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August 13

Canonical number of chapters?

Were writers of previous eras constrained by the expectation about the number of chapters that a book should have? Alice in Wonderland and Alice through the looking glass had each 12 chapters, for example. Did a canonical number of chapters (3,7,12 or whatever) for literary works existed in the past? Llaanngg (talk) 22:34, 13 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If it was, Charles Dickens certainly didn't adhere to it. A Christmas Carol runs about half a dozen, while Great Expectations has around 30. It wouldn't be surprising if there were a mathematical reason for Lewis Carroll to do his books in 12 chapters. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:51, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I remember forming the impression in the mid-1960s, based on novels I'd read then, that a "normal" novel would be 12 chapters long. I was a boy then and most of the novels I read were science fiction, which then was often directed at young people, and they were typically about the same length, too. But I have no idea of whether publishers, even within that limited field, actually had guidelines recommending a particular chapter length or number of chapters. And for that matter I have no idea of how common the exact length of 12 chapters really was -- maybe it really varied from 12 to 15 or something like that. This is just one anecdotal data point that the query suggested to me. --69.159.9.219 (talk) 05:41, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Moby-Dick has well over 100 chapters. Had it been kept to 12, it might have been tolerable. (Unless he'd made each chapter 10 times longer.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:30, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There is not and does not appear to have ever been any standard for how many chapters a work should have. Ideally, a chapter should have somewhat clear beginning and end and (beyond references to prior chapters and possible foreshadowing of later chapters) approach being as close to self-contained as it can be (though writer talent or lack thereof can alter or even buck that). Ian.thomson (talk) 15:42, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Hebrew Bible (according to the Jewish count) are each made up of twenty-four books. The division of all of these seems to have happened after the books were written, and probably had something to do with the importance of the number twelve. See Eva Mroczek, The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity, p. 166. Lesgles (talk) 14:44, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

August 14

Japanese alphabets

Japanese has three alpherbets (hiragana, katakana, and kanji) suposidly because every word is a homophone with two or more different meanings, so without distingusihing them by using the different alpherbets nobody would know what was ment by the use of each word in a sentance and nobody would be able to understand each other.

So explain to me, how does radio work in Japan? How do Japanese people talk to each other in the street? How do Japanese people understand each other in any situation where the three alpherbets can't be used? 11:13, 14 August 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by MagicalMaddocker (talk • contribs)

I think that like Chinese, Japanese is a tonal language (i.e. the pitch determines the meaning of the word). Foreigners speaking the language can make unfortunate mistakes because of this, but for the natives radio and ordinary conversation work just fine.

Tone (linguistics) tells us that Japanese is tonal in a rather more limited way, compared to Chinese. Less than half of Japanese words use tonality. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 11:56, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think you're mistaken about why Japanese uses three different sets of characters. Kanji is an adaptation of the Chinise writing system, and the other two are used for words that have no direct Chinese equivalent. See Japanese writing system for how the system developed. Rojomoke (talk) 12:09, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A frequently asked question about Japanese writing is "if they can write everything with just kana, why do they still use kanji?" A frequently given answer is "homophones are usually written with different kanji characters; writing these words with kana would lead to ambiguity." --51.9.188.8 (talk) 12:22, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Terminology remark: none of the Japanese character sets is an "alphabet". Kana are syllabaries, and kanji is logography.

That aside, English is as rich in homophones as any other language; see [1] for an example. In speech, this doesn't create any intelligibility problem, because the context for each word disambiguates its meaning. Same applies to Japanese. --51.9.188.8 (talk) 12:17, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The first point is that a writing system is utterly extraneous to a language. Many languages have never been written; some have been written with several different scripts; any language can be written in any script (even the claim sometimes made that some scripts suit some languages better than others is pretty specious: many customary scripts are rather bad at representing their customary languages, eg English, Tibetan). When Japanese (or English, or Navajo) people talk to each other in the street, writing systems are not usually involved in any way.

Secondly, the three systems which make up the conventional Japanese writing system are not alphabets (as somebody said above) and are used writing distinct parts of the language.

