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September 12

Some surnames in reverse order

Why is it that we English-speakers tend to refer to some Japanese individuals as givenname-surname, rather than using the surname-givenname that they use for themselves? I could understand it if we used this fashion for all languages/cultures that are surname-givenname, since consistency is reasonable; and I'm aware that we tend to speak of Hungarians in the same way, even officially as can be seen here. However, we use surname-givenname for Chinese names; why are the Japanese and Hungarians linguistically treated different from the Chinese? Nyttend (talk) 01:39, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Plenty of people get Chinese names wrong too. It is just ignorance, people don't know the correct form. It doesn't help that some people who would usually use surname-givenname reverse it (or even use a completely different name) when speaking English, and some don't, and it is very difficult to know which are which. I think you just have to ask, really... (Or google it - that has worked for me on at least one occasion.) --Tango (talk) 01:58, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

See Japanese name#Japanese names in English. And see also Japanese addressing system. Oda Mari (talk) 04:33, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Lin Yu Tang wrote about some people calling him "Mr. Tang", which he found faintly absurd... AnonMoos (talk) 21:18, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

You don't tend to write Hungarian names given-name-first in English. You always do so, unless someone made a mistake. The only exception are some names that have been included in proper nouns. E.g. It's usually called "Eötvös Loránd University" in English, but the man is always "Loránd Eötvös". --Pykk (talk) 06:31, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Now that's interesting. I wonder why it's surname-given name order in that case, whereas the "Liszt Ferenc Zeneművészeti Egyetem" is known in English as the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, not the Liszt Franz Academy of Music. Maybe it's because both "Loránd" and "Eötvös" are unfamiliar names to most English-speakers and relatively few people would know which is the surname and which the given name. On the other hand, Franz Liszt is relatively much better known, and it would sound completely unnatural to refer to him, in any context, as "Liszt Franz". Just a guess. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:21, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Franz Liszt is not a Hungarian name, so Hungarian rules don't apply. Algebraist 21:23, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

True, but if there were a Béla Bartók Academy/University, we'd call it that, and not the "Bartók Béla Academy". -- JackofOz (talk) 21:42, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's certainly not wrong to put the name in "correct" order and say "L. E. University". It's not the rule, just an exception to the opposite rule. Hungarians and Hungarian-speakers are generally very consistent with changing the name-order with language. I find it stranger that the Asian languages are so terribly inconsistent. Is it because of general ignorance about Asian names? Or is it because the transliterated name gets confused with the 'translated' name? In any case it's rather bizarre that, say, "Imre Nagy" is always family-name-last in English but "Mao Zedong" is the opposite. Speaking as someone with a Hungarian name myself, I strongly advocate the former. Me and my (rather polyglot) family has always put family-name first in Hungarian and last in other European languages. (most Hungarians, out of whom most speak a second language, would say the same) That's how we see it: Name order is not part of the name, but part of the language you're speaking. It's not about 'what we call ourselves', because what we call ourselves has always depended on what language we were using! --Pykk (talk) 09:30, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

It's funny how Chinese names are usually rendered in English as surname first, but Japanese names the other way around. Then there are Vietnamese names, where the "surname" is not defined in the way we're used to thinking about it, and a given Vietnamese person can be catalogued under any one or all three of their names. Thai names are different again. -- JackofOz (talk) 13:28, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Kinship term for relation between one's sets of grandparents

Assume that Alice and Bob's child marries the child of John and Mary(they don't have to have grandchildren; my title is just the most concise explanation I could think of for the concept that doesn't suggest incest). Is there a kinship term in any language which could play the role of X in the following sentences? "[Alice|Bob] is [John|Mary]'s X"; "Alice and Bob are X's to John and Mary". 69.224.114.253 (talk) 02:08, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Let me see if I understand this:

Alice--------Bob            Mary--------John
        |                          |
        |                          |
      (child)-------------------(child)

and you're asking how Alice/Bob and Mary/John are related. I don't think that relationship has a name, and WolframAlpha seems to agree with me. As for what to call them: supposing I am directly related to Mary and John Smith (making up surnames here), then I would just call Alice and Bob Brown "Mr and Mrs Brown". Xenon54 / talk / 02:19, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

That's a nifty tool, Xenon. But I believe the OP was asking if there is a term for this relationship in any language. Being largely cultural, kinship terms are marked in different ways for different cultures so that, for example, some cultures have completely different terms for a mother's brother and father's brother (both concepts that we call "uncle"). According to Chinese kinship (and an online chinese annotation tool that I can't link to), the term for your child's parent-in-law is 亲家 (qìng jia in Pinyin).

In English, we apparantly have co-father-in-law, co-mother-in-law, co-parents-in-law, co-grandparents, etc. But I've never used these terms and they apparantly appear more often in translations from languages where such terms exist more readily. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 03:49, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

In finding citations for those articles, it does seem that most of the English terms are used primarily in travel literature, ethnology, or in translation from French, Spanish, Malay, etc. However, I did come across several newspaper columns that used 'co-grandmother'. (Though of course that word only works once the married couple has children.) kwami (talk) 09:03, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

There are specific kinship terms for the relationship of one's child's spouse's parents in a number of languages (not usually depending on whether there are mutual grandchildren). In Hebrew, the form is mekhutan מחותן masculine, mekhutenet מחותנת feminine (though that term can sometimes cover further relatives besides the child's spouse's parents). AnonMoos (talk) 06:55, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Is mechuteynesteh not Hebrew, then? kwami (talk)

Can't say whether it might be occasionally used in modern Hebrew or not, but it has a Yiddish suffix... AnonMoos (talk) 15:41, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

It's both in Yiddish and in Yinglish (As you can see here). However, it's never used in Hebrew. HOOTmag (talk) 07:50, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh man, I completely forgot about Spanish consuegro (or consuegra). That's definitely more common than the English term. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 07:07, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's every-day vocabulary in Spanish, maybe about as common as 'god father' is in English. kwami (talk)

In Korean, the term is 사돈 "sadon." When you use the term to call out to them, you use "sadon." When you use the term to describe them to other people, you say "sadon yangban." When you want to say "male sadon" then you say "bakkat (outer) sadon," and when you want to say "female sadon" then you say "an (inner) sadon." --Kjoonlee 08:26, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Can both a man and a woman speak of their bakkat sadon oder an sadon, or do women speak of their an sadon and men their bakkat sadon? kwami (talk) 08:59, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Yep, both men and women can call their "male sadon" their bakkat sadon, and their "female sadon" their an sadon. I've also heard "sadon daek" being used to refer to the "an sadon" in the third person. --Kjoonlee 09:10, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Just back to English: while there may not be a one-word term for this relationship, it can definitely be described in unambiguous terms - "our/my son/daughter's parents-in-law" or "our/my son/daughter-in-law's parents". This sort of question comes up often enough (both here and out there) for me to wonder why nobody's ever come up with a word. The "co-" words mentioned above seem to have their focus on the couple who marry, or their children. But for the relationship solely between the respective sets of parents of the couple, there does seem to be a gap. In real life, there are many ways of getting around it: "Have you ever met the Jacksons of Cranberry Lane?" - "Met them? Our daughter married their son!" But wouldn't it be nice to be able to reply: "Met them? We're ______s". ("We're going out to dinner tonight with our co-parents-in-law" doesn't do it for me, I'm afraid). -- JackofOz (talk) 10:25, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't be surprised if English borrowed the Spanish term. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:19, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

