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March 6

What is "乾亨行"

Moved from WP:RDH. Nyttend (talk) 00:43, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm reading about Sun Yat-sen, and it says of the Revive China Society in 1894 that, 'They disguised their activities in Hong Kong under the running of a "Qianheng Company" (乾亨行).' I can't figure out what that means. I can't read the source, but it has some pictures of horses, riders, and a paraplegic celebrity. Searching "乾亨行" and "Qianheng" yeilded nothing useful (except for this article [1], which is apparently a landmark on the Dr Sun Yat-sen Historical Trail.) If you know the meaning of "Qianheng", please tell me. -68.49.184.206 (talk) 12:41, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"Qian" means "Heaven" and "Heng" means "smooth/prosperous". Both characters are popular for use in business names. The third character (Hong) means a trading company or shop. Together, this was simply the fictitious business name chosen by Sun and his associates for their premises at 13 Staunton Street to disguise its true nature. The name is also transliterated/translated as "Kuen Hang Club" by other sources. --165.225.80.125 (talk) 13:23, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I see the latter translation is missing from our article - I will add it in. --165.225.80.125 (talk) 13:25, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! --68.49.184.206 (talk) 00:50, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

get smart to sth.

I came across a sentence:"More and more companies get smart to the benefits of keeping a remote staff. " Does "get smart to sth." mean "become aware of sth "? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.221.154.63 (talk) 07:33, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It means something more like "become aware of the advantages of sth".--Shantavira|feed me 07:48, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
So, in this sentence, "become aware of the advantages of the benefits of keeping…"? —Tamfang (talk) 09:38, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It is informal, colloquial speech meaning "to become more knowledgeable about" --Jayron32 14:03, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Like "get wise", "get hip", etc. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots15:10, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
but unlike "get bent", "get lost", etc. --Jayron32 20:39, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
and also unlike get high, get laid ... —Tamfang (talk) 09:38, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

not at a soccer game instead of a client meeting

I saw a sentence that I suspect doesn't make any sense. What do you think? It is "How do you know that they aren’t at a soccer game instead of a client meeting?" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.221.154.63 (talk) 15:30, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You might be finding the sarcastic phrasing confusing. A shorter but less sarcastic way of saying it could be, "Do you know for sure that they're at a client meeting and not at a soccer game?" ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots15:34, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) It makes perfect sense in English. The speaker (or writer) is asking you to consider a possibility (the rhetorical question marker "How do you know that..." Is often used in English to point out a misconception or get the listener to consider a different point of view.) The rest of the sentence is giving two possibilities: a soccer game (which you, dear listener, have assumed they were at) and a client meeting (that is, perhaps, where they actually were). The only non-standard constructions here may be the use of "...instead of..." in place of "...rather than..." (though they're pretty much synonyms idiomatically) and the use of the idiomatic "negative-positive" in the word "aren't". Some dialects of English use this negative-positive in certain constructions, see for example here or here which explains the construction in regards to New England English. --Jayron32 15:40, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with that, except that I would interpret it as meaning that they should be at the client meeting, but may have gone to watch a football match instead. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 15:43, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It does indeed make perfect sense to a native speaker. The OP geolocates to China, so might not understand all of our language's subtleties. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots15:45, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Not that any native speaker could so claim either. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 19:51, 6 March 2017 (UTC) [reply]
There ya go. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots19:53, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What language can be typed by more humans than any other?

With understanding, not just copying (i.e. I could copy Burmese books very slowly with hunt and peck but that doesn't mean I understand the language (I don't)) When was the last time the language that could be typed by the highest percent of the world population changed?-- Sagittarian Milky Way, 18:19, 6 March 2017‎

