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January 25

Translation of Chinese from Alchemical Source

The following comes from the Yellow Court Classic. I'm reading about alchemy in English sources, but I'm not sure how to translate the following: "至道不煩無旁午，靈臺通天臨中野，方寸之中至關下，玉房之中神門戶，皆是公子教我者." I know in the context of alchemical literature, 靈臺 refers to the heart-mind and 方寸, while sometimes referring to the heart-mind, likely refers to the lowest of three dantiens where the mind is focused. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 17:40, 25 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Spanish dialects

Is "Feliz Navidad" pronounced differently in Spanish from Spain, than in US Spanish? Particularly with regard to the dropped consonant at the end of Navidad in the US version, and similarly in other such words. Are the dialects as far apart as, say, Québécois French vs French from France? Thanks. 2601:648:8202:96B0:0:0:0:4FFF (talk) 21:14, 25 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In general, it would be pronounced /feˈliθ naβiˈðað/ in most of Spain and /feˈlis naβiˈðað/ in most Western Hemisphere dialects, the main difference being the "z" in "feliz" which is /θ/ in most of Spain and /s/ in the Americas. The /θ/ (in Spain) in that position could be slightly voiced in rapid speech. Also, in many dialects of American Spanish, final "s" may sound like English "h" or disappear altogether in casual speech. See Spanish phonology for more details. Just as an FYI, "US Spanish" is not monolithic; there are many dialects of Spanish spoken in the US including Mexican Spanish and Caribbean Spanish among others (see Spanish language in the United States#Spanish sub-types for more). There are also many dialects of Spanish spoken within Spain. Out of curiosity, what do you mean by "dropped consonant at the end of Navidad"? Both "d"s in "Navidad" are pronounced as [ð] (an English voiced "th" sound as in "the").--William Thweatt ^Talk^Contribs 00:46, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm thinking of a sound like "Feliz Navidahhh", e.g. in José Feliciano's song. I can't access youtube to listen to it right now but it is there. I didn't realize there was that much difference between North American Spanish dialects but looking at the articles, I guess there is. Thanks. 2601:648:8202:96B0:0:0:0:4FFF (talk) 03:49, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In an English word like "granddad", the final "d" is pronounced as a stop with an audible release. The final "d" of Spanish "Navidad" is a dental approximant; there is no release. Although closely resembling the soft phoneme /ð/ of English, a dental fricative, its place of articulation is different, making it softer. Also, in American English, the voiced /ð/ is rarely heard word-final, and only before a following vowel. This may explain why this phoneme, not occurring so softly in English and not at all in this position in American English, can appear to have been dropped. Native Spanish speakers on either side of the Atlantic will have no problem hearing it. --Lambiam 18:11, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean a sound like the "th" in bathe or lathe? Hmm ok. When I described a dropped d, I didn't mean completely eliminated, but maybe shortened like the "u" in "ohio gozaimasu" if that makes any sense. I'll listen to the Feliciano track again when I can use an audio player soon. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 22:35, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that is the voiced dental fricative. BTW, the final vowel in ohayō gozaimasu is not so much shortened as voiceless, indicated by the small circle below the [ɨᵝ] in the IPA transcription [o̞ha̠jo̞ː ɡo̞za̠ima̠sɨ̥ᵝ]. --Lambiam 12:04, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Here's José singing the song [1] [2] and here's a cover version [3]. 2A00:23C5:C710:1F00:3103:A481:F923:CC05 (talk) 19:19, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

January 26

Do the words miner and myna have any realation.

Background: I live in Sydney, Australia, where the endemic noise miner, and the imported Indian myna both serve as irritating alarm clocks, until today I thought that both species were "miners".

I'm just wondering if the two names are related, or are these birds as different as night and day.

Thanks --TheTomorrow (talk) 08:51, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Our article on Manorina says that "The name "miner" derives from a mid 19th century re-spelling of the Hindi name "myna", which they resemble, but was not formally adopted until the early 20th century" (with a source). Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:08, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note that the Australian miners are not anything like closely related to the Mynas which are members of "the starling family (Sturnidae)... native to southern Asia, especially India, Pakistan and Bangladesh", they have just borrowed the name. In much the same way, the Australian magpie is only very distantly related to the Eurasian magpie. This is why we need Latin binomial nomenclature. Alansplodge (talk) 17:21, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This happened many places all over the world; when Europeans encountered new flora and fauna across the world in their explorations, they sometimes asked native people what they were called (for example, the Virginia opossum, the original source of the name was a local native word) but often they just used a word they were familiar with they had used to describe what they thought was a similar animal, but which was only tenuously related to the animal in question. That's how we get such things as the North American buzzard being entirely unrelated to the Eurasian buzzards, or the Old World porcupine being mostly unrelated to the New World porcupines. --Jayron 32 13:13, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The word "opossum" is an interesting example, because in Australia it somehow lost its first letter and turned into "possum" to describe a very diverse group of only slightly related marsupials, because some of them look like north American opossums. HiLo48 (talk) 21:59, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Possum" is what most folks who don't happen to be zoologists call opossums, Stateside. --Trovatore (talk) 22:47, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