But "parents-in-law" only works for legal marriages. Plenty of people have kids without a wedding. In many cases, the grandparents need to do more to support the resulting child, so a term is needed. BrainyBabe (talk) 08:39, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

(1) I don't think "in-laws" necessarily implies a legal or sanctified marriage. (2) But "parents-in-law" is misleading or else confusing, since the "parents-in-law" don't have a quasi-parental relationship to each other in the way that sisters-in-law have a sisterly relationship, a son-in-law has a filial relationship to a mother-in-law, or a father-in-law has a parental relationship to a daughter-in-law. Indeed, when a bride moves into the house that a groom shares with his parents, or a groom moves into a house that a bride shares with hers, the quasi-parental/filial relationship becomes quite apparent. But if the bride's or groom's parents should move into the spouse's family home, they wouldn't become like either parents or children of the paterfamilias or materfamilias. —— Shakescene (talk) 08:58, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

P.S.

Co-parent-in-law: its logic is clear: just as one's co-parent - is: one's child's parent (simply replace "co" by "child's"), so one's co-parent-in-law - must be: one's child's parent-in-law (again: simply replace "co" by "child's"). HOOTmag (talk) 09:47, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

That doesn't quite work. Parents are said to have a "co-parenting role" in respect of their children. But they are co-parents only in relation to their children, not in relation to each other. Similarly, a mother and father are not each other's parent, but each other's (former) spouse/partner. -- JackofOz (talk) 08:33, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

As far as I know, a child's parents are co-parents in relation to each other, not in relation to their child. For example: If you're my child's parent, then you're my co-parent. Similarly, If you're my child's parent-in-law, then you're my co-parent-in-law. That's why the rule here is quite consistent: simply replace "child's" by "co". HOOTmag (talk) 09:36, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

You say: "If you're my child's parent, then you're my co-parent". I say: "If you're my child's parent, then you're a co-parent of my child". We'll probably never agree on this, so there's not much point in prolonging it. -- JackofOz (talk) 13:31, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

It's not just me, who would say that: 10,000 persons agree with me. Who agrees with you? HOOTmag (talk) 21:12, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, these 186 persons and these 1,1810 persons, for starters. There'd be many more, once you search for "boy's co-parent", "girl's co-parent", etc. Apparently, it's used in both ways, so we're both right. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:31, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, whoever uses "one's co-parents" for one's parents (who aren't necessarily spouses), has to explain the rationale of "one's co-parent-in-law". However, those 10,000 persons who use "one's co-parent" for one's child's parent (who isn't necessarily a spouse), have a very simply rationale for "one's co-parent-in-law": both "one's co-parent" and "one's co-parent-in-law", are simply: one's child's parent and one's child's parent-in-law, so their rationale is quite consistent: simply replace "co" by "child's". HOOTmag (talk) 23:32, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

No, they do not have to explain anything. As was made clear up above, the term "co-parent-in-law" has not exactly gained wide acceptance, and imo it never will. Even "co-parent" is not particularly widely used, except in the verbal form "co-parenting". Now just let it be and let's move on. -- JackofOz (talk) 10:36, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Are you sure we're talking about the same thing? As far as I am concerned, I am talking about those people who do use both terms: "co-parent", as well as "co-parent-in-law", so your argument about the narrow usage of these terms among English speakers, is irrelevant to the kind of people mentioned above.

My argument is quite simple: Once we decide to refer to those people who use both terms, we have a definitely consistent rationale for using the "co" - provided that we interpret the "co" as equivalent to "child's": This way, "my co-parent" is simply "my child's parent" (who isn't a spouse), just as "my co-parent-in-law" is simply "my child's parent-in-law". However, other people, who - on one hand - use both terms, but - on the other hand - interpret "my co-parent" as "my parent" (who isn't a spouse) - just as you interpret it, can't find a reasonable consistent rationale for their usage of the term "co-parent-in-law".

Want to "move on"? I don't reject your suggestion.

HOOTmag (talk) 13:35, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I plan to study and stay in Japan for several years.

I am fluent in English and Chinese, but know only very basic Japanese. How long would I need to learn Japanese? In the meantime, can I survive in Japan while speaking only English and Chinese? --59.189.59.145 (talk) 07:18, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

'How long would I need to learn Japanese?' - this depends entirely on you, the time, and the effort you put into learning the language, whether you go on a course or try to teach yourself/learn from friends....etc. It also depends on what you mean by 'learn Japanese'. To what level? Survival level? General conversation level? Business level? For general conversation level, going on a course of study and living in the country at the same time should get you there in about a year or less. However, if you are fluent in Chinese and can read Chinese, you have a major advantage over other learners in that you will be able to recognize written words more readily and it will be easier for you to commit them to memory. As for surviving in Japan in the meantime, Chinese would only help for reading signs and other things (but remember, Japanese uses a mix of 简体字 and 繁体字 and also has its own 漢字 for certain things) and spoken Chinese would be next to useless. Living in Japan and only speaking English, whilst being quite inconvenient, is not impossible, as while I was there for ten years I had English speaking colleagues who never ever bothered to learn the language and they had been there longer than me. Good luck in your studies! --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 09:02, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Fluency in written Chinese will help you in Japan to about the same extent that fluency in written English will help you in France. It might be worth your while to learn "loanword English" (English as it sounds when transcribed in katakana—here's an example) since that will be better understood by your typical Japanese person on the street, but I don't know if that would be any easier than learning a similarly useful amount of Japanese. -- BenRG (talk) 16:44, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, plus you have to beware of false friends. There are quite a lot in Japanese - both with loanwords from European languages like English and in usages of Kanji in Japanese. One example that springs to mind is the word 手紙 which, as you will know, means 'toilet paper' in Chinese, but 'letter' (as in one you write and send through the post) in Japanese. If you didn't know that, you'd be fairly confused in the post office! --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 17:03, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you can survive in Japan -- or in much of it -- by speaking English. Chinese will rarely be of help to you, except in maps and the like. When you speak even the simplest English, many people will not understand you at all (or will pretend not to). You may later notice that the overwhelming majority of Japanese people have spent dozens of hours on a school subject called "Eigo" (which translates as "English"), and may wonder how inefficient this enterprise could possibly have been. Younger people are a better bet than older. That said, there are a great number of Japanese people who are commendably proficient in English. (And not just English. The other day I was sitting in a Tokyo train next to a woman who was teaching herself Dutch.) -- Hoary (talk) 17:21, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

松 = ?

