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.
If I've told you once, I've told you a million times: Don't exaggerate! - that's hyperbole. Yet how often do we see media reports about "literally millions of people have been affected by ...", where the numbers may be only in the thousands. That turns out to be hyperbolic, not to mention grossly misleading and inaccurate, but the writers often think they are simply writing in a vivid style where any form of added emphasis is fair game. We also see it in comparisons between things: one example is "the greatest ... in the history of the universe" and the other is "shit". There appears to be no middle ground; but almost all things reside somewhere in the supposedly non-existent middle ground. -- JackofOz (talk) 02:02, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'd just say "humorous exaggeration". --Anonymous, 06:56 UTC, February 8, 2009.
You could try synonyms like "embellishment" or "embroidery". In the right context, it could be apparent that these "amplifications" are not meant to be taken seriously. Maedin\talk14:09, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Avoidance of "an"
I've seen various examples of a noun starting with a vowel, where the form of the preceding indefinite article is "a" rather than "an". See this for just one recent example. I also hear it in the speech of youngish persons:
"Why didn’t your teacher explain it better?"
"Well, I asked him to but he didn’t give me a <glottal stop> explanation".
Is this happening widely throughout the anglo world? What explains the spurning of "an", which exists in order to make speech flow more easily and naturally? -- JackofOz (talk) 02:27, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As a youngish person myself (from Florida, US), I recall a few instances where I've heard people use a for an, but with no degree of regularity (that I've noticed) or consistency. I've previously just attributed it to saying "a" then having a mental pause and saying a word the begins with a vowel sound and the speaker not correcting themself, and until now never gave it much thought because of the infrequency I've encountered it. FWIW, the dialogue above sounds horrible to me and the first time I read it out loud, it was difficult to suppress the /n/ because it makes it so much more natural.--el Aprel (facta-facienda) 03:47, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I read it just fine, it sounds like this: weh, eye axe Tim to buh he dih int give me uh explanae shih (though it would be more correct as weh, eye axe Tim to buh he dih int give me no explanae shih)
The last paragraph of A and an#Discrimination between a and an may be relevant to your query, but I don't think the phenomenon is necessarily recent. I seem to recall this being used in old movies and such (for some reason, the expression "a ape" [pronounced "uh ape"] comes to mind—perhaps uttered by Stanley Kowalski?) to mark the speech of uneducated, dimwitted, or excited characters.Deor (talk) 14:55, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"The law is an ass" was "The law is a ass" in Dickens' original (when the character Mr. Bumble in Oliver Twist is informed that "the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction", Mr. Bumble replies "the law is a ass — a idiot")... -- AnonMoos (talk) 16:24, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that "apple" was ever "napple", but "adder" (the serpent, not the one performing a mathematical operation) was "nadder". Conversely, "newt" used to be "ewt". I forget the name given to this process, but when I remember it I shall return. DuncanHill (talk) 21:45, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
what normal, upstanding words -- not dialect, slang, jargon, etc, just normal "SAT words" -- are you allergic to?
I mean you know the meaning, you see it from time to time the same as any other word, you might run across it in the New Yorker or a New York Times column, yet it has never sat well with you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.124.81.87 (talk) 04:50, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Puce"; I hate the word "puce". I am not even sure how anyone could know the colour of a flea, but the very sound of the word makes me want to "puke" -and that's almost as bad a word, but not quite. ¤₳₳ BL ₵₳¤ (talk) 05:08, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ah yes, Bielle with the signature that is pretty well unreadable on my system. I dislike those words also, and I cannot abide crépuscule in French or crepuscular in English, which also have -pu- in them.
I am desperately sensitive to several words in fact, and therefore cannot bring myself to discuss the matter any further.
There are a lot of color words that make one want to puke (a wonderful word, look what can be done such a minor interchange between two letters that can sometimes substitute for each other). Mauve. Hate the word, but I admit that I love to say it. --KP Botany (talk) 11:07, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Legendary, used to denote something other than "pertaining to legend", or perhaps nothing at all. It generally seems to mean "at least moderately well known", but then if the referent weren't at least moderately well known then it wouldn't occur in the kind of columns (or, all too often, Wikipedia articles) that are written with gushy words like legendary. Or then again perhaps the subject isn't even moderately well known: vanity articles about terminally obscure guitarists tend to say that they "gigged with" this or that "legendary" if Z-rated band from which both the public and the critics stayed away in droves, pardon the cliché. ¶ Albeit, a pompous word now just as it was decades ago when lampooned by Fowler (an overrated exponent of a dreadful genre, but occasionally worth a glance). I've just finished Tony Judt's Postwar, a superb and for the most part superbly written book that repeatedly uses albeit where it could just say if instead. -- Hoary (talk) 10:32, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know, it's inexplicable my loathing of the word pucker. I like "puke" as a word, and I like "ruffle," and "sucker," and "rip-rap," and "huckster," and "crinkle," is lovely, and "buckle," must be one of the all-time great words in any language, put pucker, well, I just don't like it. At all. It's just wrong. --KP Botany (talk) 06:38, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Much of this discussion concerns matters of unaccountable taste, Algebraist. That's how it is with allergies. A doctor does not reprove a patient like this: "Pollen? What's wrong with pollen, if I may ask?"–⊥¡ɐɔıʇǝoNoetica!T– 23:43, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Here's some words for you. "The reference desk does not answer requests for opinions or predictions about future events. Do not start a debate; please seek an internet forum instead." Malcolm XIV (talk) 12:26, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The Bush administration created an aversion to the word "leadership" because it was usually followed shortly thereafter by some major screw up in the area concerned. "Paradigm" is a bit worn, but still good for a cringe or two. "Competence" these days also seems to describe something that one pretends to have rather than someone's actual ability. "Competency" definitely goes on my list. Lisa4edit (talk) 14:25, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Two entertainment examples make me vomit. Helm as a verb - These films were all helmed by director Joe Bloggs. Shocking! And the ubiquitescent garner: it's now being used to refer to the winning of a single award (She garnered an Oscar for her performance in "<name of film>"), where it actually means to collect many things. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:04, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Funnyman in place of "comedian" bothers me to no end. The IMDB's news service uses it constantly and it annoys me to no end. Utilize in place of "use" qualifies 99% of the time as well. -Elmer Clark (talk) 23:02, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've been reading this and thinking all along that I really have nothing like this, no word to set me off. But I was wrong; I just realize that even though I don't think I'd describe my relationship to this phrase as "allergic", when someone says that they could care less, I always wince. It's like a little boot to my brain; it's got nothing to do with how it sounds, it's just that it's the complete opposite of what they mean. I'm just too pedantic to completely ignore that. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 07:33, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
When I was younger I couldn't get my head round 'Caucasus' (or however it's written) in the US elections. I always wondered when they said such-and-such a candiadate had won in the caucasus, why were they having US elections in Azerbaidjan? I also thought it might be a reference to the fact that only caucasians get to be president, but, thankfully, I have recently been proved wrong. Anyway, for both of those reasons, I began to dislike the word immensely.--KageTora (talk) 10:04, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I actually like the word "caucus" since I first encountered it in Alice in Wonderland, reinforced later by the Capitol Steps rap "When you caucus with Max Baucus, your caucus will be too raucous..." -- AnonMoos (talk) 10:56, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The worst sounding word in English is undoubtedly gusset. As for words whose usage bothers me, I nominate impact as a verb when what is really meant is affect. --Richardrjtalk email11:25, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
JackofOz wrote this, above: "Yeah, no, I agree. I'm like 'What are they thinking'?" But I don't understand. I think he must have meant this: "Yeah, no, I concur ... ", per WP-Talkpagesprache.
I can't stand people who use "utilize" and "fiction novel" as words. The first is an overcomplication of "use" and the second is a pleonasm. Novels are fiction by default. If it's not fiction, it's a book, not a novel. (That's one of the reasons you should take care to hyphenate science-fiction novel) - Mgm|(talk)12:58, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I intensely despise, abhore and deplore the general trend of of turning virtually any noun into a verb. Top of the list is transition. Then there's conference - We'll conference about it later. And medal - I medalled in Beijing but not in Athens. And so on. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:20, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Quite an established move in all English, Jack; but American does it with a ferocity to be marvelled at. To birth, and especially birthing as in "birthing center", is the one they that makes me want to curl up and hibernate until Chinese takes over.
How would you propose they rephrase that unambiguously in only two words without using rather esoteric Greco-Latin technical medical terminology? AnonMoos (talk) 23:00, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Birth center, perhaps? Of course its tricky, since we have no common, simple verb whose meaning is "give birth to". Bear will not do, since it means so much else; engender, beget, and others like them miss the mark; drop is horridly colloquial (used outside Australia?). Nor do we have a simple verb equivalent to Latin nascor, Italian nascere, or French naître: "to be born". Why not? The American people have a right to know.
Craft. Measles. Clot. Loam. Yogurt. How can anyone eat something where the y comes before the g in the name? I do like crepuscular, though - and corpuscle. Matt Deres (talk) 01:01, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I once read in a book of lists with a list of words that are misfits, as in, they sound too bad or too good compared to what they mean. For example, the perceived meaning of fructify is ruined by the first syllable, and the pronounciation of diarrhea and gonorrhea would suggest something more pleasent, if one did not know what they actually meant. ~AH1(TCU)18:46, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Who said this?
"Everybody likes to be told the truth. It's only that particular ass that tells us so that we can't stand"
I know that's not the exact wording otherwise I would have found it through google. Can anyone tell me who said this and what the exact words are? ExitRight (talk) 09:40, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Am considering whether this word might have been used around 1940 to describe, say, lame individuals, mobility impaired in their lower extremities. In particular, to title this drawing by Marcel Janco: "....... in a Detention Camp." Webster's Collegiate online marks it as "sometimes offensive" usage. Was that always the case? At what point did it become "usually offensive" as I would say it's currently regarded politically incorrect"? Are there dictionaries or other lexical reference works that indicate such considerations?-- Deborahjay (talk) 10:02, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There is a process called the "euphemism treadmill", that our article describes as a form of pejoration, whereby a term becomes offensive and is replaced by a neutral term that in turn becomes offensive, and so on. "Cripple" is the ordinary English word for a lame person, and that is how the Oxford English Dictionary defines it. There is no warning note in the OED's entry for "cripple". Just to check, I looked up the "N-word" to see how they handle such things, and there they have a few sentences of usage notes about its offensiveness. Dictionaries are unreliable for those who want to stay on top of the latest trends in social engineering through language distortion, and the best dictionaries will try to steer a straight course whichever way the wind happens to be blowing this month. I am sure that a person writing in 1940 would put "two cripples in the foreground" without batting an eye, because that's what he meant. That is not to say that I think there is no value in the current tendency to protect people's feelings by careful speech. In this case, to use the noun "cripple" instead of "crippled person" defines a human being and labels him unfairly, and children are especially susceptible. And to call a person over by shouting, "Hey, you...cripple...come here" would have been deemed offensive, at least by the cripple in question, in any age, I would imagine.
I think that any dictionary worth its salt will give a little guidance in the use of words that can be expected to be taken ill, but I doubt there's a dictionary dedicated to tracing the changes words have gone through over their lifetimes in that regard (do you think there'd be a market for one?). I guess you'd have to look at the entry for the word you want in several dictionaries from several periods of history. The entry for "cripple" in Webster's 1828 Dictionary at OneLook carries no warning, nor does the American Heritage Dictionary of 2000. If you mean to ask whether there is a current lexicon that lists words considered offensive nowadays, you might find the Maledicta Press interesting, though that's not exactly what we want here. The Global Language Monitor puts out a list of the top politically (in)correct words, but I was unable to find a broadsheet. --Milkbreath (talk) 14:03, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The market for such a reference work would certainly include my ilk: contemporary translators of historical texts, likewise authors (screenwriters, playwrights, et al.) of period works. I sorely lament its lack! -- Deborahjay (talk) 22:50, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
you can bet that in a few years what today is "what are you retarded" will be "what are you differently abled". That's the euphimism treadmill. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.120.236.246 (talk) 14:52, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, "What, are you retarded ?" is trying to be offensive. The treadmill only applies when people try to avoid giving offense. Thus, "crippled" becomes "paralyzed" then "handicapped" then "disabled" then "differently-abled". Similarly people go from "retarded" to "cognitively impaired" to "mentally challenged". We also have the generic term "special", which now seems to mean "there's something wrong with them, but we're not saying what". Personally I think the current terms are a bit much, as everyone is "differently-abled" and "special", and we should all strive to be "mentally challenged" each and every day. StuRat (talk) 22:14, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Off tangent, but: In German, the term cripple ("Krüppel") is an example of a reversed euphemism treadmill. The German term for such a reversal is "Geusenwort", the en term is "reappropriation". Both mean that previously disparaging or insulting terms are embraced by the respective societal group and are invested with neutral / positive meaning. In the 1970s disabled people convened the "Krüppelbewegung", a network of self-help groups which has been successful in removing many of the barriers (mental and physical). --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 22:20, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Not at all off-tangent, but rather a usage trend of which we'd do well to familiarize ourselves. (Nice pro-active concept, that "reappropriation"!) -- Deborahjay (talk) 22:56, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I believe the english term for that is "taking it back", as Randal tried to do with "porch monkey" in Clerks II. I also heard it used in a stand-up routine, by a black woman who wanted a brand of chips named after the N-word. The idea was to make people see the word in a more positive light. One especially good line was, "Crackers?! You can't have a party with crackers! Get some n****rs in here!" Black Carrot (talk) 01:44, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It is a usage trend well-established in English, sometimes known as reclaiming a word. As with queer, now a badge of pride to many (oh, pun alert, just saw that); and indeed "black" -- "Say it loud, we're black and we're proud"; and there are cutting-edge disability activists who refer to themselves as "crips". The gay/queer divide is a useful one here: assimilationist vs challenging or overthrowing the system. While the words are still powderkegs, they can only be safely used within the community, not by outsiders. BrainyBabe (talk) 08:51, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wow. I bothered to look it up and found people "playfully" (according to the New York Times) referring to themselves as bedpan crips; there is criplit and the cripchick blog; "queering the crip" and "uppity intellectual crip"; crip activism, crip theory, and crip culture. My, how the language changes! BrainyBabe (talk) 21:36, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but as noted above, they still get upset if anyone outside their group uses the word. So, if you call somebody a "cripple", they may roll right over you. StuRat (talk) 17:09, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No help, but: The term (which is unknown to me) is also used in the French version of the article, which says: Principalement le peuple de José de Suaita San vient du peuple espagnol (65 %) les temps de l'installation d'industrie ont laissé des descendants Anglo-et Français-saxons (10 %) et ont apporté (25 %) de métis de départements plus proches comme Boyacá et même Tolima. There does not seem to be (I am not from Barcelona) any mention of this in the Spanish article.
