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December 11

Spanish......te quiero, te amo

So, after going through many forums, and looking in other encyclopedias...what is the difference between these two expressions?

Is "te amo" the stronger expression, so is it only to be used between lovers/spouses? And is "te quiero" to be seen as an "I love you" like an english, or is there a (subtle) difference to it. If this has come up before, I am sorry, but I did not find anything in teh archives (might be me being inept, though). Let me say that I am a native German; that might be part of the problem of me not being able to understand the difference. Lectonar (talk) 08:56, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

'Te quiero' means 'I want you'. 'Te amo' means 'I love you. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 09:03, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

I think that's overly literal. I think Spanish te quiero is like Italian ti voglio bene — it means "I love you", but it's something you can say to family and close friends, whereas ti amo (Spanish te amo) is pretty much reserved for lovers (and you can say ti voglio bene or te quiero to them as well). --Trovatore (talk) 09:32, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

As I recall, querer is somewhat connected with "cherish". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:50, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

I can't speak with the intuition of a native speaker, but amar always seems to strike me as more literary or dialectal--something you hear more often in songs than in speech. Te quiero addressed from one unrelated male to another is not something I would expect to hear outside a gay relationship. There's also te adoro. The English "I want you" would best be translated as te deseo or te necesito depending on context. μηδείς (talk) 02:30, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

• This is tricky. I'd say that querer is like a "light" version of amar, and whether you can say it to a friend, family member, or significant other depends not so much on it's literal meaning, but more on what you expect that the other person will make of it. I have a couple of really good male friends that I could tell them either one and they wouldn't think I'm gay for doing so, but for the rest of my male acquaintances I would use neither, and would go for the more collegial te aprecio or te estimo. And actually it'd be the same reasoning for my female friends. Looking at a simple GBook search [1], most take the approach of making querer a "low" feeling (desire?) while amar is all high and trascendental. And there's of course José José's classic song "Amar y querer" [2]. A particular case I found interesting was with Sin City (movie): when eleven year old Nancy tells Hartigan I love you it was subtitled as te quiero, but when she says it again eight years later it was done as te amo. I guess that the former was done because te amo was too much for an eleven year old to be saying to an old man who is not her father, but I think it really diminished the dramatic weight of that scene.

Oh, and yes, te quiero is not I want you unless you're talking to an ice cream :) — Frankie (talk) 16:12, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

If I said querer to a same sex object the same way JoséJosé does, without the other being gay, I'd expect an abrupt end. μηδείς (talk) 22:55, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I see what you mean, but that would be because there is a clear romantic intent, not so much because of your choice of words — Frankie (talk) 16:43, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Gravity of Love

In the Enigma song, "Gravity of Love", the singer says 'Can you hear me voice?' Is she using 'voice' as a verb here? It just occurred to me, because 'my' in my dialect is pronounced 'me', and I thought it was a bit strange for her to suddenly use a scouse accent for one single word. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 09:00, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

All the lyrics sites I checked say that the line is "Look around just people, can you hear their voice", although I agree that the first time I heard it I thought it was me. But if I listen to it again, I can convince myself that it's their being sung in a German accent. It certainly makes more sense. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 11:57, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

You are right, I can hear it now. Thanks. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 23:34, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Robert Gist

Quick and easy question. Is Robert Gist pronounced with a hard G or a soft G? Google doesn't help. Thanks.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 12:33, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, he is from Chicago (much Germans there), and the name sounds like him having german ancestry, so I'll go for the hard G. Lectonar (talk) 12:52, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I have ancestors named Gist, including Christopher Gist. The name is actually English (or possibly Cornish), not German, but it is indeed pronounced with a hard G. Marco polo (talk) 16:33, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

I was going by relatives of mine, having the names of Gest and Gist (and no english or cornish ancestry afaik); either it is a parallel development, or the name has roots which are older than I suspect. Lectonar (talk) 18:05, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

It is entirely possible that there is a separate German Gist family of which I wasn't aware, but the English/Cornish family is relatively numerous and prominent in American history. If your relatives' family really is German in origin, then I'm sure that the two families are not particularly related, as surnames did not emerge in Europe until the late Middle Ages, centuries after the Germanic migration to Great Britain that would have been the basis of a common origin. Marco polo (talk) 21:16, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Gist is not a German family name. German directory enquiries (http://www.dastelefonbuch.de/) does not find a single person named Gist in Berlin. 81.156.177.217 (talk) 23:48, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Spanish help

Hi! Quickly, how do you say the following in Spanish: "As of December 2012 Small Smiles treats about 500,000 children each year. In December 2012 NBC News revealed it had investigated 63 Small Smiles clinics over a preceding three year period and discovered continued accusations from former employees, parents, and government investigators that the clinics performed below standard and unnecessary procedures on children. Chuck Grassley, a member of the U.S. Senate, said that the company was scamming taxpayers and causing abuses to children in order to generate revenues. David Wilson, the CEO, said in a statement that "Patients are at the center of everything we do at CSHM. CSHM LLC supports our affiliated dental centers so that they can continue to provide access to quality dental care. Our dental centers serve approximately one million patient visits per year, primarily to children in communities with under-served access to dental care.""

It's so I can post it on the Spanish Wikipedia Thanks, WhisperToMe (talk) 17:25, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

For the benefit of other editors, and just for reference, see [3], edited almost exclusively by the OP. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 20:10, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

More context on youtube, [4], [5], [6], in addition to our article Small Smiles Dental Centers. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 20:28, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

• "Al mes de Diciembre de 2012 Small Smiles atiende alrededor de 500,000 niños cada año. En Diciembre de 2012 NBC News reveló que había investigado 63 clinicas de Small Smiles durante un período de tres años, y había descubierto acusaciones continuadas de parte de antiguos empleados, padres de familia, e investigadores del gobierno de que las clínicas realizaban procedimientos en los niños que eran por debajo del estándar e innecesarios. Chuck Grassley, miembro del Senado de los Estados Unidos, dijo que la compañia estaba defraudando a los contribuyentes and provocando abusos a niños con el fin de generar ingresos. David Wilson, el director ejecutivo, declaró en un comunicado que "los pacientes son el punto central de todo lo que hacemos en CSHM. CSHM LLC apoya a nuestros centros dentales afiliados para que puedan continuar proporcionando acceso a cuidado dental de calidad. Nuestros centros dentales atienden a aproximadamente un millón de pacientes por año, principalmente niños en comunidades con acceso marginal a cuidados dentales."

