The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.
I enjoy extending my vocabulary so I frequently look unfamiliar expressions up as I stumble upon them. Today, I found niggardly and was amused by the controversies spurred by people mistaking it for nigger. It all reminds of this xkcd. So, what other examples of language usage are there that have given rise to similar incidents? When it comes to familiarity with lesser-used words, I am absolutely not abreast (tihi, just learned today) with native anglophones, so don't hold your contributions back because you think them trivial – I might know less than you would expect. —Bromskloss (talk) 00:31, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a bad word, but I remember being somewhat startled by finding the word invagination. I had no idea that vagina- was a generic word that could be used in other contexts (small in-foldings). Matt Deres (talk) 00:51, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Most of the medical words for naughty bits would have meant something very different to the Romans, because they're euphemisms, though I've no idea how old they are in that role. —Tamfang (talk) 20:52, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Given all of the controversy surrounding catholic priests, many are surprised to find that the church-owned house they live in is frequently called a "rectory" or that they attended "seminary" to get their position. There are numerous jokes that play on the connection of these words to rectum and semen. --Jayron32.talk.contribs04:47, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I came across one that cracked me up when debugging a French program. The word "tampon" was used as a variable in the code. It apparently just means "anything which is inserted" in French, or something like that. In English, there's also a crampon, which is a mountain climbing tool, not an uncomfortable feminine hygiene product. "Mastication" is another one in English that's always fun. StuRat (talk) 04:52, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In the computing context, tampon probably means 'buffer'. I was once told that Afghanistan was created as an état-tampon (between Russia and British India). —Tamfang (talk) 20:54, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There's also the famous non-speech that was apparently apocryphally attributed to George Smathers: Are you aware that Claude Pepper is known all over Washington as a shameless extrovert? Not only that, but this man is reliably reported to practice nepotism with his sister-in-law, and he has a sister who was once a thespian in wicked New York. Worst of all, it is an established fact that Mr. Pepper, before his marriage, habitually practiced celibacy. :) -- JackofOz (talk) 05:11, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Attributed to P. T. Barnum is the method of getting people out of a crowded hall full of interesting critters by putting up a sign saying "This way to the Egress" so that people would be encouraged to go through the door. —Angr09:39, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ummm...according to the Encarta dictionary's French>English translation, that meaning is listed as secondary and only in the railroad context. The primary English translations it gives are: plug; stopper; pad, wad; rubber stamp. -- Deborahjay (talk) 12:17, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, those are appropriate translations in other contexts. But here the word was encountered in the context of computers. I know mémoire tampon means "buffer memory". I suppose that's because it's thought of as a sort of padding. I think there might be other similar computer-related meanings. Joeldl (talk) 12:21, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Définition :
Mémoire utilisée pour le stockage temporaire de données lors du transfert d'informations afin de compenser la différence de débit, de vitesse de traitement ou de synchronisation entre les divers dispositifs d'un ordinateur et ses périphériques.
.
Sous-entrée(s) : .
synonyme(s)
tampon n. m.
zone tampon n. f.
mémoire intermédiaire n. f.
. Note(s) :
La plupart des imprimantes sont pourvues d'une mémoire tampon.
And it offers these as English equivalents:
buffer storage
buffer memory
intermediate memory
By the way, the French word tampon can also mean "tampon."
While we're running with the "French" theme, it caused no end of humor in my High School French class that "Douche" was the french word for "Shower", and "phoque" (suspiciously close to "fuck") meant "seal" (the animal). --Jayron32.talk.contribs01:19, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
French learners sometimes get into hot water with "idiotisme", which does not mean what it looks like, but "idiom". It means idiocy in Dutch, however [2]. In Russian, идиотизм (idiotizm) can mean either idiocy or idiom, depending on the context, although they also have идиоматизм (idiomatizm), which means only idiom. I'm sure there are some English idioms that qualify as "idiotism"s. -- JackofOz (talk) 01:32, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
EFL students frequently stumble over these dissimilar words hard - hardly, hospital - hospitable, host - hostile, famous - infamous. (Among others, there's a long list.) BE/AE words can also cause all sorts of misunderstandings. I'll always remember my reaction when a British colleague said "I'm going out for a fag." 76.97.245.5 (talk) 06:45, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The last time I heard anyone say that was at a non-smoking gay bar, and I'm still not entirely sure what he was referring to. :) -- JackofOz (talk) 20:03, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Although I'm American, I certainly know what "fag" in British English means. Once a co-worker told me that another co-worker had "gone for a fag". Although I knew what she meant, I still responded, "Well, I certainly know what that's like!" —Angr20:40, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Is there any other word in English that has such a bizarre collection of disparate meanings as cigarette, male homosexual, and school-based servant-cum-whipping boy? (Apart from the fact that, in some cases, the last 2 meanings might converge.) -- JackofOz (talk) 21:05, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And don't forget about the "small sticks" def, which leads to the hate-crime sounding action of "tossing a few fags on the fire". StuRat (talk) 03:31, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've only ever read that (never heard it) as "faggots" of wood, not fags. Faggots are also a type of sausage still sod under that name in the North of England, where they don't go in for euphemism much. -- Actually, have a look at the disambiguation page faggot for a varied list of choices from a Christmas tradition to a metalworking technique!BrainyBabe (talk) 03:39, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
<unindent>Words confused between languages are false friends. A French teenager once complained to me that her teeth were "sensible" (sensible --> "sensitive", i.e. she had toothache). As for phoque (the animal, same sound as "fuck"), there's a hysterical "lost in translation" video called "Culture in Danger" here. Is there a term for words confused within languages? Of course there are the good old trans-Atlantic differences (trans-Pacific too): JackofOz, don't leave home without your rubber! Words that sound almost like rude words? "Organism" was all very amusing when ten years old, but one moves on....Those who object to "niggardly" do not, to my knowledge, raise their voices against "snigger". Is there a category for words too close in spelling for comfort? The pairing "marital/martial" springs to mind.
Jack asks for words (or homophones, I suppose) with a bizarre collection of meanings. I suspect lots of short Anglo-Saxon words have multiple main denotations that fly in opposite directions, but we are too close to the coal face to see them. Take "coke", for example. A classic example of changing primary meaning was highlighted in the recent tidying up and reprinting of the Enid Blyton series of children's adventure stories. The Five (or the Seven, it may have been) went exploring an abandoned house, as you do, and fell down the coal hole and landed in a pile of coke. Nowadays that would indicate a multi-million pound narcotraficante haul of cocaine; then it was a coal by-product; most young children now might only understand the soft drink. Or what about piles: heaps of stuff, hemorrhoids, or the long girders buildings rest on. Bag: to shoot ("We bagged a brace of pheasant in the first ten minutes"), the result of a shoot (the day's bag), the udder of a cow, and to avoid or dismiss, often from tiredness ("We watched the first show on the disc than bagged the remaining episodes."). BrainyBabe (talk) 03:25, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What exactly does this expression mean and where does it come from? From context, I assume it's used to describe someone with a lot of chutzpah and indeed brassy can also be used to describe a outgoing, in-your-face person, but how accurate is that? I hardly ever see brass balls either, it's almost always balls of brass which makes me wonder if there's a specific source for the expression. Matt Deres (talk) 00:58, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Stateside it's always "brass balls", never the other. I always thought it was just another in a long line of alliterative schoolyard utterances, like "tough titties" or "nimble nuts". The obvious idea behind it is that one's testicles are unbreakable, that no one may "bust" one's "balls", the "balls" metonymically referring to one's manliness. In a similar vein, I heard Jeremy Clarkson claim the other day that the Stig's scrotum had its own small gravitational field. --Milkbreath (talk) 01:36, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, you forgot to add "Tommy Toughnuts" and "Billy Breakballs". But yes, it has always been "Brass Balls" here on the Eastern Coast of the US ;) Lazulilasher (talk) 03:44, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm reminded of the iconic "balls of brass speech" from the film version of Glengarry Glen Ross that Alec Baldwin delivers. The basic idea is that to have your "balls busted" is to be emasculated, i.e. to be removed from the collective "manhood". If you have balls of brass, you have balls which are immune to being busted, and thus cannot be unseated as a man. Men who take risks with a huge downside, and frequently succeed, are said to have "balls of brass" because they are unafraid of embarassing failure, especially where that failure would some how show them to be less of a man. --Jayron32.talk.contribs04:39, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The "brass" part may come from either the 3rd or 4th definition of brass as given by MW online 3: brazen self-assurance 4: singular or plural in construction a: high-ranking members of the military 76.97.245.5 (talk) 06:53, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks guys. Isn't it strange how certain metals get attached to particular idiomatic expressions. You can have a will of iron and nerves of steel, but not the other way round. Me? I just have a heart of gold! Matt Deres (talk) 16:11, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've been watching the show Deadwood and noticed that they use the word "fuck" far more than in any other western I've seen before. This has led me to wonder, exactly how common was the word in the old west? Is Deadwood historically accurate in saying "fuck" as often as it does (these are rough and tumble sorts after all) or did it not become that commonly used until later in our history?Jmannseelo (talk) 13:30, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Have you read our article Fuck? It doesn't discuss the American West of the nineteenth century in particular, but since the word was already well known in the English speaking world before then, there's no special reason to believe it wasn't in widespread use in 1870s South Dakota. —Angr13:42, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I vaguely recall an interview with someone from that very show who said that they researched historically accurate profanity but the characters ended up sounding like Yosemite Sam. They decided to go with modern swearage to translate the effect to a modern audience. So I guess the answer is, no it wasn't used as often as the show presents. — Ƶ§œš¹[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]18:00, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The article Brass monkey (colloquial expression) includes a note about the trend from blasphemies to more sexual epithets "words previously in common use like "bloody" and "damn" (both blasphemies) being largely replaced by obscenities "fucking" and "shit".[3]. So, it's 20th century license. A line that jangled for me was in the movie, the English Patient, someone says, "I can't do this." when historically it was more likely to be "I can't go on like this" or something similar. Is there a word for this kind of glitch even if it's deliberate? Julia Rossi (talk) 08:13, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There is no sound research as to the prevalence of words like "fuck" in the 19th century, nor is there likely to be, because the reliable sources are so limited. (It certainly isn't for want of effort on the part of linguists.) It was a word that people in the old West knew and used. As Fred R. Shapiro has shown in his memorably entitled paper, The Politically Correct United States Supreme Court and the Motherfucking Texas Court of Criminal Appeals: Using Legal Databases to Trace the Origins of Words and Quotations, the harshest insult available in Texas in the late 19th century was to call him a mother-fucking son of a bitch. In an earlier case, in Missouri, there was a suit for slander based on the imputation that the defendant had said the plaintiff had fucked a mare. The defendant argued "that the word used to convey the slander, was unknown to the English language, and was not understood by those to whom it was spoken." On appeal, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled against the defendant: "Because the modesty of our lexicographers restrains them from publishing obscene words, or from giving the obscene signification to words that may be used without conveying any obscenity, it does not follow that they are not English words, and not understood by those who hear them." Edgar v. McCutchen, 7 Mo. 768 (Mo. 1846). The court report is notable as the first printed book of any kind in the United States to use the word "fuck." John M Baker (talk) 17:42, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It means we'll sell you this item on credit, and if you pay in 90 days, there will be no interest charge--thus no extra cost to you. "Your payment in full within 90 days is the same as a full cash payment now." --- OtherDave (talk) 17:24, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If it is, it's probably a French-based transcription of an Arabic vernacular dialect word. I would need a little more information to have a realistic chance of correlating it with anything in standard written Arabic... AnonMoos (talk) 22:28, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It is in a song sung by Amira that can be accessed by Radioblogclub.com . It is pronounced as if it were butterfly in German.
What does the "LIO" prefix mean in the scientific name of "Pocket Mice"?
Many scientific names of species have prefixes that define a group of animals within a larger group. Thus, among the various mice ("MYS" in classical Greek) the earth-based mice called in English "pocket gophers" are named in the scientific taxonomy Geomys (literally "earth-mice").
In Greek the prefix "Lio" denotes smooth, but in Latin the same prefix means lion-like or leontine. Since Greek and Latin are used indiscriminately in nomenclature, it is impossible to guess what an animal's name with that prefix means. My question is therefore twofold:
1) In the particular case of "LIOMYS", the Mexican Pocket Mouse, does the "Lio" prefix mean smooth or leontine?
2) In general terms, is there a way to tell which is correct, or does one need specific knoledge for each and every case this prefix is used?
Thank you!
--Bergeronz (talk) 20:13, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A paper from the University of Nebraska State Museum says, "The generic name Liomys is a combination of two Greek words, Lio (plain) and mys (mouse), referring to the absence of the specialized characteristics of Heteromys." I think that nails it for our mice, given the contrast with "hetero-". A search of the Oxford English Dictionary on line for "lio-" yeilds two hits. One sends us to "leio-" where it says "also 'lio-'" and defines it as your "smooth". The other hit goes indeed to "lion", but there it's actually "lío" (note the accent on the "i"), one of a dozen or so "forms". I think that "leo(n)-" is the prefix to look for when things get leonine, not "lio", and I think you can expect "lio-" to mean something like "smooth" as a rule. --Milkbreath (talk) 20:48, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ancient Greek had two forms lis (lambda-iota-sigma) -- with masculine grammatical gender and circumflex accent, it's a special shortened version of the word for "lion", while with feminine grammatical gender and acute accent, it's a special shortened version of an adjective meaning "smooth". It's not obvious to me that either one would result in a "lio-" prefix in compound formation. The more usual form of the adjective is leios Λειος (which I assume is the source of "Lio-" in "Liomys"). The usual form of "lion" in Greek compounding is Leonto-, as in Leontopolis ("Lion City"). AnonMoos (talk) 22:22, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
With the first one, it currently says: Российская национально-автономния партия. There's no such spelling as "автономния", afaik. It's unclear whether the middle word is meant to be an attributive noun meaning "national autonomy" or an adjective meaning "nationally autonomous" (whatever that means). That is, is the party about advocating national autonomy for Russia, or it it claiming to be nationally autonomous itself?
