Welcome to the language section
of the Wikipedia reference desk.

Select a section:

WP:RD/L

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.

February 9

Chinese again - need computer enterable characters

In http://www.csrgc.com.cn/ens/uploadfiles/tzzgx/zgsms/20080808021421160.pdf the parts about "CSR Chengdu Locomotive & Rolling Stock Co., Ltd." see Page 19. I need the chinese characters for the company so I can perform a search etc, but the pdf wont let me copy them (is it a bitmap?) Could someone type them in in unicode format.Thanks. Sf5xeplus (talk) 04:00, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Probably 南车成都机车车辆有限公司. See this. Oda Mari (talk) 05:09, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In traditional characters: 南車成都機車車輛有限公司 rʨanaɢ (talk) 05:25, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent. Thank you very much. Both work - ie http://www.cdjcc.com/zhaopin/default.html and many other useful results. Sf5xeplus (talk) 10:03, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

In what language is this song?

The song here: [1] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.69.156.116 (talk) 12:23, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

fixed formatting decltype (talk) 12:30, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can't hear anything, but the website is from Israel and the text is Hebrew, so I guess the song is also in Hebrew? Adam Bishop (talk) 12:41, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, I'm sure the song is not in Hebrew. For me it works only in Internet Explorer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.69.156.116 (talk) 13:34, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

February 10

Coat of arms of Paray-Vieille-Poste

Hi! I saw: http://www.paray-vieille-poste.fr/rubriques_principales/notre_ville/histoire

So... "le huchet des postillons annonçant leur passage pour dire aux passants de se garer"

What is that in French?

And which Abbey of St. Germain is it talking about? Is it the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés? Or something else? WhisperToMe (talk) 01:49, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In French it means "le huchet des postcillons annonçant leur passage pour dire aux passants de se garer". :) In English, however, it means "the bugles of the postilions announcing their passage to tell bystanders to move out of the way." Given the town's proximity to Paris, I assume it does mean the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés; the only other abbey by that name that I can find is the Abbey of Saint-Germain-d'Auxerre, which is about 150 km away. Lesgles (talk) 02:07, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much WhisperToMe (talk) 03:06, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

no less than vs not less than

I want to know the exact difference between 'no less than' and 'not less than'. Maybe it stems from the role of 'no' and 'not'. Please give me your nice advice. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EricJoh (talk • contribs) 02:31, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Depends on the context. These would be used in different contexts. It's hard for me to say more without examples of contexts in which these would be used (I'm sure someone will come along soon and provide some). rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:13, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Not less than X" is an alternative way of saying "X or higher/more", or "at least X". It usually forms part of some formal condition:

Applicants for migration must ensure they have not less than $20,000 in immediately accessible private funds.

But consider His diet is going really well. He has lost no less than 15 kilos already. That is not saying "at least 15 kilos"; it's more or less exactly 15 kilos, but it's emphasising the amount he's actually lost when a lower amount might have been expected.

Or, in reverse: He was expecting to have lost 20 kilos by now, but he's managed to shed no more than 5 kilos. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 03:32, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, in the context Jack has given, "no less than" seems to stress that it's a large number. (e.g., saying "he lost no less than 15 kilos" conveys the same message, more or less, as "he lost a lot of kilos"). "Not less than" doesn't have that implication. rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:39, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Latin help again please

Back on my M. R. James... The phrases I need help with are 1)dolebat se dolere non posse (I think something like sorry for sorrow was not possible?), 2)secretum meum mihi et filiis domus meae, 3) umbra mortis (shadow of death?), 4) princeps tenebrarum, 5) vallis filiorum Hinnom 6) Hostanes magus (this is a person from mythology?), 7) penetrans ad interiora mortis. Many thanks, DuncanHill (talk) 14:45, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(1) "He was sorry that he could not be sorry". (2) something like "my secret for myself and the sons of my house". (3) Yes, "shadow of death". (4) "Prince of darkness". (5) "Valley of the sons of Hinnom" (~~whoever that may be~~ another name for Gehenna). (6) "Hostanes the magus" (who's mentioned at Daemon (classical mythology)). (7) "Penetrating to the interior of death". Pais (talk) 15:06, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, the valley of the sons of Hinnom is Gehenna. DuncanHill (talk) 15:09, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I found that and corrected it already myself! Although our article says it's singular in Hebrew, so the Latin should be vallis fili Hinnom. Pais (talk) 15:14, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

English language: - there's a word for this, but I can't recall it

I know there is an English word which describes the process of paying people the same wages as spending power decreases - does this ring any bells with anyone? pablo 15:02, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure, but a related concept is purchasing power. See also Real versus nominal value (economics). Maybe these articles contain the word or phrase you are looking for. --Viennese Waltz 15:50, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed income? Bus stop (talk) 15:57, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, the word I'm looking for was used (in a similar manner to the way that 'attrition' is used) to convey a gradual worsening of a situation. pablo 16:31, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This article may contain the word or concept you're looking for - many countries are being pushed into fiscal austerity programs, some of them because they cannot devalue their currency (which would have the effect on wages that you're talking about). Another situation in which wages may stay the same (stagnate) while real costs rise is inflation. ☯.Zen Swashbuckler.☠ 16:40, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Purchasing power erosion or something like that? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 17:30, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Shrinking dollar? Bus stop (talk) 18:01, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

~~Cost-of-living adjustment (COLA)?~~ Marco polo (talk) 18:10, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to be the total lack of any adjustment, Marco. As the cost of living gradually goes up, the dollar or whatever becomes of less and less value, but the wage stays exactly the same in absolute dollar terms. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 19:14, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, I misread the question. Sorry. Marco polo (talk) 20:42, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wage erosion seems to be a common term. In some cases, wage erosion is connected to currency devaluation. Marco polo (talk) 20:46, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I thought of the term Stagflation, though I can see from the article that Wage erosion is just one of the symptoms. -- Q Chris (talk) 08:58, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you all. The sentence where I encountered it ran something like "The workforce had been misled and xxxxxxxed"; ie it was used as a verb, to describe the effect on the individual of wage erosion. Eventually I will probably re-read the book it was in, hopefully this will be sooner rather than later. pablo 11:48, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps wage-frozen or fixed-waged or something similar? 93.95.251.162 (talk) 16:35, 15 February 2011 (UTC) Martin.[reply]

Ctrl+F ?

Oh, I always get frustrated when that does not work in paper books :(. Ditto for Ctrl+Z on hand-written text (which I seldom practice these days). No such user (talk) 12:01, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"The workforce had been misled and exploited? -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 14:38, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Of all the sentences in all the encyclopedias in all the world, the period walks out of mine.

Somebody just took out the ending periods in the quotations in the following:

The others were: "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." (20th), "Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By.'" (28th), "Round up the usual suspects." (32nd), "We'll always have Paris." (43rd), and "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine." (67th).

Could this be right? Or is this some craven Vichy kowtowing? Clarityfiend (talk) 21:42, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Full_stop#Punctuation_styles_when_quoting provides some insight into the two approaches. --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:10, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That link deals with where to put punctuation in relation to quotation marks, but I think that the point here is that periods are not used within sentences, just at the end of them. When a quoted statement appears within another sentence, no period is used after the quoted statement (although a comma or semicolon or dash may be used if the syntax requires one). Consider the example "He cried out 'I'm leaving right now' and slammed the door"; you wouldn't put a period after now, would you? In the case cited by Clarityfiend, the colon after "were" should also be deleted, but the deletion of all the periods at the end of the quoted sentences is correct—they're already separated by the serial commas, and there's already a period at the end of the whole thing. Deor (talk) 23:07, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

arabic we the people

One of the most popular slogans of the 2011 Egypt revolution is "ash-sha'ab yurid isqat an-nizam" (The People want the fall of the system"). But wouldn't "ash-sha'ab nurid isqat an-nizam" make more sense, thereby signaling that the people = us? --Soman (talk) 23:19, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It wouldn't make any more sense than "the people, we want the fall of the system" in English. It's not exactly wrong, but it's not exactly right either, and it's not as catchy and concise. Adam Bishop (talk) 00:10, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This got me wondering, what is "we the people" in Arabic? I found some translations of the US Constitution that start off with "nahnu ash-sha'ab", so there you go. They could say "nahnu ash-sha'ab nurid", but since they don't use present-tense forms of "to be", without "nurid" it could also just say "we are the people". Adam Bishop (talk) 02:01, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

February 11

English V2?

Now you are here.

Are you now here?

Now are you here......

In English, the first and second word orders above are statements. In both English and German, the second word order above is a question. In English, the third word order would indicate that it is a question and in German it would be an indicative statement. That's because English is an SVO language and German is a V2 language. Or at least, that's the usual account of these matters, I think. Now then: A cartoon has a physics professor saying that under Einsteinian relativity, gravity too is limited by the speed of light. A student says:

So professor, your saying that if a planet were destroyed long ago in a galaxy far, far away, only now would we sense a disturbance in the force?

(Then the professor says:

Congratulations. You get an A. Please leave. )

Now notice: "Would we sense..." in English would usually be a question. If it were a statement, one would say "We would sense...". But when "Only...." is there, then one says "Only now would we sense..." and it's a statement, not a question. Likewise, if one says "Does one see such a thing...." it's a question, but if one says "Seldom does one see such a thing..." then it's a statement.

So sometimes English behaves like a V2 language!

Is there an account of this phenomenon in standard grammars? (There must be, I would think.) Where is it? (Naively.....) Michael Hardy (talk) 05:29, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There sure is. It's called negative inversion, but we don't have an article for it and the article for inversion isn't very good. --Kjoonlee 09:31, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm, I guess negative inversion is a type of subject-auxiliary inversion in English. --Kjoonlee 09:34, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But the sentence "Only now would we sense..." is in the Yodaese dialect of Galactic Basic, not English so... Rmhermen (talk) 14:44, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yodaese is somewhat like German and Dutch in its syntax, but I think sentences like "Only later did I realize that..." is perfectly normal English. Michael Hardy (talk) 16:44, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is some relevant information in "Subject Verb Object".

—Wavelength (talk) 15:23, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In formal (especially written) English, V2 (or more specifically, inversion after an adverbial phrase) is quite common. In informal English it is unusual. --ColinFine (talk) 18:04, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But the phrase "Neither am I" is not unusual in quite informal speech. Michael Hardy (talk) 00:12, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

...you're saying that if a planet was destroyed...
Sleigh (talk) 09:08, 12 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, kjoonlee and others who have answered. Michael Hardy (talk) 16:47, 12 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

These "only now", "only later", "not only" etc. constructions are among the few times when English still has subject-aux inversion outside questions and negatives ("not only" doesn't count as a negative here). I've noticed it's hard for German speakers to grasp this - they're so accustomed to suppressing subject-aux inversion when they speak English that they don't know to say "Not only is it important to understand that XYZ..." but say "Not only it is important to understand that...", which to my ears is ungrammatical in any register of English. Subject-aux inversion in positive statements used to be more common back in Early Middle English - you encounter it a lot in Shakespeare, the King James Bible, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, etc., e.g. "The Lord is my shepherd, therefore can I lack nothing", where in today's English we would say "therefore I can lack nothing". But even in EME, the verb always follows the subject in subordinate clauses, just as in German the verb always comes at the end there. For example, from the same psalm: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death". Since though is a subordinate conjunction, there's no inversion after it. —Angr (talk) 21:17, 12 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So is this. Michael Hardy (talk) 05:09, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Have a go at analysing this: "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York; and all the clouds that lour'd upon our house in the deep bosom of the ocean buried." Roger (talk) 20:36, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a verb form of "appellation" meaning "to name"?

