Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language

June 9

"Maria's motorcycle helmet"

In "Maria's motorcycle helmet", "helmet" is obviously a noun, but what about "motorcycle"? Noun or adjective? And what is "Maria's"? I am not sure.

'Motorcycle' is an adjective describing the noun 'helmet'. "Maria's" is a possessive adjective also describing the noun 'helmet'. Remember to sign by typing four tildes (~). --Mayfare 03:09, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

It's an attributive noun. --Nricardo 04:30, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

The modifier motorcycle is a noun, and it is not common to call it an adjective here, as in the first response. The term attributive noun is used for this attributive use of a noun. Unlike adjectives, you can't use this modifier as a predicative: *Is this helmet motorcycle? is nonsense. Together, motorcycle helmet is a compound noun having an "open form".

A modifier like Maria's is called a possessive adjective, but it is not truly an adjective, and therefore also called a possessive determiner. Like normal adjectives, it can be used as a predicative: Is this helmet Maria's?.  --Lambiam^Talk 07:24, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I've usually heard such things called noun adjuncts. --Reuben 07:36, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Maria's - Possessive noun!!! (This is not an adjective, people. "Blue," "fast," and "hard" are adjectives. A person is not an adjective.)

Motorcycle helmet - both (when seperate) are nouns, but form one compound noun when together. Another example would be "ocean fish." Some people call it a noun acting as an adjective, noun adjunts, or other needlessly complicated things. Just call it a "complex noun" or "two-part noun."

--67.177.170.96 05:26, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

"-i" in feminine names

When did women start using spellings such as "Cathi", "Mandi", etc., for their names?

While this isn't definitive, these were popular enough spellings to be in the top 1000 baby names (US Census Data) as early as 1940. See e.g. Cathi in 1950, Sandi at roughly the 700th most popular name in 1940, or Cindi at 600 in 1950. Mandi is quite popular at 500 in 1970 but isn't popular enough to appear before that. It's worth noting that the "-i" variants are most popular when the "-y" variants are at the height of their popularity as well - for example, "Cathy" was one of the absolute most-popular (top 50ish) girl's names in 1950, at the same time "Cathi" appears at around 1000. Tofof 04:29, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Hello. Why is The Secret Life of Walter Mitty so famous? Thanks. --Mayfare 03:05, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

You might consider posting this to the Humanities desk, which deals with questions related to literature.Tofof 04:33, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Ling: Female given name only?

I haven't encountered any Chinese male person with any form of "Ling" as a given name. Is Ling an exclusively female given name?203.21.40.253 03:43, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

In a sense, it doesn't have to be, no. Chinese names, unlike western names, are a string of characters which stand for something, so pretty much any character with the pronounciation of "Ling" may be used for a name. Ling is also a surname though, such as in the case of fictional Ling Xiaoyu. However, Ling used not as a surname is generally feminine, and thus much more likely to be female. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 04:16, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Thankyou!203.21.40.253 01:28, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

German-to-English translation request

Kindly provide a translation of Spontact.jad from German to English. This is the list of phrases in the Spontact program. Leave the text before the colon intact, translate only the part after the colon. Thanks! --Masatran 12:22, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Post-scipt: The translation will be useful to many people. I will acknowledge your help. I will post the translation on my web-page. --Masatran 13:03, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

German genders and plurals

I've read German nouns. It seems that, while guessing plural forms is as hard as the genders, the genitive endings are rather regular, with only a few exceptions.

Is it advisable to memorize words with gender + noun + plural forms together, and only pay attention to genitive endings when necessary?--61.92.239.192 13:07, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Most masculine and neuter nouns are strong and form their genitive regularly (with -(e)s), so all you have to memorize is the nouns that are weak, and then remember which weak nouns form their genitive with -en (des Löwen) and which form it with -ens (des Herzens). For weak nouns, you don't have to worry about memorizing the plural, since it's always in -en. In colloquial spoken German, you don't have to use the genitive anyway. —Angr 14:06, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks.--61.92.239.192 07:07, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Spanish double negation

I hope I'm not out of line asking a question about the Spanish language here, but a recent topic brought this question into mind.

In English, we have a rule that a double negative equates to a positive, for example saying There isn't nothing here is the equivalent of There is something here.

In Spanish, I frequently hear a phrases such as "No hay nada aqui" which equates to the first English phrase I quoted above. However, I'm wondering if, in Spanish it is acceptable to state "Hay nada aqui", and if so, I wonder how, gramatically speaking it is possible that both phrases mean the same thing. Can somebody enlighten me? --JAXHERE | ^Talk 15:36, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

When I hear someone say There ain't nothing here!, I assume they mean "There is nothing here!". Although considered substandard nowadays, it is standard in some versions/registers/dialects of English (with a respectable pedigree), to the extent that if you say "there is nothing here", you run a chance of being corrected, because the audience will perceive this as ungrammatical. See the section entitled Double negative#Double negative resolving to a negative in our article on double negatives. Hay nada aqui, while understood, will be considered ungrammatical.  --Lambiam^Talk 16:09, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

No hablo español, however a similar rule applies in other languages. In Russian, for example, if I wanted to say "I have never murdered anyone", I would say the equivalent of "I have never not murdered nobody". It would never be analysed by a listener into any meaning other than "I have never murdered anyone", just as "There ain't nothing here" is clearly meant to communicate, and effectively does communicate, the meaning "There is nothing here", syntactical rules notwithstanding. -- JackofOz 01:22, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I speak some Spanish, but yes by default negation is multiple. For example, if I wanted to say "I did not talk to anyone", I would say "No hablé a nadie", which would directly translate to "I did not talk to nobody", but really means "I did not talk to anyone." You can go further in this fashion with triple negation and so on, for example, "They never bring anything for anyone" becomes "Nunca traen nada para nadie." I don't know why negation is this way, only that it is!

As far as your question about saying "Hay nada aquí", I'm doubtful that that's gramatically correct. Hay is the present tense form of the verb haber, meaning "there is" or "there are", and so you haven't satisfactorily negated it with just the nada--you need a negation word for that verb, so in this case you need to say "No hay nada aquí." –Pakman044 02:21, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Hey, Jaxhere! Don't worry, this desk isn't merely for the English language, but for language in general. Most Romance languages have this contruction, and plenty of other languages too. It isn't possible to say 'hay nada aquí,' because in negative phrases, the verb has to reflect the object's negativity. The same was the case in Middle English, where the double negative was just as prevalent, if not more, than the singular negative: an example that comes to my mind is in the prologue to the Miller's Tale, where the narrator says:

“ He nolde avalen neither hood ne hat

Ne abyde no man for his curtesye,

”

(he would not take off neither hood nor hat, nor wait for no man out of courtesy.)

Shakespeare too used the double negative on a few occasions. The mathematical idea of two negatives equalling positive didn't really stick until the 17th century and onwards, which, 'coincidentally,' was the time that prescriptive grammarians and the idea that a language should comply to some kind of formal logic. The Romance languages (unless there's some bizarre Rhaeto-Romansh dialect to blow me out of the water) never evolved in such a way.