In the first case, the Russian word for autonomy is автономия (avtonomiya)
In the second case, the word for autonomous (f.) is автономная (avtonomnaya)
While googling "национально-автономная партия" i came across both Руская Национально-Автономная партия and Русская Национально-Автономная Партия. At http://www.vedikz.narod.ru/analytics/rusinskoe_edinstvo.htm I found some other party names in Cyrillic. I reckon that somehow, difference between Русская and Руская is difference between Russian and Rusyn, right? --Soman (talk) 16:51, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It might be. Руски язик looks to be the Rusyn for "Rusyn language", so the whole title may be in Rusyn for all I know. The standard Russian adjective for Rusyn seems to be Русинский, not Руский. I can imagine it being colloquially referred to as Руский, but I somehow doubt it would be an official spelling due to the potential for confusion. It's more likely a typo for Русский. The possibilities seem to be:
Hi. When my son was born in London ( 1977 ) I went to the local city office to register his birth. A large leather 'log'/ book was brought out and his birth was added to the registry. It was done in 'ink' ( a special pen was used ) and his parents occupations/nationalities were entered. We were American expatriots then, living in London for a period of 5 years and employed by an American bank. I was told or understood at the time that this 'log/book' was called the 'doomsday book' by the Brits. Can you give me any way to confirm this info?
As far as I know it's just the Register of Births - I've not heard it referred to as "Doomsday Book" before - we have the Domesday Book, but that is something else. By the way, you should have been given a Birth Certificate for your son. I'll just add that, if I recall correctly, a person born in the United Kingdom in 1977 is automatically a British citizen, regardless of his parents' nationalities, so congratulations to your son, he has won first prize in the lottery of life! DuncanHill (talk) 00:07, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect Cecil Rhodes was limiting his congratulations to English people only, Duncan, but Londoners are English so it applies in this case. -- JackofOz (talk) 00:38, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Let me first say I'm in over my head here, being an American. I stayed out of it hoping that a Brit would weigh in with a "Yes, I've heard it called that, too." The Oxford English Dictionary on line seems to indicate that the expression, in the spelling "Domesday Book", is used figuratively. I think the OED is saying that any official book of records might facetiously be called a "Domesday Book" in Dear Old Blighty. --Milkbreath (talk) 19:58, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
After EC: Don't know if they knew about the Greeks, but the expression also exists in (older) German: "Geschenktem Gaul guckst du (or guckt man) nicht ins Maul." (Gaul is an older form of Pferd = horse). I assume you know that people used to look inside the mouth of a horse they were about to buy/ had bought to verify that the traders assertions of the horses age and health were accurate. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 07:19, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There seems to be a contradiction in the origins of this phrase and the legend of Troy. This site[4] dates it to St. Jerome in 400 A.D. – his point seems to be the opposite of the "buyer beware" argument. His point was that he wrote for free so there is no "catch". Another place[5] supports Jerome's idea that it's bad manners to inspect a gift for defects – the opposite of what's involved with a spy machine like the T-horse. Better to be safe than noble, methinketh. Julia Rossi (talk) 07:59, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I greatly enjoy reading this page. There is a much higher class of banter here than can be found elsewhere in Wikipedia. Thank you. CBHA (talk) 19:38, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In editing Autonomous Agrarian Union, I encountered that I seem to have misunderstood some of the grammar in some sources. any help from German and Russian speakers would be appreciated, the main source in German at [6] (upper half of the page) and in Russian [7], [8]. --Soman (talk) 17:42, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, there are clearly mistakes in the names of the organizations in Autonomous Agrarian Union. One should be Автономный Земледельческий Союз, and the other Подкарпатский Земледельческий Союз. The transliterations would be Avtonomnyy Zemledel'cheskiy Soyuz and Podkarpatskiy ... Also, in most cases, Russian would not capitalize the second and third words in names like these. I'll check the sources now. Joeldl (talk) 18:26, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I was confused there for a bit because your source says Avtonomno-zemledel'cheskiy, which would mean something like "Autonomo-agrarian", when "avtonomnyy zemledel'cheskiy", "autonomous agrarian" made the most sense. It turns out the first gets 7 Google hits and the second 122, so avtonomnyy is correct. Joeldl (talk) 18:41, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Is there any material in "Значительным влиянием среди населения края тогда пользовался Автономно Земледельческий Союз (АЗС). В начале своего существования эта партия ставила своим приоритетом достижения автономии Закарпатьем, но со временем повернула свои взгляды в бок Венгрии, поскольку в его ряды входили старые священники и учительские семьи, воспитанные еще в мадярофильскому духе, а также некоторые крестьяне, которые, имея имения, при старом укладе состояли на общественной службе [1, с. 12]. Поэтому члены АЗС были искренними сторонниками старого строя, правда не сразу об этом задекларировали. (http://allaaria.ru/vid/bookscontent.php3-quest-b-eq-24-and-c-eq-633)" that would be of interest to the article (note that I'm not asking for a full translation of the passage, but i'd like to get some clarification of what the Hungarian-postures issue is about, google translate gives a quite confused picture). "Ослабленная Прага не могла контролировать Закарпатье и согласилась на создание автономного правительства. Однако реальная власть оказалась в руках русофильской партии «Автономно-земледельческий союз», представитель которой возглавил правительство и вел явно провенгерскую политику. Очевидно, что этот факт свидетельствовал о слабости украинских влияний на формирование власти в автономии." (http://www.day.kiev.ua/198251/), seems to deal with similar issues. Another text, that i think has relevant material for the wiki article is [9], for example there is various names mentioned. I think the mentioned names refer to the party leadership of AZS, but I'm not sure. --Soman (talk) 19:06, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have no idea about the Russian language but, if need be, I can translate / improve relevant bits quoted from the German reference, Die Erste Tschechoslowakische Republik, which you have linked to above (reference 17). --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:43, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Here's a rough translation. I don't know any of the historical context, so I'll just let you judge for yourself what's useful.
"The AZS then enjoyed significant influence within the population. At the beginning of its existence, this party gave itself the priority of achieving autonomy for Subcarpathia, but over time turned its sights towards Hungary, since among its ranks were old priests and learned families, raised in a "magyarophile" spirit, and also some peasants, who, owning property, had been in voluntary service under the old régime. For this reason, the members of the AZS were sincere supporters of the old order, though it is true they did not proclaim themselves such immediately"
"Weakened Prague could not control Subcarpathia and consented to the creation of an autonomous government. Only the real power turned out to be in the hands of of the Russophile party "AZS", the president of which led the government and followed a patently pro-Hungarian policy. Obviously, this fact bore witness to the weakness of the Ukrainian influences over the formation of the autonomous authorities." Joeldl (talk) 19:47, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I had to refer to a dictionary for the meaning of Закарпатье, which it said was "Subcarpathie" (in French), but Transcarpathia seems a better literal translation, and it's also what's linked to from ru:Закарпатье. Joeldl (talk) 20:02, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
One of the problems of using google translate. It thinks you mean Автозаправочные станции. However, this party was active in the 1920s and 1930s, a time when the abbreviation АЗС was not commonly associated with petrol stations. --Soman (talk) 00:18, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Language acquisition seems to me to be talking about an individual. If you are talking about language attrition of an individual (i.e. A Frenchman living in America who goes back to France to find he can't remember certain words, grammar, etc.), then yes, language acquisition is the opposite. If you're talking about a language group attrition (i.e. a native American nation whose children are learning a grammatically less complex version of their parents' language, the equivalent of a pidgin), then the opposite would be something like language expansion, language revival or language reclamation. Steewi (talk) 00:41, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Language attrition may lead to the death of that language. It is not clear what phrase we use to describe the process leading up to the creation (birth, if you like) of a new language. Pidgins and creoles are stages, certainly, but one word for the overall process? BrainyBabe (talk) 03:33, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think it would be a good idea to examine our article Language attrition (linked by the questioner) before answering in terms that are incompatible with its definition. The article, rightly or wrongly, defines language attrition as "the loss of a first or second language or a portion of that language by individuals", and adds that "it should be distinguished from language loss within a community". So it is not the same as language death, which is the loss of a language at the societal level, and perhaps the total loss of the language in question.
Is the article right? A quick scan with Google suggests that it is. Consider Defining language attrition, for example. If Language attrition is indeed right, some of our other articles need adjusting: including Language death. Neither article has the matter addressed in its talk page, but both perhaps should.
When it comes to language, I'm speechless at the notion that an article on Wikipedia might be inaccurate. As a tangent for the person posting the question and anyone else interested, here's linguist Geoff Pullum talking about dead languages, living languages, and language endangerment. In each case he's talking about the use of language by a group: And now to revive Cornish?" He offers an easy, sharp test of whether a language is living: "There must be little kids who speak the language with each other because it is their only language or else their favorite." If the average age of those using a given language every day is over 20 years, he says, you can kiss that language goodbye right now. --- OtherDave (talk) 14:26, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Right, because the average age of native speakers of English is certainly greater than 20, and no one would argue that English is dying. What Pullum says is that if the youngest speakers of a given language who use that language as their preferred means of everyday communication is greater than 20, then the language is dying, and that if the youngest such speakers are older than 5, the language is probably dying. Of course, there are lots of children under the age of 5 who communicate in English every day, so I guess our language is safe for now! Marco polo (talk) 21:44, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's true; I summarized carelessly. It was a tangent; the point of connection was the disappearance of language among groups. I thought it related to the poster's topic; your mileage may vary. "Many a shot goes into the heather." --- OtherDave (talk) 00:48, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OtherDave, be speechless if you like. And yes: entertaining tangents are common here, and most illumin[at]ing. The point of procedure that interested me remains: The questioner specifically linked an article that gave a clear definition, strongly implying that this definition was to be assumed. Joedl replied swiftly in terms of this definition. Thereafter things drifted. If we don't "Keep [the] answer within the scope of the question as stated" (see the header of this page), we should at least stay aware of what the question most likely was. Incidentally, I see that Pullum does not refer to the death of a language as "attrition".
Noetica, if you fret as much about "drift" elsewhere on Wikipedia as you do here, I can't imagine how you have time for much else... like, say, respiration. --- OtherDave (talk) 00:43, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As I say, OtherDave, I don't mind drift. But let us keep the point of departure in our sights. And I thank you: my breathing, along with the remainder of life beyond Wikipedia, is not in the slightest compromised by the slight exertion required to remind editors of the topic.
I bought 'Korean for Dummies' about a year ago but was busy with other things so I didn't read it at the time. Just recently I opened it because I wanted to start on Korean again but it turns out that 'Korean for Dummies' does not include any information on how to actually write Korean. Apparently the publishers do not consider writing to be an important part of learning a language with a different alphabet. Can anyone suggest any other resources, book- (that I can get in the UK) or web-based to help with this? Cheers, JoeTalkWork05:01, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It was meant to be logical, but since it was invented in the 10th Century, lots of sound changes have appeared in the language, so you end up with sandhi, which even happens between words.--KageTora (talk) 11:19, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
While our article on Hanja says it's still required (without a citation since February), I heard otherwise - unless you want to read old texts, of course. — Sebastian04:39, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Make your strokes go from left to right and then top to bottom. When writing a character, pretend that you are doing so in a little box.121.190.163.183 (talk)
A bunch of potential RS in Italian have been found at Google - help discovering if they establish notability would be great and even better would be adding such verification to the article. --Dweller (talk) 13:37, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Billigen Kieker ("Das Bild Lebt!")
This is from the text of "Das Neue Reich"—an undated series (ca. 1935-38?) of 156 Nazi propaganda photos, 7.7 x 5.5 cm., distributed with cigarette packs of the brands Club, Liga, and Sanct Georg. For a surcharge of 75 Pf. the collector could buy an album for storing the photos at the tobacconist's, and for a mere 25 Pf. could purchase a "Billigen Kieker" that enlarged the photo 3.5x and produced a 3D effect. Near as I can figure out, it was like a cheap View-master (perhaps like the devices appearing on the Stereoscopy page?). I'm looking for confirmation and what to call it in an English-language translation. -- Thanks, Deborahjay (talk) 14:04, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Are you sure it was called a "Billiger Kieker" ("Billigen Kieker" is accusative case), rather than a "Kieker" that is described as being "billig" (cheap)? "Kieker" sounds like it must come from "kieken", which is (at least) Berlin dialect (and maybe more general Low German, I don't know) for "look", so a Kieker is a looker or viewer. —Angr14:10, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I quote:
"Wir empfehlen, die Bilder mit dem >>Billigen Kieker<< zu betrachten, welcher 3 1/2 mal vergrössert und echte Fotos plastisch zeigt."
