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October 16

Sentence construction

Hi,
Does the following sentence read correctly? As a birthday gift, Jack went mini golfing at Hole-in-one, a company owned and operated by Fred.

Or should it instead be: Jack went mini golfing as a birthday gift at Hole-in-one: a company owned and operated by Fred.

Thanks, --Fir0002 00:27, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Both examples are permissible syntactically. The first emphasises that the mini-golfing was a gift for Jack's birthday. The other is emphasis-neutral. WRT punctuation, a dash or a comma is better than a colon after "Hole-in-One". Steewi (talk) 00:49, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks - I was a bit worried that 'Jack went mini golfing at Hole-in-one' might be regarded as a parenthesis (which it's not - it's a key part of the sentence). --Fir0002 01:08, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Both of these make me cringe due to the ambiguity and ugly sentence structure. Is it Jack's birthday? Or Fred's? Or Jill's (Jill being Jack's mini-golf-loving spouse ;-)? I think there are too many details to comfortably fit into one sentence. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:37, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Further to Stephan's comment, I think the word "went" is a problem. It allows the possibility that Jack went golfing alone. If the golfing was a present to Jack, then "Jack was taken mini golfing" would be better. If it was Jill's birthday, then "Jack took Jill mini golfing" would be clearer. Wanderer57 (talk) 17:05, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry that I didn't make this clear at the start but I'm only interested in whether the above sentence was grammatically correct. I'm not worried about the ambiguity as when the sentence is in context it's not an issue --Fir0002 02:26, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Did somebody give Jack a mini-golfing package as a birthday gift, or did he think that he was so special that his deigning to appear at Fred's company was a gift for Fred? Little Red Riding Hoodtalk 20:01, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I say the word "company" is wrong. You don't go mini-golfing at a company, you do it at a mini-golf course (or some such expression). Informally you might say "at Hole-in-one, a course owned and operated by Fred". (Formally, if it's an incorporated business, the course is owned and operated by the company and the company in turn is owned and operated by Fred.) --Anonymous, 21:11 UTC, October 16, 2008.

The above was an artificial sentence to parallel what I'm actually writing so don't get too worried about "company" etc. --Fir0002 02:26, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Netherlands in espanol

Why is it in Spanish "Netherlands" and "Kingdom of the Netherlands" is Países Bajos and Reino de los Países Bajos, but "Netherlands Antilles" is Antillas Neerlandesas and their language is neerlandes? Grsz^X 00:53, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Probably for the same reasons that in English, the people from the Netherlands are the Dutch, but the Pennsylvania Dutch are from Germany, a country the French call Allemagne. Probably because some words are translated, and some words are borrowed from the native language, often without any apparent logic or reason. Apparently in Spanish the word for the nation is translated directly, while the word for the adjectival form is transliterated from the Dutch word. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 01:04, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Also the Low Countries were known in Spain long before some of the Antilles were Dutch. And of course "nether lands" is "low countries". Saintrain (talk) 01:18, 16 October 2008

Which might lead one to logically conclude that in English there's a one-to-one relationship between the Low Countries and the Netherlands. Which would be wrong - the Low Countries also includes Belgium, and possibly a bit of France as well. The Netherlands is also commonly referred to as Holland, although to the Dutch that refers only to two provinces of the Netherlands, not the whole country. Then there's the landmass on which the mainland of Australia is located - Abel Tasman dubbed it New Holland, but at least he named it after the then province Holland, not the country some English-speaking people call Holland. The British renamed it Australia in 1824, but the Dutch continued to call it Nieuw Holland till late in the 19th century. "Australia" originally meant just that large island, and was a strictly geographic term. It did not include Van Diemen's Land, although from 1788 Van Diemen's Land was part of the colony of New South Wales, which was otherwise located on the island of New Holland (it only became a separate colony in 1825). Over time, "the Australian colonies" came to include Van Diemen's Land, which was renamed Tasmania in 1856 in honour of the person who named it, Abel Tasman. Then Australia became a political term when the colonies, including Tasmania, federated in 1901. Later still, it became a geographical term once again when geographers in their wisdom decided to define a continent that extends beyond the country of Australia to include the island of New Guinea - as "Australia": see Australia (continent). New Guinea itself has been split between various powers, and the western part of it was once part of the Dutch East Indies, and is now part of Indonesia. All terribly confusing. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:51, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

So, why, in Japanese, is it 'Oranda', as I expected this to come from Spanish/Portuguese.--ChokinBako (talk) 21:39, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Probably a transliteration of the Japanese pronunciation of "Holland". Little Red Riding Hoodtalk 22:14, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

No, by the proper rules that would be 'Horando'.--ChokinBako (talk) 23:15, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Except that the Spanish word for the region of the Netherlands called Holland is Holanda. Steewi (talk) 23:39, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I thought there must have been a word in Spanish like that. Thanks!--ChokinBako (talk) 23:51, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Quu

Are there any words in English with a Q followed by two U's? February 15, 2009 (talk) 04:24, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

The only one I can think of is "squush", an alternate spelling of "sqush". Lantzy ^talk 05:27, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I can't think of any, but you may be interested to know that there are several words in Latin with that combination. Adam Bishop (talk) 05:41, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

The only two in Merriam-Webster's online dictionary are equus and squushy. —Angr 05:56, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

a broader search finds many Latin medical and Linnaean names, and quux, a metasyntactic variable. jnestorius^(talk) 23:27, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Bahrain

Since "Bahrain" is the genitive part of the idafa in "Mamlakat al-Bahrain", does anyone ever just call it "the two seas", "Bahraan"? I'm guessing from the first line of Bahrainona that "Bahrain" is the normal name even without the preceding "Kingdom of" but I was curious anyway. Adam Bishop (talk) 07:50, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I would guess that preference for Bahrain reflects more colloquial Arabic patterns (where the classical Arabic nominative "sound" masculine plural/dual endings are supplanted by the oblique endings). The pure classically-correct suffixed form of Bahrain, treated as a dual noun, would be Bahraina بحرينا anyway; the form "Bahrainuna" suggests that the noun is not synchonically treated as a true dual word... AnonMoos (talk) 09:03, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Switch engines off or switch off engines

This has been bugging me for some time! Every day at lunch I go for a walk and pass a bus stop where buses sit parked for a while (it is a terminus or something like that). There is a sign next to the stop, which reads "Drivers must switch engines off if laying over for more than two minutes". Is "switch engines off" correct usage? Shouldn't it be "switch off engines"? Also, what type of word is "off" in "switch engines off"? Switch is a verb, and engines is a noun, but what is off? An adverb? Thanks everyone! 121.44.51.63 (talk) 10:36, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I would probably go with "switch off engines", but only because the rhythm of it is nicer. There's nothing wrong with "switch engines off" from a grammatical point of view. As for "off", I would say it's a preposition. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 10:42, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

It's not a preposition in this sentence, though. There's some special term used in English grammar for words like this, but I can't remember what it is. They have the strange property that they can either precede or follow full nouns (as both switch off engines and switch engines off are grammatical), but can only follow pronouns (switch them off is grammatical but *switch off them is ungrammatical). —Angr 10:46, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Wiktionary indicates the part of speech adverb for off in the example switch off. It is probably wrong though, because they indicate the part of speech preposition for across in structures like come across (but for me they should be the same part of speech). --Lgriot (talk) 11:13, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Chambers has "off" as both an adverb and a preposition. I went for preposition on the basis of this partial definition: "ín or to a position or condition that is not on". --Richardrj ^{talk email} 11:22, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Wiktionary's example sentence for "come across" with an object is "In the meadow he will come across a rare flower." However, *"In the meadow he will come a rare flower across" is ungrammatical. But both "In the parking lot he will switch off his engine" and "In the parking lot he will switch his engine off" are grammatical, suggesting that "across" and "off" are different parts of speech, or at least that "come across" and "switch off" are different constructions. Calling "off" an adverb is okay to the extent that adverbs are the catch-all grammatical category assigned to any word that can't conveniently be called any of the other traditional parts of speech. —Angr 11:31, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

In Limburg we call it a non-verbal part of the verb (ónwèrkwaordelik deil vèrbs) hae zèt de moeater aaf -> he switches off the engine, while some say it's a postposition (afterzètsel) --OosWesThoesBes (talk) 11:56, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

See Phrasal verb, especially the "Particle verbs" subsection. Deor (talk) 12:03, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

The fact that you can say either "switch off (the) engine" or "switch (the) engine off" proves that it isn't a proposition. When it is a preposition, you only have the first choice: when talking about taking a side road you can say "turn off the road" but not "turn the road off". I'd consider it an adverb, but the analysis that it's part of a phrasal verb also makes some sense. --Anonymous, 21:15 UTC, October 16, 2008.

This could just be a difference in styleor usage. Think of "switch" in the sense of "change to another state." So you switch the engine off, then you switch it on. If the engines aren't running, the sign's working. Or would you tell the drivers "knock off it" instead of "knock it off?" --- OtherDave (talk) 16:19, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

In 'Switch it to "off".', "off" is a _____? Looks kinda nounoidal to me. Saintrain (talk) 18:08, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, from a practical rather than grammatical point of view, the order "switch engine off" works a lot better than "switch off engine"; if you put the state (off) before the switch (engine), then you have to remember the state while you locate the switch, or read the instruction more than once. Maybe not a problem with the OP's sign, but a major hassle if you have a long checklist to go through. FiggyBee (talk) 18:18, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Switch off the engine! Why not?--Radh (talk) 19:51, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

“The banks just are not lending.” vs. “The banks are just not lending.”

What sounds more natural? Mr.K. (talk) 12:00, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

The banks are just not lending. --OosWesThoesBes (talk) 12:01, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Source of the first here,(NYT).--Mr.K. (talk) 12:11, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Both are possible, but the second sounds "more natural". --OosWesThoesBes (talk) 12:17, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I think there's a subtle meaning difference between the two. The first implies that not lending is the only thing the banks are doing which should be considered. The second emphasises the not part of not lending. Tricky to explain now I think about it, but I do read these differently. Bazza (talk) 16:09, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I think I know what you mean, Bazza 7. There's a discussion going on about various things that banks have stopped doing, and someone says "Look, the only thing the banks have stopped doing is lending; they're still doing everything else". If that's what they meant, I guess I could imagine someone trying to express it as "The banks just are not lending", but it's ambiguous because it could easily be misinterpreted as "the banks are just not lending", meaning "the banks are simply not lending". -- JackofOz (talk) 16:19, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps "The banks are not lending" would convey the intended meaning. Wanderer57 (talk) 19:39, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

To me (1) looks like a subeditor rewrote "The banks just aren't lending", which is fine; for me, (1) as written doesn't sound right, in either of the interpretations suggested. jnestorius^(talk) 23:22, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

"I think it is more important than ever that he win." vs. "I think it is more important than ever that he wins."

What version sounds more natural? --Mr.K. (talk) 12:21, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

The two sentances appear identical? Am I just too tired? Note I am seeing "I think it is more important than ever that he win." vs. "I think it is more important than ever that he win." incase of a later edit which makes me look foolish. 88.211.96.3 (talk) 12:24, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, now they are different. --Mr.K. (talk) 13:24, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

You're asking a question that can only be answered subjectively. Many would say #2 sounds more natural because that's their way of expressing themselves. I would say #1, mainly because I was taught about the subjunctive case and when and how to use it, and #1 is what I would naturally write. So it all depends whom you ask. -- JackofOz (talk) 13:48, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I think that the answer may vary somewhat by national varieties of English. In the American version of Standard English, the subjunctive "that he win" is required, and I think that this subjunctive form will sound more "natural" to many Americans. I have noticed that news announcers and printed works from the UK tend not to use the subjunctive in this case but instead use the indicative "that he wins". So that form might sound more "natural" to Britons. Marco polo (talk) 14:00, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Is "that he win" really required after "it is important"?--Radh (talk) 21:06, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

In North America, yes. "I think it is important that he wins" is possible but it means something else: "he wins, and I think this is important". --Anonymous, 21:18 UTC, October 16, 2008.

