21 February 2015 (UTC) Well, Proto-Turkic doesn't have a native /n/ phoneme, it has changed to a 'y' sound, here transcribed with a "j". You can hardly fault me for answering your question, but do feel free to ignore the answer. The website you link to is irrelevant, since this form is found in hundreds of dialects showing expected sound changes (like the Turkic one) not just two randomly sampled languages that show no other cognates. μηδείς (talk) 21:20, 21 February 2015 (UTC) The point is that the resemblance is statistically irrelevant, even if borrowing could be ruled out (which is impossible). A single initial phoneme does not suffice. Also, you have artificially inflated your list with the enumeration of equally irrelevant descendants when listing Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Uralic, Proto-Turkic/Proto-Mongolic/Proto-Tungusic and Proto-Eskimo(–Aleut) as well as Proto-Nivkh (or some kind of reconstruction; preferrably not only modern Nivkh), and perhaps a few select descendants in brackets, would have sufficed. But again, this is completely off topic, so I'm hatting the whole part. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:35, 22 February 2015 (UTC) You've already shown your total ignorance in the matter with your rejection of the Turkic form because it lacks an /n/ when the entire proto-language lacks that phoneme. I have dozens of proto-language dictionaries for languages worldwide, especially Eurasia, and unless you are accusing people like Michael Fortescue and Edward Vajda of making up their research you have no claim. Where is your counter evidence? What is your alternative hypothesis? Hundreds of forms for scores of roots like water, name, dog, bear, fish, tile, hair/feather, go, etc., (which I can provide to anyone who emails me) exist within and only within the Eurasiatic macrofamily. You quote a study that says any two singular languages are likely to have a few similar roots. I agree with that, namely 'habere/have and dies/day in Latin and English which are known coincidences. But when you get hundreds of dialects showing scores of roots of roots with regular correspondences like the Turkic form here and deny them because the odd resemblances is possible you're providing a silly, pathetic, a priori reason to disbelieve anything that equally proves English mine and German mein are unrelated. After all, Finnish has minun and Turkic has benin/menin, so all these terms must be borrowings. You are not even interested in the evidence, so I am not interested in anything you have to say. μηδείς (talk) 05:00, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't have too much of a problem with your example dialogue. What drives me nuts is this sort of thing: "What kind of music do you like?" / "So I like all kinds really ...". 109.157.12.51 (talk) 22:02, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

That doesn't sound natural to me, I would expect "So, what kind of music...? Well, I like...." It may be a dialect question. Valley girl had some weirdities. In Philly a long time ago people used to say "How?" (as they do in some other European languages) instead of what when they didn't hear your last statement. So I won't say that sentence is not possible, but I can't say I've heard it. μηδείς (talk) 22:20, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

You're very lucky. Perhaps this contagion hasn't yet spread to the area where you live. If it does, and once you start noticing it, I promise you it will drive you nuts too. 109.157.12.51 (talk) 22:47, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

A link to a video of someone actually speaking that way would be helpful. I have explained the phenomenon, shon it existed in Hittite, Greek, Latin, and German, and that such words exist in Lingustic families all across northern Eurasia. Some sort of source from anybody else here would be interesting. And it's not that I am lucky; I just don't know too many teenagers. μηδείς (talk) 04:37, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

• To answer the original question: the word "So" in this context is called a Speech disfluency and serves the same purpose as "um..." or "like..." in some dialects. It is merely the speaker "filling" dead space in his speech while composing his thoughts. --Jayron32 22:25, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

That's not correct, Jayron. The specific context was the beginning of a conversation: "So, I went to the store...' when starting a post" where it introduces a new topic. If someone were to start all their sentences with "so" it would be a disfluency, but that is not the case in the OP's first example. μηδείς (talk) 22:34, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, it could be, like, worse, you know? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:29, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

But the issue is, so, it couldn't be, so, worse, you know? μηδείς (talk) 23:44, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Do people not say "um" or "like" or "uh" at the beginning of a sentence? --Jayron32 01:40, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Of course they do, but not normally when starting a conversation without a prior context. I am talking at the dicourse level, not at the level so independent sentences with no context. Nor do they usually use so repeatedly and in the middle of sentences the way they use "um" when they are just pausing because they can't think on their toes. You are quite aware, Jayron, that the dialog I provided is a normally structured one for modern general english. I'd be quite interested in seeing a video where someone says so repeatedly, when well, or, especially, um would be expected. μηδείς (talk) 04:23, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Or "well", which serves the same purpose, but those are all usually in response to a question. I gather that the OP is griping about someone starting the conversation with "So..." Can't say I've heard it that much; but either way it's hard telling why the OP finds it so irritating, given there are much more annoying things in language usage. But to each their own. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:47, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Personally I think there is almost nothing more annoying. Possibly ending each sentence as if it is a question is about as annoying. Oh, that and saying "The thing is, is that ...". 109.157.12.51 (talk) 03:13, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