N.B. As for dialect (brace yourselves): I don't know proper German, but in Yiddish, biliker kuker (the latter in "Western Yiddish" i.e. in Germany and Austria, pronounced like the German Kieker) means "cheap viewing device." -- Deborahjay (talk) 14:44, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, "billigen" isn't accusative after all, it's the weak form of the dative used after the dative definite article "dem". I think it's probably just a descriptive phrase "cheap viewer" rather than a special name for the device. According to LEO, Kieker can mean binoculars, spy glasses, or field glasses, and German Wikipedia (de:Kieker) also says it's a North German word for a telescope or binoculars. But since it literally just means "thing for looking (through)" I wouldn't be surprised if it also referred to a ViewMaster-like device. Here's an example of a viewing device for slides or negatives being called a "Kieker". I'd just translate it "cheap viewer". —Angr14:50, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Angr that "cheap viewer" would be best. If you'd like to dig further, the pictures are called "Zigarettenbilder" [11] and the Kieker you'll probably find as a "Betrachter", "Raumbilderbetrachter" or "Stereobildbetrachter". Here's an older more elaborate one [12]. The one they describe was most likely cardboard. If you skim to item 11734 and click on the camera and through the "Bildergalerie" there's another one.[13] - 76.97.245.5 (talk) 23:55, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's better not to translate the "Billiger Kieker" at all (or to give the English meaning "cheap viewer" in a footnote and keep the German term in the text); I have never heard of that particular device, but from what you've told us, it sounds like "Billiger Kieker" is actually the product name (because the "Billig" is capitalized, and because the specifically say "der Billige Kieker", not just "ein billiger Kieker"). What they are trying to say with "Wir empfehlen etc" is not "Use any cheap junk to view our pictures" but "use our fine product CheapJunk(TM) to view our pictures". Just a guess, of course - I can't find a reference at the moment that "Billiger Kieker" is indeed the product name, but I'd be mightily surprised if it were otherwiese -- Ferkelparadeπ10:02, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
With the caveat that I've never studied German though typed the query text verbatim from the source: is it signifcant that the first word is Billigenrather than Billige or Billigeras some responses (above) have stated? At the given price, the item may well have been of cardboard and designed for sole use with this collectible series. Note that the enhanced view was plastisch so perhaps my wording("3D") was misleading if merely "lifelike" was intended? Apropos the technology: each card had a single photo image, not a duo (as I've seen elsewhere). -- Deborahjay (talk) 11:52, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
To your first question, no it's not significant. It's simple grammar that "billigen" is the only form the word "billig" can take after the word "dem". When removed from its grammatical context, it reverts to the nominative singular form "billiger Kieker". LEO reveals that "3-dimensional" is one of the meanings of "plastisch", but I don't know how a 3D view was effected with only one photo per image. —Angr14:48, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, dear, case grammar—still to be mastered (as my Babel boxes betray). Indeed, LEO was my penultimate stop before posting here, and I suppose I was hasty and rather imprudent in latching on to the "3D" defo rather than any of the others. As the (four) photos came without even a cheap viewer, the special effect remains a mystery for now. -- Thanks, all! Deborahjay (talk) 16:26, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In northern German, "de:Kieker" means telescope or binoculars. I knew the term only from maritime German, but it's certainly northern German, and the German Wikipedia claims it's a general term there. I'm still not sure why the word "Billigen" is capitalized--maybe a brand name or something like that? Would that fit? Either way, I'd understand it to be dialect for a cheap telescope/cheap binoculars. --Ibn Battuta (talk) 03:00, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The dialect would be "Marketingese". The nautical "kieker"[14] would not give you a plastic image. "Kieken" [15] is Platdüütsch for "look". The fact that "billig" is both capitalized and inflected should not be over emphasized. The thing was probably either labeled "Billiger Kieker" or simply "Kieker". Example "Billiger Jakob" is a term used to describe something like a Dollar store (N.B. this term can be used in a derogatory manner). Both terms would be capitalized and you'd say s.o. bought s. th. "Beim Billigen Jakob." This is language use by people trying to sell a product, not an academic text. Both Angr's suggestion for translating "cheap viewer" or Ferkelparade's version leaving the expression in German and putting the English in brackets behind it would work here. If Deborahjay actually has images one could check what type of stereo vision effect was used. 3D images were all the rage before color TV and still had a lot of "ooh, aah" effect when I was a kid visiting my aunt. Since 25 Pf. was not that much money, even back when the item in question was sold, it is highly unlikely that they employed 2 images and lenses. (I have an old German cookie recipe calling for "yeast for 5 Pf." for comparison value.) Although the southeast corner of Germany has traditionally been known to produce excellent lenses, they have never been that cheap AFAIK. The images very likely have some yellowish and blue[16] or red and green shading/lines and can be viewed through glasses/viewers that have plastic films in green/cyan and red. I was wondering whether plastic could be produced that cheaply back then, but cellophane or "Zellglas" in German had been around for a while and the ingredients would not have been hard to come by and locally available. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 10:38, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Numbers in a Sentence
First, my understanding of 'correct' English is that for values less than 10, you should use the corresponding words (one, two, three, etc.) and not the number (1, 2, 3, etc.). For values greater than or equal to ten, use the number (10, 11, 12, etc.). Second, my understanding is that you should not begin a sentence with a number (1, 2, 3, etc.). Instead you should use the corresponding word (One, Two, Three, etc.). Assuming the above is correct, what do you do in the following example: "Ten out of 11 of my pens are black.". Is that correct, or should it be "Ten out of eleven of my pens are black." or "10 out of 11 of my pens are black.". This is for a somewhat formal report. 216.239.234.196 (talk) 15:57, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The Wikipedia Manual of Style has a pretty good treatment of the topic here and here. To answer the question, your rule of thumb is a good one—single-digit numbers get spelled out—and eleven out of eleven copyeditors would make that "Ten out of eleven of my pens are black" after making sure you didn't mean "Ten out of my eleven pens are black." You try to maintain consistency within a sentence, going with numerals or letters all the way, if possible.
There are exceptions to almost every rule, though, and the rules are different for different contexts. It's amazing how quickly you can get wrapped around the axle trying to keep it all straight. My advice is to get whatever stylebook your report should use and follow it. If you can use any stylebook, I recommend The Chicago Manual of Style ($55), which you can subscribe to on line ($30/yr). --Milkbreath (talk) 16:31, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There are many details of writing in English where multiple styles exist. Both the Wikipedia and the Chicago manuals of style exist for the purpose of recommending specific styles, and of you're happy to follow those recommendations that's fine. But it should be acknowledged that other styles may exist and may also be correct. In particular, in the writing of numbers, there tends to be a variation between technical and literary writing, with technical writing favoring the use of digits -- especially if the number comes from a count, measurement, or computation (like "10 out of 11") -- and literary writing favoring the use of words. General-purpose writing, like magazines, may fall in between. The original poster referred to a rule that the numbers you write in words are those less than 10: some who use such a rule set the cutoff larger, perhaps at 100, and the number on the boundary may go either way. So if this is for a formal report, it may matter what sort of report it is.
If you are following the rule about not starting sentences with a number written in digits -- again this is a stylistic choice -- and you find it produces something awkward, often the solution is to rearrange the sentence.
--Anonymous, 19:22 UTC, December 22, 2008.
This whole matter was hugely and wearyingly controversial at WT:MOS and WT:MOSNUM, many months ago. Yes, there are various standards and rules proposed by style guides; and no, we cannot settle the matter rationally at Wikipedia. Not as things stand. Usually a style guide delivers a simple guideline, such as: "Don't start a sentence with a number in figures; use words, or refashion the sentence". Well and good; but obtuse and inflexible. It is ridiculous to insist on this rigidly: it will often entrain other anomalies ruled against by other guidelines, and refashioning is not always available (when transcribing a speech, for example). Look at this:
... in the 19th century and earlier. 20th-century advances in engineering ...
There is nothing wrong with it, because the full stop cannot be misread as a decimal point or as anything else distracting. MOS says: "When the adjective is hyphenated, consider nineteenth‑century painting, but not when contrasted with painting in the 20th century". Why? Why ever nineteenth‑century painting? As one who has been a major contributor to MOS, I have argued against flagrant contempt for MOS and its editors (see this discussion); but here I aim simply to illustrate the difficulties of the task.
This too is to be judged perfectly sound, except in the windy assizes of pedantry:
58 of the 130 companies were insolvent within a year. 40 have now been wound up, and 18 are in the hands of receivers.
Rules of thumb, yes. But they are nothing more. Consistency is golden, so such blunt precepts deserve respect; but we need to fathom first their raisons d'être, and respond to them also.
216.239.234.196, I was tempted to address you as "Two hundred sixteen, period, two hundred thirty-nine, etc." By setting off "correct," you gave me the impression you saw daylight between "correct" and "sensible," which is a good instinct when it comes to these things. I agree with Noetica about a pragmatic approach to rules of thumb. Writing "ten of the 11 edits are sheer gibberish," however accurate the opinion might be, will tend to imply that you're not able to look at a sentence in context. --- OtherDave (talk) 12:31, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"I look awful, don't I?" [Charity] said at last with a happy sigh. ~Summer (novel), Chapter 9.
Charity is trying on a new hat and feels pretty. Why does she describe herself as "awful"? Was that slang for snazzy/pretty/chic at the time, or is Charity being sarcastic? 96.233.7.70 (talk) 05:06, 23 December 2008 (UTC)WhartonFan[reply]
Lots of negative words are used to express positive notions. (e.g. We had a terribly good time. She was hauntingly beautiful.) Not knowing the character described in that book I can only guess that she might have been making a pun (awsome/awful), or trying to ape someone whose opinion of style she doesn't agree with. (Think of a "punk" teenager relaying her "Victorian" aunt's opinion of her.) 76.97.245.5 (talk) 08:29, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's the equivalent of today's "awesome". Look up "awful" in any dictionary. Its common use as "very bad" is a pejorative extension of its core meaning even now. --Milkbreath (talk) 12:08, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It could also be insecurity ("please tell me I look good"), a request for reassurance ("I'd like to do something different but I'm not sure this is it"), or fishing for complements ("convince me I look good"). When trying on outfits, you want something suitable. --- OtherDave (talk) 12:34, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, because in that case she wouldn't heave a happy sigh, she'd make a moue. You're making me wheel out the big gun: The OED calls the meaning "Frightful, very ugly, monstrous" slang even now. The meaning intended is "Solemnly impressive; sublimely majestic". She is guilty of hyperbole, not sarcasm. --Milkbreath (talk) 12:47, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The OP doesn't say when the book was written, or more probably, set, but the moral that words change their meaning over the centuries, becoming, in effect, false friends, is a salutary one. The most famous use of "aweful" in this sense is the contested description of St Paul's Cathedral, often attributed to Queen Anne in 1710: "aweful, artificial, and amusing", or as we would say now, awe-inspiring, cleverly constructed, and pleasing to the eye. The quotation is probably an urban legend, with its bubble well pricked in this linguists' list. BrainyBabe (talk) 12:53, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A big part of language is that it is often a "secret code" used among members of a social group/tribe/clique/association/whatever. The use and understanding of the "correct" meaning of words indicates that you "belong" to the "club". It is a sign of membership in the clan to be able to speak the clan's language. Its not a conscious choice to create new language to fit a particular clan, but it is a natural part of the evolution of a clique. The whole idea behind using words in a different meaning is that it quickly identifies the outsiders from the insiders. If you don't understand what Charity is saying in the quote, or even if you kinda-sorta understand it, but it makes you feel a bit weird, like it doesn't quite work, it just means that you don't belong to the clan that Charity does... --Jayron32.talk.contribs13:29, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So in 1917 "awful" was probably often (or, compared to now, relatively often) used in its positive sense, at least in Charity's clan (Jayron's word), which probably encompassed all of rural Massachusetts. And to BrainyBabe: Sorry about not providing the date, I thought you would take the link to the article. It was written by Edith Wharton, if that helps. 96.233.7.70 (talk) 19:24, 23 December 2008 (UTC)WhartonFan[reply]
Awful and terrible are used in the Bible in reference to God Himself. Terrible is still used of a certain Russian ruler named Ivan. In the sense of "awfully good", "frightfully good show" and "terribly impressive" (or in the negative connotation "he's not terribly impressive, is he", meaning "he's very unimpressive, isn't he"), they are not negative words at all, but terribly, frightfully, awfully positive ones. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:44, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I reverted, since I don't see any advantage to translating the Latin verb deleo as "to smite". In modern English, the word "smite" has strong associations with the God of the Old Testament (except of course for the derived form "smitten", which has developed its own specialized meaning, which is even more inappropriate as a translation of deleo). AnonMoos (talk) 11:31, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank ye for going behind my back. The early versions (KJV, LV, GB, LXX, etc.) were full of mistranslations. "smite" was not of the first sense which could fit the original text; "slay" would be. "smite" is associated with "smut", and both with the stain in delendus and its degerundives (the proper term for Wp's gerundive). Another rough translation may be "strike" as in "rub out", rather than "wipe out". Moreover, the world wrongly uses the prospective construction "to verb" as the infinitive—it's not, as there is no "to". -lysdexia 12:37, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
That's nice -- however, "smite" is not listed as a translation of deleo in the compendious and quasi-authoritative Lewis and Short dictionary, as you can see here: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aentry%3D%2312882 , and all of the meanings which are listed there refer to something being obliterated or effaced or destroyed or put an end to, whereas the meaning of "smite" refers to striking a blow of some kind against something (which may or may not have the effect of destroying it). Since furthermore, the word "smite" has strong archaic Biblical connotations in modern English (except in the case of the form "smitten", which has developed an additional further distracting meaning), therefore there's a strong burden of proof on you to demonstrate (with suitable references) how "smite" is remotely appropriate in the context of translating Cato's saying... AnonMoos (talk) 13:22, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, it's not nescius. Dictionaries are not translations; senses are given. What you need to do is look at their etýmologhies—many dictionaries tell you delere first means blot out, blemish, or smear, from which the other senses came. The same goes for the meaning of smite. Both words, in Latin and English, mean the same at their outset and later on. Your whine is about the former's pejoration and is beside the point of whomever uses the word. The former edit, of "destroy", is wrong as the Roman would've said "destruenda" instead, of course. You can't justify the use of one word to mean exactly as another when they're in the same language. Which is why the parallels of "rub out", "wipe out", or "blot out" are ever better than the lame translation. How about you make a case for your claim about "smite"'s strong Biblical connotations? and how they dissuade its use in the translation, as it's your lone reason for smitan my edit. -lysdexia 14:45, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
Dude, within ancient Latin destruo has more technical connotations of dismantling or pulling down something, while deleo has broader and sometimes more emotive connotations of completely "wiping something off the map" (as it were). Cato used deleo instead of destruo presumably because he was more a lot more interested in obliterating Carthage as any kind of politically, militarily, or economically significant entity than he was in demolishing a few buildings. Furthermore, if Lewis and Short translate deleo as to "destroy", then I don't see why we can't also. And the simple fact is that "destroy" is dramatically better -- on every dimension relevant to translation -- than would be "smite"[sic] (a word which is semantically and stylistically very seriously inappropriate). If you want to improve the article, then please try to make practical and constructive suggestions for a better translation, instead of continuing to ride your faintly ridiculous "wikt:smite" hobbyhorse. AnonMoos (talk) 03:40, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Why do you call me "Dude"? Yes, destruo means "I unbuild". deleo means "I smite". Its wiktionary page is lame and without history or citations; "smite" couldn't be more appropriate or better as the contemporary. If you want the "wipe out" sense, then it's "I strike". But the use of another disrelated Latin loanword is the worst translation. Lewis and Short, and other lecsioghrafists and lingvists, are misinformed and miseducated, is why; their job is not translation but popular description with hardly any analýsis. They con the depths of one tonge (one of the classics) but not the other (English, here), so they cannot frame up any whole translation; it's more a sýnoným of a thesaurus, and nearly always in the same nation. (They use another Latin word as the meaning of a Latin word. Their [academic] work is bogus.) Every keyboard comes with a "delete" key; this originally was on the typewriter, and for the ink or other written medium. So any deletion was the blotout of words to be forgotten—as dele came from the stem of Latin and Hellènic le- and let- words for oblivion, such as letum (death) and letare (slay), and lèthè. So letare is already associated with delere. Your whiny suppression of my [already-]constructive edit has been nothing more than handwaving, without critical analýsis or proof of your own, and you expect for me the burden of proof? The historic record of all of our terms should grant me the right to take off the lame translation, and many others you may find everywhere—as professors-doctors are not even broadlier expert to sheerly and wholly say anything in English, which has been dead for 1000 years. They can only do "Einglish". -lysdexia 05:14, 29 December 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.127.228.70 (talk)
Which I'm aware of, and my case already makes the distinctions. (The meaning of a word is not by necessity its first, but is contemporary.) -lysdexia 12:09, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
Libel is against Wikipedia's NPA laws. lysdexia was/is not a troll, and I advise you to read the dictionary, which you are sheerly infamiliar with. Also see User talk:68.127.228.70. -lysdexia 03:36, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A translation from Dutch
Can someone please help me with translating the following text from Dutch, please? I get the gist of it but I'm trying to translate the article, so I need to be as accurate as possible. Thanks. Leptictidium (mt) 10:37, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Mogelijk was Johann Georg Hiedler die in het Derde Rijk officieel voor de grootvader van de Führer doorging niet de biologische vader. Als mogelijke vader van Alois komt ook de broer van Johann Georg in aanmerking, namelijk Johann Nepomuk Hüttler die in Spital Nr.36 woonde en waar Alois Hitler werd grootgebracht.