Obviously "appellate" doesn't work, though that seems the natural fit to me, because it's already well-established as an adjective having to do with court appeals. I was hoping for something sharing the same appell- root, if possible. Just a bit of whimsy, is all. The Masked Booby (talk) 06:46, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the OED Online lists appellate as a rare verb meaning "[t]o call, to designate". Two quotations are given, one 1765, the other 1837. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 06:53, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Christen, Designate, Denote, etc. might work for you. 109.128.65.70 (talk) 10:34, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is something wrong with "to name" as a verb form meaning "to name"? 71.141.88.54 (talk) 11:32, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes: it's not what the questioner is looking for. LANTZY ^TALK 12:08, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You could "apply a name" to something. That's as near as I can come to what you're looking for. LANTZY ^TALK 12:07, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nomenclate? Some dictionaries have it, others don't, so I'd check it in something reliable like OED before using it. - X201 (talk) 12:12, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, none of these terms are similar in form to appellation (apart from appellate which I mentioned earlier). Nomenclate does occur in the OED Online ("To assign a name or names to; to call by a certain name. Also: to classify"; marked "poetic" and "rare"), and we could add to all these delightful words the Old English yclepe ("To call by name, name": OED Online). — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 13:30, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The root of "appellation" is "appeal".[2] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:06, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please help with this sentence structure OR How can we make this sound better?

I am working on a new procedure manual for our department (New Director - New/'Better' Procedures) This sentence has been kicked back to me again & at this point Im not sure if I just want to burn the book or just forget this procedure ever existed!!! :0

Here is the sentence:

BACKGROUND (title)

The Environmental Services Director may communicate internally and externally using a variety of methods, and may be formal or informal communications.Bartswife (talk) 18:34, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"The Environmental Services Director may communicate internally and externally using a variety of methods; these communications may be formal or informal." --LarryMac | Talk 18:37, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Strip the sentence down a bit, and it comes out as: "The ES Director may be (formal or informal) communications." That is the problem with the sentence, adjust the object-subject relation around there and you have a better sentence. TomorrowTime (talk) 18:42, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Pardon me for saying so, but do you really need this "procedure" to be spelled out - at all? Internally and externally covers the entire set of possibilities, so that can go immediately. Everyone in business communicates, and is expected to communicate, using a variety of methods (face to face, phone, email ...) nothing special there. Formal and informal communications - what else is there? So, what possible value is this procedure adding to what everyone and his dog would normally expect anyway? It's a little like having a formal procedure saying "The Director will breathe air and will eat enough to keep himself healthy". I speak as one who's written policy manuals and the like, so I'm not being flippant. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 20:02, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Jack's point that this procedure sounds a bit superfluous. However, if you must have such a sentence, you could change "and may be" to "which may include", and the sentence would be fine. Marco polo (talk) 21:21, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sadly in business sometimes the axiom is "that which is not expressly permitted by the rulebook is prohibited". If they don't spell out that this poor sap can talk to people he might not be allowed to! I concur with your change, however I might break it up a bit more: "The Environmental Services Director may communicate internally and externally. The methods used may be formal or informal." I've always been a fan of direct, short sentences in business writing where ambiguity can be dangerous and misinterpretation a problem. 65.29.47.55 (talk) 05:01, 12 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Or even just "which may be". Straightontillmorning (talk) 22:29, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is this part of a job description? I'd change 'may' to 'will' if such communication is part of her job, and simplify all the various kinds of communications, then add what she'll be communicating about to make it more clear. I don't know what the director really does, but it might go something like, "The Environmental Services Director will keep the staff informed about health and safety issues, and will communicate the company's goals and progress to the media, the community, and our stockholders." Just my opinion, feel free to ignore it, I am not a trained technical writer, etc. Let 'simplicity' and 'clear communication' be your watchwords. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 22:36, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Or in plain English, "Use plain English". :) -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 22:58, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How about this: The Environmental Services Director is permitted and encouraged to communicate internally and externally by any method, formal or informal, that the director judges to be appropriate. I'm assuming here that what you're really trying to say is that the director doesn't have to submit messages to anybody else for filtering. Looie496 (talk) 22:57, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How about:"The Environmental Services Director may use a variety of formal or informal methods to communicate with others internally within the department or externally to the department." or "The Environmental Services Director may use a variety of methods to communicate with others within the department and outside of the department. The methods used to communicate with others may be formal or informal." or "The Environmental Services Director may use a variety of formal or informal methods to communicate within or outside of the department." -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 14:26, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

February 12

Wimmel

What's the literal meaning of the "wimmel" in wimmelbilderbuch? 81.131.56.30 (talk) 09:08, 12 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Es wimmelt von..." means something like "It's teeming with...". Lots of small things running around. --Wrongfilter (talk) 09:37, 12 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Teemingpicturesbook. Good enough for me. Thank you! 81.131.64.195 (talk) 09:42, 12 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the Deutsches Wörterbuch by the Brothers Grimm gives the basic/original meaning as "sich lebhaft hin- und herbewegen", so it actually refers to a rapid, rather random movement back and forth, rather than the quantity.--Wrongfilter (talk) 09:45, 12 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Heh. Wrigglingpicturesbook? Even better. 81.131.64.195 (talk) 09:56, 12 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This web site can be useful. In particular, see this entry. Michael Hardy (talk) 16:50, 12 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It says in the German article:

Auf den sich dann im Buch meist doppelseitig erstreckenden Bildern wimmelt es von detailliert dargestellten Menschen, Tieren und Dingen, woraus sich der Name der Bilderbuchart ergibt.

Rough translation: "The usually double-sided pictures are teeming with detailed people, animals and things, where also the name of the type of the picture book comes from". JIP | Talk 17:18, 12 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes but "es wimmelt von" is an idiom that came from "wimmeln" which means to wriggle, so Wrigglingpicturesbook would be a more appropriate literal translation.--87.79.212.251 (talk) 20:36, 12 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps "crawling with" might be closer? --ColinFine (talk) 22:13, 12 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Could be. Google Translate translates wimmeln as "swarm", among other things. However, the root seems to be connected with something that turns, the English cognates being "gimlet" and also the now-obscure "wimble" (which has nothing to do with Wimbledon, FYI). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:03, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Who's that girl?

I met a German girl the other day, and she said her name was something like "Gute". I know it was definitely not "Ute". But, "Gute" is not a girls' name in German, apparently. Which other options are available? 212.169.188.95 (talk) 21:20, 12 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Jutte? Pity you're so sure it wasn't Ute, because that is a common girl's name. —Angr (talk) 21:25, 12 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Does "something like Gute" mean with a soft G? I know a German woman named Jutta, which must be a variation of Angr's answer; but the J is pronounced like a Y, as usual in German, ja. --Anonymous, 01:33 UTC, February 13, 2011. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.76.104.133 (talk • contribs) 2011-02-13T01:34:17 (UTC)

Some ideas: Gerda, Gerdi, Gerdis, Gerta, Gerti, Gertie, Gerty, Gertien, Gertje, Gita, Gitta, Gitte, Gitti, Goda, Godela, Godje, Gotje, Greet, Greeta, Greete, Gretje, Gretjen, Griet, Grieta, Grietje, Grete, Greta, Gret, Gretchen, Gretel, Grethe, Gretine, Grit, Gritt, Grita, Gritta, Guda, Gudula, Gudela, Gunda, Gunde, Gonda, Gundi, Gundel, Gundela, Gunna.--151.51.155.68 (talk) 21:26, 12 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Gudrun used to be fairly common although it sounds a bit old-fashioned now. A possible abbreviation for that name would be Gudi. I know of one person who's called that. --Wrongfilter (talk) 02:00, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not Gudi Tüschüs, by any chance? :) -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 09:42, 13 February 2011 (UTC) [reply]

Aaaand the boy gets a cigar. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:52, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Are you sure that the girl told you her first name, or a nickname which was derived from her first name? I knew some girls whose nicknames were derived from their surnames (especially when their first names were very frequent, or when two friends had the same first name). In that case, the girl's name might be anything.

By the way, when my son was in the United States for half a year, he told Americans to call him "Nick", derived from his surname, as they usually could not pronounce his first name, "Achim".-- Irene1949 (talk) 22:58, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Heh. I knew an American girl named Heather who lived in France for a year. Since the French couldn't pronounce either the [h] or the [ð] of her name, and she didn't want to spend a year being called "Ezzer", people called her Violette, from her explanation that heather is une fleure violette. (If she had known the genus name, she could have told them to call her Erica, but she didn't.) —Angr (talk) 14:42, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Capital or not a capital

Is there a rule about when and where the word Arctic is capitalised within the body of an article? For example we have Arctic cod, Arctic ground squirrel and Arctic char where it is always capitalised. Then there is Arctic Hare where it is never capitalised. Of course Hare in the title is capitalised but never in the body of the article. Then there is Subarctic and Subarctic climate where it is not capitalised but who knows. There is also Arctic-alpine which gives arctic-alpine, "...the Arctic and more southerly mountain ranges, particularly the Alps." and "...between the arctic and the Alps." Looking at some of the references for Arctic hare does not help much Mammal Species of the World has the distribution on "Canadian arctic islands" and the "coast of Arctic Ocean." The ICUN Red List of Threatened Species in the "Taxonomic Notes" section says it is an "Arctic Hare" and in the "Range Description" that it lives on the "arctic tundra" and "Arctic islands" plus this time it's an "Arctic hare". Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 22:56, 12 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Arctic" isn't mentioned explicitly in WP:Manual of Style (capitalization). In my own usage, the "Arctic" is a part of the world and "arctic" is the adjective describing its climate. In some contexts they would be practically interchangeable. --Anonymous, 01:40 UTC, February 13, 2011. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.76.104.133 (talk • contribs) 2011-02-13T01:40:22 (UTC)

If you were to say "European" or "Asian" or "American" climate, you would capitalize. So I would think the same rule would apply to "Arctic" and "Antarctic". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:10, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For spelling, consult a dictionary! Merriam-Webster says that as an adjective it can be spelt either with or without a capital, though the place (proper noun) is capitalised, and the rubber overshoe known as an "arctic" is not capitalised.[3]. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:57, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks folks. I should have thought about the dictionary thing and it turns out WordWeb gives a good explanation. It also gives the results in a different order depending on the capital/non-capital A. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 15:48, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Arabic writing translation wanted, please

Answered, thanks! More out of interest than anything, I would like to know what this ring says! You can see a photo here: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Islamic-Arabic-Sterling-Silver-Ring-Carved-red-aqeeq-/200573336438?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2eb31a3b76 Thanks for any help, --Snorgle (talk) 23:25, 12 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's the last two verses of Sura Al-Qalam (The Pen) in Quran, translated here, usually used to keep bad eyes away. --Omidinist (talk) 05:18, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the information, Omidinist. Snorgle (talk) 14:05, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

February 13

Translation of a long Latin sepulchral inscription

Latin-speaking editors looking for a challenge may want to help complete the English translation of the sepulchral inscription of Allia Potestas at "File:Sepulchral inscription of Allia Potestas (1st–4th century CE) - 200505.jpg". Thanks. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 07:01, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There's an English translation here. ---Sluzzelin talk 07:51, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I guess we can link to it, but obviously it can't be reproduced in the Wikimedia Commons wholesale for copyright reasons. I guess if someone would like to practise their Latin translation skills, we could still do with one on the file description page. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 10:06, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It might take awhile to get through this, we are used to shorter phrases and sentences on the Reference Desk! But I guess we can use that other translation as a guide, so that helps. By the way, it's interesting that the inscription seems to be in rustic capitals, rather than the usual square capitals. Adam Bishop (talk) 13:14, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

what is the high-falutin' version (meaning) of the word "precious"?

high-falutin' people use "precious" differently from the rest of us. case in point:

“

In 2007, Freeman started paying close attention to the swan-neck kettles used for filter coffee. The narrow spout produces a thin, precise stream, and the handle brings your hand into a naturally balanced position — instead of flooding the filter and letting it drip, you deliver a measured amount of water over a period of several minutes. It might sound precious or tedious, but the control is enthralling.