Best wishes,

--It's-is-not-a-genitive 12:54, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks all for your comments. I was under the mistaken impression that the concept of double negation producing a positive was the same in other languages. --JAXHERE | ^Talk 15:37, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Haiku Rules

Why is metaphor/simile not used in haiku? All I find is: "Do not use it", but why not? And also, most haiku is unrhymed. Is this for a specific reason, or is rhyme just unnecessary for three lines? 207.81.203.137 20:18, 9 June 2007 (UTC) Evan

Haiku is a form of traditional Japanese poetry, which employs the mora to produce a distinct rhythm. As in a lot of poetry in many languages, rhyme is not used. This is partly because haiku are so short and their phrases are completed by kireji, pausal words. The lack of metaphor and simile is due to the sparse, descriptive nature of the haiku: the clever leaps of imagination are made by the reader rather than the poet, or, perhaps more positively, the poet prepares the imagery in such a way that the reader completes the description with the unspoken meaning. In some ways, it is more clever to write such sparse poetry, as you have to do all that other poems do but without perceived effort. — Gareth Hughes 20:34, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

June 10

Unicode Question

Upon viewing the page for the language of Deseret, the letters that are in Unicode don't show up.

What should I do?

Probably you don't have a font installed that includes the Deseret letters. I don't know what fonts have them; you could Google around and set what you find. —Angr 04:40, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem may be related to the fact that in Unicode the Deseret alphabet is outside the Basic Multilingual Plane. If that is the case, then presumably you will not see any of the characters of the scripts listed at Mapping of Unicode characters#Supplementary Multilingual Plane. I wouldn't know how to solve this. Perhaps people at the Wikipedia:Help desk or Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing would know what to do. You should tell which OS and browser you're using.  --Lambiam^Talk 08:59, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

do they speak english?

i have this thinking that English is spoken (at least by some) in all the countries that were colonized by England. Am I right? I mean, they colonized america, and australia, so people from those places speak english. Some even made that language their national language. Please enlighten me if I am wrong. thank you very much..

• Well, out of all the places that England colonised:

English is the official language: Australia, basically the entire Caribbean, Ascension Island, Solomon Islands, Falklands, The Gambia; Ghana; Guernsey; Ireland; Mauritius; Montserrat; Nigeria; Zimbabwe; Sierra Leone

Countries with English as one of the main languages: Canada, New Zealand, Guyane, Lesotho, Botswana, Cameroon (Anglophone part); Belize; Fiji; Kiribati; Tuvalu; Hong Kong; Pakistan; India; Kenya; Malta; Vanuatu; Malawi; Papua New Guinea; Pitcairn Islands; Seychelles; South Africa; Swaziland; Tonga; Tanzania; Uganda; Western Samoa.

Countries with vestiges of English: Sri Lanka; Bangladesh; Malaysia; Maldives;

Countries in which English is no longer really spoken as a first language: Yemen, Bahrain, Brunei, Myanmar, Cyprus, Egypt; Iraq; Kuwait; Oman; Qatar; Israel and Palestine; Jordan; UAE.

I hope that that answered your question ! --It's-is-not-a-genitive 13:42, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

The reason why English became the only or one of the official languages varies. If you look at the countries in the List of countries where English is an official language, most (not all) were one-time English colonies, starting with Ireland. In some cases (like the United States and Australia) English was imported by the original settlers, later non-English speaking settlers adopted the language that was dominant in their environment, and the English-speaking offspring of all these settlers become the dominant population group. In other cases (like India and Nigeria), English was the administrative language in the colonial period, and – although not spoken by significant parts of the population – was retained after independence mainly because the new state was a conglomerate of many ethnic groups, speaking many often mutually unintelligible languages, and no reasonably sized subset of these local languages would have been acceptable as the only official languages. In countries like Egypt, with one or only a few powerful ethnic groups, those groups' languages became the official languages, replacing English in all sectors of public life. In several of these former colonies most people do not actually speak or understand English very well, even if English is an official language.  --Lambiam^Talk 14:08, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

A notable outlier here is Malta, where English is widely understood as a second language and is one of two official languages, yet the population is ethnolinguistically pretty homogeneous. A possibly unique case is Madagascar which recently made English an official language (beside Malagasy and French) despite never having been colonized by the U.K. or any other English-speaking country. —Angr 14:19, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Unlike many other countries, there has never been any law, proclamation or decree that makes English the official language of Australia. It is "official" only in the sense that since 1788 it has become by far the dominant language here, and all government and parliamentary communications take place in English. -- JackofOz 13:06, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

For the record, England did not colonise Guernsey. Guernsey was (and is) part of the Duchy of Normandy, and they conquered us. At some point (our article doesn't seem to indicate when) most of the population stopped speaking French and Guernésiais and started speaking English. Algebraist 14:42, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I recently transcribed some interviews done in Ghana, a few of which were in Twi or Ewe (through a translator). I noticed that whenever a measure of time was mentioned, such as four years or three months, it was in English. —Tamfang 19:43, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

formal and informal english

I am looking for samples of paragraphs one written in formal and the other in informal english to compare the two. Can anyone please tell me where I can find such on the web. Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Japanese translation needed, thank you!

What does まりぽさ mean?

AlmostCrimes 17:05, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

This is written in hiragana characters. Together they spell out the word mariposa, which may perhaps refer to any of the meanings of Mariposa. Note that mariposa is the normal Spanish word for butterfly, but can also be used as an insult, as related in our article. Does any of this make sense in the context in which you encountered this?  --Lambiam^Talk 20:26, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it does entirely, thank you - I also need further translations of しあわせです and きょはにようびです. AlmostCrimes 01:15, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I know no Japanese either, but in a pinch you can often make a useful guess by just using the character table on the hiragana page plus an online dictionary. I find that しあわせです should read shi-a-wa-se-de-su, which I take to be shiawase, which means some thing like happiness or good fortune, plus desu, which is some form of "to be". "Be happy" or "Good luck"?? The second phrase きょはにようびです should read something like kyo-ha-ni-yo-u-bi-de-su. Kyoha means "wave", bi is beauty, and desu is "to be" again, but niyou or ni you seems to have many different meanings, including method, manner, kind, such as, in order to, appearance, employ, business, and calamity. Could be many things. "The waves look beautiful"?? --169.230.94.28 05:00, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Apparently "The waves look beautiful" isn't right, so if there's anyone with a good grasp of Japanese out there? Thanks for your help, anyway. AlmostCrimes 05:15, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

きょはにようびです is probably typo of きょうはにちようびです (kyo-u ha ni-chi-yo-u-bi de-su), meaning "it is sunday today". As to しあわせです, Japanese commonly drops pronouns so we need more context to be certain who is happy but I think it's safe to assume it is the speaker, that is, it probably means "I am happy". --Kusunose 12:27, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, that's done it for me (: AlmostCrimes 14:35, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

desu is the present indicative copula, is/are/am; it wouldn't be imperative as 169.230.94.28 guessed. —Tamfang 19:40, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

June 11

Euphemisms for "diarrhea sickness"

Neither the Diarrhea page nor its Talk page give a list of English-language euphemisms for the condition. Would that be appropriate content for either page (and if so, which?)—and how might I go about a Web search for such terms? -- Thanks, Deborahjay 11:50, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

wiktionary has

• : the runs, the squirts, the trots
• (taboo slang): the shits, [spitting mud].