Hello! I already could read this letter with a horizontal line on the right top – like this: ⼋? Does exist such a font, too? Doc Taxon (talk) 14:16, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't understand the question. Do you want this character with a line above and a line below it? If so, it would not be a font you want, it would be a button on MS Word (or whatever software you are using to write). Or, are you looking for a character that looks like this, but with a line over it (and therefore a different character)? Do you have a link to a page with that character? --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 23:49, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Hm...I also had trouble understanding the question, but I think Doc Taxon is looking for 松. It's the same character as 松, just in a slightly different typeface (and I think it's used more in non-Chinese writing, such as Hanja)...I don't know what exact font you need to get it, though. To make it show up in Wikipedia (and I assume in any html) you just have to enclose it in a style tag:

<font lang="ko">松</font>

rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 23:54, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, 松 is I was looking for. And now I know, that the only difference is the typeface. Thanks, Doc Taxon (talk) 06:46, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Korean spicy sauce - tenjang

What is 'tenjang' in Chinese? I guess the 'jang' bit is probably the Chinese word 酱 but I can't guess what the first bit would be. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 18:54, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

You're right about the second part, but the first part is actually Korean, not Chinese. What does the Korean bit mean? I have no idea, but 되다 is a descriptive verb meaning "it's got hardly any water." --Kjoonlee 22:22, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Cheers, Kjoonlee, I knew you'd be along soon. How would I say write it in Chinese, then? I've been trying to explain it to a friend of mine I met in Shanghai a few days ago. When I said the word 'tenjang' she said she understood what it was, but couldn't tell me the hanzi/hanja for it. Also, forgive me if I am missing the obvious here, but what does 'toda' have to do with this? --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 23:43, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, the Japanese Wikipedia article ja:テンジャン uses the Korean way of writing doenjang in Hanja: you write a mix of Hangul and Hanja: 된醬. I think a Chinese person would write it using all Hanzi (like how Coca-Cola is written 可口可乐) but I've no idea exactly how.

"Doeda" is the infinitive form of the verb, and when you use it in front of a noun in becomes "doen." So when you say "doen bap" it means "cooked rice which is drier than usual." When you say "doen jang" (two words) then it means "paste which is thicker than usual." Doenjang (one word) is the Korean sauce. --Kjoonlee 02:53, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

According to a Google search it's called "大酱" (big sauce?) in Chinese. Here is a recipe for tenjang soup in Chinese. --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:13, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah, thank you both. And Kjoonlee, sorry, my Korean transliteration wasn't very good. I didn't notice the 'i' in the first syllable (something I keep missing!) turning the vowel 'o' into the diphthong usually transliterated by 'oe' and pronounced 'e'. This is why I couldn't get the connection. Cheers! --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 11:33, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

September 13

Aibrushed vs. Photoshopped

Do people other than newspaper/magazine industry people say 'airbrushed' or has 'photoshopped' completely taken over? Also, what is the origin of the word 'airbrushed' anyway? What is an 'airbrush'? --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 00:44, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

See Airbrush and Airbrush#Use. I'm old enough to have seen them in use on photographs before digital manipulation became possible, and I imagine airbrushing still has its uses in dealing with photographic prints. Deor (talk) 00:51, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Crossword puzzler

As some of you will know, some of the clues in the New York Times Saturday crossword have a common theme, which in last week's case was titled "Literally So". For example, one of the clues was W--THL-SS R-AD-TER. The missing letters spell oreos, so the answer was "lemon drop cookies". FI-TH WH--L leads to "spare no expense". The one that puzzles me is WHAT A -ANDA DOES IN -EIS-RELY FA-HION. The solution is supposedly "eats shoots and leaves", but I don't see the connection to the omitted "plus". Clarityfiend (talk) 00:55, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

See http://wordplay.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/29/literally-so/?pagemode=print Nanonic (talk) 01:04, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

"Plus" = "and" eh? Thanks. Clarityfiend (talk) 01:21, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

It's actually based on an old joke ("A panda walks into a bar"...) which was the inspiration for the title of the grammar book Eats, Shoots & Leaves... AnonMoos (talk) 04:27, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

"marriage" -- "fatherhood" -- "has a career"

Marriage & fatherhood both describe a state of being. Can anyone think of a word for "has a career" ? The best I can come up with is employment, but it doesn't quite fit. You could be employed as a ditch-digger, but one would hardly call that a career... Thank you. 61.189.63.208 (talk) 02:39, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

"Married" is probably more accurate than "marriage". The former is a state of being (including of one person, although necessarily requiring that at least one other person also be in that state), the latter is the relationship/union between two people. Mitch Ames (talk) 04:19, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Whether it's a "state of being" or not is not really the point of the OP's inquiry. I think "employment" is the closest to what you're looking for, though because this doesn't distinguish between a job and a career, some sort of modifier like "lifetime employment" will probably have to suffice. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]}

I don't know about a noun, but "established" and similar adjectives used to have the connotation of being well-launched in business or the professions, as in "I shan't be able to marry Cyril until he's better established". There are better words, but I can't think of them at the moment. —— Shakescene (talk) 08:24, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. "Married" is an adjective, "marriage" is a state of being - a state is a noun, it has to be. --Tango (talk) 19:31, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

The term "profession" is normally used for types of employment requiring a degree or complex skills. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:18, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

The more general term is "occupation", but we don't talk of people being "occupied". -- JackofOz (talk) 21:08, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

@Tango: a state is an adjective. Mitch Ames is correct: "married" describes your state of being ("I am married"), whereas "marriage" describes the relationship ("their marriage is on the rocks"). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 21:19, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

See, I was going to say that at first, but then I thought about it and decided that I agree with Tango. Being married means that you are in the state of marriage. Adjectives like "married" don't indicate the abstract state itself, they indicate that the noun they modify is in that state, which makes it self-evident that the word for the state, divorced from any individual noun, cannot be an adjective. (Definitions: marriage married) It's a pretty fine distinction, though. Indeterminate (talk) 06:43, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

'Successful' is tantamount to 'has a career' in contemporary parlance. Vranak (talk) 18:51, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

"be said"

How about the grammar of the following sentences:

"There is, be said, a convenient pleasant weather in South Italy".

"I agree with what is be said here".