And what many Australian mums call their kids. (Isn't that right, Peter Costello? - [4]) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:51, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's also the very public name of a sadly deceased New Zealand rally driver - Possum Bourne. He got the name for once crashing his mother's car while trying to avoid a possum on the road. Trying to avoid a possum on the road is close to a crime in New Zealand. The creatures are not highly regarded there. HiLo48 (talk) 23:25, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Also the nickname for the (also sadly deceased) American country music singer George Jones, said to be inspired by the shape of his nose. Personally, I don't see it. --Khajidha (talk) 10:30, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Some better pics in Google Images make it clearer. Though it's still a stretch. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:12, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

January 27

Is there a term for excluding "The" when alphabetically indexing things?

For example, say I had an A-Z List of Books that ignored "The" at the start of their titles for how to alphabetize them, so The End would be under E and The Stand would be under S, but I had another list of movies where the T section was huge because The Shining and The Matrix and so on were all under T.

It's pretty common to exclude "The" like this, but there is a word or term for doing so, that you could describe the first list as being?--occono (talk) 12:25, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There is not, as far as I am aware or can find with a search online, any specific word or phrase beyond the ones you have already used, to describe this concept. --Jayron 32 13:19, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a short but precisely written paper about the matter. It doesn't use any particular term. From this, I infer that if one wants to write about this, one doesn't have to trouble to think of (or dream up) technical terms for it. -- Hoary (talk) 13:41, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In morphological analysis (not the same as collation, of course), the term for ignoring stuff at the beginning to get to the essential part of the word is "prefix stemming"... AnonMoos (talk) 23:40, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

See Stemming. -- Hoary (talk)

"The", "a" and "an" are generally placed among stop words. (There are exceptions: if there weren't, "The The" would evaporate.) So if you were really intent on an impressive/soporific way of expressing the idea, perhaps something like "implementing a stop word function". -- Hoary (talk) 00:55, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

lugbara

Which language do lugbara people in Uganda speak? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.210.146.200 (talk) 21:09, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Presumably most of them speak the Lugbara language; a number may be bilingual or multilingual in one or more of the other Languages of Uganda (including English). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.239.195} 90.205.58.107 (talk) 22:34, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

January 28

Sophomore

How come so many people use this word simply to mean second?? Are there any similar words used to mean third, fourth, and so on?? Georgia guy (talk) 12:33, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

See Sophomore, from the first sentence of the article "is a student in the second year of study at high school or college." By analogy, the word sophomore is often applied to other second efforts, such as a professional athlete's second season in the pros, or a band's second album, etc. I am not aware of any special terms applied similarly to any other situation for "third", "fourth" etc. (that is, there is no special word for a band's third album) --Jayron 32 13:07, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

But why do people use such a fancy word when "second" is more obvious?? Georgia guy (talk) 13:17, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Because sometimes people like to use fancy words. The use of synonyms in English is a way to add variety and texture to language. --Jayron 32 13:26, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you (User:Georgia guy) use two question marks when one is sufficient? --Khajidha (talk) 13:37, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I just think it's interesting. Georgia guy (talk) 13:55, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Adding varietyness and texturing. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:38, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If you want 'fancy', students in successive years at the university I attended were called Bejants, Semis, Tertians and Magistrands, and had a somewhat unusual dress code. That's what 6 centuries of tradition can land you with. (And don't mention the raisins!) {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.205.58.107 (talk) 17:08, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Please get a Wikipedia user name so that we'll know all your edits are the same person. Georgia guy (talk) 17:32, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There's no rule requiring registration, and "poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195" has never run afoul of any rules that I can recall. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:36, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Also, unlike many IP users, TPFKA 87.etc uses a consistent identity. They've been here for years, and always identifies themselves as the same person. Get off their back, GG. They did nothing wrong, and there's no reason you should be bothering them. --Jayron 32 19:56, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I apologize. Sometimes we have to "think outside the box" with how problems with Wikipedia can be resolved. Georgia guy (talk) 20:04, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Unregistered users are not a problem that needs to be resolved. --Jayron 32 20:06, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Just for comparison, at the university I went to, undergrads were called first-year, second-year, third-year, and fourth-year students. "Freshmen" or "frosh" was used as well for first-years, but unofficially. And at the high school I went to, there were grade 9, grade 10, grade 11, year 4, and year 5 students. (Well, not all of those simultaneously. They changed the numbering the after I finished grade 11.) --142.112.159.101 (talk) 02:14, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