83.78.163.162 13:22, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Great, thanks! I've never used Wiktionary before; it's about time...! -- Deborahjay 04:12, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

My (Irish) grandfather often used to call it 'the scour,' but it seemed more of a dysphemism than anything else. Interestingly, this term came from the word once used exclusively for the condition when livestock suffer from it1. --It's-is-not-a-genitive 14:18, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Best sounding of the all though is Montezuma's Revenge - X201 14:23, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I've heard it called 'the squits', 'the liquishits' and 'code brown emergency' before. --Kurt Shaped Box 14:37, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I found the following list by searching "+Diarrhea +travel +Euphemism" on Google. --JAXHERE | ^Talk 16:31, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I neglected to indicate in my original posting of the query, that "travel" isn't an element here and in fact would be misleading; the text comes from a detention camp in WWII-era Occupied France, and the "sickness" aspect was a result of the internees' meager diet and overall poor health. -- Deborahjay 04:12, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

What's Google? ;) - X201 18:46, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

If the wink was directed at the OP (= yrs. truly): I wouldn't search Google when seeking a linguistic term. Dictionaries, yes. But my query was especially directed at the WP community. -- Deborahjay 04:12, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Not sure if it counts, but the literal translation from german is through-fall.

Actually, that's an interesting direction; the [inaccessible] original was in German or French. -- Deborahjay 04:12, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Urban Dictionary to the rescue - http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=diarrhea has every term one could think of. Neil ╦ 19:43, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

It hasn't got 'squits' or 'running dumps'.  slυмgυм [ ←→ ] 19:48, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

In all, Urban Dictionary impresses me as worth a look but with a jaundiced eye when seeking mainstream euphemisms(as I am). The majority of the entries strike me as slang, possibly limited to certain (primarily youth?) subcultures, and I can't help but wonder whether many are fanciful coinages of their (attention-seeking?) contributors...? -- Deborahjay 04:12, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think I've ever heard a "mainstream" (non-slang) euphemism for diarrhea. You just call it "diarrhea" in polite company; you could almost say that "diarrhea" itself is the euphemism. If for whatever reason you wanted to avoid saying "diarrhea" in polite company, you'd just say "I've been having stomach trouble" or something vague like that. —Angr 04:21, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I've heard it be referred to in polite conversation as gastroenteritis, even if it isn't always strictly that, because it has the same result. Neil ╦ 13:08, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Or "Delhi belly". Neil ╦ 13:09, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

• How about "loose motions"?Descriptive without being slangy?hotclaws 10:38, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

"Loose movements" (as American English puts it) is one I've heard over the years. This is along the lines I'm working, though this particular term doesn't fit the context (the title of an artwork depicting a French detention camp in the early 1940s). -- Deborahjay 23:29, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

'Loose tummy' is one I used to hear quite a lot. I don't think that 'bad guts' has been mentioned yet either. --Kurt Shaped Box 23:31, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

• My personal favourite is having a 'dire rear' (prob works better for non-rhotic speakers) Drmaik 14:16, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Upon reviewing the range of responses, it seems what I need is not necessarily a euphemism—as the artist in question (Karl Schwesig) was known to employ irony and sarcasm in titling and captioning his depictions of the French detention camps—but WWII-era, i.e. early 1940s period slang, rather than the fanciful contemporary sort found aplenty in the Urban Dictionary. Perhaps I ought to ask my dad, a WWII vet...?-- Deborahjay 23:41, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

"The trots" is old enough; the OED cites it as early as 1904, and again in 1936. It also says it's used in The Thorn Birds, which takes place between 1915 and 1969. "The runs" seems to be later; it's first attested in 1962. —Angr 17:40, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Excellent! I'll use "the trots" enclosed in double quotes, and perhaps someday I'll have access to the original and tone up the English if necessary. Thanks, Angr , for going the distance on this one! -- Deborahjay 21:10, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

In the Southern USA, for some reason, most of the time we call it Montezuma's Revenge, though I don't know why. I don't know who Montezuma is, or even if (s)he exists. We also like to call it "Louisiana" (again, I don't know why) or "Shredded Shittake."

I've even heard "Indian/Mexican Firebombs," "[I've got a] Shit Geyser," "Colon Cleaner," or my personal favorite, "Someone Sunk My Battleshits!" You can always depend on the backwards boonies to come up with something silly... --67.177.170.96 07:24, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Dude. We have an article called Montezuma's Revenge (and also Montezuma's Revenge (illness), which should probably be merged). Montezuma is a variant of the name of Moctezuma; two Aztec emperors bore this name. Marnanel 02:38, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

The canadian redneck term seems to be "the ring of fire", especially after a night of suicide chicken wings and draft beer. Cheers. 24.226.90.6 00:51, 15 June 2007 (UTC) Rana sylvatica

hello (foreign)

I am looking for a word that I sort of remember. It means hello in some language, I don't know what. I am sure I will recognise it when I see it. So I need a list of ways of saying hello in different languages. Is there anywhere anyone here knows of where I can find this?

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Hello should have it. Neil ╦ 19:42, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Learning a foreign language.

I would like to learn welsh, just for the sake of it, not to get any qualifications. And I am busy, so I would like a relatively simple way of learning ion my spare time, not at a school. Ideally I would like to find somewhere on the internet that can tell me the basics of grammer or maybe a book I can easily find. Anyone here have any advice? Also I should say I don't expect to be able to spend a lot on this. So...

Take a loot at b:Welsh and the links from there. —Angr 20:21, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I've always liked http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/catchphrase/ . Marnanel 02:35, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

June 12

"Motion lines"

Hello, I'd like to know if there is a name for those lines used in Manga to indicate motions, such as those used in this picture. Thanks.--K.C. Tang 06:17, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Motion lines - X201 11:22, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

O, that simple! Thanks a lot.--K.C. Tang 01:05, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Writing a speech - valedictorian

I am not happy with this line, can you help me edit this. thx

our parents and teachers and staff, have done everything in there power to make sure, we got where we are today.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Apesadams (talk • contribs)

There's not much wrong with it; mostly a case of tweaking the punctuation. I suggest "Our parents, teachers and staff have done everything in their power to make sure we have arrived where we are today." It's always a good idea to replace the word "got" with something more meaningful if you can.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 11:35, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd use the simple past tense rather than have, particularly not have arrived, not entirely sure why. Or use past-future: "did everything to make sure we would arrive." —Tamfang 19:35, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

It's not a sentence at all. You might try "Thanks to our parents, teachers, and staff, who have done everything in their power to make sure we got where we are today". Altho I think the suggestion above to use "arrived" instead may be good. I suspect you're just pulling our leg, though. Friday (talk) 15:03, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

You're misreading it, which is no surprise given the random punctuation. Shantavira got it, though. "Thx" is not meant to be part of the sentence. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 15:10, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

"Our parents, teachers and staff have done everything in their power to get us where we are today (almost out of their lives)." Clarityfiend 15:41, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

This recent story makes a lot more sense to me now. --TotoBaggins 19:42, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I spoke at my high school graduation based upon my grade in the Senior Speech class. We had awards for best student in each discipline (Math, Science, History, etc.) but speakers were not chosen on those criteria. Corvus cornix 21:46, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