May I ask you: Do you know English? Your question does not make sense.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 19:30, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Do you mean on a typewriter, or do you just mean sufficiently literate in a language to write it? Are you looking for absolute numbers of people, or as a proportion of world population? Dbfirs 20:15, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Or electronic device. Typing Chinese in Romanized Pinyin or complex radical/stroke/shape/decomposition order keyboards is sufficiently different from writing that it seems literacy is not necessarily sufficient to type a language. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:07, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Typing has undergone a sea change over just the past twenty to thirty years. Prior to that, virtually no one could type in most languages that do not employ the Roman, Greek, or Cyrillic alphabets. What might pass as typing in Japanese or Chinese had little similarity to English typewriters, and the equipment was expensive and difficult to use, and the resulting typed pages were usually of poor quality. In some languages that used the Roman alphabet, typing was nevertheless problematic due to diacritics. Vietnamese newspapers were produced without diacritics, and then the diacritics were added by hand using an ink pen. Even after fonts and keyboards were developed for Arabic, the fonts were begrudgingly accepted only for body text, and headlines were done by calligraphers. Urdu newspapers rejected the available fonts altogether, and no typing was considered acceptable for Urdu. Even in languages that could be reasonably typed, such as English, German, French, and Russian, typing was a vocation reserved for the female gender. Men rarely learned to type, and those who did learn, used typing mainly for their college work.
Today, even though some languages are spoken by many millions of people, there is not always a big need for typing, since some countries block social media sites and even the Internet. My guess is that, considering everything, English always was and still is typed by more people than any other language. —Stephen (talk) 15:45, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose you might be right. If so then maybe Chinese would overtake English in the future as Internet penetration rates rise (and already knowing English from school makes Pinyin easier to learn if they don't already teach Pinyin in English class anyway). (Maybe Chinese Wikipedia will rival English in size one day) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:07, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You're wasting your time and effort because the OP still hasn't clarified what he wants to know. How many people type (on a computer or other device) in a language? Clearly, right now the majority of people must have been typing in Chinese, English, Spanish, and so on; one could just consult the language ratings by number of speakers.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 16:03, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
When were Vietnamese newspapers produced without diacritics and the diacritics added by pen? I don't see how that would work, because they would have been typeset in metal before printing. Perhaps during the American War? But even then I don't think that was often the case. The French introduced typewriters with diacritics. Vietnamese is really hard to read without diacritics, so much so that a special way of writing with extra characters was developed for telegrams. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:17, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I set foreign language type for many years before I retired a few years ago. I used to see Vietnamese newspapers set using computerized phototypesetting equipment, but with all of the diacritics added in by hand. This was not metal type, it was phototypesetting. Yes, of course Vietnamese is difficult to read without diacritics, and that's why the diacritics had to be inserted before printing. For an even older case, see here. Here is a more recent one, from 1986. —Stephen (talk) 23:51, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I may assure you that in the pre-hot-type and pre-typewriter era there was nothing difficult in having additional letters with diacritics. Of course, you wouldn't find them in any typography, but anybody could order an additional set of characters from type-cutters. With hot-type (Linotype, Monotype) it was slightly more difficult (the size of the keyboard, and hence the number of characters, was limited), but I'm sure they overcame that problem somehow in Vietnam or whereever. As for typewriters, typewriters with diacritics must have appeared very early, starting from French and German, but then for other languages. If accented letters were few (like in German) they just added a couple of buttons, but if letters were many (like in French or Vietnamese) then the dead keys were used. I suppose Vietnam was lagging behind slightly and Vietnamese typewriters must have appeared by the middle of the 20th century.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 16:51, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I worked for decades as a foreign language typographer and I used to see a few Vietnamese newspapers and other printed matter where the diacritics had all been added by hand. I still have a Vietnamese book, printed in the 1960s, which was typed on a manual typewriter. The typewriter did have diacritics, but the appearance is of poor quality and some words are difficult to make out. —Stephen (talk) 23:51, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your practical input. My knowledge is largely theoretical. Though I still do not clearly understand why they couldn't typeset books with diacritics. People had been typesetting in languages with diacritics all around Europe and in polytonic Greek for several centuries. Maybe, as I noted, Vietnam was lagging in many ways and knew a shortage of proper equipment. Some typographies there might have only characters for French, so a Vietnamese had no choice but typeset without diacritics like today many Vietnamese, French, Czechs, Poles, etc. may type only in ASCII when having technical limitations or no right keyboard. Or on the contrary, the typographies outside of Vietnam might lack Vietnamese letters. Were your examples printed in Vietnam?--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 09:54, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
There were several big problems during the era of computerized phototypesetting (approximately 1975 to 2000). The big name in phototypesetting equipment was Compugraphic. Compugraphic worked on the problem of CJK fonts for years, but the memory requirement for Chinese and Japanese (and even Korean) was simply too great. In those days, a big hard drive could only hold 5 megabytes (at a cost of US$10,000), and they could not make a CJK font that could be contained in the available memory. Besides that, there was no technology for accessing thousands of characters from a standard computer keyboard. Compugraphic eventually gave up on producing a typesetting machine for those languages. For Vietnamese, they did manage to create one single font, but it was a horrible font and soon abandoned. Memories were too small; MS-IME did not exist and there were no other practical strategies for accessing characters or multiple diacritics; there were no fonts available; monitors could not display fonts, not even English fonts, and for most of that time could not give WYSIWYG; monitors could not be made to display thousands of different characters; there was no font-making technology such as Fontographer; and, for right-to-left or top-to-bottom languages, direction was expensive, buggy, and awkward. Fonts were extremely time-consuming and expensive to make, and the computer technology in the machines was too primitive and the necessary technology simply did not exist yet. —Stephen (talk) 01:32, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Small world. My dad worked for Compugraphic and later Agfa-Gevaert for over 30 years. He worked on raster image processors and later film recorders/computer to film processing and was just getting into computer to plate printing equipment when he retired about 7-8 years ago. Hadn't seen anyone mention the company in many years. --Jayron32 17:58, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)I disagree that "typing was a vocation reserved for the female gender." I used to work in a newsagency. They employed both male and female staff but the staff who typed the messages were male. They had old manual typewriters which I never saw operated by women. I never saw a female teleprinter operator either. Elsewhere in Fleet Street the workers I saw were all men - the Linotype machines were incredibly hot and noisy and I doubt that any women worked them. At sea and in combat zones there simply would not have been any women present to operate the machines. 80.4.70.229 (talk) 17:14, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I did not mean that, out of the total population of the country, there was not a single male typist. Yes, a newspaper had no difficulty in fielding a staff of males who could type. But if you, as a man, took a typing class in the 1960s, you would usually find yourself the only male in a class of 30 students. Today, almost everyone can type, and gender is not a factor. Prior to personal computers, it was rare to find men who could type, while typing class was usual fare for high school girls. —Stephen (talk) 23:51, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The first practical Typewriters came on the market in the late 1800s. Presumably that fact should influence the context of your question. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots17:34, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Do men attend typing classes these days? From what I've observed they type using two fingers. When the new technology came in male managers prided themselves on their inability to type and left the work to their secretaries. 80.5.88.48 (talk) 08:37, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Present participle of verbs ending in -ie