”

what does that mean? 109.128.173.201 (talk) 11:40, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See wikt:precious, the adjectival sense, definitions 3 and 4:

3. (pejorative) treated with too much reverence.

* He spent hours painting the eyes of the portrait, which his fellow artists regarded as a bit precious.

4. (pejorative) contrived to be cute or charming

--Trovatore (talk) 12:00, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Precious" has the same root as "price",[4] and EO states that what one might call the "satirical" use of it dates back many centuries. You can almost always tell by context. I would also think of that usage as similar to the way Dana Carvey's "Church Lady" character used to say, "Isn't that special", in reference to something that wasn't. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:10, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dennis Miller recently noted that Glenn Beck was a bit precious for his taste. Per above meaning - contrived to be cute or charming - seems to fit. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 14:14, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That usage is similar to wikt:twee. Corvus cornix_talk 07:02, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Arabic: Habibi / habibti

Is it correct that habibi is only for reference to males, and in Arabic is never used for females (for the latter only habibti would be used)? Thank you.--68.175.35.188 (talk) 11:41, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's what the Habibi article seems to be saying. I can give you an equivalent in Spanish, where amigo is a male friend and amiga is a female friend. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:01, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In literary Arabic (and classical) those are the correct male and female forms. The spoken varieties are not always so strict. I don't know if any have lost the masculine/feminine distinction entirely, but the song Nour el ain by Amr Diab, for example, is presumably about a woman, and he always says habibi (it is even an alternate name for the song). Adam Bishop (talk) 13:00, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Think ħabibati is the correct feminine classical form (while ħabibti seems to show vernacular/dialect type vowel syncope)... AnonMoos (talk) 14:56, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Latin sexual verb

Long ago, I read about a Latin verb that more or less means "to receive anal sex". Perhaps its meaning is more general than that - perhaps it means "to be fucked". But I don't think it was commonly applied to women. My recollection is that it was almost always used to characterize passive males, and was closely associated with gluteal undulations. (Hence, the verb could be applied in a secondary sense to someone who wasn't being screwed, but was merely gyrating or writhing in a particular "receptive" manner.) I recall that the term would sometimes be translated, rather inadequately, by the English verb "to grind". Can anyone tell me what this Latin verb was? Also: Did the word survive, in any form, in any of the daughter languages? LANTZY ^TALK 15:52, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Catullus 16 might have hints... AnonMoos (talk) 16:03, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was going to suggest the same thing, although "pedicare" is used for the penetrator there. There is a great book called "The Latin Sexual Vocabulary", which can be previewed on Google Books, which might have the answer. Adam Bishop (talk) 16:07, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) A quick glance at J. N. Adams's The Latin Sexual Vocabulary suggests that ceueo may be the verb you have in mind, as it was used to refer to the motions of a male pathic (with criso being used to refer to the motions of the female in heterosexual intercourse). I'll pass on your other question. Deor (talk) 16:12, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We also have a delightfully detailed article on Latin profanity - Cēveō does seem a close match to what you describe, both it an its female equivalent crisare are described as having been lost in all romance languages. ·Maunus·ƛ· 16:15, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's it! Ceveo. LANTZY ^TALK 18:13, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Translation of 巨蜂葡萄

This should be a type of grape, they are supposed to be expensive and really sweet. Does anyone know the English name? Eiad77 (talk) 22:01, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My Google Translate popup says "Jufeng grape". --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 23:02, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's just the transliteration.Eiad77 (talk) 23:23, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps, but it's what they seem to be called. See this USDA circular: Most of China’s grape production is made up of 12 different major varieties, Jufeng being the most popular. Also, Google "jufeng grape" and get past the first page of useless results; you'll see multiple use of the name in scientific articles such as "Effect of temperature control and high humidity on the preservation of JUFENG grapes". --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 01:19, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is also called Kyoho in English. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 01:23, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks!Eiad77 (talk) 02:19, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But that's just the Japanese transliteration as opposed to the Chinese right? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 18:56, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It certainly is, but in English this particular type of grape is called 'Kyoho'. In the article it says they were first grown in Japan, so it would make sense to use the Japanese name and not a Chinese name. Incidentally, a Google image search of 'kyoho' gives a large number of images of grapes, while a Google image search of 'jufeng' does not. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 19:36, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ok that makes sense. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:52, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, 巨蜂 means "giant bee". For the type of grape, it should be 巨峰 "giant peak". --Kusunose 05:55, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agree - I believe they are referred to as 巨峰葡萄 in Chinese as well. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:52, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And that is what the Wikipedia article I linked to calls them. Sorry, oversight on my part here, I didn't notice the spelling difference in the title of this thread. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 11:37, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

February 14

What language is this?

File:PLTD Apong Ie Beuna.JPG has:

"PLTD Apong nyang jiba u darat yoh ie beuna"

Is this Acehnese, or Bahasa Indonesia? WhisperToMe (talk) 01:30, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To add, I found the phrase on the Bahasa Indonesia Wikipedia "Kapal PLTD Apung yang dibawa oleh tsunami sampai ke darat" - But that doesn't help me in telling me which language the first phrase is. WhisperToMe (talk) 01:40, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(EC) I was just going to say it's not Indonesian, as I found the same phrase (in the 'Deskripsi', here. The 'author' of the picture is this user, and according to that userpage, (s)he is a speaker of Acehnese, as well as Indonesian (and Malay and English). You may consider contacting the user for verification. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 01:42, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The user's globally blocked, so I can't ask him. At this point I'll assume it's Acehnese, but I'm going to wait around to see what other people say. WhisperToMe (talk) 01:46, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe ask an active editor listed in Category:Indonesian Wikipedians or Category:Wikipedians in Indonesia. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 14:04, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not that this proves anything, but Google Translate from Indonesian to English could not translate most of the words in the phrase, which suggests that the phrase is not Indonesian. Marco polo (talk) 15:31, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers, but we had already established that. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 20:13, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep in mind that although the Indonesian language is the official language of Indonesia, it is far from the only one. In fact, the Indonesian language article notes that most Indonesians speak a regional language (such as Javanese, Minangkabau or Sundanese, among others) in addition to Indonesian. Although it may not be in the Indonesian language, that doesn't mean it isn't in an Indonesian language (language spoken in Indonesia). -- 174.21.250.120 (talk) 16:04, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ditto my comment above. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 20:13, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Aspect vs Tense

I used to think the difference between aspect and tense was that aspect is constructed with multiple words and tense is constructed with a single word (example: present tense: I go; progressive aspect: I am going). However I just discovered that constructions such as "I have gone" and "I will go" are consider tenses too! (compound tenses, to be exact). So can someone explain to me the correct difference between aspect and tense? (Your article about aspect is a bit too technical). 72.128.95.0 (talk) 02:13, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Tense refers to when something happened with respect to right now (the time I am talking)--an item may have happened before I am talking, while I am talking, or is going to happen sometime after I'm talking.

Aspect can mean several different things:

Grammatical aspect refers to when the event happened with respect to some other event that is relevant (not necessarily the time I am speaking). For example, perfective aspect expresses that some event has already been completed before the other event that you're talking about. (e.g., "He did his homework after [he ate dinner]_b" and "He will do his homework after [he eats dinner]_b": in both of these sentences, event b is completed before the person does his homework, and thus is considered perfective...although English doesn't mark that with any explicit suffixes or anything; some other languages, though, such as Chinese, would mark both of these with the same marker, since Chinese stresses aspect more than tense. On the other hand, you could have "The phone rang while [he was eating dinner]_b" or "He'll get the phone call while [he is eating dinner]_b"; both of the events b there, regardless of whether they describe past or future events, are in progressive aspect because they are still ongoing when the other event happens; again, English marks tense in this situation, but other languages, such as Chinese, mark only aspect in this situation.) The paragraph at the middle of page 59 of this thesis offers a good explanation.
Lexical aspect refers to how the event unfolds through time (e.g., is it something that happens instantaneously, like "see" or "realize", or something that progresses incrementally, like "paint a picture" or "build a house", or is it not an action at all, like "be"). Page 19 of that same document (linked above) describes it nicely.

As for the issue of multiple versus single words, this varies across languages. In some languages, such as English, the distinction between tense and aspect has gotten fuzzy. Some languages explicitly mark (using suffixes or auxiliary verbs like "have" or "is") tense, some explicitly mark aspect, some explicitly mark both, and there are probably some that explicitly mark neither. To keep using Chinese as an example: Chinese generally doesn't mark tense (in the examples above, the bracketed phrases look the same in both past and future tense), it cares more about aspect, but it can express tense using adverbs—that is to say, for instance, a Chinese speaker can't say "I cooked a meal" because Chinese doesn't have a past tense marker like English -ed, but s/he can say "Yesterday I cook a meal". There is no one-to-one correspondence between tense/aspect and whether they are expressed using prefixes/suffixes/infixes or extra words. rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:26, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Rjanag has explained aspect and tense better than I possibly could. However, I will offer a couple of remarks on how this works in English specifically. Tense is really about time in relation to the present. "I am going" versus "I went" versus "I will go". Aspect in English can be about whether an action is finite or repeated: "I am walking to the market this morning" versus "I walk to the market every morning", or "I walked to the market yesterday morning" or "I have walked to the market every morning". It can also be about whether an action is completed or whether the action is underway at the time of another action. For example, "I walked to the market and saw Jane" (implying that you saw her after you had finished walking to the market) versus "I was walking to the market and saw Jane" (implying that you saw her while you were walking). The pluperfect involves aspect: "I had walked to the market when I saw Jane" versus "I was walking to the market when I saw Jane". Most English verb forms involve both aspect and tense. You could say that "I was walking" is the past tense of "I am walking," even though both of these forms signal aspect as well as tense. The marked form "I was walking" signals aspect, but the unmarked form "I walked" can also signal aspect, as in the example "I walked to the market and saw Jane". In the present tense, this is even clearer: "I am walking" is clearly the progressive aspect, but the unmarked form "I walk" generally also indicates aspect in that it signals habitual action. Rjanag is correct that you cannot the presence of aspect is not signaled by the number of words. Marco polo (talk) 15:28, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes in English the aspect of a statement is ambiguous and can be discerned only by context. A famous example is "He's working": this can be progressive aspect, meaning "He's at work at the moment" ("Can I speak to your husband, please?" - "Sorry, he's working; can you call back this evening?") or it can be habitual aspect, meaning "He has a job" ("My husband was unemployed for three years, but now, thank God, he's working.") Even though it's often claimed that English uses the simple present for habitual aspect (as opposed to the present progressive for progressive aspect), I don't think you can say "he works" in the second example. (This example is famous because in AAVE, the distinction is made as "He workin" vs. "He be workin".) —Angr (talk) 15:43, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bernard Comrie says on p. 3 of Comrie, Bernard (1976). Aspect. Cambridge. ISBN 0 521 21109 3.: "aspects are different ways of viewing the internal temporal constituency of a situation". --ColinFine (talk) 23:09, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Angr: I think I would except "he works" under that interpretation, in limited contexts. For instance "They both live in Missouri; she goes to school, he works." In most of these contexts I can think of, though, "he is working" would also be equally acceptable. rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:35, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

summer chocolate

Have you heard of white chocolate being referred to as summer chocolate?Gsjeffries (talk) 03:18, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have not. A google search suggests that "summer chocolate" is a plant. (Only one of the first several results is about chocolate at all, and it's not about white chocolate.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:28, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's an ornamental variety of Albizia julibrissin, the Mimosa tree. Roger (talk) 16:23, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Intermediate versus open o

This refers back to this question.