"heathen" vs. "pagan"

Hi, I am from germany and I have been wondering for quite some time what the difference in meaning between the two above-mentioned terms is. I suppose it is some connotation thing but I am not sure if I can figure it out correctly. -- 217.232.1.231 14:39, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

As you guess, they have different connotations. "Heathen" is used to refer to "others" in general, with the connotation that "we" have the "one true faith" and "they, the heathen" do not. "Pagan" has been reclaimed to some extent as a name for types of synchretistic nature religion, incorporating wicca, druids, pantheism and so on, although it also has negative connotations for members of formal religions.82.46.44.139 14:50, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

The word heathen is seldom used today, except perhaps by Christian fundamentalists, who would use it almost as a term of abuse. The word sounds a bit archaic, and it is disparaging, as 82.46. suggests. Pagan is more current and neutral. Marco polo 15:33, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't know that pagan is more neutral. It sounds just as disparaging to me, you heathen. Clarityfiend 15:47, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree "pagan" sounds more neutral, and it's no coincidence that neopagans call themselves that, not "neo-heathens". The word heathen itself, though, isn't all that rare today, it's just rare in its original meaning "someone who does not practice one of the Abrahamic religions". Heathen today is sort of like barbarian or philistine. —Angr 16:25, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

it's a little bit more complicated than that. These days, you get neopagans that absolutely insist they are heathens and say they practice heathenry (see here for illustration). For these people, Latinate pagan has derogatory connotations while they embrace the Germanic term. At the end of the day, as so often in English, they are just Germanic and Latinate equivalents, see Paganism#Etymology. dab (𒁳) 17:24, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. Interesting enough there is some connotation controversy among english speakers either. I think your postings shed light on the topic from many directions creating a quite diverse picture. Just one more point: Is any of you aware of differences in connotation between Britain and the US? -- 217.232.1.231 22:06, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Just checking, do you mean "Are there any differences in the connotations of 'pagan' and 'heathen' in Britain and the US?"? (Also, if you're trying to improve your English, you might like to know that 'either' at the end of your second sentence sounds odd :-) ) Skittle 20:49, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I mean that. Sorry for my poor english (and not thinking about the correct meaning of "being aware of"). It's been some time since I went to school and had regular english lessons. Thanks for your hints, I'll do my very best. ;) -- 217.232.48.215 21:19, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, don't worry about that. I wasn't meaning to suggest that 'be aware of' was incorrect, just that what you were asking about was ambiguous. Skittle 12:24, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Assume person A says that person B is a heathen, and in the context it is clear that this is used in a religious sense. Most people – who have never met any neopagans – would then assume that person A is a Christian, and that they are stating as their belief something like that person B is one of those who will not be redeemed, but go to hell, because they are worshipping false gods. In contrast, when a speaker uses the term pagan it does not by itself suggest that they are themself a Christian. A second difference is that heathen also has a non-religious meaning, like barbarian, or philistine, whereas pagan is rarely used in another sense than referting to someone's religion, or lack thereof.  --Lambiam^Talk 22:44, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, in my experience 'pagan' has strictly religious connotations. 'Heathen' can be used not only in religious contexts, but to refer to anyone dirty and undesirable. (Ex. "You greasy heathen! You look like you crawled out of a garbage dump!")

I seem to recall my grandmother referring to unruly children as "little heathens" by which she meant to comment on their poor manners and lack of consideration for others, not their religion. Crypticfirefly 04:49, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

languAge and dreams?

I'm bilingual I speak read and write bulgarian and english. My mother tongue is bulgarian and have lived in the states for about 8 years now. I rarely remember my dreams but I am convinced that I dream in english, where as a child I clearly remember dreaming in bulgarian. Does anyone have any thoughts as to what this shift means?

If you use mostly English in your daily life, English will feature in your dreams. I don't think that the shift means anything more than that. I don't know, but I suspect that English is more likely to dominate your dreams if it dominates in your personal relationships. I was raised in an exclusively English-speaking environment, but I learned German and lived in Germany for a little more than a year. During that time, some, but not all, of my dreams were in German. I suspect that if I had stayed there longer, most of my dreaming would have been in German. Even today, snippets of German occur in my dreams. I suspect that if you were to monitor it, you would find that Bulgarian still occurs in your dreams, even if you dream mostly in English. Please forgive me for the original research. I searched in vain for evidence of published research on this. Marco polo 15:44, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd suggest that it means you've really assimilated English. My mother tongue is English but I started learning spanish in my late 20's. Now after over 30 years of using Spanish I still dream in English even though I'm in a totally Spanish environment for most of the last 20. What I did notice at one stage when I returned to an English environment was that whenever I had to think about an issue which I considered highly important, I was analyzing it in Spanish. I concluded that this was a subconscious device I employed to make myself focus more intensely on my thoughts, since it required more effort on my part to think something through in Spanish rather than English. --JAXHERE | ^Talk 15:48, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I've lived in Germany for ten years and I still mostly dream in English (I grew up in the U.S. and lived there until I was almost 29 years old). However, I'm not totally immersed in German the way the questioner is probably totally immersed in English. I work as a translator and have mostly English-speaking co-workers, I go to an English-speaking church, I contribute to English-language Wikipedia, and at home I speak a mixture of English and German with my husband. When I do dream in German, it's because I'm dreaming of someone to whom I speak German in real life. —Angr 16:21, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I lived in Japan for ten years (I'm British), and I found that the longer I was there, the more my dreams would be in Japanese. I put it down to the simple fact that most of my daily contacts were with Japanese people and I was speaking only Japanese to them. I was, like Angr, working as a translator, but English was banned in the office (!) so even then I was speaking Japanese all the time. However, I would go through short, infrequent periods where I would dream of the UK and of my family, and those dreams were always in English, so I would agree with what Marco Polo and Angr say about it being related to your personal relationships. Another thing that I would agree about is that when I have to think about something complex, I find it much easier to do it in Japanese than in English, possibly because it does help me focus more. Manga 19:20, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, I've never tried thinking about complex or highly important issues in German instead of English. (I usually make it a point not to think about complex or important issues at all.) I'll have to try it next time, see if it works. —Angr 19:48, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

/æ/ in katakana

I've noticed that English words like cat and cash are rendered in katakana with /kya/ rather than /ka/. After any other consonant, /æ/ and /a/ are treated alike. Why is /kæ/ special? —Tamfang 19:29, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

/æ/ is a front vowel. Front vowels tend to cause palatalization, which can sound like the insertion of a /j/ sound. Plus, it's useful to distinguish "cat" and "cut." --Kjoonlee 23:39, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I've no idea why that isn't done with other consonants, though.. Maybe the difference in the vowels led to a different perceived quality of the consonant, and it was most prominent with [k]? --Kjoonlee 23:42, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, Japanese isn't the only language that does this with English words. IIRC, the Jamaican Creole word for cat is [kjat]. —Angr 04:08, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

When Dad was interested in speech synthesis, thirty years ago, I learned that English /k/ looks very different on a spectrogram depending on the following vowel, in a way unique to /k/. It would seem that that's not true in Japanese or Jamaican Creole, which is a surprise. —Tamfang 06:32, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