The verbs die, lie, and tie all have -ying words as their present participle. Why is the present participle of pie pieing instead of pying?? Georgia guy (talk) 20:21, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Dunno, but you'll discover that researching "PIE" as a word is made quite difficult by Proto Indo-European. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇 20:25, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Interestingly, the earliest usages did use the spelling "pying", and another word that appears with both spellings is "vying/vieing", but I can't work out the rule unless it is just that the root "pie" is more recognisable than "py", and the verb is relatively rare. Dbfirs 20:33, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Someone with the OED should probably check the verb for "to pie" for its etymology. I suspect that, because "pieing" is a fairly recent coinage, it is more likely to follow regular patterns (i.e. just adding -ing to the infinitive) than would be older words like "lying or "dying" all of which are probably old enough to predate 18th century spelling reforms and/or became standardized (that's standardised for our British folks) early in English orthography. --Jayron32 20:37, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I did, and the early spellings were indeed "pying". The etymology is straightforward: just pie+ing. Dbfirs 20:50, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, but the OP's question "why not like..." is probably then unanswerable by anything except "<shrug shoulders> <roll eyes> English?" --Jayron32 21:05, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)As I suggested (with a shrug), it's just a recent innovation because it's easier to recognise the root. According to Google ngrams, "pying" is still the most common spelling, so the question has a false assumption. In the case of "vieing", that spelling was popular in the 1800s (though not predominant), but is now rare. Dbfirs 21:23, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I've never heard of "pieing" before: we live and learn. Appropriately, today is the start of British Pie Week, [2] although the focus is on eating them rather than throwing them. Alansplodge (talk) 21:11, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'd never heard of it before, either. Dbfirs 21:23, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
In the sense of shoving a custard pie into someone's face, apparently. This is now called pieing them. Wymspen (talk) 21:48, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You would think that would leave the victim "pie-eyed", but apparently not: [3]. StuRat (talk) 15:37, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, the onward march of civilisation! Alansplodge (talk) 22:11, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it is a well documented linguistic phenomenon known as conversion. That you have a feeling about the process (such as annoyance, disgust, or ambivalence) does not actually mean it doesn't happen. Oddly enough, an individual's emotional response to a phenomenon doesn't change that phenomenon at all! --Jayron32 14:42, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That's odd. Scientists would argue that the act of observing a phenomenon does change the phenomenon. I wonder why it's different for language change. Or is it ...? -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 19:28, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Observing it may changing it, but feeling a certain way about your observation does not. --Jayron32 02:38, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Dbfirs: Google Ngram results are very often misleading, and such strange fluctuations are especially suspicious. If you look closely at the results there are a lot of OCR errors like occu-pying or even Pying-Yang and very few actual ghits (and even then they are rare cases like, citation, "Pying (as it is called in fome places) is a good method of preferving potatoes in winter." I haven't corrected Fs to long Ss just to show you how actually inaccurate the Google OCR may be.)--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 16:27, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that Google n-grams can be misleading, and they were especially so in this case, but my claim that "pying" is a valid spelling is supported by no less than the Oxford English Dictionary which has four different verbs "to pie", starting with an obsolete sense from 1653: "To make an alphabetical index of rolls and records". The potatoes sense seems to be spelt "pyeing" but the modern sense (from 1977?) seems to have the modern spelling "pieing", and I think my and Jayron's guesses for the reason are as good as any. Dbfirs 17:14, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I did not doubt the OED, did I? Neither I claimed pying is not valid. I have no access to current edition, but in the 1st edition[4][5] I see no particular preference for pying over pyeing (not only for potatoes), though they indeed did not know pieing then.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 10:57, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Also there is at least one example of "vieing(e) from 1565 [6] and many examples in Google Books.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 11:16, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You were correct to criticise my use of Google ngrams without checking for scannos. I think we were in agreement on other matters. Dbfirs 20:37, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