I don't think most Americans would really notice if the "s" was added on. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:30, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

The historically "correct" version in British English is to say ".. that he should win". AndrewWTaylor (talk) 15:56, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Is it al-Maliki or Maliki

If I want to refer to the surname of Nouri al-Maliki, is it al-Maliki (is it capitalised as in "Al-Maliki"), or can I shorten it to Maliki.

In the Nouri al-Maliki article it looks a bit inconsistent and seems to use both forms as in: "In 1979 Maliki fled Iraq after hearing the government of Saddam Hussein ..."

and then: "As Prime Minister, al-Maliki has vowed to crack down on militias..." ExitRight (talk) 12:37, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

A lot of times the "Al-" is simply completely omitted when transcribing Arabic names into English -- In Arabic, Gaddafi's name is actually al-Qaððafi, etc. However, if it's included in the accepted English rendering of a particular Arabic name, then it it would probably be better to include it consistently... AnonMoos (talk) 13:27, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks AnonMoos. ExitRight (talk) 04:46, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes a conscious choice is made, as with Mohamed Al-Fayed, who is said to have added the al to his name only when he arrived in London in 1974. His son Dodi Fayed declined to add the prefix and did not use it. Nevertheless, our article on him is at Dodi Al-Fayed. Strawless (talk) 14:52, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Sentence structure

"How one can make a contribution to the society to make the present condition of the society developed" ? Is this statement correct?--202.168.229.245 (talk) 15:21, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by "correct". This is the language ref desk, so my first comment is that it's faultless grammatically, if a somewhat unusual way of expressing the idea. But it doesn't have much meaning logically, and that may concern you more. If you take the present condition and develop it, what you get is a future condition (from today's standpoint). Did you mean "How one can make a contribution to the society in order to develop it"? And were you talking about society in general, or a particular organisation called the Society of <something>? If the former, you don't need the "the" before society. -- JackofOz (talk) 16:06, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

"to make the present condition of (the) society developed" is simply utterly wrong. At least I can see no way around that. The whole sentence is way to complicated. It simply asks How can we help our society? What is needed to develop our society? How best to develop our society? --Radh (talk) 21:00, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

"The" society sounds wrong, unless you are referring to a particular society. "The society of English-speakers", for example. If you are referring to "society" in general, I would leave off the "the"s. Little Red Riding Hoodtalk 20:04, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

"One" makes it formal if not stilted, suggest if not an organisation (the Society of...), then why not: "How one can make a contribution to improve society." Shorter though, my two bits... Julia Rossi (talk) 08:44, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Honouring fatalities?

In the article Canadian Forces casualties in Afghanistan, this sentence appears:

"Subsequent fatalities have been honoured by much smaller services."

It seems to me that funeral services and memorial services honour people who died. "Honouring fatalities" does not say the same thing, IMO.

Other opinion please. Am I offtrack on this? Wanderer57 (talk) 18:38, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

You are quite right. This is an example of an euphemism run wild. Strictly speaking, "there were 531 fatalities" refers to the 531 acts of dying, not to the victims. A nice example of newspeak at work. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:03, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

But we can say that a man "became a fatality" when he succumbed to his injuries, which shows that "fatality" can mean a person. I don't really like the sentence, but I don't see it as wrong. --Anonymous, 21:05 UTC, October 17, 2008.

Sure we can say that. But it's a fairly recent and secondary meaning. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:27, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

To me "became a fatality" suggests a person becomes a statistic, otherwise he simply died. Julia Rossi (talk) 08:39, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

And the person who said "I am become Death" meant something else again. —Tamfang (talk) 17:19, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Neat segue into Julia's question in another place about "Death Becomes Her". -- JackofOz (talk) 23:50, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Number of languages needed to speak to 50% of world

How many languages (and which ones) would you need to learn to speak to 50% of the world's population... or 60%, 70%, 80%, 90%.....? It's hard to tell from lists such as this - List_of_languages_by_total_number_of_speakers, because many people have two or more languages they speak, so those figures overlap. - Tea-shirt (talk) 19:09, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Well... If a person speaks a language as a second language, you could still talk to them if you both knew that person's second language, couldn't you? You could speak to me in English, and it's not my mothertongue. I'm guessing you would count me in the part of the world population percentage you can speak to, even though I'm pretty certain you can't speak my mothertongue...

From the top of my head, I'd say English and Spanish would get you on pretty good track. Maybe throw in Mandarin as well, for good measure. If that doesn't help, maybe this article can: List of languages by number of native speakers. TomorrowTime (talk) 20:28, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

According to this article: List of languages by total number of speakers, ignoring some assumptions which lead to rather large errors (such as the grouping of macrolanguages such as "Chinese" and "Arabic" under a single listing), using the Ethnologue data, which is the most conservative WRT the number of speakers for the most spoken languages, you could speak to 3.68 billion people (over 1/2 the world) knowing 8 languages: "Chinese", English, Hindi, "Arabic", Spanish, Russian, Bengali, and Portuguese. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 20:41, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

But, as the questioner pointed out, there are huge overlaps, e.g. especially English and Hindi, but also English and most other languages. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:46, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Does anybody know how many Chinese will actually speak Mandarin in their real life? --Radh (talk) 21:03, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

The WP article on Madarin mentions 836 million speakers. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 22:06, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, the article is really useful--Radh (talk) 09:12, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

As Jayron and Stephan Schultz point out, there are problems with using the numbers in the list of languages by total speakers to answer this question, because "languages" such as Arabic and Chinese actually consist of several mutually unintelligible dialects. Also, I strongly suspect that the "highest estimates" in that list must include people who know only a few words in a given language, such as "Hello" or "Good morning, teacher!" (which I heard from children numerous times during my travels through Tanzania, although I was not their teacher and had never seen them before). Traveling through India, which supposedly has a large proportion of English speakers, I found that most Indians outside of tourist centers could not really communicate in English. If your goal is communication, not just for travel necessities "Where is the train station?", but actual conversation, you should steer away from the higher estimates. Finally, there is the problem of overlap, particularly for English, since probably a large percentage of the non-native speakers of English also speak one of the other top ten languages, especially Hindustani. Given these concerns, it would be best to stick to our list of languages by number of native speakers and to allow for maybe 300 million additional proficient speakers of English, most of whom would be Europeans, and probably 100 million additional proficient speakers of Malay-Indonesian. Then you have to discount the numbers for Chinese and Arabic to reflect the numbers of people really proficient in the most widely understood mutually intelligible dialects of those two languages (Mandarin Chinese, with maybe 1 billion proficient users, and Standard Arabic, with maybe 100 million). Taking these precautions, and avoiding languages (such as German, Punjabi, and Javanese) a large proportion of whose native speakers are likely to be proficient in a more widely spoken second language, you would need the following ten languages to reach 3.3 billion people (about half of the world's present population): Mandarin Chinese, English, Hindustani, Spanish, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, Malay-Indonesian, Japanese, and Standard Arabic. Marco polo (talk) 17:25, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

'Law words'

I'm a student in Llb Law, also taking a unit in German. Wiktionary says that the word 'law' comes from Old English lagu, which is from the Norse lög. Wiktionary says that Jury comes from the Anglo-Norman juree, from Mediaeval Latin jurata, from Latin jurare. In German there is the word Jura (no article), which means law (as in that which one would study). Does that mean that the German word Jura came from the Latin? I would find this odd as the German word for 'law' (as in an act of Parliament/Congress or a law which one must follow) is das Gesetz. Is there any reason for this or am I just getting it wrong with the connection? --Joe^Talk_Work 22:45, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

No, you are right. In areas such as law, religion, and philosophy, which were conducted in Latin throughout Europe until quite recently, many languages including German have borrowed terms from Latin. We have just such a doublet in English: jurisprudence is part of the academic study of law. --ColinFine (talk) 23:03, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Not really surprising. First, "Gesetz" and "Jura" are not really synonymous, though closely related - one is "a law" or even "the law" (as in the body of all laws), the other is the field of study of laws. Just as pig flesh and pork meat are the same, but from different roots, so are "Jura" and "Gesetz" in German. "Jura" is the name of the field of study, inherited via medieval universities, where Latin was the language of instruction and debate. "Gesetz" ("that which has been set down" is my highly speculative etymlogy - compare "law", "that which has been laid down") is the less fancy native German term. Yet another term is "Recht" (that which is right), which also is used instead of "Jura" (that is, you can study "Jura", or "Recht", or "die Rechte" - all the same). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:07, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Interestingly, the two forms, jury and Jura, come from two different Latin words, which however share a common deep root. Jury, as you have seen, comes from the past participle of the verb jurare, meaning "to swear, to bind oneself by an oath'". Jura is the plural form of the Latin noun jus, which means "that which is binding or obligatory" and by extension "right, justice, duty". Obviously, the common sense is something like "being bound or obligated" even though they have both come to pertain to the modern notion of law. Marco polo (talk) 17:43, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

October 17

might

I might not go to school everyday why do we need to use might not may? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.138.2.67 (talk) 02:19, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I think "may" sounds slightly more formal. Also, "may" is used when asking for permission, and for giving permission. I think "might" is harmless if you want to make a casual prediction. --Kjoonlee 04:13, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

In addition, there's a little more ambiguity with may -- it can also be construed as "having permission". "I may not go to school today" --> "I am not allowed to go to school today". --DaHorsesMouth (talk) 22:15, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

There is no real problem in the present tense, with may and might being interchangeable. "We may have rain today." "We might have rain today." A past tense verb-form can normally only be followed by might. "Adrian said that he might be here." NOT "Adrian said that he may be here." May have and might have are also difficult. "We may have won." This means, 'perhaps we have won, perhaps we haven't. We don't know [yet].' "We might have won." This means, 'we have not won but our winning was possible in different circumstances.' Might have is counterfactual. May have is not. With grateful thanks to the excellent "Mind the Gaffe" by RL Trask.

Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM

I saw some (native speakers of English?) who found funny this nick. I (non-native speaker of English) personally don't see what it means, where is the pun. Can someone explain? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.58.205.37 (talk) 08:45, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

See Cogito ergo sum: "I think therefore I am". Gwinva (talk) 08:53, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

There's also the faux latin misspelling "coito ergo sum"... which always gets a chuckle... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 10:54, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

He is a cockatoo, therefore he zooms? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.171.56.13 (talk) 11:18, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Not just a cockatoo, but a cookatoo. He's a kooky cockatoo! Who zooms. :) (Or maybe a cockatoo who cooks?) Cherry Red Toenails (talk) 19:11, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

People could be appreciating a reference to the Dead Parrot sketch from Monty Python: "This bird wouldn't "[z]oom" if you put four million volts through it! 'E's bleedin' demised!" -- 128.104.112.23 (talk) 21:09, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

French naming negatives

Salut. I wish to express a denial that my name is x in French. Would it be "Je m'appelle pas x", "Je ne m'appelle pas x" or something else? Please advice. Merci, struggling Slav/the skomorokh 10:36, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

"Je ne m'appelle pas Jean." I've seen and heard people drop the "ne" part of the negative, but that seems to be very informal. Ici, je ne m'appelle pas Dave; je m'appelle OtherDave (talk) 10:50, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

(ec) "Je ne m'appelle pas x" is standard French; "Je m'appelle pas x" is colloquial and is prescriptively regarded as an error. It's a bit like saying "My name ain't x" in English; if you're a native speaker maybe you can get away with it, but if you're a learner, people will be liable to think you don't know any better. —Angr 10:50, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Much obliged, thank you both for the swift response. the skomorokh now knows better 10:53, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Appropriateness of "whom" in spoken English

Hi, how appropriate is "whom" in spoken English? It sounds odd in some cases: "It depends on for whom you're working". Yet, when "whom" is the end of a question, it seems fine: "For whom?" Thanks again, Lazulilasher (talk) 14:49, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't say it's the "whom" that sounds odd in "It depends on for whom you're working", because "It depends on for who you're working" is just as bad. It's the pied piping that sounds odd there; "It depends on who(m) you're working for" sounds better. —Angr 14:57, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Exactly, that is why it sounds odd. Is it acceptable to separate the preposition, in all cases? Lazulilasher (talk) 15:01, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

User:Angr doesn't read Winston Churchill about split infinitives: “This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.”--ChokinBako (talk) 15:16, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Ok, you've taught me a lesson. It is hard, however, to shake what we're taught in grammar school. Lazulilasher (talk) 15:19, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

User:Angr is completely correct and clear? Taught in grammar school to boldly go and split infinitives? And where should this beast be? Ang (see below) is right on --Radh (talk) 15:27, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Captain Cook taught me that. For some reason, I've had a fear of leaving the preposition hanging at the end of the sentence. Split infinitive never worried me. Lazulilasher (talk) 15:39, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

How did split infinitives come into it? The OP's example sentence doesn't have an infinitive anywhere in it, either split or intact. —Angr 15:40, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

(ec) I believe the Churchill quote is along the lines of "..the sort of pedantry up with which...", and that it refers to anti-preposition-at-end-ism rather than split infinitives. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 15:41, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

(undent) Anyway, back to whom. :) How appropriate in spoken English? Lazulilasher (talk) 15:44, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I use it in formal situations, but not in informal situations. It is not inappropriate in any way in spoken English, so long as that distinction is kept, as far as I am concerned.--ChokinBako (talk) 15:49, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I believe "whom" is becoming obsolete in most contexts in spoken English: I regard myself as a careful speaker but I very rarely use it (though I would probably still write it where appropriate). Beware the hypercorrective trap of saying things like "the man whom I believe is suitable to be President". AndrewWTaylor (talk) 15:52, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

That's exactly it. I find myself mentally correcting those who say: "He is the man who I support". Is "who" correct, in any sense? Lazulilasher (talk) 15:54, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

"Who" is prescriptively wrong in that sentence, but acceptable - even preferable - in informal speech, IMHO. I would probably just avoid the issue by saying "He is the man I support". Anyway, if you believe Fowler it should be "that", not "who(m)". AndrewWTaylor (talk) 16:00, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Usage of "whom" is a point that always strikes a chord with me. My mothertongue has a clear paradygm for the accusative, so I can sense when use of the accusative is called for, and when it's not. For instance, the example AndrewTaylor gave above is a classic case of the accusative used in a sentence where there's no need for one. People may think using "whom" makes them sound more educated and learned, but using it in the wrong place just makes you look like you're trying too hard.

To answer the question: my gut feeling (as a non-native speaker of English with a good instinct for languages) is that "whom" is nigh obsolete in spoken English, and is applicable mostly in formal written English. You should, however, be familiar with the rules for the accusative before using it - "whom" is freely interchangable with "who" in modern English, and if you don't have a firm grasp of accusative placement, it might be a better idea to just play it safe and go with "who". IMO. TomorrowTime (talk) 17:59, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

My gut feeling (as a native speaker of English) is that "whom" is best treated as obsolete, even there are those who disagree. The only instance where "who" seems wrong to me in the objective (accusative) case is in constructs like "To who(m) were you speaking?", and these are easily corrected by moving "to" to the end, whereupon "who" sounds fine to me. (In short, I'm applying Safire's Rule on "who" and "whom": if "whom" sounds correct, recast the sentence.) --Anonymous, 21:20 UTC, October 17, 2008.

Yes, you can get by without it in most situations, and most people prefer to, so it is certainly obsolescent. But some cases really do require it, such as "To whom it may concern". And the saw that goes: Some people say it's not what you know, but who you know, that matters. I believe whom you know is more important still - would not be able to exist without whom. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:44, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

That line depends on both usages existing; it's a joking reference to the issue, expressing a preference for one version, just as with the Churchill quote seen above. It does not deserve to be called a "saw". --Anonymous, 07:01 UTC, October 18, 2008.

Oh, ok. I've heard it or its variants so often that I thought it must have become one. So it seems I suppose I'm sorely mistaken about the saw, and I'm sorry for saying so.  :) -- JackofOz (talk) 01:15, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

TomorrowTime's observation about the availability of the accusative case as a category to him/her, as a native speaker of a different language, is highly pertinent. Joseph Emonds argued in his 1985 paper "A grammatically deviant prestige construction" that the accusative no longer exists as a morphosyntactic category in English, because there are too few examples left from which an English learner could deduce the category, and so we substitute a different distinction (such as using the so-called nominative when the pronoun immediately precedes the verb it governs, in the same clase). The paper is about constructions like 'John and I' vs. 'John and me', not about 'whom', but the argument is relevant here, though not the whole story. --ColinFine (talk) 22:42, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

This is related to the above discussion, but in written form rather than spoken. I have just changed:

"He was dismissed from his government post by Churchill, who stated that he found Reith difficult with whom to work."

TO

"He was dismissed from his government post by Churchill, who stated that he found Reith difficult to work with."

I think that years ago I would have seen nothing amiss in the former wording but it now seems to me extremely pedantic. Comments please. Wanderer57 (talk) 23:46, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree 100%. -- JackofOz (talk) 04:05, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

But a formulation of the Churchill/Reith sentence that avoids the problem completely would be: "He was dismissed from his government post by Churchill, who stated that he found it difficult to work with Reith."

That is one way, but there are many others:

• Reith and Churchill had a difficult relationship, so Churchill dismissed him.
• Churchill found it difficult to work with Reith, so he dismissed him.
• Churchill found it difficult to work with Reith, which led to Reith being dismissed.
• Reith was dismissed because Churchill stated he found it difficult to work with him.
• etc. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:41, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

New example. I've just made the following edit @ List of Australian Leaders of the Opposition:

• To date there have been thirty-one Opposition Leaders, sixteen of which whom have served terms as Prime Minister.

Would anyone consider that to be pedantic? If not, would anyone confidently argue for "who" vs. "whom" in this case? -- JackofOz (talk) 01:10, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I think the "... of whom ..." construction is one place where "whom" is definitely still needed and non-pedantic. ".. sixteen of who .." sounds completely wrong to me. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 08:27, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Meaning of Italian word vergognosco

What does vergognosco (or possibly vercognosco) mean? Google Translate doesn’t know. Is it some kind of slang or regional term? --Cinematical (talk) 16:25, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

It seems to be shameful, via google —Preceding unsigned comment added by Radh (talk • contribs) 17:21, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

And the correct spelling is vergognoso. Deor (talk) 17:30, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! --Cinematical (talk) 17:37, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

a quatre pas d'ici

Okay, saddest question on here for a while, I suspect. The Bucks Fizz song "Land of Make Believe" has been recorded by Celine Dion as "A quatre pas d'ici"...But as I doubt the translation "four isn't here" makes sense...just what does it mean? An obscure idiom I assume...but what's the translation? doktorb _words^deeds 18:44, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

The pas here is not a negation, but "step", so the title means "four steps from here". — Kpalion^(talk) 19:05, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

And the first word must be "À", so a more literal translation is "at four steps from here". Sometimes accents are omitted from capital letters in printed French, so you may have seen it written as "A". --Anon, 21:23 UTC, October 17, 2008.

Heh, brilliant. So I can put that child-hood query to bed. Thanks all doktorb _words^deeds 08:05, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I.e. or I.E. ?

If I start a sentence fragment with i.e., the i should be upper case. What about the e?

In other words, should I use I.e., or I.E.,?

P.S. I realize I am likely to be told that I should not begin a sentence or a sentence fragment with i.e. regardless of the case. I'm not thinking of formal writing.

P.P.S. I realize that in light of my P.S., I am now likely to be told that in informal writing it does not matter whether the e is upper or lower case. I'm thinking of writing at an intermediate level of informality in which a sentence fragment beginning with i.e. is acceptable but some standards are still to be maintained.

P.P.P.S. Perhaps I have now muddied my original question sufficiently as to make it unanswerable. If so, please construe the question as being in an alternate universe in which it does make sense.

Thank you, Wanderer57 (talk) 22:08, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Not at all. The principle of capitalisation requires that the first letter of a sentence is a capital. Just as the opening "The" in the previous sentence uses lower case for the remaining letters, the remaining elements of an abbreviation would also use lower case. I.e., do what I just did at the start of this sentence. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:00, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

All it means is 'that is', so I don't think it's a problem. That is, if you are writing informally ':> --ChokinBako (talk) 00:12, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

P.P.P.P.S. However, if you were to compose an informal article on the Freudian concept of the Id in Latin, as in "I.e. (i.e. 'Id est') lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.", you may as well spell it out for obfuscation´s sake.

The Id can, indeed, be described as "labore et dolore magna aliquis" in the alternative universe of our Ego. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 23:09, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you all for your replies.

Unfortunately, due to a defective education, Latin is Greek to me. Wanderer57 (talk) 00:10, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Capitalising the 'i' seems weird to me, considering that it should of course never be used at the start of a sentence - 'id est' meaning 'that is'. Grammar rules say you should, though, and I wouldn't punish you for doing so. I wouldn't worry about the Latin in here, it's only lorem ipsum. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Schwarzes Nacht (talk • contribs) 08:02, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

You could certainly start a sentence with "That is, ...", referring to the previous sentence, and in informal writing you could abbreviate it to "I.e., ...". Here, we seem to have a clash between "rules": A. All sentences start with a capital letter vs. B. Abbreviations of the i.e., etc. and e.g. variety are never capitalised, which is why they never start a sentence. In informal writing, I reckon you can decide for yourself which one wins. Maybe there's a hierarchy of rules somewhere, but that seems like a lot of trouble. In this case, I wouldn't even accord B the status of a rule in the first place (mainly because I just made it up in order to immediately shoot it down in flames). I can imagine starting an informal sentence with "E.g., ...", although I cannot imagine "Etc. ...". -- JackofOz (talk) 21:20, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

On reflection, imagine this conversation:

A: What we have to bear in mind is that this is a complex issue. There are various factors at play here - <(then he starts to list them all in mind-numbing detail)> ... when B breaks in:

B: Et cetera, et cetera. Yes, we all know it's complex, but we can't waste time just talking about it, we have to act!

