Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language

Welcome to the language section
of the Wikipedia reference desk.

skip to bottom

Select a section:

• Computing
• Entertainment
• Humanities
• Language
• Mathematics
• Science
• Miscellaneous
• Archives

Want a faster answer?

Main page: Help searching Wikipedia

   

How can I get my question answered?

• Select the section of the desk that best fits the general topic of your question (see the navigation column to the right).
• Post your question to only one section, providing a short header that gives the topic of your question.
• Type '~~~~' (that is, four tilde characters) at the end – this signs and dates your contribution so we know who wrote what and when.
• Don't post personal contact information – it will be removed. Any answers will be provided here.
• Please be as specific as possible, and include all relevant context – the usefulness of answers may depend on the context.
• Note:
  • We don't answer (and may remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or legal advice.
  • We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate.
  • We don't do your homework for you, though we'll help you past the stuck point.
  • We don't conduct original research or provide a free source of ideas, but we'll help you find information you need.

Ready? Ask a new question!

How do I answer a question?

Main page: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines

• 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.

See also:

• Teahouse
• Help desk
• Village pump
• Help manual

December 11

Nihongo translation again! (Sorry :3)

Hello! I want to know what the bunny girl is saying on this page: http://www.ntv.co.jp/kasoh/index2.html Sorry to ask again, but the page changed just today (and it does so only twice a year...) Thanks in advance! --Kreachure (talk) 02:04, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

It says the date of broadcast has been decided, and that it will be broadcast at 7PM on 9th January (Sunday). In blue it says there is also another program 'right before it' and says that will be broadcast from 1:15PM. Then it asks for everyone to watch. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 03:14, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm a little unclear on whether the 1:15 pre-performance broadcast is on Jan. 9 or on Dec. 26, the date of the actual competition. I guess the former makes more sense. I saw this show once, 14 years ago, and had completely forgotten about it. It was pretty neat. I'm surprised there isn't an English-language fan page. -- BenRG (talk) 03:37, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Cheers, BenRG - I'd forgotten what the 'official' English name was when I and Mari translated the first time. That link says 'Costume Grand Prix' - sounds better than my 'Fancy Dress Party Awards' above :) I'll remember that next time this comes up. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 04:23, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

The 1:15 pre-performance broadcast is on Jan. 9. It's a kind of a promotional program. Kreachure, you can watch some selected videos of past winners by clicking "2009/06/15・名作動画集を公開しました！" in the paler yellow box on the left bottom. Enjoy! Oda Mari (talk) 05:27, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, this is the official page for the Kasou Taishou event. I record the show and upload the skits on my Youtube page, but since my Japanese is very limited, I have to ask for your help every six months... :D So now I know I'll have to be ready by January 9! I'll also have to check out the video archive on the page which I had no idea of until now! Doumo arigatou gozaimashita, minna-san! ^_^ --Kreachure (talk) 13:38, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

What was the Book called, and who wrote it ?

While I was at Intermediate school around 1979 or 1980 - hard to know since we had the same teacher and most of the same kids both years in a row, our teacher read us a book. I believe it was called the Eighty Acre Farm, but have found no reference to it on Wiki or Google. It was a comedy about a man with a family who bought what he believed to be a farm of 80 acres, but it turned out to be only one, and he was told that it was one acre in area, but eighty downwards. On the farm things grew faster and bigger. Can anyone tell me what the book was, which obviously was published up to or before 1980. Also, I see that the article on Jason Statham gives his birthday as 1972, as well as 1967, but which one is it ? At our age, those of us near forty can pass for mid thirites to fifty, so just by looking at him one could not know. Thanks. The Russian The Russian Christopher Lilly 07:03, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Looks like it could be McBroom's Wonderful One-Acre Farm by Sid Fleischman. --Onorem♠Dil 07:16, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

• Yes, that's definitely it. There were a number of sequels, too. - DustFormsWords (talk) 06:22, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, thank Yous - that clears it up nicely. The Russian Christopher Lilly 04:33, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Czech “ř”

Why is the sound “ř” of the Czech language very hard to pronounce? --84.61.182.248 (talk) 09:26, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Whether it's hard to pronounce or not will depend on your mother tongue. I don't find it hard to pronounce at all, but the sound may be foreign to your native language and so you may find it hard to pronounce. There's really little else that can be said in answer to your question... TomorrowTime (talk) 10:53, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

The Liquid consonants are actually quite a complex set of sounds. Even there are dozens of them, most languages only make use of a few of them, say one or two or maybe 3 and they are pretty much all represented orthographically in western languages by either "r" or "l". Consider "r" for a second. Phonemicly, most languages recognize only one or 2 "r" sounds, but there are lots of sounds that this covers. There are multiple types of "trill"-r's (such as uvular trills, alveolar trills, etc.), there are rhotic r's and non-rhotic r's where the r "colors" the vowel preceding it, but is not distinctly pronounced. In New England (a non-rhotic accent), there's even a peculiar labio-dental r which is used when the r needs to be pronounced. The short of it is that speakers of one language find the liquids of another language to be somewhat dificult to pronounce, such as Japanese speakers who find difficulty distinguishing the english R and L, and english speakers who have difficulty with trills. --Jayron32 15:52, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Liu Xiaobo ITN

I asked this on the Main Page discussion... page, but it might be a job for the Language Desk. The ITN piece sounds like this: "the first time since 1936 that neither the recipient nor any of his relatives has been able to accept the prize", and it seems wrong to me - shouldn't it be "neither the recipient nor any of his relatives have been able"? Rimush (talk) 12:14, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

My understanding is that a zero quantity is treated as singular - so "No one has seen him", and "None of my friends has seen him". In that sentence, "my friends" suggests (to our ears) that it should be followed by a plural form, but the subject is "None of my friends", not "my friends", which is why it is followed by the singular form.

Similarly, "any" is treated is referring to any one of the set referred to, and as such is treated as singular. So "if anyone has seen him..." and "if any of them has seen him".

In the present case, the subject of the clause is "neither the recipient nor any of his relatives". This is singular, as is "any of this relatives". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 14:47, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the info! Rimush (talk) 15:29, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

No: a zero quantity is plural, not singular. Consider I have zero watermelons, *I have zero watermelon. In "Neither the recipient nor any of his relatives has been able to accept the prize", I read "nor any of his relatives" as a parenthesis. The reason it appears as singular in "None of my friends has seen him" is a quite different kettle of fish: none was (at one time) considered to be derived from not one. The justification is specious[1], but it has influenced some prescriptivists. Marnanel (talk) 01:36, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

That's a different construction. Constructions like "none" or "not any" can be singular or plural depending on what you would expect if there were any. "Which man is your leader?" — "None is; our leader is a woman". But "How many are of you are right-handed?" — "None are." The original example works the same way. Only one person would accept the prize, so the singular is correct. --Anonymous, 02:32 UTC, December 13, 2010.

In the US, our high school textbooks (prescriptive grammar alert) taught that "none"-ish subjects take singular verbs. In real life, both are used. rʨanaɢ (talk) 09:51, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Someone – They

In Jean M. Redmann’s book Death of a Dying Man I read the sentence: “I think someone tried to harm him and I can’t be sure they won’t again.” My question: Is it standard English when “someone” is referred to by “they”? Or is it a way of speaking which is often used in New Orleans?

Or is there more to it? Can I conclude that the speaker thinks that there was one person who tried to harm “him”, but that there are several persons who might try to harm “him” once more? Or would such a conclusion be too far-fetched? -- Irene1949 (talk) 21:37, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

"They" works for both singular and plural, and it's more flowing syntax than "that someone" or "that person." I don't see Redmann meaning more than one person. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 21:46, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

See singular they. Whether it's standard or not is a controversial point, and has political connotations. --Trovatore (talk) 21:47, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

A police spokesman might be tempted to say something like: It appears that a person or persons unknown attempted to occasion the gentleman grievous bodily harm, and it is possible that a person or persons unknown may make further such attempts, but whether the same person or persons unknown who may have already attempted to cause the gentleman harm or a different person or different persons unknown or one or more of the original persons unknown and one or more new persons unknown is unknown.

But real humans are not so tempted. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 22:47, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Would it be correct if the speaker had said: “I think someone tried to harm him and I can’t be sure he or she won’t again”? -- Irene1949 (talk) 22:59, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it would be "correct", but not necessarily any more so than using 'they'. Lexicografía (talk) 23:14, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Grammatically fine, but do we know the agent of this harm was a single individual? In a situation where there's evidence an attempt to harm someone has been made, it's sometimes possible to know how many people were involved even if their identities are not known, but generally speaking we don't know that. Even though the "I think someone tried him" appears to assume there was a sole perpetrator, the speaker would not exclude the possibility it was more than one person. It's just a figure of speech. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 23:15, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

The context: The speaker has reasons to think that “someone tried to harm him“ by slipping him some cocaine – and that cocaine was dangerous for “him”, because he was very ill and his medication increased the effect of the cocaine. In such a case, I’d assume that it was probably one person who did the crucial act of slipping the cocaine to the victim, but this person may have had an accomplice who provided the cocaine.