HOOTmag (talk) 08:35, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Both look weird, and the second just looks plain wrong. However, in speech, I think "be said" can be shorthand for "let it be said". Perhaps, long, long ago, there was a verb "besay" as there is a verb "bespeak" (as in bespoke tailors), but I've never run into it. —— Shakescene (talk) 08:42, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I hope I don't embarrass you, but look at what you yourself have written, here, on 10 September, at 23:25! HOOTmag (talk) 09:12, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Shakescene's message was probably just a typo—it's normal on Wikipedia for someone to write out a message, then go back and change it before posting it, but forget to change some of the grammar along with it. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 11:35, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

"...has often BEEN said" would make more sense in that sentence you cite. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 09:31, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

The original sentence has been: "IS often BE said", so if you wanted to fix it you had to capitalize two words: "HAS often BEEN said". Are you sure the writer has been wrong twice? HOOTmag (talk) 09:44, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Both your query phrase "what is be said here" and Shakescene's booboo "which is often be said by..." can be corrected by dropping be. —Tamfang (talk) 00:39, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

What the heck is "a convenient weather"? Clarityfiend (talk) 09:24, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Must be a Britishism. Never heard it in the USA. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 09:31, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I think it's just a solecism. I've never encountered it, and it's not in the OED. Algebraist 11:22, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

The sentence might have been written by a horny, illiterate, New Zealand sheep farmer, misspelling "wether".  :) -- JackofOz (talk) 21:05, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

The second one is probably a mishearing of "being said", where the speaker expresses agreement with the sentiment previously expressed. The first one just doesn't exist, unless some words have been missed out: something like "it has to be said". "Convenient" weather may mean good weather for sailing or something like that. --TammyMoet (talk) 13:57, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

"A pleasant weather" is no better. Remove the "a". Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 20:31, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

The first example is just a lapsus calami for "be it said" (one of the stock English phrases that retain the subjunctive), and the second (as TammyMoet indicated) is either a slip for, or a nonnative speaker's attempt at, "being said." Deor (talk) 11:23, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

OP's comments:

• Regarding the first sentence, three main suggestions have been made: "be said" is simply an abbreviation (or a lapsus calami) of:

1. let it be said.
2. it has to be said.
3. be it said.

• Regarding the second sentence, two main suggestions have been made: "is be said" is simply a lapsus calami of:

1. has been said.
2. is being said.

The second one looks better. but I'm still waiting for Shakescene's clarification (see also Rjanag's comment). HOOTmag (talk) 15:33, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I would read both as lapsus claviaturae. --ColinFine (talk) 07:08, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

clavium. —Tamfang (talk) 00:57, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

No, my words are nothing what I'd write normally, just some typo where I wrote something and replaced it incompletely. I don't know a week later what I trying to change but it was probably "what has been said" to "what is said" or "what is being said". —— Shakescene (talk) 21:16, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Manchuria

Can anybody transliterate these Manchurian areas into both Chinese and Japanese letters?

• Hsing-lung-hsien
• Ku-pei-kow
• Luan-ping
• Je-ho
• Jehol

Thanks, Doc Taxon (talk) 14:30, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I have listed my results below. Note that the Japanese characters are typically just the traditional Chinese characters. The current Chinese "spelling" in the People's Republic uses simplified versions of the same characters. Incidentally, these places are no longer part of Manchuria but instead lie in the present-day province of Hebei.

Hsing-lung-hsien (pinyin Xinglongxian)	Chinese: 兴隆县	Japanese: 興隆県
Ku-pei-kow (pinyin Gubeikou)	Chinese: 古北口	Japanese: 古北口
Luan-ping (pinyin Luanping)	Chinese: 滦平	Japanese: 灤平
Je-ho (a variant of Jehol/Rehe—see below)
Jehol (pinyin Rehe)	Chinese: 热河	Japanese: 熱河

Marco polo (talk) 15:45, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank You very much for the fast answer. There are some locations more to transliterate, I will ask you in time. Greetings, Doc Taxon (talk) 15:54, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Multilingual Wikipedias

I'm curious about Wikipedia's policies about languages with more than one literary standard. For example English, French (European and Canadian), Spanish (European and American), Portuguese (European and Brazilian) are languages with only one wikipedia each, while languages like Norwegian (Bokmål and Nynorsk) and Belarusian have a Wiki for every sublanguage. Others, like Emiliano-Romagnolo have one Wikipedia but with different internal articles. So, what's the reason of this arrangement? Is it a matter of linguistic distance? For example, as far as I know, the two varieties of Portuguese have very strong ortographic differences (much stronger than British and America English). P.S. What's the language used in the Rumansch Wikipedia? Sursilvan? Sutsilvan? Surmiran? --151.51.50.29 (talk) 17:15, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

AFAIK, there isn't a general rule - it's up to the users of the respective Wikipedia. IIRC, the Spanish one is generally in Castile Spanish. Nynorsk is really more of a separate orthography than a separate language, but as such it would make sense - considering that there's a strong political backing of it. I remember there was a project to start a Moldovan version, even though most linguists agree it's the same language as Romanian. So they distinguished themselves by writing in Cyrillic, even though Moldovan now officially uses the Latin alphabet. (So they had a message at the top referring those who wished to read in Latin script to the Romanian wiki) It all got a bit silly IMO, and the project is now defunct. --Pykk (talk) 21:01, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Here's a comment in English at the Rumansh village pump that gives a nice description of their wikipedia.--Cam (talk) 00:53, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

There have been suggestions that American English should have a separate Wikipedia so that those of us who originated the language could keep our traditional spelling ... and English has the sub-language Scots. wait for the howls - dare I sign this? Dbfirs 07:17, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Having a separate wiki just to separate "color" from "colour" and such, seems rather silly. Perhaps there could be a way to indicate a "preference" for British vs. American spellings and have the preferred one show on-screen. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 08:18, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

It's more than just the spelling of "colour", but yes, it would be silly to have a separate Wiki. I was thinking along the lines of your suggestion for preferences just after I posted my tongue-in-cheek comment above. It would have to be something along the lines of Microsoft's "autocorrect". I don't have the programming expertise to implement such a feature, so I will just continue mentally translating into "real" English, just as a I have been doing with American novels for many years. To be fair, most articles read perfectly on both sides of the pond. Dbfirs 11:45, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, as perfectly as the "anyone can edit" philosophy will allow, anyway. :) Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 13:12, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

There is a Scots Wikipedia: http://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 20:39, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, its great! Can we have a wikipedia in Yorkshire dialect, and Geordie, and Cumbrian, etc? Dbfirs 07:17, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

No, because they don't have ISO 639-3 codes. +Angr 05:27, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

As far as I know, European and Brazilian Portuguese differ mainly in pronunciation, with some vocabulary and grammar differences. Presumably, it's quite similar to American and British English differences, and we all get along okay. Well, mostly, :-) Maedin\^talk 07:51, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Forking the Norwegian Wikipedia into nn: and no: was somewhat controversial. At the time (2003-04) the no.wiki was very small, and the Nynorsk-users were complaining about not being able to contribute in NN, while others felt it would be unproductive to split such a small project. In August '04 a vote was held; 10 people voted against splitting, while 7 people voted for. Still, someone boldly decided to simply create the nn.wiki anyway, but discussion continued, in particular about the no, nn, and nb subdomains. In the end, Norwegian Bokmål retained the no subdomain. It turned out to be impossible to establish an acceptable policy regarding contributions in NN on the original no-wiki. decltype (talk) 09:58, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