In informal writing, you could write B's part as:

B: "Etc., etc. Yes, we all know ....". -- JackofOz (talk) 22:40, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

You could start a sentence with "That is...", but the i.e. formation is almost always used within parentheses, or otherwise set off from the text. If I was worried about how to capitalize the i.e., I would realize I wasn't using it in the standard manner and rewrite it with "That is...". Matt Deres (talk) 14:56, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

If you're starting any sentence with i.e. then you do not understand how i.e. is used and should just write in English. TheMathemagician (talk) 02:50, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Pear shaped

Where does the phrase "Everything went pear shaped", meaning that things went badly, come from? Also, what shape were things supposedly in in the first place? Dismas|^(talk) 22:47, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

As in so many such cases, the answer is that nobody's really sure; see Michael Quinion's remarks. (World Wide Words is a good first stop for investigating all such questions.) Deor (talk) 22:53, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what shape it was before, but going pear shaped is often accompanied by the wheels coming off, so... FiggyBee (talk) 02:31, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I've always been under impression that "pear-shaped" is an euphemism for an arse, or at least for the shape thereof. Hence the expression "everything went pear-shaped", apparently. Hope this helps ;) --Dr Dima (talk) 06:57, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

The look of a pear shape suggests things go downwards, like the phrase "bottomed out" – but the other suggestions actually answer your query. Julia Rossi (talk) 08:34, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

October 18

Czech Version of Name

What is the name Florence in Czech? Vltava 68 (talk contribs) 05:50, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

"Florencie" - or at least that is the name of the article on the Czech wikipedia. [1] :) FiggyBee (talk) 06:14, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

That is, if you're talking about the city whose real name is Firenze. The answer might be different if you mean the personal name Florence. (I wouldn't know.) --Anonymous, 07:03 UTC, October 18, 2008.

The Czech version of the article on Florence Nightingale is labelled as Florence Nightingalová. I can´t think of another Florence, there being no entry on Florence of Arabia.

Ooops, there is one :) -Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:33, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you were thinking of Florins of Arabia, on which there is no entry. Wanderer57 (talk) 00:16, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Florence Nightingale, at least, was named after the city - she was born there. FiggyBee (talk) 15:41, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Florence as a personal name does not exist in Czech, to the best of my knowledge. The Italian city is indeed called Florencie. — Emil J. 12:30, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Translating it from Latin, the name is related to the Czech name "Květa". But calling that the Czech form of Florence would be stretching it too far. — Emil J. 13:35, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Kanji Help

Can anyone make this kanji for me? I don't have my dictionary, so I don't know the pronunciation to type it. 其 plus the right-hand side of 次. Thanks!--ChokinBako (talk) 13:48, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

No worries, found it. 欺. --ChokinBako (talk) 13:58, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

あざむく・キ, meaning to deceive. Don't know what you're working on, but last time I came across it was in relation to Marx and his stance that capitalism is deception (欺詐,きさ）. TomorrowTime (talk) 23:15, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

That's exactly the word I am using. I'm using it in a totally different context, though. I found it earlier, by just typing the English word (I knew the meaning already) into alc.co.jp and copy/pasting the 欺 back together with the 詐 I had already put there, to get the translation I needed in context with my text here. Then after that, my Mac could give me the pronunciation. Thanks anyway.--ChokinBako (talk) 23:59, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

詐欺 (さぎ, sagi) is far more commonly used than 欺詐 (ぎさ gisa) for deception. --Kusunose 06:43, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Could be that the word in my text was context-specific (it was a philosophy piece), or else I just remember it wrong :) TomorrowTime (talk) 10:29, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Kusunose, sorry, yep. That's the one, I just looked at the text again, but I have translated it as something else, 'fraud', as the context needs. I think the reason I couldn't get it was because I kept writing either 'saki' or 'kisa', neither of which gave me the word, and just typing 'ki' on its own would not give me the kanji. When TomorrowTime said it was, in fact, 'ki', the fact that it would not appear on my Mac when I just typed 'ki' on its own was all the more infuriating. Just remember it as the 'the deceptive rabbit peels off its bruises' ([u]sagi ga aza wo muku)! Thanks, folks.--ChokinBako (talk) 13:17, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

October 19

what do you call this thing used in book shelves?

When you shelve books, you sometimes use a (usually metallic) piece to stop the books from tumbling over to one side, if the row not packed from wall to wall. What do you call that piece? --59.91.253.166 (talk) 03:58, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if there's any official or correct name. A book stop? Grsz^Review! 04:00, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

It's a bookend. Deltopia (talk) 04:04, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

We have an article on that? Wow. Grsz^Review! 04:06, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

There is an article on everything.  :) Little Red Riding Hoodtalk 05:08, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

How did the phrase "Old wives' tale" come about?

It doesn't have the origins of the phrase in the wiki article ExitRight (talk) 04:59, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

"Wife" basically just meant "woman" in this context. In the early modern period, older non-upper-class women (who tended to be illiterate) were the strongest source of traditional folk sayings that had undergone little or no influence from formal written scholarship. AnonMoos (talk) 10:09, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Is there any real difference between these two sentences

"Elaborate and decorative bookends are not uncommon" and "Elaborate and decorative bookends are common"

To me, the meanings sound different. I know that there's no actual difference, but it sounds as if the first sentence is more appropriate for the context. ExitRight (talk) 05:28, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I see a slight difference. The "common" version could suggest they're common almost to the point of ubiquity. The "not uncommon" version tells us that it's not unusual to find them, but non-decorative ones are just as usual, perhaps more so. -- JackofOz (talk) 06:06, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Litotes... AnonMoos (talk) 09:59, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Commonness is not an all-or-nothing quality. If you imagine a scale like

0. Nonexistent

1. Unique

2. Almost unique

3. Rare

4. Uncommon

5. Fairly uncommon

6. Fairly common

7. Common

8. Very Common

9. Almost ubiquitous

10. Ubiquitous

then you could interpret "common" to mean a rating of 7 or higher while "not uncommon" would mean 5 or higher. --Anonymous but fairly uncommon, 22:02 UTC, October 19, 2008.

I'm doubtful about "ubiquitous" in (9) and (10). It must be possible to be both unique and ubiquitous. Strawless (talk) 14:25, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Examples? The sky comes to mind. —Tamfang (talk) 16:52, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking of the one God. Strawless (talk) 17:19, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

This may be where the concept of God being both Alpha and Omega (Α and Ω) came from. (Of course, in this case, the scale would start at "1. Unique", because nonexistent entities usually don't have much to say about anything). Anonymous, you may be on to something here. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:46, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

sample of formal vs. informal english

I am actually studying on my own the difference between formal and informal written English. What I would like to see is a sample text of the same very short composition, perhaps an excerpt of something, written both in formal and informal English for comparison.

I was able to read a sample text of Old English with its Modern English translation, but it's about English Period. Where can I possibly find what I am looking for?

Does Wikipedia have such? If not, website addresses of various sources will be fine with me already as long as I will be able to read those.

thank you so much for any help that you will be able to extend.

God bless.

Carlrichard (talk) 07:10, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know of such a comparison text, but you might find the style of writing in Irvine Welsh's novel Trainspotting or Anne Donovan's novel Buddha Da interesting. Astronaut (talk) 08:09, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

If you have a formal text you would like to see translated, I'll give it a try. Matt Deres (talk) 01:19, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

-ev ending in Russian surnames

What is the rule governing the pronunciation of -ev ending in Russian surnames? Is there a single rule at all? Are there exceptions to the rule? Russian surnames article in WP says nothing about their pronunciations. --Omidinist (talk) 12:23, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I found an article that shows it like this: mʲɪˈdvʲedʲɪf. Grsz^Review! 13:10, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Both -ёв and -ев are transliterated as -ev in English, but they are pronounced quite differently in Russian. In the former category, for example Горбачёв/ Gorbachev, the -ev should be pronounced -off (or -yoff, depending on the preceding letter), while in the latter category, for example Николаев/ Nikolaev it should be pronounced as -eff (or -yeff). To my knowledge there is no way to determine which pronunciation should be used in a name transliterated into English, you just have to know. In fact, since most Russian writers don't distinguish between the lettes ё and e anyway it's probably not always possible even for Russians to know which pronunciation to use if they've never seen the name before. 84.9.165.88 (talk) 15:49, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

There are two kinds of endings in Russian surnames that are both transliterated into English as "-ev", that is: "-ев" and "-ёв". There may be no difference in everdyday Russian spelling as the diaeresis above the letter "ё" is often ommited, but there is a difference in pronunciation. The letter "е" (see: Ye (Cyrillic)) is pronounced [je] (ye) in stressed syllables or [jɪ] (yi) in unstressed syllables. The letter "ё" (see: Yo (Cyrillic)) is pronounced [jo] (yo). The letter "в" is normally pronounced [v], but at the end of a word it becomes an unvoiced [f]. So for example, as Grsz noted above, "Medvedev", or "Медведев", is pronounced [mʲɪˈdvʲedʲɪf] (myid-VYEH-dyiff), but "Gorbachev", or "Горбачёв", is pronounced [gərbɐˈtɕof] (gor-bah-CHYOFF). — Kpalion^(talk) 15:49, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

It may be helpful to remember that the letter "ё" is always stressed in Russian, so if you see a spelling like "Горбачёв" you know not only what the vowel quality of "ё" is, you also know that syllable is the stressed one. However, I don't know if there are any names that end in stressed "-ев". —Angr 16:26, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Helpful answers indeed. Thank you all. --Omidinist (talk) 16:45, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Russians themselves are sometimes not sure. During the Leonid Brezhnev era, I heard some Russian acquaintances of mine refer to him as bresh-nyOFF (-ёв ending), while the majority still favoured BRESH-nyeff (-ев ending). And then there was Nikita Khrushchev (Хрущёв). He usually got the -off ending among English-speakers, but they rarely stressed that syllable as they should. It came out as KROO-shchoff, rather than what the Russians called him, hroo-SHCHOFF. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:01, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Isn't Nikita a girl's name? Or was that just the Elton John song?--ChokinBako (talk) 21:41, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

How quickly we forget. :) I guess these days it's become a girl's name in the West, due no doubt at least in part to that song. And it does look like a girl's name, because most Russian names ending in -a or -ya are feminine (although there are exceptions such as Ilya, and a host of diminutives - Sasha (Alexander), Grisha (Grigory), Misha (Mikhail), Vanya (Ivan), Kostya (Konstantin), Kolya (Nikolai) etc). But anyone who can remember the Cuban missile crisis, or Khrushchev actually removing his shoe to slam it down against the lectern in order to more aggressively harangue the United Nations General Assembly, will know that it's traditionally been a masculine name. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:53, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

It might have been a double entendre on Elton's part. Plus, the 'Nikita' in the video to the song was a Russian border guard....--ChokinBako (talk) 22:48, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Not just the Elton John song. There was also the French film La Femme Nikita, later remade as Point of No Return in America. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 00:09, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Interestingly, Russian masculine names ending in -а are declined as if they were feminine (e.g. Nikita in nominative becomes Nikitu in accusative), but they're still grammatically masculine so they take masculine adjectives (hence, "old Nikita" is старый Никита in nominative, not старая Никита; and старого Никиту in accusative, not старую Никиту). Cтарая Никита/старую Никиту would be assumed to be referring to a female person from the West named Nikita. -- JackofOz (talk) 03:54, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Likewise for Latin words like poeta, agricola (poet, farmer). —Tamfang (talk) 16:51, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Help with pronunciaion

Im trying to learn Russian but I am not sure how something like, for example, "есмь" should be pronounced. I know the basic sounds of most of the alphabet but I dont know how i should pronounce a word that contains "ь" (ie palatalized). What English examples could you give me to help me understand how to pronounced something that is palatized --217.65.49.34 (talk) 14:27, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

A simple explanation would be to use the 't' in 'tune' (British English - tyoon - you are from Gibraltar, so I guess you will have no trouble with this), but pronounce the 't' by putting the tongue on the teeth, and not above them, as you would normally in English. Keep the gentle 'y' sound. It should sound like 'yesty'. Hope this helps.--ChokinBako (talk) 15:07, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Have you looked at Iotation and Palatalization? Basically, the middle of your tongue should be closer the hard palate than if you were pronouncing a corresponding non-palatalized consonant. — Kpalion^(talk) 15:53, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I can't remember, but Russian phonology might be helpful in the matter. Russian alphabet I think has some approximate pronunciations for Russian sounds. In my experience as a native English speaker, palatalization is the hardest part of Russian pronunciation. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:40, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

in italian they use settemlia bace per te Why use 7000?

