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May 4

Capitalization of "von" at the beginning of a sentence?

If someone's last name contains the word "von", as in "von Neumann", and one wanted to use just the last name at the beginning of a sentence, would one capitalize it or leave it lower case? Some sentences in the John von Neumann article do capitalize it in this context, but I just want to know if that sort of practice is correct. -- noosphere 04:27, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it is correct. (Chicago Manual of Style, 8.7 "always capitalized when beginning a sentence".) In a collaborative environment such as this, however, the big-endians and the little-endians can only come to terms by recasting any such sentence so it doesn't begin with the name. - Nunh-huh 05:06, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Great. Thank you so much for your answer. -- noosphere 06:30, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Bias, Landscaping

how do you say Bias or Landscaping in spanish?

(are partial | paisajemiento or áreas verdes correct?) Qrc2006 10:50, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd say bias (noun) = prejuicio, biased (adjective) = parcial. Landscaping might be translated as jardineria ornamental. On an urban level it is paisajismo. Lesgles (talk) 21:33, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Head-first and head-final languages

Give the list of head-first languages and head-final languages. —Masatran 15:29, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

All of them? If you just need a few examples, see Word order please. David Sneek 15:54, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Alphabet and language in Transnistria, part of Moldova

Hello,

I was just wondering about the language situation in Transnistria. Transnistria is a breakaway state of Moldova. The country is not widely recognized by the international community.

I heard people say that Moldovan is very similar to Romanian and that some even consider it the same language. I also read that Moldovan is the dominant language in both Moldova (under Chisinau rule) and in Transnistrian, but in Transnistria they use the Cyrillic alphabet, while in the rest of Moldova they use the Latin alphabet.

However, recently I saw a documentary about Transnistria, and not only was everything written in Cyrillic alphabet, it appeared that Russian was the dominant language. There were only a handful of Moldovan schools, and they have to struggle to survive.

Can anyone clear this up for me? I will be very interested in any remarks.

Thx! Evilbu 18:57, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't know much about it, but I was under the impression Ukrainian rather than Russian was the dominant language of Transnistria. Angr (talk • contribs) 19:09, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Moldovan is Romanian. Most Moldovans I've met would agree. (And as far as Wikipedia is concerned it's the same - the Moldovan-language wikipedia was disbanded after a broad majority of Moldovan editors felt it was redundant). So bluntly, "Moldovan" is purely a political invention. Note that all of Moldova/Basarabia used Cyrillic while they were part of the USSR and the Russian Empire prior to that. Ok, as for Transnistria (Trandniestr) - Basically the raison d'étre of that breakaway republic is the wish to keep stronger ties with Russia (and Ukraine, although that's also inside the Russian sphere of influence, less so since the "Orange revolution" though). As you might know, the whole thing pretty much came about when the Russian 14th army refused to leave. The Russian and Ukranian minority there is sizeable. (IIRC, Moldovans are still the biggest ethnical group there, but not larger than Russians and Ukranians together). If you want to get into the nitty-gritty, the real reason for Transdniestr's existance is the Russian mafia, who's running a highly profitable smuggling and trafficing racket out of there. So in as few words as possible: Trandniestr is basically (with the possible exception of Belarus) the last surviving part of the Soviet Union. (Before someone asks.. Yes, I am interested in Moldova. -Someone's got to take an interest in those obscure corners of the map.) --BluePlatypus 02:07, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you but I still don't get it. The situation is definitely complex, as Transnistria was once described as the part of Moldova that looks to the east, to Ukraine, but with the Orange Revolution Ukraine might turn more to the west itself. So what about the language then. Everyone used cyrillic that I saw in that documentary, but Ukranians, even if they are dominant together with the Russians, don't speak the same language either. So the Russians enforce Russian on everyone else? Evilbu 13:08, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Ukrainian is written in Cyrillic too; are you sure it was Russian and not Ukrainian? And anyway, lots of Ukrainians do speak Russian, often better than Ukrainian. Angr (talk • contribs) 14:07, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, I can't know what language it was without having seen the documentary. But as said, all three languages can be written in cyrillic. (E.g. "Good morning" is "Bună dimineaţa" or "Бунэ диминяца" in Cyrillic. Which is pretty different from Russian"Доброе утро" and Ukrainian "Доброго ранку"). There isn't much of a language barrier between Russian and Ukrainian. They have a high level of mutual intelligibility to begin with, and most Ukrainians know Russian anyway. (Something like almost half of all Ukrainians speak Russian at home) Most Moldovans and Belarusians know Russian too. (Even if Russian/Ukrainian are pretty far removed from Romanian. - although Romanian does have a clear slavic influence (E.g. "Yes" is "da". Even some non-Russian words are still Russian; "tram" is "tramvai", borrowed from Russian, borrowed from English "tramway"). Officially all three languages are official languages of Transdniestr. But I haven't been there so I can't speak from experience on what languages they de facto use the most. I suspect it's probably Russian for everyday, non-personal talk, since that's probably the language most people know. At home, people of course use their mother tounge. --BluePlatypus 19:13, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

How to show correct spelling in a mispelled quote.

I have a dedication which I want to quote, but the name of the dedicatee is misspelled. What is the proper method used to show the name as it is printed as well as to show that the spelling used is incorrect? For example, the name is shown as "Fridjof Nansen" but the correct spelling is "Fridtjof Nansen." There is only one letter missing ("t"), but I want to show the correct spelling, preferably inside of the quote. Feel free to correct any of my grammar as used in this paragraph.

I would either write "Fridjof [sic; Fridtjof] Nansen" or simply "silently correct" it to "Fridtjof Nansen". Angr (talk • contribs) 20:28, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

As long as it's a minor mistake, with no significance, most editors would be happy to correct it without drawing undue attention to it. I quote a lot in my work, and often have to correct sloppy spellings from Indian writers and publishers. --Shantavira 07:21, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

This issue comes up a lot when words spoken by some public figure are misspelled when converted into a written quote by a journalist. If I'm quoting the person using the "quote" written by the journo, I'll always correct the spelling because I consider I'm just finishing the journo's job. For example, when I see "can not" in a quote, I almost always change it to "cannot". "Can not" is a different concept and usually not what the speaker intended.