June 13

Kanji

Can Japanese be entirely written in kanji nowadays? How would one avoid using the kanas in order to write in an old fashioned style? Thanks. Húsönd 00:16, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

you can take a look at Man'yōgana. But of course you cannot expect people understand you if you choose to write that way. Cheers.--K.C. Tang 01:08, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, that's what I was looking for. Don't worry, I just wanted to know how to write in an ancient way. Not for actual communicative purposes. :-) Húsönd 02:09, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I believe this style of writing is called Chinese. --67.177.170.96 18:16, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

you can use Chinese characters (the written form) to represent any language (the spoken form), if you really want to. Doing so may be clumsy, but that is possible. Cheers.--K.C. Tang 01:24, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Whose

Can the word "whose" be used in an 'object-possesive' way
Ex: At the end of the hall was a room whose door was open.
Books whose copyright has expired.
Is this correct? --Codell^«T» 01:05, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

It's common to find such expressions, and it would be considered correct these days. Only a pedant would insist on "Books the copyright of which has expired" (or "Books the copyrights of which have expired"). -- JackofOz 01:10, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Our article says that "Note that whose, while sometimes reserved for human antecedents, is commonly found also with nonhuman ones..."--K.C. Tang 01:13, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

To support this claim that some pedants might avoid it, I cite the OED's notice: "usually replaced by of which, except where the latter would produce an intolerably clumsy form." But I find it more interesting that the OED gives a long run of citations of "whose" in reference to things, from Wyclif's 1382 translation of the Old Testament down to the present day, by way of Shakespeare ("I could a Tale vnfold, whose lightest word / Would harrow vp thy soule"), Milton ("Mountains on whose barren brest / The labouring clouds do often rest"), et al., so that in my view those are some excessively pedantic pedants who object to this familiar and natural usage! Wareh 14:18, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, this answers my question. --Codell^Talk 01:16, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

It would be "books whose copyright have expired". Corvus cornix 01:29, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I beg to differ, Corvus. It is the copyright that has expired, not the books. More plausibly, though, the books do not share a copyright. In that case, it would be "the books whose copyrights have expired". Marco polo 01:36, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

You're right, Marco, your second version is better. Corvus cornix 01:48, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Let's be pragmatic. "Whose" almost invariably refers to humans (or at least sentient beings). Not a book, door, or a pile of dog poop. So, use it when refering to humans; use it otherwise at your own risk of appearing ignorant.

Poor Milton and Shakespeare. Condemned as ignorant. Skittle 12:21, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

To solve your "open door" sentence:

Good - "At the end of the hall, a room had a door open."

Better - "Closed rooms filled the hallway, save for one at the end."

Best - "At hallway's end, an open door - room 666!"

--67.177.170.96 04:39, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

If they used "whose" in reference to objects, they were ignorant. --67.177.170.96 18:18, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes I just don't understand you prescriptivists. What were they ignorant of? A rule which hadn't been codified in their time? Something handed down from an official authority that didn't exist? The edicts of God Almighty about the way the English language should be used? Marnanel 16:01, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Phonetics and phonology of English and ...

What books will I need if I want to study these topics on my own? I am told that, in the case of English, some parts include

A

1. The organs of speech
2. The International Phonetic Alphabet (the chart)
3. English Phonemes
4. Vowels: Classification, front vowels, central vowels, back vowels, diphthongs. English phonemic system and its notation ( with diagrams)
5. Consonants: State of vocal cords, manner of articulation, place of articulation. Consonant clusters
6. Practices and applications

B

1. The pronunciation of General American
2. Accents: General British Vs General American
3. Kenyon & Knott (K.K.)
4. Pronunciation of ed-ending verbs
5. Stress
6. Sound-changes: assimilation, elision, elision in contracted forms
7. Linking
8. Strong form and weak form of the structure words in English
9. Styles of pronunciation
10. Intonation: falling tone, rising tone, fall-rise tone, tone unit boundary, prominent syllable

I don't know whether I shall 1) find a class course elsewhere, 2) take a related course in university after I enter a university (very soon) or 3) learn them in other ways. What books (or wiki articles, whatever) would you suggest?

I have briefly gone through the "A" parts above. I just don't quite understand the "B" parts.--61.92.239.192 05:47, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

You can first take a look at English phonology, regional accents of English speakers, stress (linguistics), intonation (linguistics) and sound change. Cheers.--K.C. Tang 06:13, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

We also have articles on General American and Kenyon and Knott. —Angr 18:50, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

proper use of the word riparius?!

This is a rather interesting thing i came across. I was just playing a Command&Conquer game called "Tiberian Sun". This game, unlike Red Alert 2, didnt have tooltip text for objects in the game......

Until now. An upgrade made it available for use during game play. While i was playing, i noticed these odd trees that spit out "Tiberium", a special resource in the game. When i hovered over this tree, i noticed a strange name for the tree in the tooltip text.

"Tiberium Riparius" !

...So i looked up the name at dictionary.com and also here at wikipedia. "Riparious" is a similar word which means an object that lives by a river bank. the word "Riparius" in Latin literally means river bank. However.... this Tiberium Riparius is located by water in some cases, but not always.

"Riparius" also can refer to a soldier in a byzantine frontier unit.... which refers to roman forces, and thier move to byzantine, which is the old name for constantinople/istanbul according to my friend. This reference doesnt make sense either unless theres some cultural conection im missing.

The purpose of this odd tree is to restore resources to the playing field, but i dont understand the reson for the assigning of its name. is there one???

If not, i surmise that maybe the creators of the game didnt have the tooltip text, so they never thought that players would see the name of the object, and named it something random that has nothing to do with nothing. If thats the case... SUPRISE! we can read it now!

(edit): maybe the latin version of this word is supposed to mean "USUALLY grows by rivers" ?

172.162.215.155 08:57, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I know nothing about Tiberian sun, but riparius is used in several examples of the binomial nomenclature of species: Ancylometes riparius, Sylvilagus bachmani riparius, Myotis riparius, Elaphrus riparius, Gyraulus riparius, etc. Presumably, some of these were named after the ecotope where they were first discovered, which need not always coincide with their main habitat.83.79.154.143 11:15, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

(added) The examples given above are all animal species, but I found a plant as well: Elymus riparius. I also found Miscellaneous_factions_of_Command_&_Conquer#Tiberian_lifeforms, but it might contain nothing you don't know already. 83.79.154.143 11:29, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

The exobotanist responsible for this naming is not following the recommendation that the name conform to the Latin grammar requirement of gender agreement. Tiberium is clearly neuter, but riparius is masculine. It should have been Tiberium riparium (as in Leptodictyum riparium). With a female genus name you get riparia (as in Justicia riparia). The usual meaning, also in Latin, is: found on, or frequenting, river banks.  --Lambiam^Talk 15:09, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Arabic translation

What does the following mean: العربية: دخولك هنا غير مسجل. إن عنوان الأيبي الخاص بك سيتم إدراجه ضمن تاريخ الصفحة مما قد يضر