Thirdly, though Japanese is a tonal language (in the same sense that Ancient Greek and Modern Serbian are tonal languages, but a very different sense from how Chinese and Thai are tonal languages), this has no necessary connection with its writing system. It happens that Thai orthography does represent its tones, but rather few languages consistently mark tones (in any sense) in their conventional orthography (though they may be marked in some way for scholarly or teaching purposes). Neither Chinese nor Japanese writing has any conventional way to represent tones. --ColinFine (talk) 15:05, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And as for why the Japanese continue to use three systems: it almost entirely because of tradition. Arguments about homophones are no doubt sincerely offered, but they have little weight. The spoken language copes very well with all its homophones, so there is no reason to think that writing could not do so. A thousand years ago, Lady ~~Murakami~~Murasaki wrote Genji Monogatari entirely in kana. Roy Andrew Miller argues somewhere that the complexity which strikes us as a disadvantage would have been seen as an advantage by the bored Japanese aristocracy a few centuries ago. --ColinFine (talk) 16:22, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"The spoken language copes very well with all its homophones, so there is no reason to think that [kana based, Kanji-less] writing could not do so." And it certainly does: indeed Japanese Braille makes no provision for kanji at all (its eight-dot extension for kanji is not, to my knowledge, in common use) and its users write Japanese exactly as it would be if it were written entirely in kana, yet, as far as I know, visual impairment is no more a handicap for dealing with the written language in Japan as it is elsewhere. Contact Basemetal here 21:04, 16 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Minor correction: I think you meant Murasaki, not "Murakami". {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.123.26.60 (talk) 12:28, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

True. Corrected, thank you. --ColinFine (talk) 19:38, 16 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Japanese does have a lot of homophones, due to borrowing so many Chinese words. Japanese phonology does not do justice to Chinese words, so words that sound different in Chinese may wind up being homophones in Japanese. However, Chinese words were borrowed along with the kanji to write them, so they have different kanji even if they sound the same. This makes the kanji system easier to understand than the spoken word.

There are basic rules on when to use the three script systems of Japanese writing: (1) use kanji for lexical elements (nouns, verb stems, adjective stems, etc.); (2) use hiragana for the grammatical elements, such as particles, conjugations, auxiliary verbs, and noun suffixes, and also for words that you don’t know a kanji for, and words that you want to soften (since kanji has a more formal feel, technical, and can be cold); (3) use katakana as though it were italics, for foreign words and for emphasis.

Because kanji solves the problems of homophones, especially in technical writing, when such subjects are spoken out loud, the Japanese speaker often relies on the tactic of "drawing" the kanji character in the palm of his hand with a finger of the other hand. Sometimes for emphasis, the speaker may hold up the hand where he "drew" the character for everyone to see (even though he did not really draw anything, so the hand is blank). On the radio, you have to speak in ways that clarify the homophones by context. —Stephen (talk) 09:47, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@ColinFine: Written Japanese isn't just transcribed spoken Japanese. Writers take advantage of the ability to write concise kanji compounds that wouldn't necessarily be intelligible if spoken. Also, as Stephen said, native speakers draw kanji in the air to disambiguate homophones in spoken conversations. I suspect that spoken Japanese would have evolved to have fewer homophones if the written language didn't have kanji.

Certainly, Japanese could be written without kanji, just as English could be written without punctuation, letter case, paragraphs, and other features exclusive to the written language, but it would be a big change. It's not as simple as mechanically discarding the extra information.

Unrelatedly, it's not actually known whether The Tale of Genji was written in kana. Quoting myself from this thread: "As far as I know, even the earliest surviving editions use kanji. It's just speculation that the (now lost) original manuscript used only hiragana, and that's not because Murasaki didn't know kanji (she did, and was apparently something of a prodigy), but only because that was the convention for women at the time. (Sources: her Wikipedia article and this thread and the 'original' text with kanji.)" -- BenRG (talk) 23:36, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I am a Chinese and I am a beginner of learning Japanese. As I know, it seem that there are not so many homophone. And Hiragana, katakana and kanji are not used to distingusihing homophone. Sometimes, there are two words sound the same/similar,such as 橋(bridge) and 箸(chopsticks) are both はし(hashi). Kanji here has the function of distinguishing the two words with similar pronunciation. Hiragana here is just like IPA to show the pronunciation. However, Katakana is always to spell the foreign words. For example, プレゼント(purezento) is a word from the English word "present", so it is write in Katakana. Sometimes, Katakana is used to underline, just like capital alhpabet. (Well, I am just a beginner and I am not really good at Japanese and English, if you don't know what am I saying, just ignore me.