When I looked up these details, I noticed that they are not in the book Water Mark but in the book Death of a Dying Man. I apologize for mixing them up. Now there is the correct title in the first sentence of this section.-- Irene1949 (talk) 00:17, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your interesting answers. -- Irene1949 (talk) 18:57, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

This question points up the single most obnoxious feature of the English language, the inability to refer to an individual person without specifying gender. "They" is wrong in a strict grammatical sense, but is used because the alternatives are "he" or "she", either of which would make an unjustified assumption, or else "he or she", which sounds too formal and stilted. Anybody who does a substantial amount of writing finds themself (see?) confronted with this problem over and over again; it is very annoying. Looie496 (talk) 06:38, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The unmarked he, with no implication as to sex, worked fine until the idea arose that it ignored women. I have never been convinced that that was ever factual. --Trovatore (talk) 06:44, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Wow! Are you old enough to remember the time before Chaucer? ("And whoso fyndeth hym out of swich blame // They wol come up [...]") Hans Adler 19:49, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

The problem is he does imply gender, and the third-person singular non-gender pronoun "it" specifically EXCLUDES humans as an antecedant. Other languages, like French, have a "non-gender-specific, non-number-specific third person pronoun". In French, this is the pronoun "On", which implies nothing about the gender or number of the subject. English lacks this. --Jayron32 06:47, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

He implies gender, in the sense of grammatical gender. There isn't much left of grammatical gender in English, but there are some remnants. It need not, however, imply sex. --Trovatore (talk) 06:49, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

If you refer to a woman as "he" directly, you get some serious flack from said woman. --Jayron32 06:50, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

As we're on the language desk, I should point out that it's flak, not flack AndrewWTaylor (talk) 09:32, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

True, but that's a different context. --Trovatore (talk) 06:51, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Not really. Speakers of English, when they hear "He..." expect testicles to be in the picture somewhere. That you wish they wouldn't doesn't reflect the reality of the language as it is used. You are falling into the trap of expecting grammatical rules to be proscriptive rather than descriptive. It may be possible (and I have yet to have see this proven), that people at some point in history may have used "He" in a non-testicular-related application, but that it used to be the case doesn't mean that today, in 2010, it is the case anymore. There are lots of words and grammatical rules which aren't in force today. This is not a good thing, this is not a bad thing. This just is what it is. No one uses "ye" as an article or uses "thou" as a second person pronoun anymore either. --Jayron32 07:10, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

It may be that the "unmarked he" is genuinely no longer heard, but if so, I think that came about for political reasons founded on the claim that it wasn't there in the first place. It's that claim that I have never been convinced was ever factual. --Trovatore (talk) 07:17, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure that its terribly useful to lament the loss of the "unmarked he" for whatever reasons, if it really doesn't exist anymore. That it doesn't exist in 21st century English is all that is really relevent, the reasons why it doesn't exist may be a useful discussion elsewhere, but it sidetracks this issue. In modern English, the "unmarked he" is not used anymore. Whatever reasons caused it not to be used anymore are largely irrelevent. --Jayron32 07:20, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's true that it doesn't exist anymore. It is less common, and risks misunderstanding, but it is not gone. --Trovatore (talk) 07:23, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree. It is still widely found in traditional literature, and occasionally in modern writing and speech. Many of us feel compelled by "political correctness" to add an apologetic "or she", but sometimes we resist the compulsion. Dbfirs 09:06, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I've been hearing the same complaint for 40 years - we really need a new gender-neutral pronoun. So, I'm wondering why we as a society are being like the people Mark Twain talked about. You know, the ones who complain long and loud about the weather but never do anything about it. The article (@ Invented pronouns) talks about the various attempts that have been made going back to the 1850s - all so far unsuccessful. If it's the case that nothing anyone can come up with is going to be acceptable, then why do we continue to complain? Maybe one of these new pronouns needs a high-profile champion, someone universally admired and respected, who's seen as a role model for young and old, black and white, men and women, straight and gay, conservatives and liberals. (Sorry, but my schedule is full.  :) ) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 09:55, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I am not a linguist nor a big fan of 'political correctness', but I would agree that gender-neutral 'he' has largely died out in common parlance and is easily taken as sexist. Honestly I don't see what's wrong with "they" as a singular – it's been around for several hundred years (unlike new coinages) and despite grammarians' best efforts, is pretty well established and accepted. Lexicografía (talk) 20:38, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I'd say the singular "they" is fully accepted in colloquial discourse, but not so fully accepted in writing of a certain degree of formality. The more formal, official, legalistic or "proper" the writing context is, the more stringent and pedantic the rules seem to be. Who makes these rules anyway? -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 22:22, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

As Webster's Dictionary of English Usage observes, singular they has been in use since Middle English! There is nothing wrong with it except that pedants with a poor sense of language are incorrectly over-analysing things and then vigorously advertising their incorrect conclusions. It's the same as with many other features of English, such as the perfectly standard practice of applying less to countable nouns. (E.g. "less words", as in: "Swa mid læs worda swa mid ma, swæðer we hit ȝereccan maȝon." Alfred the Great, 9th century.) The best solution is to ignore the pedants and follow the lead of the best writers. Hans Adler 19:56, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Grammar

Can a Britisher understand a sentence like "There is a tree is in front of it."? If we make a composition like this，we can get 40%-60% of full mark only.--铁铁的火大了 (talk) 22:07, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

As a Briton (not 'Britisher'), "There is a tree in front of it" makes sense - if you've already established what 'it' refers to. Or even "There, a tree is in front of it", but what you have written makes no sense. What are you trying to say? AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:27, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

We study English, Grammar is more important than spoken. Your essay (composition) use sentences like "What I want to say is that…", that is a great composition. I want to know, in daily life, you always chat use complicated subordinate clause? --铁铁的火大了 (talk) 22:34, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

In reading your sentence, I hadn't seen the second occurrence of the word is (so I had trouble understanding Andy's response). Now that I see it, I have to ask, is that what you intended to write? Maybe the second is was just a typo? --Trovatore (talk) 22:37, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Right, a clerical error in a test.--铁铁的火大了 (talk) 22:39, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Grammar is more important than spoken — please be aware that all languages use grammar in their spoken forms. Marnanel (talk) 01:27, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

The sentence can be corrected by the removal of the second is, or by the insertion of the relative pronoun which. The second option produces: There is a tree which is in front of it.

̀—Wavelength (talk) 01:01, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Seems the question, though, is whether a native speaker can understand it. Yes, we can understand it very easily, and the mistake is difficult to spot. In fact you make typos like a native, but it is quite plainly incorrect. 81.131.28.145 (talk) 01:07, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, Wangxuan, all English-speakers use dependent clauses in informal speech. There's nothing formal about embedding. I am puzzled by your remark, "Grammar is more important than spoken". Perhaps you understand "grammar" to mean formal written language. But in English it doesn't have that meaning. We don't make much of a distinction between spoken and written language, in stark contrast to Chinese. In English, what is grammatical in writing is grammatical in speech as well. LANTZY^TALK 01:17, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

In fact. About "Grammar", what I want to say is that we spend too much class hours to learn it but not spoken. And "There is a tree is in front of it." ,You can understand what I'll say, but teacher may be think this is a C-Level essay. A essay use complicated syntax, but when he speak, you only can say "Pardon?"…… May be you know, Chinese don't use tense and plural, so we hardly to learn grammar. --铁铁的火大了 (talk) 07:12, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Wangxuan, I'm not sure you've understood everyone here. We don't understand what you wrote. "There is a tree is in front of it" makes no sense - we can only guess at what you are trying to say.

But if I understand what you are really trying to say correctly, this is just a diatribe against what you perceive as a weakness of English education in China, is that right? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 12:26, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

May be you are right. But you think in my English test only a clerical error make me get 14(25 is full mark of writing) is fair? This writing let us write a letter to a US pen pal to bewrite my school. Some one didn't write "Best wishes." but can get 21. --铁铁的火大了 (talk) 14:05, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

You know that everyone starts off by thinking their native language doesn't have much in the way of grammar? Chinese has a reasonably complicated grammatical system of its own; it's just not very similar to the one used in English. (We have an article about it at Chinese grammar, in fact.) For example, serial verb construction is not terribly easy for English speakers to get their heads around. It may seem like a trivial matter for you, but that's because it's your native language. Marnanel (talk) 14:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

There are many different between two language.

In fact, in Chinese Mainland, a senior high school student only to know 3,500 words and phrases(besdies simple words like dog, a lot of). To understand what you say, I have to look up dictionary again and again. I think that leraning more culture(reading or spoken) instead of spending a lot of time in learning grammar. --铁铁的火大了 (talk) 14:05, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Piggybacking off Marnanel's comment: "Chinese has no grammar" is something lots of Chinese people like to tell me. These people believe that "grammar" can only mean suffixes (verb conjugations, tense suffixes, etc.)... rʨanaɢ (talk) 09:57, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Our teacher repeat "xx subordinate clause" everyday, it seems that English equals grammar but not to USE.--铁铁的火大了 (talk) 14:05, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

事情的起因是考试中一不小心作文写了"There is a tree is in front of it."这句话，结果25分得了14分。所以事实上我发帖的原意是想知道英国人能不能看懂这种句子，看得懂的话我想不至于因为这样一个笔误的14分，后来就越扯越远了。对你的回复，我想知道英国人上课，教师也是天天重复“主语从句”，“先行词”等等的么？--铁铁的火大了 (talk) 11:53, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

December 12

Plural of zero

What is the plural of "zero"? Is it zeroes, zeros, or zero's? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 02:50, 12 December 2010 (UTC))

"Zeros" and "zeroes" are both acceptable, but not "zero's". [2] Marnanel (talk) 02:53, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I prefer zeroes myself. Zeros looks like it should rhyme with BIOS or possibly CMOS. But my spell-checker disagrees for some strange reason. --Trovatore (talk) 03:06, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

"zero's" is another example of the dreaded greengrocers' apostrophe. "Zeroes" seems to keep my British English spellchecker happy, but it accepts "zeros" too, so that doesn't help much. I'd go with the 'e', per "tomatoes", "potatoes" etc. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:16, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

On the other hand I think 0's is fine. Very hard to interpret 0s. This is an example of a legitimate pluralizing apostrophe, along the line of mind your p's and q's or The Oakland A's. --Trovatore (talk) 03:19, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

The apostrophe is only used for plurals of words that are not normally pluralized, or would look odd with just a simple 's' tacked on the end. Lexicografía (talk) 03:49, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

In case I wasn't clear, 0's is an example of a legitimate pluralizing apostrophe, not zero's. --Trovatore (talk) 05:42, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Referring to an actual dictionary (Merriam Webster Collegiate) we find "plural: zeros also zeroes", indicating "zeros" is preferred. This is an American dictionary; your kilometerage may differ. - Nunh-huh 03:33, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Zero's acceptable, just not as a plural. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)}}

In British English only zeroes is given by the OED, though The Guardian seems to use both zeroes and zeros, with slightly more Google hits for zeros. [3] [4] --Antiquary (talk) 11:56, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

...remembering that The Guardian is strongly Americanised, and tends to include more American spellings, words and phrases than most other UK papers. 86.161.208.185 (talk) 15:33, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Good point, but the same can't be said of The Times, except in so far as we're all tending to move slowly towards American usage. Their style guide favours zeros. --Antiquary (talk) 15:50, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Chambers 20th Century Dictionary has only zeros for the plural. DuncanHill (talk) 16:01, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Hm, OED, while only giving zeroes as a plural does have citations in which zeros is used. DuncanHill (talk) 16:08, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

How to pronounce...