One guess would be that the writer (in the original (?) French version) wanted to say "descendants of French and Anglo-Saxons" and mixed up the terms. The Spanish WP (I am just guessing here), appears to mention Germans and Americans, which is not quite the same, either. --62.47.129.184 (talk) 20:31, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your reply, I saw all the differences, the french version is a bad copy of the english version (translating machine ?) and in fact the good version is the spanish version.My question is here because, it seems, the english version is more old that the french version.For me, also, this term don't exist.(sorry for my bad english language)--Doalex (talk) 21:32, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No worries. I should add that the en version is certainly not written by a proficient speaker of the language and may very well be a sanitised machine translation itself. I did not think to check the respective dates (French vs English version), so maybe the author of the en version is the culprit. Greetings from un autre chien. Sorry for my doggerel. --62.47.148.29 (talk) 22:11, 8 February 2009 (UTC) Ooops, --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 22:15, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The term makes no sense to me. Anglo-Saxon refers to the Germanic tribes, some of which were from Saxony, that invaded and settled present-day Britain. Saxons are Germans (now) and a Germanic tribe (historically), so 'French-Saxon' makes no sense unless there was some Saxon settlement in France (which subsequently moved to Colombia?). I've not heard of any such thing. Another guess is that perhaps the author was thinking about the Normans (French who invaded Britain later) and turned Norman/Anglo-Saxon into French-Saxon. OTOH the easiest way to say 'Norman-Anglo-Saxon' is 'British'. :) --130.237.179.182 (talk) 13:09, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You are right, I have changed both versions with Germans and Anglo-saxons.The French presence in Saxony is more probable that the opposite (18th and 19th century).--Doalex (talk) 16:35, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In French, the word "anglo-saxon" in a non-medieval context basically means "English speakers", and a reader of a French newspaper who happened to glimpse the word in a headline would naturally assume that it meant that those Brits and Yanks were up to something again... AnonMoos (talk) 22:52, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
blind people can't see, deaf people can't hear, mute people can't speak, but [blank] people can't smell, and [blank] people can't taste.Troyster87 (talk) 01:06, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The OED has anosmic (not anosmiac), and Google Scholar shows it's in fairly common academic use. Nothing similar to ageusiac is in the OED, and it gets no Ghits. Ageusic seems to see some use though. Algebraist01:34, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Imagine a house and a garage being separated by 6'. In order to stay out of inclement weather when traveling between them, you create a hallway of sorts with a roof which spans between a door of the house and a door on the side of the garage. What is this enclosure called? Dictionary.com says that this would be a breezeway if there are no walls but what if you enclose this thing? Would it still be called a breezeway? Maybe an "enclosed breezeway"? Dismas|(talk)02:03, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I am currently house hunting. I saw a house with such a structure in Massachusetts, and everyone called the structure a breezeway, even though it has no breeze. Marco polo (talk) 02:25, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
More as a joke, I hope, my spouse calls ours "The Cloister". However, it is fully enclosed, though with multiple windows along its south face. Cloisters are usually open along one wall with archways. ៛ BL ៛ (talk) 02:30, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, all! I thought there was another word since there is no 'breeze' to an enclosed breezeway but I guess that the term includes those without breezes. Dismas|(talk)07:39, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure this question has been asked numerous times before, but as the only terms I can search the archives for are "an" and "h", I didn't think I'd have much luck, so here goes. Should you say an before words beginning with h? "An house" sounds alien to me, but it seems common, especially in American literature and translated works. Is it just an English/American thing? Or am I just wrong to say "a herbivore"? Thanks in advance 86.8.176.85 (talk) 05:16, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) If the h is sounded, than use a. If it is not sounded (as in some accents, or by poseurs when they talk about hotels), then use an. DuncanHill (talk) 05:21, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Americans wouldn't say "an house". In fact, the phrase "an house" looks really, really British to me. I hear John Cleese saying "An 'ouse?!" when I read it. That's probably one particular, stereotyped dialect. But clearly there are some people somewhere who say it, because it gets hundreds of thousands of Google hits.
Americans would say "an herbivore", because Americans don't pronounce the h in "herb". If you pronounce the "h" at the beginning of "herbivore", then you're right to say "a herbivore". So even though the stereotype is that British people drop h's, here it's only the Americans doing it.
Then there are weird cases, like "a historian" and "an historian". Americans use both. Even though Americans generally pronounce the "h" in "historian", they pronounce "an historian" as "an 'istorian", for some reason. I just say "a historian" like any other word with an h sound. The "an" form strikes me as an affectation used by, as Duncan puts it, poseurs. I don't know where it came from; is there a British or American dialect where the h in "historian" is silent? rspεεr (talk) 07:14, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Inspector Harry "Snapper" Organs routinely dropped all his h's ('Allo, 'allo, 'allo, wot's all this then?) , so I presume he'd have done so with historian. -- JackofOz (talk) 07:23, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In my dialect, Scouse, we drop 'h' all the time at the beginning of words. There is only one time when we actually pronounce it, and that is in the name of the letter 'h' (we say 'haitch' which is, of course, incorrect, but our dialect does everything the opposite to standard english anyway). We also add 'h' after voiceless stops (p, t, k) and short vowels at the ends of words (which changes to 'r' before a following vowel).--KageTora (talk) 09:53, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No no no. My dears, the definitive treatment of this topic is here.
Within my lifetime (60+) the use of 'a' or 'an' before hotel or history has changed here in the UK. In the fifties it was almost universal that people said 'a historian' or 'a hotel'. nowadays it is much more common (but not universal) to hear people, especially the media, say 'an historian' or 'an hotel'. This is anecdotal evidence and should be disregarded for scientific studiesRichard Avery (talk) 16:58, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't noticed this change in the UK (except for a possible desire to "speak proper" and introduce an unneccesary "n" by some in the media). Surely the rule is simple: if the "h" is sounded, then use "a", but if the "h" is not sounded then it needs "an". Of course, this just moves the discussion on to whether the "h" should be sounded in "hotel" and "history". The modern tendency is to sound this, but then erroneously keep the formerly necessary "an" under the delusion that this is "proper". Fifty years ago "a hotel" was standard in the North, but "an 'otel" was standard in RP. Both were correct. Modern speakers seem to confuse the two. Dbfirs17:24, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Concerning this sentence: "I worked with a group of twenty 5-6 year old children."
Is it wrong to write out "five to six", since it's preceded by the word "twenty"? Is it better to leave the numerals to avoid confusion? I would prefer to write them out but...
Also; if it is okay to write them out, should it be hyphenated as such: "five-to-six-year-old"? As it stands now, should it be hyphenated "5-6-year-old"? Thanks, 69.16.91.138 (talk) 08:35, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What about rewriting it to read "I worked with twenty children aged between five and six years"?
It is not always helpful to suggest rewriting. Sidestepping an issue like that misses an opportunity to sort out a genuinely interesting issue. And it may not be be an option anyway. What if someone spoke those words, and your task was to write them down?
The close range 5 to 6 is merely incidental, so it may not be helpful to ask what can lie between those two ages. (In fact, fractional ages lie between, expressed in years and months.)
Several distinct issues converge in the example we are given. Let's deal with them one by one:
A range of years expressed in speech with the word to is best written with the word to. This is especially so when from is also used, but it applies generally:
The children were aged from five to ten.
Five to ten is a period of latency in the child's development, for Freud.
Opinions differ widely about using figures or words to express numbers. In the examples above, all the numbers are lower than ten, for which most authorities prefer words. Some authorities take ten as the dividing line: lower numbers in words, higher numbers in figures. (What of ten itself? Opinions differ!) But if comparable numbers are below and above ten in the same sentence, choose just one way for both numbers:
The children were aged from five to ten.
The children were aged from 12 to 14.
The children were aged from five to fourteen.
The children were aged from 5 to 14.
If any numbers with different uses occur in the sentence, it is normal to present them in contrasting ways, like this:
There were six children aged 5, and eleven children aged 10.
There were 6 children aged five, and 11 children aged ten.
Some say that a figure should not occur at the start of a sentence, so this would be good:
Six children were aged 5, and eleven were aged 10.
But not this:
6 children were aged five, and 11 were aged ten.
Hyphens are standard in these forms:
Five-year-olds are so dependent!
Five-year-old children are so dependent!
A "hanging hyphen" is standard when we add another option:
Five- and six-year-olds are so dependent!
Five- and six-year-old children are so dependent!
Putting all this together, here are two standard acceptable written forms of the sentence we were asked about:
I worked with a group of twenty 5- to 6-year-old children.
I worked with a group of 20 five- to six-year-old children.
These might look awkward; language in the real world is like that! Rewording may indeed be best; but to do that well, we had better be sure of some underlying principles, like those we have unearthed above by considering a hard case.
Finally, many authorities advocate an en dash (–) instead of a hyphen (-) when the compound has components that already include hyphens:
An Anglo-Saxon–Danish skirmish was inevitable.
So if you really wanted to have hyphens in five-to-six-year-olds, you might be tempted to try an en dash instead of the last-added hyphen (or hyphens); but identifying such a candidate for replacement is quite hard in this case: five-to-six–year-olds? I don't think so.
I recommend WP:HYPHEN and WP:DASH for further reading that is relevant to improving our editing practice, class.
Of course the proximity of 'five' and 'six' is purely incidental, and I was going to say it would be different if the ages were, say, five and ten, as you would then have to point out whether the children in question were either of two separate age groups (i.e. five and ten), or within the range of five and ten, but I couldn't be bothered, because that was not relevant in this case. I did, however, have the sneaky suspicion that someone would be pedantic enough to pick up on that, as you did. Hook, line, and sinker, as they say. Also, in my opinion, paraphrasing is fine, as long as it gets the point across better than the original. Language is a tool to be explored and used, and while your argument that it misses a perfectly good opportunity to explore different ways of expressing the same idea using different punctuation or whatever, paraphrasing is just as good, if not better, as it can even be more visually pleasing than having a morass of hyphens and dashes all over the place.--KageTora (talk) 16:40, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, this reminds me of a conversation I had with my father a while back. I was telling him about a kindergarten class I taught a few years ago, and I said to him, 'So, I was teaching this class of thirty 5-year-olds at the kindergarten,' and my dad replied in shocked disbelief, 'What are 35-year-olds doing at a kindergarten?!?' This is why I prefer to paraphrase! (True story!)--KageTora (talk) 05:12, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Recently I came across the word "ridulousness" (in a text about the Plessy vs. Ferguson case a colleague gave to me) and first I thought it was a typo for "ridiculousness". Although there are a number of Google hits for ridulous/ridulousness, the word is not in my Collins and I'm not quite sure about the meaning and the register. (I'm not a native speaker.) -- 93.132.128.192 (talk) 17:28, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
When I put "ridulousness" into Oxford, I get a message: "There are no results: The nearest alphabetical match-point is displayed in the side-frame", and the word highlighted is "basso-relievo, rilievo". I'm not sure why in the world that is the result, but I'm sure that "ridulousness" is an error. Nyttend (talk) 17:53, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Google hits mean nothing; you will always get plenty of Google hits for misspellings, but that doesn't mean there really was somebody called "Virpin Mary", for example.--Shantavira|feed me09:08, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
But 'Virpin' would be the possessive form of the Finnish name Virpi. If Virpi had a daughter named 'Mary' she might be referred to as 'Virpin Mary' :) --130.237.179.182 (talk) 19:12, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This is a perennial problem in writing spellcheckers because there are often lexemes which are both a misspelling of a very common word and also a legitimate but very rare word. (One of my favourites is "incudes", which is a possible plural of incus, a bone in your ear, but if you see the word anywhere it's very probably a typo for "includes".) I'm pretty sure that what your note meant was "ridiculousness". Marnanel (talk) 18:56, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sometimes Google and Wikipedia searches give you spelling suggestions that turn up no results. For example (fictional example based on factual experience), if you type in, say, "gfhgjfhghfhdjahkfghslghdkahdkjhgfhghfjhgrgvjfbghuhghfhgfjfhgkjghkgh" on Google, it might say, "did you mean: fhgjshkjhgkldjfhgjdkslahsasdlfjgkhafhgh?" and still turn up no results. A similar thing happens with Wikipedia searches. ~AH1(TCU)18:59, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
18th century English pronunciation
As part of a college class on novels, I'm reading Fielding's Tom Jones, in which there are a few characters by the name of "Blifle". During our first lecture, the professor expressed ignorance about how to pronounce this name, so we've gotten to pronouncing it "bliff-ful". Any reliable sources on how to pronounce this name? Nyttend (talk) 17:48, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I am by no means an expert, but I would say your pronunciation was correct (or, at least, as close as we can get). Modern spelling would require an extra 'f' for the 'i' to be pronounced short, but early modern English was not very consistent with this usage.--KageTora (talk) 18:33, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's occurred to me that one could pronounce the second syllable of "blifle" as one pronounces "soufflé". The spelling of blifle probably doesn't follow the rules of French (I don't really know), but "bli-flay" could possibly sound less silly than bliff-ful! Maedin\talk20:46, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know whether there are alternative versions of the book published, but as far as I'm aware the character's name is not "Blifle" but "Blifil", which may make the pronunciation more obvious. Karenjc20:56, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, wasn't paying attention when typing before. To be sure, this is "Blifil" in my edition, not "Blifle". My intended question was basically after the first syllable: is it natural for it to be pronounced this way, or would "bligh-fill" be an option? It's primarily a question of vowels; I'm aware that the Great Vowel Shift was centuries before this time, but I'm still not very well read (or "well heard") in the pronunciation of the English of this period — is it generally the same as today? Nyttend (talk) 00:59, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The professors under whom I studied the novel (I had it in several classes) all pronounced it with a short i (BLIHF-uhl), and that's also how I recall it's being pronounced in the film. Deor (talk) 05:41, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
two latin questions
1. In Latin poetry, if you have a syllable that ends with two consonants, then it is considered a long syllable. Can anyone tell me if this rule is sustained across consecutive words? For example, in "et cetera," is the first syllable long because it effectively ends in "tc," ignoring whitespace?