are good, but I want to know is how many languages do you need to know to be able to speak to 50% of the world? or 60% etc. Because of the overlap (bilingual, multilingual) in the lists above, its hard to come up with an answer. - NominalActor (talk) 12:07, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A lot hinges on what you mean by "speak to." Take the "usual estimation" of 618 billion who speak English as a first or second language. Are you asking them where to wait for the bus, or trying to get your kitchen made over, or explaining collateralized debt obligations? For example, I may understand individual words like sill, header, sole, plate, stud, king, and jack, but I can't make sense of them in the context of building a wall, the way my brother-in-law the carpenter can. Yet I've been a native-speaker of English for quite a while. --- OtherDave (talk) 12:46, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I heartily concur, and would add the refinement that the ability to understand what people say back to you is another skill altogether. Those who are not used to foreign accents, let alone dialects, let alond wildly varying levels of competence, may be in for a shock, just because they can issue statements or orders and have them acquiesced to or obeyed. BrainyBabe (talk) 12:57, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
By speak to, I mean basic talking and understanding, not specialist stuff, like carpentry or philosophy. I know that's an ambiguous definition, but I'm just looking for any figures from a good quality source. I don't want to get too bogged down with definitions. - NominalActor (talk) 13:03, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just for reference, this was just asked like a few weeks ago, see [17]. I'm not sure we came up with a definative answer, because of overlap in the statistics and such, but if you start with a world population of 6 billion and then add together the languages at the top of the list, you can get a rough idea. --Jayron32.talk.contribs13:24, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, that was me, diff username (forgot password). The trouble with just adding the languages is that you soon go over 6 billion because of the overlap. - NominalActor (talk) 13:44, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You could also start with an assumption that no one speaks more than 2 foreign languages and see how much languages you have to know to reach 3 billion people. Mr.K.(talk)13:49, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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 basic 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 probably need the following ten languages, at a minimum, 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) 17:50, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You should note, though that that would leave you with "white spots" on the world map where you still couldn't talk to anyone, whereas in other places you could (pretty much) talk to everyone you met. (Given that both me and my nephew are thought to speak the same language, communication is still not assured.)76.97.245.5 (talk) 01:01, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Apostrophe usage
Say I want to contract "It's okay" into "sokay" [deliberate sic]. Do I use two apostrophes ("''sokay), to compensate for the contraction of the apostrophe in "it's", or just one? This may seem a stupid question, but I'd like to know what the usage rules are with regard to apostrophe inclusion and omission. —Anonymous DissidentTalk13:32, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Short answer—no. I think I can safely say that if you adopt as a fundamental rule "Never use two apostrophes one after the other," your life's journey will be smooth and unvexed. Deor (talk) 13:36, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I recommend you no more spell "cello" with an apostrophe than you would do so with "phone". With the convergence happening these days with technology, some bright spark will no doubt come up with a telephone embedded in a violoncello, and then the pedants might be forced to write things like "I was playing Bach on my 'cello'phone, when it rang". -- JackofOz (talk) 20:31, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The expression "o'clock" is a contraction of the phrase "of the clock". One apostrophe alone represents both the missing letter "f" and the missing word "the".
As far as I can see in the OP's question, there were four apostrophes, "'okay". And my quotation marks have just added another two.--KageTora (talk) 10:45, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've recently seen a message that begins "I should like to thank you all..."
To me, the word 'should' seems a bit out of place, 'would' is the word I would (or should that be should?!) normally expect to see in that context. Is this a common way of writing?62.25.96.244 (talk) 13:40, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
People from (especially southern) England use should and shall in some cases where the rest of us expect would and will. Very often, this is the case after the pronouns I and we. Shall and will has information about this. Joeldl (talk) 14:00, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I take it as short for "If I have the proper amount of gratitude, I should like to thank you". Presumably, someone who is ungrateful won't like to thank people. StuRat (talk) 16:04, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No. (I take it that you're using should to mean "ought to.") It's a straightforward conditional. It means exactly the same as "I would like to thank you," except that a majority of English-speakers in the world simply don't use should that way. Occasionally, some Americans used to do this too, probably under British influence. Here's an example, dated 1975 and from a U.S. source, taken from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage:
The use of should instead of would as a conditional modal verb after first-person pronouns (I and we) is a historical usage that has gradually faded over the past 200 years or so. During that time, the relative meanings of should and would (which used to be, but no longer are, parallel to shall and will) have shifted. This can create confusion, because present-day users mistake the older meaning for the newer meaning ("ought to"), as the original poster did. I think that the older usage was current in the United States during the 18th century, but by 1900, only educated Americans aping British usage still carried on the historical usage. The historical usage seems to have lasted a bit longer in England, but I think that even in England it sounds stuffy, hypercorrect, and antiquated to most people nowadays. Marco polo (talk) 16:35, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Marco is correct that the usage has fallen into desuetude, but it's worth pointing out that as late as 1974 a popular U.S. style guide (Words into Type) was saying:
The auxiliaries shall, will, should, and would are classically used with verbs to express simple futurity and determination. The distinctions formerly made between shall and will are breaking down and are little observed in popular speech. Nevertheless the distinctions are observed by many careful writers.
1. In a declarative sentence simple futurity or mere expectation is expressed by shall (or should) in the first person, will (or would) in the second and third persons. …
2. In a declarative or an imperative sentence, determination, threat, command, willingness, and promise on the part of the speaker are expressed by will (or would) in the first person, shall (or should) in the second and third. …
This distinction has been blurred for so long that experts debate whether General Douglas MacArthur's statement on leaving Corregidor in 1942, "I shall return," was an expression of determination or simple futurity. It is not even clear which would have been the stronger statement under the circumstances.
The historic "usage" makes no sense. Why wouldn't both persons share the verb? If I shall, so shall you; if you will, so will I.
(original research)
The seven moods of English
You shall heed. (As it fits.)
You should heed.
You will heed. (As it wants.)
You would heed.
You mot heed. (As it goes.)
You must heed.
You do heed. (As it makes.)
You did heed.
You can heed. (As it works.)
You could heed.
You owe heed. (As it needs.)
You ought heed.
You may heed. (As it comes.)
You might heed.
as ~ whenever
mot ~ feel like
shall ~ likely
Many say "should" instead of "ought". Mood is contrasted with aspect (progressive), tense (prospective), and person (imperative). In my notes I also list the five genders (common, masculine, feminine, epicœne, neuter), declinations (gerundive, nominative, accusative, dative, supine), positions (locative, diminutive, allative, augmentative, demonstrative), cases (vocative, paritive, ablative, genitive, possessive), persons (imperative, active, objective, indicative, passive), tenses (prospective, past, present, future, causative), aspects (progressive, optative, perfective, subjunctive, infinitive), and some of their Middel and New English equivalends, prepositional and enclitic:
"Jeepers Creepers, How'd you get those peepers?" - I always wondered whether that line from the song was a question directed at JC personally, or just a gratuitous rhyme. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:12, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Word meaning
When I was a child, my grandmother used a word which meant "carrying too many items at one time to avoid making two trips." I have spent many years trying to remember that word and have researched it on line. I have had no luck. Does anyone know the single word which has the above meaning?Sandollarz (talk) 07:50, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not the ordinary meaning of shlep (if Yiddish), which is basically a transitive verb meaning to convey an object, including oneself, with a sense of some effort involved, and otherwise a noun for the (onerous) trip involved. -- Deborahjay (talk) 17:55, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In English at least (perhaps not Yiddish), shlep can also be intransitive, as in "I had to shlep across town (to do whatever chore I had to do)." In German, schleppen has pretty much the same meaning as in Yiddish; abschleppen is the ordinary word for "tow away" (e.g. an illegally parked car), which caused me to laugh out loud the first time I saw sign here in Berlin saying "Widerrechtlich geparkte Fahrzeuge werden kostenpflichtig abgeschleppt" and mentally translated it as "Illegally parked vehicles will be shlepped away at owner's expense". —Angr18:57, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, intransitive is what I was getting at above with "including oneself." That sense = "drag," while I would translate the transitive shlep as "haul," regardless of quantity. (Exception: in late 20th C. SoCalif, one would hear the slang expression haul buns as an exhortation or declaration meaning "to get moving.") The most amusing recent usage I've encountered is shleppost for "snail mail" :-) -- Deborahjay (talk) 08:50, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Help wanted with Speculaas. There's a French sentence: "une espèce de pain d'amandes connu sous le nom de spéculation." My best guess would be: "A kind of almond bread known under the name spéculation." Could "pain" also mean cookie? 76.97.245.5 (talk) 08:29, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In present-day French at least, I don't think pain can be used to mean "biscuit". But the quote is from the 19th century.
In French, pain can be either countable ("loaf") or uncountable ("bread"). Also, it's used in all sorts of cases where English would use words other than "bread" or "loaf": pain aux raisins means "currant bun," a sort of pastry (European French), petit pain, "bread roll", pain au lait "sweet roll", pain à hot-dog "hot dog bun" (Canadian French) pain pita "a pita." Like the English "loaf", it can be used to refer to things that aren't remotely bread, but are reminiscent of it in their shape: pain d'olives "olive loaf." Joeldl (talk) 09:38, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe "speculaas roll"? (Scratch that; self-referential definitions aren't very useful) I agree with Joel, aand moreover, the sentence you quoted seems to refer to the "Hasseltse speculaas", according to the article at Dutch Wikipedia. The recipe here shows a picture of this particular regional specialty; it doesn't look quite the same ("loafier" and not as "biscuity") as the better-known flat bas-relief variety. Then again, the Dutch article also features a picture of "Speculaasbrokken" ... All sorts of varieties, previously unknown to me, making my mouth water... ---Sluzzelintalk09:49, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Since they appear to be invariably sweet, perhaps a vague word like confection would be a suitable translation. Joeldl (talk) 10:13, 24 December 2008 (UTC) On second thought, maybe that makes it sound too sweet. I'll have another think. Joeldl (talk) 10:23, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Merry Christmas 76.97 in cold Atlanta. Joedldl's examples seem to be quite close to bread-y things though. Speculaas in my woods don't have the nice defined woodcut look about them, more like the brokken one, but they are crispy. Note to self: complain to manufacturer. In green ink. Julia Rossi (talk) 10:30, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The picture Sluzzelin linked looks like the German "Printen" Gingerbread. Unfortunately there is no page and no English translation, so it doesn't help any. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 10:37, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
All right, maybe we're thinking too hard about this. It says bread, so why not just translate it faithfully as "bread." If it seems strange, so what? It already seems strange in French. An alternative might be "cake." Joeldl (talk) 10:50, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I recently consumed a cake that was flavored with speculaas-spices. It looked, more or less, like the one in the picture. Cakes may be appear in all kinds of varieties, be it different sizes, shapes, decorations (or lack thereof). --VanBurenen (talk) 11:18, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's true, but normally, the French word for "cake" is gâteau, not pain.
According to le Trésor de la langue française informatisé one meaning od pain is: food made of flour with other ingredients (aliment à base de farine dans lequel interviennent d'autres ingrédients). A receipe of pain d'amandes translated as "Belgium Almond Spice Bread" here. AldoSyrt (talk) 15:59, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Type of idiom
What's the name of the construct that hyphenates and repeats a phrase to indicate its genuineness?
Such as "I suppose Dust is your pen name?"
"No, it's my name-name."
Darn... I asked this question because I was hoping it would lead me to a page I found a while ago with examples of these, many from the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I think I found it on StumbleUpon a year and a half ago, but now it seems to be lost in the ether... 99.245.92.47 (talk) 10:18, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This thread's original post mentions the phenomenon; the OP suggests calling it "genuine reduplication". Unfortunately for this question, the rest of the discussion (including linked sources) focuses more on reduplication in general and in other languages. There must be somone who has written about this from a scholarly point of view, but googling reduplications such as "name name" is tricky. ---Sluzzelintalk11:55, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I'm a british amateur linguist, and recently I was talking to a friend across the pond. I did a quick survey of a few features I was expecting and a few I wasn't, and I found:
* <pin> and <pen> have merged (expected)
* about as rhotic as it's possible to get (expected)
* /æ/-raising before nasals is also in full effect (expected)
* <cot>, <caught> and <cloth> all share the same vowel (expected)
The surprise was that <father> and <bother> don't share the first vowel, nor do <bomb> and <palm> rhyme. I'd been led to believe this was all but universal in north america (outside the northeast). Her parents are from the south (Arkansas), but she has grown up in the northwest (Oregon). Is this feature more common than I thought it was? And what's the mechanism for this? 79.72.162.202 (talk) 13:35, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Failing to rhyme father and bother is quite rare in North American English (outside the Northeast, as you say), as is failing to rhyme bomb and palm unless palm is pronounced with an /l/ due to spelling pronunciation (which isn't uncommon). Did you actually hear her say "father" and "bother" yourself or are you relying on self-reporting? If the latter, it may be that she actually does rhyme them, but thinks she doesn't. —Angr13:47, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, but it's unsurprising to find those mergers in an American English speaker. It is surprising to find father and bother distinct. Does cloth have the vowel of cot or caught for you, LarryMac? —Angr14:11, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As I sit in my work cubicle mumbling to myself ('s OK, the people nearby are used to that) I'd say it's closest to "caught", but not quite the same. And for the record, I do rhyme "father" and "bother". But not "brother", of course. My point though was that there's no single set of "American vowels" any more than there's a single "English accent" (RP notwithstanding). --LarryMac | Talk14:24, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it's Christmas Eve day still (10:41AM as I type). Although I'm supposed to be here until 5PM, but that may be a soft deadline. (soft's vowel sound rhyming somewhat with cloth's) God bless us, every one. --LarryMac | Talk15:44, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note that the South has peculiar accents, just like the North East. Most of the rest of the nation is closer together in accents, however. As an American from Michigan, I always rhyme "bother" and "father" and also sometimes "bomb" and "palm" (as if they were "bom" and "pom"). At other times I pronounce "palm" more clearly, with the "L". I always rhyme "caught" and "cloth" (as if they were "cawt" and "clawth"), but never rhyme "cot" with either. I never rhyme "pin" and "pen". StuRat (talk) 15:31, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know that putting the "l" in "palm" is pronouncing it "more clearly". Doing so is a spelling pronunciation as the "l" in such words (others being "balm", "calm", "alms", and "almond") disappeared centuries ago along with the "l"s in "folk" and "talk" (which I trust you always pronounce with no [l]). —Angr16:32, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Some of this is regional. I'm in the US Midwest and pin and pen do not rhyme, nor do cot and caught use the same vowel sound. However, caught and do cloth do use the same vowel. 216.239.234.196 (talk) 15:54, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is self-reported, yes. But she says father and bother are very distinct, not even a near merger. Testing with other words is difficult because of spelling pronunciation and rhoticity (honestly, how many words -are- there in the <father> class?) unfortunately. I'll see if I can get a good enough audio sample to hear for myself, with my completely unmerged ears. 79.72.162.202 (talk) 16:17, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
True, there aren't many. You could see if her "Bach" and "dock" rhyme; in theory, you could see whether baht rhymes with "pot", but of course "baht" isn't a word of most Americans' active vocabulary. When I tested this merger on a linguistics class once, I had them compare the phrases "sonata form" and "it's not a form". —Angr16:32, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Also palm, tomato.