It's not possible (or at least, not straightforward) to convert between UK and US spellings automatically. Consider 'tire' (US) which corresponds to two different UK words 'tire' and 'tyre'; and (not just a matter of spelling here) US 'dove' corresponds to two different UK words 'dove' (bird) and 'dived'. --ColinFine (talk) 23:47, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

... so the "autocorrect" method would not work for these, and software that recognises context and parts of speech is notoriously unreliable (at present), so we will just have to translate mentally as we read. As Maedin said, we mostly get along okay. Dbfirs 07:26, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Imagine the software trying to translate "The incident occurred when the prominent University lecturer was walking along the pavement eating fish and chips. He spotted a multi-coloured object being thrown by a second-division footballer from the garden of a neighbour's house. It bounced off the boot of the car, startling him and causing him to drop his shopping and crushing the biscuits he had bought for his local friendly chemist." Convoluted I'll grant you, but there are a number of words that have different meanings according to the context. -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 08:52, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

September 14

Diminutives of Russian given names

Is there a difference between different diminutive endings for a given name? (E.g., for Aleksey, there're Alyosha, Lyosha, Alyoshka, Lyoshka, Alyoshenka, and Alyoshechka) The only mention in the article on Russian names is an unsourced comment that the -enka ending is a superlative. – Psyche825 (talk) 08:11, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Да, there is a difference. The ones ending in -sha (Sasha, Vanyusha), -shenka (Mashenka), -ushka/yushka (Yegorushka, Vanyushka), -shechka (Sashechka), -ochka (Valerochka), and -ik (Tolik), are generally endearing forms (there are others). The ones ending in -ka (Vanka, Vovka, Vaska, Olka, Petka ...) are usually pejorative forms. But there's an overlap, and there's no precise one-to-one correspondence between the form and the meaning. For the example you give:

• Alyosha and Lyosha are non-specific general diminutives
• Alyoshka, Lyoshka, Alyokha and Lyokha are pejorative
• Alyoshenka, Alyoshechka and Lyoshenka are endearing. -- JackofOz (talk) 08:34, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

My Russian teacher's rule of thumb was that the longer the nickname, the more endearing it is. Steewi (talk) 00:19, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah, that helps. Thanks for the info! – Psyche825 (talk) 04:34, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Information on a- prefixed to verbs

I would like to know the origin of (and possibly a name for?) the practice of prefixing a verb with a-. It shows up in songs ("A-hunting we will go…") and in films, very often by rural and/or country folks (Alvin York in Sergeant York paraphrasing Matthew 26:52: "Those that shall be a-livin' by the sword, shall be a-perishin' by the sword"). — Bellhalla (talk) 14:49, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

You guessed the name correctly. Apparently it's referred to by most linguists as "a- prefixing". There's some info here for instance. Seems like it's a bit of a topic of study and debate where it actually came from! --Pykk (talk) 15:38, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the info! — Bellhalla (talk) 16:00, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Kanji question: Is it upside down?

A picture of Murakami Haruki's signature used in his article has had its description edited by two IP's, who claim that it is upside down. Is it? decltype (talk) 15:16, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I have since removed the comments from the description. I noticed it was also on ja.wiki, so I figure someone would have corrected it if it was really upside down. decltype (talk) 15:28, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's upside down. Unless, of course, it's a jokey signature. -- Hoary (talk) 17:08, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay, thanks, I have now rotated it. Any further comments should take that fact into consideration. decltype (talk) 17:46, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

September 15

Ruby

What is red heat?174.3.110.93 (talk) 00:26, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

It's a temperature range. See red hot. Dismas|^(talk) 00:49, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

What is curved striae?174.3.110.93 (talk) 00:33, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

There should have been a comma in between the words "curves" and "striae". I've added one and now the sentence makes more sense. The word striae is linked in that sentence, so you can follow the link. Dismas|^(talk) 00:51, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

What is stylii material? It seems kind of confusing because stylii is a plural, and it means writing tool. But we use singular lexemes adjectivals in compounds.174.3.110.93 (talk) 00:56, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. It wasn't even a correct plural, by the way. --Anonymous, 05:12 UTC, September 15, 2009.

Classics

What does editiones principes mean?174.3.110.93 (talk) 05:58, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

You have linked to the page where the singular is defined, so I'm guessing that you are not aware that editiones principes is simple the Latin plural of editio princeps. I've added a parenthesis to the article specifying this.

If that's not the burden of your question, you'll need to be more specific about what you are asking. --ColinFine (talk) 07:14, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Did you mean simply?174.3.110.93 (talk) 01:35, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Japanese translation

We have this Japanese text, and I'm very proud that I have been able to type it, but we still don't understand it:

焼き物

田舎の最高のおもてなしは

採れたて海の幸と山の幸を

そのまんまいただくこと

みんなで囲炉裏を囲む

気取らない食事が田舎流です

Could anybody help us with it? Many thanks, MuDavid (talk) 13:04, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Grilled and pan-fried dishes
The best treat in the country is
Fresh delicacies from land and sea
And have them in a simple way
Sitting around the fire with friends
And enjoying the meal informally
That's the way of the country Oda Mari (talk) 14:21, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay, thanks a lot! MuDavid (talk) 08:44, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Chinese translation desired, please

What do the plaques in these pictures say, in English? I understand, of course, that one of the characters is somewhat obscured. Thank you much. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:36, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I can't make out the 5th and 6th characters very well, but directly translated it seems to say "Our country's first 'egg bomb'". Maybe the translation 'egg bomb' is wrong, or it's a nickname for the bomb. I am preparing myself to be very embarrassed here as I may end up with egg on my face.... <- Based on looking at the 2nd picture only. After looking at the 1st picture, I can say the characters are '颗原' which means something like 'elementary particle' and therefore 'atom'. "Our country's first atom bomb.":) --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 16:51, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand the letter '颗'. But #1's 原子 might be 原子弾/atomic bomb and #2's 氢弹 means hydrogen bomb. Oda Mari (talk) 18:09, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

(ec) 颗 is a classifier for bombs (among other things), and 原子弹 is (quite literally) "atom bomb". So the first plaque is "our country's first atom bomb" (the final character is cut off); the second plaque is something similar, but the first hydrogen bomb. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 18:10, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

chinese	我国	第一	颗	原子弹 氢弹
pinyin	wǒguó	dìyī	kè	yuánzǐdàn qīngdàn
gloss	'our country'	first	CL	atom bomb hydrogen bomb
translation	China's first atom bomb/hydrogen bomb.