..."amartolon onton emon Chiristoz uper emon apethanen" transliterated from Greek. Thanks Wikipedians! schyler (talk) 04:36, 12 December 2010 (UTC)...edit: 04:48, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

It'll be kinda hard without the original Greek, unless you just want an English approximation... 24.92.70.160 (talk) 15:10, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

(To 24.92:) "ἁμαρτωλῶν ὄντων ἡμῶν Χριστὸς ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἀπέθανεν". It's part of Romans 5:8. Marnanel (talk) 19:23, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

If it's from Romans then it'd take Koine pronunciation (which is different from Attic Greek, which is what is usually meant by "ancient Greek"). In International Phonetic Alphabet:

hamarto'lon 'ɔnton he'mon χris'tɔs hy'pɛr he'mon a'pɛθanɛn

In pseudo-English style pronunciation:

hah-mar-toh-LOAN AWN-tone hay-MOAN chriss-TAWS hü-PEHR hay-MOAN ah-PEH-thah-nen

...where "ch" and "ü" are said as in German. (Some of the word-initial aitch sounds weren't represented in the transliteration because of the way that sound is written in Greek. As a result sometimes transliterations just ignore it, which is lazy in my opinion, but *shrug*.) Cevlakohn (talk) 05:18, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Shouldn't it be [hamarto'lon], then?—Emil J. 15:31, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Akh, yes. Bloody hell, I didn't see that. Cevlakohn (talk) 22:27, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

You can see the Greek text transliterated at http://www.multilingualbible.com/romans/5-8.htm (in the second half of the center column) and you can hear it read (possibly in Attic Greek) at http://foreignlanguageexpertise.com/museum1.html. The word-initial aitch sounds are explained in the article Rough breathing.

—Wavelength (talk) 18:59, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Resolved

Thanks All! schyler (talk) 12:41, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

'Inside of'

"This user knows what a darkroom is and has processed photographs inside of one": from {{User:Sgt. R.K. Blue/Userboxes/Darkroom}}. As a Brit, I'd never write 'inside of' in this context, but I've seen this in US English often enough. Is it accepted usage that side of the pond? AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:04, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

It sounds clumsy to me; I would probably just say "in." This usage of "inside of" is similar to, but I think not as common as, the usage of "off of" to mean "off": "The book fell off of the shelf." —Bkell (talk) 19:15, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

There's a false belief that obfuscating ones language makes it sound "better" or "more intelligent". Most style guides tend to disagree with this. It is usually recommended that one's writing should be concise and clear as much as possible. We find this sort of "pseudoformalizing" language when we find people who use words like "utilize" for "use", or "medication" for "medicine", or other such substitutions. If a shorter, more direct word or phrase conveys the exact same meaning, use the more consise language whenever possible. There are times when clarification is needed, but often the tendency is to overelaborate. --Jayron32 06:05, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend

Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read --Groucho

--Trovatore (talk) 06:11, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Now THAT is funny. Kittybrewster ☎ 10:47, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I can imagine myself using inside of rather than in for emphasis/contrast. —Tamfang (talk) 09:02, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Variety-speak

I finally figured out what "s.a." probably means (sex appeal) in Variety's review of Gilda. Since other readers will likely be just as confused by the quote in the article, any suggestions on what to do? I can't add [sex appeal] to it, as that would be WP:OR. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:24, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I'd be tempted (well, with Rita Hayworth around, who wouldn't?) to add [sex appeal?], with a '?'. From the context it certainly makes sense, and I'm sure I've seen the abbreviation elsewhere. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:35, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

You could cite abbreviations.com:

• <ref name="abrev">{{cite web|url=http://www.abbreviations.com/b1.aspx?KEY=69205|title=S.A.|publisher=[http://www.abbreviations.com Abbreviations.com] STANDS4 LLC|accessdate=12 December 2010}}</ref>

WikiDao ☯ (talk) 23:40, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

There's actually an official Variety glossary at http://www.variety.com/static-pages/slanguage-dictionary/ , but "s.a." doesn't seem to be listed (though the paper does claim to have invented the term "sex appeal")... AnonMoos (talk) 04:39, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

• The Oxford English Dictionary has "S.A. n. (also s.a.) sex appeal", first citation from the American Mercury, 1926. So clarifying s.a. to sex appeal isn't OR, it's just helping people who don't have access to a proper dictionary. DuncanHill (talk) 13:07, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Even though I'm 95% certain it means va-va-va-va-voom, that remaining 5% means it's still a guess -> OR. I think AndyTheGrump's suggestion is the best solution. Thanks, everyone. Clarityfiend (talk) 19:12, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Hah. It got reverted as OR. I've started a discussion on the talk page. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:10, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

December 13

You had better/best read this question

Consider:

• You'd better leave now or you'll miss the boat and
• You'd best leave now or you'll miss the boat.

We seem to use these idioms virtually interchangeably, despite one word being comparative, the other superlative.

Yet we never say You'd good leave now or you'll miss the boat.

That could be better expressed as It'd be good if you left now, otherwise you'll miss the boat, or It'd be a good thing if you left now .... Similarly, It'd be better/best if you left now ... or It'd be better/best for you to leave now ... are all OK. All three forms of the adjective are available in these alternative formulations.

So, why not You'd good leave now ...? Or are these words functioning as adverbs, in which case the missing option is You'd well leave now ...?

We do say You'd be well-advised to do X, but that seems to be fundamentally different grammatically (if not in practical meaning), being something that's being passively done to you, as opposed to something you are being encouraged to actively do.

You'd better give me the benefit of your opinions on this question, or ....  :) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 03:13, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

For me, you had best is mostly confined to Western movies. --Trovatore (talk) 03:46, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The deal is, that "good" does not set up an implicit comparison to something else. Both better and best are comparitive words (superlative basically means the extreme comparitive, but it still implies a comparison to something else). So it depends, perhaps on whether you want to say "You had better do this than do something else." or "You had best do this than anything else." Since there's not muct actual distinction between those two phrases, there's probably not much distiction between using better and best in this application. --Jayron32 04:03, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, as I said, we use them interchangeably. True, "good" does not set up an implicit comparison. Neither does "I advise you to leave now or you'll miss the boat". If you're talking to a person who's oblivious of the time, any advice to the effect that they should become aware of the time and leave now is good advice. Whether it's better than some other advice, or the best of all possible advice, is not really the point, is it - unless, maybe, the person has multiple competing demands on their attention right now, and they need to be advised that everything else is secondary to them leaving right now, or they risk missing the boat. That's where I could see better or best coming from. But that's a very specific type of scenario. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 04:45, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I think this is similar to the "use to/used to" question we had above. Such usage isn't really formal English, so it resists formal analysis by the established rules of English grammar. It's a purely idiomatic statement, so it doesn't obey the rules of grammar strictly. --Jayron32 05:25, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

But what about "better this way" or "best this way"? Which is the correct usage in this case?--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 09:11, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

There, you're looking at a range of specific options and as a group coming up with the one that's generally agreed to be the best. Along the way, one option might be identified as better than some other one, but a third one may be considered best of all. So, you might use both of your phrases, depending on which one you're talking about right now. In my question, there's no range of options, just something I think you should be doing, rather than whatever it is you're doing now. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 10:14, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

"Better" is the usual in English, i.e. two choices, stay or go, and the "better" choice is to go. "Best" grammatically implies 3 or more choices. "Best" also puts more emphasis on it and is a tad more aggressive, which might be why it would turn up in westerns. Except the options wouldn't have something to do with missing a boat (or a train) but more likely having to do with missing a gunfight. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:59, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

"Best" is used colloquially in a number of British local dialects. --Dweller (talk) 22:02, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

"Best" did not imply three or more choices to Shakespeare, or to Dickens. I think the rule is one of the inventions of the "My-grammar-book's-better-than-yours-because-it's-got-even-more-rules-in-it" crowd in the eighteenth century. --ColinFine (talk) 01:01, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, we talk of "besting" an opponent, even when there's only the one opponent.

"Good Better Best / Never let it rest / Till the good is better / And the better is best."

←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:32, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for for all your interesting answers to this question, people. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 22:00, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Late to the party, agree with "better" (choice of 2) versus "best" (choice of 3+). That said, I've often heard and used "best" versus better to emphasize the (superlative aspect of making the) recommended choice. In my experience, this also seems to be the case regardless of language. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 19:10, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Punctuation

Should the following sentence have one period or two periods at the end? She appeared on TV shows such as Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, and Magnum, P.I.. Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 05:47, 13 December 2010 (UTC))

I'd say one. The rule is that a sentence end with a period (or full stop in my lingo) - the rule doesn't say it necessarily has to be an additional period if there's already one preceding it. So, the presence of a period does not necessarily spell the end of a sentence, but a period ending an abbreviation can also serve as an end-of-sentence marker. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 05:54, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

If it doesn't have two, it will look wrong to a lot of readers. Typesetters handle this by reducing the space between the two periods. The same thing arises when you end a sentence with etc.. Looie496 (talk) 06:45, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

If it does have two, it will look wrong to a lot of other readers. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 06:51, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Jack of Oz.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 09:08, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the single period is certainly standard. --Anon, 09:11 UTC, December 13, 2010.