I hope it isn't too literal, I was trying not to move away too much from the original phrasing. The constructs "as of (date)" and "at the center of" don't have a clear equivalent in Spanish. I think you could use "los pacientes son la prioridad de todo..." (patients are the priority of...) for the latter, but it is a quote so maybe it's not appropriate. By the way, the first sentence says 500,000 children per year, yet Wilson then gives a number of 1 million patients. Is that correct? — Frankie (talk) 15:32, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your input! I'll add it to the Spanish Wikipedia, and credit you. WhisperToMe (talk) 22:16, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

December 12

Snow name?

As I'm sure we all know, the First Nations do _not_ have fifty different names for snow - however, I was wondering if anyone does have a name for the type of snow that's falling round here at the moment. It consists of a very large quantity of little tiny _weeny_ snowflakes - if it were rain, I'd call it Haar, but it's quite definitely frozen (and very pretty). Types of snow isn't very helpful on this question, unfortunately. Tevildo (talk) 00:31, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Would you quantify that with Haar measure? --Trovatore (talk) 02:34, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Wouldn't that be powder? μηδείς (talk) 02:21, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Do you have a picture of it? Where do you live? Adam Bishop (talk) 11:21, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Graupel, perhaps? Or maybe diamond dust, although the latter is not a "snow", but rather a fog frozen in a particular way. No such user (talk) 12:28, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

The description of diamond dust sounds exactly like the weather conditions here (Hertfordshire) last night, although it wasn't particularly cold (certainly well above -10 C). Thanks for the info! Tevildo (talk) 21:49, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Please define "First Nations". Roger (talk) 12:30, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

First Nations. In this case, the reference is specifically to a well-known meme about Inuit languages. AlexTiefling (talk) 12:38, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I am actually familiar with that meme. I've obviously failed in my attempt to make a veiled point that one should not presume that all readers of WP Refdesks are fully conversant with the jargon of Canadian political correctness. Roger (talk) 12:50, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

And according to the article cited, "First Nations" specifically does not include Inuit. But I concur with Roger that unless a Canadian context has already been established, the phrase is puzzling to me. --ColinFine (talk) 12:55, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Graupel is rather like hailstones only a bit less dense, each pellet being a snowflake with an accumulation of rime ice. Graupel is sometimes called "soft hail"[7]. A good website about snowflake structure can be found at A Snowflake Primer... The basic facts about snowflakes and snow crystals and A Guide to Snowflakes ... A look at the different types of falling snow. Snowflakes form as hexagonal prisms, the classic snowflake shape is caused by an accumulation of water molecules on a basic prism shape. Alansplodge (talk) 14:06, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Graupel is definitely what we were getting yesterday in Milwaukee; thanks for that word! --Orange Mike | Talk 14:16, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

For some reason Environment Canada does not believe that ice crystals occur when the temperature is above −16 °C (3 °F) but they do sometimes. can't believe nobody linked to Eskimo words for snow. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 01:11, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Are eskimos in the common English language sense equivalent to "First Nations" the way OP uses it? I had been under the impression that "eskimos" are more or less the same as Inuits and live across the arctic north of North America (US, Canada and Greenland), whereas "First Nations" are basically Canadian American Indians, who are actually not "eskimos" at all. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 12:25, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

The term "First Nations" does not include Inuit or Metis. "First Peoples" or "Aboriginals of Canada" are the inclusive terms. The term, "Eskimo" is now generally only used by Alaskans. Rmhermen (talk) 14:27, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

What Rmhermen said. And to be really pedantic Inuit is already the plural, Inuk is one person and Inuits is French. Of course in some dialects inuit (the lack of a capital was deliberate) does not refer to the people formerly called Eskimo but to all people from anywhere. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 04:01, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

@Twitter

What does the "at" refer to? Shouldn't it be "follow us on twitter"? bamse (talk) 09:25, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes and that's what is said when asking people to follow one on Twitter. The @ relates to aiming a remark at someone - plus it's a symbol whose name is "at" so is easy to use. --TammyMoet (talk) 10:35, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

"On" television/"in" a movie?

I am wondering if this strange divergence of idioms is purely an Americanism or if it manifests throughout the Anglosphere. It seems to me that there should be no linguistic distinction between the two. If one is in a film, then why would the same person be said to be on a television show? Why does the preposition magically change depending on the medium? And does this peculiarity manifest in any other languages? Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 12:01, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Sometimes it depends on the medium, or the actual physical apparatus. You can be "on TV", which means someone is watching you on an actual television. You can be "on a TV show" as you say, but also "in a TV show". You can be "in film", meaning you work in the film business somehow, and "on film", meaning someone is filming or has filmed you. You can be "in a movie", but not "on a movie", which differs from TV because TV shows are ongoing while movies are not. Mostly though, I suppose the answer is that prepositions are pretty arbitrary and never make any logical sense. Something similar happens in French I guess, where you can say "sur la télé" or "à la télé", but also "dans la télé", and always "dans un film", which is "sur l'écran" (or "sur l'affiche"). Adam Bishop (talk) 12:16, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I have to intervene here, if you are "sur la télé", you are actually sitting or standing on the TV set. If you are "dans la télé", you are actually inside the TV set. The only one I have heard of, for the telly, is "à". You can be "dans une émission/un film" in French, though, "in" a TV programme or movie. A movie is not "sur l'écran", but "à l'écran", "sur" sounds like someone printed frames of the movie and sellotaped them on the screen. But all this reinforces your correct statement: prepositions are set completely arbitrarily (at least in western languages, maybe in most languages which have prepositions). --Lgriot (talk) 10:13, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