March 7

BBC oddity

This BBC.com article[7] includes the statement "a rump of about 30 hardliners" opposing the proposed new Obamacare replacement. That's a funny one. Is it a commonly used expression in British politics? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots19:02, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What's funny? Are you referring to the word "rump"? It seems to be a normal use of one of the definitions of "rump". Mirriam-Webster has "a small or inferior remnant or offshoot; especially : a group (such as a parliament) carrying on in the name of the original body after the departure or expulsion of a large number of its members". [8] MacMillan has "a small part of a company, a group of people, or a country that remains when the rest of it has left or has been removed" [9] Did the dictionary that you consulted not have such a definition? CodeTalker (talk) 19:23, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It did, but I've never heard it used that way in American English, where it would sound insulting. So I wondered if that usage in British English is also considered insulting, with the writer making an editorial comment about that small group; or if it's merely a neutral expression to Brits. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots19:27, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
See Rump Parliament; the expression comes from British history. --Xuxl (talk) 19:38, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I see. Still hard to tell if the writer's usage was innocent or editorial. Thanks for the explanation. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots19:41, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No, it's not hard to tell. If it were derogatory, the dictionaries would mention that. They don't. It isn't. HenryFlower 20:13, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The average American politician wouldn't appreciate being compared to an arse. It must be strictly a British thing. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots20:42, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The OED defines one sense of rump as "A small, unimportant, or contemptible remnant or remainder of a (official) body of people, esp. a parliament." from 1649: "This fagge end, this Rump of a Parliament with corrupt Maggots in it." which sounds just a little derogatory. Dbfirs 21:01, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved
post-resolved ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots14:13, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