Agreed. Two full stops ("periods" sounds like a rude joke to my English ears) looks as though there's more to come.... Alansplodge (talk) 11:00, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Did you mean to write "two" above? Bus stop (talk) 21:49, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

D'oh! Alansplodge (talk) 01:38, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

One for me too. (An Australian who reads a lot of American and British stuff.) HiLo48 (talk) 11:08, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

We American school students were taught that it was one ".". We Americans also compartmentalize the term "period", such that the end of a sentence has no connotation, whereas "she's on her [menstrual] period" does. Meanwhile, "full stop" sounds like something many drivers fail to do at a stop sign, but when used in reference to a sentence or an abbreviation immediately identifies the speaker or writer as a Brit. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:29, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Dunno if you're old enough to remember telegrams (maybe you've see them mentioned in old movies), but I thought the whole English speaking world used "Stop" to indicate an end of sentence in that context. HiLo48 (talk) 01:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Sure, and hence the usual jokes due to the oddity of that word "STOP". For example, the telegram says, "I love you stop", and the recipient says, "Don't stop!" And so on. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:05, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Acronyms are increasingly, it seems to me, signified purely by capitalisation and are dropping the intervening periods, sidestepping the issue highlighted by Magnum, PI. Blakk and ekka 15:05, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

• That works in many contexts, but Magnum, P.I. is a title, and you can't just change the punctuation to suit your preferences. --Anon, 13:29 UTC, December 14, 2010.

In general, abbreviations that couldn't be standalone words had the periods, while abbreviations that were pronouncable (such as RADAR, NASA) omitted the periods. The trend of which you speak probably is connected with the tendency to shorten things over the course of the evolution of English. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:32, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has long been known simplay as "FBI", apparently without any periods. This note from their seal's history page[5] indicates that in 1935 it was at first being called "F B I", with spaces between the letters. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:39, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The original question is answered at Full stop#Abbreviations. -- Wavelength (talk) 20:35, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Another fly in the ointment

OK, this is rather "nit picky". But, in the above example, let's say that we agree to use only one period. Is that period italicized as a component of the TV show title (and Wikipedia "blue" link)? Or is that period non-italicized, as the end-of-sentence period? I was correcting this very sentence in the Pamela Bryant article. And, quite frankly, using two periods "looks" wrong, as does using only one. And, when using only one period, italicizing it "looks" wrong, as does not italicizing it. Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:42, 13 December 2010 (UTC))

I realize that we can change the order of the listing of TV show titles to side-step this problem ... but I am nonetheless curious about the correct punctuation rules here. Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:45, 13 December 2010 (UTC))

Yes, my feeling is that the period should be included in italicization. I think this should be done to make all the components slant harmoniously. I think that for the sake of appearance one should include all contiguous letters and punctuation marks in any italicization. But I am basing this on gut feeling. I will be interested to see what others say. The only exception to this I know of is when one wants to emphasize a prefix in a word, such as "unimportant". Bus stop (talk) 21:57, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

No question it should be italicized; it's part of the title. However, I don't agree that just because a period might be contiguous with an italicization, it should join the party. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:57, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

"There is no additional full stop immediately following the full stop that ends the abbreviation" (quoting from full stop), so no, the final period is not an end-of-sentence period. 213.122.62.108 (talk) 01:13, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

The final period performs a double function as both an end-of-abbreviation period and an end-of-sentence period.

—Wavelength (talk) 07:26, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Wavelength ... yes, exactly. And, therefore, the final dual-role period is or is not in italics? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:56, 14 December 2010 (UTC))

Unfortunately, I do not know the answer to that question. As well as I can remember, I have not had to make that decision in my own compositions, and I have not seen an answer in any style guide. How easy is it to distinguish periods in italic type from periods in roman type in a series in which both kinds are randomly interspersed alternated?

...................................................................................................................

..............................................................................................................................

..........................................................
............................................................

........................................
................................................
.............................................

—Wavelength (talk) 21:17, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

[In my comment of 21:17, 14 December 2010 (UTC), I am changing interspersed to alternated.

—Wavelength (talk) 06:46, 16 December 2010 (UTC)]

After further reflection, I am almost positive that I would italicize the period, because that is part of the abbreviation. However, I do not know how many people would be able to see that it is italicized.

The next sentence is an example. Some people do not know the difference between i.e. and e.g.

—Wavelength (talk) 21:33, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Generally speaking, I agree that it is virtually impossible (to the naked eye) to distinguish an italicized period from a non-italicized one. However, in this particular case, the distinction was exacerbated by the fact that it involved a Wikipedia link (which shows up in blue). So, the sentence looked like this ---> She appeared on TV shows such as Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, and Magnum, P.I.. In that case, the two final periods are easily distinguishable since one is contained in the Wikipedia link, while the other is not (and, thus, one is blue, while the other is black; one is italics, while the other is not). Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:36, 15 December 2010 (UTC))

You could also simply avoid the whole issue by changing the order in which the shows are mentioned; "Magnum P.I." doesn't need to be listed last. Roger (talk) 14:48, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but that exact issue was included as a part of my original question (see above): "I realize that we can change the order of the listing of TV show titles to side-step this problem ... but I am nonetheless curious about the correct punctuation rules here." Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 22:13, 15 December 2010 (UTC))

The Chicago Manual of Style does not address this specifically, but it does give two rules that would seem to cover this: (1) "All punctuation marks should appear in the same font—roman or italic—as the main or surrounding text, except for punctuation that belongs to a title in a different font (usually italics)", and (2) "When an expression that ends in a period (e.g., an abbreviation) falls at the end of a sentence, no additional period follows". (2) implies that the period that is kept is the one that is part of the abbreviation, and according to (1), that would be in italics. Earlier versions of the CMOS had a different version of (1), that made surrounding punctuation italic for aesthetic reasons (Bus stop's style). Lesgles (talk) 06:25, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

A period in italics. And in regular typeface. Pretty hard to tell the difference. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:38, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

We can all probably agree that a period in italics or non-italics would be hard to distinguish (see comments above). But "difficulty in distinction" is not exactly a threshold for determining accuracy versus inaccuracy, either. Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 21:25, 16 December 2010 (UTC))

@ Baseball Bugs: Pretty hard to tell the difference - where are your principles, man?  :) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:56, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Silver Hell

Is it a common idiom, understandable for all Englishmen? Thanks for comments. --Omidinist (talk) 06:46, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

No. (I don't understand it, and that fact alone is sufficient to prove the point.) I don't know how common this is (or I am). Seriously, though, it has no entry in Wiktionary, and no Google hits with "+idiom", so probably isn't a common idiom in the English language. Dbfirs 08:24, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Never heard of it. Alansplodge (talk) 09:24, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I'll jump in early to what will doubtless be a "Never heard of it" pile-on. Supplementary question to Omidinist - why do you ask?--Shirt58 (talk) 10:04, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Where does it come from? What does it mean? Kittybrewster ☎ 10:38, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Context may help:[6]. --Omidinist (talk) 11:09, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

According to this dictionary of slang, silver-hell was nineteenth-century slang for "a low-class gambling den, where silver is the usual stake". Deor (talk) 11:13, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Great Deor. That's it. Thanks heartily. --Omidinist (talk) 11:55, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Underneath "silver-hell" in that dictionary of slang is another interesting entry: to "catch fish with a silver hook" is to "purchase a catch in order to conceal unskillful angling". Bus stop (talk) 22:09, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

That suggests other possibilities, such as "to catch fish with a noisy hook" (to chuck a stick of dynamite into a pond to avoid angling altogether). Deor (talk) 23:09, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I thought it was a seasonal reference: "Silver Hell, Silver Hell, it's Christmas time in the city..." 85.178.81.116 (talk) 09:02, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Past tense of "disposition"

When a piece of product needs to be inspected to determine if it's scrap or if it can be salvaged, we often say that it needs to be "dispositioned". It's been tossed around so much that it's part of the jargon here. From what I can see though, it's not actually a word. What would be a better way to succinctly get the same point across that uses an accepted English word? Dismas|^(talk) 12:13, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

salvageable. Kittybrewster ☎ 12:17, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

In that usage, ("to be dispositioned") it's not a past tense, but rather a passive participle. Triage means something similar in medical terminology... AnonMoos (talk) 12:19, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

"Evaluated"? Deor (talk) 12:21, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Appraised? —Bkell (talk) 12:22, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

There's a good bit in Gowers on this issue (discussing an imaginary office memo containing the word "de-asterisked"): [7] Purists may blench at "non-grant-aidable" and "de-asterisked", and neither is suitable for general use. But purists do not know, as the official does, that in this particular context a lot turns upon whether a claim is categorised as "asterisked", "unasterisked", or "de-asterisked"; they must not even recommend "de-starred" instead, because for all they know "starred", "unstarred" and "de-starred" are already in use for some different and equally precise purpose. The full page is worth reading. Marnanel (talk) 15:10, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Nowadays the word triage is sometimes used for this purpose. In its original medical use, it means making an initial examination of patients to decide which ones to treat. Nowadays it is often used to mean making an initial quick examination of any sort of thing in order to decide how to handle it, for example the NIH triages grant proposals to decide which ones should be rejected immediately and which ones should get a full review. Looie496 (talk) 19:09, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