But there's a problem when the misspelled words commenced their life in written form. There's no single solution, it will depend on the circumstances. As well as what Angr and Shantavira have said, two other options are (a) quote them exactly without qualification (Fridjof), or (b) change "Fridjof" to "Fridtjof" and use square brackets to show this is your interpolation. You need to decide whether it's Nansen's name that's the real point, or whether the misspelling is somehow an important issue in whatever you're writing about. JackofOz 01:33, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Syntax

As a frequent RD contributor, I am quite confident that many who read this board are, as I, grammar pedants, and it is they in particular to whom I address this question, one that has troubled me for some time. A few months ago, I was copyediting a section of the Super Bowl XL article (which section now appears as its own article and changed “…some critics claimed he called it when the play clock had already struck zero. That would have penalized Pittsburgh 5 yards and made it 3rd and 11…” to “…some contended that the play clock hit zero seconds before Roethlisberger called for a timeout, which would have constituted a delay-of-game and resulted in the assessment of a five-yard penalty…”. Another editor, whom I think to be an excellent contributor, removed “the assessment of”, suggesting that the locution was unnecessarily verbose. Even as I have left (and will continue to leave, irrespective of the answers provided here) the sentence in the revised state, I wonder if others concur in my belief that “the assessment of” is, in a syntactic analysis, preferable. My argument, I suppose, rests primarily on the idea that a referee’s determining the existence of (and then whistling) a penalty in American football, or, even more aptly, in football qua soccer, is a significant interpolation between a player’s committing a foul and a penalty’s actually being enacted. While the primary actor in the scoring of a touchdown, for example, is the player (even as an official might make judgments as to whether a receiver caught a ball in bounds or whether the ball crossed the plane of the goal), upon which note I’d rest the contention that we ought to write “Joe Schmoe caught a 19-yard pass for a touchdown” (cf., “Joe Schmoe caught a 19-yard pass, which catching resulted in the ‘’assessment’’ of a touchdown”), the primary actor, IMHO, in the assessment of a penalty is an intervening actor, the referee, inasmuch as most assessments are discretionary (certainly more penalty assessments than touchdown assessments are discretionary), such that a given action doesn’t result in a penalty but, rather, in the assessment of a penalty. We are more likely, I think, to say that “Joe Schmoe caught a 19-yard touchdown pass” than to say that “Joe Schmoe committed a holding penalty” (rather, “Joe Schmoe was flagged for holding”), and I think such preference follows logically from the situation I set out. I certainly have entertained the idea that “the assessment of” ought also to be appended to sentences with respect to touchdowns, since one’s catching a pass doesn’t ‘’result’’ in anything; perhaps the use of result is altogether inelegant in any case. Notwithstanding that, though, is my “assessment” suggestion a hypercorrection/adduction of a distinction without a difference, or can it accurately be said that, since there is a cause more proximate to the assessment of a penalty than a player’s committing the penalty, the “assessment” locution ought to be preferred. (Even if I can’t make the list of users with the most edits, at least I can surely assume my place in the RD’s records book for “longest [and most inane] question.) Joe 00:01, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

While there is a difference between "the assessment of a 5-yard penalty" and "a 5-yard penalty," I think the difference is not significant enough in this case to merit the extra words. The meaning gets across clearly without them. When choosing between more or fewer words, you should generally go with the fewer if it doesn't significantly change the meaning of the sentence. -- Mwalcoff 00:29, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

OK sir, we're going to have to ask you to put down the dictionary and thesaurus and slowly back away. --LarryMac 12:35, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Hey, it's not as inane as the discussion at Talk:Mike McCarthy --Maxamegalon2000 04:52, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

No offence, Joe, but this reminds me of a certain PBF cartoon. —Keenan Pepper 05:06, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

May 5

German and Sanskrit

I was told that the grammar of the German language is based on Sanskrit. Is this true? --Vikram

Not really. What's the case is that both Sanskrit and German (as most European languages) are decendents of a single common ancestor, the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). Nobody knows exactly what PIE was like (and it can only be regarded as hypothetical, although a very likely hypothesis), since there are no written sources of that language. What we do know (and what was instrumental in forming this hypothesis) is that Vedic Sanskrit is one of the oldest languages decending from PIE that there are sources for. So as such, it's the language that's closest to PIE itself. Since all these languages have decended from a common source, they all have a somewhat similar grammar, at least compared to completely unrelated languages like Japanese. --BluePlatypus 05:16, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

It would be flatly wrong to say that any feature of German is based on Sanskrit—they diverge from fundamentally separate branches of the Indo-European family tree. Nevertheless, from the perspective of an English speaker, a superficial similarity might be seen in their inflectional systems. Both languages are grammatically conservative, having extensive case systems, whereas English is essentially analytic and lacks any sort of productive morphology. Both German and Sanskrit distinguish between nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive cases and both are, I believe, fairly fusional. However, from a German's perspective, Sanskrit wouldn't be familiar at all. Unlike German, Sanskrit has instrumental, vocative, ablative, and locative cases, dual number, not to mention a far more complicated system of conjugation, , and countless other differences. Of course, in terms of vocabulary, German is far more closely related to English. But even in strictly grammatical terms, it's a tenuous comparison. In that repsect, German is far more similar to Latin, Greek, or Irish (or any other Centum language) than to a distant cousin like Sanskrit. Bhumiya (said/done) 21:55, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing this up BluePlatypus and Bhumiya :) --Vikram

SVO vs. AVO

I would appreciate if someone can explain the reasons for describing English as an "AVO" language rather than an "SVO" language. (ref:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_order)

Vineet Chaitanya

This is more appropriately discussed at Talk:Word order. Angr (talk • contribs) 08:07, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Just a guess, "agent" is more precise than "subject"? Though I admit I've never heard of this description before. --Keitei (talk) 13:48, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

It isn't more precise, it means something different. The sentences John kicked the ball and The ball was kicked by John have different subjects but the same agent. Angr (talk • contribs) 13:52, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't that make English SVO and not AVO? "The ball was kicked by John" is OVA, but still SV(O). --Keitei (talk) 12:30, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

That's a good example of how the passive voice makes an SVO/OVA disparity, but since English prefers the active voice, it's still SVO and usually AVO. - Draeco 07:34, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Learning English in French class

In my traditional American education (note sarcasm), I found that I learned most of what I knew about English as a language from my French class. For a good 4 years, I had no idea what ˆ, `, ´, and ç were called in English. I also learned tenses in French long before I heard anything of them in English (e.g. plus que parfait). My teachers would often teach French through similar English ideas, naming them for the first time to me.
It makes me wonder if anyone else has had this experience, or has mourned years of defining "nouns", "verbs", and "adjectives". Why is it that in English class we learn nothing of English? I've had teachers recommend I take Latin if I want to learn about English. Is there a good reason why English classes in the US focus on literature? And getting into college... --Keitei (talk) 13:42, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

It's not just America. In Belgium, people defend studying Latin on the grounds that it leads to a better understanding of Dutch and French grammar. The Esperantists make the same case for Esperanto. The logic of this eludes me. Here, no one studies the linguistics of their own language except undergrad linguists, but I think that if they had to study the comparative linguistics of their native language and the second language or languages they're studying, not only could they do without the dead language, but they would have a much easier time with any future language study.