It's from the image description of Commons:Image:4 stars.svg - A cursory online translation gives a translation (although rather patchy) which doesn't seem to be related to the image, instead talking about recorders and "completing his inclusion"; is this multilingual vandalism (the image does seem to be oddly prone to vandalism), or just a perfectly normal image description corrupted by a bad translation? Laïka 19:43, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Google Translate gave me "Arab : Sign here unregistered. The title of your Alaibi will be incorporated into the history page, which may be detrimental". I bet it's the standard "You're not logged on; your IP address will be recorded in the page history" message, and have therefore removed it. —Angr 20:10, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I'm right. I just logged out of Commons and then hit Edit, and the warning came up in several languages, including this in Arabic: العربية: دخولك هنا غير مسجل. إن عنوان الأيبي الخاص بك سيتم إدراجه ضمن تاريخ الصفحة مما قد يضر بخصوصيتك Only the last word was missing in the version on the image description page. —Angr 20:13, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

"Arabic: your entry here is not registered (permitted?). Your IP address will be incorporated into the history page..." A mixture of what I and the machine came up with. Both very imperfect... Drmaik 20:33, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Alright, thanks. Well, I'm not using that translator again: I got "The Arab: Entering your here other than recorder. Indeed address [aal'ayby] special bey will be complete his inclusion within date of the page of which already [yD]"! Smurrayinchester 21:12, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't have anything to add to what was said, but I can't help pointing out that this translation had me chuckling for a while :-) — Zerida 22:43, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

copyedit

HI. What's the name for when an article contains a significant amount of text copied word from word from a manual or press release? - I thought such things were called copy edits but looking at that article has revealed to me I was misinformed. Thanks.87.102.89.96 20:25, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd have thought that the normal word for it was Plagiarism. You may be thinking of copy vio, which is short for "Copyright Violation". Laïka 21:21, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Plagiarism is pretending that you wrote it. Copyright violation is copying it when you don't have permission to. They are two different concepts, although of course a single action may be both. If you copy something that is in the public domain (no copyright), such as a US government document or a sufficiently old book, that might be plagiarism but it is not copyright violation. If you say "Isaac Asimov wrote this essay" and copy the entire content of the essay, that is copyright violation but it is not plagiarism.

Wikipedia content is supposed to be free of copyright violation, but nothing requires the person who posts it to be the author, so the concept of plagiarism generally does not apply here. People are supposed to identify their sources, but failing to do so does not constitute plagiarism. --Anonymous, June 14, 00:37 (UTC).

It was 'copy vio' - an edit that copys - hence my confusion.83.100.132.249 06:05, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

June 14

Gramatically Correct

Our organization recently agreed to accept males as well as females as members. We need to rewrite our procedures to be appropriate for either gender. How do I write the following sentences to be grammatically correct when referring to male or female? What word do I use where the (????) are?

Example: The "Outstanding member of the year" shall be chaired by the Junior Past President. (????) shall receive names of the "Outstanding ESA Members of the Year" from chapters in good standing.

Example: The "Junior Past President shall be a member of the Executive Board, responsible for obtaining new rosters from each chapter in good standing postmarked by May 15; be chairman for the program "Outstanding ESA Member of the Year"; and be in charge of the Disaster Fund. (????) shall record the outstanding events of ???? year as President by inserting a page in the "History of Indiana State Council of Epsilon Sigma Alpha" book.

Thanks a lot. 66.52.142.3 01:57, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

"She or he" alternating with "he or she" or...the contentious singular they. Clarityfiend 03:15, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Please do not use singular they. Please. I beg you - don't give it credence through popular usage. Some people think it's correct; I am not one of them.

Just repeat the title again (President), or say "this/that person/position."

--67.177.170.96 04:45, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

The corollary of your exhortation is that nobody would ever use this construction, it would become extinct, and we'd have to radically change our article about it. I fear this would be breaching the spirit of OR. -- JackofOz 05:00, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Corollary? How about summary? Synopsis?

My argument is that SINGULAR nouns should be paired with SINGULAR pronouns, not PLURAL pronouns. BUT, as more and more people say something, common usage starts to make ignorant ideas halfway acceptable. That is why I wished him not to the construction: 1) it isn't correct, and 2) by using it, he popularizies an incorrect usage, which, over time, will be absorbed more readily into the English lexicon, pushing the English gramatical structure ever-so-much closer to imploding at the seams.

--67.177.170.96 05:14, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I absolve you, but you must do penance. Say two Hail Marys and three WP:NPOVs. :-)

Seriously, it depends on how formal you want to be. As someone said above, using "he or she" or avoiding pronouns is a good formal solution. A still more formal solution is to leave the document as it is, except you add a line like "In this document the masculine gender includes the feminine" or "This document shall be read with all grammatical changes necessary."

A less formal option is "he/she" or "(s)he". And then of course there's "they". This is particularly recommended if you want to annoy people like the last poster. But maybe you'd rather not do that. --Anonymous, June 14, 06:02 (UTC).

Basically you have to choose who you want to upset. Avoiding pronouns violates English information structure (topic and comment in particular: sorry, don't have time to dismabiguate), and makes texts wooden and difficult to read. As in fact does specifying gender previously unspecified, unless 'he' is taken as generic (no new information should be presented with a pronoun). Alternating 'he' and 'she' also messes this up, which is where 'they' comes in. Everybody I've heard arguing against it use it in their speech. (look, I just used it, did you notice). Even Shakespeare did. Sometimes it doesn't work well, sometimes it slips by unnoticed. Would work very well in (????) shall record the outstanding events of ????their year as President. Whoever disagrees with this has a right to voice their opinion. Drmaik 06:33, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

PS. I used singular they in my PhD thesis in linguistics, and no-one noticed..

As Drmaik said, "you have to choose who you want to upset", or rather "who you want less to upset", that's the crux of the problem.--K.C. Tang 06:59, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

There is no need to upset anybody, just rewrite the sentences to avoid the problem.

Example: The "Outstanding member of the year" (committee?) shall be chaired by the Junior Past President. The chairperson shall receive names of the 'Outstanding ESA Members of the Year' from chapters in good standing.

Example: The "Junior Past President shall be a member of the Executive Board, responsible for obtaining new rosters from each chapter in good standing postmarked by May 15; be chairman for the program "Outstanding ESA Member of the Year"; and be in charge of the Disaster Fund. A page recording the outstanding events of each President's term shall be inserted into the 'History of Indiana State Council of Epsilon Sigma Alpha' book.

--LarryMac | Talk 13:44, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I have seen cases where "he or she" is used, followed by a note that for clarity only one would be used thereafter. Since you have a tradition, and probably more femal members, you might try making a note that the female pronoun will be used but that both genders are meant. Eran of Arcadia 14:26, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

How about, The "Outstanding member of the year" shall be chaired by the Junior Past President. The Junior Past President shall receive names of the "Outstanding ESA Members of the Year" from chapters in good standing. It seems to read odd at first, but people will get used to it. Of course, there always is "s/he". -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 19:04, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Japanese title usage

I know "-san" does at the end of a person's name.

Ex: "Jin-san"

However, if someone is refered to by their full name (note last name first), do you still need a title at all?