I'm looking at the dictionary, and it says the distinction exists in non-rhotic areas. It says it's pronounced further forward than the vowel in bother in eastern New England, as in southern England. It may have much the same quality, but longer duration, in New York City and the southeastern U.S. Joeldl (talk) 16:36, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Tomato" has the "father"/"palm" vowel for very few Americans; the great majority of us say it with the "face" vowel. —Angr16:51, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe this person misread or otherwise misunderstood bother as brother? Otherwise, it's a little hard to explain. It might be that she grew up in a speech enclave in Oregon influenced by New England. Are/Were her parents academics? Incidentally, I don't think that the vowel distinction between father and bother is limited to non-rhotic accents in New England. I am a New Englander with a rhotic accent for whom there is such a vowel distinction, and I think that rhotic accents are common in Connecticut, western Massachusetts, and in more educated social milieus in eastern New England. Marco polo (talk) 16:58, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Angr, I'm Canadian and I pronounce tomato with the vowel of face too. I know most Americans don't pronounce it. I don't think the ah vowel is rare in New England, though, and that's why I mentioned it, since they're the very people we're talking about.
Marco Polo, perhaps this occurs where there were originally nonrhotic accents. Am I incorrect, or are father and farther merged in Boston? That could conceivably go some distance towards explaining the maintenance of the distinction, since there's a large category of ar words - it's just a matter of merging a few ah words into that category.
This makes me wonder what the overlap of rhotic accents and bath/trap-distinguishing accents is in England.
There's a map of the father/bother distinction in "Atlas of North Amercian English" (p. 171, available for partial preview at Google Books). It shows only the Boston area (reaching into New Hampshire), Maine, and New York City. That matches the nonrhotic area pretty closely. Joeldl (talk) 17:37, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I keep hearing people who you would think should know better pronouncing "chromosome" "chroma zone". Is there a story behind that, like the Great Nuclear/nookyaler Schism? --Milkbreath (talk) 02:37, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's just that "-some" is not a very common suffix while "-zone" is. And "Chroma Zone" is certainly a more colorful phrase, isn't it ? StuRat (talk) 04:42, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it's a kind of folk etymology, in one sense of that term (the second in our article Folk etymology). Like sand-blind from original sam-blind (=semi-blind).
Once the intervocal sibilant /s/ gets voiced (to make a /z/ instead; a very common sandhi phenomenon in English), the resulting -zome is especially vulnerable to reinterpretation as -zone. Compare to home in being reinterpreted as to hone in, even in some literati whose work one... might sometimes have edited.
Yeah, wow, Noetica. I think we have a 2008 nominee for "Best Answer". (I think it's hilarious that "the pronunciation of the word 'sandhi' is rather diverse among English speakers", since practically all of them are linguists.) --Milkbreath (talk) 16:36, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Mistranslated donation remark
This appears in one of the banners for the donation drive:
Un projet beau et tellement utile que l´on se doit d´accomplir.
— Julien from France, donated 30 EUR
(A project so beautiful and useful it must be completed.)
I think that if Julien had meant what the English text says, he would have written Un projet tellement beau et utile que l'on (more likely qu'on) se doit de l'accomplir.67.150.254.163 (talk) 17:18, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think qu'on is more common than que l'on. In this case, que l'on seems even less likely because of the second l'. The idea that the reason for que l'on might be related to con had never occurred to me. I don't think that's the reason, though. You can say "L'on se souvient", with the same meaning as "On se souvient". My Petit Robert says it's a medieval expression meaning "les hommes". 67.150.253.137 (talk) 20:18, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would have thought that if a translator spent enough time explaining the sense of a foreign word that eventually its meaning could be understood. ExitRight (talk) 03:18, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, by "can't be translated", they mean there isn't a single word or short phrase with the same meaning. It's always possible to describe something, but it may take quite a few sentences to do so. Translating "tree" into the Inuit language was probably like that once, although by now I'm sure they have adopted a word for tree. StuRat (talk) 04:16, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It is not finding the meaning of these words which is difficult, "but rather conveying their cultural connotations and overtones", as Jurga Zilinskiene is quoted in the article on Ilunga (a word which apparently 'means' "a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time"). I think the same applies to the Danish example you gave. See also untranslatability for more scope. ---Sluzzelintalk04:23, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
as a court translator i find this question disconcerting, when there isn't an exact translation there is a definition of a word, and that definition can always be translated, and if a particular word in the definition cannot be translated, well i just find a synonym, the idea that some words cannot be translated is rather defeatist, however, with regards to translation losses footnotes must be used, i.e. i.e. thing and china rhyme in spanish, or a word that has a double meaning. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.142.82.231 (talk) 05:12, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I doubt that any individual word in untranslatable. The only thing I've seen that was untranslatable was puns. Those aren't individual words, though. It is almost always impossible to keep the pun in a translation. Wrad (talk) 05:24, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And for that matter we have schadenfreude. --Anon, 07:50 UTC, December 26, 2008.
schadenfreude = scathespride (verbatim) -lysdexia 12:37, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
If you're looking for words which don't have a one-word translation into English, many words dealing with family relations seem absent in English. For example, many other languages have distinct words for "male cousin" and "aunt on your mother's side". StuRat (talk) 14:58, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Someone who actually knows Chinese can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Chinese actually has words for four different kinds of aunts: mother's older sister, mother's younger sister, father's older sister, and father's younger sister. I don't know what they do about aunts by marriage, who are also simply called "aunt" in English. —Angr15:41, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There are certain words and phrases which cannot be directly translated (which is why people mention schadenfreude above), and we have calques, of course. But from my understanding ALL languages are almost impossible to translate without losing some of hte original meaning. Isn't "sleepless night" in French "nuit blanche"?
Sometimes two words without explanation are used for this: "good times" usually repeated: "good times, good times" implying nostalgic longing for "the good old days". Julia Rossi (talk) 00:42, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There are an absolute ton of words in other languages that cannot be translated simply and exactly into English. In many cases, we don't feel there's much of a need for them a lot of the time, and can explain them with a few words to get the general gist (even though some might be very useful, such as the differentiation in Maori between "we" meaning "us but not you" and "we" meaning "us and you"). Often, though, we do something that English is very good at - we add in loan words. Rather than attempting to translate, we bring in words directly from other languages to aid in the concept. That's one reason why English has sets of seemingly identically-translateable terms with subtle differences of meaning (compare "knowhow" and "savoir faire"). Having the ability to simply add words from different sources allows phrases to be more readily understood, as well as adding a certain je ne sais quoi and mana to the language. We may miss out on the schadenfreude of seeing someone trying to translate something where no equivalent term exists, but it enables us to navigate the cwms and fjords of the lingustic map and come to some metaphorical rapprochement with the intended meaning. Grutness...wha?00:59, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Japanese 'setsunai' (a bitter/sweet feeling of sadness upon the departure of a loved one) is another one I have never found a good translation for, as well as 'yappari', which basically means 'just as could/should have been expected'.--KageTora (talk) 09:07, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Heh, not realy :) Snafu is inevitably referring to a bad situation, whereas yappari doesn't necessarily have to imply a bad turn out of events. You can just as well be completely detached from something and still go "well, that was to be expected, wasn't it?" (i.e., yappari, ne). TomorrowTime (talk) 16:21, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yahoo! Answers says "cruel" for setsunai and What is yappari? says "of course" or "you know?" for yappari. I say "wretched" and "duh". -lysdexia 12:37, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
Hm, the example given on the "What is yappari" page is a bit dodgy (the spelling mistake could be unintentional, the crude alignment of speech registers is a bit more worrisome), so I wouldn't put utter faith in the page... The author of that entry seems (hastily surmised from the one page I read, granted) to have a basic grasp of Japanese, but not beyond that. TomorrowTime (talk) 17:26, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know about not being able to translate word into English, but I know that some English words cannot be translated into another language. Most (all?) Slavic languages don't have concept of articles. I speak Croatian myself, and there is simply now way to translate "a" and "the" into Croatian. Not with single word, and VERY hard if not impossible with definitions. Croatian speakers simply cannot comprehend concept of articles. And they are often hardest thing to master for Croatians learning English.--Melmann(talk)16:42, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Vidi brata Hrvata :) Nice to see someone from my neck of the woods on this board. I'm Slovene, and I can confirm what Melmann says - articles are in effect realised in different paradygms of word declanations in Slavic languages (or at least, the South Slavic ones), and learners of English around here often have a hard time deciding whether to use "a", "an" or "the". On the other hand, there are Easter egg bonuses, such as the "The Two Towers" example described in bulletin number 7. of this, now unfortunately defunct blog's FAQ: http://www.carniola.org/stop-askingTomorrowTime (talk) 19:03, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think Bulgarian has articles. In other Slavic languages, articles in English, French, etc., can still in some instances be translated by using words meaning "this," "that," or "one." Interestingly, word order can also sometimes fulfill this purpose. For example, in Russian, you have Kniga ležit na stole, meaning "The book is on the table" (literally "Book lies on table"), but Na stole ležit kniga, meaning "A book is on the table" (literally "On table lies book"). Joeldl (talk) 21:10, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
When I address this problem with speakers of slavic languages I invite them to consider a as a kind of weakened one, and (much more importantly) the as a weakened that. In Serbian, for example, ona devojčica means that girl, and jedna devojčica means one girl. A Serbian can ask herself which she would say, if forced to add either ona or jedna before devojčica, in a sentence in her native language. If ona, then the will very likely be apt in English; if jedna, then a may be apt. Of course, it doesn't always work. The behaviour of indefinite and definite articles is a subtle and complex matter, and those languages that do robustly have them treat them differently: je suis professeur, but I am a teacher; la vérité est la beauté, but truth is beauty. Interestingly though, indefinite articles are often identical in form with one (as in the Romance languages), and typically originate as the same item; and definite articles originate as demonstrative adjectives or pronouns. In Homeric Greek the forms that emerge in classical Greek as definite articles (like τό) are demonstratives (see Ancient_Greek_grammar#The_article).
I'm pretty sure there do exist untranslatable words and phrases. I once borrowed a book of lists from the local library that listed a bunch of untranslatable words. I remember one of them was an Italian phrase literally meaning "reheated cabbage" (perhaps cavolo riscaldato, but I'm not sure since I don't have the book and used an online translator). It roughly means a relationship that has been ended and then restarted, something unworkable. There is also a famous Chinese phrase (pinyin máo dùn, not sure of how it's written) that literally means roughly "sword shield". It comes from an ancient story that someone was showing a sword that could destroy buildings, as well as a shield that could protect against any type of attack. Then someone asked "what if you used your own sword against your shield, what would happen"? The person who was showing the equipment left, for there was a problem. If the sword could break the shield, that means the shield is inferior, and if the sword couldn't break the shield, then the sword was inferior. The phrase roughly means a big problem. Hope this helps. Thanks. ~AH1(TCU)17:13, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As for the Chinese phrase, It came from an episode in the fourth section in the 難一 chapter in Han Feizi (book). 楚人有鬻楯與矛者，譽之曰：‘吾楯之堅，莫能陷也。’又譽其矛曰：‘吾矛之利，於物無不陷也。’或曰：‘以子之矛陷子之楯，何如？’其人弗能應也。In Japanese, it's 矛盾/むじゅん/mujun and the meaning is contradiction and inconsistency. The letter 矛 is a pike or a spear and 盾 is a shield. Oda Mari (talk) 06:10, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I read somewhere that some language has a verb meaning "To look at each other expecting the other party to do that which both want to be done, but neither feels like taking the initiative to do", which was said to be the most meaningful single word in the world. What language was that? JIP | Talk19:10, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There is a significant difference between the literal meaning and definition of a word, the equivalent meaning in English and the usage of the word in the context of it's native language. That's why there is a difference between a translation and a localization of a text. (... and why good translators inform their clients what local version of the target language they are going to use. I would never offer to translate to BE.) Consider e.g. the simple German phrase
"Er fühlte sich wie Rummenigge nach einem Elfmeter."
Literally: He felt like Rummenigge after an eleven meter.
Adjusted for the fact that this is a term from soccer: He felt like Rummenigge after a penalty kick.
Adjusted for use of tense: He was feeling like Rummenigge after a penalty kick. You could now add explanations that Rummenigge is a well known former soccer player in Germany and what a penalty kick is. A localization, however would convey the intended effect of the phrase to the target audience:
Localized: He was feeling like Babe Ruth after a home run.
There are lots of German terms that are untranslatable in their entire scope of meaning. In German "im Allgemeinen" (in general) or "grundsätzlich" (basikcally) are often inserted to convey precision and attention to detail. The equivalent terms in English often have the opposite effect of conveying a feeling that there are other, more detailed cases that the author is just not telling us about here. "Verpflichtet" (obligated) and "verantwortlich" (responsible/ in charge of) are other terms that have quite a different feel to them in English than they do in German. This often leads to translated texts sounding officious, and people unfamiliar with local culture getting a wrong idea as to what a text means. The same is true for many other languages.
When English speakers encountered Native American medicine men the function these individuals occupied within their society was so alien to the new arrivals that medicine man was the closest they could come to comprehending the concept. A whole array of professions as diverse as preacher, fortune teller, teacher, government adviser and doctor were comprised in this one individuals occupation due to a culture that didn't distinguish between concepts like "spiritual" and "scientific" that were considered distinct or inconsistent by the people looking for an English term to describe them.
Colors are another thing that can lead to wrong ideas in translations. Things like "mauve", turquoise, maroon and "taupe" can be almost impossible to convey with any precision. Not to mention the cultural significance of certain colors in the local context.