Yup, not thinking straight today (sun's in my eyes!). I was thinking they were the same picture and wondered why I was finding it difficult to reconcile the two signs (thinking they were one and the same....Time for a break, I think.... --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 18:21, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Huh, that's pretty interesting. The second one is impressively small for a first-generation hydrogen bomb. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 01:41, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

These might just be scale model representations of the original bombs - judging by the stands they are on, they don't look much bigger than hand-grenades. Besides looking impressively small, they also look impressively clean for bombs which have been knocking around since the mid 60s. Alternatively, it may just be a matter of perspective - we don't know how big the signs are :) .--KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 08:52, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Is there a red button at the bottom, with a caption "Don't push this?" No such user (talk) 07:05, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

They certainly look a lot bigger than hand grenades, though I agree the scale is hard. I was assuming the floor tiles are probably about 2 feet across. This picture of what appears to be a similar model to the first one (though it differs slightly in the geometry) is more about the size I assumed it would be (e.g. something comparable to the Fat Man bomb). This one seems to be the same scale as the photos above, e.g. somewhat smaller than real life. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 12:09, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, both of those look FAR bigger than I could make out from the OP's pictures, leading me to understand now that the signs must be pretty big, as well as the metal stands that the bombs are resting on. I was using those two as my point of reference. In the two pictures that you have just supplied, I now can see the cordon, which makes the bombs look much bigger to me, now. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 13:27, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Bi-Bi Pedagogical Method Historical Origins

Where and when did "bi-bi", the bi cultural bi-lingual method for teaching English to the deaf, originate? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.246.9.103 (talk) 19:26, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

It looks like we have a small article about this: Bilingual-bicultural education. Have you checked the sources that are linked in that article? Particularly, the second one (here) looks like it might have the answer. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 05:29, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Pronunciation

How does one pronounce "depot" in the medical sense, as in Depo-Provera? Does the pronounciation vary (like "depot" in the non-medical sense) between British (/dɛ'poʊ/) and American (/'diːpɵ/) English? Tevildo (talk) 20:50, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

From television commercials in America I recall it as being pronounced "deh-poh" where deh sounds like wet and poh sounds like dough oder flow. 218.25.32.210 (talk) 05:24, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

That's the /dɛ'poʊ/. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 05:26, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the American pronunciation of this component in a medical context stresses the first syllable, so /'dɛpoʊ/. Marco polo (talk) 14:22, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I can't read IPA, but isn't the depot in "Home Depot" pronounced "DEE-poh" in the US? 80.123.210.172 (talk) 14:48, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but "Depo" in "Depo-Provera" is pronounced differently. Marco polo (talk) 17:28, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

September 16

Any other persons

Is this gramatically correct "any other persons" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.54.22.130 (talk) 06:45, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Not by itself. But depending on context, it can work. Can you use it in a sentence? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 07:28, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

If the question is whether the plural of "person" can be "persons" instead of "people", the answer is yes. "Persons" is generally a more formal usage. --Anonymous, 08:13 UTC, September 16, 2009.

Strictly speaking, "persons" is the plural of "person," while "people" is a collective noun, but most of the usage guides seem to agree at this point that the distinction has largely faded. Myself, I think it's a useful one to have; if I say "persons who appreciate fine wine and literary conversion should consider joining my book club," I'm implying that there are individuals among those I'm addressing who may in fact have the interests I describe, and that I'm speaking specifically to them. If I say "people who enjoy arguing without the threat of physical violence often turn to the Internet," the actual people I'm talking about could be in Mexico City, Guam, Seattle, Mars, all of the above, or nowhere, and I'm not speaking to them, I'm speaking about them. But I'm not the author of any usage guides, so the value of my feelings on the subject ain't probably the highest. Some jerk on the Internet (talk) 16:05, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

"Persons who appreciate fine wine and literary convers[at]ion should consider joining my book club" doesn't sound at all natural to me, I must say. I'd use "People who appreciate ..." or "Those who appreciate ..." or "Anyone who appreciates ...", before I'd consider "Persons who appreciate ...". -- JackofOz (talk) 22:50, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Name For The Phenomenon Where.....?

This is something we all do from time to time and it happens to me quite often, just as often as anyone else. I was in the kitchen today making tea and coffee, and went to put the lid of the teapot onto the coffee jar. Simple mistake which we all do - nothing special about it. But it got me thinking about why I had done that. Obviously one part of my brain had the idea of putting the lid back onto the coffee jar, and another part of my brain was identifying the lid of the teapot as, simply, 'lid'. Somewhere along the way, this all got put together and I ended up trying to fit the (obviously smaller and completely dissimilar) lid of the teapot onto the coffee jar for a split-second. Now, is there a name for this phenomenon, as I would like to read a bit more about it? TIA! --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 09:12, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Not sure about that exact example, but the classic phenomenon of going to your bedroom to change your socks, and then ending up taking off your clothes and going to bed, since that's what you most often do when you go into your bedroom, is known as a "capture error" (though we don't seem to have anything on it at Wikipedia) -- see http://www.usabilityfirst.com/glossary/term_654.txl , The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman etc. -- AnonMoos (talk) 10:06, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Cheers, AnonMoos. Maybe my example would fall under that heading, judging by the examples the author of that link gave. It'd be nice to find an article about it (either here or on another site) which gives some more detail about the brain processes involved. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 10:39, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Hangover? TomorrowTime (talk) 10:08, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Unmindfulness (spelled with a double L in the US). You will become more familiar with this as you get older. Buddhism has quite a lot to say about mindfulness and the lack thereof.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 12:47, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Thinking is not linear. It is more complex than that. Universes of thought progress simultaneously. We have no trouble doing that, if we are healthy. I think the example you give is just a case of something not being important enough to monitor all the way through, to a point of conclusion. Or you got distracted, paying more attention to another thought, and also with a mindfulness that there were no potentially dire consequences to abandoning the particular line of thought that would have led to the correct lid being put on the correct container. I think that the absence of mindfulness in the example you gave seems to imply as well a presence of the mindfulness that the task at hand was not particularly important. Bus stop (talk) 13:07, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Like the story about the woman who was ironing clothes, the phone rang, and she "answered" the iron. Ouch! It's not just from old age, but maybe we become more aware of it as we get older. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 12:52, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

"Unmindfulness" isn't spelled with a double L in the US, but I'd call it absent-mindedness anyway. My sister once drew a cartoon called "The Lifecycle of Absent-mindedness". Childhood: Puts on two pairs of underpants. Adulthood: Drives to work instead of to Blockbuster. Old age: Leaves glasses in the fridge. +Angr 13:05, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Driving to work still gets me...and pouring orange juice in my breakfast cereal. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:37, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I resent the implication that short term memory fails in old people. I am old but assure you that there is nothing wrong with my short term memory nor is there anything wrong with my short term memory. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 14:29, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