The story as I understand it is that the decline of prescriptive grammar study resulted in its replacement with practiced-based reading and writing in English classes. This was, in fact, a good idea and the right thing to do. You will become a far better speaker and writer of your native language, and you reach far higher levels of literacy, if your class time is spent reading engaging texts, writing essays and receiving corrections and constructive criticism of your own texts, rather than studying largely fictitious rules. This is fairly well established in the education literature, and is part of the logic behind whole language reading curricula. It breaks down for students with poor literacy or who are not fluent speakers of standard English, and this is much of the reason why phonics came back, but if the goal is socially acceptable language usage among competent native users, you still get more bang for your buck by reading texts and writing essays.

I think students should get some general notions of linguistics in school, especially enough phonetics to identify the place and manner of articulation of consonants, and learn to understand the vowel triangle (actually a trapezoid). This does them an enormous service in dealing with foreign languages. But also, learning to identify agents and patients, subjects and objects, modifiers and prepositional phrases, and diagramming sentences would be a good thing, if nothing else because it makes second language study much less of a mystery. But I don't think it can or should replace a serious literature curriculum. --Diderot 14:32, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Certainly some schools still teach grammar in English classes. It may be less common but it is not completely abandoned. Rmhermen 16:21, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

The story goes that there was a study back in the 70s that showed that teaching grammar had no effect on writing test scores of native speakers of course. I don't remember the citation. This had a lot of resonance because the skills and interests of people who become English teachers are not those of people who like to understand grammar. Also, the grammar being taught was traditional grammar which tries to squeeze English into a kind of jerry-rigged system developed for Latin, not to mention the incoherencies of prescription. For instance, to claim that English has a future tense makes no sense considering that the ways of expressing the future are periphrastic, whereas the way we express the past is inflectional. In Latin all three tenses were inflectional, as they are today in Romance languages.

I don't think grammar will make much of a comeback although it would be a lot more effective than learning Latin in teaching how to think analytically about patterns found in nature, overcome many of the myths about one language being better than another, and help with foreign language learning later. The reason for my pessimism is that English teachers won't want to learn it, and either will those who teach them. mnewmanqc

I found that learning Spanish made it much easier to teach the English language later in life to ESL students. I knew of things like passive voice and perfect tenses from Spanish class. -- Mwalcoff 22:36, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

i certainly learnt no grammar whatsoever in English classes at school (Britain). Our French teacher had to explain what a preposition was, the concept being unknown to us. Its not the same everywhere though - Spanish eleven-year-olds have already been taught all about the (Spanish) pluperfect subjunctive passive, etc. Jameswilson 23:11, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

I think a lot of English grammar is taught at a point where students are typically too young to retain the technical knowledge. In my experience, English classes had switched entirely to writing (and usually writing about literature) by 8th grade. We had been taught the language stuff, why focus on that again, is the line of thinking. If you don't start learning French until high school, that transition doesn't occur until later. As for the names of accent marks in English, I'd say most people aren't taught that because accent marks are not an important part of the language. - user:rasd

I'm in Ireland and find the exact same thing. I've said it several times to teachers that it's current manifestation as a subject is a "joke of a subject". Everyone I know, including some teachers, agree that it should be more focused on grammar and stuff like that, as opposed to literature and drama. I'm hoping some of these years they'll update the Junior Cert. English, since they're currently on a streak of updates of syllibi. Also the same is true for what you said about learning the names of tenses only in other languages, in my case: Irish, French and Spanish. Even in books, in the middle of a sentence in English, they refer to a tense as "Passé Composé" or "Aimsir Caite" etc.. - ^Red_Hot 12:30, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Where goes the possessive?

This sentence from Detroit, Michigan: "When Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick found himself behind in the polls in the 2005 election, his campaign tried to draw attention to his opponent, Freeman Hendrix's, support in the suburbs." It was recently changed from "opponent's, Freeman Hendrix, support" to the above. I would have guessed that the original was correct. Rmhermen 16:07, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

I think generally, either wording is going to be confusing. Technically, I think the second version is correct, but is confusing as Freeman Hendrix ends up straight after the possessive. The problem is, Freeman Hendrix is in a seperate clause thing, and if done correctly you should be able to read the sentence without anything from the clause. "opponent, Freeman Hendrix,'s support" obviously doesn't work. I think it needs to be reworded. "to the support his opponent, Freeman Hendrix, received in the suburbs"? Skittle 16:46, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

The original looks OK if you remove the commas around Freeman Hendrix's. Jameswilson 23:28, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

In spoken English, the rule is that the 's goes at the end of the last item in the possessive series. For example, "Have you been to my friend Bob's house?" The same rule is carried over to written English, but it may receive criticism since it is not in common practice. In addition, the inclusion of commas with the appositive make the position of 's more difficult. The best alternative is to use a construction with the word of, sometimes called a genitive construction. Therefore, the best way to word the example above is "...tried to draw attention to the support of his opponent, Freeman Hendrix, in the suburbs."--El aprendelenguas 23:36, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

I may be wrong, but I would have said "his opponent's, Freeman Hendrix's, support", although I can't say why. It just seems more natural to me. Bhumiya (said/done) 00:37, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

face vs construct validity

I think the link for "face validity" goes to "construct validity."

I disagree. Vehemently. Loomis51 23:55, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

The A was B, who had Ced themselves

The Royalists' major asset was the Navy, who had declared themselves for the Prince of Wales.

— Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years' War#Origins (Emphasis mine)

Is the above sentence's grammatical number correct? “Themselves” feels wrong. I'd say “itself” or “herself”, but I am not a native speaker of English. If the word “Navy” is used like “police” in that sentence, shouldn't it be “The Royalists' major asset were the Navy, who had declared themselves for the Prince of Wales”? Wikipeditor 17:10, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

There are two points here. The first is that the verb must agree with the subject, not the complement, e.g. "Clouds are vaporized water" and "The last crop was potatoes" (I took these examples from Fowler). In more complex sentences, even native English speakers sometimes get confused, but the rule does not change. Since "asset" is singular, it must be "the asset was".

The second problem is the word navy, a collective noun which can be singular or plural depending on context. Here, it is taken as a plural, hence "themselves". This usage is rare in American English, however, which is probably why it feels wrong to you. For example, as an American speaker, I would say "The Royalists' major asset was the Navy, which had declared itself for the Prince of Wales." Lesgles (talk) 18:07, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Ignoring the unrelated issues raised below, Lesgles is right. The use of "was" is correct, and the only option, no matter where you live; the use of "themselves" is correct in British usage, incorrect in American, and completely unrelated to "was". Tesseran 21:45, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I currently do not have the time to read through all replies yet, but will try to do so later. Thanks to everybody for contributing, and especially to Lesgles for summing it all up. Wikipeditor 15:05, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd say "The Royalists major asset was the Navy, which had declared itself... "Were" and "themselves" just don't sound right to me. Of course, I'm an American, and we treat almost all group nouns as singular, except for things like "police", whereas the British would be more likely to say "...were the Navy, who had declared themselves..."