Orz...) --Dqwyy (Talk)^C _{from zhWP (頁|論|獻|會)} 15:37, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is a lesson in why everyone - and especially native speakers of English, as the questioner is, and I am - should learn another language. I took Italian in Junior High, and found out that you could communicate just fine without using pronouns, as the verb inflections indicated who was saying what about whom. At college I took Japanese, and found out that you could communicate just fine without using pronouns, with only two verb tenses, and with politeness levels rather more complex than the T–V distinction - that's now extinct in English, or course - that are part in everyday communication. OK, finished my rant. Keep calm and and - especially native speakers of English - learn another language.--Shirt58 (talk) 10:42, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Anybody with access to The Times

Can anybody with access to The Times please check if Shamash, Jack (March 6, 2004). "Yiddish once again speaks for itself". is the source for this paragraph in the Yiddish article? Debresser (talk) 21:16, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Try WP:REX for requests of this type. It is a board specifically designed for exactly this kind of request, and I find the people who frequent there to be fast and friendly in their responses. --Jayron 32 23:07, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The two are not the same. The ID of the Wikipedia citation is 1038349. The ID of the article Debresser links to is 2097943. There are 14,000 Jewish families in Stamford Hill, so I am surprised that Jack Shamash would write that the language is under threat there. Here's a gem from The Times of 25 June 2016:

A scene of modern Britain played out on a rail replacement bus service in Newport yesterday. A woman wearing a niqab was chatting to her son in another language. After five minutes, a man suddenly snapped: 'If you're in the UK, you should speak English.' At this, another passenger turned round and explained: 'We're in Wales. And she's speaking Welsh.'

@Jayron32 Done. Thanks. Debresser (talk) 21:32, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Anonymous editor A population of 14,000 is definitely a threat of extinction for a language. Nice quote. Debresser (talk) 21:34, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

14,000 families does not equate to a population of 14,000, especially when it's a Chasidic community (average number of children seven per family). The number of Jewish children in registered secondary education is 800 girls and 400 boys, suggesting a lot of the boys are enrolled in illegal unregistered yeshivas. Assuming a total of 1 600 children this suggests a population of 20,000 minimum. Estimates are way above that - see Stamford Hill. In the whole of London (Stamford Hill is by far the largest community) there are about 1/4 million Jews. 86.150.12.166 (talk) 11:22, 16 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

August 15

Which is correct, or preferable, and why?

"One thing I constantly learn is that a lot of people are a lot smarter than me."

or

"One thing I constantly learn is that a lot of people are a lot smarter than I am."

Which is correct, or preferable, and why? Bus stop (talk) 14:24, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Both correct. It's a matter of preference, rather than anything else. 86.150.12.166 (talk) 14:35, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Smarter than me is a colloquialism. Smarter than I (am) would be the correct way to say it, but the other is so common that smarter than I tends to sound pretentious. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:45, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Only if by "correct" you are talking about a social judgment which has nothing to do with linguistics, Bugs. --ColinFine (talk) 19:43, 16 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

As in, "...smarter than me am." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:26, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's a disjunctive pronoun. Perfectly good grammar. 86.150.12.166 (talk) 15:10, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you everybody. Bus stop (talk) 23:36, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?