There was an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation that I found very interesting where Troy explained that when she would point at a mug and utter "mug" an alien might understand that to mean either "vessel", "hot" or "liquid" depending on their own concept of the idea. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 00:16, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Re: JIP: That language is the Yaghan language with only one remaining native speaker. The word is Mamihlapinatapai and it's also in the Guiness Book of World Records 2006 pg. 140-something. Also I seem to perfectly understand the meaning of the word by the translation although linguists find it challenging to translate it. ~AH1(TCU)02:50, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And I'm surprised nobody's mentioned poetry, particularly rhyming verse. Sure, you can get a reasonable approximation of the meaning of the words and sentences, but you usually lose the underlying sense conveyed by the rhyme, which is an inherent component of the poem. Or, you can find rhyming words in the target language, but at the cost of the precise meaning. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:10, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Dit pangram bevat vijf a's, twee b's, twee c's, drie d's, zesenveertig e's, vijf f's, vier g's, twee h's, vijftien i's, vier j's, een k, twee l's, twee m's, zeventien n's, een o, twee p's, een q, zeven r's, vierentwintig s's, zestien t's, een u, elf v's, acht w's, een x, een y, en zes z's.
Here is the literal meaning in English, but the meaning is false for the English sentence.
This pangram contains five a's, two b's, two c's, three d's, forty-six e's, five f's, four g's, two h's, fifteen i's, four j's, one k, two l's, two m's, seventeen n's, one o, two p's, one q, seven r's, twenty-four s's, sixteen t's, one u, eleven v's, eight w's, one x, one y, and six z's.
The following English sentence, from page 444, is true.
This pangram contains four a's, one b, two c's, one d, thirty e's, six f's, five g's, seven h's, eleven i's,, one j, one k, two l's, two m's, eighteen n's, fifteen o's, two p's, one q, five r's, twenty-seven s's, eighteen t's, two u's, seven v's, eight w's, two x's, three y's, & one z.
English has a tendency of stealing - er - loan wording and never checking the due date - such words, unless, as in the above German examples, they're large, gestaltish words; I think the reason being that they are too large to fit under our coat when visiting the neighbors. 98.169.163.20 (talk) 14:54, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Japanese translation request
Hello WP:RD, happy holidays!
I found a translation for this song, but it makes these two lines related. I was thinking that they're not related:
素顔をとり戻せるのは。。。
私は染められていくの。。。
translation:
It’s because I’m being stained like this
That I can be direct again…
They come up again in the chorus:
※素顔をとり戻せるのは
あなただけ
そのまなざしだけで
私は染められていくの
指先まで すべて※
I think I understand the chorus, but not 染められていく. The translation uses simply "stained". I can't find the potential form and the te form being used together in my reference books. But I feel like it's not just "stained" because of the いく, maybe something more like "I can go change my [true] colors".
Oops, could it be the passive form there, 染められて? "I'm being dyed"?
Word by word:
素顔(honest/honesty)を(particle denoting verb object)とり戻せる(to be able to restore/to be able to take back)のは(particle combination with a meaning similar to "is" in this case)。。。
Meaning: "[The fact that I am] able to go back to being honest is [because]..."
Word by word: 私[I]は[Subject-denoting particle]染められて["to dye" passive: "to be dyed"]いく["to go", when combined with another verb (to dye) denotes that the action will take place "from hereon") の[particle denoting an explanation, in this case]。。。
Meaning: "...I will be dyed [my true colors] from now on"
Thus:
From now on I will be dyed, that is why I can retake my honesty.
Or a slightly less literal translation that makes more sense in English:
From now on I will let my true colors dye me, and be honest once more. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.233.7.70 (talk) 04:28, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If literally translate '素顔をとり戻せるのはあなただけ', it would be 'only you can bring back my true colors'. Or 'I can be myself only when I'm with you' could be possible. Yes, 染められて is the passive form and means I'm being dyed. The English translation, 'My uncertain heart can last to tomorrow' is wrong. It should be 'My uncertain heart would be left yesterday' or 'I can send my uncertain heart to yesterday'. Personally, I think it's a terrible lyric. Oda Mari (talk) 04:54, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Doesn't this depend on the local culture? In the US, you would either say 1 or 4, not 2 or 3. In most (all?) European cultures, the day comes before the month so it would be 2 or 3, not 1 or 4. 67.184.14.87 (talk) 14:41, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Our friend seems to be in Bangladesh. To start one's work "from" a date is unidiomatic where I am (New Jersey, USA), but not by much. We'd most likely put it "I want to start my work beginning on...", if "my work" is actually called for. I suspect that our friend meant something more like "I want to start work on January first" or "I want to start my new job on January first."
The question of how to write the date is a matter of style, pure and simple, as Angr said. I, personally, like to write so as to be read aloud, and everybody I know would say "January first" or "the first of January". So, idiomaticity aside, "I want to start my work from January 1st" is right. --Milkbreath (talk) 16:24, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Speaking as a UK speaker, none of these are correct in my idiom. The way I'd phrase it would be either:
I want to start my work on January the 1st or
I want to start my work on the 1st of January .
The definite article is not optional for me, but in casual speech it's more often elided to just a [d] or [t], depending on the voicing of surrounding sounds, so it might sound like it's not there. And using 'from' in this sentence is definitely unidiomatic too; ditto using cardinal numbers ('one') rather than ordinal ('first'). 79.78.46.63 (talk) 13:35, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You have to remember that written expressions are not always spoken exactly as they're written, and vice-versa, and this is a classic case. If I received a business letter containing the sentence "I want to start my work from 1 January", and I read the letter out loud, I would say "I want to start my work from the first of January". If I were dictating such a sentence, I'd also say the words "the first of January", because that's the most natural expression for me, but I'd expect whoever typed it up to write "1 January". If they spelled it out word for word, I'd sack them. -- JackofOz (talk) 19:59, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what it's supposed to mean. If you mean "Some people suffer pains while in proximity to art work", then it's right. However, this seems like an odd thing to say. StuRat (talk) 21:47, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No. You can't feel pain "by" anything, except in the unlikely literal definition of "by" as "next to". I can't believe you meant StuRat's correct but literal intepretation, but I'm not sure what you did mean. "High art causes some people terrible pain" would at least be idiomatic, and if you mean Duchamp's sculpture, I'm one of those people. --Milkbreath (talk) 01:38, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not trying to hijack, but is that sentence factually true? Can people feel physical pain by seeing work of art (or anything for that matter, apart of strong light and flashing, I know that can cause pain and seizure).--Melmann(talk)16:59, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"serious" comes from the Latin "serius", an adjective meaning weighty, important[24]; "humor(ous)" comes from the Latin noun "humor" meaning fluid[25], later taken to mean specifically bodily fluid, and the sense of "comical" is much more recent meaning of the word. So although they appear similar words, they're not of identical origin. --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 18:08, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
serius is also a noun. -lysdexia 12:34, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
"Nuit blanche" = sleepless vs. night-for-day?
In the the discussion above,
as an example of language "almost impossible to translate without losing some of the original meaning," doktorb asks, Isn't "sleepless night" in French "nuit blanche"? Is that indeed the meaning of that French phrase (if an idiom and not merely the literal "white night")? Hebrew has an idiom for that expression, leilot levanim (literally "white nights"), that doesn't mean "[unwanted] sleeplessness" (i.e. insomnia) but deliberately staying awake till the wee hours, for business (e.g. finishing a rush job due at start of next business day) or pleasure (cultural events scheduled to rock till dawn). So which of these is the meaning of the French nuit blanche? -- Deborahjay (talk) 07:53, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The wiki projects have several pages. I can't answer your question with certainty, but the French definition says "Une nuit blanche est une nuit complète sans sommeil sans dormir la journée suivante." (A white night is a whole night spent without sleep without sleeping the following day.) The phenomenon of White Nights, the museum and arts festivals that last sundown to sun-up, strongly suggests that the night is one of pleasure, of voluntary wakefulness. However, IIRC, American writer Dorothy Parker used the phrase to describe insomnia, so perhaps the meaning has shifted from French to English. I don't have access to the OED at the moment. An alternate definition is of the polar day, e.g. in St Petersburg, when at summer solstice the sun hardly sets. BrainyBabe (talk) 11:10, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think this "white night" idiom in any language is definitely taken from Hebrew, as Deborahjay mentions, in the sense of a whole night voluntarily spent without sleeping. Dostoevsky has a short story under this title about the nightly experiences of a man in the streets of St Petersburg. But then I have to prove that Russians as well have borrowed it from Hebrew -- that I can't. They have always had those dusky nights of St Petersburg before their eyes, so why shouldn't they have themselves made that idiom? --Omidinist (talk) 13:08, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I can't but help noticing the similarity between "nuit blanche" and Nights in White Satin by the Moody Blues, a song which describes a sleepless night.
You learn something every day; I always thought the song was "Knights in White Satin". As for Hebrew leilot levanim, isn't that just what's called "pulling an all-nighter" in English? —Angr14:51, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
To answer the original question, "passer une nuit blanche" in French is usually the result of insomnia. If someone doesn't go to sleep to complete a work project or to go partying, he or she would more likely say: "je suis resté debout toute la nuit" or "je ne me suis pas couché de la nuit". --Xuxl (talk) 21:16, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What does it mean if someone (not me) is accused of having a 'bovine' attitude?
I know that 'bovine' means 'related to cows/cattle' - but how does it relate to a person's attitude towards other people? I don't really know what sort of 'attitude' a cow is suppose to have. --84.68.206.133 (talk) 08:22, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Cows generally hang around together but don't say much. Maybe that's it. Without a context it's really impossible to guess with 100% accuracy.--KageTora (talk) 09:02, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It was just something I heard on the radio the other day. They were talking about a football (soccer) player on a phone-in and someone said that he had a 'bovine attitude'. --84.68.206.133 (talk) 10:16, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Bovine" is always used to express the supposed characteristics of a cow, not a bull. "Bovine" has connotations of passivity, slowness, stupidity. Just standing around, chewing one's cud. BrainyBabe (talk) 11:00, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
a recent job description for a newspaper requires the potential candidate to be familiar with SPA and SPIN questioning techniques when working with real estate agents...can anyone enlighten me as to what SPA and SPIN questioning techniques are?Veltri (talk) 14:09, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
SPIN may refer to a widely-used model for selling to large clients, developed by Neil Rackham, who wrote "SPIN Selling." The acronym refers to four kinds of questions used in the investigation phase of Rackham's model:
Situation questions (to understand the prospect's company and its current state)
Problem questions (to explore the challenges the prospect currently sees)
Implication questions (to understand how the prospect is affected by the problems)
Needs-Payoff questions (to clarify needs and potential value)
I had lunch in a small shop where a Hindi movie was playing. The protagonist is a cubicle worker. I was shocked that in almost every conversation – with a car dealer, a guitar teacher, his boss, his childhood crush (but not with his mother or his ghostly alter-ego from the future) – one sentence in three was entirely in English. Is this realistic? —Tamfang (talk) 20:49, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hinglish is a fairly common phenomenon in India, especially if you're from the city and are well-educated. Although Hinglish is usually used to connote the mixing of Hindi and English words in a sentence using Hindi grammatical structures, when used in the context of a group of sentences, it connotes to code-switching. --Sky Harbor(talk)06:36, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Because India was formed by the British Empire, and effectively rounded up several different cultures (then including modern day Pakistan) which spoke various languages the country in it's infancy used English as its official language so it was used for conducting business and anything bureaucratic etc. Since then English has remained one of the countries national languages really. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.8.100.245 (talk) 14:50, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
When there is risk of confusion between commas in different roles within a sentence, the semicolon can be demoted to comma for the occasion, as in a list of items some of which contain commas. I think the same principle can be applied here, and should be. Be aware that there is no "correct" anything in English, though; there is only convention, idiom, and what works. --Milkbreath (talk) 21:13, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
According to my dictionary, one of the uses of semicolons is to "separate phrases that contain commas." It gives a couple of examples:
The country's resources consist of large ore deposits; lumber, water power and fertile soils; and a strong, rugged people.
Send copies to our offices in Portland, Maine; Springfield, Illinois; and Savannah, Georgia.
So I would say it's perfectly correct to use a semicolon in your example. I don't know if it's incorrect to use a comma there, but I certainly like the version with a semicolon better. Joeldl (talk) 21:18, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
MB, didn't you intend this, rather: "a comma can be promoted to semicolon for the occasion"? I struggle to make sense of your suggestion in its present form.
I would certainly prefer the semicolon in the example given, unless some other stylistic choice had been made in the piece as a whole, making the comma "obligatory".
You're scaring me, now. I do tend to blow it whenever I have a 50-50 chance, but I'm pretty sure I got it right this time. Take the sentence "The inner planets are Mercury, after the messenger of the gods; Venus, after the goddess of love; Earth; and Mars, after the god of war." The semicolons are acting just like commas would have had the sentence been, "The inner planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars." The semicolons are commas for the purposes of the first sentence. --Milkbreath (talk) 22:45, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but the second sentence is the "default case" and in the first, the commas have been promoted to semicolons. I wouldn't say the first sentence is the default case and the semicolons have been demoted to commas in the second sentence. Going back to the original question, I think a comma is acceptable if we follow the SI standard of separating thousands with a thin space rather than a comma and write "750 000Imperial gallons (3 400 000 L,900 000 US gal)". —Angr23:19, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, we've trucked in semicolons to stand in for commas. It's like a National Guardsman directing traffic in a disaster area, standing in for a mere traffic cop. (I can do this all day.) --Milkbreath (talk) 23:36, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
But MB, to use your analogy: the National Guardsman directing traffic is not doing so in the absence of ordinary cops. He is supplementing the work they are doing at the very same scene, and it is an ordinary part of his job to do so. So with the semicolon: the commas in the vicinity are busy doing their thing marking groups of three digits, which is part of their ordinary work. An important part of a semicolon's ordinary work is to step in and mark divisions more trenchantly and saliently when commas are serving to mark lesser divisions. In doing so, it doesn't take on the role of comma, or get demoted to a (mere) comma. It is no part of a comma's role to mark divisions that a comma can't mark well!
Interesting to see how you have conceptualised this, and to compare it with the way that Angr and I appear to agree on. I don't, in the end, say that one way is right and the other wrong; but I would argue that your way is less usual. From what Angr says about the first and second examples, and about demotion, I am not certain that he and I agree on how to analyse your account. More could be said!