In any case, mixing "was" and "themselves" is wrong by either the British or the American standard. It was probably written by an Englishman and proofread by an American or vice versa. Linguofreak 18:20, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

It actually isn't a mix, as the two verbs do not have the same subject. As I mentioned above, was agrees with the word asset, which is singular (the asset was). Themselves agrees with Navy, which can be construed as plural (the navy were). As an American speaker, though, I would rephrase the sentence the same way you would. There might be a better way to construct the sentence, but it is grammatical as it stands (in British English, at least). Lesgles (talk) 00:00, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

The rule about number agreement is not always clear cut. When referring to a single person whose gender is unknown or unimportant, using "he or she" in all its forms is tiresome, so it's now usual to use "they" and "them". What's the reflexive form? Is it themself, because a single person has only one "self"? Or is it themselves, because "selves" has to agree with the grammatical number of "them"? Hard to say, but many sources say "themself" is not really a legit word. In any event, if you type the word "themself", most spell checkers will change it to "themselves", and so we get things like "The person who did this really has to sort themselves out". Most writers will accept that change without blinking, because it reflects the way most people speak (which may, ironically, have something to do with the tyranny of the spell checker to begin with). In this respect, Fowler (2nd edition, 1978 reprint) was not up to speed with current PC-think (although this may have changed in the 1999 3rd edition). His 1978 preferred solution was to avoid "themselves" in such cases and assume masculine gender ("himself") because that was the convention in the interpretation of legal documents. He also takes the piss out of himself by concluding "Whether that convention ... is an arrogant demand on the part of male England, everyone must decide for himself (or for himself or herself, or for themselves)". JackofOz 00:54, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, singular they has always been a tricky problem (separate from the one brought up by Wikipeditor). My personal solution is to restructure the sentence whenever possible. Lesgles (talk) 17:57, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

"SCHM" prefix

I saw a billboard for a Mini Cooper that had the tagline "OPEC, SCHMOPEC". I've often seen the "schm" prefix, used to show disdain for something or someone. Is there a name for this type of phrase?

Shm-reduplication -- AnonMoos 17:55, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

I <3 Wikipedia! —Keenan Pepper 00:44, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

<3 ? -LambaJan 18:44, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Love. Tilt your head to the right and use a little imagination, and it looks like a heart. Angr (talk • contribs) 18:47, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I was too lazy to open GNOME Character Map and get one of these doohickeys: ♥ —Keenan Pepper 21:19, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Chinese translating.......

Good afternoon....I am looking for a program or web page for translating Chinese into English. Any help would be greatly appreciated, Thank you.

Google language tools. --Ornil 20:15, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

MLA

how do i put info i got from an article on this website into my works cited? how is it supposed to be formatted and look?

See Citing Wikipedia. You can also use the cite tool by clicking on the "cite this article" button on the toolbar to the left. Note that questions like this are more suitable for the Help desk than the reference desk. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 23:53, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

May 6

Translation

hi, I just wrote an artice in English and I know that the same article exsists in Hungarian and Swedish, but I can't find the link to. Usually they are on the left side, but not this time. I want to be able to change the language of the article by one click. Can you please help me to do that? thanks

You have to put links to them at the bottom, in the form [[hu:Article name]] or [[sv:Article name]], where hu and sv are the ISO 639-1 codes for Hungarian and Swedish. I'd do it for you but you didn't mention which article. =P —Keenan Pepper 02:10, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Translation

Hi, it's me again, I just tried like you said, and it seems to work. btw the article is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soltvadkert it's about my hometown. thanks again

No problem. I noticed you also added links to German and Japanese, where the article doesn't exist yet. This can't really hurt anything, but it's kinda useless and it might give people false hope that there actually is an article in their preferred language. —Keenan Pepper 02:58, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Question on the English Language

A riddle is going around on email saying that there are 3 words in the English language that end in "gry". Two are "angry" and "hungry". What is the 3rd? The only clue given is "wiki", but I am completely confused by your site. I am assuming that the clue means to use this site. It says: "There are three words in the English language that end in "gry". ONE is angry and the other is hungry. EveryONE knows what the third ONE means and what it stands for. EveryONE uses them everyday; and, if you listened very carefully, I've given you the third word. What is it? _______gry?" The email claims if I send the riddle to 5 people that the answer will automatically appear on my screen. I know that won't happen. But if you could point me in the correct direction, or if you can get the answer, I would truly appreciate it.-----Judy Thomason

See gry - Nunh-huh 02:51, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

And please don't forward it. Most people have heard it before. Is there a name for this type of "please forward" spam? I haven't been able to find an article about it. --Shantavira 09:17, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Chain e-mail -lethe ^{talk +} 09:21, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Vowel Quadrilateral

I'm writing the linguistics page of the Chaozhou language and would like to add a vowel quadrilateral like in the french phonology page, i tried to decipher the codes on the edits page, and tried replacing some vowels with the ones i want but i still can't do it. Can anyone tell me how i can make one? i'm quoting the French one here:

	Front		Central		Back
Close	i • y    • u e • ø    • o ə ɛ • œ    • ɔ a •  ɑ •
Close-mid
Mid
Open-mid
Open

The vowels to the left of the dot • are unrounded; those to the right are rounded. See Vowel roundedness.

Merci! Shingrila 03:47, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

I never figured it out either, which is why I just used drawings for the vowel charts at Ulster Irish, Connacht Irish, Munster Irish, and California English. Drawings also let you be much more precise about the relative positions of the vowels. Angr (talk • contribs) 09:01, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi. I was the one who made the French table, so I can tell you how I did it, but it might also be easier to just make a graphic as Angr said. I took the full vowel chart from Vowels, then went to the sandbox to play around with it. The top section defines the headings at the top (front, central, back), and the bottom section defines the side (close, open, etc.). Then each of the middle sections is for one of the rows. You will have to go in and delete all the vowels that do not appear in the language. All you have to change is the part inside the IPA tags. I put &nbsp; in their place, although I don't know if that's strictly necessary. I don't know if that was at all clear, but you might also consider just making a picture. Lesgles (talk) 00:32, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Lesgles and Angr, but i still don't quite get it :<, could you demonstrate it by making one with only the cardinal vowels?

the vowels i need for Chaozhou are [a], [i], [e], [o], [ɤ]/[ɯ]/[ə], [u], and their nasalised counterparts. Shingrila 06:18, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

All right, I was bored so I tried this. You might be able to modify it to make it better:

	Front		Central		Back
Close	i •  ɯ • u e • ø ə ɤ • o a
Mid
Open

– Lesgles (talk) 21:13, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Blocked on Hungarian Wikipedia

Hi, I was writing acticles in English about Hungarian towns. Then I went and added a link on the Hungarian sites so people will see that the article is also available in English. But for some reason I have been blocked from the Hungarian Wikipedia. Please help me! Thanks,

Eddie

This kind of questions probably belong on the help desk, but have you tried contacting the admin who's blocked you? - ulayiti (talk) 17:08, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

If you're the same guy who asked before about Soltvadkert I think your block log says: "blokkolva 1 nap lejárattal (generating invalid iw links en masse)". So it's only a one-day block. I guess you'll need to be a bit more careful to check that you're links are correct. (And perhaps get a username, the admins are probably more forgiving then.) --BluePlatypus 19:44, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Haha, maybe I spoke too soon when I said links to nonexistant articles couldn't do any harm. =P —Keenan Pepper 04:05, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

May 7

language

how to write a letter given my apologise?