I found a children's Winston dictionary at a library and it had the same pronunciation symbols. There was less detail in covering what each symbol represented, but all the symbols were there.

"Intermediate o" has sort of a triangle over the o and is the sound in cord and law, while "Open o" looks the same but is in italics. It is the sound in dog.

Every other pronuciation guide I've seen has the same sound for both. On the other hand, I shared an apartment while in college with a guy from Connecticut, and I encountered numerous people in college who pronounce dog and law differently than I do in North Carolina.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:10, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not familiar with the phonetic system used by your dictionary, but the standard phonetic transcription system used worldwide today is the International Phonetic Alphabet, which can distinguish virtually every possible vowel sound. To answer your original question, variations in the pronunciation of the word dog seem to be a product of the Lot-cloth split, which resulted in words such as dog being pronounced with the same vowel as lot in some dialects and the same vowel as cloth in others. The lot vowel also varies among dialects as a result of the Cot-caught merger. Marco polo (talk) 20:46, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The IPA symbols for those sounds (when differentiated) are /ɔː/, /ɒː/ and /ɑː/. Lexicografía (talk) 20:50, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Kecskemét

What's the German name, if existing, of Kecskemét (Hungary)? --151.51.155.68 (talk) 23:55, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

All the German pages I've found using Google just refer to it as Kecskemét. Looie496 (talk) 00:17, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The German spelling "Ketschkemet" gains a few hits on Google Books. The translation would be "Ziegengang" (goat's walk, or something like that), and I've found "Ziegenort", but only in inverted commas, so that would be a nick name at best. --Wrongfilter (talk) 09:08, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

February 15

Derivative nouns & Uncountable nouns.

I have a question regarding uncountable nouns (nouns that one cannot pluralize due to their being "general" in nature).

The vast majority of such nouns I've encountered are derived from Verbs, Adjectives, or other Nouns—by means of suffixes.

eg.> information, darkness, pavement.

One may not say "7 pavements" or "a number of informations?

As a general rule, are ALL derivative nouns uncountable? (with few exceptions such as "possibility" and "responsibility"? Pine (talk) 00:15, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The term you're probably looking for is abstract noun. They often tend to be "mass" or uncountable due to their semantic nature, but I don't think that there's any general rule... AnonMoos (talk) 00:52, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Pavement" could be pluralized, when being used as a synonym for "street" or "road", although I wouldn't say it's very common. I've heard non-native speakers say "informations", but that's plainly an error. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:54, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's definitely not true that all' derived nouns are uncountable. It's rather easy to construct countable derived nouns. Dictations, realizations, etc., and that's not even jumping into -er derived nouns (planters, reporters, etc.) or noun-noun compounds.

Also, I don't think it's true that the majority of uncountable nouns are derived. There are many straight-up nouns that are not countable, such as mud (can't say *"3 muds") or rice (*"3 rices"...although note that this, as well as many other uncountable nouns like water and milk, is acceptable when used in the colloquial sense of "bowls of rice", "bottles of water", etc.). rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:11, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Rices" would work when discussing different varieties of rice. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:12, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, a lot of putative uncountable nouns work in that way. But the point is the word is uncountable in the sense being discussed (and, for me at least, using "rice" as "kinds of rice" is still marked; I would say "this recipe includes 3 types of rice" before I'd say "this recipe includes 3 rices"). In English at least, words that are uncountable in every possible sense are hard to think of. ("Mud" is one, although even that can be made countable in a strange made-up context. And those abstract nouns also are, although like "mud" they can be coerced into countability.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:34, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps it would be better to approach this question from another direction, bearing in mind that grammatical rules are not invented a priori, to then be adhered to, but are merely attempts to analyse and systemise existing language practices, as far as is possible.

I suggest that the nature of the concepts these abstract and/or 'uncountable' words signify are such that in everyday life and usage they rarely occur in contexts where pluralisation is appropriate, and therefore the plural forms seem unfamiliar and unnatural. However, as others above have demonstrated, it is usually possible to imagine (and one occasionally encounters) situations in which a plural is appropriate. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 10:53, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dutch and Farsi help

For: File:Schiphol World Trade Center.JPG

How do you say in Dutch and in Farsi "This building houses the head office of SkyTeam and the Netherlands office of Iran Air?

Thanks, WhisperToMe (talk) 06:22, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dutch: "In dit gebouw zijn het hoofdkantoor van Skyteam en het Nederlandse kantoor van Iran Air gehuisvest. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.171.56.13 (talk) 16:02, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Farsi: (right to left) این ساختمان محل دفتر مرکزی اسکای تیم و دفتر ایران ایر در هلند است — Preceding unsigned comment added by Omidinist (talk • contribs) 18:41, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much! WhisperToMe (talk) 23:45, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Door number three?

Reading Jeffery Deaver's Edge. I found this sentence:

"I'm choosing door number three."

The speaker is a vain and irresponsible woman, and supposed to move into a safe house with her family, but instead decided to go to the downtown to have fun, saying the above sentence.

What does the sentence mean? --Analphil (talk) 10:51, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A reference to The Third Way perhaps? She has the choice of staying in danger, moving to a safe house and she likes neither, so she does her own thing. - X201 (talk) 10:58, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) Probably a reference to a tv show, Let's Make a Deal, which offered prizes based on which door was chosen from a selection of (generally) three. See also Monty Hall problem. --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:00, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) I suspect it derives from some television game show in which a contestant, at some point, could choose between three (or more) prizes, metaphorically or actually concealed behind doors. Door number three was perhaps the more risky choice, potentially yielding a prize either poor or excellent in contrast to surer but more median prizes behind the other doors. That's how I would interpret Deaver's use of the catchphrase: however, I'm sure that someone who actually recognises it will soon be along to confirm or (more likely) refute this tentative interpretation. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 11:06, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. a Catch phrase. --Tagishsimon (talk) 12:30, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is certainly famous from Let's Make a Deal. I would expect that the general concept has probably been around for a long time. The 19th century story The Lady, or the Tiger? comes to mind. In fact, that article claims that the producers of Deal got their idea from that story. Regarding the OP's question, "What does it mean?", the Deal basis along with X201's second sentence seems like a reasonable answer. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:54, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Except that she didn't take "the third way" or pick "the third door". By going downtown to have fun, she was staying in danger. After all, if she had been safe out in public downtown, no one would have expected her to go to the safe house. Pais (talk) 14:25, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

She did take the third way. The two apparent choices was staying at home where she could easily be found, and going to the safe house which didn't sound fun. By "choosing door number three" and going out, she rejected both options presented to her and chose her own way. Presumably her level of danger would be higher than the safe house but lower than at home, or at least she thought so. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:55, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ambiguity in Vietnamese

Why are the Vietnamese syllables “gia” and “giu” ambiguous? --84.61.155.241 (talk) 20:23, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Answered here, where you first asked. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 23:53, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

February 16

Yakovlevich

It seems that the Russian patronymic for men whose father's name is Yakov is Yakovlevich. Where does the soft -l- come from? Why isn't it Yakovovich? Pais (talk) 14:39, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Euphony is the ultimate answer. The patronymic of Lev is not Levovich/Levovna but L'vovich/L'vovna, for the same reason. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 19:26, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Notice also that 'любить' (/l'ub'it'/ - "to love") has present 1.s. 'люблю' (/l'ub'l'u/ - "I love"). I've a feeling that it is not the only verb ending in a labial consonant to do so, but my Russian is very rusty. --ColinFine (talk) 19:45, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, euphony is not the issue here, or at least only a small component (and euphony is not at all the reason behind L'vovich/L'vovna). However, this requires some delving into the earlier history of the Russian language. Common Slavic (the shared ancestor of the Slavic languages) as well as early Russian had three means of forming possessive adjectives: -ov-, -in-, and -j- (That's IPA /j/, so like English "y"). Most adjectives formed from masculine personal names used either -ov- or -j-, with -j- being especially common with names ending in /v/ to avoid the repetition of consonants: *jakovjь "Jacob's", *jaroslavjь "Yaroslav's", etc. However, in Russian the consonant sequence /vj/ subsequently became /vl'/ (hence why *jaroslavjь gordъ "Yaroslav's City" became modern Ярославль. Now, patronymics were formed by taking the adjectival form of a name in -ov and adding the appropriate adjectival suffix (-ič or -na in modern Russian). My guess is that since these patronymics were usually formed from -ov- possessives, while Old Russian яковль is a -j- type, speakers "reinforced" the possession by double marking it: яковль+ев+ич.

As for Лев > Львович, that's a different issue. The Common Slavic form of the name "Lev" (or word "lion") was *lьvъ, where ъ and ь represent two ultrashort vowels called Yers. In a sound change known as the "Fall of the Yers", certain yers were strengthened to full vowels (eg, when stressed) and others were lost (eg, word-finally or before the stressed syllable). As a result, *lьvъ regularly developed into Lev, while *lьv-ov-itj-ь became L'vovich; the first yer was kept in the "Lev" because it was stressed, and dropped in "L'vovich" because it was not. Voikya (talk) 23:56, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I stand corrected. Thanks, Voikya. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 00:08, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Russian has inherited from Old Slavonic an epenthetical л’, which should appear after labial and labiodental consonants when they are followed by /j/, so [б в м п] + /j/ result in [бл’ вл’ мл’ пл’]. Apart from the above-mentioned verb любить - люблю ('to love' - 'I love', from Old Slavonic любити - люблѭ), here is another couple of modern Russian verbs to illustrate that:

спать - сплю ('to sleep' - 'I sleep'), from Old Slavonic съпати - съплѭ;
ловить - ловлю ('to catch' - 'I catch'), from Old Slavonic ловити - ловлѭ.