My school career went from Sub A to Sub B to Standard 1 through Standard 9 and the 12th years is called Matric and us scholars were matriculants. Also my Kimberley Boys' High School as the teacher wear robes, by choice. Anton 81.131.40.58 (talk) 09:41, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that the word is mainly used with this meaning in combinations like "sophomore album" or "sophomore book" for artists who had a successful launch of their first creations, naturally leading people to ask if these would turn out to be one-hit wonders. Publishing their second one proves they are not early dropouts. There appear to be more semantic undertones than carried by just "second". For the rest, language evolves by occasional innovations plus people copying what they hear from others. Fads come and go, and a few changes stick, in languages as well as in other cultural manifestations. Why some things spread while others don't, and why some fall out of fashion when they do, is not generally well understood. --Lambiam 08:58, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That theory sounds groovy. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:09, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sort of off-topic, but at least it's about the same word: My mother went to a two-year college in the South (transferred to a four-year one later on, and eventually got her Master's). I remember seeing the yearbook from the two-year college. They essentially "multiplied the class name by two": First-year students were "sophomores"; second-year were "seniors". Curious whether anyone else is familiar with this usage. --Trovatore (talk) 21:31, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

January 29

Biographies of parents with both living and deceased children

If a parent has both living children and deceased children, what is the most tactful way to convey that information in a sentence or two? I ask after looking at the personal life section of Joe Bryant (Kobe's father). Various editors have been changing the wording, but nothing looks right to me. Zagalejo^^^ 03:34, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

At the moment it reads "In 1975, Bryant married Pam Cox, sister of former NBA player Chubby Cox. Bryant's son, Kobe, won five NBA championships with the Los Angeles Lakers. Bryant also has two daughters, Sharia and Shaya. Through his wife Pam, he is the uncle of professional basketball player John Cox IV. On January 26, 2020, Kobe Bryant died in a helicopter crash, along with Bryant's 13-year-old grand-daughter Gianna and seven others.[10][11]"

Looks good to me. Factual and straightforward. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:52, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Omitting articles in English text

Way back in the late 1980s, when I got my first Transformers toys, I noticed that the instruction manuals used a form of English that was completely new to me at the time. For example, an instruction manual might say:

Fold front part of car apart to form arms. Pull back part of car back to form legs. Stand robot.

The way I had learned English, it would have to have been:

Fold the front part of the car apart to form the arms. Pull the back part of the car back to form the legs. Stand the robot.

Of course I understood everything, but I didn't know English could be written this way. Is there a name for this form of English? And why were the manuals written in this way? Is it used elsewhere? JIP | Talk 13:31, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'd guess that various manufacturers wanted to provide instructions in a variety of languages yet do so in limited space. (I remember multilingual instructions for exposing films, all on a single piece of paper that would fit in the box.) So there would have been a motive for this kind of "telegraphese". It became commoner, people got used to it, it then became expected. NB this is mere guesswork. -- Hoary (talk) 13:41, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Except that the instruction manuals for Transformers toys in the US at the time were written in this variant of English and no other languages. This form of writing is very common in instructions and similar forms of writing. --Khajidha (talk) 14:32, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This "elliptical style" (as the style manual Words into Type calls it) is also common in recipes, usage in which may predate usage in such manufacturers' instructions. The style manual I mentioned has this to say: "Instructions are sometimes written in an elliptical style, omitting articles. Consistency should be observed, omitting all or none." Deor (talk) 14:35, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That style has been around for a long time, presumably to cut down on wordiness. "Insert tab A into slot B." That kind of thing. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:46, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I remember begging my Dad for a transformer and after months of pleading, one Saturday morning he agreed and took me into town and bought an AC/DC electricity transformer. I was not amused. lol Anton 81.131.40.58 (talk) 14:50, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The phantom The