So let's stick to the case in hand with the numbers. The semicolon isn't working any harder than a comma would. The division between 3,400,000 L and 900,000 US gallons is no more trenchant or salient than that between three million four hundred thousand liters and nine hundred thousand US gallons. It is the presence of the obligatory, non-textual commas within the numbers that makes the use of some other symbol between them seem good. We cast about for a symbol not a comma, and we light upon its near cousin the semicolon, there not being anything else close. The typographers might have gone with a double comma in such cases, or invented a new symbol, but they didn't, so we're stuck shoehorning in a semicolon where a comma rightfully belongs. It's not really a semicolon, it's a dotcomma. --Milkbreath (talk) 23:16, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Dotcomma? Oy. Double comma?? Sheesh. Look, this is really only about one's choice of analogy, or of conceptual model, for thinking about which punctuation marks to use. Yes, I could go on about such matters interminably also, as Wikipedia's very own akashic record will amply testify. But I'm not going to, because I am away from my usual location and on a system that is not comfortable for purposes of protracted debate. We agree that semicolons can be used to mark divisions when commas are not up to the task, for whatever global or local reason, right? In the present example, commas are already used to mark divisions within the representation of some long numbers, right? So using semicolons seems like a good idea. Whether this is an ordinary, "native" application of semicolons (as I insist: since that's how we normally use semicolons, anyway) or a nonce-usurpation of the role of commas (as you seem to insist, since if there weren't commas already in the vicinity, commas would do quite nicely) I don't really care. If I could see that it made any practical difference, so that we would choose differently which marks to use depending on whether we chose your theoretical scheme or mine, then I might care. Right now, I don't. And while I disagree with other assertions above, MB, I have not the patience to argue salience and trenchancy with you right now either.
As for marking divisions in decimal expansions with thin spaces rather than commas, that is another matter that could get tricky. Such things are disputed bitterly and at length at WT:MOSNUM. Myself, I am against the use of unusual space characters at Wikipedia, since they are hard for non-specialists to grasp and therefore for WP to implement consistently; and they can't be searched for in the browser. Try searching the present page for Angr's example number 3 400 000 using your browser's search facility. See?
I make an exception for the hard space (usually implemented as ). It is essential to good editing and display of HTML text; see a developed proposal for using ,, (two ordinary commas) as markup for the hard space at Wikipedia, as a workable alternative to . Unlike a thin space, a hard space can be retrieved in a browser search just as if it were an ordinary space.
Just a side question: I note you distinguish between "U.S. gallon" and "US gallons", OtherDave. Is there a difference? The latter looks neater and cleaner, hence it works for me, but you went to the trouble of including the full stops in the 1st version, which I assume is because that's the version Americans themselves seem to prefer (and sometimes insist on). Do they permit "US" in things like "US gallons", or was this an unimportant detail in the context of this question (one, therefore, up on which I should not have picked)? -- JackofOz (talk) 19:45, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Jack: that was just my own inconsistency; I don't usually write "US" (without periods / full stops) as an abbreviation for "United States." Maybe I was copying the original query? In this specific case, I'd guess that the vast majority of Americans are unaware that there's such a thing as an imperial gallon, especially since Canada is mostly on the metric system, so to them "gallon" means "U.S. gallon." Not a good principle for Wikipedia, obviously. --- OtherDave (talk) 13:40, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I find that very hard to believe; I think it's more likely that the name "avobenzone" is completely arbitrary, like many drug names. They just liked the sound of it and it wasn't too similar to another else. I'm guessing, which isn't helpful, but my reason for posting is to point out that there might not be an answer. --Anonymous, 23:33 UTC, December 28, 2008.
And if you're wondering the syntax, "terms of reference" is a compound word. "reference" is an adjective. "terms" is a noun, and in this case, the plural form. The reason this is so is because this is french description form (in french, the adjective comes after the noun).96.53.149.117 (talk) 09:36, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A simple way, used very oten in this kind of document, is to put it as '(hereafter known as 'Terms') when they are mentioned the first time, then just put 'the Terms' (no quotes) for every instance thereafter.--KageTora (talk) 10:49, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
@96: "Terms" is a noun, but "reference" is not an adjective, and French is not relevant. "of reference" is a qualifying phrase which, unlike adjectives, normally follows the head in English. --ColinFine (talk) 17:48, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Looks it to me. It was, after all, only 500 years ago which is chickenfeed compared to Chaucerian English (800 years), or Beowulf (1000 years). And if you've ever read any Shakespeare, that was only 400 years ago.--TammyMoet (talk) 09:54, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Spelling wasn't too reliable in the 16th century (not that the internet has done spelling any favors). This page has an excerpt from the preface to the First Folio (1623). Conventions like U for V ("haue"), V for U ("vttered"), and I for J ("iniurious") make it appear stranger to our modern eyes. --- OtherDave (talk) 21:11, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If you heard Henry read it, it might sound more outlandish than it looks. English spelling has changed little since the early 16th century, but pronunciation has changed a fair bit. Modern spelling is closer to the early 16th-century pronunciation than to modern pronunciation. Marco polo (talk) 03:04, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
On the top of a doorway to a lecture room in the University of Helsinki Department of Linguistics (previously the site of the Department of Anatomy), there is a Latin phrase:
"… to come to the assistance of life." Appropriate for an anatomy department, where dissections train students to become preservers of life. (Succurrere takes a dative object.) Deor (talk) 18:14, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Japanese
I'm searching for the meaning and pronunciation of 浮汎. Actually, I'm not completely sure if it's a real modern japanese word. Could someone help me? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.51.43.69 (talk) 18:11, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's fuhan/ふはん. The meaning is superficial or shallow. Oda Mari (talk)
"want" and "need"
British rock band Coldplay's single Fix You has the lyrics --
When you try your best, but you don't succeed
When you get what you want, but not what you need
When you feel so tired, but you can't sleep
Sometimes I feel I know the difference but the more I think about it the more I get confused...well I am not a native English speaker. So can somebody explain the difference between "want" and "need" to me in simple, lucid words. I guess an example or two will certainly help me to comprehend the difference. Regards, --Sanguine learner talk18:42, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is more of a philosophical question than a linguistic one. What you want is what you feel would be nice to have. What you need is what you can't really be without. For example, you may want a shiny, new car and a snazzy MP3 player but what you really need every day is basic things like clothes and food. People generally want everything they need, and more, but it isn't always as simple as that. JIP | Talk19:01, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It should be noted that a distinction is often drawn to emphasize that what one wants may be incompatible with, not just additional to, what one needs. For example, an alcoholic may want a bottle of hooch but may really need (or so those interested in his welfare would say) to enter a treatment program. In this way, people, who usually are very aware of their wants, may be blind to their needs; and I think something like this notion may lie behind the lyrics quoted by the OP, as it probably lies behind those of the Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want." Deor (talk) 19:51, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
On a side note, it might help the good people on this board to know what your native tongue is - maybe the distinction between the two is blurred in it, leading to your confusion. For instance, in my native Slovene, the verb for "to teach" and "to learn" is almost the same (učiti [se] - "to teach" is učiti, and "to learn" is the reflective učiti se - basically "to teach oneself", even when a teacher is involved), and you often hear native Slovene speakers confuse the two when speaking English. It's not that they don't know what they want to say, it's just that the distinction that is present in English but not in Slovene is sometimes hard to fully grasp for them. TomorrowTime (talk) 09:52, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So, does that mean "I want money as I need to buy medicine" is incorrect..."I need money as I want to buy medicine" is the correct version. Here both "money" and "medicine" can be basic to survival?! --Sanguine learner talk17:39, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think the correct version would be "I need money as I need to buy medicine" or more simply "I need money to buy medicine". It should be pointed out that at least in the US, the distinction between want and need is sometimes ignored and the terms are used interchangeably. 216.239.234.196 (talk) 18:57, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
When he was very young, my younger brother used to say he "needed" the new video games. I would correct him, and say, "No, you *want* that new video game, I *need* food to live." It's a slippery slope, though - I don't *need* to live, I *want* to, so I don't *need* food - I only need food to live (although, as above, the distinction is often ignored and the second even more so - continuing to live is sort of viewed as a given, so I do *need* food; in which case, as above, the use of need becomes transitive - if you need medicine, you need the money to buy the medicine, although you would also sound right (if odd) saying, "I want money to buy the medicine I need." - more naturally, "Hey, buddy, I've got the sniffles and I need to buy some cold medicine, can you help me out?" thus dodging the entire mess of transitive need/want altogether - crafty beggars). 98.169.163.20 (talk) 14:50, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Unless it violates the usual spelling-to-pronunciation rules of Spanish, it should be [olˈɣin] (non-IPA approximation ol-GEEN). —Angr22:44, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
By "nothing helpful in the article", I meant in Holguín. I didn't know then about the one on Spanish orthography. I would have to admit, however, that I am grateful that there are those on the Ref Desks, like you, Tamfung, and Angr, who just know the right answer, and are willling to tell me. I could have spent all afternoon trying to work the matter out, and would still have been unsure. Thank you both. ៛ Bielle (talk) 00:39, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Why did you thank him for a wrong translation? [olˈɣin] is oelghene in English. -lysdexia 03:57, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
In English, I can pronounce "ol-GEEN"; I wouldn't be certain what to do with "oelghene". For example, "gh" in English is silent ("nigh", "flight" and "eight") or pronounced in the same way as a hard "g" (ghost). And is "oel" the same as the word "oil" or as in the word "Noël"? My thanks go, as always, to anyone who tries to be helpful. I remain grateful. ៛ Bielle (talk) 06:04, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
[ɣ] is an allophone of /g/, so that's near enough to be understood unambiguously by a Spanish-speaker, and as near as we can get with English phonemes since we don't use a voiced velar fricative. —Tamfang (talk) 07:59, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's why I said "non-IPA approximation". "ol-GEEN" isn't as accurate as [olˈɣin], but it's "good enough for government work", as Stephen King characters always say. —Angr11:03, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Many Commonwealts can't read English, nor can they speak something when spelt for them; spelling aloud is a crock. One can't say the e in English or the i in iPod. So, no, it's not in English as English has been dead for 1000 years. The -gh- words are not English but Norman-English muttish. The gh- words, however, and their sounds, are in English, but were first written by yogh. "oel" is the same as neither: l is a vowel, so one is to put the modifier -e after the modified vowel, rather than after the consonand. And one isn't to shift vowels when they're in a row, unless the modifier is there. Another way to write the guide is Olghene. Note the last part is not gheen as that would be a long i, or iː -lysdexia 12:09, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
The world must be insulted for its own sake; it is rotten, blind, and deaf. No, -and makes a noun, whereas -ant adjectiv—your -ant is a Francish corruption of Latin. -lysdexia 03:36, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
Libel is against Wikipedia's NPA laws. lysdexia was/is not a troll, and I advise you to read the dictionary, which you are sheerly infamiliar with. Also see User talk:68.127.228.70. -lysdexia 03:36, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Sheerly infamiliar" would seem to be if not a corruption, at least a distinct variation of standard English. If we keep beating this dead horse, do we raise common welts? --- OtherDave (talk) 13:47, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have a good reference, but I think it's from punting. If you try to move a punt in mud you don't get anywhere fast. M-W online puts the expression at 1733, at which time they seem to have used punts for cargo transports. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 08:36, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
'Disconjure' is attested by the OED, for what that's worth. Neither 'deconjuration' nor 'disconjuration' is, and I have never seen either used. Algebraist12:49, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In occult terminology (from what I can dimly remember), first you conjure something up (or evoke it), and then you "banish" it, if that helps at all. Also, a spell whose purpose is to prevent another spell from having any effects can be called a "counter-charm". Otherwise, I'm not sure exactly what you're asking... AnonMoos (talk) 13:35, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
From my old D&D days, I remember the term abjuration describing the spells which did effectively the opposite of what the conjuration spells did. This may be more or les useful depending on what you're talking about. Faithfully, Deltopia (talk) 16:48, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As-salaamu alaykum
Can someone help me understand the standard transliteration of السلام عليكم? It all makes sense to me except for the apparent character in "as-salaamu" between the lām and the mīm. Since the vowel between those two consonants is a long ā, I would have expected an alif in that position, but the character looks more like a wāw. Can anyone explain what is going on? Thanks. Marco polo (talk) 15:53, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It is an alif. There's a special ligature for lam-alif where the vertical stroke for the alif goes slanting off to the left. I don't see that it looks even remotely like a waw, though. —Angr15:57, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Article (grammar) - acronyms/initialisms tend to be constructed (said without reference) as a new unit, with the locality of the article (and other signifiers) moving out to the abbreviation itself. As above, "United States of America" becomes USA, so that "of USA" and "of the USA" seem to flow more naturally. 98.169.163.20 (talk) 07:33, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm inclined to say it doesn't matter what the abbreviation is because it's no longer really an abbreviation. It's just a word on it's own. Do most people really know what it means, or even that it is French? Adam Bishop (talk) 08:10, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm inclined to disagree with that, Adam. Even if anglophones don't know where it comes from or what the letters stand for, they still say it as 4 separate letters and not as a single-word acronym such as radar or laser. True, the expression has taken on a life of its own, divorced from the original French words, but I wouldn't classify it as a word. I see our Words without vowels includes MC and DJ, so I guess some people would be happy to accept RSVP as such a word. Not me, though. -- JackofOz (talk) 13:28, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is more or less what I was trying to get at, although avoiding the specific word "word", since it leads to JackofOz's thicket. "RSVP" has become a "thing" and one uses articles to mark "things" (a/the RSVP; the apple) versus submarking them (RS the VP; app the le). 98.169.163.20 (talk) 14:42, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Could someone translate "Se voulant et se croyant sincèrement démocrate, au point qu’aucune accusation ne l’irrite davantage que celle d’être un dictateur, il n’en a pas moins eu de cesse qu’il n’ait fait voter une constitution lui accordant pratiquement tous les pouvoirs et réduisant le parlement au rôle d’un décor coûteux que l’on escamote même en cas de besoin."
Trying the first passage, with not quite enough coffee:
Seeing himself as and believing himself to be truly democratic, so much so that no accusation annoyed him more than that of being a dictator, he had hardly stopped [doing something in a previous passage?] when he arranged approval of a constitution giving him nearly all power and reducing the parliament to the role of an expensive decoration that you could bypass as needed.
As for the second, it seems to be missing a ni at the beginning ("ni X ni Y" has the sense of "neither X nor Y"). If I'm right (no guarantee), it could be something like:
...(neither) the official legislative, administrative, or judicial versions (or text, or language), nor their official translations...
"Il n'a pas eu de cesse" is an expression that could be translated literally as "he would not let things rest" or more idiomatically as "he wasn't satisfied until" he had arranged for the approval of a new constitution etc, as OtherDave very aptly translated. "Escamoter" is the verb used when a conjurer makes, for example, a rabbit disappear into a hat.