2. The word "nemo/ neminis" is basically a third declension noun that can be used as an adjective. Can you use nouns from other declensions as adjectives, remembering that each of them lacks at least one gender for the purpose of inflection. For example, if "bellum" were used adjectivally (="warlike"), there would be the second declension form "bellus" available for the nom. masc. singular, but no apparent feminine form. This ought to prevent it being used as an adjective, but Latin can be strange. Thanks in advance, It's been emotional (talk) 17:59, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
First question, basically, yes. There are numerous exceptions, depending on what comes after the vowel; if it was "et radices", the combination of t+r would not make the e long. See Latin poetry. For the second question, I don't think Latin can do that. There are words like "rosa" which is a rose and the adjective colour, and there are coincidences ("bellus" and "malus" for example are unrelated as adjectives and nouns), but you can't regularly do that with any normal Latin noun. It does, of course, work the other way, adjectives can be used as substantive nouns (and also as adverbs, sometimes). Adam Bishop (talk) 18:34, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Latin nouns can occur in a syntactic "apposition" construction (which in some cases can be somewhat functionally equivalent to being an adjective), but the nouns do not change their declensional category or gender as a result... AnonMoos (talk) 22:46, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What are those excessively narrow houses called, that are created by roofing over the passageway between two existing buildings? There are several that are a bare couple of meters wide. I seem to recall a name such as "spite corridor", but not useful Ghits for that term. BrainyBabe (talk) 20:13, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And we have an article on spite houses, usually but not always narrow. (I.e., once one knows the name, looking for it is much easier.)BrainyBabe (talk)
Spite house is definitely closer to the concept I was looking for, in that it designates a building constructed where no one thought one could fit. The houses I am thinking of are not always done out of spite or negative emotions, but they are always narrow, between two existing structures, which not all spite houses are. BrainyBabe (talk) 13:47, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Old English perfect aspect
What are the most likely ways that speakers of Old English would refer to something that is completed or finished? I get the impression that they didn't use the construction "have" + past participle that we use today, as in "I have eaten". Or did they? I know that the prefix ge- for verbs (and sometimes nouns) connotes a sense of "process or result". If an Old English speaker said, "ic geæt", would that mean "I have finished eating" as opposed to the simpler "ic æt", "I ate"? Or would you always use the simple past for those situations? Jonathantalk20:48, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Nobody else has picked up this one, so I'll give it a go. Unfortunately our perfect aspect is rather poor. However, the OED gives a pretty complete answer (s.v. 'HAVE', II):
This use arose directly from sense 2b, the object possessed having in agreement with it a passive participle of a transitive verb as attribute or complement; thus, I have my work done = ‘I possess or have my work in a done or finished condition’, whence, by inference of antecedent action from result, the actual sense ‘I have done my work’: cf. the series ‘have you the article ready?’, ‘have you the article completed?’, ‘have you completed the article?’ In some dialects the distinction between the original and developed forms, e.g. ‘He has the house built’, ‘he has built the house’, is still in regular use; with some past participles, as begun, completed, done, finished, etc., it is recognized generally. With transitive verbs the developed use was already frequent in OE.; the pa. pple., which originally agreed in number and case with the object, was sometimes left uninflected. In early ME. the usage is found with verbs of action without an object, whence it was extended to intransitive verbs, especially, at an early date, to the verb to be (as in French and other Romanic languages, and in opposition to continental Teutonic use), as he has been, had been, will have been, etc. (cf. F. il a été, Ger. er ist gewesen). Verbs of motion and position long retained the earlier use of the auxiliary be; and he is gone is still used to express resulting state, while he has gone expresses action.
Thanks for the OED article. Any help with interpreting it, if possible? ...it says that with trasitive verbs (okay, "to hear" is transistive) the developed use was already frequent in OE, and the past participle was left uninflected. So, instead of the usual use of the past participle (in this case, hyred) as an adjective in phrases like "þa hyredan weras" (the men who were heard), for lack of a better example, you would get an uninflected "ic habbe hie hyred", (I have heard them)... soþlic? Were they using the verb "habban" in this kind of construction? Jonathantalk18:04, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Use of of
He was well known for his sign-off line of "May your news be good news". (see Brian Naylor (broadcaster)).
vs.
He was well known for his sign-off line: "May your news be good news". (or perhaps a comma instead of a colon).
What function does "of" serve in the first version (and various similar examples)? Is it supported by those who speak authoritatively about such things? -- JackofOz (talk) 22:49, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The "of" in your first example is not really necessary. Your second example is better, and a comma would be preferred. Since the article is about an Australian broadcaster, perhaps the useage would be different than American English. --Thomprod (talk) 23:00, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Thomprod. I believe I've seen it in various Englishes. A similar example might be "He was born Mervyn Smith, but for his astrological writings he used the name of Tarquin Spiffingworth" (rather than just "... the name Tarquin Spiffingworth"). It's common enough, but I don't know if it's a proper use of "of". -- JackofOz (talk) 08:08, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's on the same spectrum as the unimpeachable use of of in "the city of Rome". The city doesn't belong to Rome, the city is Rome, yet the "of" seems to be almost indispensable. —Angr10:13, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's a related case, indeed. But I see a slight difference. Take Gerald Ford: he was born Leslie Lynch King Jr, but was given his adoptive father's name. It could be said that he took the name of Gerald Ford, where Gerald Ford refers to his father - in other words, he took his father's name. It could also be said that he took the name Gerald Ford, with no reference to how that came about. Cities, counties and similar places are usually, formally, "The City of ..." - and even informally. The "of" there is a pointer, and is a shorthand way of saying "the city (that is) called Rome". But when it comes to tag-lines and similar things, we're not talking about labels, names and titles; they simply exist as utterances. Another one would be "I explained that I'd done everything I was asked to do, and he gave me the unbelievable response of 'It doesn't matter, we've changed the rules in the meantime'". In speech, it seems to highlight that what's about to come next is worth hearing, something unusual, something unique, something shocking, etc. - and there's often a slight pause after "of", and sometimes "you're not gonna believe this", or "wait for it", or the speaker uses air quotes. In writing, the effect can't be reproduced with anything like the same power by merely using the word "of". I'm getting the feeling that it's a colloquialism, and not particularly appropriate for writing of a certain quality, unless it's part of a quote. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:35, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Puzzling question. The locution seems OK at first glance, and I'm sure it would pass unnoticed in speech, at least by me, but there is something unusual about it. I think the "of" is like the one in phrases like these from a googling on "with a cry of":
People emptied chamber pots out of bedroom windows with a cry of gardey loo!, which is said to be a corruption of the French ....
With a cry of “Allah is great”, an underage killer shot an Italian priest ....
... he leaps into the air with a cry of “Dosukoi!” ....
The function of "of" there is definitive, similar to "of" in "teeth of wood", meaning something like "being". Neither Fowler (1965) nor the OED on line treats it (I skimmed through the OED entry twice, and a damn fine entry it is). I think that this use of "of" (in "cry of") is normal and not of low register at all, and I'm beginning to think the same of yours. You can't say a colon, and your "of" takes up that slack in speech. Personally, I'd probably go with a comma in formal writing, and "of" in speech and more casual writing, only because it sounds vocal to me. --Milkbreath (talk) 23:56, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Compare use of de in French, and similarly in other Romance languages: quelque chose d'étrange: "something strange". One would never say *quelque chose étrange. For goes by the name of X, compare a usage that turns up more than once in the surpassingly witty film O Brother, Where Art Thou?: the main character introduces himself with the elliptical sentence "Name of Ulysses Everett McGill".
Why is the letter H worth four points in Scrabble? I mean, this http:/upwiki/wikipedia/commons/4/41/English-slf.png graph shows the frequencies of the letters in the English language, and H is more common than R and L, which are worth 1 point, as well as all the letters that are worth two and three points. It seems that Scrabble tile points are based on letter frequencies, given that Z, Q, X, and J are worth a whole lot while E and A are worth just one point. The letter frequency rule is normally followed in the letter tile scores, with some minor discrepancies, plus the major discrepancy of the H.
Why would this be? H is a very easy letter to play: it is in many short words like ah, eh, he, ho, hi, ha, the, etc. If scoring is based on the difficulty of the letters, then C should be worth a lot, and H should be worth little. Has usage of the letter H proliferated since Alfred Butts invented Scrabble in 1938? I am confused.
--71.227.1.59 (talk) 02:07, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It probably has to do with the fact that most good "H" words require the "H" to be paired with other letters, usually "C", "S", or "T". Its certainly not as restrictive as having a "Q", which nearly always requires a "U", hence its 4 points rather than even more. --Jayron32.talk.contribs05:06, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Random contribution: You forgot CH - a very useful word (the only 2 letter word starting with C. And Q is not always "nearly always" used with U - almost every time I play a Q it's in the word qi. Aaadddaaammm (talk) 17:37, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I sometimes use "qi", too, but I generally prefer to use Q with a U, where possible. I think what Jayron meant was that Q nearly always requires a U in the real world, which is what Butts had in mind when he devised the points system. He'd probably never even have heard of "qi" (or even "chi", which is its most usual spelling). -- JackofOz (talk) 20:55, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
We call them 'holes' where I am from. A notch is different. A notch is usually something that is caught by pegs, or something on a cogwheel, for example.--KageTora (talk) 07:48, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The pointy bit that passes through such a hole is tongue, tang, fang, or pin. The hole itself may indeed be called notch. These are all just special uses of the words in question, and do not have separate dictionary entries. SOED, "notch, n.":
1 A V-shaped indentation or incision made, or naturally occurring, in an edge or across a surface; spec. (a) each of a series of holes for the tongue of a buckle etc.; ...
Despite the dictionary entry, I would argue that the holes are not "notches". I would argue that because some devices have different settings implemented by putting a part into one or another notch, the word "notch" has been extended to refer to one of these settings whether implemented using notches or not. So if you tighten your belt a notch by moving the buckle from one hole to the next, you are changing the belt from one setting to the next, and which is changing it by one "notch" in this extended sense. Similarly if you increase the speed of a machine by pushing the next button in a low-medium-high series, you might say you have turned it up a notch. The holes in a belt are still just holes. --Anonymous, 19:02 UTC, February 10, 2009.
Strangely, nothing so specific is to be found in OED (unless the online version has something updated in "notch"; I'm using a version on my hard drive).
I used to know what to call the little crimp at the end of a shoelace that made threading it easy, and stopped it from fraying. Anyone know that one?
THAT's what I had in mind: aglet, or aiglet. Thanks. Now, let's see if we can work it up into a featured article. Then let's do Brass fastener and Castellated nut.
Things "are" what we habitually call them, regardless of how various observers might be offended by some supposed irrationality in the choice of words. Those lacunae in the material of belts are holes, punch holes, and notches, since these usages are well enough established to be recorded in dictionaries. Anonymous has written above that "the holes in a belt are still just holes". Well, they are "just" holes and not notches if you insist on a certain restricted meaning for notch; but the rest of the world does not insist, and the rest of the world wins. The rest of the world is the court of final appeal on usage in the world, as opposed to usage in the idiolect of Anonymous.
Originally it was called anaesthesia, as our article acknowledges. Here is OED's first citation:
1721 Bailey, Anæsthesia, a Defect of Sensation, as in Paralytic and blasted Persons.
But not so likely these days, since the word now usually means an induced temporary loss of haptic sensation; or of consciousness, in the case of a general anaesthetic. SOED:
Absence of sensation; esp. artificially induced inability to feel pain.
Not really. Paralysis and anaesthesia may often occur together; but this is from having a common cause, rather than from either causing the other. If anything, anaesthesia (construed broadly) will "cause" something resembling paralysis, because it may lead to neglect and therefore to absence of voluntary movement.
Nerve injury like e.g. in Leprosy can cause loss of sensation. Any damage to the Somatosensory system can prevent the sensation of touch being processed. I'm not sure there is an overall term, if there is folks here [3] might be able to help you. There are terms for separate elements of the pathway being disrupted or non-functional. Hope this helps. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 00:47, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Chapter 3 of Oliver Sack's book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is called "The Disembodied Lady". Sacks describes a woman named Christina who, in her 20s, suffered from a near total, whole body loss of proprioception. Proprioception is usually said to be the sense of "where your body parts are relative to each other". The loss of this "sixth sense" for Cynthia meant the near total loss of physical feeling. She retained a "superficial sensation" of light touch", such as the feeling of the wind on your face while driving a convertible car. Sacks writes that there is no common words to describe this rather rare type of state. The word that comes up the most in the chapter is "disembodied". As for what it is like--at first she could not stand, hold anything in her hands (her hands "wandered" on their own without her noticing, unless she watched them with her eyes), she could not reach for something or feed herself without overshooting wildly. She could barely sit up. Speech was effected too--she lost "vocal posture". Her words on it include: "I can't feel my body. I feel weird--disembodied".
As for neurological terms, Sacks writes "there seemed to be a very profound, almost total, proprioceptive deficit..." Loss of the feeling of body position, muscle, tendon, or joint position sensation. She also had lesser degrees of loss of light touch, temperature, and pain. (In short, the question of the "someone who has no sense of feeling? (like touch)" brings up the issue of just what the sense of touch is. It is not a single thing, of which proprioception is a major type.The near total loss of proprioception apparently quite rare, so standard terminology has not developed, it seems. Sacks writes about the causes that resulted in this kind of loss, which are several. In her case it was a form of "acute polyneuritis" that cause the sensory loss. For the condition itself, Sacks tends towards the word "disembodied" and "pithed".
The chapter goes to describe Cynthia's slow adaptation to this condition and its profoundly disturbing psychological effects (feeling "dead" and such). Reading Sacks, I get the sense that there are no regular English words for specific kind of things. Even in neurological jargon one can only get vaguely close with words about general sensory losses. At least, that seems to have been the case when Sacks' book was published in 1985. Pfly (talk) 08:52, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well observed, Pfly. And thanks for your caution: "Proprioception is usually said to be the...". As we may see from what precedes your post, there is much uncertainty with terms relating to the "somatic senses": those other than smell, taste, sight, and hearing, which themselves are sometimes called the "special senses". The word proprioception etymologically means "perception of self", but this is usually narrowed to perception of positions of the body's parts (with or without awareness). It competes with the term kinaesthesia, which etymologically means "perception of movement", and therefore of movements of the body's parts (with or without awareness). The logical relations between these two terms are contested, if they are attended to at all. Any survey of textbooks in psychology, physiology, and medicine will confirm this. It's a bit of a scandal, in my opinion. These two contrast with interoception, also unaccountably and without much rationality. In fact our articles need to be sorted out and brought into harmony, for these three terms. Might do it myself.