Ex: "Akagi Jin-san"

What are the rules for this? Thanks, --67.177.170.96 04:49, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

we use -san to show respect, while calling a person's given name is considered impolite in most cases in Japan. So I guess it's rather unlikely that you'd do the two things at the same time. Cheers.--K.C. Tang 06:53, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

So, Akagi-san, then?

--67.177.170.96 18:15, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Language Speciation

I have a preety hard question, If you had two groups of people who spoke the same language and seperated them so they no longer had any contact how long would it take for there languages to have diverged to such an extent comunication would be impossible? Can any one provide me with a citation for this? I realize this is a pretty difficut question and I probably wont get any answers but any help at all would be apriciated. Thank you. -Ĭ₠ŴΣĐĝё 07:06, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

but what do these two groups of people do after their separation? Do they interact with other peoples who speak other languages?--K.C. Tang 07:57, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

He said they no longer have any contact. szyslak 08:06, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

they don't have contact with each other (split), but they may have contact with other people speaking other languages. That's a factor.--K.C. Tang 08:49, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

My mistake. I forgot to read your whole post. I agree that contact with other languages is a major factor. Afrikaans, which I discuss below, is a good example. After speakers were separated from the larger Dutch-speaking community, they acquired vocabulary and other features from surrounding African languages, Malay and others. szyslak 11:05, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

There's no set time frame for language speciation. Even if the speech of the two groups diverged to the point where they "spoke different languages", communication wouldn't necessarily be "impossible". For example, Afrikaans and Dutch are classed as different languages by SIL and similar groups, but linguists differ on whether Afrikaans is a "dialect of Dutch" or a separate language. Nonetheless, the languages are still close enough together that an Afrikaans speaker and a Dutch speaker can converse, though with some adjustment. Think of how a person from a remote American village would comprehend the English spoken in a remote Irish village, though in the case of Afrikaans and Dutch the differences are greater. This paper gets into the issue of mutual comprehensibility between written Afrikaans and Dutch. I found its results interesting: the Afrikaans speakers had a harder time understanding written Dutch than vice versa. Thus, comprehensibility wasn't "symmetrical." This is after maybe 400 years of separation between the Dutch and Afrikaners. szyslak 08:06, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Dutch and Afrikaans is an interesting example, but there's the factor that school and church in South Africa would have been mainly in Dutch until early 20th century, so Afrikaans speakers would have been getting influence from Dutch for around 300 years, presumably slowing the separation. It's a big question, and there would be lots of problems with any clear answer (which I assume is what is desired!) Problems include measuring intelligibility (very few people actually do this, but lots of people talk about it: I remember doing a literature search on this, and could only find material from SIL on it. I'm sure there's more, but where?), and then you get the difference between inherent intelligibility and acquired intelligibility, e.g. in my own experience most Tunisians feel Standard Arabic and Tunisian Arabic to be mutually intelligible, but when meeting someone who grew up in France speaking only Tunisian at home and French outside, but who hadn't had contact with the standard via Quranic schol, radio, or TV, I found he really couldn't understand the standard: the intelligibilty is primarily acquired, helped by linguistic similarity. And it seems that some languages sometimes change faster at some times than others... literacy seems to slow this down. Hey, I'll say 300 years and someone can shoot me! (or accuse me (proabably rightly) of WP:OR). Drmaik 11:39, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I would argue for something more like 400 years, at least without significant contact with other languages. According to The History of Iceland by Gunnar Karlsson, the Icelandic form of Old Norse remained mutually intelligible with the western Norwegian dialects, from which it was mainly derived, up until about 1300, about 400 years after Iceland's settlement in the late 9th and early 10th centuries. After the initial period of settlement, Iceland had only very limited contact with Norway, with only a few ships making the journey most years to trade with the Icelanders. Most Icelanders would never have dealt with the Norwegians during this period. Iceland had almost no contact with speakers of other languages during this time. Also, the Maori arrived in New Zealand from Tahiti and other Polynesian islands no later than 1300, and after this date had little or no contact with other Polynesians or any other people. However, when Captain James Cook arrived in New Zealand in the late 1700s with an interpreter from Tahiti, the Tahitian was able to communicate, imperfectly and with difficulty, with the Maori. Marco polo 13:58, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there is any one answer to this question because some languages change more quickly than others, and some sound changes are more recoverable than others. In some cases, it might be as little as 200 years; in others it might be as much as 600. —Angr 19:25, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, thanks guys! -Ĭ₠ŴΣĐĝё 19:55, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Is this correct English?

As he talked… Moved… Smiled… You can tell he was simply adorable.

I would change to "As he talked...moved...smiled...you could tell he was simply adorable." --Richardrj ^{talk email} 08:46, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

thanks

can you tell me how to use minor sentances to describe a chracter?

What do you mean by a minor sentence (note the correct spelling)? --Richardrj ^{talk email} 09:16, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

While grammatically correct, the use of the verb "tell" in the sentence above is a bit strange. Normally you would only say "you could tell [that] ..." if the "..." is something that is not immediately and readily apparent. For example: "You could tell she was very bright", or "You could tell he was used to dealing with manservants". Another example: "You could tell that once, long ago, the flag had been red". It is strange to say: "You can tell the flag is bright red" unless this is a conversation between colour-blind people. In this sentence you can simply leave it out: "As he talked... moved... smiled... he was simply adorable."  --Lambiam^Talk 12:33, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Have you a good reason for punctuating with ellipses rather than "As he talked, moved and smiled"? (I've had email from a lot of people who don't seem to know that punctuation exists in any form other than "...".) Anyway, for the reason Lambiam gives, I'd make it "The way he talked, moved, smiled was adorable." ("simply" adds nothing.) —Tamfang 21:49, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Frau Doktor

For a woman referred to in German as (e.g.) "Frau Doktor Weiss" -- does this mean:

• The wife of Doktor Weiss
• A woman, surname Weiss, holding a doctoral degree

Could it be either, or both (and thus ambiguous without further clarification)? Also, how to render this in English?-- Thanks, Deborahjay 10:06, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Frau Doktor is the correct form of address for any woman doctor; you could address Angela Merkel as Liebe Frau Doktor Bundeskanzlerin. But is also the rather old-fashioned polite form of address for the wife of a Herr Doktor; without further context of knowledge you can't know which of the two is meant. In both cases Doktor can be an M.D. or a Ph.D. This is difficult to translate in English; if you want to keep the couleur locale of the old-fashioned form, you could choose to simply not translate this form of address.  --Lambiam^Talk 12:18, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Addendum. According to the information given here, the wife of a Herr Doktor would nowadays only be called Frau Doktor if hubby is a medical doctor.  --Lambiam^Talk 12:46, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Would Liebe Frau Doktor Bundeskanzlerin roughly mean Mother Lady Doctor Chansellor Angela Merkel? -Czmtzc 14:17, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Liebe means Dear, not Mother! Lova Falk 15:56, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

And in this context Frau is simply Mrs. and not the lofty title of Lady.  --Lambiam^Talk 21:40, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

The source text, the title of a portrait drawing, is WWII-era. Retaining Frau Doktor in the original is an option, primarily to avoid the awkward "Mrs. Dr." that—as far as I know—was and is not used in English...? Unfortunately, our database program doesn't support italics, so I'll have to rely on the [website's online archives] readers recognizing these fairly familiar German words. That being the situation, I suppose it would be wise not to abbreviate. -- Deborahjay 12:49, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it is indeed better to avoid "Mrs. Dr." – although not unheard of, it makes me think of Mrs. Dr. Possible. In that era the now old-fashioned formal address was still in full use. However, lacking further information, the possibility of a female doctor cannot be completely dismissed without further information.  --Lambiam^Talk 13:19, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

It's interesting that in English the wife of a doctor, a professor, or military officer (field-marshal, general, colonel, air commodore, admiral, etc) is just Mrs or Ms Smith, whereas the wife of a British peer or knight is Lady Smith. -- JackofOz 22:03, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

"Only God Can Judge Me" in French

How do you translate the phrase "Only God Can Judge Me" in French?