Why is this # 7000 used ? What is the historic significance of 7000 to the Italians?Dom491 (talk) 15:35, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Just in case someone was confused, the question is apparently about "Settemila baci per te!" which means "Seven thousand kisses to you!" in Italian. As for why seven thousand and not any other number, my only guess is that it's one thousand, a fairly large number, multiplied by seven, traditionally considered a lucky number. Maybe someone else will have a better answer though. — Kpalion^(talk) 16:07, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Seven thousand sounds odd in English. Walter Savage Landor's poem Thank Heaven, Ianthe, Once Again has "Scatter ten thousand kisses sweet". Landor may have been remembering the Song of Solomon, which says "Let him give me ten thousand kisses..." Chaucer, in The Wife of Bath's Tale, goes for one hundred thousand kisses, a number he may have picked up from The Decameron of Boccaccio. But Boccaccio was Italian, so it seems the seven thousand must face some competition. Strawless (talk) 14:19, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone remember the song "24 mila baci"? — My one true ex says eight thousand whenever she wants an emphatic big number. Various languages each have their favorite numbers. —Tamfang (talk) 00:58, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana use

What kind of writing do Japanese use in: .Wikipedia .newspapers .scientific publications .patents Mr.K. (talk) 17:38, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't depend on the type of writing as much as on the word itself. Content words of Chinese and native Japanese origin tend to be written in Kanji; function words, grammatical endings, and some other words tend to be written in Hiragana; and loanwords from non-Asian languages as well as words for kinds of animals ("dog", "cat", "octopus", etc.) tend to be written in Katakana. The only times it depends on the type of writing as far as I'm aware is that children's books tend to be written exclusively in Hiragana, and back in the days when people wrote telegrams, those were entirely in Katakana. I think poetry might be written in exclusively in Hiragana too, but I'm not positive about that. —Angr 17:54, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Angr is right, except that animals like 'dog', 'cat', 'octopus', etc., are only usually written in katakana in manga or in street signs, adverts, etc., to make them stand out, a bit like italics. In an adult book, they would be in kanji. Also, generally, if a person does not know a kanji (or expects the reader not to know it), the word would be written in katakana (unless it is already usually written in hiragana, in which case it is not a case of somebody not understanding it, it is just convention).--ChokinBako (talk) 18:17, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Japanese Wikipedia's articles on "dog", "cat", and "octopus", however, are at ja:イヌ, ja:ネコ, and ja:タコ, with redirects from the kanji. —Angr 18:46, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I very much understand that, but in a written text, they are generally in kanji. The kanji for 'dog' (犬), for example, appears in that article far more times than the katakana.--ChokinBako (talk) 19:33, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

The reason ja articles using katakana for イヌ, ネコ, and タコ is scientific terms are transcribed in katakana. Oda Mari (talk) 09:02, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Oda Mari, that would make sense. And welcome back, by the way!--ChokinBako (talk) 10:15, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Follow up question: if the three system are co-exist within the same text, why do many Japanese manuals concentrate in only one. I am thinking about titles like "Katakana in 30 days" or "Remember the Kanji"Mr.K. (talk) 11:19, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Quite simply because it would be very difficult to learn all three systems simultaneously. Not only that, a book teaching all three would be very difficult to formulate coherently and in an easy to follow way. That's all.--ChokinBako (talk) 12:13, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd just like to add (since you might be interested, judging from your questions) that the usual order of learning these is the following: hiragana (most widely used), katakana (used a little less), kanji (by far the biggest group of the three). In a language school you might start with basic kanji while you're still learning katakana, or even hiragana. If you're teaching yourself, hiragana is the first step you should take - no use learning kanji if you don't know hiragana to connect them into sentences. As was already said above, your average Japanese sentence will consist of hiragana for the grammatical parts and kanji for the meanings of words (this is a great simplification, but essentially true). TomorrowTime (talk) 13:29, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

"...both tumour suppressor and oncogenic pathways"

If I want to say "both tumour suppressor and oncogenic pathway" instead of "both tumour suppressor pathways and oncogenic pathway", do I need hyphens to let the reader know what I've done?

You need a hyphen for "tumour-suppressor," but that holds true whether you say "both tumour-suppressor and oncogenic pathway[s]" or "both tumour-suppressor pathways and oncogenic pathway[s]." I'm guessing your omission of the final s was just a typo, because if you meant to leave it out intentionally, it's ungrammatical. If there's only one "oncogenic pathway," then you would have to say "both tumour-suppressor pathways and the oncogenic pathway," but then again, that might be considered a misuse of the word both.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 19:18, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah I meant pathways. But the problem is that there is no connection between "tumour-suppressor" and pathway in the phrase "both tumour-suppressor and oncogenic pathways". If I say "both tumour-suppressor- and oncogenic-pathways" then you can see what I've done and know that "pathways" relates to both "tumour-suppressor" and "oncogenic"? ----Seans Potato Business 23:45, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I see what you mean. Unfortunately, that use of the hyphen is not conventional. Perhaps you could say "both tumour-suppressant and oncogenic pathways" or is that not okay? This sounds like medical terminology, which is not my mastery at all. If all else fails, there's nothing wrong with saying pathways twice, especially if you believe its omission leads to ambiguity.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 01:10, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

"both tumour-suppressor- and oncogenic-pathways" is OK, if a little clumsy: Hyphen#Suspended_hyphens. Bazza (talk) 13:34, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

No, it's not okay, because neither "tumour-suppressor-pathways" nor "oncogenic-pathways" is okay. You don't put a hyphen between an attributive noun and the noun it modifies nor between an adjective and the noun it modifies. What the OP wants is "both tumour-suppressor and oncogenic pathways". Hyphenating "tumour-suppressor" is sufficient to make it clear that this noun is being used attributively in modification of "pathways"; if it weren't, it wouldn't be hyphenated either. You could make it clearer by reversing the order – "both oncogenic and tumour-suppressor pathways" – or, of course, by repeating the main noun "both tumour-suppressor pathways and oncogenic pathways". Or by using the pronoun "ones": "both tumour-suppressor pathways and oncogenic ones". —Angr 14:01, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Lanuages with masc./fem. 2nd person

It just occurred to me. In languages such as Arabic, Hebrew, and others where the 2nd person has both masculine and feminine forms, how do they express the concept that we have in English of '(s)he' or 'he/she', representing both genders, in the 2nd person? Or do they just use the masculine form when the gender is unknown/applicable-to-both?--ChokinBako (talk) 19:47, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Speaking for French only, which has the "il/elle" for the third person masculine & feminine, that language has an "indeterminate third person" pronoun, "on", which is used in places where we would use "they (singular)" (informally) or he/shee (formally) in English. It can actually stand for any indeterminate pronoun, for example, "On va..." which can mean "we go" or "he/she goes" or "they go" depending on context... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 22:32, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I knew that. There is a similar thing in German. I'm asking about 2nd person in the languages that distinguish gender in that person.--ChokinBako (talk) 22:44, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

As far as I can remember, every language I have ever met which makes a distinction between masculine and feminine uses the masculine form as the default form (where the sex is not known, or for a group containing both men and women). This was the case in English until quite recently, though here it is relevant only in the third person singular. I imagine that other languages are experiencing a similar range of arguments and suggestions as we do in English. --ColinFine (talk) 22:59, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

That is what I thought. Is it just us who have to say both ("he or she") and use spelling conventions (he/she)? Why can't we just go back to the old ways? That'll save on paper/bandwidth!--ChokinBako (talk) 23:46, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

---

In the plural, there's actually been a significant historical tendency across a number of Semitic langauges to simply merge 2nd. feminine plural and 2nd. masculine plural verb and pronoun forms. For example, the contrast had already disappeared in "prefix conjugation" type verb forms in the Akkadian languages (Babylonian and Assyrian) before our earliest available records, and the whole 2nd. feminine plural vs. 2nd. masculine plural contrast is pretty much moribund in modern Hebrew (especially the spoken language) -- certainly the feminine plural imperfect or future verb forms with t- prefix and -na suffix would be considered completely anachronistic in spontaneously-spoken modern Hebrew. Most other Hebrew pronominal and verbal forms are the same between 2nd. feminine plural and 2nd. masculine plural, except that the masculine has a final "-m" and the feminine a final "-n", and the strong tendency is now to use "-m" in all cases (in early post-Biblical Rabbinic Hebrew, the tendency was to use "-n" in all cases). AnonMoos (talk) 07:26, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. So basically, Modern Hebrew has a tendency toward the masculine, while older Hebrew tended toward the feminine? Could that be because of any European influence? After all, Hebrew is a resurrected language. And what about the singular?--ChokinBako (talk) 10:13, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, Rabbinic Hebrew had a general phonological tendency to transform word-final [m] into word-final [n] in a variety of contexts; there was no discernable "tending towards the feminine" in contexts which did not involve such word-final -m/-n, as far as I'm aware... AnonMoos (talk) 14:13, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Was that due to Aramaic influence? I'm pretty sure the Hebrew plural ending -im corresponds to an Aramaic ending like -in or -an; was there an Aramaic rule that turned word-final m into n? If so, that could explain it happening in Rabbinic Hebrew, which was written largely by people whose native "please-pass-the-salt" language was Aramaic. —Angr 14:26, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't remember too much more than what I've said (Rabbinic Hebrew is not my area), but I think it's discussed in the 1982 book History of the Hebrew Language ISBN 9652233978 by E.Y. Kutscher (who is worthy of his own article). There's a very little bit about it at Mishnaic_Hebrew#Phonetics (but I remember the [m] to [n] change applying in more contexts than indicated there, though somewhat lexically sporadic). AnonMoos (talk) 23:35, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and the difference between Hebrew masculine plural -īm and Aramaic masculine plural -īn doesn't have much connection to the later change of [m] to [n] in final position, but is due to a certain early Semitic alternation between "mimation" and "nunation" -- so where early Akkadian has the singular case endings -um / -am /-im, Arabic has -un / -an / -in etc. (I'rab) AnonMoos (talk) 12:10, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

The fact that Modern Hebrew is resurrected has no bearing on the morphology, which was pretty solidly taken from ancient sources. Some of the phonology and semantics (eg recasting the aspects as tenses) may well reflect influence from European languages. --ColinFine (talk) 23:43, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

"Mada mada dane!"

Hello! Besides the possibilities listed here, what other 'translations' of mada mada dane could there be? I know it depends a lot on the context, but I wanted to know other usual interpretations of the phrase (with or without context). Could you mention others? The more the merrier! :) Thanks in advance, Kreachure (talk) 20:35, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, it basically means "(it's) not (happening) yet, eh?" Like when you are making a cake and you look in the window of the oven. Are you asking for English idioms, or another meaning to this phrase, because there is only one basic meaning.--ChokinBako (talk) 20:50, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm asking for all the possible ways that the phrase can be understood (and translated) in English, all the meanings it can take and such. Not necessarily English idioms matching it, but knowing those would also be nice. From what I've read, it doesn't seem to have a direct translation or meaning in English; so, if you want to translate it, there would be many ways to do so, and I wanted to know some more of those. Kreachure (talk) 20:59, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Ok, but based on the fact that 'mada' means 'still' (and by extension with 'not' it means 'yet', i.e. 'still not'='not yet'), and that 'mada' on its own usually implies negativity, it's quite easy to work out what it means, whether there is a direct and literal translation to it or not. 'Dane' just means "isn't it?". It can only be understood in one way, and I said that above.--ChokinBako (talk) 21:10, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Also, the article you pointed to says that Ryoma Echizen popularized the phrase, which is not true. It has been in common use for years. Also, it says it is derogatory, which it is not in any way shape or form. In fact, by the grammatical ending of '-ne', it can be seen that it can actually be very polite and friendly. The article needs fixing.--ChokinBako (talk) 21:23, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Okay; please don't think that I made this up although I'm no expert. Perhaps the literal translation is just one, but there are perhaps many meanings that it can take! If you don't trust the article, then I'm afraid you'd need to check out the anime itself, where the phrase is used a lot (and Ryoma Echizen does use it in a derogatory manner, without a doubt, maybe through sarcasm). Serious dubs of the show have needed to be very careful on translating it, because depending on the context it may mean something other than just "not yet, right?", and indeed have given many different translations to the same phrase. Is this page here, for example, completely off base in your opinion, too? If you tell me that the following couldn't be valid translations of mada mada dane in any given context, then I will consider you've already provided your answer to my question:

"Not good enough"

"You still have a long way to go!"