The phrase "dans la télé" is used in sub-standard French (e.g. by persons from the working class) to say "à la télé". Similar phrase was used for the radio: "Ils l'ont dit dans le poste" (Here I quote my grandmother). — AldoSyrt (talk) 07:56, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

In general terms though, the usage is the same in the UK as the US. In colloquial British speech however, there is another construction; "The time I met that bloke off of Blue Peter"[8] ie "the person that appears in whatever". Also in British English, "a movie" is "a film" and "a television show" is "a television programme", although the American alternatives are widely used and understood. Alansplodge (talk) 13:49, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

"Off of" is British English? Bazza (talk) 16:22, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes. A feature particularly of colloquial London and South Eastern speech, often disparaged by pundits, and equivalent to "from" in many of its uses. --ColinFine (talk) 16:55, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Most of us on this side of the pond would omit the redundant preposition and just say "off Blue Peter" (or whatever), but it's still colloquial, so I suppose it doesn't matter what redundant prepositions you insert. As Colin says, formal English would be "from Blue Peter". Dbfirs 18:48, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I think ultimately "on television" derives from what Adam is talking about: "There I was, on the television set, winning Ben Stein's money!" Television is a continuing, perpetual event. By contrast, an individual film is a discreet non-continuous entity: "I was in the movie Finding the Future." We do sometimes say that a person was "in" a given television series, when we mean that that were part of the ongoing cast; which I think derives from thinking of that series as a discreet whole, as if it were a long serialized film: "Ron Pearlman was in Beauty and the Beast (the real one, not the hack remake)." --Orange Mike | Talk 14:13, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Similarly, "on" radio, but "in" the cast of a radio program. And "on" screen, "in" a movie. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:09, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

"I object to all this sex on the television. I mean - I keep falling off!". Unfortunately the old jokes don't work so well in these flat screen days. -- Arwel Parry (talk) 19:47, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

December 13

Origin of fag = cigarette?

Important discussion over lunch at work today....

What's origin of the slang word "fag", meaning a cigarette?

We noted that it's old enough to be in the song Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag from 1915. HiLo48 (talk) 02:17, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I've always thought that it's short for "faggot" in the sense of "log for burning", because it's generally the same shape as a log, though smaller, and you burn it. I'll be interested to see if anyone can confirm or refute that. --Trovatore (talk) 02:34, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Me too, see faggot. Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:37, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Nope. According to etymonline "fag" as in cigarette comes from the 15th century meaning "loose piece" or "used up" or "tired out". From "fag" (verb) to make tired (as in "I'm all fagged out"), to "fag end" as in a used up butt-end of a cigarette, to just "fag" for cigarette in general. --Jayron32 02:40, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I wonder why they speculate "fag/loose piece" (n.) "may" relate to "flag/fag" (v.) instead of faggot (n.), when faggot (n.) is a bundle of pieces of wood and a fag is a noun? Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:57, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Etymonline is usually pretty good. I don't have an OED subscription, but I'm sure someone here does, and could check on their derivation. --Jayron32 03:45, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

The way I read that EO entry, "faggot" implies a weak, submissive female or boy. I recall George Carlin once pointing out that in his day, "fag" didn't mean homosexual, it just meant someone who was "unmanly". Or, as he put it, "a fag was someone who wouldn't go downtown and help beat up queers." That "unmanly" sense is also conveyed in the song Money for Nothing, in which the appliance delivery guy repeatedly refers to a rock singer as a "faggot". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:37, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

"I'm just going outside for a fag. And after that, I'll probably feel like a couple of cigarettes".  :) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 02:47, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

You might end up getting wet, so be sure to take your rubbers. We wouldn't want you to catch something and get sick. StuRat (talk) 08:12, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I guess someone had to post that. Thanks for satisfying the need Jack. HiLo48 (talk) 07:04, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh, you can depend on me, HiLo.  :) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 08:04, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

My Shorter OED has the 15th century meaning given by Jayron32 (with no known origin), and the use to mean cigarette (as a shortening from fag-end) from 1888. Mikenorton (talk) 08:07, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

OED Online says that fag is a shortened version of fag-end, which originally meant "[t]he last part of a piece of cloth; the part that hangs loose, often of coarser texture than the rest" or "[o]f a rope: An untwisted end", and then by transference came to mean "[t]he last part or remnant of anything, after the best has been used" and "spec. The butt of a smoked cigarette, a cigarette-end". Fag-end is itself derived from the noun fag, "[s]omething that hangs loose, a flap", which is from the verb fag, "[t]o flag, droop, decline". The etymology of the verb is said to be obscure, but "the common view that it is a corruption of flag". — SMUconlaw (talk) 08:10, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

For a lengthy discourse on the etymology of the words "fag" and "faggot", see An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction, By Anatoly Liberman (p.68), although it doesn't mention the cigarette meaning. BTW Trovatore, a faggot in the traditional sense is a bound bundle of sticks rather than a log. Alansplodge (talk) 09:36, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Wow, that's detailed. Looks like an interesting book. — SMUconlaw (talk) 14:12, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I especially liked, "product of etymological despair." Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:37, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

GRAMMAR

What are the differences between the following two sentences? Thank you. 1. She has an umbrella. 2. She got an umbrella.123.231.40.219 (talk) 03:02, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

In the first one, the verb is "has". In the second one, the verb is "got". I'm sure that doesn't answer the question you had in mind, but it does answer the question you actually asked. Looie496 (talk) 03:39, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

The first implies possession, the second implies past action. "She has an umbrella" means one is in her hands right now. "She got an umbrella" means she went somewhere and picked one up. --Jayron32 03:44, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the above and will add two more things:

"She has got / She's got an umbrella" = colloquial way of saying "She has an umbrella."