Of course, this does not only apply for verb endings. I'm posting this as an attempt to make clear why /vj/ became /vl'/, for instance in Yaroslavl, as Voikya explained. Sorry for the enlarged font of the Slavonic text, but it is hardly readable in my browser when in regular size, and I suspect others could be having this problem too. --Theurgist (talk) 01:08, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that is correct, though one little nitpick: Russian did not come from Old Church Slavonic. Old Church Slavonic a South Slavic language, while Russian is East Slavic. Old Church Slavonic was spoken at the same time as Old Russian. Both languages share a common ancestor in Common Slavic (or Proto-Slavic), which was never written down. Voikya (talk) 01:54, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Of course you are correct. Sorry for my misleading post. --Theurgist (talk) 23:48, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the explanation Voikya! I knew about epenthetic l after soft labials (and how some languages lose them, which is why what Serbs call Skoplje is called Skopje by Macedonians), but I didn't know that -j- was an adjectival suffix that patronymics made use of. Pais (talk) 12:13, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What about [фл’]? --84.61.155.241 (talk) 16:27, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ф does not occur in native Slavic words, except in onomatopoeias or as a result of some pronunciation shifts. --Theurgist (talk) 18:42, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"too big of a" etc.

In American English, are expressions like "too big of a problem" (for "too big a problem"), "too long of a journey" (for "too long a journey"), etc., considered correct? 86.177.105.71 (talk) 18:34, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Too long a journey" sounds like it should be correct, but somehow, it seems wrong, to my ear. :) Corvus cornix_talk 19:08, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's in the same class of hyper-corrections as "If you hadn't have done that, I wouldn't have had to to fix it". The second 'have' is correct, but the first 'have' is technically out of place. But many people feel naturally disposed to saying it. (That's when they don't think the word they're saying is "of".)-- Jack of Oz [your turn] 19:20, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've also noticed this "of a" construction. I read/hear American, English, Scottish, Australian and my native variety, South African English regularly. I've only seen heard it from US sources, so I'd say it is most likely an "Americanism". Roger (talk) 19:30, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Perfectly natural (actually preferable) to my American English ears. Lexicografía (talk) 19:34, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect influence from "too much of a ... ". But that's WP:OR. --ColinFine (talk) 19:47, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That kind of construction is commonly used in colloquial American English, but it is not considered "correct", and it grates on my American English ears. Marco polo (talk) 20:03, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, "too big of a" gets 2.16 million ghits, while "too big a" gets 4.53 million. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 22:27, 16 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's not "incorrect", but it's a bit informal. It's generally preferable to the same construction without the "of". In formal writing you don't use either, unless you're specifically aiming for a poetic tone, in which case "too long a journey" might match your requirements. --Trovatore (talk) 01:17, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I should have mentioned that I am a British English speaker. In BrE "too big a", "too long a" etc. are fine, but the versions with "of" are wrong. However, I was unsure about the situation in AmE. 86.179.113.228 (talk) 02:04, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As a BritEngLinguist (!), I must admit to finding these suplurfluous 'of's rather irritating: to the extent that I removed a userbox ({{User:Sgt. R.K. Blue/Userboxes/Darkroom}} from my user page for such a blatant violation of grammar. Then again, I'm a grump, so I need to find things to complain about... AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:19, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I found an interesting commentary on this question here. This commentary points out that the construction is a relatively recent development in American English and reminded me that I could remember a time when I first started hearing the "too ADJ of a" construction. It was probably during the late 1970s or early 1980s. (I learned American English as my native language in the 1960s.) I can remember hearing this construction as a teenager, mainly from people I considered stupid or uneducated. It has certainly spread since then to Americans who are neither stupid nor uneducated, but it still sounds that way to me. Marco polo (talk) 23:07, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

February 17

Just out of interest...

...is there a word for something that is both apt and a cliche? HalfShadow 00:57, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes: cliche. (Sorry.) Looie496 (talk) 06:42, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bon mot or mot juste? --TammyMoet (talk) 10:03, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Maxim? Most maxims can be described as cliche, and if one utters a maxim, the speaker usually believes it is apt. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:53, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

French "billion"

Why does the French word "billion" mean trillion, not billion? --75.15.161.185 (talk) 02:30, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Article Long and short scales. The "long scale" was common in the U.K. until recent decades... AnonMoos (talk) 02:53, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Long story short: First, everywhere was billion = 10¹². Then, the French changed their minds and went with billion = 10⁹. Then, the Americans adopted this usage from the French. Then, the French went back to billion = 10¹², while the Americans stayed the same. Then, for the most part, all English-speaking countries adopted the American way of billion = 10⁹. And now we're done. Note, though, that some English speakers outside the United States are not fond of what can be seen as an imposition by the United States. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.111.130.159 (talk) 03:06, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So the question should be more like: "Why does the English word "billion" mean milliard, not billion?". JIP | Talk 06:01, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, I think that would be pourquoi est-ce que le mot anglais "billion" veux dire <<milliard>> et non <<billion>>?. Well, something like that. Calling my French rusty might be an insult to rust. --Trovatore (talk) 07:11, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, as an Australian of age 60 something, I recall an Australian billion being 10¹², then drifting to be 10⁹ at a time when many things were drifting towards the American style. But my question is....What is a milliard? HiLo48 (talk) 07:24, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There's a frequently overlooked feature on WP known as the "Search box", use it or simply click on "Milliard" and all will be revealed. Roger (talk) 07:33, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There's more languages in the world than English and French. English is the only language I understand that calls 10⁹ a "billion", all the others call it a "milliard". JIP | Talk 07:42, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

... and some of us in England ignored Harold Wilson's preference for the American billion, and still use the word to mean a million million, in common with most of the rest of the world who do not speak English but have a similar word in their own language. Dbfirs 09:29, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's a risky way of reasoning. The entire world, with the exception of North America, spells aluminum wrong — wrong logically, etymologically, and historically. All because of one silly letter-writer who reasoned badly. Pisses me off. --Trovatore (talk) 09:38, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Only in English. The word for "alumin{,i}um" in some non-English languages doesn't even end in "-um". I admit that the English word "aluminium" is etymologically incorrect, but that doesn't relate to the issue of the meaning of the word "billion". American English is not some universal basic language which every other language is defined through. JIP | Talk 10:44, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, guys; I don't agree to Trovatore's idea of a strong point pro aluminum in a logical and etymological sense. At least etymologically, aluminium beats the American form to the bone. The -ium Latin suffix is the natural affix to form a element's name derived from a Latin word, be it alumina or alum. Aluminum is to my eyes an etymological obscenity, a try to build a Latin neuter form for a term (alumina) which already has a neuter form (alumen).
For the sake of comparison, I quote the derivation of some other elements' names ending in -um: Greek derivations (formation of a Greek neuter form from a non-neuter word): (lanthanum, tantalum, molybdenum) and a Latin generated neuter form from a Spanish (de)formed word: platinum. The periodic table shows the general use of the latin suffix -ium as the general way of building the derived element name. Pallida Mors 15:02, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you're deriving from alum it should be alumium, which was in fact Davy's original word. But then he changed to aluminum as derived from alumina. There's no good reason to stick in the extra i. --Trovatore (talk) 19:52, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Aluminium is a perfect Latin derivation from alumina, with the suffix -ium applied. (I have already explained why in my previous response).
Implicit in your response, is the fact that aluminum is etymologically a better derivation from alumina than aluminium. My previous response developed the contrary point. Building a neuter form from a form already derived from a neuter Latin word (alumen, alumina) is etymologically as bad as building *corpurum from corpora. I don't mean it's an illegal derivation, only a more turbid one than the one of aluminium, which on the other hand is a more uniform expression.
The fact that Davy used aluminum of course does not preclude us from analizing the most suitable etymological form, does it? Pallida Mors 01:04, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You have done a more thorough etymological analysis than I knew about, I'll grant you. But aluminium is still hideous, and I still think the letter-writer was out of line and should not have been copied. --Trovatore (talk) 01:09, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see what's risky about expecting some consistency across languages that have common roots. The Americans chose to change (or misunderstand?) the traditional structure of billion, trillion etc. and I really don't see why they should expect everyone else to follow their practice, nor do I understand why Harold Wilson abandoned the milliard, except perhaps that it sounds too similar to the myriad Dbfirs 13:49, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the Americans expected anyone to follow them. It's not like they threatened to levy sanctions against anyone if they didn't use the same number system. "Everyone else" changed because it was expedient to do so, and nothing more or less. It's important to remember that language does not depend completely on history for the meanings of its words. There are myriad words with meanings that have dramatically changed over time. And in this case, economics indicated the change. It happens. You have issues with "billion," but do you also have issues with "actual," which in most Romance languages means "as of now," or with "gift" which in most Germanic langauges means "poison"?

There's more languages in the world than English and French. English is the only language I understand that calls 10⁹ a "billion", all the others call it a "milliard". --> Portuguese is the same way, to an extent. In Brazil, a billion is 10⁹, while in Portuagal it's 10¹². Although, that may be a language you don't understand. Also, I think ambiguity is avoided because the spellings differ as well between Brazil and Portugal.

I understand only very basic Portuguese, and the differences between Portuguese Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese are difficult for me to remember, so I didn't know Brazilians mean 10⁹ when they say "billion". Anyway, seeing as Brazil is in America and Portugal is in Europe, this seems to mirror the difference between American English and British (non-Wilsonian) English. JIP | Talk 08:59, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please remember not to forget

Why is it that people who would never say:

I won't have anything that isn't a pie or a coffee,
Goodbye, Johnny. Don't murder your teacher today
Don't fall down the stairs and break your spine, neck, spleen and 13 teeth, or
I see something other than what you don't mean,

preferring, respectively:

I'll have a pie and a coffee, please
Goodbye, Johnny. Be good at school
Be careful going down the stairs, and
I see what you mean,

will nevertheless usually say:

Don’t forget <to, that ...>, rather than
Please remember <to, that ...>?

Why would someone introduce the concept of the very thing they don't want you to do (forget), only to have to then tell you not to do it. Why don't they just tell you what it is they want you to do (remember)? Is this just an English-language aberration or does it appear elsewhere? (I hasten to add that in my moments of madness I am probably just as guilty of this utter stupidity as anyone else, but in calmer and more reflective moments I can see it for what it is.)-- Jack of Oz [your turn] 03:08, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I see nothing particularly wrong with this construction, at least from the point of view of English usage. It strikes me as more emphatic that remember to..., carrying the connotation "there strikes me as a real danger that you'll forget this, so please be careful about it". That connotation could come across as overly pushy, or then again it might be the case that the listener would also be concerned that he might forget, and put the matter more firmly in his mind. --Trovatore (talk) 03:23, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's not unlike some other sentences, such as this one. For your first example, I can easily see using it. If I order a pie and a coffee, and the baker insists on giving me flatbread and a beer and screwing up the order, would it be out of place to say "I won't have anything that's not a pie or a coffee, dangit!" Granted, I wouldn't say that because it would be rude, but it would make sense. Your next two examples don't seem to fit for me - they are rather specific. You wouldn't tell Johnny not to murder his teacher, unless that was a perceived problem, and you wouldn't tell somebody not to knock out thirteen teeth. "Don't forget to do do your math homework." is not being abnormally specific, at least in context. That's my 2¢ worth. Falconus^{p t c} 05:06, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But why not simply "Now remember, you have math homework to do" or something similar? The example about the pie and coffee would only apply where the baker does insist on giving you flatbread and a beer and screwing up the order - so that's just as specific as the other ones. None of them would be something anyone would ever say unless there was some particular reason so to do. The default approach is to ask for what you want, not to deny what you don't want. The instructions at the top of this page start out "Is there any way I can get a faster answer? Yes, you can search first. Please do this", not "Please don't fail to do this".