More annoying than "like" every two or three words? More annoying than "uh... you know..." which athletes in particular seem afflicted with. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:21, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure why the OP thinks this is a particularly American thing. I've heard so used in this way (that is, as a speech disfluency) on both sides of the pond. In general, I have noticed that speech disfluencies can be used as ways of acquiring or maintaining the floor in a conversation, which may be the rationale for starting a sentence (or even a conversation) with so. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 03:41, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

The annoying habit of ending a sentence in a way that sounds like a question (it's called "High rising terminal" - a trait of "Valspeak") seems to be likewise a way of communicating, "I'm done with the sentence but there's another one coming." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:10, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

As an extreme and satirical similarity, Professor Irwin Corey (who is now going on 101 years old) would sometimes start a lecture with, "However..." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:14, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Sentence shortening help or correction

Hello,

I need to write the following in the shortest manner possible as all sound a bit too much for me.

"Everyone will be justified on Judgement Day, whoever done things knowingly, unknowingly, intentionally, unintentionally, overtly, covertly, purposely, consciously, subconsciously, in an unconscious mind."

If the sentence cannot be shortened and if it is okay then please let me know if I there is anything else I can add using 'commas'.

Regards.

(Angelos|Angelus (talk) 19:04, 21 February 2015 (UTC))

"Everyone will be judged on Judgement Day for their unconscious as well as their conscious actions." is a shortened form that seems to get your meaning across. (I'm not quite sure what you meant by "justified".)Itsmejudith (talk) 19:57, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

I guess I meant 'judged'... Thank you. -- (Angelos|Angelus (talk) 18:38, 22 February 2015 (UTC))

Maybe Justification (theology)? InedibleHulk (talk) 03:47, February 22, 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll read through it... -- (Angelos|Angelus (talk) 18:38, 22 February 2015 (UTC))

"Judgement Day applies to all our actions, conscious or not." StuRat (talk) 20:08, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

True! -- (Angelos|Angelus (talk) 18:38, 22 February 2015 (UTC))

"Judgement Day shall account for all acts - witting or unwitting." Trying to be King Jamesish. Collect (talk) 00:36, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

I'll use these two words; sounds good... -- (Angelos|Angelus (talk) 18:38, 22 February 2015 (UTC))

Yeah, "all" covers those things nicely, if you're not trying for parallelism. If you are, it might be best to split the two with "or" or "and", between commas. Knowingly and unknowingly, intentionally and unintentionally, etc. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:47, February 22, 2015 (UTC)

I'm going to use both; and or. -- (Angelos|Angelus (talk) 18:38, 22 February 2015 (UTC))

Thanks peeps. I'm gonna use the original sentence. What Judith mentioned, I recalled Bugsy mentioning something similar to another sentence I posted some time ago, which was similar to the original sentence I posted here seeking help for, and he mentioned to use the word 'intention'. After reading Judith's post, and Hulky's posts, I realised that I'll put my original sentence at the beginning, and statements such as Judith's and Bugsy's, I will insert it as I go along with the matching fields...

Kind regards!

(Angelos|Angelus (talk) 18:38, 22 February 2015 (UTC))

Resolved

February 22

How do speakers of tonal languages sing most kinds of songs?

How in the world do speakers of tonal languages sing most kinds of songs? Wouldn't the tonal aspect of their languages make that very difficult, if tone is of the utmost importance in their languages? Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 05:09, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Can't speak for other languages, but in Mandarin you would just sing without the tones. The meaning is usually clear from the combination of words and the context. — SMUconlaw (talk) 06:58, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

It's the same for modern Thai/Lao songs. Meaning is clear from context (the same is true for the hearing impaired who have to read lips, btw). In some traditional Thai and/or Lao music forms, however, (such as mor lam) the melody of the song is often determined by the tones of the words. Also interesting is that in Thai poetry, the โคลง meter prescribes certain tones for specific syllables.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 08:18, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Previous reference-desk threads here, here, and here. There may be others. Deor (talk) 11:54, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

cuckoo sign

I'm confused. What exactly does the "cuckoo sign" (A gesture, consisting of a twirling motion of a finger near the temple) refer to? Wiktionary asserts that the gesture indicates that "that a person may have a screw loose", which would explain the twirling, but not the cuckoo, unless the lunatic's brain is likened to a cuckoo clock (I seem to remember that from old cartoons, but I couldn't give an example). The equivalent German gesture is tipping, not twirling, one's index finger against the forehead and relates to the expression einen Vogel haben, which supposedly relates to an old superstition that birds may be nesting in the lunatic's head, but if the bird is ever specified, it's not a cuckoo, but rather a tit. Any ideas anyone? Also, is the tipping gesture really uncommon in North America? What about Britain? Tip or twirl? --Janneman (talk) 21:20, 22 February 2015 (UTC)