We actually have articles Rump organization, Rump party, Rump legislature, Rump state, List of rump states etc. As a political science term, I strongly doubt that it's confined to the UK... AnonMoos (talk) 21:09, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. That looks like about 3 or 4 too many articles for the same concept. I'll propose a merge. --76.71.6.254 (talk) 23:11, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I support the suggested merge and additionally The Rumproller article. Bus stop (talk) 00:09, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at that link again, they have replaced "rump" with "group", which would be normal American usage and totally neutral. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots21:22, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"Group" does not have the same meaning as "rump" at all. While "group" is indeed neutral, it is a much broader term and lacks the specific meaning of a remnant group after the rest has been removed. It's like claiming that "food" means the same thing as "left overs". CodeTalker (talk) 23:26, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
In this case, the term "faction" would be better. They're certainly not a "remnant group" - they have the possibility of derailing the legislation. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots05:27, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Rump is a perfectly normal term in English. The BBC writes in English, not American. (Even though it's a perfectly normal term in American as well). There is no lack of 'neutrality' or insult, apart from in your mind. This 'question' can be closed now. Fgf10 (talk) 08:20, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The definition posted by Dbfirs proves your personal attack to be incorrect. And it could have been closed after I posted "Resolved". If you're dying (or dieing) to close it, go ahead. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots13:37, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, usage from the 17th century is still current, is it? It supersedes actual Brits here saying it's not derogatory? You're wrong, just admit it, and don't fabricate accusations of 'personal attacks', as you always do when proven wrong. Fgf10 (talk) 15:06, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Every entry you've made in March so far has been to attack or ridicule other editors. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots16:34, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Every edit I've made has been to correct someone making an incorrect statement. If you're so thin skinned you can't stand being proven wrong, go and cry in the corner, but don't troll us with it. Your presence on the Refdesk is extremely disruptive, and it would be in everyone's interest if you stopped editing ASAP. Fgf10 (talk) 19:46, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You attacked several editors while providing no references yourself. It is you who are the disrupter. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots20:22, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
This is clearly a British usage. That's probably why BBC.com changed the wording on its international edition, realizing that calling politicians a "rump" is hysterically funny to an American audience. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots16:17, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, of course it is. BBC stand for British Broadcasting Corporation. I'd be very worried if they suddenly started writing in American. Fgf10 (talk) 19:46, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
International edition. And they rightly replaced that "rump" thing with something neutral. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots20:22, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
"Rump" is generally well-understood on this side of the Pond. I have in the past not particularly cared for Fgf10's rather aggressive attitude towards Americans (among others) but in this case he seems to have a point. --Trovatore (talk) 20:27, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That would be true if it were the British edition. Being the international edition, it's better to avoid British-centric slang. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots20:29, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You do understand that by "this side", I mean the left side, right? --Trovatore (talk) 20:35, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
If you mean the USA, where have you seen that use of "rump" in the media? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots20:38, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I don't necessarily keep careful track of exactly where I've seen things. It's an expression I would ordinarily expect well-educated Americans to recognize. I don't mean that as a reflection on you; we all have occasional surprising linguistic gaps. --Trovatore (talk) 20:43, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Alansplodge's links below include explanations for the audience. That's a dead giveaway that the term is not widely used in America. And either way, it's intended to be dismissive and insulting of the faction it refers to. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots13:09, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Some of us should well remember the news stories of the 1990s after the breakup of Yugoslavia, where the term 'rump Yugoslavia was used so frequently. —Stephen (talk) 23:59, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I also found Trump's Rump Party, but I take the OP's point as the blogger has to include a link to the "rump party" Wikipedia page for the benefit of US readers. See also Not One-Off Britishisms - U.K. expressions that have got popular in the U.S. which quotes Joshua Keating (an American journalist and blogger): “…the president’s efforts to govern domestically have been stymied in the legislature by an extremist rump faction of the main opposition party”, along with several other citations of its use by US politicians and journalists. Alansplodge (talk) 09:30, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Quite so. I don't think anybody would refer to themselves as being part of a rump, except in self-deprecation (a British speciality). The Tea Party movement seems to be the main target of American usage, but it seems to be understood by US journalists and political bloggers, if not by the wider population. Watch this space... Alansplodge (talk) 19:43, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Precisely. I don't read blogs nor many political commentators, and I've never heard or read it in the mainstream news. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots21:38, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
We shall finish on that note of happy agreement. Alansplodge (talk) 21:57, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved
 – again.

March 8

leading to... or leading to the...

I have a query regarding correct usage of a preposition. Is it " circumstances leading to the flooding of " or "circumstances leading to flooding of"? Which one of the two is right? Sumalsn (talk) 12:56, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Either or both. Google ngrams gives a slight advantage to "leading to flooding of" but both are prevalent enough to indicate they are both valid forms. --Jayron32 14:31, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
If you are speaking of a particular flooding incident, you should include the article. If speaking more generally of a flood risk rather than a specific incident, the article is not necessary. So "the circumstances leading to the flooding of Tewkesbury in July 2007" but "circumstances leading to flooding of city centres include ......" Wymspen (talk) 16:06, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
True, that is good advice on the use of the definite article in English: using "the" almost always is necessary when referring to a specific incident, leaving it out when referring to a general concept. --Jayron32 16:14, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'd change incident to a broader instance. —Tamfang (talk) 08:43, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
OK. --Jayron32 11:25, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Esperanto for "cannabis activist"?