Watch out when sorting out Somatosensory system. It's already creating trouble because animal parts like whisker and antenna (biology) link there but editors only consider humans. We either need lots of new pages or sections need to be kept separate for articles that concern multiple applications. Cockroaches may not have interoception, but they do locate their bits and pieces with relation to other bits and their environment. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 10:55, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Why is it that so many native English speakers have trouble telling "it's" and "its" apart? Non-native speakers seem so much better at this, it really puzzles me. Heck, I've even seen the veteran Reference desk dweller SteveBaker mistake them. So, why is that? --Taraborn (talk) 12:12, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Probably because people are used to possessives ending in 's, so they write "it's" for a possessive the same way they would write "John's". The opposite mistake, writing "its" for "it is" or "it has", is much rarer (unless the person generally avoids apostrophes and would also write "hes" for "he's", etc.). —Angr12:37, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's a mystery. Some people who can write C++ with their eyes closed and never a semicolon out of place can't spell English to save their lives. I'll never understand it; you'd think it was the same talent, but no. It is a simple matter of spelling; some people can spell, and some can't, and it's not an important skill except for an editor. Bear in mind, too, that there is plenty of English writing from times past lying around where "it's" was the possessive form of "it". If you read too much of that, especially as a kid, it'll burn a hole in the retina of your mind's eye so you can't see apostrophes any more. --Milkbreath (talk) 13:14, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Your compiler will refuse to compile your application with a missing semicolon, paper doesn't have a similar restriction. Even modern Word processers and Web browsers that display a red squiggly line won't refuse to let you print your document or send your e-mail if there's a grammatical or spelling error. 216.239.234.196 (talk) 20:56, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Then there are people like me, who are aware of the "proper usage", but choose to use "it's" as a possessive form, anyway. Why ? It seems more consistent with other possessives, like "Joe's". Then people ask about "his", "hers" and "theirs". I'd be fine with "her's", meaning "belonging to her", but "hi's", would mean "belonging to hi", so that's no good. I can accept "his" as a strange English substitute for "him's", and just leave it at that. "Their's" is a bit iffy, as it means "belonging to them" not "belonging to their", but at least "their" is a word with a similar meaning. In a perfect world it would be "Joe's", "it's", "her's", "him's", and "them's", but I'll settle for "it's" (for now). With enough small steps we may eventually fix this screwy language of our's. :-) StuRat (talk) 16:37, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
<Marge Simpsonesque grumble /> In a perfect world, we would excise the blackheadlike apostrophes and hyphens from our writing, so it would be "Joes", "its", "hers", "his", and "theirs" (the last two because your suggestion would change the language itself rather than just the spelling). —Angr17:20, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, the problem with doing what StuRat suggests - adopting your own bloody-minded system in spite of accepted usage - is that most people will assume you're illiterate. Try using it's as a possessive in a job application or in another professional context and see how far it gets you. I could choose to write tits instead of its if I wanted, but I would find it difficult to persuade people that I was trying to change the language single-handed, rather than just being puerile or making a typo. Malcolm XIV (talk) 20:15, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I could always use "proper" English in such a case. However, job interviewers are just as likely to not know the "proper" usage (or not care), as anybody else. StuRat (talk) 06:57, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's no reason to adopt the lowest common denominator and be governed, sheep-like, by the illiterati. Where are your standards, man? The problem with your approach is that you start by assuming there's a problem that needs fixing. Making everything logical and neat is just not the way to go when it comes to English. Being absurd and illogical is one of its greatest strengths, imo. What would happen if the French did the same with their spelling? Words like (I've made these up to make a point, but there are doubtless real-life examples) "pouler", "poulez", "poulet", "poulé", "poulés", "poulée" and "poulées" are all virtually identical in pronunciation, but there's no move to spell them all differently. Language change is something that happens, whether we like it or not. But it doesn't happen by someone just deciding that there's a better way than the norms that have been accepted for a long time, and that we have to simply memorise. There is no general consensus that the pronoun "its" can now be spelled "it's", so you're swimming against the tide. -- JackofOz (talk) 07:37, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What's more, if they do know the correct usage, you lose. They either think you're barely literate, or they discover your real reason for writing its this way, and conclude that you think you're special and the rules don't apply to you. The simple matter of inserting an apostrophe makes you appear either underqualified or a spoilt little brat. Neither trait is particularly desirable. So what have you achieved? Malcolm XIV (talk) 08:30, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Or, they could take it as a sign that you "think outside the box" and don't just automatically do things the way they've always been done because you fear change. Admittedly, these aren't attributes they are likely to look for when hiring someone to fry burgers, but any interviewers hiring for a job I'd want, at a company that's likely to survive, would be looking for those attributes. StuRat (talk) 00:52, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It would need to be explained, of course. But, honestly, I'd "behave" and spell "its" according to conventional spelling rules on a resume. StuRat (talk) 15:58, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be more likely to do things the way someone else wants if they pay me to do them that way, yes. Does this surprise you ? I've noticed that many people here, even Ref Desk regulars, don't appear to spell-check their own work, but I assume they would do that on a resume. So, they also only care if potential employers think they can spell, right ? StuRat (talk) 16:44, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What really puzzles me is that some native speakers seem to assume that there is actually a system in the ridiculous absurdity known as English spelling. — EmilJ.17:35, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Another explanation is that there are some of us who know the difference but whose brains are not well-connected to our fingers. I find that I almost always seem to reverse them when typing. While I may leave a dozen other typos in a posting, I'll often go back to fix a wrong "its/it's" so I don't look uneducated. I seem to have the same problem with "their/there/they're". I reliably type the wrong one. Will Bebacktalk19:57, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Another explanation is that it's not being taught properly any more. It might be mentioned at school, but do people leave school confident about this? or about a whole host of other language matters? The evidence suggests that a lot fewer school-leavers are confident these days than was the case in days gone by. If they're not confident - or simply don't care as long as they can communicate minimally - then there's something amiss with the teaching. It's one thing to take the logical approach (à la StuRat et al) and make what is in fact a possessive (its) actually look like one by adding an apostrophe (it's). It's another thing to not use the apostrophe where it's required - and this doesn't only affect the abbreviation "it's", it affects the entire class of possessive nouns. I see it in advertising and media generally all the time ("Its the service that counts"; "Gippslands whatever"; "Victorias worst disaster" - ok, I haven't actually seen that last one, but it's gonna happen sooner or later). So, there's a bigger picture, of which its/it's is but one symptom. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:05, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
On the face of it, it's a spelling error. But if the "writer" doesn't know the difference between an abbreviation and a possessive pronoun, and cares less, then it could well amount to a grammatical error. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:05, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This is a spelling error and nothing to do with grammar, and like many (though not all) spelling errors it has little effect on communication, other than communicating the social message "I am somebody who does not know, or does not care about, or chooses to ignore, this particular social rule". It is very little different from eating with the wrong utensil, or wearing a combination of colours that is not in fashion.
Note in particular that it is quite hard to construct a piece of connected text (not isolated words or headlines) in which misplacing an apostrophe causes genuine ambiguity. The reaction (of those who notice) to "it's" for "its" or vice versa is nearly always "that's wrong" not "I misconstrued that". Of course those who do not notice are at an advantage because their sensitivities don't get in the way of their understanding. --ColinFine (talk) 00:19, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Good point. Which is worse, then: to have the sensitivity and find yourself troubled by these things (anywhere from mildly to severely); or to never even notice because you lack the sensitivity about such matters (and possibly more important matters, of much more moment than how we dot our i's and cross our t's and where we place our apostrophes)? An eye for detail is a very useful skill, and if you lack it about these sorts of things, there's a good chance you'll lack it about some matters of life and death. -- JackofOz (talk) 01:28, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
im sb who nows how to right but i jus don rly care if i make it ez for yall to to read wat im ritin as long as i now yu can gues wat im rightin its only importnt to me that i dont need to think much wen im typin this is the msg i wanna comunicate — Kpalion(talk)12:45, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And you've made your point. I understood what you wrote, so your message got through. Is that all that's important, though? If you don't really care to make it as easy as possible for your reader, if you don't write with your reader in mind, what's the point of writing? Writing conveys more than just the basic meaning of the text. It also says something about the writer, personally. We're all encouraged to be professional in all sorts of ways, to be efficient, to strive for higher standards, to excel. Why wouldn't this also apply when it comes to the written word? I'm not suggesting that everyone should strive to be a Shakespeare or a Dickens, but why use faulty bricks to build your linguistic house when good bricks are just as available, and come at no cost? -- JackofOz (talk) 14:03, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That was really in response to what ColinFine wrote. My point, and what I wanted to show, is that careless writing does not only make you look uneducated or nonconformist like using a steak knife for eating fish. It also makes reading what you wrote more difficult to read and is a sign of disrespect for the reader. I may be able to guess from the context whether the author had "it's" or "its" in mind; but I would prefer if they didn't make me stop and guess. — Kpalion(talk)14:43, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, Kpalion. I didn't bother reading your previous post. It's too hard. Correctly spelt and constructed English can be read and understood quickly and easily. If a writer cannot be bothered to write properly, they cannot expect me to bother reading it. It's rarely worth the effort. Thus, the communication has failed. The fact that I might understand them if I work at it is irrelevant. If one wants to be heard, it's courteous to make it as easy as possible for the hearer/reader. Gwinva (talk) 00:24, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
When I was first learning to read and write, I was taught that apostrophe s was used in two places - to show a contraction (eg. it's = it is) and to indicate posession (eg. John's saxaphone). I don't recall any mention of an exception for posessive it. Maybe it was bad teaching, or maybe I just forgot that small bit, but until quite recently I would happily use it's to indicate posession (eg. it is rough on it's right-hand side). It is only once I started contributing to Wikipedia that various pedants have corrected me on this point. However, I would really appreciate a reference where this rule exception is written down. Astronaut (talk) 16:14, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Jeeze, Louise, it doesn't take a "pedant" to notice doofy othography. Your average, decently educated half-wit will go hmmm when he sees "it's" for "its". When you write that it's like giving a speech with your fly unzipped and a booger hanging out of your nose. I'm trying to let y'all know once and for all, and by "y'all" I mean those of you who make that mistake, that the rest of us can tell. Get it straight, it's not a hard one. Take the trouble to learn the language you govoreet, and people won't point and whisper behind your back so much. --Milkbreath (talk) 16:51, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't talking about anyone in particular, and civility is the kiss of death for comedy. I was trying to be funny, in case you couldn't tell. I'm not a pro, so cut me some slack. The technique is overstatement, perhaps rather clumsily applied here, but a staple of comedy writing. To give offense is necessary for the frisson. They say explained comedy is failed comedy, but that ship has sailed, at least as far as you are concerned, so what the hell. You'll perhaps take note that in my first reply to this question I said that spelling is not an important skill. And do work on your apostrophes, won't you? --Milkbreath (talk) 21:15, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
But it raises an interesting subject. Depending on the context, pointing out that someone's omitted an apostrophe, or put one in where it's not needed, may be pedantry. However, when you have guests coming for dinner, you make efforts to make the house as lovely and welcoming as possible, with all the masses of papers that normally accumulate all over the living room table removed to a locked dungeon, and the toilet smelling unusually fresh, etc. Is this pedantry? Certainly not. When you're going for a job interview, you take extreme care to dress appropriately and have no hair out of place. Is that pedantry? Again, no. Some people take the same sort of care when writing. Some, on the other hand ... -- JackofOz (talk) 22:04, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to me that fur and hair are essentially the same thing, just along a continuum between soft and stiff. Feathers, however, are something with an entirely different structure. So, there might be a term for the first two, which excludes feathers. Scales are also a similar skin covering, so perhaps they should be tossed in there, too. StuRat (talk) 19:00, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think you have the right term for the "commonalities". There is an ordinary word that covers animals, pun intended, "coat", and one for both plants and animals, "integument", but these aren't exact synonyms or anything. Just throwing that out there just in case it's useful. --Milkbreath (talk) 20:45, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Integument includes the skin entirely, so that won't do by itself. Keratin is what hair, fur, and feathers have in common, but then you'd have to include rhinoceros horn, and a few other horns. Keratin comes from Greek κέρας (kéras), meaning "horn" and cognate with English horn and Latin cornu. (Rhinoceros is from Greek meaning "nose horn" or "horn nose".) I suggest keratinous integument, which takes the intersection of keratin and integument, and excludes living skin on one side and horns on the other. This book looks like a fine resource.
If you're wanting to write programs that access databases (e.g. for web applications) with .NET, it would be very useful to have knowledge of the basics of relational database architecture, SQL, etc, whatever framework or language you are programming in. However, if you're not working with databases, I can't see any need for that. The main languages for .NET are Visual Basic and C#; the former is sometimes taught as a first language for people unskilled in programming, and was designed for non-programmers, so it would have few prerequisites. Knowledge of C++ (or possibly Java) might help with C#, since C# is based largely on C++, but in some ways C# is simpler than C++ (e.g. memory management). --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 12:41, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
To learn software development, I recommend going to school and earning a degree in Computer Science. Strictly speaking, it is not necessary to understand relational database theory. That is to say that it is possible to write applications that don't use a database. However, most business applications use databases to store data so for most situations, it is necessary.
BTW, the Langauge Reference Desk is for human languages (English, French, Latin, etc.). For computer programming languages, you'll probably get better answers from the Computing Reference Desk. 216.239.234.196 (talk) 13:45, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Question for Londoners and other H-droppers
In the h-dropping dialects of England like Cockney and Estuary English, does the h get dropped in words like huge and human, i.e. do they sound like "yooj" and "yooman"? Because to my ears those pronunciations sound typically American (but only a minority in AmEng) and not British at all. —Angr11:48, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A Survey of Modern English by Stephan Gramley and Kurt-Michael Pätzold says "there are no limits in Cockney on the words beginning with <h-> which may sometimes occur without /h/", so potentially dropping can occur on any h-word. However, speakers tend to pronounce H's sometimes but not other times, so you will hear both "human" and "yuman".[6] --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 12:53, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
According to our article, the proper French pronunciation is [albɛʁkamy]. Those exact vowels don't exist in most dialects of English, but CAM UU (where UU is the vowel of boot) is pretty close, especially if you're Scottish. Algebraist18:27, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I happen to have an Australian co-worker who lives in Finland. The way I hear it, he keeps pronouncing "Australia" by swallowing the "l", making it sound like "Austraya". Am I just imagining this, or is this normal for Australian speakers of English? JIP | Talk19:09, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, he talks in normal English, not in an exaggerated Australian accent. He just keeps pronouncing "Australia" that way. JIP | Talk19:41, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This is - unfortunately, imo - very common in Australia. Miyyons of Austrayans speak like that. It's something that's very often commented on in the media and in general debate in the community. Some of our lawmakers are the worst offenders - Anthony Albanese, for example. Pauline Hanson (Pauline who?) was another. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:42, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Further confirmed from me. I often call my country ''Straya. Another common feature of Australian English is to realise initial /θ/ to [h] in lax speech (as in "'Hanks, mate"), although few will notice that they do it until you tell them. Steewi (talk) 04:16, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You can usually pick a South Australian by their tendency to swallow l at the end of words - like "school" (which sounds like skoow). They insist they're pronouncing the l, but the rest of us can never hear it. That's different from the "(au)straya" thing, though; those speakers (generally) don't even try to say the l. Then there are those who try too hard - and it comes as out as "Əstrahlyə". My mnemonic is simple - it rhymes with "failure" (although, there are some who say "fayya", so we'd be back at square 1). -- JackofOz (talk) 06:14, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
@Steewi - the replacement of /θ/ by other fricatives seems to be quite common cross-linguistically - not just London /f/, but in Irish, lenited <t> is written <th> (and presumably originally /θ/) but now /h/.