Pardon? —Keenan Pepper 03:07, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

This is one way to do it.

You start with stating in the most sincere and regretful tone exactly what you're apologizing for. You then go on to describe how this matter affected you and others involved in your hearts and lives. Then you write the lessons you learned from the situation and how they will help you to do better in the future. Then you offer any assistance that may help to alleviate any suffering that was in some way caused by your actions. You close by talking about some of the wonderful qualities this person has and how they have positively affected your life. You might want to open with that also. Hmmm... I think that's everything. But this is for a personal letter, if it's a professional memo the guidelines change quite a bit. -LambaJan 18:41, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Just one thing I'd add to that: it's important to accept responsibility for what you've done--to say "this was my fault" in one way or another. Many people (especially politicians, it seems) try to get away with "non-apology apologies," that is, issuing a statement that on its surface seems to be an apology, but on more careful review is not one, often because it lacks acceptance of responsibility for the unfortunate incident. Cynthia McKinney has been widely criticized for her "apology" regarding the recent incident with the U.S. Capitol Police, as it did not include any acceptance of responsibility for the incident on her part. Chuck 20:48, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Turkish help

Could someone please translate this for me?

Beyaz atlı sımdı gectı buradan
Surarısı can elınden vurulmus
Cıksın daglar taslargayrı aradan
Beyaz atın suvarısı yorulmus

Ellerı elıme deymez olaydı
Gozlerı gozumu gormez olaydı
Bu gonul o gonlu sevmez olaydı
Beyaz atlı sımdı gectı buradan

Thanks! deeptrivia (talk) 01:39, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Cem Karaca lyrics; his article could sure use improvement! --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 15:24, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that's right! Still waiting for translation though. deeptrivia (talk) 16:14, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Try asking one of the people listed at Wikipedia:Translators available#Turkish-to-English. Angr (t • c) 17:18, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Red-eye effect in photography

Does anybody know the technical term for the "red-eye" effect in photography? I thought that it began with "hemo-", but I might be totally wrong. Please, please, please, if anybody knows, I'd greatly appreciate it. (I doubt that I'll be able to sleep until I find out!)

Not sure what you mean by technical. "Red-eye effect" seems to be the principal term, as far as I can tell—at least, I can't find any other. It needn't be long and Latin-derived to be "technical". —Zero Gravitas 05:37, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I've been trying to find words that start with hemo-, which means "blood" in Greek. Maybe hemophthalmia, "an effusion of blood into the eyeball" [1]? Could be confused with the red-eye effect. :) Lesgles (talk) 05:47, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Language

I have two questions:

Where is the Brahmi language mainly used today? What does the message mean and what does it say behind the picture of Anne Frank?

as usual, readings of the Brahmi and of the Anne Frank articles are highly recommended. Cheers.--K.C. Tang 06:52, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

sprunge

A Frenchie is translating an article into French, as is baffled by a word, sprunge. The sentence whence it comes is: James VI/I traced his origin to Fergus, saying, in his own words, that he was a "Monarch sprunge of Ferguse race". I told the budding translator to just ignore this quote, as nobody's going to miss it. I had a quick search through online dictionaries and a massive uni-owned one, with no reference to the word. However, I felt generous, and tried to sniff out a reference, and a few websites hinted it is a Middle English word, maybe related to the word sprog (the British definition). Anyone who knows more about Middle English, can they give a hand? Was my advice of "ignore things you can't translate" apt? Blimey, I do feel generous today. --Wonderfool 11:49, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I think this is just "sprung" with an e on the end, as was done in "olde englishe". James is saying he was from the line of Fergus. I guess it would be "un monarque jailli de la ligne de Fergus" in French. Hope this helps... СПУТНИК^{ССС Р} 11:59, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Just in case it isn't obvious, sprung comes from spring. Spring, sprang, sprung. Like sing, sang, sung, via ablaut. --KJ 23:41, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

"A Frenchie"? Ignore article content? ... Ardric47 05:22, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Aunt/Uncle and Niece/Nephew

Does anyone know if there's a gender neutral tem for aunt/uncle and niece/nephew. I can't find one anywhere but it seems odd if there isn't since every other relative word I can think of, has one. Anyone know? - ^Red_Hot 17:41, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

The only thing I can think of would be a compound term: 'parent's sibling' and 'sibling's child'. It's a little clumsy, but unless you invent a new term and it catches on, you're stuck with things like this. English is not a perfectly gender neutral language. -LambaJan 18:24, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

A friend of mine who was studying anthropology told me once the term "nibling" had some informal currency among cultural anthropologists as a gender-neutral term for "niece or nephew". Angr (talk • contribs) 20:43, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I occasionally use 'niefling' among my family. Comes from somewhere. Skittle 22:13, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

"parent's sibling" and "sibling's child" cover only half the story. There are also "parent's sibling's spouse" and "spouse's sibling's child". JackofOz 03:35, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for those answers. I just find it strange that those two (aunt/uncle and niece/nephew) are the only ones, except of course for cousin which is neutral by nature. - ^Red_Hot 12:19, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

What is this Russian Text?

Киа дефиа легиа фервор'
Ве! Ла либер', чу суперос тиујн главојн?
Или кун швит' спит', ескит' кај терор'
Венос, форпренос, чу тенос ниан хавојн?
Јам тамбурас ла хиспан'!
Јам Поркул' импетас,
Ли аванце де лонтан'
Ал Берген' импетас.