"She got an umbrella" = dialectal equivalent, e.g. in AAVE. Compare "I Got Rhythm", "I Got 99 Problems". Lesgles (talk) 04:45, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I know you've had rain problems, I feel bad for you son, I got 99 problems but an umbrella ain't one... --Jayron32 04:49, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I knew someone in high school – who was a white American – for whom got had become a regular present-tense verb with the 3rd person singular form gots. Angr (talk) 06:31, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

qv the ZZ Top song "I Gots to Get Paid". Maybe a bit more common than you think! --TammyMoet (talk) 10:35, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Just to make it explicit for the OP, in addition to the semantic difference that "has" implies possession and "got" means "obtained", in standard usage "got" is the past tense of "get" whereas "has" is present tense. Duoduoduo (talk) 17:03, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

• This is a modern day example of a more common phenomenon in older Germanic languages where past forms with a present effect are used in the present tense. For example the sense of the verb to know evolved: "I know" < "I recognized/found out". Or in the case of got, "I have" < "I received". See preterite presents μηδείς (talk) 19:35, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

WP pages receiving redirects from their opposites

This is another fringe case. Is it a WP-related question or RD-style?

I found the page "Decency", subtitle: "(Redirected from Indecency)" - Is that a good redirect?

I could imagine certain "this vs that" cases where "that" is more encyclopedic than "this", and most of the content on "that" would concentrate on the things which are "that" vs. the things which are not. In that case, I wouldn't even argue, but the article on decency is more a disamb than anything else, and currently it is neither listed as a disamb nor a stub. One of the "hard" (undoubtedly encyclopedic) topics is Indecent exposure, and another is Sodomy law. Would it be good to group them away from the others, so that the target of the redirect could be changed to Decency#Indecency?

Another unrelated question. I heard the word "scythe" pronounced as ski-thee (think "skill" minus the L, followed by "thee"). Is that an uncommon way to pronounce "scythe" or is it the output of a confused text-to-speech program? (It was a quite "robotic" voice.) - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 09:54, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

As to the first question, the Ref Desks are not really the ideal place for discussion of the project in general (consider Wikipedia:Village Pump, Wikipedia:Requests for comment, Wikipedia:Centralized discussion, Wikipedia:Help Desk, and of course the talk pages for the relevant articles to get deeper responses -- and probably more responders). That being said, I'd say the current arrangement seems to be a fairly intuitive one; if anything I believe the need here is in expanding Decency to an article, as it's clearly a concept that deserves thorough treatment at this location, even if it is somewhat redundant to the content of other articles on morality and social norms. Then the linking of the other pages currently found on the disambig page could be determined, but I'm honestly pretty surprised to find a disambiguation page at that particle namespace, given the depth of the subject. Concerning your second question: I've personally never heard "scythe" pronounced in that manner in English. It's possible it has cognates that are pronounced in this manner in other languages or dialects of English, but I rather tend to doubt it. If you heard it spoken by an artificial-sounding voice, then I dare say you have your answer. Snow (talk) 10:12, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Regarding "scythe" I am pretty sure the pronunciation you heard has nothing to do with old English pronunciations. My reason for saying this is that one of my ancestors in the 16th century was described as a "sithmaker" in his will: it seems he made scythes. I think you probably heard a confused robot. --TammyMoet (talk) 10:34, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

"Sithmaker"? There's a term you need to watch the typos with... Matt Deres (talk) 15:23, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I was thinking more of a Star Wars connection... --TammyMoet (talk) 18:52, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks all. I see that the principle of centralized discussion applies to disambiguation as well. One could call it "centralized disambiguation." There has been a notice that decency is discussed for merging with morality, so that would be the place where the question should be asked instead. Right?

Re "scythe" - That's the only instance I've heard it pronounced like that ever, so I was suspecting it. More so since it's not supported by the article. OTOH, I have not seen the spelling "sythe" in the wild; it seems to be extinct. So I wondered if "ski-thee" was near-extinct too.

Re "sithmaker", someone who trained Sith: quite powerful indeed. He must have disturbed the balance of the Force quite a bit. What are humans to think in the 25th century, if all that's known about me is that I'm a "starcrafter"? - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 13:04, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I found another opposite redirect: pwned --> pwn.

Now I have to stop. Too much reminds me of different topics, the 50 words for snow (isn't Inuit language called Inuendo?), star-making, the "@ Twitter" topic, all somewhere in my 50 most recent edits. Looks like I should get a life ;)

Reading Arabic numerals in Arabic

I saw something written in Arabic with "52" in the middle of it, and I know it referred to "fifty two" because the French translation also contained "52". Arabic is written right-to-left. To me, "52" is written left-to-right, but maybe that's because (1) my native language writes everything left-to-right so I naturally interpret it that way, (2) in English it's pronounced "fifty two", with the first part of the pronunciation ("fifty") corresponding to the left most digit, and (3) if asked to pronounce "52" digit by digit I would pronounce the "5" first.

How would a native Arabic speaker see this? (a) Would he say it's written left-to-right or right-to-left? (b) In Arabic is the part of the number "52" corresponding to the "5" pronounced before the part corresponding to the "2"? (c) If asked to pronounce it digit-by-digit, would the Arabic speaker pronounce the "5" or the "2" first? Duoduoduo (talk) 17:16, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Pronunciation in English does not always correspond to the way numbers are written; 18 is pronounced eight-teen, reversing the 8 and the 1. In the past words like five-and-twenty were commonly used to say 25, and in many other left-to-right languages they still are. - Lindert (talk) 18:27, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

(a) In Arabic, numbers are written left-to-right, whether one writes them down with the "ordinary" Arabic numerals or with the Eastern Arabic numerals. "Five hundred and sixty-seven" is 567 or ٥‎٦‎٧ in Arabic text (٥ is 5; ٦ is 6; ٧ is 7).