On the medical theme, when the Monica Lewinsky story first broke, her description as a "White House intern" confused me. Up till that point, I'd only ever heard the word "intern" in relation to medical students doing their practical training in a hospital. And I wondered what sort of a hospital they were running in the White House, and who the patients would be. I soon got up to speed. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:09, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Probably much as the term "Watergate buggers" gave the Brits a chuckle in the early 1970s. The term "intern" was largely associated with medical students,[8] but has become generalized, at least in American English, for any kind of on-the-job training program connected with college education. In Monica's case, the internship came with previously unstated fringe benefits. (For example, indulging her fondness for cigars.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:22, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes. I had a friend who asked why such a fuss was being made about oral sex. After all it is only kissing. Kittybrewster ☎ 20:25, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

from French / Check-language

Please translate "Photographie ancienne, du et depuis le pont d'un voilier, avec une forte gîte. Na palubě lodi". Kittybrewster ☎ 14:03, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The French bit is "Old photograph, of the bridge of a sailing ship, and taken from the bridge of the ship, heeling considerably". The second sentence isn't French. Is it perhaps the name of the ship? Itsmejudith (talk) 15:05, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Don't think so. Kittybrewster ☎ 15:10, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Google says it's Czech for "on board". Marnanel (talk) 15:14, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

"On board of a ship", to be exact.—Emil J. 15:27, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

And to be exact, the French says "of and from the bridge"; that is, it was taken on the bridge and it shows the bridge. Lesgles (talk) 06:04, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

December 14

tin can despots, and tin can regimes

Howdy,

I'm curious as to what "tin can" means as an adjective. I've encountered it as a description of tyrants, despots, regimes, etc, but old man internet doesn't seem to define it. I think it is sometimes written as "tin-can" too. Thank! --JSJ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.210.182.8 (talk) 19:29, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

That'd be a variant of "wikt:tin-pot dictator". Wiktionary has a separate item at wikt:tinpot dictator. The basic idea is "worthless". --Anonymous, 19:37 UTC, December 14, 2010.

The basic idea is a petty tyrant whose aspirations to grandeur far outpace the somewhat squalid reality. AnonMoos (talk) 06:22, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

"Semper Eadem"?

The article HMS Queen Elizabeth (R08) says that the motto of the ship is, and I quote, Semper Eadem ("Always the Same"). Shouldn't that be Semper Idem? JIP | Talk 20:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Semper Eadem was Gloriana's motto, have always seen it spelt that way. DuncanHill (talk) 20:47, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

...and since eadem is the feminine form of idem, that should be correct. Iblardi (talk) 20:51, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

And ships, like Queens, are female. DuncanHill (talk) 20:53, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Having studied Latin for six years, I should have known that. Except that those six years were a decade and a half ago, and unlike my native Finnish, and English, Swedish and German, I hardly ever get the chance to exercise my Latin skills. So I tend to forget what I learned. JIP | Talk 20:58, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Eadem is also the neuter plural, but I guess not in this case. Adam Bishop (talk) 22:15, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Rule of inflection of English adjectives derived from participles.

Greetings, I'm somewhat confused by the declension of certain adjectives in English.

As far back as I can remember, the rule has been that ALL adjectives derived from INFINITE TENSES of VERBS form their comparative and superlative forms with "more-" and "most-" respectively.

--> eg.

       dreaded  more dreaded  most dreaded
       boring   more boring   most boring

This rule even applies to one-syllable adjectives (where the "-er" and "-est" inflections are usually preferred).

--> eg.

       bent     more bent     most bent

Increasingly, however, I'm encountering words which seem to side-step this rule.

--> eg.

       acute    acuter        acutest
       intense  intenser      intensest
       obtuse   obtuser       obtusest

I always assumed that because these adjectives came to us from PARTICIPLES in Latin and/or French, that the same rule applied here as it did in the above examples.

-->eg.

       acute    more acute    most acute
       intense  more intense  most intense
       obtuse   more obtuse   most obtuse

Though the "-er" and "-est" declensions seem commoner than before, can they really be considered proper?

Or is this simply another case of pop-culture eroding the language?

-->eg.

       the winningest coach in NBA history.

Pine (talk) 21:16, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

The language was being eroded in 1865, when Lewis Carroll wrote the novel Alice in Wonderland. See Curiouser and Curiouser and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Wikiquote.

—Wavelength (talk) 23:30, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with pop-culture. I don't know specifically about there being a rule that all loaned participles must take "more/most", though for your particular examples, I would agree that only "more acute/intense/obtuse" are acceptable in formal usage. The increasing use of -er and -est is simply a common linguistic phenomenon known as "generalization", where speakers of a language, given multiple means of expressing an identical idea (in this case comparative "more/-er" and superlative "most/-est"), tend to generalize one pattern to more and more situations. Generalization is not a sign of "degradation" or "erosion" of a language; many things present in modern standard English emerged as generalizations from earlier stages of the language. If it weren't for generalization, for instance, we wouldn't be forming the possessives of all singular nouns with -'s, but would also have -n and -a (Old English genitive case endings) alongside.

As for "winningest", whenever I've heard it, it's been rather tongue-in-cheek. Voikya (talk) 23:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Acute, intense, and obtuse are not past participles in English, and the fact that they're etymologically derived from Latin past participles simply plays no role. The correct formation of their comparative and superlative is decided purely by the same rules that decide comparative/superlative formation of any other English adjective. To my ear, acuter and acutest sound fine, while intenser/intensest and obtuser/obtusest sound a little strange but not flat-out wrong. I think winningest has to be considered an exception; I'd say its comparative equivalent *winninger as well as their opposites *losingest and *losinger are all completely ungrammatical. Winningest probably started out tongue-in-cheek, but I'm not sure it still always is. 85.178.81.116 (talk) 00:06, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

And this really shows how much variation currently exists. I personally would use "more/most" with all of "acute", "intense", and "obtuse", though I don't even think I'd notice anything weird if I heard someone say "acuter" or "intenser" (though "obtuser" sounds a little weird to me). And "losingest" sounds perfectly fine to me (in casual speech only, of course). Again, it feels a little tongue-in-cheek, but definitely not ungrammatical. (And maybe people do use "winningest" as a perfectly normal adjective, but I guess I don't hear it enough to have actually noticed) Voikya (talk) 03:06, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

To me, "winningest", while not particularly elegant, serves a useful function. "Most winning" has an alternate meaning, i.e. most charming (though I dare say there are few coaches to which that would apply). Never mind. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:50, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I have never met the rule you quote, and while I can quite believe that somebody may have concocted it in an attempt to describe English, I greatly doubt that it has any validity as stated. The simpler "rule" I am familiar with is that monosyllables form their degrees with "-er" and "-est", while polysyllables do not. This rule is clearly not accurate, but it does express a general tendency, and since the majority of adjectives derived from participles are polysyllabic, it subsumes your rule. --ColinFine (talk) 00:27, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Japanese numbers

Hi, in ひとつ, ふたつ, みっつ, etc., can any independent meaning be ascribed to the element つ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.161.83.190 (talk) 21:45, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

If any can, then the same question might be asked about -dai, -hiki, -hon, -mai, and -nin. All six suffixes are represented at Counters In Japanese, under "Counting with Counters".

—Wavelength (talk) 00:48, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I already looked at Japanese counter word, but found no mention of it (well, the numbers ひとつ, ふたつ etc. are listed, but there is no mention that I can see of the つ part being a counter). Do you think it should be added? 86.161.83.190 (talk) 01:17, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

According to http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tsu, tsu (hiragana つ) is a counter for small items.

—Wavelength (talk) 01:27, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

[I am correcting my English spelling.—Wavelength (talk) 01:30, 15 December 2010 (UTC)]

Be bold and add it! Oda Mari (talk) 05:14, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

According to [9] it's a counter suffix and it can be written with the kanji 箇 or 個, which are also used for the counter こ. I've never seen it written with kanji, though. I think it's a bit different from the other counters since most of them were imported wholesale from Chinese, but ひとつ etc. precede the era of Chinese influence. At least two other pre-Chinese counters survive, り for people and か for days, so there was apparently some kind of counter system already. It would be nice to have an article or section on it. -- BenRG (talk) 05:15, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Is mad offensive?

Is using "mad" or "madness" when referring to insanity offensive? Someone on the science desk recently said it was, and that surprised me, because it seems to be a very old and common usage. Ariel. (talk) 23:30, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Being old doesn't mean that it isn't offensive today. There was a time when a word like "retarded" was considered value neutral, and was routinely used by doctors in diagnosing mental handicaps. When it became a school-yard insult, it became an offensive word through usage; but it was not devised as offensive. --Jayron32 00:12, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Nobody seems to have baulked at The Madness of King George and insisted on The Insanity of King George. If the person is removed from the speaker by historical distance or lack of personal acquaintance, it seems to be OK to call them mad. But not if they're members of the speaker's family or social/work group. Then again, .... -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 00:20, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I can't imagine it being used in a professional clinical sense in modern times. That usage is obsolete I think. 86.161.83.190 (talk) 01:18, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure that referring to 'insanity' isn't potentially as offensive. It depends on the context though. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:23, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I think it's more the case that 'mad' is associated with, and conveys an image of, a cartoony version of mental illness that actually fits very few or no real people with mental illness: the image of a dangerous, deranged person, talking to invisible people, randomly throwing things, shouting half their words, laughing uncontrollably as they attack random passers by, detached from reality. Real mental illness is hugely varied and has all sorts of different impacts on people's lives, so that one person with mental illness might be able to live the life they want simply by taking the appropriate medication, and only their closest friends and family would know, whereas another might have to make allowances for their illness and schedule plenty of downtime, or avoid certain situations, and another might find their illness makes it difficult to keep up with fulltime employment simply because they stop being able to concentrate, and another might need a permanent carer to keep them safe. Calling these different people 'mad' conjures up a set image of a 'mad' person, which doesn't actually fit them, and is part of what makes mental illness taboo. It is part of why people don't tell anyone they have or had mental health problems, if they can help it, and why people often don't seek medical help in a timely fashion. So yes, it is hurtful and offensive. And, given the proportion of the population that experience mental health problems at some time in their lives, combined with the taboo, every time you use the word you are probably hurting or offending someone who is afraid to tell you so, and adding to the atmosphere that keeps them afraid of someone finding out. 86.161.208.185 (talk) 14:18, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