I'm trying to figure out whether "than" in Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? is a preposition or a conjunction, to be able to determine whether it should be capitalized or not per MOS:CT. Currently, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? and Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? (U.S. game show) use two different forms of capitalization in their title. nyuszika7h (talk) 17:44, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's properly a conjunction; the copula is elided. The Underlying question is: "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader is?" or "Are You Smarter Than is a 5th Grader?" The current informal and long=standing usage makes it preposition-like. μηδείς (talk) 18:02, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's a preposition. The question is given in the show's title; there is no reason to invent an "underlying" rewording to suit your grammatical prejudices. --69.159.9.219 (talk) 18:11, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure why you say it's a preposition while linking to a site that only says it's a conjunction. Loraof (talk) 21:29, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You didn't read far enough down the linked page. It can be either. Since "than a 5th grader" is a prepositional phrase, it's a preposition here. --69.159.9.219 (talk) 02:37, 16 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Also, as far as capitalization goes, look for how it is capitalized in reliable sources, preferably in plain text writing (rather than as a logo or trademark). In Wikipedia we follow the sources, so look for several examples of the title written out in major, well respected sources, and follow what they do. --Jayron 32 18:04, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In this case the ~~base~~ best reference is a primary one, i.e. do what the show's own producers do, if you can find a place where they don't write it in block capitals. --69.159.9.219 (talk) 18:08, 15 August 2016 (UTC), confusing typo fixed later.[reply]

IP 69 you are being contrary and careless. In the sentence "The problem is harder than I thought it would be" the only possible interpretation is the conjunction, The problem is harder than [I thought it would be]. One cannot reword this as The problem is harder than I, or even The problem is harder than me. Please don't introduce nonsense. It is entirely possible to say that one part of speech is being used similarly to another, such as "to forgive is divine" where the infinitive verb is treated as a noun. but "treated as" is the essential point. And you are abusing the OP if you want to engage in such naivete. μηδείς (talk) 22:04, 16 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, in that sentence of course "than" is a conjunction. This is different from the original sentence where it is a preposition. As stated in the reference I cited, it can be either. Many English words can be different parts of speech in different contexts; there's nothing special about this one except that some people used to make a fuss about it. --69.159.9.219 (talk) 23:29, 16 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Short version: It's a preposition. ¶ Longer version: It's a preposition, unless (perhaps) you understand the question as an elided version of "Are you smarter than a 5th grader is smart?" The latter option is far-fetched, as questions of the form "Are you smarter than a 5th grader is smart?" are very rare. But let's suppose that yes, it is an elided version of that (to me) unidiomatic-sounding sentence. So "than" is the "than" within "I was more insistent that we kept on climbing than he was to return to the base camp." "Than" is now a [fanfare] preposition. No, prepositions do not need noun phrase complements; yes, they can take clause complements. No, there is no category "conjunction" that's meaningfully divided into "subordinating" and "coordinating" conjunctions. All of this is explained in The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, currently the most comprehensive of reference grammars, and a work that is in no way revolutionary (other than for those who have an interest in the grammatical misinformation industrial complex). See Geoffrey K. Pullum, "Lexical categorization in English dictionaries and traditional grammars", especially pp. 263–270. ¶ But the question is about how to apply WP:CT. Unsurprisingly, the latter is based on "traditional grammar" (i.e. outdated myth), e.g. that if is a "subordinating conjunction". (There's no such thing. The if of "If it rains, I'll go to the museum" is a preposition; that of "I wonder if it will rain" is a subordinator.) ¶ In Wikipedia, for this particular purpose, we don't follow the sources. After all, the sources will say that SONY, SANYO, ELLEGARDEN and many more are so written. Say this thing is a preposition: (i) that's what it is; (ii) that avoids any reason to capitalize it, and therefore decreases the awkwardness and pomposity. -- Hoary (talk) 13:26, 18 August 2016 (UTC) ... slightly reworded, and augmented 22:50, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

To "modern" users of English, "than" may be used as a preposition. Historically "than" was a conjunction. Bergen Evans believed that English is mutable. Others do not so believe. As for everyone always using words "correctly" - that situation has never existed at all. With regard to trademarks, we do not follow logo capitalization, but generally follow "corporate capitalization" as we are not using logos as names. That aside is, alas, quite off the mark. I also point out that "AIDS" in the US is "Aids" in much of the rest of the world. Just as is my aside that I do remember Down You Go on TV. Collect (talk) 09:45, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Using the word post box to mean p.o. box?