"You’re not quite there yet!"

"It's still not ready!”

"You still have a lot to learn!"

And please take no offense, but I would simply like to know if anyone else agrees with your view that mada mada dane only has a single interpretation when translated. Kreachure (talk) 21:55, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree with all of those translations. 'Mada mada dane' just means 'not yet,' as I say. It is you who has to add all the rest, depending on the context. And it is not that I do not trust the article, I am saying it is wrong, because it is not necessarily derogatory. I am a professional translator, mate. All of those 'translations' above depend purely on the context. I would not look at my cake while it is being baked and say, "You still have a lot to learn!". I would say, "It's not done yet," or some such thing.--ChokinBako (talk) 22:06, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I see where you are coming from. E.g. if my wife is studying cooking and bakes a cake, puts it on the table and we taste it, if I say 'mada mada dane', then it can be that I am looking down on her. If she says it, then it can mean she still does not have the confidence that it was a good cake. However, it can also be used in a totally neutral sense, as in when we are both looking to see if it is cooked yet. Not necessarily derogatory, but that also depends on context.--ChokinBako (talk) 22:13, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Geez, that's precisely my point! So you, as a professional translator, couldn't just translate mada mada dane in a single way, because it can be understood in many different ways depending on the context! Maybe its literal meaning is "not yet" (roughly), but in practice it can be understood in a myriad ways and, at times, even with much deeper significance! Considering that, my question was about any usual ways that you could translate it as, but I guess it's just too dependent on the context to ask for 'generalized' translations, right? (If I hadn't known any better, I would've seriously understood from what you had said that there's just one way to translate it!! >:S) Kreachure (talk) 22:24, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

(EC)Besides, the manga with Ryoma Echizen is all about martial arts tennis (no, I have not read it), and those translations above (as well as the phrase in Japanese) are the type of things you would expect a strict teacher to say. This is fiction. In the real world, it can be used in a totally neutral sense. Watch Hotaru No Haka (Grave of the Fireflies) and you will see at one point the brother (Seita) is cooking, and he says to his sister (Setsuko) 'mada mada dane', meaning the food is not ready yet. Even in fiction it is used neutrally.--ChokinBako (talk) 22:27, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Ok, you misunderstood me. I did not say there was only one way to translate it, I said it had only one meaning. There is a difference. Of course, as a professional translator, I translate according to context, otherwise my work would be gibberish.--ChokinBako (talk) 22:31, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

(EC!!) Yeah, I definitely misunderstood you that way. I'm certainly not an expert like you, but I thought that all those translation alternatives have different meanings by themselves, so the original would be considered to have different possible meanings from a translation point of view. But, I guess that's wrong. Anyways, thanks for your input. Kreachure (talk) 22:45, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Madamada is an emphasized form of the adverb mada. See how the word translated into English. [2] and [3]. Hope these will help. Oda Mari (talk) 14:32, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

October 20

Grammatical gender

In languages that use grammatical gender, in the case of animals whose name exists only as one sex, how are you supposed to refer to an individual of that animal of the opposite sex? February 15, 2009 (talk) 00:12, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I cannot think of any examples, but I would say the normal way would be to say 'a male [animal]' or 'a female [animal]', and any adjectives, etc., that came with it would agree grammatically with the [animal], and not change according to the actual physical gender of the animal in question.--ChokinBako (talk) 00:28, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that's the way it works in German. The word for snake is Schlange, which is feminine. A male snake would be "eine männliche Schlange", which is still a feminine noun, so pronouns referring back to it would also be feminine. Another possibility would be "ein Schlangenmännchen" (a snake-male), which as a diminutive is automatically neuter, so pronouns referring back to it would also be neuter. But it's more common to have a word that covers one sex as well as the animal in general (e.g. Katze = female cat but also cat in general) and then a separate word to refer to the opposite sex (e.g. Kater = tomcat). And animal names that are generically masculine can almost always be made feminine by adding the suffix -in (e.g. Hund = male dog/dog in general → Hündin = female dog; Frosch = male frog/frog in general → Fröschin = female frog). Animals whose generic form is neuter, like Pferd "horse" and Schwein "pig" usually have separate names for both sexes, like Hengst "stallion"/Stute "mare" or Eber "boar"/Sau "sow". Ente "duck" and Gans "goose" are both feminine; they take a special ending -erich to make the masculine: Enterich "drake", Gänserich "gander". I don't think that ending is actually productive beyond those two words, though I've heard it used jokingly in words like Schlangerich "male snake", Bienerich "male bee". —Angr 05:56, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

What he said. I poked around in my head to come up with an animal name such as you suggested in my mothertounge, and came up with this: commonplace animals, as a rule, have names for both sexes (like deer-doe or some others in English), the ones that don't have name pairs are either insects or such, or less commonplace, like, say, giraffe or dinosaur, and for these you would just add 'male' or 'female'. TomorrowTime (talk) 05:49, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Your "What he said" (meaning Angr) shows how good English is at concealing our own genders. Strawless (talk) 13:51, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

And yet, he guessed correctly, probably realizing that male Wikipedians disproportionately outnumber female ones. —Angr 14:04, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, Angr's comment wasn't published yet when I was answering - my answer went to ChokinBako :) But Angr elaborated nicely on what I wanted to say. TomorrowTime (talk) 23:05, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

In Czech, it works similarly to German, with one difference: the generic words used for male and female (samec, samice) are nouns rather than adjectives. Example: had (a snake) is a male noun; a female snake is samice hada (lit. a female of a snake) or hadí samice (lit. a snaky female). Consequently, the whole noun phrase is headed by the word for male or female, and therefore its grammatical gender agrees with the physical gender, not with the grammatical gender of the word for the animal in question. — Emil J. 15:04, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

That's interesting. Have you got any ethymology data on had? In southern Slavic languages it's either zmija or a variant thereof, which essentially means "female dragon" or the Slovene kača, which I'm not entirely certain where it comes from - I could check my ethymology dictionary and post data here if there is some interest. TomorrowTime (talk) 23:09, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

TT, Czech had is connected with Church Slavonic gadŭ ("reptile, harmful animal"). From the same source is Polish, Russian, and Serbo-Croatian gad ("reptile, anything loathsome"), and OHG quāt ("filth"; cf NHG kot). Source: A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages, Carl Darling Buck, 1949, 3.85 "Snake".

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 00:16, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Czech also has the word zmije, but with a narrower meaning, it means "viper". — Emil J. 09:38, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh wow, Slovene does indeed have gad, but it means "viper" (Vipera berus). And I never once made the connection to the Serbo-Croatian "gadno", an adverb meaning "nasty", "loathsome". TomorrowTime (talk) 10:34, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Glad to be the agent of an epiphany, TT. At the risk of overdoing the pedantic-didactic mode, I will point out two things:

1. It's etymology, with no h. An easy error to make, in a quick posting. :)

2. S-C gadno is the neuter form of an adjective, and therefore can function as an adverb as well; as an adjective we would translate it as "nasty", but as an adverb as "nastily".

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 11:26, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Not at all, your corrections are welcome. To be frank, I've always had problems distinguishing between adjuncts and adjectives :blush: - not in using them, but in descriptions of grammar. And my school days are pretty far away now... TomorrowTime (talk) 12:03, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Chinese doesn't mark gender on most animals in their basic terms. However, if you want to specify the gender of the animal, you usually use 公 and 母 to mark male and female respectvely. Northern varieties (including Mandarin) put it before the animal word, southern varieties tend to put it after. Steewi (talk) 00:41, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Like Hungarian and several other languages, Chinese (Putonghua, at least) may be said to have just one word for he, she, and it: tā, in pinyin. In the 1910s there was much agonising among Chinese scholars about the status of the language as an advanced vehicle of civilised culture. To bring it more into line with the perceived greater prestige of inflected languages, like most Indo-European languages, different written forms were devised to distinguish the three genders. As a result current Chinese has 祂 ("he"), 她 ("she"), and 牠 or 它 ("it"). Plural forms are affected also, so that tāmen now has different forms also; for example 她們, or 她们 in simplified characters ("they" [all feminine]). The spoken language is unaffected, except that forms with 牠 "it" might sometimes artificially be used when the objective "it" would normally be unexpressed. Current speakers appear not to know this history or this motivation. A question of some interest arises: should we say that Chinese now has separate words for he, she, and it? Is a non-arbitrary answer possible? The Chinese tend to think in terms of written forms more than spoken forms, for deep linguistic, historical, and cultural reasons. So a Chinese student of linguistics and I preferred different answers, when I raised the question with her (even before I knew the history outlined above).

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 03:59, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Hello Noetica. Nice to see you back, amazing us all with your knowledge. Gwinva (talk) 07:33, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Ah, Gwinva - once first among my dear co-editors here! Why have I stayed so long away? I hardly know, myself. Take this as a public affirmation that I intend to communicate privately with you soon. Can I be believed? I hope so...    

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 11:26, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Also with Japanese, gender is not marked with animals. If you want to specify, you would use 雄 and 雌, completely different characters from those used in Chinese. In the same way, though, they are placed before the noun. Thus, 雄牛 is 'bull', while 雌牛 is 'cow'. 牛 on its own can be either of the two in English, depending on context, but in English would be translated as 'cow' when the gender is unknown. Which brings me to an interesting question. In languages which specify gender for animals, which word is used for the generic animal. Is it one of the two gender-specific words (mentioned above: Hund - male, but also means dogs in general; Katze - female, but means cats in general; and now the English 'cow' - female, but means all bovine creatures)?--ChokinBako (talk) 10:48, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, in German at least, for some animals (e.g. dog, lion, tiger, donkey, wolf, bear, fox) the masculine is the generic form, for others (e.g. goose, duck, cat, mouse, snake) the feminine is the generic form, and for still others the generic form is neuter and there are separate words for the male and the female (cow, pig, horse, chicken). An interesting case is "sheep": it's neuter and is the generic form; there's a separate masculine word for "ram", but there is no feminine word meaning "ewe". If you want to specify that a sheep is female you have to just say "female sheep" or "mother sheep". —Angr 20:04, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

spanish or apache languauge translation

could you please tell me the spanish and apache indian translation for : LIKE THE WIND : Thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.59.24.158 (talk) 01:27, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

They are two entirely different languages. Spanish would be Como el viento. Grsz^Review! 01:33, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Alternatively, 'gusta el viento', depending on context.--ChokinBako (talk) 10:24, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm having trouble finding a context in which the latter would make sense on its own. Remember that in a sentence such as "me gusta el viento", it's the wind that is the subject, and a literal, word-by-word translation would be "me pleases the wind", i.e. "the wind pleases me". --NorwegianBlue ^talk 19:35, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

There are several Apache languages. Strawless (talk) 13:40, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

debate judge vocabulary

can anyone tell me some debate judges should say? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.45.169.44 (talk) 16:01, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry, but your meaning is not clear at all. Are you looking for the word 'judgement'? Strawless (talk) 16:25, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Assume he means judges of academic debate competitions. AnonMoos (talk) 19:51, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

If he's Irish, he'll probably be thinking of the judges of the Irish Times National Debating Championship. Even so, I still do not understand the question! Strawless (talk) 20:52, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

---

I misread the question at first as "can anyone tell me some things debate judges should say"? ie if you're judging debates, what vocabulary should you use? (hence the title). My answers:

• Eloquent
• Cogent
• Persuasive
• Fuddled
• Unclear

Any more suggestions? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.27.161.108 (talk) 22:34, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

That's what I thought he meant too, when I wrote my reply... AnonMoos (talk) 23:38, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

October 21

What does one call the term that causes the emergence of a complementary retronym?