(b) In Arabic, numbers are read out starting with the largest part, e.g. millions, then thousands, then hundreds, just like in English. By exception, however, the part representing the "ones" precedes the part representing the "tens", something which is also found in other languages, such as German and Slovene. In these languages (and in Arabic), the number 52 is pronounced "two-and-fifty", and the number 567 is pronounced "five hundred seven-and-sixty".

(c) Logically, the "5" is first, e.g. when reading out a telephone number. --Theurgist (talk) 17:54, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the very clear answer! Duoduoduo (talk) 20:06, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

A little of the history behind this: If you look at Classical (pre-modern) Arabic texts, when numbers are written out, they are written as, for example (567) "seven and sixty and five-hundred" or (1567) "seven and sixty and five-hundred and one thousand." This changes in the modern period, presumably because of influence from the West.

Because of this, I prefer to say that Arabs do read numbers from right to left, with the exception of numbers in the hundreds' place and higher, rather than the other way around.

Wrad (talk) 22:01, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

December 14

Which one was the Kanji name for Eda no Genzō--江田源蔵or江田源三?

Or are these interchangeable names or names of two different people? I found both names in Utagawa Kuniyoshi's artworks:[9][10]--RTVFSD (talk) 00:38, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

江田源蔵 reads Eda Genzō.--Jondel (talk) 06:36, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Both of the names do, from what I got from a quick Google search through Japanese Internets. And both names pop up at the same general time period (12. century, in connection with the clash between clans Taira and Minamoto), so that's probably why the OP is asking. I can't be of more help, though. Sorry. 164.71.1.221 (talk) 08:33, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

江田源三 also reads Eda Genzō. 源三 is the kanji used in The Tale of the Heike and Gikeiki. I think they are interchangeable names. Oda Mari (talk) 15:52, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

December 15

Deponent verbs

Are deponent verbs only found in Indo-European languages? Between that article and a little guesswork it kind of looks like they're a fluke of PIE development, but I'm wondering if that's the case or if they show up in other families as well. I.e. it doesn't seem likely that an agglutinative language would have grammatically passive, semantically active verbs, a passivizing affix - I'd think - would just drop, instead of having to add a whole mess of non-(medio)passive conjugations like in PIE. Lsfreak (talk) 06:55, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

It's not the most polished paper, but you might be interested in reading "Deponency: definitions and morphological typology to accompany the online Surrey Deponency Databases". Perhaps look at the entries of the Database for Finnish, Japanese, and Hebrew too: [11], [12] & [13]. And maybe you can find other interesting entries in there. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 08:58, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

In Hebrew there are deponents formed from the Niph'al stem (usually the passive of the Qal stem), and "deponents" (if you want to call them that) from the Hitpa`el stem (usually reflexive or reciprocal or subject-affecting intransitive verbs), but no deponents from the other two passive stems (the Pu'al and the Hoph'al, the passives of the Pi'el and Hiph'il respectively), as far as I'm aware... AnonMoos (talk) 17:26, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

The "O'" in names

I've seen many names such as: Mike O'Hara, Johnson O'Keefe... or even Jack-O'-Lantern. So what does the "O'" in those names mean? Thank for your help(s).

MatthewMiles127 (talk) 11:38, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

See Irish_names#Epithets. --Soman (talk) 11:44, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Wrong section. See Irish names#Surnames and prefixes. --ColinFine (talk) 11:56, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I would guess that the use as a common name prefix does not come directly from the "grandson" meaning, but rather from the use of the plural form Uí + X to mean "descendants of X", which was then used as a kind of clan name (e.g. Uí Néill). The singular Ua/O would have been formed from the plural clan name, rather than directly as "Grandson of X"... AnonMoos (talk) 17:21, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

In northern English dialect, the O' just means "of", and names were sometimes constructed in this way just meaning "son of". This is now rare here. Will-o'-the-wisp, Jack-O'-Lantern, Jack o' Lent and Tom o' Bedlam derive from this English usage, but I agree that modern surname derivation is almost always from the Irish. Dbfirs 17:36, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) But in Jack-o'-lantern, the o' is short for "of". It's commonly found in the Lowland Scots language but also as a way of writing other dialects. Well known examples are John o' Groats, Tam o' Shanter, Cock o' the North and Will-o'-the-wisp. Alansplodge (talk) 17:43, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

December 16

audio

Can you record the pronunciation of the word "cà rốt" in Vietnamese please ? Fête (talk) 02:37, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

volume

Can you turn up the volume of the file File:Fr-Normandie-Marseille.ogg and File:Zh-ruǎn-alt.ogg please ? Because I can't do it in my computer. Fête (talk) 16:13, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Es:grupera

What can "grupera" mean in Spanish? It occurred in a phrase in XEAN-AM, which I loosely translated; the sentence talked about the station broadcasting a "programación variada de música pop, grupera, y noticias". Google Translate renders it as "pop music, banda and News", which doesn't make much sense, and putting just "grupera" into Translate gets a response of "pillion". If you know the answer, please just edit the article; I've commented out "grupera" because I don't want to remove it and because I don't want to include a Spanish term in English text. Nyttend (talk) 03:00, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I am surprised you didn't try google, the first hit you get is our article grupera. μηδείς (talk) 03:12, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I went to es:grupera and got nothing; I didn't even bother looking here, because I figured that es:wp would cover anything that we would. Thanks for the pointer. Nyttend (talk) 05:19, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

The es version is called Género grupero. In an ideal world, es:grupera would redirect there. Things appear not to be ideal (but that's OR and can safely be ignored). -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 05:26, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I've asked at the Spanish help desk for advice on whether this would be a good redirect, but it was painful — I took two classes over the summer on reading Spanish, but composition wasn't part of the course, so it took me five minutes to write three sentences :-) Nyttend (talk) 05:37, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Courage, mon brave! All great writers struggle over their words. And that's just in their native language. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 07:51, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Bromyard

I read in this entry : « Bromyard was the site of an internment camp, where the Irish nationalist future Lord Mayor of Cork and hunger striker Terence MacSwiney were both interned and married.» What about married in this sentence ? Dhatier (talk) 13:18, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm sure that they made a happy couple! Alansplodge (talk) 14:10, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

It seems to be saying they were married to each other, but I suspect they really mean they each married others. StuRat (talk) 19:31, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

No, they were the same person. All things considered, it's rather a poor sentence that needs improvement (and, I notice, a reference for the information). - Cucumber Mike (talk) 21:01, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, Cucumber Mike, you've got the point. Dhatier (talk) 21:27, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

That's very funny. Alansplodge (talk) 23:11, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

If they were the same person, the verb were should be was. Or am I missing a joke? μηδείς (talk) 03:38, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

"Rather a poor sentence" (Cucumber Mike's observation above) covers a multitude of sins. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 05:18, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Is Carne related to Karma?