Is there a word to cover the action of adding a "The" to the start of a name or title that shouldn't have one? e.g referring to Eurythmics as The Eurythmics - X201 (talk) 14:08, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Not really, but it's an example of hypercorrection. --Viennese Waltz 14:19, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) It's called "usual English grammar". The normal rules of English grammar allow for the use of the definite article "the" before plural nouns, especially in situations when dealing with the plural as a specific, designated grouping. Referring to the band as "the Eurythmics" is not incorrect in any way, and mirrors the usage of the word "the" in numerous other similar contexts. Consider "the dogs are barking" meaning "There's a specific group of dogs (where both of us know which dogs they are) that are barking", which is different from "Dogs are barking" which means "Some unidentified group of dogs (where none of us really knows which ones they are) are barking". In the case of "the Eurythmics", the use of the definite article is more natural and how people would normally speak, because, when we say "The Eurythmics are playing a concert" we're referring to a specific grouping, "Eurythmics are playing a concert" feels like it could be any random Eurythmics and not a specific set of them; yes, we can after the fact take the time to analyze the statement and realize what is meant, but in the case of making language as natural and understandable to our listeners/readers, "the Eurythmics" in that context does not feel marked in the way that leaving off the definite article does. So, to answer your question directly, again, the use of "the" before the word "Eurythmics" goes by the name "standard English grammar." --Jayron 32 14:26, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I must say, I've never come across any random Eurythmics. Articles in band names can be a bit of an oddity. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:50, 29 January 2020 (UTC) p.s. I've always thought Annie Lennox had a great voice.[reply]

(ec) I don't think your (Jayron32's) informative answer exactly answers the question. X201 carefully wrote "The" (with an uppercase "T"), twice, so asking specifically about the word being part of the title. I don't think I'd say "The Dire Straits", "The Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark", or "The Sparks, so I think the answer is more complex. Bazza (talk) 14:53, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You hit the nail on the head Bazza. I was trying to think of other groups or TV shows as examples, but my mind came up blank. - X201 (talk) 16:56, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, quite. RP/BBC English has often been ridiculed for adding an unwanted The, e.g. The Pink Floyd. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:59, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You are wrong. In their early days they were known as The Pink Floyd. --Viennese Waltz 15:05, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I certainly wasn't claiming they were never called that. Only that the BBC failed to drop the The when it became unfashionable. Partly why I chose that as an example! Martinevans123 (talk) 15:12, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I've only seen such added "The"s (capitalized) at the beginnings of sentences (or fragments). I've never noticed such in running text, "I saw the Eurythmics last night", yes, "I saw The Eurythmics last night", no. --Khajidha (talk) 15:02, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

At least they're consistent. The Beatles were most often "The Beatles", but on some of their albums they were only "Beatles". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:12, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"The Beatles" vs "the Beatles" has been a long running saga at MoS. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:13, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That's of minor concern, such subtle differences in orthography have little effect on the understandability of the language. The greater concern is that, among the "article is not a part of the name" crowd, there is an ardent subset who also removes any article, without regard to capitalization, from the text, so we get such monstrosities as "I bought an album by Beatles last week" or "Have you heard a new song by Beatles". There's numerous examples of such things all over Wikipedia. --Jayron 32 15:22, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A waste of money. Most of them are now dead, allegedly. Although they were more popular than the Jesus. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:52, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I will note that, in the specific example given, it is blatantly clear that the current Wikipedia article titled Eurythmics is using incorrect grammar. When we check ngrams, here, we see that comparing the phrase "by Eurythmics" vs. "by the Eurythmics" there are literally no examples from the corpus of the former usage (the "the"less one). this one using "to the Eurythmics vs. "to Eurythmics" also shows similar results. We can probably debate and allow for a variance of opinion as to whether the use of "the" should be capitalized or not, but omitting the definite article altogether is simply unknown in the English corpus, so the Wikipedia article pretending that is the proper way to write is utter bullshit. --Jayron32 17:34, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- That pedantic plague appears to have begun 15 years ago,[5] by an editor who bailed in 2007. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:56, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - Interesting. One of the things I've "learned" from Wikipedia is that Eagles (band) should not be referred to as "the Eagles". If that's wrong, I'd like to know.
    By the way, if re-run Jayron's query for "by Eagles" vs "by the Eagles"], I find a substantial preference for "by Eagles". But my guess is that if you looked into those occurrences, you would find that a lot of them were talking about the bird rather than the band. No obvious, easy way of checking that comes to mind. --Trovatore (talk) 21:08, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    You can turn off the default case-insensitivity and re-re-run the query. The result is interestingly different. --Lambiam 07:46, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I did that, actually. Considered mentioning it, but the results, while suggestive, are not really definitive, and it seemed like too much work to report on. --Trovatore (talk) 08:01, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Here is a search comparing "song by Eagles" and "song by the Eagles"; that should hypothetically eliminate much of the noise from the bird portion of the searches. Once again, the "the-less" version is essentially unknown. While the proper name of the band is "Eagles", that still does not override normal English grammar when using the word in a sentence. --Jayron 32 13:19, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Ok Jayron, nice one, just try and chill thy article beans. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:30, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I hate the fuckin' Eagles, man. Deor (talk) 13:42, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    This aggression will not stand, man! --Jayron 32 14:42, 30 January 2020 (UTC) [reply]
    