I'm not saying the "don't forget" thing is never appropriate. A context can easily be contrived to suit virtually any random combination of words: "Oh, you'll pay. Don't think you won't pay" is not just telling them there's a price for what they've done, but also that if they think that's not the case, they'll discover they're wrong. In the classroom situation, if the subject of forgetting had been introduced, then it might be appropriate to say "Don't forget to do your math homework". But in the absence of any such context, to use the "don't forget" formula to remind students about their homework seems to be very circuitous, at the very least, and certainly heightens the possibility of failure. I hear the "don't forget" formula all the time in TV adverts, which are all about "Do this, buy this, be there, spend this", and then they go and spoil it all by "Don't forget to do X". -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 09:54, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Insamuch as "forget" arguably contains a negative concept, "Don't forget . . ." could be seen as a form of double negative, which is common in English usage, and to be related to idioms, which are even more common in English and have no overt logical rationale. Ultimately it's all just fashion. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 10:42, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with what Falconus said about specificity, and I think it also has to do with what's actually being desired. In the case of "I'll have a pie and a coffee" it's not that you don't want anything else, it's that you really want a pie and coffee. In the case of "don't forget", it's not that remembering is desirable, it's more that forgetting is undesirable. If you're in a situation where having something besides pie and coffee is highly undesired (e.g. the beer and flatbread case), you flip the phrasing to reflect that. Likewise, if you're in a situation where remembering would be desired, but forgetting is not highly disfavored, "Please remember ..." would be the phrasing. (e.g. "Please remember to take out the garbage (but if you forget, I can do it myself)"). Another factor is what's the "default" expectation - what is the person expected to do in the case of no reminder? In the pie & beer case, without saying anything, you'd expect the server to give you nothing, so it's the giving rather than the not-giving that's the departure from expectations. In the case of "Don't forget ...", (as well as "be good" and "be careful") that's often used in situations where the person being reminded should do it even without the reminder. "Please remember ..." tends to be used more in cases where the person is otherwise not under any compunction to remember, and the remembering is the departure from what they would/should do. (All that said, "Don't forget..." has probably risen to the status of an idiom, so would be used formulaicly when it otherwise might be out-of-place). -- 140.142.20.229 (talk) 21:15, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Don't fall down the stairs and break your spine, neck, spleen and 13 teeth". I am so using that in a conversation. HalfShadow 23:19, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would prefer it if you reconsidered (which is my way of saying "Please don't"). That example was a deliberate exaggeration, but in principle it's what people often say unthinkingly. When someone is in a situation where they could potentially fall, saying anything to them that suggests(*) falling, tripping etc is actually going to increase the likelihood of that undesirable event happening. not decrease it. And putting a "don't" in front of it has no effect. It's a bit like when you've done something that you're wanting to cover up, e.g. if you want nobody to know that you've stolen from the petty cash, and nobody but you even knows anything's been stolen, you would certainly not answer "What have you been doing today?" with "Oh, nothing special, but I definitely have not been stealing from the petty cash". Would you, now. (* Here I'm using "suggest" not in the sense of "recommend" but simply of "introduce the concept") -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 02:57, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On the last point, there is a traditional Chinese idiom for doing kind of thing, which translates literally as something like "300 taels of silver are not buried here" - this blog post explains the story behind it. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:37, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bahasa Indonesia help

How do you translate this into Bahasa Indonesia:

"This user is opposed to the use of images of Muhammad on the English Wikipedia."

This is because I want to import User:WhisperToMe/Userboxes/NoMo to the Bahasa Indonesia Wikipedia WhisperToMe (talk) 06:03, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is there anything wrong with this sentence?

Is there anything amiss in the following sentence, when it's used to refer to a minister who resigned from his church?

As a conservative Christian, condemnation of homosexuality had been a major theme of his preaching.

Another Wikipedia editor says "As a conservative Christian" is an adverbial phrase that applies to the noun "condemnation". Now I'm not sure I'd recognize an adverbial phrase if one came up to me, said I was cute, and offered to buy me a drink. But as I told the other editor in this context (permalink), I have some difficulty with his construal. As I wrote in the context I linked to, "...among the several meanings that the Oxford English Dictionary offers for 'as', I find 'after the manner of', 'like', and 'in the role of'. I believe this is the sense in which the word occurs here. I'm not convinced that 'As a conservative Christian' applies to 'condemnation', in other words. It rather appears to me to apply to the implicit 3rd person masculine singular ('he') from which our 'his' derives as its possessive form (used as an attributive)." I'd be almost as happy to learn I was wrong as to learn I was right: I'm just really curious. Can anyone parse this for me into terms a simple mind can comprehend? Thanks! – OhioStandard (talk) 10:33, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not only does it seem fine to me, I can't think of any better way of rephrasing it for clarity. It seems clear to me that "conservative Christian" refers to the preacher himself. I say leave it as it is. --Viennese Waltz 10:43, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much, VW. I was thinking about this a bit more, and "As a conservative Christian" seems more like a predicate to me ( in the formal logic sense, at least ) than anything else. Does anyone know if it really is an adverbial phrase in this usage, or is there some more apt way to describe it in grammar? I realize I really need to break out the old textbooks; I couldn't diagram a sentence to save my life. Thanks again, – OhioStandard (talk) 11:15, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If it helps at all, in trying to analyze this, the OED says, at (11) in the entry for "as (adv.)", "With subordinate clause reduced to its subject or object: a. After the manner of, in the likeness of, the same as, like.". It gives, as one of it's example quotations, "Spain rose as one man against the stranger." If this is equivalent to, "As one man, Spain rose against the stranger", then that seems fairly close to the sentence I first asked about, and I could see the the applicability of the OED's "reduced to its subject or object". Does that make sense, and if so, what part of grammar would we properly call "As one man" or "As a conservative Christian"? Thanks once more, for any suggestions. – OhioStandard (talk) 11:15, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would agree with the OP's original critic that in the sentence's structure as written, "As a conservative Christian . . ." is, strictly speaking, referring grammatically to the next-encountered noun (that could also have been a pronoun like "his"), which is "condemnation", and that some readers would notice this and a few be irritated by it: whether "as", "like" or other near synonyms be used is irrelevant. However, I also agree that the intended meaning is obvious to most readers, and this form of erroneous construction is very common in spoken and non-formal written English. However, if I were still a professional editor and was working on this text, I would advise recasting the sentence to eliminate the problem. One of several possibilities would be

"As a conservative Christian, he had made condemnation of homosexuality a major theme of his preaching."

I hope this addresses your concerns. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 11:58, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with 87.81.230.195. The original sentence suggests that condemnation of homosexuality is a conservative Christian, which obviously makes no sense. — Kpalion^(talk) 12:22, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, nothing so emphatic as "concerns", really, IP. I just love language, and I was curious about this. I'm not sure I'm persuaded that "As a conservative Christian" must necessarily apply, even in the most rigorous interpretation, to the next-encountered noun, but your explanation does help me understand the other user's objection, which I hadn't done. And Kpalion, your post points out the "data type" issue very clearly, so thank you, both. I think we probably will go with IPs suggested revision; we don't want anyone thinking condemnation might be a conservative Christian. ( I know for a fact that he prefers to be properly identifed as a Roman Catholic ;-) Also, IP: I'd never seen "critic" employed in that sense before, "critique" or just "criticism" being more usual in modern use, but the OED does list it as a valid usage, God bless it, although an obscure one. Always happy to learn of an older usage for a familiar friend, so I appreciate that, as well. Again, many thanks to all responders. – OhioStandard (talk) 13:16, 17 February 2011 (UTC)#[reply]

By "critic" I meant the "another Wikipedia editor" who had critiqued the sentence, not the criticism of that sentence :-) . 87.81.230.195 (talk) 16:10, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, of course; sorry. I should get more sleep. Thanks, again. – OhioStandard (talk) 16:51, 17 February 2011 (UTC) [reply]

I don't think it is an adverbial phrase in any way and I believe the grammar is fine. I think the problem comes with elision, and enjambment of ideas, which in an uncontroversial sentence would go unnoticed. The comma is a weak punctuation to separate "conservative Christian" and "condemnation of homosexuality" and it therefore links them too tightly, although they are so often linked like that these days. Remove the comma and it would be wrong but that is how it is being read. As the OED says "as" is used to mean "since", "like" "in the manner of" and a simpler sentence:

Condemnation of homosexuality had been a major theme of his preaching as [he is] a conservative Christian.

has been turned inside out to give prominence to "conservative Christian". The elision of [he is] or other words of specification make a shorter, neater sentence but allows ambiguity and allows the general application of "conservative Christian" on to "condemnation of homosexuality". As I said I think the sentence is fine grammatically but there are 10001 way in which it could be rewritten to make it more or less controversial. meltBanana 14:40, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for this, meltBanana. You taught me a new word, too: Enjambment. Very nice. I'm happy and more or less content with the answers I've received so far, but the topic is an interesting one, and if others wish to address the question, or any of the replies, more thoroughly, then please feel free: I'd marked this "resolved", previously, but there seems to be ongoing interest, so I've undone that. It may be of interest if I say that this sentence was written as an attempt to contribute to an article, based on the following source (news report) sentence: Those men and others have accused Bloggs of hypocrisy in light of his longstanding condemnations of homosexuality, a major theme in his conservative Christian preaching. Thanks to all for your interest and assistance (so far?) Best, – OhioStandard (talk) 16:24, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is it really possible that we've had all this discussion without anybody pointing out that the sentence contains a dangling participle? Don't they teach that in English classes anymore? Looie496 (talk) 19:38, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The final word, "preaching" seemed out of place to me, and I would omit it. The reason is that it sounds like only his preaching condemns homosexuality, while he personally can't get enough (this actually seems to be quite common among evangelists, such as George Alan Rekers). StuRat (talk) 20:23, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That actually does appear to have been the case with the poor chap under discussion, Stu. It seems to have been a major theme of his preaching, but not so much of living, in other words, so I think "of his preaching" does have to stay in. – OhioStandard (talk) 21:44, 17 February 2011 (UTC) [reply]

Looie, if you're going to insist on talking sense, well, we're all just going to have leave the room. ;-) Thanks for this. I'll answer your apparently rhetorical question, too. ( Is there a word that describes the election to do so, I wonder ... no, I mean besides "obtuse"? ) My American education included a single three-month course in grammar, when I was 12 years of age. I thought it woefully inadequate even then, I remember. After that, it was all "literature". I also recall that in my ( also American ) college, my French instructor, a native speaker, of course, who was teaching her first course in the U.S., was dismayed and exasperated when, upon trying to explain a point of French grammar in terms of the constructs of English grammar, she discovered that none of us knew it... So Looie ( or anyone else who will take pity ), help us out, here. It has occurred to me that the "As" in the sentence I initially inquired about performs the same function as "Being", i.e. that our sentence could be (more or less) equivalently rendered,

Being a conservative Christian, condemnation of homosexuality had been a major theme of his preaching.