Is it common in Indian English to use "post box" for "p.o. box" (i.e. "post-office box")? Is "p.o. box" also understood/used in India concurrently with "post box"? Can "post box" also mean "letter box" in Indian English (as it does in Britain)? Thanks. Contact Basemetal here 18:28, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There's no mention of it at Indian_English#Vocabulary. I'm not sure what standard dictionaries to refer to. Is there an Indian OED? Carbon Caryatid (talk) 11:20, 16 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know. As an example among others of the first usage I can mention the title of the 1958 Hindi movie "Post Box 999" (with Sunil Dutt, etc.) where it is obvious that the "post box" of the title (and of the story) refers to a "post office box". Contact Basemetal here 11:31, 16 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Having worked for a Bell company in the US back when we demigodlings determined people's listings in the phone book, we were told that "P. O. Box 1234" was okay, but that "P. O. B. 1234" or any othe format was improper, and this was a directive from the USPS itself. It was in the user manual you were issued on day one, although the manual is a trade secret, so you'll have to trust me.

Why? I suspect we were looking in the late 90's at directives from the 70's or earlier when mechanical sorters got confused by improper formats. Nowadays most people write "POB 1234" and have done with it (I do). I suppose this might still be a problem for people who live on Pob Street in Wales. μηδείς (talk) 21:54, 16 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

For the curious, pob is a preposition in Welsh meaning "all", "each" or "every", depending on the mutation. Also Welsh language street names would use "stryd" instead of "street", but I'm being picky now. Alansplodge (talk) 12:25, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If we're being picky, it's not a preposition. It's a determiner (specifically a quantifier). I believe it is cognate with Latin 'quoque' ('also'). --ColinFine (talk) 17:53, 18 August 2016 (UTC) [reply]

Ach! And here I figured it meant Pub Strasse. hehe. μηδείς (talk) 21:54, 18 August 2016 (UTC) [reply]

Note: "Pob lwc" means "Good luck" and "Pob hwyl" means "All the best". But there's also another, very popular Pob in UK created in the 1980s by Ragdoll Productions. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:09, 18 August 2016 (UTC) ... or if you fancy a sing-along, you can always try "Mae d'eisiau di bob awr" aka "I need Thee every hour," wrth gwrs.[reply]

BTW, the Welsh for pub is tafarn or "the pub" mutates to y dafarn; cognate with the Latin taberna. Alansplodge (talk) 13:20, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

But to the OP: in UK English there has been a long-standing distinction between "post box" (usually that pillar box in the street) and a "PO Box" which is merely a registered secure deposit point at the "GPO" or Royal Mail Sorting Office (where one had to direct one's postal orders for all those shady adverts in the back of Exchange and Mart etc.) But I'm really not sure about usage in Indian English. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:57, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So the Welsh pub is a "tavern", then. There is a Tavern Street in Ipswich and no doubt many other places. I don't know what a pillar box is in French, but "P.O. Box" is "B.P.", presumably an abbreviation of Boîte Postale. Portugal has pillar boxes, Gilbert Scott - style telephone boxes and double - decker buses as in Britain (they also have iconic trams and a prototype of the Eiffel Tower). I don't think this is seen elsewhere on the continent. A "P.O. Box" is "C.P." (Caixa Postal). The word for post (mail) or post office is correio. A pillar box is caixa de correio. In Britain a "letter box" is either the opening in the front door through which the postman passes the mail so that it lands on the doormat or a pillar box. For India, see the Post Office Guide [2], clauses 26, 29 and 55 (especially 55(12)) and [3]. 80.44.89.199 (talk) 14:40, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

August 16

Is the Hindi use of "Hum" (we) to mean "Main" (I) more common for males than for females?