Its more than that. Non-rhotic english speakers can also hear the difference between words with non-rhotic "r" in them and those without them. In New England, for example, while the "r" is not pronounced as such, the vowel preceding the "r" is often modified slightly so as to be recognizable as a different sound. For example, no Bostonian would confuse "Bar" with the sound a sheep makes, "Bah". Its an interesting thing that many non-rhotic English dialects have a wider variety of recognized vowel sounds, for example many non-rhotic dialects also recognized a distinction in sound between cot/caught and Mary/merry/marry where as many rhotic dialects do not draw such distinctions. Its not that the "r" does not get pronounced, its just that the "r" is not pronounced like non-rhotic speakers pronounce it. Similarly the L-vocalization shown in several Australian dialects is not that the L dissapears entirely, or is indistinguisable from other sounds, its that it is indistinguishable for non-native speakers. There are lots of sounds that work this way, such as the L-R merger for speakers of several asian languages, or the aspirated/non-aspirated stop distinction (such as ph vs. p) found in south asian (India) languages not present in English. --Jayron32.talk.contribs16:10, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Dates of Joining letter
Hello there, I am having trouble with dates mentioned in this sample joining letter. At the top of the page the date is 27 February, 2007 but in the body, it is 25 April, 2007. As far as I know the person is joining today (27 February 2007) but he has stated appointment letter dated on 25 April, 2007. Appointment letter supposed to be received before 27 February. Correct me if I'm mistaken?--115.127.16.11 (talk) 19:47, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
P.S One more thing, if they send acceptance letter, then should it be acceptance letter dated.... instead of appointment letter... in the body of the letter? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.127.16.11 (talk) 19:50, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The date at the top is or should be replaced with, the date this letter is being sent (e.g. today). The other is the date of the letter that they sent you (assuming this is personal) so that they can get hold of the records of it. This should be replaced with the date of the letter they sent you. If you're replying to an acceptance letter, it won't make any difference - you should probably use the term they used on the last letter they sent you. - Jarry1250(t, c)21:00, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
From the address it's clear that the sample letter is aimed at an Asian audience, and it may meet your need. By UK (and I would guess US) standards it's old-fashioned and over-formal to an almost absurd degree. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 13:05, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Incidentally, while Wikipedia is not censored, you probably could have chosen a less prurient sentance as your example for "thrusted". Merely because you can do something does not always mean that it is in your own, or others, best interest to do so... --Jayron32.talk.contribs01:55, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
wow i love the word "prurient" thanks for the intro! well when it comes to sex, it was a sexually related question. i wanted to know how i can tell someone i want to thrust into their ass, not their posterior, that wouldn't be something that i would think would get them off. so grow up.Troyster87 (talk) 21:32, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Incidentally, the standard past tense forms of to thrust are not thrusted, but thrust (in both American and British English). Like set, right? You wouldn't write I setted the whole thing up, would you? So:
Yeah i noticed that myself as i was writing the question however, i like speaking incorrectly idiomatically in that manner so i let it stand, but when i'm writing a term paper it would totally be i thrust into her ass.
She thrust and pulled the banana till it was free from the bunch.
We have thrust swords at each other long enough, Conan.
And Jayron32 is right: save gratuitously confronting language for the gutter, Anonymous.
Deslizar is a good all-purpose word for slither (and slide). For thrust, try clavar or hincar as in Hinqué en su culo, or Clavé en su culo. You can also use meter, but it's not forceful. You should specify what you're thrusting though, or it doesn't sound right. In colloquial Spanish, I've heard it simply as "Le daba en el culo." Steewi (talk) 04:26, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Clavé is sort of the word that i was looking for but i remember a work more similar to hincar, sin embargo i am looking for some other word i heard.
This question had come up in the humanities reference desk. Is heckling applicable only for a live performance? The heckling article at least doesn't mention about movie theatres. I guess the purpose of heckling is to get the performer's attention, not just to impress/disgust the audience sitting nearby. Is booing a better word for "heckling" in a movie theatre? How have these words adapted to the movie and televsion media which are virtual performances, and distracting the "performers" is not possible? Jay (talk) 05:51, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
From the article on heckling it appears the heckle is to let the performer know your thoughts - like you say at a virtual performance that's futile. I can't say i've ever heard heckling at a cinema screen - i've heard 'witty' remarks, but really it's not like being at a comedy gig where you're going to get a retort/something extra from the performance so seems a bit pointles to me. Anyhoo from a language perspective I imagine people will still call it heckling even if it means that the word ends up having to have a further meaning added to its list. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 09:32, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I would guess that often the heckler's main purpose is to draw attention to himself, in which case it wouldn't matter if Tom Cruise didn't respond. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:58, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I was frequently annoyed by Los Angeles-area movie viewers who felt it necessary to hiss the trailers of movies they obviously felt were beneath them. So, don't watch the movie, nobody wants to know if you think yourself superior to the upcoming films. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 06:52, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The Polish man applied polish to his shoes. Is there a name for a word like "polish" that retains a single spelling but has two different meaning which are also pronounced differently? Can anyone give me another example? I can think of many words that have multiple meanings but I can't think of any others that have both different meanings and distinctly different pronunciations like Polish/polish.--70.19.73.184 (talk) 14:22, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The interesting feature about Polish/polish is that the difference is communicated visually by the capital letter. Are there any other close pairs for which this is true? BrainyBabe (talk) 15:29, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There are more at capitonym. Part 17 of the rec.puzzles archive at www.faqs.org (sorry, I can't post a direct link here) includes a classified list of homographs with 13 capitonyms on it. --Anonymous, 19:11 UTC, February 12, 2009.
I've always used homonyms for words with the same spelling and pronunciation (like bow [gesture of obeisance] and bow [front of a ship]), homographs for words with the same spelling but different pronunciations (like bow [either of the two above] and bow [device for shooting arrows]), and homophones for words with different spellings but the same pronunciation (like bow [front of a ship] and bough [limb of a tree]). My usage may be somewhat idiosyncratic, but the distinctions are useful. Deor (talk) 15:46, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Homograph refers to words that have the same spelling but different meaning (like buffalo the noun referring to the North American mammal and buffalo the verb meaning to bully). They may or may not have different pronunciation. Algebraist had it right. Livewireo (talk) 16:35, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I would think that would be a term which describes a concept, most likely an intangible concept, like "national patriotism". For example: "National patriotism is fine as a conceptual term, but how exactly do you plan to restore it, Senator ?". StuRat (talk) 16:34, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Right, the point i'm looking for is that "most likely an intangible concept". I think I need some Aesthetics or Epistemologic points of view. Uhmm :)) Help please:) --Waglione (talk) 16:45, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Guess a conceptual term is an idea-related abstract word or words related to any specific field of study or topic. Speaking through examples in aesthetics (art theory), terms like say, "facture" and "surface" are used in a conceptual or meta-material sense to describe the working of material or structures beyond their apparent/obvious materiality. The idea of "depth of surface" is not to do with the exact surface (say, canvas or paper, or other surface) but to do with language for thinking about the thing as concept. The thing-as-concept is usually expanded through contextualising it: in language, as signifier, in history and culture etc. In this way, these filled abstractions become conceptual terms, or load-bearing terms. Off top of my head don't know where to point you though, Julia Rossi (talk) 08:16, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm much more at home at a home improvement store than at a crafts store. In Germany I used a type of thread called "Zwirn" (de:Zwirn) to remove mirrors from walls. What would I send someone to go shopping for in the US if I wanted to describe how to do it? (I don't need the textbook term, but rather what Michaels or Wal-Mart might sell it as.) 76.97.245.5 (talk) 17:34, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Nah, the stuff is much thinner than twine, but about twice as thick as ordinary sewing thread. It's stiff heavy-duty thread. Someone told me it was cotton, but it felt more like linen fibers. I'll try to get a picture.76.97.245.5 (talk) 19:51, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Got a picture File:Zwirn thread twine comparisson.jpgtop to bottom:twine, sewing thread, "Zwirn" To remove a mirror that has been stuck to the wall with those double sided adhesive pads: take a length of this stuff, feed it behind the mirror keeping hold of both ends, move it towards the other edge with "sawing" movements. The thread will rather cut your fingers than break. It won't damage the mirror, which would happen with pretty much any other method I've heard of. Coneslayer's "heavy duty thread" sounds good. I'll see whether I can find it here and whether it's similar. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 20:48, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Similar, but not quite the same. This stuff is even sturdier and won't fray into separate strands as most floss products do. I's also natural fiber (I think).76.97.245.5 (talk) 21:45, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The reason it doesn't fray is that it is so tightly twirled (plied?!). I took a bit apart. It's 3 thin strands of fiber - each individually twisted into a tight smooth ply (!?). These three strands are then so tightly twirled together that the thread is almost rigid. It doesn't fray like dental floss because broken fibers are held in place till the whole thread breaks. ("ply" doesn't work for me. I keep thinking of toilet tissue and Labrador puppies! :-) 76.97.245.5 (talk) 05:08, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
hey how can i say sore or soreness, as in my muscles are sore. is it, "mis músculos son doloridos"? that's what babelfish said. i speak spanish so i can tell already it should be están but doloridos doesnt sound right to me and if it is correct is there a different way of saying it. particularly in the chilean dialect?Troyster87 (talk) 21:36, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Most names of English speakers are not English in origin. For example, many names beginning with J are of Hebrew origin, such as John, Jonathan, James, Jacob, Joshua, Joseph, and Joanna. Algebraist21:58, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but it's third person masculine imperfective verbs. Another source of y- in Hebrew was the fact that word-initial w- changed to y- in pre-Hebrew (e.g. Hebrew yayin shares a common origin with English wine, an "old eastern mediterranean" word). AnonMoos (talk) 00:30, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
'Imperfective' it is, (corrected above). I often get this confused because that form often has future meaning, but in Russian and other Slavonic languages it is the perfective that often has future meaning. But are there any names with that 'y-' from 'w-'? If not, your observation doesn't seem to have anything to do with the question.
And I take issue with Deborah's assertion that 'J doesn't exist in ... Hebrew'. It's true in the literal sense that Hebrew uses the Hebrew alphabet and so no Roman letters exist in it; but a speaker of German or most East European languages would say that 'י' corresponds exactly to 'J', and so, loosely, that Hebrew has a J. What is true is that the sound denoted in English by 'J' does not occur in Hebrew, and so there is no method in its native orthography for writing it. --ColinFine (talk) 08:36, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oh! Sorry for my inadvertent anglocentric contention, above, and thanks to ColinFine for catching and correcting it! (Believe me, living with an anglophonic "J" initial in Israel for a quarter of a century can get tedious at times...)-- Deborahjay (talk) 17:11, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Because 'J' is a consonant with a relatively unusual sound in English. It's also one of the most recent letters of the alphabet. In many (most?) European languages, it has the IPA /j/ value. English words with that sound ended up using 'y' instead. E.g. 'yes', 'year', 'youth' (c.f. German:'ja', 'jahr', 'jugend'). Names, however, didn't get the same treatment. They tended to keep the 'j' but change the pronunciation. Many if not most English names starting with 'j' were originally pronounced with a 'y' sound, not least the Hebrew examples above. To contribute a non-Hebrew one, there's 'Jasper'. (Although since it's a side-variant of 'Caspar', the English version 'j' is incidentally somewhat closer to the original-of-the-original than the German 'Jasper' or Danish 'Jesper') --130.237.179.182 (talk) 11:59, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
BTW, can anyone tell me when this 'J'-shift occured? Seems to have been later than The Great Vowel Shift, because stuff from the Renaissance often still write 'Iohn' rather than 'John', which I'm assuming meant that they were still being pronounced as /jo:/ at that time? --130.237.179.182 (talk) 12:02, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, the sound [dʒ] for words spelled with "j" was brought over with the Normans in 1066. (The French later smoothed it down to [ʒ], but it kept its sound in English.) So it always had that sound in English, even when "i" and "j" were considered variants of the same letter rather than distinct letters. Thus Renaissance spellings like "Iohn" weren't actually pronounced differently (at least with respect to that consonant) than they are today. —Angr12:07, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, that clears things up! Interesting though, because Germans and others were also writing 'J' as e.g. 'Iohannes'. Which kind of makes more sense, since it's easier to get from the 'io' diphthong to /jo/ than it is to get to /dʒ/. --130.237.179.182 (talk) 12:39, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think the remark above about English words is missing the mark. There are few if any English words beginning with 'j' that go back to Old English: they nearly all come from French or Latin, post-conquest - many names, certainly, but also words like 'judge', 'jealous', 'joke'. (All the short words that strike one as probably English rather than French, like 'jug', 'job', 'jag' turn out to be rather modern). Generally words in 'y' go back to 'g' (or rather to yogh). Certainly for the three quoted above ('yes', 'year', 'youth') only one of the dozens of historical spellings listed by the OED begins with 'i' - and that is a dialect form 'iss', in which the 'i' is a vowel.
In German there is a remnant of the older confusion between 'I' and 'J': there are some place names which begin with 'J' pronounced as a vowel (i.e. a graphical variant of 'I') Unfortunately I can't recall any names.
It's intriguing that French (and hence English) and Portuguese have maintained the original 'I' (later 'J') in many words but changed the pronunciation, whereas Italian has changed the pronunciation in a similar way but not retained the spelling (eg 'Giulia'). --ColinFine (talk) 17:18, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, I think all three examples I mentioned were originally spelled with a 'g' in Old English (year-gear). But didn't O.E. 'g' (preceding a soft vowel) have a /j/ sound rather than today's /dʒ/? The spelling changed for the words to 'y', with preserved pronunciation, but the same didn't seem to happen for names. I'm thinking about 'George', which is German 'Jürgen/Jörg' and Swedish 'Göran'. --130.237.179.182 (talk) 14:24, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have to take this opportunity to mention my software development laboratory project at university. Of all of our group members, only one had a given name not beginning with J, and his nickname was Jan. Both the project manager and the representative of the customer had given names beginning with J. JIP | Talk20:39, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Question about a Russian song
I have a song by a beautiful singer called Саша, called 'Єто Просто Доҗдь', but she pronounces it 'Єто Простон Доҗдь'. Is it common in Russian to add a 'n' before a 'd'? If so, is there any other time that this occurs? I have not encountered it before.--KageTora (talk) 22:07, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, he did have a question, which no one has answered yet, namely why did the singer pronounce an "n" sound on the end of просто? —Angr10:31, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've just listened to the song to answer you question. No sound "n" must be used there. Maybe in some parts of the song it's possible to hear it and I think it is coonected with the manner of singing: she makes an inhalation or exhalation while singing and the result is this "n".--Slav9ln (talk) 10:45, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I listened and did hear a slight 'n' sound. But hardly strong enough to be written. It's simply a case of the 'o' being colored by the following 'd'. If she was speaking rather than singing, there wouldn't be a continuous air-flow and it wouldn't be there. As it stands, it's pretty hard to get from the 'o' to 'd' while exhaling without creating a slight 'n' (nasal stop) in-between. --130.237.179.182 (talk) 12:18, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Google Translator gives me "This is just rain". One problem might be that you used the non-Russian character җ instead of the Russian ж. (They're very similar, but not identical!) —Angr15:36, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
'This is just rain'? Ok, I seem to have entered my Ukrainian version from above, rather than the Russian version. OK. everything comes together now. Cheers, folks!--KageTora (talk) 15:34, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
February 13
translate "navratan korma" from hindi (?)