Do you agree that this is sufficiently close to assist us in analyzing the structure here? If so, do you see what I meant when I said, above, that "As a conservative Christian" sees to me to have the character of a predicate? And doesn't rendering the sentence using "being" make it easier to classify what kind of dangling modifier we're talking about here? As to grammatical voice, grammatical aspect, and suchlike? Does anyone feel like enlightening us re those and related descriptors as they apply to our subject sentence? I'm all to seek, here, but our adverbial clause article seemed helpful, especially the rows of table it includes for "reason clauses" and "clauses of manner". It would feel satisfying to me to have the structure of this deceptively slippery sentence fully specified, fully parsed into its grammatical/linguistic constituents, with each constituent properly named. ~~Are there any takers? Is there any intrepid soul who'd like to offer an attempt at that (to me) heavy lifting up for communal ridicule?~~ ;-) I'm sure all attempts would be welcome and much appreciated, ~~if perhaps only as grounds for amusement~~ and that the community would give milk and cookies, and a great stupendous group hug to anyone who'd give it a try. Cheers, – OhioStandard (talk) 21:24, 17 February 2011 (UTC) ( Late edit: I've revised the above. Please see my comment on "chilling effect", following. OhioStandard 10:50, 18 February 2011 (UTC))[reply]

My issue was not with anything that was said, but simply to the fact that nobody had identified the problem as a dangling participle and pointed to our article about it. When I went to high school in the 1970s, the ability to recognize a dangling participle was drilled into us. Looie496 (talk) 22:04, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't get the impression that you were inappropriately critical at all, Looie, and didn't intend to imply otherwise. On the contrary, I appreciated your comment. – OhioStandard (talk) 00:22, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Umm, there's no participle in OhioStandard's original sentence, dangling or otherwise. Deor (talk) 23:52, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, but there is a dangling modifier, which I'm sure is what Looie was getting at. The important point is the "dangling", not the "participle". rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:49, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, everyone. I'm concerned that the jocular tone I allowed myself, above, might have introduced a chilling effect on this discussion, and I'd like to correct that. No one here is going to disparage anyone else for trying to sort this, and I shouldn't have implied otherwise: I suppose I was responding to my own sense of embarrassment that I'm so evidently uninformed with respect to grammatical analysis. Quite seriously now, I think I can speak for all when I say that we sincerely appreciate every contribution to this thread, and that we'd be grateful to anyone who wants to try diagramming the sentence, even in a broad-brush sort of way, and explaining their analysis in terms of the constituent parts they identify.

We'll also all be respectful if anyone happens to make an error in that process. Errors, and their subsequent discussion and eventual correction are a normal and productive part of the process of intellectual discovery. Any contrary view is simply an impediment to learning and progress, and anyone who holds such a view is unlikely to ever master any difficult subject or, indeed, to ever learn much at all. Besides, understanding the structure of language, and being able to distinguish valid forms from invalid ones, is as difficult a challenge as understanding the structure of thought: Grammar and semantics are no easier than logic and epistemology. So please, anyone who feels he can pin this down more exactly, do have a go. We'd all be grateful, even if the results presented turn out to need revision or correction subsequently. So then, what about this dangling modifier thingummy? Is anyone able to expand on that, or take the analysis of the sentence I first presented incrementally further? – OhioStandard (talk) 11:39, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to Looie and Rjanag for getting us to dangling modifier, btw. That's very helpful. Perhaps if we end up sorting this properly, we can add the sentence I initially asked about as an example to the appropriate section of that article, e.g. to Dangling modifier#Modifiers reflecting the mood or attitude of the speaker. That would be a pleasnt and productive outcome and side-benefit of this discussion, I believe. – OhioStandard (talk) 12:03, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Grammar tool to supplement spell checker?

Hallo helpdesk,

How can i use a grammar tool for my text on Wikipedia? When I right a word how can I now that the spelling is correct!

GrPeters01 (talk) 10:58, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there is a way of doing that. You could always create the text in Word, which does have those features, and then copy-paste it into the edit box here. But if you're talking about posting on these ref desks, I wouldn't worry too much about it. With one or two notorious exceptions, we are pretty relaxed about spelling and grammar here. As long as your question is understandable that's the main thing, and if it's not then someone will politely ask you to clarify. If you're talking about articles, though, then there's a higher level of grammar and spelling required and the Word solution I mention above may be the way to go. If you're not a native English speaker, you could also consider improving articles on the Wikipedia for your language. PS. You came to the wrong desk really, this is the ref desk for general knowledge questions and answers. If you want help on using Wikipedia, the correct place to go is the help desk. --Viennese Waltz 11:24, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There are online sites that'll let you paste text in a box and then report if it is grammatical, but they don't work very well. Spell Check can spot that "you is fat" is wrong but doesn't see anything wrong with "When I right a word how can I now that the spelling is correct!" Paper Rater spots "right" but not "now". Or you can download Language Tool for Open Office, but I've no idea how good it is. Grammar checking is hard. --Colapeninsula (talk) 11:29, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See Grammar checker for more info. --Colapeninsula (talk) 11:31, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there isn't anything wrong with the sentence. Peter kept large inflatable letters in his garden over Christmas, spelling HAPPY NEW YREA (sic). Because it gets quite windy in December, he would often have to stop work and come out to right one of them. This wasn't hard, because the kerning of the letters made it easy to lean them properly up against one another. However, when Mary visited him, she informed him of the spelling error. Unfortunately, soon the word YEAR began to topple in the wind again. Mary said, "Why don't you go out and right the words?" Peter disappeared into the garden for a few minutes, but soon returned in frustration, having discovered that the correct spelling was much more difficult to manoeuvre. "Beforehand, it was easy," he said, "but when I right a word, how can I, now that the spelling is correct?" (Of course, we have an understanding of the context here, so we can see the error, but the grammar checker doesn't.) Marnanel (talk) 13:35, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Peter! I looked around a little, and I was surprised to find that there is an easy way to check spelling ( but not grammar ), especially if you use the Firefox browser. See Wikipedia:Spellchecking#Using_a_web_browser for details. The Firefox method works well for me. Once you check the box mentioned in the link, words that are misspelled will be underlined. Move the cursor to one of those underlined words, and right click to get a list of suggested alternatives. The ability to select languages or add dictionaries is not listed, by the way, until you mark the "check spelling" box. Good luck! – OhioStandard (talk) 11:55, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also consider that a spellchecker will accept the sentence When I right a word how can I now that the spelling is correct. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 11:07, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Debaser" (Pixies song) title sound file request for Wikipédia

Hi all,
Raphaël asked at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous):

Hi !
I'm a contributor on the french Wiki, and I'm working on tow articles called Debaser (one for the Pixies's song, one for a comic book).
But, in France, we speak mostly french (thank's captain) so, nobody really knows how to pronounce the word "Debaser".
Can anybody here with a good mic say "Debaser", upload the file on Wikimedia Commons, and give me the link ?
It would be really nice ! - Raphaël.

I added quick and dirty IPA /dɨˈbeːsɚ/, and please correct me if I'm wrong. I really don't know where to go from here about fulfiling the sound file request. (I'd pronounce it /dəˈbæisə/, so I'm not much use here). Your thoughts about this?
--Shirt58 (talk) 11:56, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The word "Debaser" is pronounced in the Pixies song. Just listen to the song. Astronaut (talk) 12:37, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I still think someone with a good mic ( I don't have one ) should honor Raphaël's request. Think of it as your chance for audio immortality on fr.wikipedia.org. Besides, "hands across the water", and all that. But good lord, Raphaël! Do you really mean to say there are people, right now, speaking mostly French!? The things you tell us! – OhioStandard (talk) 13:25, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

First language in the history of human civilization

which was the first language that was used by human civilisation? where was it used? when was it used ? what is the available reference for the answer

1. it wasn't any language alive today so the question of which is pointless. Possibly it was the ancestor of one, some or all of the language families alive today. Some linguists believe that there was a single proto-World language that is the ancestor of all languages alive today.

2. Human language evolved along with Humans in Africa.

3. Probably around 50,000 years ago when the humans first reached the current evolutionary stage.

4. Crystal, David (1997). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-55967-7.·Maunus·ƛ· 16:11, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(EC) First you need to define 'civilisation'. The earliest written language may be your best bet, but then, that would also depend, as some languages were 'written' (in the sense that cave paintings were meant to convey information), and yet we have no idea how the actual languages sounded or what grammar they used, etc. You may want to check out the Sumerian language for information on one of the languages with the earliest known phonetic writing system, and Chinese characters for one of the earliest known non-phonetic (mostly) writing systems, as well as Egyptian hieroglyphs. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:17, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For lots more information see our article on the origin of language.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 16:26, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We also have a List of languages by first written accounts. The cave paintings may have conveyed information but they by no stretch of the imagination represented human language. Pais (talk) 16:27, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The question is very confused, and it is not clear whether the questioner is asking about spoken language or written language. As Manus says, the origins of spoken language are probably around 50,000 years ago, whereas the first evidence of civilisation (with semi-permanent settlements instead of roving tribes of hunter-gatherers) only appears around 10,000 years ago. Gandalf61 (talk) 16:30, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Right. Spoken language, as opposed to writing, came well before cities, which is the usual meaning of "civilization". Spoken languages may even predate modern humans, including Neanderthals and others. If your definition is flexible enough (specifically, not requiring grammar), then many animals may also be said to have a language, such as whales. (Even if grammar is required, we might still find a few candidates.) StuRat (talk) 19:54, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So, if we take your question literally, since all early civilizations had languages, the question is which civilization came first. The candidates are listed in Cradle of civilization. It's not clear which civilization is oldest, as when a population initially qualifies as "civilized" is open to debate. StuRat (talk) 20:00, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The first civilization to practice intensive year-round agriculture was Sumer, and the Sumerian language is the earliest known written language. Sumerian is a language isolate, with no demonstrable genealogical relationship to other languages. Written Sumerian dates back to about the 31st to 30th century B.C.; the spoken language must be older. There were cities, and therefore arguably civilization, prior to Sumer. Çatalhöyük, for example, is thought to date back to 7500 B.C. Nobody knows what language was spoken there. John M Baker (talk) 20:22, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Promentorium tremendum = ?

The nature program I saw translated this as "the horrible headlands", but this sounds very wrong to me. I'm thinking more like "large headland". So, what is the correct translation ? StuRat (talk) 19:47, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Whitaker's suggests "terrible, awe inspiring" which makes much more sense. "Horrible" sounds like a synonym for the other meaning of "terrible", although I suppose you might infer the same meaning of "horrible". - Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 20:27, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Tremendum" literally means "something to tremble at" (or "something that causes you to tremble" or some other circuitous phrase). Now we use "tremendous" as a synonym for "big", but "horrible headland" is appropriate, and nicely alliterative. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:50, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds like something by Lemony Snicket. Anyway horror is not the same as fear, exactly. --Trovatore (talk) 03:41, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just a minor nitpick, since this is the language desk, there are Promunturium and Promontorium, but not "Promentorium". In this case it appears to be Promontorium Tremendum (with 1,640 g-hits, many of which translate it as "Horrible Headland" as well). (By the way, this is an example where I should outdent my post, since I'm responding to StuRat. I don't want this aside to stick out prominently, however, so I'm tucking it into this cascade). ---Sluzzelin talk 11:12, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I heard it, rather than saw it in writing, so this is the best I could do at reproducing it. It was apparently close enough to get an answer. I do wish that English would use one letter for all the short vowel sounds, though, like the "ə" I've seen used for that under one system, so I wouldn't have to guess. StuRat (talk) 20:12, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In other words, Sluzzelin, you want it to have the appearance of responding to Trovatore, while actually responding to StuRat, and you're prepared to use an extra 35 words to achieve that particular outcome. That would be like being in a group of people, facing Mary and looking her square in the eye, while conducting a conversation with Bill and addressing him by name. That would be rather odd behaviour there, and it's equally odd behaviour here. But it's OK, we're very used to doing "odd" round here. Welcome to the club. :) -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 16:27, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I might add that, despite your desire to be invisible - or maybe because of that desire - you've achieved the opposite result. That which we resist persists. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 16:32, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

lol. ---Sluzzelin talk 19:20, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There, see, I knew you could do it. :) -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 21:15, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

February 18

Is the following sentence ambiguous?