The second sentence could be translated more simply as "laws, regulations and legal requirements, nor their official translations." --Xuxl (talk) 15:16, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Xuxl -- that idiom seems to fit better in context (even with little context to go on). I'd seen a couple of connotations for escamoter and like yours. The French sentence is wordier than I would be in English, so a more idiomatic version might be:
He regarded himself as a truly democratic leader; nothing irritated him more than being called a dictator. Still, he wasn't happy until he had the constitution rewritten to give him virtually all power, transforming the parliament into high-priced scenery (a theatrical sense of décor) that could be whisked away as needed.
I'm reading the letter that Szilárd and Einstein wrote to Franklin Roosevel urging U.S. development atomic weapons. The second paragraph seems pretty sloppy for a genius. "It has been made probable...that it may become possible...it appears almost certain." Am I reading this incorrectly or is this kind of sloppy? 216.239.234.196 (talk) 17:17, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Leo Szilard wrote it, and he was Hungarian, so we have to cut him some slack right there. Also, you try writing a letter of world-shaking import to the president of the United States; I think he did pretty good. But, yes, I don't think it's possible that it could be made probable that something may be possible, especially if it appears almost certain. There is another problem, too: the second part where the port in the parenthetical magically appears outside it. But it got the job done. It would have scared the bejeezus out of me. --Milkbreath (talk) 17:56, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Following EC:A couple of mitigating circumstances: Einstein's language background is German. Passive voice is considered good style in German. Thus thinking patterns when constructing a sentence goes along the lines of
(likelihood of success) - material required - action - result
rather than the English
actor - action - result - (conditions to be met)
They were also trying to word those phrases emphatically enough that they'd get people acting "now" while not promising any immediate results when entrusted with the task. Given that, I think the phrasing isn't all that bad. When you say "sloppy for a genius" you indicate that you'd expect a genius to be equally proficient at all tasks they encounter. That expectation neither meets with the definition nor the reality. Einstein's ability to see solutions for physics problems that had baffled others came at the price of having an unusual mind that is these days described by some as a form of dyslexia. He flunked school math and is quoted as saying that he refused to memorize things he could just as well look up in a book. Lisa4edit (talk) 18:10, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Two things.
On Einstein failing math; total bullshit. It has no basis in historical fact at all, and is simply the kind of lie we tell ourselves to show us that "anyone can do anything". See this article in Time Magazine which clearly debunks the myth. According to Einstein himself, he was doing differential and integral calculus at age 15, and according to his actual school records, he was always at the top of his class in Mathematics from primary school onwards; most of his teachers openly noting in his records that he was far ahead of his classmates.
On "dyslexia"; may or may not be true, but dyslexia is commonly misunderstood to be a specific disease or syndrome; it simply means any difficulty in reading or writing. Eloquence and use of language are not really connected with dyslexia in any way, which is more about techinical processing of words on a paper, and not about constructing eloquent language. Also, eloquence has no connection to scientific proficience; they are completely different modes of expression and thinking. Else, Shakespeare would have been a fantastic scientist, no?!? --Jayron32.talk.contribs18:34, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think Lisa4edit hits on a key aspect: the writers wanted to advocate a path without guaranteeing results. The gist of the translation (relevant to the original question) seems to be:
Recent work by Joliet, Fermi, and Szilard has made it seem likely that one could set up a chain reaction in a mass of uranium. ("made it seem probable that it could be possible, though no one's actually done it yet")
Now it looks as though this could be done in the immediate future (rather than years and from now--things are heating up).
We believe, though we're not certain, that this could lead to the construction of a very powerful bomb that could destroy an entire port, though such a bomb might be too heavy to transport by air. (We see military uses, but the challenges are likely to be daunting.)
@Jayron: that goes to show one should not believe everything one hears or reads in a book. I went back and checked and found a source that explained the situation:[28] The grading systems in Germany and Switzerland are reversed. Both use numbers 1-6. So when the Germans read he was graded at "5" to them it meant a failing grade, whereas the Swiss school he went to meant one level beneath excellent. (And there we thought only language could cause confusion ;-) Lisa4edit (talk) 01:22, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
About the probable/possible/certain thing: perhaps the intent was to say that over the 4-month period it had become increasibly probable that an artificial nuclear reaction was possible, and "now" it was almost certain. I agree that the passage doesn't clearly say this, though. --Anonymous, 03:34 UTC, December 31, 2008.
"Possible" isn't expressing a likelihood there; it's expressing the distinction between something that could happen and something that never could (possible/impossible). The word that expresses likelihood is "may", as in "may be possible", and it's possible that (as a non-native English speaker) Szilard chose that word because he thought it was grammatically required for something that wasn't certain. --Anonymous, 18:53 UTC, December 31, 2008.
Web language conventions?
A lot of wording for website navbars have become standardized, for example:
About
Blog
Forum(s)
Search
Contact
What short title do you recommend for a link to a web page that collects news clippings and media/TV/radio excerpts that discuss or or praise the website's content? I'm thinking maybe "in the news", or "media coverage" or "news reports" or "mass media" or similar.... --Sonjaaa (talk) 23:23, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In other words, this usage forms its tenses the same way that the simple verb "go" does. "Went missing", "has gone missing", and "had gone missing" are ecah the correct form in the appropriate circumstances.
I think the original poster is upset about the existence of the expression. Too bad. It forms a useful distinction from "is missing" in that it refers to the moment of the disappearance, just as "they got married" forms a useful distinction from "they were married" in the same way. --Anonymous, 18:57 UTC, December 31, 2008.
Pronoun
Why do some people use "it" instead of the appropriate sexual pronoun? For example, why "A male xyzzy does its work by pulling a foobar" instead of "A male xyzzy does his work by pulling a foobar"? 60.230.124.64 (talk) 07:02, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think for a lot of people, the gendered pronouns "he" and "she" are personalized, and only usable for animals you really know - domesticated animals you live or work with or that friends live or work with. But wild animals aren't like friends and so they're "it", even when happen to know their sex. It's the same with babies - one's own baby, and the babies of close friends and relatives, are always "he" or "she" (as the case may be), but babies you don't know personally are very often "it" (even if you can tell it's a boy or girl because it's dressed in blue or pink or is currently having its diaper changed). —Angr07:59, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. These are pronouns, not articles. Articles are words like "the", "a", and "an", which are indifferent to gender in English. —Angr08:00, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(Post E.C.) It depends on the subject. If xyzzy is an animal other than a pet (cats and dogs especially), the word "it" is often used even if the gender is known. For pets some people use gender specific pronouns, others don't. I got into the habit of using "he" and "she" when referring to dogs and cats after people corrected me for using "it". Rarely some people use "it" when referring to newborns. I think this is because the gender is non-obvious. Other than that one, I haven't run across a case where "it" is used in reference to humans where gender was determinable or would be determinable. While no one would look twice if you used the proper pronoun, "he" and "she" and derivatives seemed to be preferred for humans, especially cared for animals, and occasionally suitably respected and anthropomorphized objects like ships. Everything else gets an "it". It's a subtle arrogance on the part of the english language. 152.16.15.23 (talk) 08:34, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Evolution of English
I have been told that at some point in 16th century English language was significantly "dumbed down" (thats how that person refered to it). For example, supposedly, English had different words for plural of "you". It also had means of identifying sex of speaker based on way how they used the language (I guess with different word endings) and much longer list of irregular verbs. I have tried to search for it, but I came up with no useful info since I don't know if that language change has specific name (or name of language itself, before it was simplified). If what that person told me is true, why did it happen? If you could provide any info or links to this, I would be very thankful.--Melmann(talk)14:04, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I am no expert, but I think that basically you are correct. Over the course of the past millenium, English has changed quite a bit. Old English had something called the case system, where the word changed it's form depending on whether it was a noun, direct object, etc. This was mostly dropped, and now appears only in some pronouns (though it was dropped long before the 16th century). In Shakespeare's English, they did have multiple "you" forms, though I haven't heard that there were multiple plural ones. You was either the formal way of talking to one person, or was the way of addressing a group of people (like we use "y'all" today, if you live around the area that I live). "Thou" was, in my understanding, used strictly as a singular second person pronoun, and was extremely informal (which is contrary to what a lot of people think today). As for the name, I don't know what you mean. The process is evolution, I believe, and the names are Old, Middle, and Modern English. Old English took place from whenever English started (I can't remember for sure) and had evolved to modern Enlish by the 1200's at the latest. Middle English was the next (again, the dates escape me), and that would be the kind of English that Chaucer used. Modern English starts around Shakespeare's time; Shakespeare's writings are considered Early Modern English. Old English is so different that you will probably not be able to understand it at all, and Middle English is different enough that you will have to struggle, but may be able to get meaning from it. Modern English should be straightforward; it may not be easy to read Shakespeare without practice, but you should be able to understand it fairly readily if you take the time to think it through. Also, I think this is cool. Old English was at one time written in runes, though these were soon dropped. I know that's irrelevant, but it's awesome, so I thought I'd mention it. Oh, I think I realized what your friend might have been thinking was the other plural form of "you" - "ye". That is a myth; "ye" is a modern occurence, and really stems from a way that they wrote the word "the". It has nothing to do with the word "you". I hope this helps. --Falconusptc14:31, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I should also mention that pronunciations are wildly different. The way that you would read Old English or Middle English, or even probably Early Modern English is vastly different han the way that the authors of those works would have read them. The sounds have evolved quite a bit in addition to the actual syntax of the language, and this is evident in many places, such as the word "knock" for example. That 'k' wasn't always silent. I also forgot to address "why". I don't know for sure, but language has evolved in every single language existing on earth. Latin evolved into all of the Romance Languages for example. There are many theories on why this happens, but I am not sure which ones are more widely accepted. In any rate, English has evolved from its Germanic roots, and English continues to evolve today. --Falconusptc14:39, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Way that person spoke about it leads me to believe that change was sudden and maybe even organized by some kind of ruler and enforced on its subjects. But it just could have been natural way English evolved, I don't know. What didn't occur to me is to look up Old English or Middle English. For some reason I assumed whole thing has some complicated linguistic name.I'll check out links you provided, thank you.--Melmann(talk)14:45, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Here is how Early Modern English handled second-person pronouns: Speaking to one person informally : Thou shouldst not believe all that others tell thee. ("Thou" nominative; "thee" oblique.) Speaking to several (or to one formally) : Ye should not believe all that others tell you. ("Ye" nominative; "you" oblique).
While the loss of a distinction between second-person singular and plural forms brought a loss of clarity and precision, it isn't fair to say that the differences between Middle English and Modern English or between Old English and Modern English represent a "dumbing down". Semantic work that used to be done by inflectional endings or vowel mutations is now mostly done by word order and the addition of auxiliary verbs and particles. English has simply become more analytic and less synthetic. This does not make it less complex or "dumber", as foreign learners struggling with English verb aspect or articles can attest. Also, as English is the main language of modern science, technology, and business, all of which are immensely more sophisticated and complex than anything in the Middle Ages, it's hard to see how Modern English can be "dumber" than earlier forms of English.
Middle English gradually evolved in a series of stages first into Early Modern English and then into the forms of English current today. Each piece of that evolution probably originated in a specific local and/or social setting and gradually spread through the English-speaking community. These changes were not ordered or imposed by any authority. As Falconus mentions, some of the biggest changes in English had to do with pronunciation rather than grammar. Probably the most important group of changes in pronunciation was the Great Vowel Shift, which began in southern England in the 14th or 15th century and still has not completely spread to all of northern England or Scotland. Vowels have continued to shift since the 18th century, as is clear from the different values of certain vowels in England and in the United States. Most of the significant regional variation in the pronunciation of vowels in the United States has also developed since the 18th century, though some of that variation may result from the settlement of different American colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries by settlers from different parts of Great Britain and Ireland. These changes happened gradually, with only subtle differences from one generation to the next, but the cumulative effect over centuries was substantial. Marco polo (talk) 16:25, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note that Shakespeare often uses 'thou/thee' and 'ye/you' quite inconsistently. For example, in Hamlet, I1, Bernardo says "'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.", but four lines later calls him 'you'. In fact, this is also the case in Everyman some 200 years earlier: in the first scene, Death says to Everyman: "Yea, sir, I will show you;/ In great haste I am sent to thee/From God out of his great majesty." --ColinFine (talk) 18:17, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, in the last 550 years or so (since roughly the mid-15th century), while many pronunciations and individual words have changed, there have been almost no losses of inflectional categories or inflectional complexity between the London/"Midlands" dialects of the time vs. modern standard English -- with the ONE prominent single exception of 2nd. person singular pronouns and verb inflections (whose loss was mainly a complex sociological phenomenon connected with the role of the T-V distinction in 16th and 17th century society). Otherwise, the only real changes have been that on the pronoun side the ye/you distinction has been lost and the it/its (or his/its) distinction has been innovated, while on the verb side the original 3rd. person singular present verb inflection "-th" has been replaced by "-s" (this last was a northern dialect form in 1450). The real loss of morphological complexity in English came roughly in the preceding 550-year period (say, ca. 900-1450). AnonMoos (talk) 19:56, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Model of "broken" English in Hollywood movies
Hollywood movies seem to have their own model of "broken" English spoken by foreigners. Stereotypical mistakes include:
substituting "me" for "I", and
substituting "no" for "not".
These are just the commonest "mistakes", but there are others.
Is this "model" based on real mistakes made by some non-native speakers or is it just a Hollywood invention? If the former, where are these non-native speakers from, or perhaps more relevantly, what language do they speak natively? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.49.19.42 (talk) 18:11, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Angr has correctly translated the sign, however it should be noted that such a phrase is not usually seen on such signs."Achtung Rutschgefahr!" is the standard. The symbol underneath is the same though. --Cameron*20:41, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've seen people say a few times that the with + -ing sentence structure is ungrammatical. I think that's shit, as with + -ing can be the best way to phrase something. For example "The recipe called for baking the pasta for one hour, with it being uncovered for the last fifteen minutes." "The party would start at six with the movie starting at seven." Am I really not allowed to use this sentence structure? Thanks, 76.248.244.232 (talk) 21:35, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I see no problem with that construction. A preposition takes an object (here, it) and objects can be modified by adjectives (being.../starting...). Admittedly, this construction might be too wordy at times or better rephrased (personally, I'd rephrase the 2nd example as "...at six, and the movie would start at seven"). Note that this is quite similar to the nominative absolute in English, which is acceptable and even appears in the US Constitution (and the Constitution writers wouldn't even agree to split infinitives!). Interestingly, both the with constructions above and the nominative absolute mirror a construction of the Latin language (ablative absolute), and English has traditionally been made to conform to Latin rules (eg. no split infinitives, no prepositions at the end of sentences), so a construction like this traditionally could be considered favorable. Do these people you mention say why they think this with construction shouldn't be acceptable?--el Aprel (facta-facienda) 22:22, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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