I got overly-ambitious last night and tried to create a new category at eo.wikipedia, but I'm pretty sure what I ended up with isn't grammatically correct. I wanted a parallel to Category:Cannabis activists so I went with eo:Kategorio:Kanaboaktivuloj, but on second inspection I think the "kanabo" ending is wrong since it needs to be adjectival. Would the proper term be "kanabaj aktivuloj" or something else? I can make the move and fix in just a few seconds once I have the right term. I just wanted a way to flesh out and interlink the Cannabis category tree across more languages. Goonsquad LCpl Mulvaney (talk) 20:44, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Kanabaktivuloj would be better. --Orange Mike | Talk 01:58, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at eo:Kategorio:Aktivuloj laŭ fakoj, some precedent forms include: Politikaj aktivuloj‎, Religiaj aktivuloj‎, and Homoj kontraŭ mortpuno‎. The last resembles Tamang's suggestion, but the other two involve making an adjective from a noun and pluralizing it. Goonsquad LCpl Mulvaney (talk) 00:02, 10 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
An editor at eo.wikipedia changed it to eo:Kategorio:Kanabaj aktivuloj, so appears solid for now. Goonsquad LCpl Mulvaney (talk) 03:13, 11 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"true gun"

From 130_mm_towed_field_gun_M1954_(M-46): "The M-46 was developed from the M-36 130 mm naval gun used on ships and for coast defence. It is a true gun, being unable to fire much above 45° and having a long barrel and a single propelling charge."

What does "a true gun" mean in this context? True as opposed to what? ECS LIVA Z (talk) 20:50, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

See the fifth paragraph of Gun#Terminology. Deor (talk) 21:07, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
As opposed to a howitzer which lobs shells at a high angle. Since the before the Second World War, most field guns have been capable of operating in both roles, a gun-howitzer. Alansplodge (talk) 02:32, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I have added an explanation to the article and added User:Deor's "terminology" wikilink. Trust this solves the problem. Alansplodge (talk) 11:47, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

March 9

Japanese Pronunciation--1940s

Calling all Japanese speakers. I do not speak Japanese, but I feel that the pronunciation in the following documentary showing General Tojo speaking in what should be 1941 differs somewhat from the pronunciation of contemporary Japanese. Please see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzBRkIoSqGE starting at approximately 7:50. Admittedly, the sound quality is not good and may be distorting things. However, are there meaningful differences (class/register/etc.) that are reflected in his pronunciation, or is his pronunciation in the video more or less the same as current Japanese pronunciation? Thank you. --208.58.214.187 (talk) 13:28, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Arabic mosque sign

Something is written in big letters up above the door of the Abu al-Abbas al-Mursi Mosque in Alexandria. What does it say? Beorhtwulf (talk) 15:11, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It says "اذكر الله", "ithkar Allah", or "remember Allah" (or "think of Allah", etc). Adam Bishop (talk) 16:53, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent, thank you. Beorhtwulf (talk) 17:22, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

March 10

Japanese to English

Can somebody translate the texts in this movie trailer?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RFpNIOTw-8 Languagesare (talk) 08:14, 10 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

March 11

Cuneiform

(Re-posting question from Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 March 31 which wasn't answered at the time)

Can somebody help me identify the characters on this tablet?

The left column looks like A AB BI A2 ALEPH U I, and the top of the middle column like AL MA GAR; but the rest of the characters are too difficult for me to match against the list of cuneiform signs. --81.96.84.137 (talk) 11:08, 11 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

When was this rather odd sculpture made? If before the 1850s, then nobody would known enough about Assyrian cuneiform to get it right. Even if made after the 1850s, they might still have gotten it wrong... AnonMoos (talk) 14:13, 11 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
According to the image description page, it's from the 1870s. --31.55.19.80 (talk) 14:25, 11 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
One of those unanswerable questions, was the sculptor genuinely unaware that cuneiform could be translated or did he not bother since it was likely that nobody else would know? Alansplodge (talk) 21:26, 11 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Surely, the success in decyphering cuneiform was in recent news at the time the sculpture was created: Sir Henry Rawlinson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in February 1850 on account of being "The Discoverer of the key to the Ancient Persian, Babylonian, and Assyrian Inscriptions in the Cuneiform character." --81.96.84.137 (talk) 22:37, 11 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It may be helpful to research the sculptor, Thomas Nicholls, and the architect, William Burges, to find out if either of them was familiar with cuneiform. DuncanHill (talk) 22:47, 11 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
They probably couldn't read cuneiform (or other ancient languages) themselves; I presume the sculptor had copied a sample of cuneiform from some reference, same as he copied the Aramaic alphabet. (The sculpture in question is part of a group of five.) --81.96.84.137 (talk) 23:15, 11 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What's the linguistic equivalent of a foreign accent in a written text?