As is probably well known Hindi speakers often use "Hum" (हम, literally "we") to just mean "Main" (मैं, the proper word for "I"). But I have the feeling that usage is much more common with (or even restricted to?) men. At least looking at many movie titles, song titles, song lyrics, etc. I could find numerous examples of this usage for men but not a single one for a woman. So is my conclusion correct or have I just not looked hard enough yet? Contact Basemetal here 12:08, 16 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See Royal we. μηδείς (talk) 00:35, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That article has a reference, but it's not cited so you can find or look at it. Here are a couple you can read yourself Basemetal: this paper suggests use of the plural is a marker of an eastern dialect, of poetic/filmic speech, and a way to show humility (so no particular gendered aspect), while this by the same author also gets more technical about plural/singular agreement with masculine vs. feminine pronouns. Taknaran (talk) 11:47, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I've immediately downloaded these two papers. Not too technical in fact and a useful antidote to my Bollywood induced Hindi. But learning Hindi in the classroom has its pitfalls too. They'll never catch me using "tum" to address the neighbor's dog!

Contact Basemetal here 12:41, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

For my curiosity, is it /hum/ or, as you show in devanagari, /hʌm/? —Tamfang (talk) 05:07, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The latter. Explanation: Indians commonly use a fairly silly (and incoherent) transliteration scheme. They seem to worry more about what the spelling would sound like when read by an ignorant English speaker than about having a self-consistent, logical and useful transliteration scheme. So they don't write "ham" (as they should) because they worry that it would sound like the leg of a pig but "hum". The problem is that they often end up using "u" for both the short 'a' and the short 'u': for example for "me and you" they write "hum tum" (in nagri: हम तुम, as in the song titles "Hum Tum Yug Yug Se" , "Milan" 1967 or "Hum Tum Ek Kamre Band Ho" , "Bobby" 1973). But they do use 'a' for that sound "sometimes", for example in the second title they write "kamra" ("room") and not "kumra" and they usually write "hamara" ("our") not "humara". But now 'a' is used for both long and short 'a'. It's a complete mess. One favorite of mine: Hindi has an open 'o': औ. Since it comes from the Sanskrit diphthong 'au' that's the normal scientific transliteration of that nagri letter. And in most cases Indians do commonly use 'au' for that letter. But then why does the theatrical poster of the movie "Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!" 1994 use 'ou' (in "koun" कौन "who?") instead of 'au' for that sound, which, beside being non-standard, would suggest to an English speaker the vowel of "down" rather than the vowel of "dawn"? I'm still waiting to have that one explained. And another one I've just remembered: the romanization of the title of the 1976 movie कभी कभी namely "Kabhi Kabhie". Where does that silly romanization come from? Why does the same word कभी get two different spellings at a distance of a blank space? Since when is 'ie' an intuitive representation in English of the Hindi long 'i'? Or 'i' for that matter? Isn't the most intuitive spelling actually 'ee'? Filmfare should institute an award for the most idiotic and outlandish romanization of a Hindi film title every year. The studios have really expended a lot of creativity in that area. Anyway, because of all that I always add the nagri to make things unambiguous. I don't use the scientific transliteration scheme when the question is potentially targeted at Indians at the RefDesk also (though there don't seem to be very many of them) because they are in general totally ignorant of them. I figured anyone who would know the answer to my question would be able to read the nagri. Contact Basemetal here 10:09, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Slightly off topic, Basemetal, but could you explain your usage of the term "nagri"? I've seen "devanagari" and "nagari", but not that particular variant. I browsed the article Devanagari and found this discussion which touches on some pronunciation features of Hindi. Does this explain it? Are you using a Hindi-faithful transliteration of "nagari"? Thanks. 129.234.195.173 (talk) 09:23, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes exactly. You'll find both. In fact an Indian author quoted in the very paragraph you've just mentioned uses "devnagri" next to "devanagari". Sometimes it depends on the context. If you're discussing writing systems in general and your audience may not even be aware of that feature of North Indian pronunciation it feels more natural to use "devanagari". But since I was talking specifically Hindi and Hindi words it felt more natural to use the actual pronunciation just like I did when I mentioned all those other Hindi words and phrases. Contact Basemetal here 22:27, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

August 18

Distance between different registers

How far are those Thai registers - street, formal, royal, rhetorical, religious - from each other? I assume, most Thais won't address the king ever, so, how good can royal Thai be, even if it's part of the national curriculum? Llaanngg (talk) 23:17, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