But that's kind of a side issue that will come from naming any group with a single term, not necessarily from the word "mad" itself. Lumping a group of people together and calling them "insane" or "mentally challenged" or whatever contains the same danger. I don't know if I'd call the word "mad" itself particularly offensive, but it's a tricky word to use: in the US, "mad" often gets used as a synonym for "angry" rather than crazy/insane, while in the UK I think it mostly gets used in situations that are obviously hyperbolic "He parked there? Is he barking mad?!" When I think of it being used as a serious diagnosis (whether medical or informal), I pretty much just picture Alice in Wonderland. Matt Deres (talk) 17:41, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

In the United States, "mad" never refers to insanity except in a handful of compound words and fixed phrases, like "to go mad", "madman", "madness", etc. When the adjective is used on its own, it invariably means "angry". LANTZY^TALK 03:48, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Is bipolarity considered a mental illness? When someone "gets mad", then their angry side comes out, and can result in destructive actions. Hence the plea of "temporary insanity". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:40, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

December 15

Words coined by children

I'm aware of googol's coinage by a nine-year-old. Does anyone know any other dictionary (!) words (in any language) coined by children. Or teenagers, I guess (but I'm already aware of Rimbaud's encrapuler et al too). ---Sluzzelin talk 01:51, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Not a new coinage but a new usage: in 1930 the name for the newly discovered what-was-then-called-planet Pluto was thought up by the 11-year-old Venetia Burney. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 02:24, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Wendy and mama and papa, arguably. -- BenRG (talk) 04:52, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Children can surely be credited with many examples of Inventive spelling. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 05:52, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for those examples (particularly Pluto and Wendy). I guess I'm looking for examples that can be attributed to a known child or adolescent with a name. ---Sluzzelin talk 17:30, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikileaks U.S. Embassy "Cables"

In reading articles about the wikileaks, there is no explanation of what "Cables" means. It is obviously not referring to bundles of copper wires which is the literal definition. This technical jargon needs to be at least explained in its initial usuage of the word "Cables," e.g.

• The US Embassy Cables - "Cables" being technical jargon for "secret communications" - were leaked by....

If someone could address this, it would make understanding the articles a lot simpler. I don't know how to add to Wikipedia, so I'm leaving this in your fine hands. Thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.23.219.99 (talk) 02:37, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Technical terms in wikipedia are most often best explained by a link to a page describing the subject matter. The link should be to Diplomatic cable. The Wikileaks now has such a link; United States diplomatic cables leak already had one. Good call.--Tagishsimon (talk) 02:40, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, no, wikilinking a technical term is not an excuse for not explaining it. Readers shouldn't be expected to click through a bunch of pages to understand an article, and often the linked-to article is more complicated than the first article, sending readers on a never-ending wild goose chase through the encyclopedia. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:10, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh really? Consider the article eye. Would you put inline explanations of the very many bluelinked terms? Meanwhile the articles in question provide amply sufficient context to understand the term absent a visit to the definition page. --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:36, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

If the term is necessary to understand the article and is not clear from the context, an explanation should be required. If the term is not necessary (such as one of several examples of something), a wikilink is sufficient. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:43, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I am sorry but I am with Tagishsimon here. If you know what a "cable" is in this context, you don't need to click on the link. If you don't know and you want to know, click on the link. It is that simple. --Lgriot (talk) 08:16, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Intonation

I know that in English, the Romance languages, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese, you raise the tone of your voice to ask a question. Does the same apply to other languages? If so, why should this seemingly-random intonation rule be universal? --140.180.26.37 (talk) 07:49, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

It's a good question, but I'm not sure the premise is valid. I don't know enough about Chinese or Korean, but in Japanese, while it is true that question intonation involves a rise, it is a different pattern from English (the voice rises just for the question particle 'ka'), so I don't think you can talk about a 'rule'. Intonation (linguistics), though not a very good article, has some more information which casts doubt on your general principle, and has a few references, though I've not followed them. --ColinFine (talk) 08:10, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

In Strayan, we raise our tone when making any sort of statement. (or possibly ?). --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:10, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

It's definitely not universal. Russian, for instance, has a very different question intonation than English. In questions containing an interrogative word ("what?" "who?" "where?" etc), you have a drop in pitch towards the end of the sentence. In questions without an interrogative word, you have a sharp rise on the first syllable of the word that's being emphasized/question, followed by a sharp drop and low intonation for the rest of the sentence. Using English-style question intonation both sounds a little odd (definitely a foreignism) and often doesn't even convey the sense of question—it sounds more like you're just making a statement. Voikya (talk) 12:42, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

In French class, we were taught that intonation is only one of three ways to ask a question. You can also invert the subject and verb ("Have you the right answer?") or add "Est-ce que" ("Is it that") to the front of your statement to turn it into a question. --Thomprod (talk) 13:12, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

There is still intonation with those forms, though. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:48, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

In Fusha Arabic, the word 'hal' makes any sentence a yes/no question. No intonation is needed. --Soman (talk) 16:24, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

In my French phonetics class, we learned that in a yes or no question "Did you eat lunch today?", you raise the sentence at the end. In open-ended questions, such as "How much does this cost?" you drop the intonation at the end. One also raises the intonation at various points within the sentence, so (in Standard French at least) it would be "Pourqoui est-ce que l'homme [up], qui a faime [up], mange ce fromage? [down]". That, in case you are curious, should mean "Why is the man, who is hungry, eating this cheese?" Falconus^{p t c} 16:25, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Nasal "yes" by African-Americans

Hi! There´s a question about English in DE-Wikipedia´s "Auskunft" that can hardly be answered by us Germans - but you might be able to help. I´ll try to translate it: In recent TV-series from the US, female african-american actors increasingly use a nasal "Mmmmmh"-sound, that seems to be an affirmation (meaning "Yes"). On the discussion page, we wondered a) if the use of this form is actually restricted to (female) african-americans? b) if it is a new development? Perhaps one of you locals has any ideas, Besten Dank, --Rudolph Buch (talk) 14:18, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

This form is a variant of the expression often spelled unh-huh or uh-huh, which is an affirmative meaning, more or less, "yes". I think you are describing a variant that uses the rising intonation (first syllable low pitch, second syllable medium pitch) of unh-huh but without every opening the mouth. (Its negative counterpart is uh-uh, with a generally falling intonation pattern). This set of utterances is probably a borrowing into American English from one or more tonal African languages, originally via African slaves during the 17th and 18th centuries. It is in use among all American, black and white, though exaggerated versions of these utterances are stereotypically found among African Americans. In fact, you will find animated versions of these expressions among American whites, too. (See this reference and this discussion.) Marco polo (talk) 15:43, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but this is common in British English too, and on that basis, I doubt that it derives from tonal African languages. I think it is much more likely related to a more general usage of pitch tone variation to indicate yes/no, good/bad etc. Compare 'ah-ha!' with 'uh-oh!'.

I agree it's definitely not uniquely African nor American (or even African American) it's widely used in many varieties of English. Roger (talk) 16:24, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

The question immediately above this one, on 'intonation'. is discussing much the same subject ... AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:27, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

The use of this expression in varieties of English other than American English is hardly evidence against an African origin. If this was an African loan into American English, well established in American English by the 19th century, it would not be the only example of borrowing from American English into other varieties of English since the 19th century. People in the UK and other parts of the Anglosphere have seen Hollywood movies and American television shows, too. Marco polo (talk) 17:22, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Identical "tonal expressions" for yes / no also exist in German. As in English, there is a rising intonation for yes and a falling intonation for no. Generally, they are associated with the appropriate (nodding / shaking) movements of the head. Admittedly, there is a slim possibility that these "words" were introduced by US American (possibly African American) military forces stationed in Germany / Austria. I (having spent my infantility in the US sector of Vienna) doubt it, but maybe a Swiss ref desker (like Sluzzelin) or a person from the former GDR could clear that up. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:04, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

They also exist in Afrikaans. I suspect this phenomenon may have a much older history and emerged in the Germanic language family at a very early stage of their shared history. More research needed... Roger (talk) 19:10, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually I think the original poster was talking about a single-syllable grunt. I use this sometimes; I don't associate it specifically with African-Americans. Actually the first person I remember using it regularly was an Indian guy (as in from India). I think it's become more common in recent years, but I'm not sure of that. --Trovatore (talk) 19:55, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

(OR warning) I was using these sounds long before I ever knew what "African Americans" were, and certainly long before I ever saw or heard anyone from the American or African continents (even on TV -- yes, I can remember the first TV I ever saw), but in my native area (a Yorkshire dale in Cumbria) a rising tone indicates a question, with the affirmative having a flat or falling tone. I tend to no longer use these because they are commonly misunderstood without the associated gestures. Dbfirs 00:39, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure if anyone has totally grasped what the OP was asking about; here is a parody of it from Family Guy. It's extremely difficult to find clips of real people doing this, but, well, any sort of comedy with African-American women is bound to have a few examples. Adam Bishop (talk) 03:13, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I think Marco Polo provided a good answer, but to summarize: the lengthened, exaggerated version is seen as typical of some African-American women (African American Vernacular English), but uh-huh and uh-uh are of course common among all English-speakers. I would also like more evidence for the supposed African derivation, but it is interesting that the first of these two quotations from the OED also gives that explanation (the second gives a little more information on the phonetics).

"1969 D. Dalby in A. Dundes Mother-Wit (1973) 139/1 African usage can also explain the frequent use by Americans of the interjections uh-huh, for ‘yes’, and uh-uh for ‘no’. Similar forms, especially for ‘yes’, occur in scattered parts of the world, but nowhere as frequently and as regularly as in Africa.