What's the equivalent of a foreign accent in a written text? Is there some deviation from the normal that remains in the texts written by non-native speakers, no matter how hard they try to get it right?--Llaanngg (talk) 13:29, 11 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There was an interesting 1992 article on subtle features of syntax which adult learners of French often never really acquire no matter how long they live in France: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/452903/summary -- AnonMoos (talk) 14:05, 11 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
An interesting one indeed, but it only addresses the difference in comprehension, not the difference in production, between native and non-native speakers. --81.96.84.137 (talk) 22:17, 11 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Presumably, if non-fully-native speakers are more likely than native speakers to accept sentences such as "Diane a placé dans sa chambre des fleurs" they would also be more likely to say such sentences. (If anyone can download the PDF file on that site, the interesting part, if you know some French, is the sentences in Appendix 2. I can't download the PDF, but I have a paper copy here...) AnonMoos (talk) 02:56, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Are you asking about a generic term? I think the deviations vary depending on both the author's native language and the language of the written text. I know my Chinese colleagues tend to omit articles in their written English, and when I see this in other written English, I assume a Chinese author. I'm referring to text which is otherwise of high quality, not to mere sloppy Chinglish translation. -Arch dude (talk) 03:19, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You shouldn't assume a Chinese author. Indian English is like this as well. The classic bloopers:

  • The Portuguese lady applying for a secretarial job who commented "my mother is a typewriter."
  • The Portuguese lady writing to the DJ on an English radio station: "I am a fervent of your emissions."
  • The native English speaker who introduced her male friend to a lady using the verb introduzir instead of apresentar.

See Faux amis and English As She Is Spoke. 5.150.92.20 (talk) 11:25, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Old names

One of my great-grandfathers had the first name "Clowney." I've occasionally seen this as a family name, e.g., Jadeveon Clowney, but never as a given name. Names wax and wane in popularity (not too many boys named Adolf nowadays...) so I'm curious if this was common as a given name in the 19th century. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 23:45, 11 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In the old days it was not at all uncommon for a given name to match an ancestor's surname. Rogers Hornsby, for one. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots02:03, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Rogers Covey-Crump is alive and well. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 06:48, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Our head of department's first name is Hobson, and he's only in his 50s. --81.96.84.137 (talk) 08:20, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

March 12

Vegetable

The Vegetable page writes, "In everyday usage, a vegetable is any part of a plant that is consumed by humans as food as part of a savory meal. The term vegetable is somewhat arbitrary, and largely defined through culinary and cultural tradition. It normally excludes other food derived from plants such as fruits, nuts, and cereal grains, but includes seeds such as pulses. The original meaning of the word vegetable, still used in biology, was to describe all types of plant, as in the terms 'vegetable kingdom' and 'vegetable matter'."

I prefer the biological term. At least it is specific and descriptive. I have no problem with the historical meaning and the historical interpretation of vegetable, but I have a problem with automatically saying that a vegetable is any part of a plant, whatever "plant" means in this context. Fungi are not plants. They belong to their own kingdom/domain. I believe the Wikipedia article should say, "A vegetable is any part of a plant, fungus, or algae that is consumed by humans as food as part of a savory meal." But Wikipedia has made the article uneditable, and no one cares about the Talk page enough to discuss the matter. I've tried editing it in the past, but it's always reverted, as if my modifications were useless. Please tell me why the fungus and algae parts should be removed. I personally view plants, algae, and fungi as all vegetables, because plants, algae, and fungi are scientific terms, while vegetable is mostly a culinary term. Even when used scientifically, it is used specifically for the plant kingdom, not for algae or fungi. Therefore, to avoid confusion, I believe that adding algae and fungus will actually make the article clearer. 50.4.236.254 (talk) 01:51, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Have you brought this up on the article talk page? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots02:01, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Though, it's not a high-traffic webpage. 50.4.236.254 (talk) 02:21, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I would ping WT:WikiProject Plants and post a short summary and link to that talk page, asking for others' input. Optionally same for WT:WikiProject Food. MatthewVanitas (talk) 07:02, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]