I had this dish at the indian restaurant, navratan korma. It's my new favorite food! It was sooo good. What does the name mean? I assume it's Hindi, but maybe not? 98.247.245.124 (talk) 01:56, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I want to express this in French without having to use the subjunctive: Before I had the opportunity to respond, she ordered her main dish. Thank you!--Elatanatari (talk) 02:56, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
Or the infinitive. --Elatanatari (talk) 02:59, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
another way would be: "Je n'avais pas encore pu répondre qu'elle commandait (déjà) son plat principal". It sounds a bit like a novel from the 1930s, however. --Xuxl (talk) 16:34, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
These are bibliographies (or something similar) compiled and published by Reinhold Röhrich, a German historian.
I'd appreciate help in translating their titles into English:
The first would be literally "Geographical Library of Palestine", but I suppose "Bibliography" is what they mean by "Library" (both being a collection of books). The second is tougher; my guess is "Collection of the Kingdom of Jerusalem" with Regny being a misspelling of Regni. Regesta is hard; it's the neuter plural form of the past participle of regero, which according to the Oxford Latin Dictionary can mean figuratively "to make a collection of, pile up"; so I'm taking regesta to mean "things that have been made a collection of", i.e. a collection. As for the German historian, I can't find his dates right now, but the correct spelling of his name seems to be Reinhold Röhricht; maybe you'll have better luck finding them when you Google that spelling instead. —Angr07:35, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Reinhold Röhricht (1842–1905) - link. Yes, I agree the former would be 'Geographical Library', although it was customary at that time to refer to a bibliographical book as 'bibliotheca', so 'Geographical Bibliography of Palestine' would be better. Note, though, that it's customary to refer to the title in its original language if it hasn't been translated. --130.237.179.182 (talk) 12:31, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, indeed! The Latin titles are inline text, with the meaning given as a parenthetical gloss directly following each. Thank you both so much! -- Deborahjay (talk) 13:02, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you're also wondering what those books are all about, the Bibliotheca is a collection of medieval descriptions of the Holy Land (taken from pilgrims and travellers), and the Regesta contains an edition of all the surviving charters and other assorted royal diplomatic documents from the Kingdom of Jerusalem (i.e. the ones produced by, or sent to, the royal chancery; ecclesiastical documents are in other publications). Rohricht also wrote lots about the Fifth Crusade, and wrote the first real modern history of the Kingdom. He was a typical 19th century German scholar, dispassionate and meticulous, and although his historiography is now very out of date, the Regesta is still extremely useful to crusade historians. (Compare this to the 19th century French historians who are always raving nationalists or stupidly lazy editors.) I know this wasn't the question, but I got excited when I saw Rohricht and thought I would share anyway! Adam Bishop (talk) 05:09, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
We know that words that rhyme with other words are the exception rather than the rule. That aside, most rhyming words seem to have multiple rhymes. I'm looking for some examples of word pairs that rhyme with each other, but with no other words, Or at least with no other commonly used words. Can anyone suggest some examples? English only, please. -- JackofOz (talk) 11:43, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It will depend, of course, on what you count as rhyming. This is obviously important to consider for the tight restriction you impose, JackofOz. For example, in classic English rhyme a word does not rhyme with itself or with a homophone. (In French practice, homophones rhyme: pas meaning "not" is very commonly rhymed with pas meaning "step", even though they have the same etymological source.) The stress pattern must be right in certain ways: plinth can never make a full rhyme with Corinth, but arguably it can with labyrinth, whose third syllable bears a secondary stress. And Corinth cannot rhyme with labyrinth. What do you do with schwa pronunciations, and rhotic versus non-rhotic pronunciations?
Let's see how we go with adherence to standard rules, anyway. (I'm watching, ruler in hand.)
Region rhymes only with legion if we exclude proper nouns.
[Moved down to here.–⊥¡ɐɔıʇǝoNoetica!T–]I'm not sure what you mean by "classic English rhyme," but in Middle English (Chaucer and Gower, for example) "a word does not rhyme with itself," but rhymes with homophomes and rhymes with the same "word" used as different parts of speech (for instance, of help [verb] with help [noun] are clearly acceptable, since they are very common). Deor (talk) 03:46, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Since I am directly addressed here, I'll come back. Deor, please don't post in the middle of another post. Things soon get messy, making it hard for readers to work out who said what.
By classic English rhyme I mean the dominant cluster of norms for rhyme in Modern English, including Shakespeare and his contemporaries. These are well established, though not accurately shown in our article Rhyme, as things stand. I do mean norms, not invariable practices. Shelley rhymed Greek and sick, but he certainly respected the prevailing norms. We would not include Chaucer and his contemporaries, who I agree famously rhymed homophones: seke meaning "sick" with seke meaning "seek", right at the start of the Prologue. Just like French, which is not surprising since rhyme in the English of Chaucer's time was pretty well an import from the Continent (and French was still widely spoken in cultured English circles).
I was half expecting someone to enquire about qualifications. Proper nouns are ok (no Scrabble rules here). Rhyming with itself is a trivial case, so trivial I hadn't even considered it. No offence. Being part of a word pair would exclude such a case. Homophones are of course included. I'm not too concerned about the other matters, as long as a reasonable case for a rhyme can be argued, or a context can be concocted in which the rhyme works. Hinge and fringe - squarely in; either of them with orange (órinj) - out, because the -inj isn't stressed and can't be made to. Region and legion - that would have been a good example, but since I have no issue with proper nouns, and you say there is such a beast, it wouldn't count. Btw, what is the proper noun in question? -- JackofOz (talk) 12:47, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I was thinking of limericks too, but decided I'd wait until we found a real pair of words that rhyme only with each other to make lines 3 and 4. The last line needs work as its rhythm is off. —Angr19:03, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't say they rhyme no matter which usual pronunciation of "vacuum" you use. Two words rhyme when they're the same from the vowel of the stressed syllable to the end, so "vacuum" can only rhyme with other words that end in "AK-yoom" (or "AK-you-um"), while "continuum" can only rhyme with other words than end in "IN-you-um". —Angr16:42, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, precisely. I couldn't have put it better myself. It's all about the stress pattern, not about the commonality of certain letters per se. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:14, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
JackofOz, of course it is not about sharing letters. Angr, that's right up to a point (see below). It rules out a word as rhyming with itself, which Jack has thought trivial. Well, it is not entirely trivial. It needs to be pointed out for novices in writing English verse, and it both introduces and illustrates the point about homophones. Jack, why do you say "Homophones are of course included"? They are standardly excluded in English rhyme, as I have pointed out. Even the individuation of words is hard, as I show for French pas, in its two quite different senses but sharedsingle etymology. How about thing and Thing (not always capitalised: a public or legislative assembly in Scandinavian countries, as in Thingman, or Iceland's Althing)? Same etymological source, spelling, and pronunciation, but one word or two?
Angr, let's look at your point again:
Two words rhyme when they're the same from the vowel of the stressed syllable to the end
Many words satisfy the underlined condition but do not rhyme. Sister and assister do not rhyme, because the stressed syllables start with the same single consonant (sound). Same for point and appoint. Same for reply and apply, whose stressed syllables start with the same consonant cluster. On the other hand, bring, ring, spring, awing ("on the wing"), and string all rhyme together. You also do not account for secondary stress, since your mention of the stressed syllable suggests that a word must have only one. But no: considering may be rhymed with thing (not with ring or wring), and also with bucketing (not with befitting, acquiring, or gathering).
LarryMac, well done. B+. Your rhymes are all right but your rhythm needs fixing. (Note the alliterations and assonances in that rather rhythmic sentence: Your RHymes are all Right but your RHythm needs fixing.) Try this, for example:
There once was a frisky Norwegian
Who entered the French Foreign Legion
When once in Paree
He came down with VD:
A rash in his most private region.
Algebraist, a good point about collegian, which rhymes with region but not with legion (assuming schwas).
Noetica, I didn't imagine my statement to be an exhaustive definition of rhyme. Another aspect we haven't mentioned (partly because Jack's original question rules it out) is the possibility of a rhyme's "jurisdiction" spreading across a word boundary. Two of my favorite rhymes are in Steely Dan's "My Old School": oleander with I can't stand her, and California with tried to warn ya. —Angr22:11, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
One way to generate some is to test the examples of possible syllable-endings from English phonology#Coda in the Rhyming dictionary linked by Wavelength. Some of the examples are the only words in English with that particular ending; others are rare enough to have only one rhyme. I haven't tried them all, but here are three possible pairs that came up: belch/squelch, marsh/harsh, carve/starve. WikiJedits (talk) 21:34, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's the sort of thing I was after, thank you WikiJedits. I've taken the liberty of highlighting the words you identified. Marsh and harsh would rhyme with Karsh (of Ottawa), but not everyone's heard of him. Noetica, I always appreciate your learned contributions, but I wasn't after some sort of precise definition of rhyme. "We know one when we hear one" - is the most useful definition for the purposes of this question. Englishes vary, and what rhymes in one place may not do so elsewhere. But if it rhymes anywhere, I'd accept it. I'd love to hear what offerings you may have. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:47, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Marsh and harsh seem good, Wik. Words ending in -elch (sound) include squelch, quelch, welch (in one pronunciation) and the less common melch and kelch. For -arve we have the rarities larve, tarve, and varve.
I need to read the dictionary more! :) Finished playing the the rhyme generator - try these pairs, which may work for common words, though I'd be interested to learn the obscure ones that rhyme as well. stomped/prompt, length/strength, warps/corpse, gulped/sculpt, faith/eighth, scrounge/lounge. I have not tried any multi-syllabic words, Jack, though maybe/baby might work. Best, WikiJedits (talk) 03:00, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent. I have a slight quibble with faith/eighth - that's not quite a rhyme in my book, because I say the word "eight" followed by "th" (the spelling doesn't reflect that) but others may pronounce eighth differently. Thanks. -- JackofOz (talk) 03:43, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
JackofOz, I understand that this sort of precision is not what you wanted. Unfortunately though, rhyme is an exceedingly tricky phenomenon, and if you specify the task so precisely (a pair of words, each of which rhymes only with the other), it is literally not possible to give an answer that ignores precision. There is, in fact, much more that could be said – even about the heading of this section and how it is at variance with the formulation in terms of rhyming pairs. And more beyond that, too! (See the slight reformulation I gave in brackets just now.) Nevertheless I understand that this sort of reply can be annoying, so I'll retreat to the wings for now.
Thanks, Wavelength. The obscure perfect rhymes can be added to the list. The reduplication examples wouldn't generally count: words like clap and trap have multiple rhymes, but claptrap itself has none (maybe that's a bad example. I can think of backslap, which might suffice for a rhyme in some contexts; but in general, reduplicated words don't rhyme). Virtually any word can be reduplicated à la "baby-schmaby", so we can just about double the entire OED if we count them all as independent words. I'd prefer to put them into a special category and discount them for this purpose.
Noetica, I was a bit glib about homophones. You're right, of course, they are standardly excluded as rhymes, even if they do meet the criteria for words that rhyme.
The list at this stage (re-arranged alphabetically) is:
belch/squelch
carve/starve
corpse/warps
(?) eighth/faith (I still wonder if anyone pronounces "faith" as fate-th, or "eighth" as eh-th)
belch/squelch [welch is perhaps not obscure, even as pronounced to rhyme with these]
carve/starve [good; obscure others only]
corpse/warps [thorps and a few others might be obscure; but you do not exclude proper nouns, so consider Thorpes, Thorpe's; also Australorps]
(?) eighth/faith (I still wonder if anyone pronounces "faith" as fate-th, or "eighth" as eh-th) [doubtful indeed, because of the aberrant pronunciation of eighth; an acceptable pair might be faith/wraith (see analysis below)]
gulped/sculpt [no, there is also pulped, along with some rarities]
harsh/marsh [good; there is only the obscure démarche (in SOED, so perhaps not "foreign"); it rhymes with harsh, not with marsh]
length/strength [good]
lounge/scrounge [good; there is only the osbolete rounge, variant of obsolete ronge]
prompt/stomped [no: romped, chomped, clomped, swamped (for most of us), the rare pomped, dompt, and a few others]
We could add salve/valve to the list, and I'm sure there are many others. One remaining conceptual difficulty is this. Consider again region, legion, collegian, and suppose for the moment that we do exclude proper nouns. Region rhymes with legion, and also with collegian; but collegian does not rhyme with legion. Because rhyming is not logically transitive, our brief here is not clear. Legion rhymes only with region, but region has more than one rhyme. So legion qualifies according to the heading of this section, but neither it nor region can figure in a uniquely rhyming pair as specified in the initial post: "word pairs that rhyme with each other, but with no other words". The case of garth, Garth, and hearth illustrates this problem and also some others (supposing that garth, one entry for which is not qualified as rare in SOED, is accepted). Hearth rhymes with garth and Garth, which do not rhyme with each other. Does any of these rhyme with path, or bath? Depends on your rhoticism or absence thereof, and on how the vowels of path and bath are realised. Are Garth and garth to count as distinct words? Surely, if only by having distinct etymologies. But what about Faith and faith? One is a woman's name, the other is an abstract common noun; but the former is an application of the latter. So how do we sort out the trio wraith, faith, Faith?
Not all pedantry is mere pedantry; or, perhaps more accurately, what is commonly denigrated as pedantry is often in fact a level of precision that not everyone immediately understands the need for. And this is a reference desk, where experts are called upon for their expert opinions and analyses. :)
It seems I really didn't think through my question very well before asking it - to say the least. I won't say any more except: thank you, Noetica, for setting me straight about the intricacies of rhymes; and Wow!, Wavelength. I must now set about writing a poem using all these examples. -- JackofOz (talk) 02:47, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks to you, JackofOz, for your gracious collegiality – and for a fascinating topic, and for the opportunity to explore beyond it into the intricacies of rhyme generally. As often happens here, I found myself directed into researches and clarifications that I might not have embarked on otherwise.
And, er, Wavelength: I join in the general astonishment and admiration.
I'm not going to go through that mighty list, but the first two at least are dodgy: hemp and kemp rhyme with temp, while hoax and coax rhyme with croaks. Algebraist03:36, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I realize that coax and hoax are disqualified, but I found them with the others, and I thought of coaxed and hoaxed, which I did not find. I have just corrected the spelling of minnow in line 17.
I may have provided the spark, but you've done the bulk of the work, Wavelength, so I think the honours belong to you. What an unxpected outcome to what was really just a question stemming from idle curiosity. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:20, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The editors of that "rhyming dictionary made of paper" ought to do a spot of proofreading, it seems to me. How does Niger rhyme with tiger? Or genus with Venus (and what about penis, anyway)? Cadaver and palaver? Prestige and vestige? Bodice and goddess? Whilom and asylum? None of these rhyme, at least not with my accent.