My short term memory is on hold while my long term memory catches up. Bus stop (talk) 15:45, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

So the oldest member of the church is the last one out that Sunday and the preacher starts talking to him about aging, and whether he thinks about The Hereafter. The old man says he thinks about it all the time: Whenever he goes into a room, he asks himself, "What am I here after?" Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 11:06, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

T & D sound

I'm a non-native speaker of English. Now, hearing American people talking, I've noticed that, in some words, the letter T has the same sound of english CH (like in chocolate). This happens particulary in terms like traffic, transform, transport. A similar thing happens about letter D, for example in drink. To my ears, it sometimes sounds like a J (like in jaguar). I can't find any reference in English orthography table. So, is it a known phenomenon? Is it just my foreign ears? Is it something related to the letter r after t and d? Does it depend on one's dialect? --151.51.24.225 (talk) 14:07, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

This is indeed a fairly common pronunciation in American English. It has been noted by phonologists, for example in this paper. Marco polo (talk) 14:19, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

It's a phenomenon similar to what happens with the letter "p". There are actually two different "p" sounds in english, an aspirated p (like in the word "pig") and an unaspirated P (as in the the word "play"). Native speakers will have no idea what you are talking about as, to English-speaking-ears, the two sounds are identical, but for languages that use both sounds as seperate phonemes, they will notice the difference. Its the same with the two "T" sounds you note. The way that "tr" becomes more like "tchr" will not be noticed at all by an English speaker even if it becomes very obvious to a non-native speaker. This sort of thing is covered in various parts of the Wikipedia article Phonological change. --Jayron32 14:56, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't say the "p" in "play" is unaspirated; it's just that its aspiration is simultaneous with the following "l" (which is therefore voiceless). However, the "p" sounds in "spy" and "stop" are unaspirated. +Angr 15:03, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Angr is correct, you see unaspirated /p, t, k/ after an /s/, not necessarily before an /l/. This is evident because there are still perceptible aspiration differences--for example, the words "plight" and "blight", or "plume" and "bloom" (although, admittedly, in the latter pair the vowels are a bit different as well, at least for me). The place where you lose the aspiration is after /s/... in words like "stop", "spot", "skid", etc., if you record those words and then use a sound editor to cut out just the stop, a listener will tell you they're hearing [d, b, k]. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:48, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

(addendum) I guess technically the difference between the stops in "plight" and "blight" is one of voicing, not aspiration. But of course, in English those are confounded. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:39, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I think it's a matter of palatalization, more than anything. The case of /t/ or /d/ in front of /r/ is fairly common across dialects, but it's very noticeable especially in Hawaii. --Kjoonlee 15:15, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to know in what part of the U.S. they say "chraffic" instead of "traffic". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 18:04, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Probably most of it, probably including you; as Jayron says, you just don't notice because you think you are saying "t". Adam Bishop (talk) 18:24, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Yep, everyone says "chraffic", "chruck", "chree", etc. If you try to literally pronounce [tri], it's actually quite difficult. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 18:37, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Not everyone says "chraffic", etc.  I don't – and I've taken enough university-level phonetics courses to know the difference between how I actually pronounce things and how I think I pronounce things. Saying [tɹ̥i] without affrication – or at least without complete affrication all the way to [tʃɹi] – isn't actually hard at all, and saying [dɹaɪ] with no affrication is even easier since there's no voiceless approximant trying to become a fricative. +Angr 19:30, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I've never heard anyone say "chraffic", that I can think of; and certainly not "jrink". But I wonder what country the OP comes from, because he might be related our "t" to a sound he knows. It reminds me of the way a "th" sound is used in an Indian word. It doesn't sound exactly like "th" to me, the way they say it - yet with I say it my normal Engllish way, they think it sounds right, even though to me it doesn't. Go figure. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 22:01, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Where I typically hear the "t" become a "ch" is when it's followed by "y", specifically in something like "got you" being slurred into "gotcha", as it's normally spelled, although phonetically it could just about be represented as "gah-chuh". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 22:03, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree with Bugs here. Ain't nobody pronounces those sounds like a ch except in the example he gave. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 22:15, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

On the way home today, fittingly while stuck in rush hour, I vocalized "traffic", "chraffic" and "jraffic" a number of times, and remarkably they sound almost identical, and are made with similar positioning of the tongue. If you artificially put a vowel in front of the "r", they become distinctive again. However, to my ear it seemed more like the "ch" and "j" sounds were getting lost and they all sounded like "traffic". So, again, it would be interesting to know what the OP's language is, as maybe those sounds are more acute in his language, i.e. he hears them better than we Americans do. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 23:03, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with several people that this pronunciation is nothing like universal in American English. I don't think that it is my own pronunciation, though it's hard to be sure what my unselfconscious pronunciation would be! However, it is certainly a common variant. I think the variation is more idiosyncratic than regional, though I suspect that it may be especially common in Midland accents. Marco polo (talk) 23:57, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, transcriptions of any sort (even IPA) are just approximation, so to get more real let's have some sound samples. Here is myself pronouncing the words in the way that is natural for me, with the "ch"—so this is what I, and probably the OP, am referring to when I say I affricate them. The second sample is my attempt at pronouncing them /tr/ and /dr/, which for me is nearly impossible. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:38, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually, now I can get "drink" without affrication pretty well...but I don't feel like going to the trouble to make another recording. And "truck"/"tree" without affrication are still beyond me. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:44, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