There’s no question that gravity wins in that circumstance.

Does it mean that gravity wins? Or does it mean that gravity does not win? Can it mean either depending on the circumstance? Kindly explain. 117.211.88.149 (talk) 11:34, 18 February 2011 (UTC)Vineet Chaitanya[reply]

Unfortunately it can mean either – at least in British English, which often uses "No question (of)" to mean "No possibility (of)": see here (under the heading "No doubt that"). In an American context, on the other hand, it would definitely mean that gravity wins. Lfh (talk) 12:22, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't they say "No question of gravity winning"? I thought that this construction takes a continuous verb in BrE. On the other hand, AmE would use "no question that" and a different verb. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:43, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You're right, that would be the more common construction in BrE - but it would still be helpful to know whether the OP's quote comes from a BrE or AmE source. I'm sure they discussed this topic on Language Log a year or two ago, but I can't find it - does anyone else remember? Lfh (talk) 13:09, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not at all ambiguous. It means that gravity will always win in the specified circumstances. However in circumstances other than that specified, gravity will sometimes win and sometimes lose depending on some other condition. Astronaut (talk) 13:27, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"That circumstance" sounds unusual to me. I would use "that case" or "those circumstances". Thoughts? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 13:35, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Slightly unusual, but far from unprecedented. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 17:42, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to warn about the last link you posted, Jack. My antivirus took action against some "Iframe.B.Gen virus". Maybe it was just me. Anyway, I wanted to share the warning. Pallida Mors 16:37, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My system was (and remains) oblivious to it, but thank you for noting that circumstance, Pallida Mors. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 16:53, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Translation of 17th-century German book title

If someone could help translate the 17th-century German book title at "commons:File:Christoph Hartknoch, Kupferstich von Frauenburg (1684).jpg" into English that would be great. Thanks. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:51, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean the

Alt- und neues Preussen, oder, Preussischer Historien zwey Theile: in derer erstem von desz Landes vorjähriger Gelegenheit und Nahmen, wie auch der Völcker, so darinnen vor dem teutschen Orden gewohnet, Uhrankunfft, Lebens-Beschaffenheit, Sprache, Religion, Hochzeiten, Begräbnüssen, Hausshaltung, Kriegsrüstung, Republic und andere Sitten und Gewohnheiten: in dem andern aber von desz teutschen Ordens Ursprung, desselben, wie auch der nachfolgenden Herrschafft vornehmsten Thaten und Kriegen, Erbauung der Städte, der itzigen Innwohner Uhrsprung, Religion, Müntzordnung, Rechten und Policeywesen gehandelt wird

bit? Not a native speaker, but with a little help from Google Translate (uncertain translations marked with †, very uncertain left untranslated):

Old and New Prussia, or Prussian history two parts: In the first, of the country's historical† opportunities† and acquisitions, and also, how the people lived prior to the Teutonic Order, ancient arrival, quality of life†, language, religion, holidays, Begräbnüssen(burial customs/items?), housekeeping, armaments, governance†, and other customs and habits. In the other, however, the time from the Teutonic Order's origin itself will be dealt with, also, the subsequent governments'† principal deeds and wars, the building of cities, the origin of jewish[5]† itinerants†, religion, coinage, rights, and Policeywesen(police powers?).

Hope that helps. -- 174.21.250.120 (talk) 17:37, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Some stuff:

"Hochzeiten" means "weddings" (not "holidays")
"Begräbnüssen" does indeed mean burials
Here, "itzig" is derived from "itzo" and is an old word for "jetzig" meaning "present-day".
"Innwohner" is "Einwohner", i.e. "inhabitants"
I'd translate "[...] der itzigen Innwohner Uhrsprung, Religion, Müntzordnung, Rechten und Policeywesen" as "[...]the present-day inhabitants' origins, religion, coinage laws, rights, and police matters"

---Sluzzelin talk 19:40, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To give this a little more coherence and accuracy:

Old and new Prussia, or Prussian history's two parts: in the first of them the country's ancient position and names, as well as the people who lived there before the Teutonic Order, their ancient settlement of the region, ways of life, language, religion, weddings, burials, livelihood, armaments, politics, and other customs and practices are covered; in the second the origins of the Teutonic Order itself, as well as the subsequent rulers' finest deeds and wars, construction of towns, the origins of the present-day inhabitants, religion, coinage (currency), laws, and government.

Note that some of these German words have meanings that are obsolete in present-day German. For example, Policeywesen in the 17th century (which would now be spelled Polizeiwesen) meant much more than "police matters" as we would define that term. See for example Polizeiwissenschaft. Policey in the 17th century referred to all areas of government control and regulation. Note also that the subject covered in the first part of this work is the Old Prussians and that the work as a whole refers to the historic region of Prussia rather than the later kingdom of Prussia. I am not a native speaker, but I spent a few years immersing myself in dusty German books and archival documents from this period and a little later. Marco polo (talk) 21:11, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for everyone's help! — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 09:30, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sumerian

What's the Sumerian translation for "Bringer of Death"? --75.15.161.185 (talk) 23:40, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is no past or present language called (in English) "Mesopotamian." Various languages have been or are spoken in the region called Mesopotamia: which of them did you mean? 87.81.230.195 (talk) 00:48, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's actually a little microcosm of changing middle-east lingua francas: Sumerian, Akkadian, Aramaic, Arabic... AnonMoos (talk) 08:45, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you were addressing that to me, AnonMoos, I am well aware of the region's ancient linguistic history, and didn't want to confuse the OP with too much detail before he could clarify. If you were addressing the OP, your indent was misleading. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 12:24, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure I was addressing anyone -- just making a general observation on the mutability of time (in reply, however, to your message, and not the OP's...) AnonMoos (talk) 14:10, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Changed to "Sumerian". --75.15.161.185 (talk) 19:10, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

February 19

Does any language have such an arrangement? I know some have aspirate/breathy in stops and breathy/modal in sonorants, but I'm specifically looking for /kʰ gʱ g/, for example. It just kind of *feels* like that would be more stable than the /k gʱ g/ of PIE, but I'd like a bit more trustworthy source. Lsfreak (talk) 02:36, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A number of books by people like Ian Maddieson survey sound inventories of many languages. Anyway, the Glottalic theory has been argued about for almost 40 years without having become accepted as the main default hypothesis by most scholars... AnonMoos (talk) 08:52, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

French

In French written slang (i.e., in IRC and informal online boards), one will often see something like "p'wet". What does this mean? 72.128.95.0 (talk) 03:35, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In French pwet/pouet/pouêt (the "t" is pronounced) is an onomatopoeia from the sound of a bulb horn (old car klaxon). The meaning heavily depends on the context, but in IRC I guess that the meaning for pouêt-pouêt ! (or pouêt for short) is: "you are obviously wrong, so you'd better keep your mouth shut". — AldoSyrt (talk) 11:27, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Languages in The Eagle

The film The Eagle (2011 film) is specifically set in the year 140 AD, mostly north of Hadrian's Wall. In the film, a Roman and his Brigante slave, Esca, encounter a tribe which the movie calls the Seal People. I'm not sure if they're supposed to be Picts, but their warriors keep themselves covered in dried mud at all times (I'm not sure what woad-dyed skin would look like, so I don't know if they're supposed to be Picts or not. As a Brigante, Esca claims that his people were allied with the Seal People against the Romans, so he is welcomed into their village. Esca serves as a translator between the Seal People and the Roman. At one point, when Esca introduces himself to the Seal People, he calls himself "Esca mac <his father's name>.". Now am I correct in assuming that, as a Brigante, his native language would have been something Brythonic, and therefore in his own language he would have been Esca ap <his father's name>? If I'm correct, then what he's doing is using Scots Gaelic to speak to the Seal People. But Scots Gaelic appears not to have been introduced into Scotland until about the 4th century. Is this an anachronism in the movie? What language/languages would the people living north of Hadrian's Wall have spoken? Something Brythonic? Corvus cornix_talk 07:05, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ogham inscriptions, even in Wales and Cornwall, use MAQI for "son"... AnonMoos (talk) 09:14, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If they are meant to be Picts, then no one really knows what the Pictish language was like. Some kind of Celtic? Some other Indo-European language? Not IE at all? Adam Bishop (talk) 09:28, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This probably goes beyond what the film intended (and I don't recall it from the book on which the film is based), but the name "Seal People" carries a suggestion of a reference to Selkies, a Scots folk legend of "were-seals". It has been suggested that this may derive from encounters with Sami kayakers who occasionally visited Scottish shores.

I have seen suggestions that the Picts were not monoethnic, but a confederation which included both Gaelic-speaking tribes and non-Gaelophones. Having lived in the formerly Pictish Kingdom of Fife (where some think or thought that the Ninth Legion was wiped out), I dearly wish there was more evidence available about the Picts. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 12:49, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Some information about Pictish here. Alansplodge (talk) 13:11, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

piano ripple

Hello everybody, I hope this is the right place for my question (sorry if it's not!). I'm trying to get my head arround a review of a mainstream rock album that I'm supposed to summarize. However, the style of the text is a bit too flowery for me. Anyway, here is the phrase that I'm failing to understand: "The song is a three-minute rock opera, complete with humming, liquid-toned guitars, tympani-style drums and ripples of piano."

Does anybody know what "ripples of piano" is supposed to mean here? How can a piano sound like it's dabbling? ;) Could it mean that the piano is phasing in and out of the mix, i. e. that quiet and loud passages are alternating.

I'd be glad if someone could help me out on that. Thanks in advance! --84.148.25.251 (talk) 11:38, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

When I've encountered the term before, I've always understood it to refer to the repeated and gentle playing of fast arpeggios. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 12:29, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Help writing Urdu script

How do I write the Urdu at http://npiskuwait.com/dsPortal/dsFls/templates/fronted/default/images/npis_text.jpg in computer text? I want to add the Urdu to the New Pakistan International School article WhisperToMe (talk) 13:46, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's quite small and blurry, but as far as I can tell it's in Arabic, not Urdu: المدرسة البكستانية الدولية (can't make out the last word). AnonMoos (talk) 14:19, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Logically, the last word would be expected to be الجديدة but I really can't tell with any degree of confidence whether the blur is that or not... AnonMoos (talk) 14:24, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The fourth word is الحدیثه, meaning new. --Omidinist (talk) 16:16, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not too sure what the difference in meaning between jadīd and ħadith is... AnonMoos (talk) 17:39, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]