    You're a Cowboys fan? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:50, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation of ʻokina

The ʻokina marks a glottal stop in words like Hawaiʻi. How do you pronounce the name of the punctuation mark itself? (I've also asked at Talk:ʻOkina, but no responses so far.) Thanks. —151.132.206.250 (talk) 19:13, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

According to wikt:okina, it is oh-KEE-nah. Jmar67 (talk) 20:04, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In English? Or in Hawaiian? I would guess that the Hawaiian name would be pronounced with an initial glottal stop. However, that isn't a sound that English uses at the beginnings of words. --Khajidha (talk) 20:06, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It is, when an utterance starts with a vowel. If you say "ʻokina is the Hawaiian character representing a glottal stop", it shoud come out about right. After "the" I'd say it's 50–50. I find that if I start a sentence with "the ʻokina", it seems to depend on whether I pronounce "the" as /ðʌ/ (in which case I want to use the glottal stop) or /ðiː/ (in which case I don't). --Trovatore (talk) 20:50, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The younger generation should have no problem. They now routinely spout atrocities like "Thə interesting thing is that thə answer is 'ə apple', not 'ə orange'". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:18, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure exactly what you mean. Maybe this is some Oz trend that hasn't made it here yet? But beyond that I'm not sure what the complaint is in the first place. I use /ðʌ/ and /ðiː/ fairly interchangeably, with /ðiː/ being maybe just a touch more formal. --Trovatore (talk) 06:27, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I just noticed that you meant "a apple" instead of "an apple". I don't say that, of course. But Mr Bumble probably would have, so it's not all that new. --Trovatore (talk) 06:29, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Not only that. When you say "the answer", is it elided to "thee-y-answer" or is there a glottal stop as per my example? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:31, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I use both forms interchangeably. --Trovatore (talk) 07:38, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I realized on reflection that there's a manifold confluence of threads that's too interesting not to mention (at least from my possibly slightly idiosyncratic view of interestingness).

The section above talks about the Eagles, which I would almost certainly render as /ðʌˈʔiːglz/ because using the /ðiː/ pronunciation would blend into the first syllable of "Eagles".

But I was also going to give an example in German, suggesting that if you know German you should try to pronounce der Adler, which has a glottal stop before the A.

I think it's a pure coincidence that Adler means "eagle". --Trovatore (talk) 06:35, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Von der Leyen and Eliot

Ursula von der Leyen tells UK "Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depth of love": [6]. But where and when did pre-Brexit novelist and poet George Eliot ever write this? (It's also a popular quote for funerals, it seems). 81.153.151.61 (talk) 22:29, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean by also for funerals? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:11, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In chapter 44 of Felix Holt, the Radical, she wrote "And 'tis a strange truth that only in the agony of parting we look into the depths of love." ---Sluzzelin talk 23:19, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)One of my favorite authors. The quote is from Felix Holt, the Radical, published in 1866. You'll find it on page 377 here: [7].--William Thweatt ^Talk^Contribs 23:22, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

English pronunciation of qaf and kaf

How can anglophones distinguish the names of these 2 Arabic letters?? Georgia guy (talk) 23:23, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Qoph#Arabic_qāf discusses how to pronounce "qaf". Do you see anything about an Arabic letter in Kaf? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:51, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Our article on kaf is at Kaph#Arabic kāf--William Thweatt ^Talk^Contribs 01:44, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

January 30

need help translating Kanji album cover

link --> https://img.discogs.com/xffouchGHMx0c0l0boXkLpx-kVo=/fit-in/600x601/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-4949421-1451338983-6970.jpeg.jpg

I want to write an article on this band/album. What does the cover say in English, please? 50.111.33.12 (talk) 08:24, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Klingon and Kazakh

How do you say toothbrush in Klingon and Kazakh?

@@ Line 181: / Line 181: @@
 I want to write an article on this band/album. What does the cover say in English, please? [[Special:Contributions/50.111.33.12|50.111.33.12]] ([[User talk:50.111.33.12|talk]]) 08:24, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
+== Klingon and Kazakh ==
+How do you say toothbrush in Klingon and Kazakh?