Берг'-оп-Зом',
Кун реном',
Спиту ал хиспано.
Ниа хом', ниа дом'
Савај кун елано!
--Quentin Smith 18:14, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

It's in Cyrillic, but it isn't actually Russian. This is an identical text in Roman script, which is apparently an Esperanto translation of the Dutch song Het beleg van Bergen op Zoom (The Siege of Bergen op Zoom), referring to an event of the War of the Austrian Succession. This looks like the original text. —Zero Gravitas 18:24, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Not Russian cyrillic either given the "Ј"s. Probably Serbian cyrillic. --BluePlatypus 20:32, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Serbian has those ubiquitous DJ and TJ mergers, which I don't see in this text. But maybe it's just a transliteration from some other language. -lethe ^{talk +} 20:50, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Zero Gravitas already said what language it is: it's Esperanto, written in Cyrillic for some reason. Angr (talk • contribs) 21:10, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

J is a pretty common letter in Esperanto. Probably the program or person that transliterated the text didn't know to write a Cyrillic й. PeepP 09:14, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

So you mean they'd lack knowlege about a common, easily transcribable letter, yet still know something more obscure like that the Esperanto letter "ĉ" is equivalent to "ч"? Doesn't seem probable to me when "Ј" is a perfectly good letter of the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet. It is also the one that'd correspond to the Esperanto "j". --BluePlatypus 11:13, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I think it's probably not language specific. Cyrillic J is a convenient transliteration of Roman J, and it's not a translation, so it need not conform to a local variety of Cyrillic. For example, when we transliterate Hindi from Devanagari to Latin, we often write ã with a tilde for nasal a = आँ, but that doesn't really mean we're using the Portuguese Latin alphabet. We transliterate the voiceless postalveolar fricative ब as š with a hacek, but that doesn't really mean we're using the Czech Latin alphabet. It just means that when transliterating, we need to find symbols which represent the source language well. As long as it's not a translation, there isn't really a need to conform to the orthography of any target language. I think the same thing applies here: when transliterating from Esperanto to Cyrillic, we just take whichever letters fit well with Esperanto, and don't worry about which local national varieties of Cyrillic they come from. So I think the presence of Js doesn't justify the assumption that the transliterater preferred Serbian to Russian. -lethe ^{talk +} 11:22, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

That doesn't work, because "j" is the same letter as "й". They have the same sound, and both versions work just as well as a translitteration of Esperanto "J". But "J" for "je" is a local variant, it's only used in Serbian and Macedonian and most cyrillic alphabets use "й" instead. There's no point in only translitterating all the letters but one and keeping a foreign letter like "j", unless you don't consider that to be a foreign letter. --BluePlatypus 10:39, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

From Dutch language

Could someone kindly explain the cultural references in this quotation? It comes from Dutch language

"There have been many definitions of hell, but for the English the best definition is that it is the place where the Germans are the police, the Swedish are the comedians, the Italians are the defense force, Frenchmen dig the roads, the Belgians are the pop singers, the Spanish run the railways, the Turks cook the food, the Irish are the waiters, the Greeks run the government, and the common language is Dutch."

--HappyCamper 21:13, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Cultural references -You mean stereotypes? They seem pretty obvious. But in short Germans are fascists, Swedes are boring, Italians are cowards, French are lazy, Belgians have no culture (Ever heard Plastic Bertrand? ;)), Spanish railroads are never on time, Turkish food (i.e.: kebab) is bad, Irish are rude, Greeks are corrupt and Dutch is an ugly language. --BluePlatypus 21:26, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I heard a slightly different version of the joke. It's about the difference between heaven and hell: In heaven, the British are the police, the Germans are the scholars, the French are the chefs, the Swiss are the bankers, and the Italians are the lovers. But in hell, the Germans are the police, the French are the scholars, the British are the chefs, the Italians are the bankers, and the Swiss are the lovers. Angr (talk • contribs) 22:35, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

airplane pronounciation

hi, why do we say airplane but say (certainly in UK english)"aeroplane". is this what it used to be called? it seems weird when we pronouce airport phonetically... (even more weird is the french who say aéroport but then bail and call an airplane "un avion"). any suggestions?

Because "aeroplane" is the British word for a heavier than air flying machine. To me, "airplane" is very much an Americanism. --Arwel (talk) 00:25, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Not quite right. The general term for a machine capable of flight is an "aircraft". An "aeroplane" is a powered heavier-than-air flying vehicle with fixed wings. So a helicopter is an aircraft but not an aeroplane. A 747 is both. But yes, "airplane" is an Americanism for "aeroplane". JackofOz 07:18, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

umlauts

hi, what are umlauts (german) called in english and french? (i.e. citroën) thanks

Diaeresis. -lethe ^{talk +} 22:22, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

To be more specific, it's called an umlaut when it changes the quality of a single vowel, and a dieresis when it marks one vowel as being separate from another. —Keenan Pepper 23:21, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Usually, in my experience, the symbol is called an dieresis even when being used for umlaut.--Prosfilaes 23:31, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Not so in typography, according to umlaut (diacritic). --KJ 23:46, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Not so in heavy metal, either. -LambaJan 23:38, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

In my experience, the symbol is usually called an umlaut even when being used for dieresis. Angr (talk • contribs) 23:53, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

In French it's called tréma. The distinction between diaeresis and umlaut (diacritic) might not be strong in French. Both of them link to fr:Tréma. --KJ 00:05, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I can't think of a french word where the tréma changes a single vowel. Tréma comes from the same greek word meaning dot or hole, like in monotreme, those beasts having only one. First dotcoms, I think. --DLL 19:13, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

May 8

French Translation of Chimera

Does anyone know the French word for chimera? Thanks. --Think Fast 00:54, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

The article links to the French Wikipedia article: fr:Chimère. --KJ 01:03, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Sorry I didn't see that when I looked at the article. --Think Fast 02:41, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Croatian

I have been looking to learn the Croatian language for a long time now (ever since I heard what it sounded like on ER). I would really appreciate any help in finding what would be the best way to do this (save going to Croatia or taking a college course). I am looking to be able to buy some sort of Audio disk package and/or book combination. If anyone knows of anything, that would be great. Chuck^(척뉴넘) 06:05, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Many people said "Teach Yourself Serbian" by David Norris and Vladislava Ribnikar is good. They also have "Teach Yourself Croatian", which should differ from Serbian only in dialect and script used, so I'd imagine the course is as good. Mind you, I'm a native speaker and didn't actually use it, but people recommended it. You might also consider renting some of Višnjić's movies while you are studying the language. :) Serbo-Croatian is not particularly hard, most Americans I know got the pronunciation right after a while (or at least, very close to right), but 7 cases singular and plural combined with genders do make it a bit of a nightmare sometimes. You might also consider hooking up with a person from Bosnia/Croatia/Serbia (it's essentially the same language) and asking for help. --dcabrilo 07:22, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

This could also get you started. --Shibo77 09:06, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks very much...I'm probably gonna buy "Teach Yourself Croatian". Chuck^(척뉴넘) 11:45, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Refer me to translator. (Old Norwegian)

I have very old letters written in Norwegian from 1895 to about 1924. I am having a hard time finding someone to translate them for me. I understand the language has changed since then and I am wondering if that is why everyone I give them to can not translate them. If you could refer me to someone I would be grateful. Thanks. Beverly Bowman

You could try asking directly at the talk page of any of the people listed at Wikipedia:Translators available#Norwegian-to-English. (You might want to check their contributions first and make sure they're still around. You could also click "E-mail this user" to send them an e-mail.) But don't call it "Old Norwegian"; most people understand that to mean Norwegian before about the mid-14th century. What you have is simply old-fashioned Modern Norwegian! :-) Angr (t • c) 17:08, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Norwegian from circa 1900 should not be difficult at all to anyone who speaks Norwegian. Even to someone who speaks Swedish it should be comprehensible. -From what I understand, a lot of Swedes read Ibsen in high school, in the original 19th century Norwegian. (Similarily, most English don't have problems reading Mark Twain either) If they're short, I might be willing to help out. Try my talk page. (Although I find that for documents from that era, reading the handwriting is often a lot harder than any archaic the language) --BluePlatypus 08:43, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I will check it out.