When the term "electric guitar" became nearly as popular as the original unmodified word "guitar", the term "acoustic guitar" emerged because "guitar" (unmodified) was considered ambiguous. "Acoustic guitar" is labeled the retronym. What is "electric guitar" labeled?

Certainly, both "electric guitar" and "acoustic guitar" are neologisms. But I think it would be useful to have a word to denote the neologism ("electric guitar") that caused the retronym to come into being. I looked around and didn't find any such word. Before I coined one myself, I wanted to make sure that there wasn't one already out there. So I am asking here.

Thanks. --Nick (talk) 03:43, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

electric g. is the top neo log, acoustic g. the bottom neo log? terrible joke, i know--Radh (talk) 07:42, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

There must be stacks of similar examples but I'm racking my brain to think of one. In the classical world, there's no need to disambiguate "guitar", because works are almost always written for acoustic guitars, and that's the default assumption. Occasionally, composers include an electric guitar in an orchestra, and in that case it's spelled out. Electronic keyboards have become so common in popular music that I wonder if people ever feel the need to refer to a traditional piano as an "acoustic piano". (I'm just waiting for the day when someone refers to Rachmaninoff's 3rd Piano Concerto as "Concerto No. 3 for Acoustic Piano and Orchestra by Sergei Rachmaninoff".) -- JackofOz (talk) 22:09, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

JoO, do you mean artistic musical composer Rachmaninoff's Musical Concerto numerically No. 3 for Aurally Acoustic Instrumental Piano and Combined Musical Instrumental Orchestra? I epistemically know it well enough, but approvingly like his numerical number 2 better.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 00:09, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

How remiss of me, Noetica; of course that was what I meant! Maybe I was just coming out of a hypnotic trance.  :) -- JackofOz (talk) 00:42, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what they're called either but I can certainly think of two examples used in Texas (where I grew up): "snow skiing" (to distinguish it from "water skiing", which is often called simply "skiing" there) and "hot tea" (to distinguish it from "ice tea", which is often called simply "tea" there). —Angr 06:03, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Compare field hockey, which is apparently what Norteamericanos call what the rest of the English-speaking world refers to as hockey. And compare ice hockey, which is what the rest of the English-speaking world calls what Norteamericanos refer to as hockey. (See Hockey. Hokay?)

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 09:23, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Going back to the world of music, I once heard someone on TV being asked what their hobbies and interests were. He said "Oh, I really love music, I have it on all the time <yada yada>. I also like listening to classical music when I'm in the mood". -- JackofOz (talk) 09:29, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

When a newly fashionable word, a loan word or something is used, the normal word in a culture suddenly looks old fashioned: chill-out for ruhen, Kids for Kinder, Kietz for Stadtteil. There might be a linguistic term for that?--Radh (talk) 11:22, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Latin initials

What do the initials "P.f." and "L.n." stand for in Latin names? For example:

• P(ublius) Cornelius P.f. L.n. Lentulus
• L(ucius) Cornelius P.f. L.n. Dolabella
• P(ublius) Cornelius P.f. L.n. Scipio Africanus
• P(ublius) Ventidius P.f. Bassus
• P(ublius) Cornelius P.f. Pn. Scipio

(None of those articles say anything, by the way.) — The Man in Question (sprec) · (forðung) 08:51, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Answered on the Humanities desk. It means "Publii filius" and "Lucii nepos", i.e. "son of Publius" and "grandson of Lucius". Adam Bishop (talk) 11:41, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

The Romans had a way of abbreviating many praenomina to one or two letters -- and Gaius was abbreviated to "C" (for reasons having to do with the early history of the Latin alphabet), which has given rise to the pseudo-form "Caius" (something which is pretty much guaranteed to be bogus wherever it occurs, other than in the name "Gonville and Caius", where it's actually just a fancy-shmancy pseudo-Latinate way of spelling "Keyes")... AnonMoos (talk) 12:02, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Frequency of Initial Letters of the Alphabet worldwide & on wikipedia

I am interested in finding out the frequency of initial letters of the alphabet used in words in various languages worldwide on the internet.

Some information is available for English, for example on wikipedia here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_analysis) BUT this only covers the general frequency of the letters NOT the frequency of initial letters in English.

It does refer to a web page here (http://pages.central.edu/emp/LintonT/classes/spring01/cryptography/letterfreq.html) which provides general frequencies and also the 10 most frequent initial letters:

Start of Word Letter Frequencies Letter t a i s o c m f p w Freq 0.1594 0.155 0.0823 0.0775 0.0712 0.0597 0.0426 0.0408 0.04 0.0382

From this several questions:

1) Is it true Wikipedia does not have info on the frequency of initial letters In English (ie I would like to initial frequencies of ALL 26 letters not just the top 10 in English) ?

2) You article has some interesting comparisons on general letter frequencies across several languages, any idea where I might find a similar comparison for initial letters?

3) My ultimate goal is to investigate the frequencies of ALL initial letters in ALL languages used on the internet. Sounds like a BIG project right? But maybe there is a way to arrive at an approximation for wikipedia... ie what are the most common Initial letters in ALL articles on wikipedia in ALL languages used on wikipedia and their frequencies? This would provide a data set for Wikipedia which would be interesting and might reflect the frequencies on the web in general...

Anyway, not sure if there is someone out there who can help with this or knows the answers, but I thought I would try as these are some interesting questions you may be able to shed light on.

If so I would be very curious to know the answers.

Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Careyz (talk • contribs) 14:21, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

A particular apostrophe problem

There is a UK Government Department called the Department for Children, Schools and Families. What is the correct way of showing this in the possessive? Is it acceptable to write e.g. "The Department for Children, Schools and Families' logo is colourful"? This makes it 'look' as though the logo belongs to plural families. Writing "The Department for Children, Schools and Families's logo is colourful," looks plain odd. There is a clear way around this ("The logo of the Department for Children, Schools and Families is colourful.") But in more complex (or just different) sentences this might be an unappetising formula. So if an apostrophe is the right way to go, where should it go? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.25.109.195 (talk) 14:26, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

In formal writing you would avoid it and use the "of" formation. In informal usage you can do it exactly as you suggested. It only looks odd because you don't often form possessives of phrases that long. But possessives of phrases that long's formation is just like possessives of anything else. (Grin.)

Since possessives of singulars ending in S can take either a 's ending or a bare apostrophe (boss' and boss's are both correct), and "The Department of..." is singular, another choice is to put 's at the end: "The Department for Children, Schools and Families's logo..." Personally, even though I normally use the 's form, I think this looks hideous. --Anonymous, 16:47 UTC, October 21, 2008.

I'm not sure what you mean by:

• "The Department for Children, Schools and Families' logo is colourful"? This makes it 'look' as though the logo belongs to plural families. (my bolding)

"Families" is already plural. Adding an apostrophe to the end makes it a possessive, not a sort of super-plural. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:54, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

The possessive does not belong to "Families", it belongs to "Department for Children, Schools and Families"; just as in "the King of Spain's daughter", it is the King who has a daughter, not Spain. The questioner's problem is that this seems less obvious for the longer example with a plural final element.

Taking a slightly simpler example of the same type, Google "and the * first album" and pick professional-quality matches:

• Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ first album Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
• Bob Marley and the Wailers' first album New York Times
• Siouxsie And The Banshees' first album The Guardian
• Sioux and The Banshees’ first album Popular Music (Cambridge University Press)

so the convention seems indeed to be to form the possessive of the noun phrase by forming the possesive of its final noun. This more-or-less matches the Chicago Manual of Style, §7.25:

In compound nouns and noun phrases the final element usually takes the plural form. If plural compounds pose problems, opt for of.

jnestorius^(talk) 22:35, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Rewriting to sidestep such a problem is usually (though not always) an option. Nevertheless the problem still demands a solution, if only for theoretical completeness. The article Apostrophe deals pretty thoroughly with these matters, I think. I cannot agree that The Department for Children, Schools and Families's logo is a realistic option. Written form should follow spoken form, and for that reason I reject also my boss' demands are reasonable unless one would actually say that.

Here is an interesting case. Suppose there were a band called Mommy and Me. We would not want say:

• Mommy and My new drummer.

We would say:

• Mommy and Me's new drummer.

Another one, with a band called Theirs and Ours. Which would we say, and write? This:

• Theirs and Ours' new lead guitar.

Or:

• Theirs and Ours's new lead guitar.

Or:

• Theirs and Ours new lead guitar.

To sidesteppers I issue this challenge: suppose that you had simply to write from dictation, without any alteration, the spoken words Theirs and Ours new lead guitar. You do have to supply appropriate punctuation! The apostrophe in English is not omnipotent, and some cases have no comfortable solution. Why should we expect it to be otherwise?

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 23:56, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks all for the comments, and sorry if my original question caused some confusion. I have asked colleagues here what they would say (out loud) and almost all - save one oddball - said "families" not "families's", as it were. So I'll take that as my answer. Of course, in writing, the convention of referring to Gvt departments by initials - so "DCSF" - helps too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.25.109.195 (talk) 15:28, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Symbols on Wiki globe

Are all the symbols correct on the Wiki globe?

-- Wavelength (talk) 14:39, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Apparently not. The symbol labelled as ה (he) on the chart actually shows ר (resh). Neither fulfills the demand that it be "a symbol used for the first letter of Wikipedia in a language or character set", as Wikipedia is called ויקימדיה in Hebrew and װיקיפּעדיע in Yiddish, both of which start with the letter ו (vav). — Emil J. 15:02, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Also, the symbol labelled as В does not remotely look like one. It seems to me to come from some Indian or other south Asian script. — Emil J. 15:10, 21 October 2008 (UTC) It could be Kannada (kn): ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ. — Emil J. 15:17, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Continuing with the Semitic examples, the symbol labelled by a يا ligature in a fancy font actually shows just ي, and Arabic Wikipedia "ويكيبيديا" starts with a و. Similarly for Persian (fa). — Emil J. 15:31, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Japanese ワィ would be pronounced 'wai', but this character combination (with the small イ) is impossible. If the イ was normal size it would be 'wai'. The Wikipedia one is purely fictional. 'Wi' should be 'ウィ'.--ChokinBako (talk) 16:23, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

For added info: The nrm Wikipedia starts with "v" in one dialect, and with "ou" in another dialect (a digraph). The Jade Knight (talk) 19:01, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

And Occitan does not use "o", but "w". This makes the Norman Wikipedia (in Jèrriais dialect), the only Wikipedia (so far mentioned) to start with O (in the form of the digraph "Ou"). The Jade Knight (talk) 19:08, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

And the Klingon Wikipedia was shut down years ago. jnestorius^(talk) 22:11, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

You might try on Image talk:Wikipedia-logo-en.png or meta:International logo contest/Final logo variants/Nohat; or even on User talk:Nohat, the user who created it (no longer very active). jnestorius^(talk) 22:47, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I just realized that there is a detailed discussion of the logo on WP:Wikipedia logos, which in particular implies that the description given in the image posted by Wavelength is wrong, it is an outdated attempt by somebody to decipher the logo, and should not be taken seriously. A discussion of errors in the logo can be found in meta:Errors in the Wikipedia logo, and a proposed fix at Image:Wikipedia-logo thue.png. — Emil J. 10:42, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Apropos of nothing... but it strikes me as strange that no-one has ever seemed to have pointed out the striking similarity between the Wikipedia logo and the album design for Do It Yourself (The Seahorses album). Nanonic (talk) 15:41, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

الموسيقى

'لو سمحتو ضروري اعرف جواب هذا السؤال ما هو الفرق بين السماعي الثقيل و البشرف ؟؟؟؟؟؟؟؟؟ من فضلكم تجاوبوني بسرعة ايضا اريد تعريف كل من الدف و الرق و المزهر ان لم اخطأ في كتابتهم ..... واذا هنالك فرق بينهم ما هو الرجاء الاجابة باقصي سرعة شكرا شكرا' —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mayf (talk • contribs) 20:15, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps. But can you re-phrase the question?