And as for Edgeware and sledge-wear... The first doesn't even exist (It's Edgware), and the second appears to have been made up purely to rhyme with it. What is sledge-wear? If it's something you wear to go sledging, it seems a little odd that no retailers sell it. Malcolm XIV (talk) 00:28, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with most of those, Malcolm, but genus, Venus and penis are all exact rhymes in my lingo. How does genus differ from Venus in your lingo? Some say palaver with a short /a/ in the stressed syllable, some with a long vowel - "ah". -- JackofOz (talk) 01:00, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I pronounce genus as /ˈdʒɛnɘs/ for some meanings and /'dʒiːnɘs/ for others, Venus as /'viːnɘs/ and penis as /ˈpiːnɪs/. The OED agrees with me on everything except /ˈdʒɛnɘs/ (no idea where I got that pronunciation from). Algebraist01:08, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
We have no less an authority on rhyming than Cole Porter endorsing the "Venus"/"penis" rhyme (in his unpublished risque version):
You're the top! You're Miss Pinkham's tonic.
You're the top! You're a high colonic;
You're the burning heat of a bridal suite in use,
You're the breasts of Venus, You're King Kong's penis,
If Niger and tiger are counted as rhyming with each other, then they are disqualified because of liger. However, if the first two words are not counted as rhyming with each other, then liger and tiger count as a rhyming pair of words. In this exercise where a rhyme ending is to be possessed by exactly two words fulfilling the criteria, finding another word can either validate or invalidate a pair of words. For that reason, keeping a list of hitherto "rhymeless" words is useful, because one of them might be matched with a newly found word. (See List of English words without rhymes.) -- Wavelength (talk) 06:13, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wavelength, my learned and fiercely industrious rival in obsessiveness, seems to have momentarily forgotten the following rhymes for tiger (assuming schwa, and no final /r/): biga, Auriga, striga, saiga, and quadriga. Mercifully, taiga does not rhyme with tiger; but it does rhyme with biga, Auriga, striga, saiga, and quadriga.
There is a genuine problem in determining whether a word is common or rare. Many will not have heard of ligers; myself, I have been lucky enough to observe them at first hand (Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China, February 2006 – not at all far from taiga-country, in fact). Conversely, for me the biga is as alien as Betelgeuse, though Julia Rossi will instantly know it as a two-horsed chariot of Roman antiquity (to be distinguished from the four-horsed quadriga).
So the whole exercise is rather idle, though no more idle than a good number of topics in pure mathematics that people get grants to do research in.
However, there's a lot to be said for idleness, and Søren Kierkegaard has started us off: Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good. He's followed by Robert Louis Stevenson: A faculty for idleness implies a catholic appetite and a strong sense of personal identity. Kirky and Stevo are now my personal idols. -- JackofOz (talk) 14:36, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Using idiomatic expressions literally
Is there a word for taking an idiomatic expression (i.e., one with a common usage completely unrelated to what the phrase literally means) and actually using it literally? For example, to say after sitting on a very uncomfortable chair, "That thing is a real pain in the ass," or upon seeing a decapitation, "Looks like he's lost his head." Or to say, "I feel like I'm beating a dead horse here," when you are, in fact, physically abusing a horse's carcass. It's common in comedy so I feel like there should be a term that specifically refers to that, but I'm not sure what it would be. Pun doesn't seem quite right... Thanks! 209.60.87.185 (talk) 17:55, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Overliteralness" is the fairly straightforward term I have occasionally encountered in scholarly essays on this sort of joke, e.g. in Shakespeare. But maybe there's an even better word. T.a.k. (talk) 20:45, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The term I've come across is "overliterality", both in reference to psychiatry and comedy. I remember reading a case study about a woman with mental retardation who was particularly prone to this: Asked 'What kind of doctor is your sister?', she replied 'A woman.' In comedy, overliterality is usually considered a class of pun. For some reason James Bond is especially fond of it: 'He got the point,' Bond says, having shot Vargas with a harpoon. 'Shocking,' he says, having electrocuted a foe in a bathtub. 'He had a lot of guts,' he says, having witnessed a henchman ground up in a snowblower. And so on. It's such a signature of the Bond franchise that Austin Powers had a whole scene lampooning it: 'He didn't have a head for business... He'll never get ahead... etc.' Lantzy talk01:41, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Another term is "hyperliteralism", which is usually used to describe an overly literal approach to Biblical scholarship, but which sometimes is used when describing comedy. For example, in Buster Keaton's film The Navigator, he uses a swordfish to fence against another swordfish. A reviewer describes this as visual hyperliteralism. Lantzy talk01:54, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have to say I like that one better. Hyper- sounds descriptive while over- sounds like a condemnation. --Anonymous, 06:34 UTC, February 14, 2009.
I've read through this thread a few times, Friend 209, but the terms "overliteral" and "hyperliteral" don't really seem to apply to the case you raised. (Unless I am interpreting those words themselves too literally.) I see two quite unrelated cases. Reading the Bible and believing the world was actually created in one week, etc. - that's a case of reading things too literally. But taking an idiomatic expression that's NOT normally meant to be interpreted literally, and using it in a circumstance where it actually DOES literally apply (such as the dead horse example and the James Bond examples), that's not being any kind of overly literal. It isn't even about interpreting words - whether it be literally, overliterally, or any other way. It's about choosing an expression that is particularly suited to the circumstance because of its humorous effect. I don't know that there's a special term for this, but I'd be delighted to discover there is. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:25, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Years ago, Mad Magazine had an occasional segment called (IIRC) "Horrifying Cliches", where the text would be something like "Harboring a grudge", and the accompanying cartoon would show a guy taking care of a monstrous creature (assumedly the "grudge"). Really, the series was better than I'm making it out to be. (oh, and I respectfully disagree that a "Tom Swifty" has anything to do with this) Bunthorne (talk) 06:07, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
February 14
Latin word miramini
Isti mirant stella
What is the meaning of the Latin word 'miramini', as in the example 'Respondit Iesus et dixit eis unum opus feci et omnes miramini'? Thanks. Lantzy talk00:21, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It means [you] marvel, so et omnes miramini means you all marvel. It's John 7:21, in the Vulgate wording. Mīrāminī is the second person plural present indicative form of the verb mīror (deponent, first conjugation), "to be surprised [at]; marvel at, hold in awe".
There's a famous inscription on the Bayeux Tapestry, ISTI MIRANT STELLA "These guys are wondering at the star" (where the "star" in question is Halley's Comet). AnonMoos (talk) 03:35, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's (sort of) a different word though - if it was the same verb as "miramini", it would say "isti mirantur". But on the other hand miro and miror are pretty much interchangeable. (And maybe the sewers of the tapestry just ran out of room because of that tower in the way.) Adam Bishop (talk) 22:02, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The -ur ending is regularly abbreviated to a sign similar to our single quotation mark in end position. It might be that such a sign is present on the tapestry but not shown on the photograph due to low resolution. Final 'm' in stellam may be represented by a Nasalstrich above the A. Iblardi (talk) 21:11, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
One reason might be that learning to say something like the following requites quite a bit of study: "I strongly protest your obstinate insistence on such unqualified objections to my most logical deliberations." Learning to say "You're an ass." can be done in a jiffy. Remember that language is a tool. If you don't have that many you may have to make do with a hammer. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 05:27, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Your comment did not answer my question in regard to any of the aforementioned opportunities per se. Your examples involve choosing aggression instead of assertiveness when there has been an intense disagreement. Is that kind of opportunity really more prominent in your life than opportunities to say things like Please, Thank you, I am sorry, Excuse me, and Congratulations? See Jennifer's language page.
I think a lot depends on who is learning the language at to what end. I travel internationally quite a bit and so have had the need to pick up bits and pieces of various other languages. "Hello," "goodbye," "please," and "thank you" are the first four things I attempt to learn in any language, and I can say them in probably six or seven different ones. But I can only curse effectively in two. - EronTalk19:44, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Another reason might be simply because it's fun. For example, I don't speak Klingon, Japanese or much German, but I know how to swear in all of them (and use this knowledge regularly). It adds variety to speech. --Aseldtalk06:59, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
@76.97: this is a non-sequitur. The contrast between elaborate constructions with learned words and simple direct statements is in an entirely different dimension from the contrast between profanity and polite speech. "Having to make do with a hammer", in this context, would mean using simple constructions and not always being able to use the most appropriate word: it does not necessarily imply profanity.
I think Aseld is more on target, though perhaps 'expressive' might be more general than 'fun'. In fact Wavelength's use of 'gravitate' in the question is prejudicial, as it implies that they cannot be making a deliberate choice to acquire that part of the language in question (or that if they are, this is reprehensible).
Again, not directly related to the context, but some people think in judgmental ways, and when anyone disagrees with them, it's immediately "You're an idiot/jerk/moron/asshole", or at the very least "You're wrong", rather than "I have a different opinion" or "I disagree with you". It's usually a result of social or family conditioning. They can be trained out of it, but often they don't recognise there's a problem, and often they wouldn't want to change even if someone did point out a better way of interacting. The pointers-out are likely to be called names themselves and sent packing, unless they're skilled in such matters. -- JackofOz (talk)
how about rewriting this in english
this is from the wikipedia bio of sen. susan collins of maine:
"Collins voted with the majority in favor of the Iraq War Resolution authorizing President George W. Bush to go to war against Iraq, on October 10, 2002.[2]
"On September 19, 2007, she voted NAY (whereas her Maine republican colleague, Senator Olympia Snowe, voted YEA) on the Cloture Motion [Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Specter S.Amdt. 2022 to S.Amdt. 2011 to H.R. 1585 (National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008)], said amendment intended to restore habeas corpus (i.e., "the Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus") for those detained by the United States.[3]
"Said "Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus" is cited by We the People of the United States in the U.S. Constitution's Article I, Section 9, Clause 2, i.e., "The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."
i find the second and third paragraphs above incomprehensible. please have someone rewrite them so i (and other readers) can understand how sen. collins voted on habeas corpus. wikipedia is wonderful. please bring this up to your usual excellent standards.
The reference desk is about answering questions. The way you're supposed to ask for wording in an article to be improved is to edit the article itself and insert an appropriate template in the wikitext. That way, people who are interested in the subject and might know what it's supposed to say, or who can figure it out and like to improve the English usage in articles, will see it. I agree that it's not very comprehensible, so I have done this for you, inserting:
{{copyedit|section|for=clarity regarding the vote on habeas corpus, cloture, etc}}
--Anonymous, 06:47 UTC, February 14, 2009.
It's way too detailed, so I've gotten rid of most of it. See what you think. Clarityfiend (talk)
Actually, now that I see what it's really about, it seems to be too minor a vote to even be in the article. (P.S. I've also moved it down to be in better chronological position.) Clarityfiend (talk) 07:10, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
my changes in bold with the previous striken
“
Collins voted with the majority in favor of the Iraq War Resolution, authorizing President George W. Bush to go to war against Iraq, on October 10, 2002.[2]
"On September 19, 2007, she voted NAYnay (whereas her Maine republican colleague, Senator Olympia Snowe, voted YEAyea) on the Cloture Motion [Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Specter S.Amdt. 2022 to S.Amdt. 2011 to H.R. 1585 (National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008)], saidwhich amendment intended to restore habeas corpus (i.e., "the Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus") for those detained by the United States.[3]
"SaidThis "Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus" is cited by We the People of the United States in the U.S. Constitution's Article I, Section 9, Clause 2, i.e., "The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.
Disclosure: the immediate application of this information will be a homework assignment.
I'm writing an essay which contains the segment "In his essay \emph{Like feeling the hand of God}, Professor of Sociology
John Carrol hypothesises [...]". My question is, is my capitalization of "Professor of Sociology" correct - i.e. should it be treated, in this context, as a proper or improper noun?
Why do TV and radio (in the UK at least) always say things like "one quarter of one per cent" rather than what I would consider to be the normal "one quarter of a per cent" or perhaps "one quarter per cent". We both would say "two per cent". Is this UK only or other countries too? -- SGBailey (talk) 13:46, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Normal it may be, but incorrect I would consider it. "one quarter of a per cent" implies that there is such a thing as a "per cent". There's not. It's Latin, meaning "in each hundred". The item before the "per cent" needs to be a number - ergo "one quarter of one per cent" is correct, as is "one quarter per cent". --Aseldtalk13:54, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Incorrect you may consider it, but you have given no authority for that view, and OED is agin you. It gives examples of this use (per cent, n, B.2: "One per cent; one part in every hundred") starting with Sir Walter Scott in 1824. And beware of the etymological fallacy: the Latin phrase 'per cent' is a Latin phrase; the English phrase 'per cent' is not. --ColinFine (talk) 19:08, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The OED also notes that per centum is not attested in classical Latin, and appears to be a later latinization of the Italian per cento. Algebraist19:19, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Colin (even the Daily Telegraph is quoted as having used the "of a per cent" construction"), but I must admit that I don't like it so much. In answer to the original question, I might also suggest that using "one" is clearer than a snatched "a" in rapid speech, as is common in news broadcasts and so forth. - Jarry1250(t, c)19:17, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
We might also compare this with the antiquated "three millions" etc. They seemed to have logic on their side, but usage wins, as it does with "three hundred". Technically, there's no such thing as a "thousand" or a "hundred", unless you're referring to the number itself, as opposed to simply using those words to count things. But we're happy to say "a hundred people drowned" and don't insist on "one hundred people drowned". By extension, we can say "a quarter of a per cent", and nobody loses any sleep. -- JackofOz (talk) 19:49, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As for other countries, "one-quarter of one percent" (that's how I'd spell it) is familiar to me here in Canada. My guess is that it's just considered to be easier to understand in speech than "one-quarter percent". --Anonymous, 00:55 UTC, February 15, 2009.
"One quarter of a per cent" makes me wince and I correct it when I can. I don't agree with the analogy between "a hundred" and "one hundred", which for many purposes are interchangeable. "Per cent" isn't a number, it's a ratio, and "one per cent" is surely good English in a way that "a per cent" isn't. For instance, I'm sure Fowler doesn't accept it. Xn4 (talk) 21:35, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've had a look through my copy but I can't see it mentioned anywhere. Youre right, technically, Xn4. We can't say "a out of a hundred people are geniuses"; it can only be "one out of a hundred ...", hence "one per cent of people ...". But if you don't stop to analyse it that way - and far fewer than one quarter of one per cent of people would ever interrupt their train of thought to do that - then "a per cent" can be thought of as analogous to "a fraction", "a proportion", etc. From there, it's but a small step to "one quarter of a per cent" or "a quarter of a percent". The terminology is so widespread that I fear you're facing an uphill battle to ever eradicate it. -- JackofOz (talk) 14:26, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
February 15
False Non-Cognates
I'd like to collect a list of 'false cognates', i.e. where a word in one language is the same (or almost the same) in a completely unrelated language (as opposed to false friends, where they tend to have the same spelling/pronunciation, but only a related or sometimes opposite meaning, yet come from the same origin). Examples I can think of now are, Japanese 'miru' (to see) and Spanish 'mirar', or Japanese 'iraira' (frustrated, agitated) and Latin 'ira' (anger), Japanese colloquial 'anta' (you) and Arabic 'anta' (some dialects), Japanese 'itte' (imperative form of 'go') and Latin 'ite' (which, interestingly enough, is also the imperative form of 'go'). Anyone have any more?--KageTora (talk) 00:39, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've changed the title to "false non-cognates". "Cognate" means precisely that they do have a common origin. I can think of one more example, also involving Japanese: wikt:arigato sounds as though it might be related to Portuguese wikt:obrigado, but apparently is not. --Anonymous, 00:59 UTC, February 15, 2009.