Name Pronuciation

How would the name Matejczyk be pronounced? Thanks, --Chapuisat 17:54, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

From the page Polish phonology, it seems it would be pronounced something like "ma-TAY-chick", IPA: [maˈtɛi̯ʧɨk]. But I'd wait for a Polish speaker to be sure. Lesgles (talk) 18:07, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. --19:52, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

is there a word for the phenomenon when the month, day and year are all the same?

Such as this year, it's June 6, 2006 (or 06/06/06; or previously 05/05/05, 04/04/04 etc.). I have googled using various "key" words and have come up empty-handed, except for what someone else described as "triple date". Any ideas?

Apocalypse!!! Aaaahhhhh!!! :) --Think Fast 23:16, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Orchestra

Me and some friends are trying to figure out how many words we can make out of the word orchestra. I've gotten a lot of words but I need help finding the nine letter words. Some of my friends said they have two nine letter words. I can't find them to save my life. I heard that the other two were proper nouns. But I don't know if thats fact or not so, thanks in advance. -- Jesusfreak 22:17, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

There's "carthorse" for one. —Zero Gravitas 22:28, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank You so much. If anyone can find anymore let me know. -- Jesusfreak 22:50, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Chest Roar? or did you want single words? Philc _T^E_C^I 22:57, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Try this. -Elmer Clark 23:18, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I need single words. Thank you. -- Jesusfreak 00:40, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

The only other word suggested by Anagram Genius, which is pretty thorough, is Carothers, which is a proper noun. Perhaps your friends were looking there. --Shantavira 07:36, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Has there ever been an orchestra conducted by someone named Carothers? That would be a wonderful thing to have at one's fingertips for a rainy day. JackofOz 13:11, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Or a carthorse named Carothers? Or a carthorse named Carothers who conducted an orchestra! Angr (t • c) 14:21, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, waddaya know, there really has been a conductor named Carothers, although it looks like she acquired the Carothers name after she finished conducting. In 1986, Rosalyn Harbst was a conductor for the Louisville Youth Orchestra, and she now runs a legal practice under the name Rosalyn Carothers [2]. I wonder if she knows what anagrammatic secrets her new name holds. Maybe we should tell her ... JackofOz 07:34, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you all so much. I won't hold you back though. If you find more let me know. I found out that it can't be a proper noun. Once again, thank you! -- Jesusfreak 19:37, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

May 9

Subject/ed to fine?

Glad that I found this forum. On the door of trash chute in my apartment building, following warning is posted: "Persons keeping trash on floor will be subject to fine." This sentence can also be worded as "Persons keeping trash on floor will be subjected to fine." What is exact difference between these two, if any? Thanks. AshishG^talk 01:12, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Are you sure the first one wasn't subject to a fine? or fines? The way it's written sounds to me that if you keep your trash on the floor, you're going to be forced to fine somebody else, which is quite silly.  freshgavinΓΛĿЌ  06:34, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

The grammatical construction is archaic but not wrong, just like you can say "the prisoners were subjected to torture" -- though I'm going to guess Ashish's dorm is somewhere in the U.K. To answer his question, "subject to" implies a more passive condition in which it will become necessary to pay a fine..."subjected to" is slightly more harsh and makes the fine sound menacing. - Draeco 07:02, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I was only referring to the fine in the first sentence; I don't find anything wrong with being "subjected to fine". I meant to imply the difference is that in the first statement, fine should be a noun (at least as I, a Canadian, understand it), and in the second statement it is a verb.
Subject in the first is an adjective (ty gravitas!) so you could compare the first (if a fine was used) to the phrase "be known to a friend", whereas with fine as a verb in the second sentence, you could compare it with the phrase "be asked to perform". I believe you though, that it's probably not wrong, just the fact that if it actually is an archaeic grammar form, it directly contradicts modern grammar.  freshgavinΓΛĿЌ  07:20, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

The first "subject" is an adjective, actually. —Zero Gravitas 15:16, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

That makes more sense, thanks!  freshgavinΓΛĿЌ  07:12, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Common Second Languages taught in the UK

Would it be correct to say that French is the most common second language taught in British schools similar to that in American schools, Spanish is the most frequent taught second language?Chile 02:16, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

• Apparently French is in fact the most common second language taught in British schools. See this page. --Metropolitan90 03:38, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Is there a verb that means 'to move peristaltically'?

Thanks Adambrowne666 03:41, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

From googling it looks like "peristalse" is a verb. "As a result [of degeneration of nerves] the colon cannot peristalse, or push stool through."[3] "People with irritable bowel syndrome have altered bowel motility; i.e., in particular their small bowel does not peristalse or contract normally."[4] --Cam 03:59, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

"peristalse" is nonstandard, it's not a form that dictionaries have really picked up. I do know some words for this, but my mom used to yell at me if I used them. --iMb~Meow 04:07, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks very much - so sounds like 'peristalse' is a back formation from peristalsis - probably only a matter of time before it does get into the dictionaries, but I still wonder if there is an appropriate word there already ...? Adambrowne666 04:45, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

comprise?

Example sentences: "The system comprises several elements." Or, "The system is comprised of several elements." Any thoughts as to which is preferred? --Richardrj 09:43, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Comprises (or 'is composed of'). Some people will tell you that 'is comprised of' has now entered the realm of the acceptable, but they're ignorant, illiterate apes. Henry^Flower

In patents (at least in the U.S.) "comprising" and "composed of" are not synonyms. "A system comprising A, B, and C" may have additional elements beyond A, B, and C, while "a system composed of A, B, and C" has nothing else beyond the stated elements (or, sometimes, has no additional elements that materially affect the invention). See [5] for more than you ever wanted to know. I don't think the distinction carries over to ordinary language, however. But all the same, "a system comprised of A, B, and C" is generally not used. Chuck 12:20, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I say "is comprised of" and I 1) can read and 2) am not covered in hair, in addition to 3) I can walk upright. --Think Fast 23:13, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Also you apparently don't understand hyperbole. =P —Keenan Pepper 04:52, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

And 4) you're wrong.

But does this mean that you don't understand sarcasm? :) --Think Fast 23:57, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Touché. —Keenan Pepper 01:12, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Imaginary town, one word?

Is there a one word for 'imaginary town' or fictitious town'? The Indian writer R.K. Narayan describes an imaginary town called Malgudy in his novel Malgudy Days. Is there a one word for such a town?

Utopia--El aprendelenguas 12:32, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Nope. --Richardrj 13:04, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Would 'Ruritania' be appropriate to describe a fictional town?