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 23:59, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

The section header is "Music" (al-muusiiqaa), but the question is not easy for me to understand, and Google Translate doesn't help too much (except of course, the final two words, شكرا shukran previously discussed here). AnonMoos (talk) 03:05, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

October 22

word derivation/history

I'm trying to find the origin of the name KENMORE. It appers in a large number of products & places, but I have been unable to find anything on its origin.

Dave, (former student of Kenmore High School) < email removed to prevent spam > —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.235.122.89 (talk) 02:45, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

The original Kenmore is in Scotland. The etymology is Scots Gaelic for "large headland". FiggyBee (talk) 03:12, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Spanish translation

Could someone tell me what 'viéndose' means? Google translate returns 'to be', but I don't see where this is coming from- what does it mean? 70.162.28.222 (talk) 04:47, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Coming from ver meaning "to see", when you add the -endo it makes it progressive like english -ing. Se is a direct object for el...so put it all together and roughly you get "he's being seen". Grsz^Review! 05:02, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Or [he is] seeing himself [in the mirror], or he is seeing [=finding] himself [in a difficult position], etc. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 18:46, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Parental warning

In what English words do parents usually tell their children "This is not suitable for you." (E.g. alcoholic beverages, brutal/horror/sensual movies...)? --KnightMove (talk) 09:48, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

"That's for grownups only"? The exact wording and vocabulary probably depends on the age of the children. —Angr 09:52, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Ok, thx. Age? Hmmm... say 8-10 years. --KnightMove (talk) 10:51, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

"You're too young." "Maybe when you're older." "That's not for children." --bodnotbod (talk) 18:15, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Writing on Indian Rocket Chandrayaan-1 (Hindi)

In this video http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7680865.stm you can clearly see the writing on the Indian moon rocket. I am pretty sure it says "PSLV C-11" as Pee-es-el-vee then se-11. What I am not sure about is the character used for the "e" of es and el. I would have expected ऐ, but it is clearly something different. What is the character, and why is ऐ not used? Sorry for this ignorant question, my total knowledge of Hindi is from the first two lessons of a teach yourself book.

Also, why give it an English name, take the initials and then represent them phonetically in Devanāgarī? I know this is bordering on a cultural rather than a language question, but why not just name it in Hindi? -- ~~

It's ए, which is /e/, as opposed to ऐ, which is /ɛ/. I'm afraid I can't answer your "why" questions, though. —Angr 10:10, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Here is the image (low res screen shot, fair use) File:Chandrayaan.jpg. It doesn't look like ए, which would I have thought made "es" "el" sound a bit like "ace ale"! Of course I am so inexperienced with Devanāgarī that I am not familiar with all the alternative forms and styles. -- Q Chris (talk) 10:26, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, you can't use fair-use images outside of article space, but if you look closely and use a bit of imagination you can see it's ए. You're right about the pronunciation, though; that's why I said I can't answer the "why" part! —Angr 11:03, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, with a bit of imagination I can see it! I will "bend" the rules and leave the image up for a while to see if anyone can answer the "why" -- Q Chris (talk) 11:23, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

As for the 'why' part... it is not necessarily an English 'name'. As you already know, it is the Hindi transliteration of the letters 'PSLV' which is the original name of the rocket. You question begs the counter-question, 'why give it another name when it already has one?'--ChokinBako (talk) 11:14, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I understand that PSLV stands for the English name [Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle]. -- Q Chris (talk) 11:23, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Right, so I'm sure they couldn't really write all that in Hindi on the small space where the sign is, so they opted for the initials - the name of the vehicle.--ChokinBako (talk) 11:36, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

But couldn't they have given it a Hindi name and then labelled it using the initial Devanāgarī characters? Is that something that is done in Hindi? Or could it be "publicity" factors, like giving it a name that is easily usable in the Western press? -- Q Chris (talk) 11:41, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

That possibly is the reason. I mean, if it's already called Chandrayaan, why not call it Chandrayaan? I see your point.--ChokinBako (talk) 11:45, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

In India, by the way, the language used for scientific studies or research is English, and this is probably the reason why the vehicle has an English name, not just because of Western media. 'Chandrayaan' will be a nickname, like 'Challenger' or whatever for the shuttle. 'PSLV' actually states the purpose of the rocket, and, being scientific, is in English. Also, bear in mind, Hindi is not the only language in India. There are many more, so a lingua franca is needed. English, Hindi, and Sanskrit are the three official languages, with English doubling as the language of higher education. --ChokinBako (talk) 11:57, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I realise that official language is a complex issue in India, Official languages of India shows that it it is not at all clear cut. -- Q Chris (talk) 13:52, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Chandrayaan is the lunar orbiter, whereas PSLV is the rocket which launched it into space. They are not the same thing, that's why they need different names. — Emil J. 13:59, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks - that's interesting

Help with a Latin language British title

Am I right in thinking "Rex Britanniae" means king of Britain. If so what is "British monarch" in Latin? Thanks, --217.227.78.76 (talk) 12:39, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you're right about "Rex Britanniae". "British monarch" is presumably "monarchus Britanniae". —Angr 12:55, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Or if you really prefer "British" to "of Britain", "monarchus Britannicus". Adam Bishop (talk) 13:35, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Latin question 2

What is Edward the Confessor known as in latin? Our latin wikipedia says "Eduardus Confessor", is that correct? What is "The Confessor" in Latin? Thanks for your help! ;) --217.227.73.158 (talk) 14:31, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I think the Latin Wikipedia is right. Latin has no word for "the", and the English word "confessor" is borrowed directly from Latin. —Angr 14:34, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

What is the Chinese term "金童玉女" in English?

I am a Chinese student whose major is English,and I find it hard to translate this Chinese term into English, If I translate the term word by word, it means "Golden boy and jade girl". The term means that a boy and a girl who can match very well, just like Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake in the late 90s.I beg any great ones who can help me come up with a more native way for this term.Of course, in English.Thank you very much. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eastmanxie (talk • contribs) 14:52, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

The most common similar phrases in English would be "made for each other", or "a match made in heaven". I can't think of any English phrases which mirror the Chinese phrase more closely, except possibly to refer to the couple metonymically by the names of famous lovers; Romeo and Juliet, Posh and Becks, etc. FiggyBee (talk) 15:06, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Romeo and Juliet, however, are better known for being star-crossed lovers, so maybe they're not the best example of a golden boy and a jade girl. —Angr 15:15, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Perhpas the phrase Soulmate would be an appropriate translation. --Zerozal (talk) 19:17, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Overlapping subsets

Aloha. I'm trying to reword a phrase in an article that has proven problematic, but my English is not the best. The current wording is of the form "A and B are the two types of C". The intended meaning is, in gonzo set theoretic terms, "For all x, if x is an element of C, x is either an element of A or B", or more precisely "A intersection B is the null set, and A union B is C".

The problem with the original wording e.g. "Big and small are the two types of dogs", is that it's also (roughly) accurate to say "male and female are the two types of dogs". So how do I express the claim "all C's are either A's or B's" in the style of an article lede, i.e. "A and B are____C"? Sorry if this is confusing, any help appreciated. the skomorokh 15:07, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

You could say that Anarcho-capitalism and minarchism (let's use the actual article title, as precise context may make finding an appropriate wording easier) are two major factions within Libertarianism? Two main schools of thought? I don't see how the claim that "All Libertarians are either Anarchists or Minarchists" is important to the article. Just say that these are two major ideas which are in conflict. FiggyBee (talk) 15:52, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

The point is that they are exhaustive of libertarianism, not just two factions among others. This is important as it attests to the notability of the topic, which has been in doubt. I appreciate your suggestions, but it's not what I am looking for. Regards, the skomorokh 15:55, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure you can say they are exhaustive of libertarianism. As libertarianism is a broad-reaching political philosophy, there are bound to be many nuanced types of libertarianism out there. To imply that there is only two exact "types" of libertarianism is to make the No true Scotsman fallacy... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 16:12, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I can't claim certainty about the precise connotations of the English words, but I think I have it right: no matter what kind of libertarian you are, you either a)believe the state is morally justified or b)do not. The claim is staked on the law of excluded middle, which if we are going to be Aristotelians about it, allows for no nuance. And on a side note, you are quite the Renaissance admin, thank you! the skomorokh 16:15, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

How about giving it a different structure altogether? I'd suggest something like: "A fundamental division within libertarian political thought is the division between anarcho-capitalism and minarchism." It would not imply that there may not be other ways of dividing libertarians, but it would convey that this is a meaningful division and not a trivial one. Also it would leave open the question of whether a "third way" is possible, while the text of the article itself would still make it clear that essentially all libertarians are either one or the other.--91.153.157.140 (talk) 18:17, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

You could just as easily state that libertarianism exists on a continuum, with "anarchocapitilism" being at one extreme end, and various states of allowable state-intervention (some of which could be termed "minarchism") along the continuum, all the way towards full state-socialism on the other. You could just as easily state that while some libertarians believe in no-state intervention in any aspect of life; and believe only in pure market forces as regulating social interactions, while others believe in some limited forms of state control. That makes it sound more "either-or". The problem with using obfuscatory terms like "anarchocapitalism" and "minarchism" is that they sound like very narrowly defined terms that refer to small distinct groups, and its the words themselves that hide the real nature of the binary choice: either believing in state intervention or not... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 19:28, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

how does english sound to others?

I find French a very musical language to listen to (like many others) while German, on the other hand, sounds harsh and forceful (and seemingly well suited to Adolf Hitler's speeches, if I'm allowed to say that, if not, oops, sorry to German speaking folk). How does English sound to outsiders? Are there any typical observations they tend to make? It's been emotional (talk) 18:07, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Braindeadism bargain basement antifascism- Hitler was an Austrian you f***.--Radh (talk) 18:11, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Tru dat, but he did speak The german language. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:15, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

He may have been born in Austria, but he had become a German well before but certainly by the time he became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, and even more certainly after Austria was incorporated into Germany in the Anschluss in 1938. -- JackofOz (talk) 19:39, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Past tense uses of the verb "to text"

Is there agreement on how to use this relatively new verb - meaning "to send a text message" - in the past tense? I say, "I texted him last night," and, "I have texted him already," while most of my acquaintances say, "I text him last night," and "I have text him already." (Of course, I sometimes also say, "I sent him a text last night.") I think people think they can get away without the "ed" because the "t" gives something of an "-ed" sound. But it's nonsensical to me. Your views?86.139.236.224 (talk) 20:21, 22 October 2008 (UTC)