--Inspector (talk) 13:56, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

If you mean "as in Chili con carne", then the answer is no, according to AHD 3d edition -- karma comes from an IE root kʷer- "to make", while the Latin carn- stem comes from an IE root sker- or ker- (with s mobile) originally meaning "to cut". AnonMoos (talk) 16:53, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

(ec) The word karma comes from the PIE root *kwer-, "to shape, make, give form". The word carne in the sense of flesh comes from the root *(s)ker-, "to cut". You should see if you can borrow or purchase Calvert Watkins's etymological dictionary. Here's a link to a searchable edition of it at Amazon. μηδείς (talk) 16:58, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

From Puhvel, J., Hittite Etymological Dictionary, vol. 4, Words Beginning with K (De Gruyter, 1997), p. 216:

"The overall similarity of *k^wer- [...] to *(s)ker led to Sturtevant's postulation [...]that IE *ker(s)- [sic] is but a delabialized variant of the *k^wer- preserved in Anatolian, brought on by dissimilatory loss of initial labiovelarity in certain extended derivatives with labial [...] But the very fact that Hittite preserves kuer-, kuers-, iskar-, kars-, and kart- is strong contraindication and underlines the discreteness of *k^wer- 'carve, crop' and *(s)ker- 'clip' in Indo-European.

For Sturtevant's view, Puhvel cites: [14] and his Comparative Grammar of the Hittite Language (1933), pp. 119-120 and the revised edition of that (1953), pp. 46 & 56. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 02:49, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

The Netherlands are or is?

"The Netherlands are a country of beautiful churches." OR "The Netherlands is a country of beautiful churches."

Thank you. CBHA (talk) 18:52, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Have you checked the usage in our article? And I thought the churches there were rather plain. μηδείς (talk) 18:56, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes. Our article uses "is". As for the beauty of the churches, given the context the author of the quote is likely to have erred on the side of sentiment over accuracy.

They go on to say that the people are "very religious". I wonder if this is true.

CBHA (talk) 19:18, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

The Dutch aren't particularly religious. About 50-60% identifies with a religion, but many of these are non-practicing. There are some impressive churches, mainly in the south, because Roman Catholicism is larger there. Protestant churches are quite plain, as μηδείς pointed out, mostly because luxury and splendour are frowned upon in the reformed/calvinist tradition, which was historically dominant in the Netherlands. - Lindert (talk) 20:31, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

There are some strongly-conservative Calvinists, such as the supporters of the Reformed Political Party, but the majority of the population of the Netherlands do not seem to be particularly devout. Pope John Paul II's 1985 trip to the Netherlands, made after he uncompromisingly articulated some positions which the majority of the people there did not agree with, turned out to be a semi-fiasco, with protests and much general derision[15]... --- AnonMoos (talk) 23:34, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

When "on the fence", you can look at the rest of the sentence. Since the singular "country" is used, then the singular form "is" should be used. However, you could have said "The Netherlands are many lands combined into one nation.", then the plural "lands" goes with the plural "are". StuRat (talk) 19:28, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that last bit holds water, Stu. :) Australia, Canada, Russia and other countries were created from "many lands", but we'd never say "Australia are many lands combined into one nation". The verb would still be "is", agreeing with "Australia", not with "many lands". I believe "The Netherlands", despite appearances, is implicitly singular. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:04, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I said "when on the fence". The Australia case is already clear. The US is another which could go either way, depending on the rest of the sentence: "The United States are states of varying sizes..." or "The United States is a nation...". StuRat (talk) 01:18, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, not convinced. How does this sound to you: Australia is many lands combined into one nation. The United States are also many lands combined into one nation? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 03:26, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

The only part that sounds wrong to me is the Aussie part. My fix: "Australia consists of many lands...". StuRat (talk) 03:32, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

You might also say that 'The Netherlands' it is short for 'Kingdom of the Netherlands', although this would technically include overseas territories. The Dutch themselves just use the singular 'Nederland' (i.e. Netherland), in the same vein as 'England' or 'Finland'. - Lindert (talk) 20:20, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I'd say "Holland is a country of beautiful churches." No argument then. HiLo48 (talk) 00:57, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I'd say you're showing your age, HiLo. Holland "is a region in the western part of the Netherlands. The term Holland is also frequently used as a pars pro toto to refer to the whole of the Netherlands. This usage is generally accepted but disliked by part of the Dutch population, especially in the other parts of the Netherlands." -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 01:14, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

So, the Netherlands have regions. Alanscottwalker (talk) 03:41, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, see Provinces of the Netherlands. Alansplodge (talk) 03:44, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I see, the Netherlands has regions. ;) Alanscottwalker (talk) 03:47, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

...so the Nether regions ? StuRat (talk) 03:49, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Holland is also part of East Anglia, in England. ;)--TammyMoet (talk) 10:24, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

There are quite large parts of Holland in England, in fact. AlexTiefling (talk) 10:27, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

For comparison purposes: our articles say Netherlands is, Phillipines is, Marshall Islands is, Canary Islands is, but United States Virgin Islands are. British Virgin Islands can't decide, using both is and were. The Solomon Islands form, covers and is. (Note however that in the case of islands an author could be using ...Islands is in referring to the country but ...Islands are in referring to them as a bunch of islands.) Duoduoduo (talk) 22:26, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

The politics of these places are probably very complicated, as is the economics. Duoduoduo (talk) 22:26, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Dash and percent

Which one of the two options is typographically correct?