Nope. --Chuck^(척뉴넘) 15:05, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

If it is for a novel, Phantasmaborough, Phantasmeville, Civitafantasma, Fantasmagorod ... I like also this one : Dreamgulch. --DLL 18:52, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

"Nowhere"--Teutoberg 00:06, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Or Erewhon — Gareth Hughes 16:08, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Again, no. Fictional countries, or proper nouns of any description, are not what he was asking for. Henry^Flower 16:31, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm thinking something like mythopolis... —Keenan Pepper 23:33, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Translating...

Hello! My name is Vitor and i'm a profound admirer of the WikiPedia website and its concept. I've learned so much from this community, and i'm so grateful that i would be so happy to participate and help as much as i can! I haven't edited any article yet (but i haven't known Wikipedia that long), and 've been thinking so much of how to help... I've noticed that the website is translated in various languages, but not all articles! And so i would to help and translate as many articles as i can (all if possible!) to my language (portuguese)! But i've looked around and i haven't found any option to translate. And simply editing shouldn't work, because i would only be changing to portuguese an english article... I really hope i get the chance to help improve this amazing site! I await your answer! Thank you so much, best regards. --vitinhov 16:06, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, first of all, do you have an account at the Portuguese-language Wikipedia yet? If not, sign up for one there! That's the place to put your translations into Portuguese. Once you're done, be sure to add interwiki links to both the English and the Portuguese articles connecting them to each other. Portuguese Wikipedia has a category Artigos em tradução for articles that are still very short in Portuguese that need to be expanded by translating them out of English or another language. If you're also willing to translate from Portuguese into English, then add your name to the list at Wikipedia:Translators available#Portuguese-to-English, and keep an eye on Wikipedia:Translation into English#Portuguese-to-English for articles that someone has asked to be translated from Portuguese into English. Boa sorte! Angr (t • c) 16:35, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

It's not actually a mere "translation" but a separate Portuguese Wikipedia, to which you can add and edit articles like you can here. (Your user account won't carry over, though, so you'll need to create another one there if you don't want to be anonymous) —Zero Gravitas 16:26, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

May 10

How do I reference Wikipedia?

Hi there, i have used your website extensivly for a major university assignment, and i have searched all over the website but cant seem to find information so i can place this website in my reefrence list. Could you please help me to refrence Wikipedia in APA STYLE? thankyou so much for your time

Use the 'Cite this article' link on the left toolbar. Chuck^(척뉴넘) 02:56, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

The best place to look is Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. Let us know if you need more help! Isopropyl 02:57, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia, or click "cite this article" in the toolbox on the left. No one person can be held responsible for writing an article, depending on what style you are using (APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, etc..) you just put the article name or Wikipedia: The free encyclopedia. -- Mac Davis] ⌇☢ ญƛ. 04:52, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Don't. Wikipedia is not a suitable reference for a major university assignment. Henry^Flower 12:12, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to second that. Wikipedia is on its way to becoming something of plague in university writing, and most professors I work with believe it's significantly less reliable than it probably is. - user:rasd

Yeah, perhaps you could use the actual references from the article you are using...that is likely to be more accepted by your professor. Chuck^(척뉴넘) 14:16, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[off-topic]] (or perhaps meta-topical): Hi guys, I thought to fix the misspelling in this discussion title, mainly for making it reachable when archived. Would that have undesired side-effects? --Gennaro Prota ^(talk) 15:01, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

RE The birthplace of proverbs in different languages

I am wondering if the proverbs on the list of "*Country* proverbs" were "born" in *country*? Eg, was all the proverbs on this page http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Finnish_proverbs "born", ie minted, in Finland?

No, they're not. Some of them probably are, of course. But in general, no. People tend to borrow proverbs as they borrow words. So Finnish has a lot of proverbs from Swedish and Swedish from German. For instance, Hungarian, Finnish and Swedish both have the expression "to get the basket" (to be rejected). In all cases its from German. Sometimes they get corrupted in fun ways too. Swedish: "Ont krut förgås inte lätt" ("evil gunpowder is hard to kill") is somewhat nonsensical, but means "bad things are hard to get rid of". The German original was "Weeds are hard to kill" (which makes more sense), where "unkraut" (weed) was reinterpeted as "ont krut". --BluePlatypus 20:04, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

somos nosotros

What does 'somos nosotros' mean?

My guess is "It's us" or "Here we are" or the like. Angr (t • c) 20:26, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Angr is right. I would like to add that in Spanish, if a first- or second-person pronoun is used as a predicate nominative, the copula is conjugated to agree with that pronoun, not with the subject of the sentence. For example: Las siete personas que usted ve somos nosotros. (=The seven people that you see are we.) Somos agrees with nosotros, not personas.--El aprendelenguas 01:43, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

May 11

just a sentence

the FP on the Main Page has this sentence: "They mainly eat insects and some seeds." It sounds odd to me. Just ask for you guy's opinions.--K.C. Tang 00:18, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I think so too. It sounds better like "They mainly eat insects and some types of seeds/certain varieties of seeds".  freshgavinΓΛĿЌ  00:41, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

but could we do without the "mainly"? the "eat" controls both "insects" and "seeds", and the "manily" modifies "eat", then the sentence can be seperated into "they mainly eat insects" and "they mainly eat some seeds", the latter being odd. is my understanding correct?:)--K.C. Tang 00:47, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Sounds okay, mostly a bit informal and not very well-written. "Mainly" is informal speech and "some seeds" is ambiguous - a few varieties of seeds or a small number of them? An example of more formal way of saying it could be "Their principal diet consists of insects and a few varieties of seeds". --BluePlatypus 01:10, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

yeah, that's what i want to hear! thanks.--K.C. Tang

The basic problem is that "mainly" is qualifying "eat" instead of "insects". This suggests they also do other things with insects. "Only" is another word that is often wrongly placed. --Shantavira 07:29, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I've changed the text to User:BluePlatypus's suggestion of "Their principal diet consists of insects and a few varieties of seeds". Angr (t • c) 07:41, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

thanks a lot, hope that more admin care about the language problems concerning the main page, now discussions about these problems are usually ignored.--K.C. Tang 08:16, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Shantavira's point is the major problem I see with the sentence. "They mainly eat insects and some seeds" actually means something like "Out of all the things they do, they spend most of their time eating insects and some seeds," which is probably not what the author means to say. Rewording the sentence to read "They eat mainly insects and some seeds" would solve the problem of this misplaced modifier and would convey BluePlatypus's statement, "Their principal diet consists of insects and a few varieties of seeds."DavidGC 12:25, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Places and things named after them

Hi. I'm doing a project about Hong Kong Governors. and I wanna introduce places and things in Hong Kong which were named after them. Is there any word that explains "places and things named after somebody"? Thank you!!! Kahang 12:27, 11 May 2006 (UTC)