Dieu seul peut me juger.  --Lambiam^Talk 12:03, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

It depends on the exact shade of meaning of "can" that you mean.

Dieu seul peut me juger. Only God is able to judge me.

Dieu seul sait me juger. Only God knows how to judge me.

Dieu seul a le droit de me juger. Only God has the right to judge me.SaundersW 14:23, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Capitalization

Hi! If I want to write an English title/headline with capitalized initial letters, should I write High-quality Services, or rather High-Quality Services? Or would High Quality Services work even better? Does a style guide give any recommendations on this? Thanks in advance. Daniel Šebesta (talk • contribs) 18:49, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

If you want intitial caps on each word (other than articles and small prepositions), the correct form would be "High-Quality Services". Both elements of a compound modifier such as this are capitalized, and the hyphen cannot be omitted. However, the Wikipedia style for this title would be "High-quality services" (caps only for the initial letter of initial words and proper nouns or adjectives that would capitalized in running text). The most widely used source for these questions in the United States is The Chicago Manual of Style. Marco polo 19:58, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, Marco polo! Daniel Šebesta (talk • contribs) 20:04, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Stress patterns in Slavic languages

In Czech and Slovene, the stressed syllable is always the first, while in Russian it can vary. What is the case with other Slavic languages and is it known why the stress pattern is different between Russian and Czech or Slovene? I'm guessing that it might be partially related to the near-extinction of both languages and their revival as part of nationalist movements, but I'm just guessing here. Donald Hosek 23:47, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

The stress can also vary in Bulgarian. In Macedonian, it falls on the 3rd-to-last syllable. In Polish, it is the penultimate (2nd-to-last) syllable. In Slovene, it is not the first syllable as you say, but the syllable with a long vowel. Conclusion: The variations between the Slavic languages are so immense that the "near-extinction" of Czech is very unlikely to be the reason. Anyway, Czech was close to extinction only in terms of written, literary language; people never stopped speaking it. Daniel Šebesta (talk • contribs) 00:01, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Free stress in useful for distinguishing different words, as, e.g., "insight" from "incite". The following Slavic languages have fixed stress: initial (Czech, Slovak, Sorbian), penultimate (Polish), antipenultimate (Macedonian). Other Slavic languages have a free stress. There are transitional phenomena, too: Eastern Slovak dialects have penultimate stress, just like Polish. Some Kashubian dialects have initial, some penultimate and some free stress. Fixed-stress languages have stress exceptions (mainly in recent loanwords), while free-stress languages sometimes have more of less predictable stress. Ukrainian perhaps has the least predictable stress of all Slavic languages. It may be argued that early Proto-Slavic had fixed penultimate or final stress which distinguished it from other Indo-European languages. I derived this material from Roland Sussex's The Slavic Languages (Cambridge, 2006). --Ghirla^-трёп- 07:01, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I have heard it suggested that the initial stress of Czech (etc.) shows the influence of nearby German's stress-pattern. No idea if that's right or widely accepted. Wareh 13:04, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

June 15

The difference between "should" and "ought to"

Can anyone tell me the difference between how "should" and "ought to" are supposed to be used (in a nit-picky formal sense, not necessarily how they are used today). The dictionary definitions seem to be the same to me; but I heard a story about a cigarette commercial in the 1950s or 1960s being criticized for using the slogan "tastes good like a cigarette should" when correct grammar would have been "like a cigarette ought to" (which obviously doesn't rhyme). I always thought the two were interchangeable, as do many web forums, with some concluding "ought to" is stronger and more moral, or that "should" is stronger and more moral. Can anyone speculate on the difference, or on the specific error in the cigarette commercial. Thanks! 71.17.166.98 03:46, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I guess the "problem" with "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should" is that "should" is a auxilliary verb and isn't supposed to stand by itself. So I suppose you're supposed to say, "Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should taste." Or, if you're really going to be pedantic, "Winston tastes good, as a cigarette should taste." Which, of course, sounds ridiculous. -- Mwalcoff 04:37, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

The "problem" with the slogan was nothing to do with "should"; it was the use of "like" as a conjunction. I remember one ad campaign where it was shown crossed it out replaced with "as", and they asked "What do you want, good grammar or good taste?" (Me, I want no smoking, thank you.) --Anonymous, like, June 15, 2007, 05:50 (UTC).

I, too, understood the usual (and correct) objection to have been to the use of like conjunctionally; our article about the slogan (which, I was happily amazed to fine, contains an image of a poster of the "good grammar or good taste" campaign Anonymous recalls) references only the like/as issue, although the issue that Mwalcoff raises (which is, after all, that which underlies the question) may well have occurred to some. Joe 06:22, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Some remarks on should versus ought to in general. A sentence like that should have done the job is fine, whereas ought to is not wrong, but sounds a bit awkward in combination with the perfect tense: that ought to have done the job. This is even stronger with negations: this should not be a problem is fine, unlike the awkward this ought not to be a problem. Similarly with forms of hedging: maybe you should write a book about this versus maybe you ought to write a book about this. Furthermore, not all uses of should express obligation or expectation (for example in the British usage: I should think so), and when they don't, should cannot be replaced by ought to. But apart from that, I can't think of examples where one is stronger or more "moral" than the other, only where one sounds better than the other.  --Lambiam^Talk 06:35, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, all of Lambiam's "ought to" sentences sound perfectly natural to me. I suspect some dialectical differences may obtain (perhaps "oughta" is congenial to me because I was raised on Southern U.S. English?). Wareh 13:11, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

In a nit-picky formal sense, should is the past tense of shall (cf. would/will). However, I am hard-pressed to think of a way to use it that way. Tomorrow I shall go to the library, yesterday I should have gone to the library (?!). And for what it's worth, ought derives from the same roots as owe and own. --LarryMac | Talk 13:22, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Not "in a nit-picky formal sense," but "historically" or "etymologically." Wareh 13:35, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

puke

This is a serious question. Which of the synonyms for "to puke" is the most grossing out? —AldeBaer 13:07, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

The puke entry needs "cleanup." Priceless. I'll say "upchuck" since it brings to mind chunks of vomit rising into one's mouth. Recury 13:30, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, upchuck it is! I also noticed "to ralph" is missing on wikt. —AldeBaer 13:38, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I think "sell the Buick" is the grossest. ;) Seriously, though, there are some pretty non-notable synonyms over at wiktionary. What is this, the urban dictionary?-Andrew c 14:14, 15 June 2007 (UTC)