• 10–20%
• 10%–20%

There was no information on that neither in Percent sign, nor in Dash. --Leyo 19:15, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia's own style (MOS:PERCENT, fifth bullet point) calls for the use of the first option. Other folks may do things differently. Deor (talk) 19:23, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, both are correct. StuRat (talk) 19:25, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Is there a (non-Wikipedia) reference for that? --Leyo 19:27, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I would say it depends on context. Both 10 and 10% are quantities and mean different things. Consider "They have 200 students, and we believe only 10–20% of them are women" could be interpreted as meaning anywhere between 10 and 40 women. Whereas 10%–20% is unambiguous, if you wanted to play safe.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:34, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

That example seems a litle contrived, Shanta. Or it would require a very unusual context, with punctuation to match. I doubt that anyone would ever write "10-20%" and expect readers to understand the 10 is an absolute number but the 20% is a percentage of some other number. It would be both written and understood as a range of percentages. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 08:44, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. — SMUconlaw (talk) 08:55, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

According to the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, rule 9.18, the percentage sign should be repeated in a range. 192.251.134.5 (talk) 15:27, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

So some style manuals prefer one and some prefer the other. That's for writing. Note that for speaking, people would probably always say "ten to twenty percent." Duoduoduo (talk) 15:57, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

December 17

Verb from Ptolemy's name?

At the www.fourthturning.com board a few years ago, I saw a poster mention the "Ptolmecization" of the Strauss-Howe generational theory. Someone inevitably asked what that word meant, and another poster explained, respelling the word as "Ptolemaicization" or something alone those lines, that the word meant adding more and more complex elements to an explanation, in violation of Occam's Razor, in trying to save a theory. (One example listed was the increasingly convoluted tweaks to the Ptolemaic model of the universe as time went on to try to account for all astronomical discoveries despite the Kepler model.)

I have searched Google for "ptolmecize", "ptolemaicize", "ptolemicize" and many other variations, but cannot find a word that gets more than a few ghits. I have come up empty-handed looking at the English index of P-words at Wiktionary. So what is the word that they were using at the Fourth Turning site? Enzingiyi (talk) 04:59, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Probably just a nonce-word someone made up on the spur of the moment; it might as well have been Ptolemnicization or Ptolemnification as Ptolemaicization. A word only enters dictionaries if it's widely used. In the context mentioned, the better part of valor would be to define the word when first used, or use more common words: overcomplication, rationalization, special pleading, etc. - Nunh-huh 05:23, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

See Productivity (linguistics). This use of '-ize' (in coining new verbs with a meaning of "to render something like [that to which the stem refers]") is productive, especially in academic discourse. So if they are using "Ptolemaic" to refer to those theories which use increasingly tenuous ad hoc explanations, including, in particular, Ptolemaic models of the solar system which use epicycles, then "to ptolemaicize" would be to make or augment theories with such explanations. The word doesn't have to be common, because it is just being produced on (hopefully) mutually-understood grammatical principles. And the variations could all be used, but those most etymologically inclined would probably go for "ptolemaicize"/"-ise". That's probably the second- or third-to-most-common production in academic discourse, next to the -ian/ean/-an and -ic. Keep reading philosophical articles on meaning or logic, and you will eventually see "Kripkean", but you won't see the word in a dictionary, at least not any time soon. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 05:36, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

"Ptolemize" would make more sense, wouldn't it? (I get 7 Google results for that, anwyay.) Adam Bishop (talk) 11:46, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

To ptolemize would be to make Ptolem. The adjective Ptolemaic already exists (the actual name is Ptolemaios, root Ptolemai-, which yields Ptolemai-ikos, hence Ptolemaic), and as mentioned above, adding ize to ic, and then ation to icize are productive rules. The word Ptolemaicize is entirely parsable, whereas the other suggestions are based on a misanalysis of the roots or just plain impressionistic goofing around.

If you really do want to get goofy, there is always the ironic -ma- infix, such as in edumacation. That would yield Ptolemaimacize. μηδείς (talk) 18:18, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Depending on which Ptolemy you were talking about, "Ptolemize" could also mean "to marry one's own sister". ;-) Alansplodge (talk) 20:04, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Romanian 1st person pl. imperative

Is it true that Romanian never uses first‐person plural imperatives of verbs? Why would its sister languages have it and Romanian not so? --66.190.69.246 (talk) 20:12, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

How would they say "Let us pray"? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:03, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Maybe the OP already looked there, but Romanian verbs#Verb paradigm just gives a blank in that spot in the table. Duoduoduo (talk) 21:18, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Romanian has been substantially influenced by the nearby Slavic languages, although I don't know to what extent that's true for its grammar. For comparison, I found this passage in Bulgarian language#Tense:

There is only one simple tense in the imperative mood – the present – and there are simple forms only for the second person using the suffixes -и/-й (-i, -y/i) for singular and -ете/-йте (-ete, -yte) for plural; e.g., уча /utʃa/ ('to study'): учи /utʃi/, sg., учете /utʃete/, pl.; играя /iɡraja/ 'to play': играй /iɡraj/, играйте /iɡrajte/. There are compound imperative forms for all persons and numbers in the present compound imperative (да играе, da iɡrae/), the present perfect compound imperative (да е играл, /da e iɡral/) and the rarely used present pluperfect compound imperative (да е бил играл, /da e bil iɡral/).