"1982 J. C. Wells Accents of English III. vi. 556 There are also the grunts sometimes spelt uh-huh and uh-uh respectively. The first, ‘yes’, is phonetically [ˈə̃hə̃, ˈʌ̃hʌ̃, ˈmm̥m], hence nasal or nasalized; it usually has a rising tone pattern.‥ The second, ‘no’, is [ˈʔəʔˈʔə, ˈʔʌ̃ʔˈʔʌ, ˈʔmʔˈm]‥; it is not necessarily nasal, and has an accented final syllable, with an obligatorily falling tone pattern." Lesgles (talk) 05:35, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Are we talking about the single-syllable version or the more recent two-syllable "uh-huh"? Dbfirs 07:43, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not at all convinced that "uh-huh" and "uh-uh" are of African origin, as Brits have been know to use them as well. But there's no question that a lot of African-American nuggets have been brought into white America over the decades. Endless musical influences, for one. And catch-phrases, like being "dissed", or being "down with that", or slurring the mundane "what's up?" into the stylistic "whuzzuuuup?" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:08, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Apprehension

In English, If ur speaking about someone in the police force or someone else doing apprehensions, what is the right words to use in front of apprehension?

MAKING apprehensions

DOING apprehensions

PERFORMING apprehensions

Or could more than one of these three variants be correct? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.165.123.152 (talk) 14:39, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Far, far better than any of those three variants would be the following:

APPREHENDING.

If you insist on using apprehensions plus a verb instead of the verb apprehend, then I suppose making or performing would be awkward but okay. Doing sounds extremely awkward. Marco polo (talk) 15:37, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't make sense to me at all; apprehension is a state of being, not an action. One cannot do/make/perform it. One can have an apprehension about something or be apprehensive. It means to have a negative or fearful expectation: An apprehension of disaster. Roger (talk) 16:34, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

The Oxford English Dictionary allows apprehension as "The seizure of a person, a ship, etc., in the name of justice or authority; arrest. Const. subj. gen. of the actor, obj. gen. of the person arrested, the latter being more frequent: ‘The king's apprehension of Pym,’ ‘Pym's apprehension by the king’." DuncanHill (talk) 16:37, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

The noun is standard police jargon. However, so is the verb apprehend or apprehending. Marco polo (talk) 17:18, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I would not be at all surprised to hear police persons talking about "effecting an apprehension".

@ Marco polo: "Doing apprehensions" does indeed sound extremely awkward. But no worse, really, than "doing due diligence", a repulsive phrase that's been dumped on us by unthinking corporate dolts. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:37, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

At the risk of seeming not to answer the OP's question, as a native speaker of American English I'd never say any of those (making, doing, or performing apprehensions). I'd say "making arrests." --- OtherDave (talk) 20:54, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree that arrests is more natural, but police are fond of apprehensions, which is actually a somewhat broader term than arrests, including seizures both of persons and of possessions. 192.251.134.5 (talk) 21:14, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Also, an apprehension could result in a mere "detention" rather than an arrest (which triggers more rights). —Tamfang (talk) 08:52, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

In cop-talk, Effecting an apprehension of the perpetrator is probably standard.  :) Corvus cornix_talk 22:54, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Real cops or Hollywood cops? Roger (talk) 23:00, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

As noted by others here, I would think the cops would be more likely to take the active-voice approach and say "apprehended the suspect". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:01, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Old English word definition

And sche bare hir first borun sone, and wlappide hym in clothis, and leide hym in a cratche, for ther was no place to hym in no chaumbir.
I realize "chaumbir" is old English or middle English, however I am interested in the modern definitions.--LordGorval (talk) 16:42, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Chamber is from the french for room. Considering that many modern translations of the passage state there was "no room availible", see NIV and NASB and New King James Version all translate it as "room". --Jayron32 16:51, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

"Chaumbir" is, as noted, simply our modern word "chamber," though used in its old sense of a room in a house, especially a bedroom or other private room. Some other modern meanings of "chamber" are here. A literal translation of this Middle English passage is, "And she gave birth to her first-born son, and wrapped him in cloths, and laid him in a cratch, for there was no place for him in a room." A "cratch" generally is a rack or crib to hold fodder for horses and cattle, although the word can also refer to a manger, which is a long open box or trough for this purpose. John M Baker (talk) 19:16, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

O.K., thanks.--LordGorval (talk) 21:04, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

As discussed a couple of days ago, the terms "creche" and "cratch(e)" have the same origin, and are considered equivalent to "manger". If I'm reading your comments right, they really are the same thing, except maybe some variation in shape and size. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:34, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

After my catholic upbringing in the 1970s and 80s in the UK, I grew up thinking a 'manger' was actually a crib that you put babies in. It was only pretty recently (relatively speaking) that I actually found out it was something that cattle, etc., feed from. I can only assume that our teachers just expected this sort of thing to be common knowledge amongst kids in the city from the age of 3. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 00:01, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I wonder how often in modern English the term "manger" is used in any context other than the Nativity? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:09, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

So seldom that the word is now popularly understood as a poetic synonym of "cradle". But apparently the word retains its original significance in agricultural circles, or did until very recently. A citation from Farmers Weekly, 3 January, 1986: We must do something about the troughing, both to improve intake by having feed constantly in the manger, and to cut down labour. LANTZY^TALK 02:59, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I grew up on a farm with an old-fashioned barn, and we had mangers in which we put ground feed for our animals. I guess we also had cratches to hold their hay, but we didn't call them that; we just called them racks. John M Baker (talk) 03:08, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Knowing that manger is cognate to the homographic French verb meaning "to eat" may help people remember what its actual meaning is. —Angr (talk) 09:27, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

December 16

Help with Japanese needed - image description

Hi! At ja:NARUTO -ナルト- 疾風伝, a description in Japanese is needed for File:Viz Media HQ marquee.JPG - The file is of a marquee promoting Naruto Shippuden at the Viz Media corporate headquarters in San Francisco, California WhisperToMe (talk) 01:23, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

[[ビズメディア]]サンフランシスコ本社に掲げられたNARUTO -ナルト- 疾風伝の看板 Oda Mari (talk) 05:11, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Oda Mari! WhisperToMe (talk) 19:05, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

By the way, how would you say "Watch it on Disney XD" in Japanese? (Disney XD is a television channel)

WhisperToMe (talk) 19:47, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Literal translation is [[ディズニーXD]]でご覧ください. But thinking about promotional phrases often used in Japan, "ディズニーXDで放送中" might be possible translation. It means "Now on air on Disney XD". Oda Mari (talk) 06:52, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Spanish translation help

For wholly unprofitable reasons, I'm translating a collection of Zen koans into Spanish. One of them concerns a master making a "feast in the joss house", a metaphor with the same basic significance as "casting pearls before swine". Joss statues are surrounded in incense, but they smell nothing. In the same way, the master's wisdom is wasted on those pharisaical Buddhists who cling to superstitious ancestor worship and lack true understanding. The trouble is, I can't find a tidy translation of "joss house". I've encountered only one previous translation into Spanish of this koan. The translator uses "casa de incienso", a satisfactory circumlocution, since the metaphor hinges on the futility of the incense. However, purely out of linguistic curiosity, I still seek a direct Spanish translation of "joss house" or simply "joss". (A word with an Iberian pedigree, I believe.) Though the term might be obscure and restricted to sinology or anthropology, I would still like to know it. Might I even get away with "casa de joss" or something? Any suggestions would be welcome. LANTZY^TALK 07:49, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Joss house indicates that it's a small temple or shrine, so maybe that will lead somewhere. Although I must say that unless you happen to know what a joss house is, it doesn't make sense in English, either. I also question the "pearls before swine" comparison, but that's a separate issue. Seems to me there's a more direct metaphor, about doing something for the "benefit" of those who have no capability of using it, but I can't think of it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:55, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

As Bugs said, "joss house" is not a usual English term. Could you give us the term in the original language? Perhaps someone here can give you a more apt English translation that you can then convert into Spanish.

The page Joss house is confusing. For one thing, it opens with the word "Shenist", which seems to be a neologism composed of the Chinese shen, or gods and spirits, and "-ism". It is not a common English word and does not make much sense taking into account the alleged Chinese meaning either. I can only guess, etymologically speaking, a parallel with theist.

In any case, "joss house" seems to be just a rare, local colloquial translation of the Chinese character 庙, which simply means "temple" in common, every-day English. If you could give us the original Chinese or Japanese for your koan, someone here will be able to confirm whether it is better translated as "temple". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 08:04, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Complicating matters is that "joss" is apparently a corruption of Latin-based words for God, such as deus. That would be Casa de Dios in Spanish, but that doesn't really capture the point of the original slogan - which I'm still confused about where you're seeing equating statues with superstitions - although that might be somehow obvious from the slogan in its original form, in which case translating it without adding a paragraph of explanation could prove challenging. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:10, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

On your point about incense - the translation of joss in "joss house" as incense is incorrect, at least according to the explanation given in our article about joss house - using "joss" to mean incense is a secondary borrowing. "Joss house", as "place of worship", came first, and "joss stick", as a name for the incense burned at / before such palce of worship, derives from joss house. Thus, deus -> joss -> joss house -> incense burnt at joss house -> joss sticks (incense).

I'm leaning towards the view that "joss house" here should be translated simply as "temple", unless the original Chinese or Japanese (or whatever) text suggests otherwise. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 08:45, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Searching Google Books in Spanish is pretty fruitful. It turns up some old dictionaries which translate joss-house as "templo para ídolos chinos". This book seems to use the spellings Joss and Yos. You may want to have a look at the other results as well. Lesgles (talk) 09:02, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Cool. I was thinking that yos might be hit upon as a transliteration. Presumably it's an import from English, rather than from Portuguese. LANTZY^TALK 09:19, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Huh, I thought "joss" was relatively well-known in English. Evidently not. In light of that, it's a bit surprising that the original book, The Iron Flute by Nyogen Senzaki, used the term in preference to something like "idol house" or whatever.

As noted above, "idol house" might convey the meaning better. As far as "joss" is concerned, the only one I had ever heard of was Addie Joss, but I doubt there's any connection. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:22, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Joss (or joss sticks) meaning incense is quite well known, but "joss house" certainly isn't (except, it seems, in certain contexts like Macau or the wild wild West).