They can be quite far. Conversational colloquial Thai uses mostly native words (including old borrowings that are accepted as native). The other, higher, registers use the same basic grammar but the vocabulary becomes increasingly Khmero-Indic as one climbs the formality scale. Additionally the higher registers use different grammatical particles and markedly different pronouns. Similar to other languages, the more formal literary, religious and royal registers also use more complicated constructions and language that seems "flowery" or archaic to common folk. As for your question about "how good can (their) royal Thai be", I'll start by saying that the religious register is learned quite early, often from first learning to speak, since interaction with the temple and monks is an integral part of village life. So too is the formal register as children are taught to use that register when speaking to their parents/elders/local officials/strangers. Literary register is usually learned early on in temple schools or later in more formal education. The Royal Register is not only used when addressing the king. It is used extensively at court; it is the "conversational colloquial" Thai of the royal family. Commoners get exposure to it in the media, in literature, in school, and oftentimes in dealings with provincial officials who may be, especially in former times, members of the royal family. Today, commoners who have occasion to speak directly to royalty are often given a quick informal primer/reminder in protocol, which includes proper language usage. There are plenty of papers written on the subject but I'm having trouble finding references for you that aren't behind paywalls. Diller, Anthony VN. "High and Low Thai: views from within." Pacific Linguistics. Series A. Occasional Papers 67 (1983): 51-76. is a good start. You can find it the SEA Lang Archives with a little searching (the lexical differences between the registers is discussed beginning at pg 59). Glancing at the other papers available there under the "Thai" category, there are a few more that may help answer your question.--William Thweatt ^Talk^Contribs 00:45, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

August 19

"Is-is"?

In the context of conspiracy theories, what is the definition of the term "is-is" and how is it different from just using the word "is" (in the same context)? 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:F88D:DE34:7772:8E5B (talk) 11:44, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What are you talking about? In the context of conspiracy theories, there is no such term as "is-is". Please give sources for your use of this term. --Viennese Waltz 11:51, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No, he's referring obliquely to the Lewinsky scandal. During a deposition, Bill Clinton famously answered a question by asking the questioner to consider the nuance behind the meaning of "is". See This video and Impeachment of Bill Clinton where it is discussed. Just to clarify for the OP, Clinton was NOT asking for the definition of "is-is". He was asking the questioner to clarify what he meant by "is". --Jayron 32 11:59, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I have never had sexual relations with that woman.

So what did he do to her? 80.44.89.199 (talk)

Not sure what agenda you're pushing here but the answer is in the article linked to by Jayron above. --Viennese Waltz 13:48, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A one - night stand does not count as a "sexual relationship". Where do you draw the line? 80.44.89.199 (talk) 14:33, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't really the place to debate issues like that. If you have a question that is capable of being answered factually, go ahead and ask it. --Viennese Waltz 15:19, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If you're interested in various meanings of "is", there's no need to get into conspiracy. All sorts of mathematicians and scientists and lawyers operate with different notions of "is" every day. E.g. "what do you mean by 'is' here?" is not at all a strange or invalid question. For some general reading, see e.g. equivalence class, equivalence relation, isomorphism, equality_(mathematics), and the disambiguate page equality. From a more linguistic point of view, see Copula_(linguistics)#Meanings, for a philosophical approach, see identity_(philosophy), SEP page on identity , and property_(philosophy). SemanticMantis (talk) 15:25, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Dalian as a first name

What's the origin of Dalian Atkinson's first name? Is it somehow related to the Chinese city of Dalian? Pizza Margherita (talk) 15:51, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know the answer to your question, but the Chinese city is pronounced "Dah-lian", not "Day-lian", so it seems unlikely he was named after the city. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 16:51, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wu and Bomoh?

Are there any sources etymologically connecting Chinese Wu with Malay Bomoh? 巫's (Wu's) original pronunciation was something along the lines of *Mo and it's a cognate with Tibetan "Ba." Plus, the meanings are very similar. But I can't actually find any sources connecting the two beyond (maybe) this (rather unhelpful) snippet preview. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:18, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What say you?

I cringe when I hear the expression "what say you?", which is becoming common in the media; it doesn't seem like a proper English sentence to me. What say you? --2606:A000:4C0C:E200:296A:CC64:7945:8C5F (talk) 17:36, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]