So maybe (I'm guessing) Romanian got this feature from the Slavic languages. And maybe, like Bulgarian, Romanian has a compound imperative in the first person plural? Duoduoduo (talk) 21:25, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

To answer Jack's question, Romanian seems to use a present subjunctive form to express the meaning of a 1st-p plural imperative. In effect they say "That we should pray". To answer the original question, Duoduo is quite correct that Romanian has had a lot of Slavic influence. There is a theory that in the early middle ages, there was widespread Slavic bilingualism among the ancestors of the Romanians. Another theory is that Romanian belongs to a Balkan sprachbund along with the South Slavic languages. Marco polo (talk) 21:35, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Let us be thankful for that answer.  :) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 19:49, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Latin didn't have formal 1st. person imperatives; the commonly-used imperative forms were 2nd. person only, while the semi-obscure forms with "-to" suffixes could be 2nd. or 3rd... AnonMoos (talk) 22:27, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

And in fact, 1st person imperatives in western Romance languages (French and Spanish, anyway, not as familiar with the others) are identical to the corresponding present subjunctive forms, just as Romanian uses a present subjunctive to communicate the same sense. The difference may just be one of labeling. These forms are called imperative in French and Spanish but not in Romanian even though they are formed in the same way. Marco polo (talk) 02:05, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Not according to this wikibooks page, which says about French The imperative is used in tu, nous and vous forms; the nous and vous forms are the same as the indicative in both regular and irregular verbs (except the 3 [sic] irregulars shown below) .... Être, Avoir, Savoir, & Vouloir are the only verbs that are irregular in the imperative. Duoduoduo (talk) 13:33, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

In at least Être and Avoir, the 1st. plural imperative is the same as the 1st. plural subjunctive (soyons, ayons), but in most other verbs, the 1st. plural imperative is more like the indicative than the subjunctive (i.e. does not use the "-ions" ending)... AnonMoos (talk) 15:24, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Answering the original question: That's right, Romanian only has second-person imperatives. For "let's play" you can use the subjunctive, usually amplified with a particle: hai să jucăm. In fact, the subjunctive is commonly used instead of the imperative even for the second person. --Theurgist (talk) 19:31, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Spanish Heraldry

un escudo verde y dentro de él un cordero plateado encima de un libro colorado e atravesado por una bandera con una cruz e su veleta como la trae la devysa de Sanct Joan e por orla castillos e leones e banderas e cruzes de Iherusalen e por devysa una F. e una Y. con sus coronas e yugos e flechas e un letrero a la redonda de la manera siguiente: Joannes est nomen ejus".

This is a 1511 description of the Coat of Arms of Puerto Rico (possibly the illustration in the article might help to understand the meaning). I understand most of it, but my Spanish is not good enough to provide a consistent translation, and I have no idea what the words atravesado and manera mean in a heraldic context and how to understand "con [...] su veleta como la trae la devysa de Sanct Joan". --Oudeísde Correct me! 21:59, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Translated loosely: A green shield; inside, a silver sheep lamb upon a book, proper, and crossed (obliquely) with a flagstaff topped by a cross, with a pennon like that in St. John's arms; a border of castles, lions, flags, and Jerusalem crosses; with a device of an F and a Y surmounted by crowns, yokes, and arrows; a surrounding motto with the following legend: Joannes est nomen ejus. -- What I find confusing is that in Spanish art the pennon with a cross is characteristic of St. James, not St. John. "Veleta" also means "weather vane", so perhaps that refers to the device at the top of the staff, and the cross of the "bandera" is the red cross on the pennon. (See, for example, this suggestive painting of John by Titian, showing him with a staff topped by a cross: File:TitianStJohn.jpg [16].) The Y and F (and yokes and arrows) are badges of the Catholic Monarchs, Ysabela and Fernando. The yoke (yugo) goes with Ysabela and the arrows (flechas) with Fernando, so File:Coat of Arms of Puerto Rico.svg [17] has them backwards. Elphion (talk) 22:50, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

For the connection between St John, the lamb and the flag, see Lamb of God (or if you're thirsty, try Lamb and Flag). Alansplodge (talk) 23:54, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Puerto Rico was originally named for Saint John the Baptist and he is its patron saint, so that would be the saint, not St. John, the Evangelist, whose traditional symbol is the eagle. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:15, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

December 18

Japanese

What's the difference between 天 and 空? What about 川 and 河? --107.207.240.46 (talk) 02:39, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

天 -the heavens, home of the gods, emperor 'feeling'. 空- weather, the sky 'feeling'. 川 the normal ordinary 'river'. 河 -used in names /place names.--Jondel (talk) 02:46, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

空 is simply the sky and used with "air"-related words like air/空気 and airport/空港. Other meanings are emptiness and vanity. 天 is also the sky and it connotes something celestial. Astronomy is 天文学 and Milky Way is 天の川. 川 is general rivers. Originally 河 was a proper noun and it meant Yellow River. 河 is bigger rivers, but it is correct to use 川 for river names like Hudson River/ハドソン川 in ja except some Chinese river names. Oda Mari (talk) 17:43, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Chinese reading

The name Min Yingjun 闵应军 - Which "ying" is in the name? It's for the article Chenpeng Village Primary School stabbing ‎ WhisperToMe (talk) 19:29, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Japanese pronunciation

If n is directly before an m, is it still pronounced n, or does it become m like before b and p? For example, how is "Gunma" pronounced? --107.207.240.46 (talk) 21:23, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

The "n" is pronounced typically (any possible exceptions to this escape me at the moment). I am no linguist so please forgive my nonsense explanation but I would pronounce it gu-n-ma (three syllables), closing the "u" sound with the "n" then proceeding with "ma". Someone else can probably explain much better. SassyLilNugget (talk) 21:32, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I know virtually no Japanese, but I'm doubting it's 3 syllables. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:40, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Translating Japanese Article

Can someone here who speaks Japanese (preferably fluently) please translate this article--http://www.saga-s.co.jp/news/global/corenews.0.2352588.article.html? I am a member of a forum on supercentenarians, as are some other Wikipedia users. We're unsure if this article is talking about Jiroemon Kimura currently being hospitalized or about him previously being hospitalized in July (or both). Thank you very much. Futurist110 (talk) 21:39, 18 December 2012 (UTC)