"Temple of idols", from the Spanish quoted above, seems more natural than "idol house", and conveys the necessary meanings of 1) a temple, and 2) the presence of idols, which I think is crucial to the meaning of the koan you quote. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:41, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:25, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Googling "bad joss" gets 15,000 hits. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:26, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I'd never heard of a "joss house" until I went to Australia - one is a tourist attraction in Bendigo in Victoria[10]. Alansplodge (talk) 09:06, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I have never heard of "bad joss". What does it mean and what dialect of English does it come from? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:58, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Hell's Kitchen

While reading about this programme I noted in the second paragraph the term "...presently running" is used. Please not that the word "presently" refers to "soon." The actual expression should be "...currently running."

David J. Cottrell, M.Ed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.8.225.53 (talk) 14:29, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Presently can mean "soon" or "now."[11] That said, I don't see any reason not to make your suggested change. In the future, please feel free to make corrections wherever you see fit. --Onorem♠Dil 14:36, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, presently means "now" but it is used as a euphemism for "soon" in some cultures, therefore the change is beneficial. Dbfirs 21:24, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

It used to be used that way in America also, but it seems to have fallen out of fashion. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:00, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

No. "Presently" with a future verb means "soon" in the UK, but with a present continuous (or participle) it cannot have that meaning, so the original phrase is not ambiguous. --ColinFine (talk) 00:42, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

This is what I was specifically thinking of: A Rodgers and Hart number from the Crosby/Fields film Mississippi, whose signature number is "Soon", and which contains this lyric: "For presently and pleasantly our hearts will be in tune / So soon, maybe not tomorrow, but soon." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:00, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

"Presently", "momentarily" and a bunch of other words with disputed meanings are discussed here. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 00:58, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. I hadn't realised that the meiotic usage (popularised by Shakespeare) has taken over to such an extent that some believe the original meaning to be wrong! The following is an extract from the Yorkshire Post of 1902: "A lady..in the South of England married a man who was born on Tyneside, and I have noticed that they used the common word ‘presently’ in exactly opposite senses. Neither of them was in any doubt as to the meaning of the word, but he said ‘presently’ when he meant ‘now, at once, immediately’...". Dbfirs 08:18, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Unclear Hanzi on a 19th century Chinese hell scroll

A while ago, I uploaded a picture from a 19th century Chinese hell scroll showing a headless Yue Fei accusing the recently deceased Qin Hui. I cannot make out all of the characters on the plaque the attendant is holding off to the left. I know the first two say Qin Hui (秦檜), the third is shi （十), but I'm lost after that. The fourth character looks like it could be yao (要). --Ghostexorcist (talk) 21:15, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

It is 秦檜十悪罪状 and it means Qin Hui's ten bad crimes. Oda Mari (talk) 05:38, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 05:58, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Passé simple

Why do they call it that? It's a lot less simple than the passé composé. --75.28.52.27 (talk) 23:48, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

According to the articles, Passé simple means "simple past" and Passé composé means "compound past". It appears that the "simple" form uses only the verb by itself, whereas the "compound" form connects with an auxiliary verb. That would seem to be the explanation. Perhaps a Frenchy could elaborate here. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:06, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Simple doesn't necessarily mean "easy". The preterite is simpler in the sense that it uses one verb instead of two. LANTZY^TALK 00:09, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

The passé composé always involves an irregular verb! —Tamfang (talk) 00:42, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

In this case the meaning of simple is the same in French and in English. From the Webster's Unabridged Dictionary: "(of a verb tense) consisting of a main verb with no auxiliaries, as takes (simple present) or stood (simple past) (opposed to compound)." — AldoSyrt (talk) 08:52, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

We have an article on Simple past (English). In Romanian too it is called "simple perfect", in Italian it is called "remote past". For a limited overview, see also the article on preterite (a term for this kind of tense used in several languages). ---Sluzzelin talk 09:00, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

What they all said: "simple" doesn't mean it's easier for us to use, it means it uses a single wordform instead of an auxiliary verb plus a participale (which the passe compose does). rʨanaɢ (talk) 10:05, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Yup. It would be more accurate to call them passé synthétique and passé analytique (or périphrastique), but those aren't the usual terms. —Angr (talk) 10:45, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

December 17

Ahorita

Is the word used outside of Mexico? I know a Mexican-American who learned Spanish only recently, and not to the point of fluency. He uses "ahorita" profusely, even to the point of never saying "ahora". He doesn't grasp its true significance. He treats it as merely a cute, distinctively Mexican way of saying "now". He once claimed (with pride) that some Argentines in his youth soccer league routinely mocked him for using the word, but perhaps they were mocking him for misusing it, or using it affectedly. Would the word, properly used, be particularly jarring or ridiculous to people outside of Mexico? Or is it just that Mexicans are particularly fond of it? LANTZY^TALK 00:57, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

My Spanish-English dictionary lists both ahorita and ahoritita as "American informal". The more "formal" way to say "right now" is ahora mismo. The informal one I always used to hear, which was adopted into English, is pronto or muy pronto. There's also the obvious cognate, inmediatamente. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:10, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

As noted here,[12] ahora comes from the Latin hac hora, which means "this hour". There was a discussion recently about just what "a moment", "a minute", "a second", etc. really mean; and it's clear that it's not always clear, especially if your mother says "now" meaning "right now", and you think "now" means "within the hour". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:18, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

And how does that reply contribute in the least to answering the question, Bugs? The question was about usage, not meaning. --ColinFine (talk) 08:23, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

My Spanish dictionary (Collins) marks ahorita as "esp[ecially] S[outh ]Am[erican]", implying that as far as they know it's less common in Mexico than further south. As for the double meaning discussed in the blog post Lantzy linked to, I'd say English right away has the same double meaning - depending on context, it can mean "this very instant" or "as soon as possible / as soon as I get around to it". German sofort (usually glossed "immediately") also has the double meaning. If your mother tells you to do something sofort, you start work on it within three seconds. But if your waiter tells you he'll be with you sofort, that means within the next 10 to 15 minutes, if you're lucky. —Angr (talk) 09:16, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

A question for Sanskrit afficionados

I know I'm taking a shot in the dark here, but can anybody translate what the characters in http://i53.tinypic.com/2yw6auo.jpg say? I asked a few places under the assumption it was Japanese, but one person told me it was more likely a form of Sanskrit. Irrelevant Supporting Character (talk) 04:30, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Sanskrit has been written in many different scripts in its long history. A few are shown here. To my unturored eye, your characters most resemble the Tibetan script out of those shown, and may of course be some other language (Standard Tibetan or one of the other Tibetan languages?) written in that script. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 06:09, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

It does look more like Japanese to me, but I wouldn't rule out Siddhaṃ script. What's the source? —Tamfang (talk) 07:48, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

It appears to be written vertically, which AFAIK rules out any abugida derived from the Brahmi script, including Tibetan and Siddham. It looks like grass script to me; if so, it could be Chinese or Japanese. —Angr (talk) 09:21, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Improving my English - simple question, should i use 'shot in', 'broke in' or something else ?

Speaking English, when three people are having a conversation and two of them end up talking the most and adressing mostly each other as they speak while the third person remains quiet for a while, then if the third person suddenly responds to something which one of the other two said, is it correct to say that he/she "shot" in or "broke in"?

I'll show an example here.

"I think what you did was great, Anne," John said, "and I can easily understand why you have gotten so much praise in the local newspaper,"

"I did only what anyone would have done in such a situation," Anne explained, insisting that what she did wasn't all that great.

"Don't be so modest," Lisa shot/broke in, "be proud of what you did, and don't be afraid to take in the praise, for you have deserved it."

Can i say that, that Lisa 'shot in', or 'broke in'? It doesn't sound entirely right to me, and perhaps there are another word, or even several other words that I should rather use? Or maybe I should simply formulate myself differently?

Then how would you do it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.165.123.152 (talk) 15:13, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

"Broke in" may work in some colloquial way, some dialects would recognize it and others would not. It may be better to use the more formal "interrupted" instead. --Jayron32 15:16, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

thank you. I have already considered using 'interrupted', but that didn't feel entirely right either, because I don't feel that she's interrupting anything. She was always there and part of the conversation after all. She didn't come from nowhere and interrupt them if you understand what I mean. But maybe you're right. I'm sure 'interrupted' is better than what I was ending up with. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.165.123.152 (talk) 15:31, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

In that case, try the word "interjected". It more captures what you are trying to say. --Jayron32 15:38, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Presumably the conversation would be taking place in the US - "gotten" would not be used in British English. Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:37, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree w/ Jayron...interjected would be my choice. Buster Seven Talk 15:44, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I would confirm that gotten is specific to North American English (where it is the standard form). I think gotten is widely used in Canada as well as the United States. I also agree with Jayron that interjected is the best word to use here. Shot in is understandable but not standard; broke in sounds too much like burglary. Marco polo (talk) 15:45, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

To me it depends on what type of writing you are trying to do. If you are writing a report or something formal, "interjected" would be your way to go. If you are writing a novel, you have a lot more license. "Broke in" does sound very odd, but "shot in" could be something that would convey what you intend, especially if the other character is prone to talking a lot very quickly, for example. It's not standard usage, but it's not wrong usage in the proper context (in my opinion). I could see it being used as "'Liar!', Kathy shot in as Theo was talking." I may not choose that word combo, but it works for me (American English, North Carolina). Falconus^{p t c} 16:17, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

French grammar question

On working through a book of French grammar, I have come across the question "Depuis combien de temps chante-t-elle dans cette chorale?". I know that this means 'How long has she been singing in this choir?' but my question is what is the function of the lone 't' in 'chante-t-elle'? Is it to stop chante and elle merging into one word or something? Thanks 92.11.32.186 (talk) 16:35, 17 December 2010 (UTC)