True, I have noticed that one in the past. Thanks. By the way, though, I beg to differ with the 'non-cognate' idea, as the word 'false' provides the meaning intended, as it does in 'false friends', which are not 'friends', as they are misleading. I will leave your edit for others to comment on, though (even though this is not the main purpose of this post).--KageTora (talk) 01:05, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I re-read the original question and if I understand it correctly now, it's asking for word pairs that are true friends (similar meaning and pronunciation), but false cognates (or non-cognates). Is that right? — Kpalion(talk)23:17, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Classic examples are "bad" in Persian, a word resembling "dog" in an Australian Aboriginal language, and mata/mati meaning "eye" in both Indonesian and modern Greek... AnonMoos (talk) 02:18, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Dogge means a specific kind of dog in German also. It's a borrowing from English -- the words "dog" and "hog" have no known origin beyond late Old English, while "frog" was apparently heavily modified to fit the pattern of the other two words... AnonMoos (talk) 03:15, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Heh. It just occurred to me that if the Chinese calendar had a Year of the Great Dane, Russians would refer to it as "Год Дога" (God Doga). Such is my mind. :) -- JackofOz (talk) 07:17, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There is a list somewhere (I forget who made it) to demonstrate the ease of finding false cognates if one ignores common sense. It's a list of Hawaiian and Greek cognates. They look convincing at first glance. I can't find it online. Dang. Steewi (talk) 23:59, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My father has a book (now long out of print) called The Word: A Dictionary that Reveals the Hebrew Roots of English, where he attempted to trace many many English words back to their "original" Hebrew forms that sounded similar. For example, the word giraffe, he claimed, was from the Hebrew 'oref (meaning neck), and angle from 'aqul (crooked). It's really a piece of work... His website is here: http://www.edenics.org/. СПУТНИКCCCP15:18, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Words written like words in other languages
Here's a few Polish words that are written (but not necessarily pronounced) exactly like unrelated English words (although some may be related to other English words) that just came to my mind:
Oh, and don't forget the Polish word (or brand name?) fart. Also, there's a word in Chinese that means that, the, or even "um..." (as a stall word). It's written "那个" and pronounced like "NAY-guh", which may offend some people if they thought they were speaking in English. ~AH1(TCU)19:24, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I just added the Polish word "ten" to the list above which reminded me of another joke: A Polish guy goes to a dentist in England, opens his mouth and says, "tu!" (here!). So the dentist pulls two of his teeth out, but not the one the Pole had been pointing at. The Pole thinks for a while how to better convey his message and finally opens his mouth again and says, "ten!" (this one!)... — Kpalion(talk)20:31, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, you're right; I didn't notice the part about the words having the same meaning besides sounding the same and being unrelated. Well, scratch that. — Kpalion(talk)23:15, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Specific way of communicating with deaf and blind people.
This question might need to be moved to the Science desk but I thought I would try here first. I saw a program on the BBC News channel called, 'Our World: Nicole's Story'. It was about a girl called Nicole Dryburgh who, because of tumours on her spinal cord, is blind and mostly deaf. People close to her communicate with her by touching her hands; they can spell out words by touching or stroking a specific part of her hand - it looks like each touch/stroke represents a letter. I wondered if anyone here knows what that system might be called? Thanks, JoeTalkWork03:56, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
questions on the language used in a university certificate
This is seen on a University certificate.
Whereas it has been certified by duly appointed Examiners that [name] is qualified to receive the Degree of Bachelor of Arts she having successfully completed the course in April 2008 and been placed in First class in subjects the senate of the University of [name] hereby confers on her the degree of Bachelor of Arts with all Rights, Privileges, and Honours thereunto appertaining.
Given under the seal of the University
Vice Chancellor
Obsolete expressions, convoluted construction, what else? Do the participial clauses ("she having ..." and "been placed ...") miss their cue? "Vice Chancellor" as two words? A prefix can't be an independent word, can it be? "First" without a definite article looks clumsy, doesn't it? The closing phrase "Given under ..." needs some punctuation? Caps for "Rights, Privileges ..."?
Thanks for any suggestion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.91.253.201 (talk) 11:04, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I would say the punctuation is horrendous, as it's hard to read it all in one go whilst trying to break the sentence into its component clauses, AND be comprehensible at the same time.--KageTora (talk) 11:17, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The lack of punctuation is probably deliberate - commas are virtually never used in documents which may have to be scrutinised in a court of law. - Jarry1250(t, c)11:27, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It looks right enough to me. I would use a comma at the end of the mile-long introductory phrase, but that is purely stylistic and optional. "Vice Chancellor" is two words, positively. You might be thinking of "viceroy", which is a different matter ("vice king" would be two words, too, if there was such a thing); here in the US, we all know "vice president" is two words. "First" does not need an article because it is being used as a full-fledged adjective and not an ordinal marker; imagine it had been, say, "exemplary". The question I have is what does "First class" mean here, and why is "first" capitalized (and "Rights, Privileges, and Honours, for that matter)? I assume it means something I don't know about and that it's capitalized for a good reason. I see nothing wrong with "she having", but, again, they've made a style choice I wouldn't have by spanning the conjunction with the helping verb "having". It's not wrong, but it bites (in my opinion). I suppose "Given..." would mark where the actual seal itself goes. Not everything has to be a complete sentence. --Milkbreath (talk) 13:57, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have removed a "to" too many as pointed out by an editor. Milkbreath, the language in this case is supposed to follow British English and when I checked the Vice President article I see that it clearly states in the intro that B English has vice-president. I suppose the same is the case with the vice-chancellor. Capitalisation of First Class is okay as it names a grading system. The other capitalisation is clearly meant to lend some sanctity to the conferred things, which seems very old-fashioned to me. When you say "spanning the conjunction with the helping verb 'having'" I can't see any helping verb there. Correct me if I am wrong, It is a participle introducing a participial clause. However, the second participial clause is passive and juxtaposing it with an active participial clause jars on my non-native ear and I would be happy to hear further opinion from native users. I am familiar with starting a clause, or a sentence for that matter, with a present participle or its passive or a perfect participle or its passive or past participle but haven't seen past participial clause in passive in common usage. When you say first without definite article is okay, aren't you reflecting the current fashion to omit definite article wherever plausible? Given the extreme old-fashioned style used here, shouldn't it have a "the"? 59.91.253.55 (talk) 14:53, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't thinking "hyphen" when you asked about "Vice Chancellor". That's my fault; British English uses far more hyphens than American English does in words that are in the process of merging and in two-word nouns, and I knew you were in India. Yes, I would expect "Vice-Chancellor", but the other is not wrong. As for "first class", are you now saying that you made another typo and it should be "First Class"? That would explain the capitalization, it being understandable as a ranking in a system. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt as far as "placed in First Class in subjects", which is not understandable in any ordinary way. It seems to be saying that there is something called "First Class in subjects", and this reader wonders what the subjects are and how any class can be "in" them. I'm supposing this is academic jargon. As for "having", you seem to be better versed in the terminology than I am. I see "having completed" and "[having] been placed" as verb forms. We can call "having" the participle if you like, which it is no matter what its function. My contention is that "having" is best repeated so as to present a complete form both times; the reader has to backtrack to retrieve it otherwise when he gets to "been". Again, that's style, though, and not grammar. The use of the two forms is perfectly natural and unremarkable to this native speaker's ear. The question of the article before "First" is tricky. Articles are slippery little devils. I'm trying to express why I think it's OK the way it is, not to justify the omission or parse it for Mrs. Girdlebottom. Think of the omission of the article in "He finished in first place" vs. "He found it in the first place he looked." --Milkbreath (talk) 20:15, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Australia has a Governor-General, but Canada has a Governor General. We have an Attorney-General, but the USA has an Attorney General. Any vice-presidents we have (of companies, etc) are indeed vice-presidents, not vice presidents. In the unhyphenated version, the word "vice " always appears to me to be an attributive noun, suggesting the person has some connection with crime (which may be coincidentally true in the case of Dick Cheney and Spiro Agnew, but not generally speaking). -- JackofOz (talk) 21:09, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
People do that by analogy with "in China" or "in Guatemala", which obviously don't take the article. If you get to the point where the name of the country is construed as the abbreviation itself, it makes sense. I guess most of us still think "United Kingdom" when we see "UK" and "United States" when we see US, but that is eroding, especially I think among ESLers, whose quirks we had better get used to since there are going to be more and more of them all the time. --Milkbreath (talk) 14:02, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Some of the UK ones might have been changed from "Britain" or "Great Britain" and the editor forgot to add "the". It's sometimes hard to find that in the edit window because of all the brackets and reverence quotes. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 14:29, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Heh, "reverence quotes" - I like it. I've mentioned this before, but one of my pet peeves is sentences like "She married Peruvian cheesemaker Gonzalo de Luna". There's a "the" missing before "Peruvian" - or at least an "a" (which then requires a comma after "cheesemaker"). Many others disagree, though, so I'm in the minority here. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:58, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Fwiw, it's a way of avoiding making him "the" big cheese since he's not mentioned for notability (so far), or any old cheesemaker since he's named. Wikipedian Julia Rossi (talk) 08:04, 16 February 2009 (UTC) (de-comma'd)[reply]
I'm with Jack on this; the missing the in such cases is a bête noire of mine, as well. If one removes the restrictive appositive ("Gonzalo de Luna," in this case), the problem becomes apparent. (And don't try to tell me that "Peruvian cheesemaker" is a quasi-title; only Time magazine believes that.) Deor (talk) 13:24, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Redundant "that"s
In the following sentences, are the "that"s redundant? It seems grammatically incorrect.
"You begin by getting a degree in genetic engineering and hope that by the time cloning techniques are advanced enough to allow such a thing, that it is legal to do so in whatever country you plan on cloning your humans. In addition, you also need to make sure that for whatever sport you plan on having your players compete in, that cloned humans aren't banned similar to doping."
Is the following better? I'm pretty sure it is, but would like some confirmation that it is.
"You begin by getting a degree in genetic engineering and hope that by the time cloning techniques are advanced enough to allow such a thing, it is legal to do so in whatever country you plan on cloning your humans. In addition, you also need to make sure that for whatever sport you plan on having your players compete in, cloned humans aren't banned similar to doping."
You have my confirmation, for what it's worth. I might add a comma after each boldfaced that, but that's a purely stylistic matter. (I should add that "banned similar to doping" needs some attention.) Deor (talk) 18:22, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The former is 100% wrong, but the second is much better. Just remove the subordinate clauses: left (removed) "... and hope that (that) it is legal... make sure that (that) cloned humans"! The latter makes so much more sense. The commas would be a nice touch though. While we're on the pedantry, IMHO you want similarly and not similar in the last sentence. - Jarry1250(t, c)11:15, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What's with the Bavarian dialect's tendency to stick an "l" after every ending consonant? For example, Münchner Kindl or Hofbräuhaus am Platzl. Is it some form of diminutive (compare mainstream German -lein) or just a fancy way of being oh-so-dialectal? JIP | Talk20:35, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There are two "normal" diminutive suffixes, "-chen" and "-lein", both of which may be used in High German. There are also dialectical dialectal diminutives, used in Austro-Bavarian (but also in Allemannic and a few more regional dialects). One of these is the suffix "-erl" (in Austria), "-l" (in Bavaria minus the Frankish part) or "-li" (in Switzerland).
You may compare that to the Australian habit of adding an "-ie" to the end of a noun as a diminutive, as in "barbie" for barbecue, or the notorious "Chrissie pressie".
CEZ, the standard adjective from dialect is dialectal, not dialectical (which has different meanings from dialectal).
Such an -ie or -y in English can be diminutive, or it can turn a short, common adjective into a noun (when it may also have diminutive force): The Goodies; "Wow, that's a biggy!"; "He took a sickie to go to the cricket" (Australian: "He feigned illness and took the day off, so he could go to the cricket").
So-called diminutives do not always have to do with material size or stature. They may also connote something evaluative or emotional, such as contempt, disrespect, familiarity, or general positive affect toward the subject; or they may function as markers of informal register, like your example Chrissie (nursery talk, annoyingly adopted by adults), and your barbie. SOED notes this use of -ie as especially Australian (and Scottish):
Var. (esp. Sc. & Austral.) of -Y6, as in birdie, doggie, roughie, sickie; used also in independent formations, as bookie, movie.
But I think SOED conflates the categories. Movie, listed here, is particularly interesting. For the record, here is the content of SOED's entry "-Y6":
Forming nicknames, pet names, and familiar diminutive nouns (occas. adjs. and vbs), as Charley, doggy, goody, Johnny, Limey, loony, Mummy, shinny, shorty, Willy.
Yes. The noun "Dirne" originally meant the same as girl (a derivative of the Latin "virgo", it seems) and thus "Dirndl" is a small girl. The word Dirne later became a term for a prostitute and is only used dialectic in Austro-Bavarian in the innocent "girl" meaning. A Dirndl, as in the sense of the folkloristic dress does not exist outside the Alpine areas of Bavaria and Austria, anyway. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 23:34, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The use of "she" in such situations dates back to the 14th C, possibly from grammatically feminine French words. The habit stuck, possibly because ships (and cars, cannons, carriages) are things men become attached to. Also used for abstract ideas (such as countries). We've discussed this before on the ref desk: the discussions here and here are quite helpful. Gwinva (talk) 01:53, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Writing Amharic by hand
Amharic is written using the Ge'ez alphabet. There are plenty of resources online and in print to teach someone to read this alphabet, but I'm struggling to find resources for writing it. I'm not interested in calligraphic writing, just normal handwriting. Does anyone know of print or web materials teaching how to write in Ge'ez script? Thanks! Diacritic (talk) 08:25, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps I'm betraying some ignorance I'm not aware of here (a double ignorance, if you will!), but since you know the alphabet -- it's right there in the Ge'ez alphabet article -- surely you know how to write it? I mean, you have the shape of the letters right there; duplicating them with a pen and paper shouldn't be that hard, right? (Of course, in order to really write the language, you'd also have to know it, but that doesn't seem to be what you're asking about.) Or am I missing something obvious here? -- Captain Disdain (talk) 13:45, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps the questioner wants to know the correct habits to develop in handwriting, as for example with the stroke order (see a Chinese parallel). These physical arm and hand skills are normally taught when children learn how to form the letters or symbols. BrainyBabe (talk) 14:25, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hand-written letters often have quite different shapes from printed letters. Consider the Latin alphabet for a start, there is no way you could learn how to write this just by staring here. — EmilJ.14:57, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