It's not only so common in American English as to be unnoticeable, the same is true of British English pronunciation. It actually takes some effort for most Anglophones studying another language like Spanish to separate the "t" and "r" sounds in a word like "triste" or "contra". When one does it in most English accents, it just sounds rather artificial ("AR-ti-FI-see-ul" as vs "AHtuhFISHul") and affected. When an English or American child is learning to read aloud, he or she may in fact learn the common pronunciation of "tr" and "dr", just as he or she learns that "th" isn't pronounced "tuh-huh" or that "gh" in "through" is unpronounced. In the 16th Century the "-tion" at the end of many words (such as "Pronunciation") was not telescoped into "shun", but articulated as separate syllables. Similarly for the "d" and "r" in "drink"; an Anglophone has to learn how to separate the "d" and "r" sounds into a different diphthong in the Spanish or Greek pronunciations of "Andreas". ¶ However what may sound like "ch" today at the beginning of "traffic" sounds a bit different to my unschooled ears from the "ch" in "chaff", with my tongue starting and ending a little bit lower in "chaff" than in "traffic". But that could well vary among accents, mine being an amalgam of London, California and New England. ¶ Yet another, but rather distinct, issue, is the tendency of most Britons, Canadians and South Africans to pronounce "t" more sharply (and thus less similarly to "d") than Americans and many Australians do. In this American pronunciation is a little closer to Spanish, and British pronunciation a little further from it. —— Shakescene (talk) 04:01, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Indians really emphasize the "t" sound in words, especially at the end. I don't know if that is influence from England, South Africa, et al, or if it just comes naturally. That crossed my mind, along with the fact that Indians tend to trill the "r". So here's something I was just trying: If you trill that "r" in "traffic", as an Indian would, it's nearly impossible to say it as "chraffic", unless you've got a really talented tongue. The tendency in English to not trill the "r" nowadays (we used to do it a lot more, at least in acting and singing), maybe leads to that "chraffic" thing, and is also what led Ricardo Montalban to make a funny comment once on the Johnny Carson show. We have a sense of what Spanish sounds like. Johnny asked Ricardo what English sounds like to a native Spanish speaker. Ricardo said because of the rounded "r", English sounds like "barking dogs", as in "rowr-rowr-rowr" or whatever. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 04:33, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Indians pronounce t and d as retroflex [ʈ ɖ], under influence of Hindi and other local languages. — Emil J. 11:39, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Having written all that above, I realize that (for me at least), this kind of tch or dj pronunciation doesn't happen so often when the "t" or "d" comes at the end of a perceived word or part of a compound word, so I pronounce the t/d + r in "Cartwright" differently from that in "cartridge", "pet rock" differently from "Petrov", "heated rink" differently from "cola drink", and "Richard Rodgers" differently from "aerodrome". There's a grey area of compound words or phrases where I don't know how frequently I separate the sounds, such as in "cardroom" and "hot rod". Cockneys and some others who don't use Received Pronunciation are more likely, I think, to run the sounds between words together as in "Dontcha know?", but that's also becoming true, I think, of the classless amalgam called Estuary English (pron. "ESStchuhry Inglish"). But I'm no linguist and haven't been back to England for four decades. —— Shakescene (talk) 04:28, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

In the various examples you gave in the beginning of your message, the ones without affrication ("pet rock", "cartwright", etc.) are all words where there is a syllable boundary between the t/d and r. So, for example, the syllabification of "pet rock" is /pɛt.rɑk/ , whereas for "Petrov" it's /pɛ.trɑv/ . Phonological alternations (such as affrication) often do not happen across syllable boundaries. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 04:36, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

IPA request

I would like to add the pronunciation (International Phonetic Alphabet) of periodate to the article, but I can't figure out the symbols myself. Can anyone please help out? (It is pronounced like the words purr-eye-owe-date, not period-ate).ChemNerd (talk) 16:59, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Where is the stress? rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:38, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

If i'm understanding your description right, it might be {{IPA|/pɜri'joʊdət/}}. But without knowing where the stress is I'm not really sure. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:41, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

The stress is on the "eye". ChemNerd (talk) 17:43, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Then it's probably {{IPA|/pɜr'aɪjədɨt/}}. "purr-EYE-uh-dit". rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:51, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. ChemNerd (talk) 17:53, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Not so fast! My Random House Unabridged puts a schwa in the first syllable as well as the third, and agrees with the original poster (and me) that the ending sounds like "date" (which in IPA looks something like "de:t", I believe), not "dit". --Anonymous, 19:08 UTC, September 16, 2009.

dictionary.com has /pəˈraɪəˌdeɪt/. Because of the spelling, I suspect our in-house transcription would be /pəˈraɪɵˌdeɪt/. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:50, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I changed the first syllable to schwa in the article itself a long time ago, and have now changed the last syllable as well. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 20:55, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

This is some wording in a poster, I have a question on which is correct or the better to use

which is correct: Starts at Fort Washington, ends at Dana Park. or Starts at Fort Washington - ends at Dana Park. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.31.29.7 (talk) 19:05, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

The first one (with the comma) is better. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 19:09, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

It's a poster. Posters don't have to be punctuated like sentences in running text. Either one is fine, except that the second version should use a proper dash (em dash "—" or en dash "–", depending on your typographical style) and not a hyphen. --Anonymous, 19:11 UTC, September 16, 2009.

Though he is right that the comma looks better. It makes it a nice parallel construction, whereas the dash is, in my view, a little confusing. Nothin' wrong with some good punctuation... --98.217.14.211 (talk) 21:24, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

They're sentence fragments, so their punctuation is a matter of taste and need. If they were complete clauses with a subject, then I'd suggest a semi-colon or colon. A colon would still work, but I'd recommend against a semi-colon. You could also experiment with the dividing slashes (or virgules): / , | and \ . Of course, no law prevents you from using the word "and" or an ampersand ["&"] if either of them would fit your style, idiom and purpose better. —— Shakescene (talk) 04:16, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Or even bullet points. Posters aren't so much about normal grammar as about visual impact. I have seldom if ever seen posters with semicolons. Although, in the old-old days, posters and signs and newspaper headlines often had periods at the end. This [1] is a painting, but it's based on a photo from opening day at Comiskey Park, 1910: "COMISKEY PARK" as its title, and underneath, its function: "HOME OF THE WHITE SOX." with a period at the end. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 05:06, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Here's a photo: [2] Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 05:08, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

The period at the end of SOX is to balance the word against the longer word HOME. I have heard similar argument on balance by using IIII instead of IV on clock faces with Roman numerals, Cuddlyable3 (talk) 14:17, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Here's a semi-famous poster from the 19th century, whose words were worked into a song by the Beatles: [3] Note all the punctuation. I'm not saying to do your poster that way, these are just ideas. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 05:24, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I like the em dash better, myself, for a poster; from a distance, the em dash is a much clearer separator of the two clauses. Tempshill (talk) 05:07, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

September 17

Hell -Underworld

Hell different Underworld? I can't distinguish them--Lê (talk) 00:12, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Have you seen the articles Hell and Underworld? Anyway, 'underworld' is really the more generic term. But since 'hell' is the more common expression, its often used interchangably. 'Underworld' is neutral, but 'hell' has strong negative connotations (and is a curse in many languages including English). The etymological orgin, the Germanic/Norse Hel, wasn't originally negative though. --Pykk (talk) 00:29, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

They are both ancient ideas connected with the afterlife. The "Underworld" in Greek legend, for example, was everyone's destination, except the just went to its better neighborhood. "Hell" is now considered to be a place of eternal "punishment", the extent of which depends on who or what you believe. Some believe literally in eternal fire, which has got to hurt. Others believe it's simply eternal separation from God and hence eternal woe. As far as "Hell" being a curseword, it's relatively mild as cursewords go. For example, in the "Star Trek" episode, "The City on the Edge of Forever", at the end Kirk says, "Let's get the hell out of here", which was moderately strong for TV, but that was mid-1960s. 45 years later, that one's pretty common, but you still can't say most of George Carlin's "seven little words" on regular TV, for example. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 04:24, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

It's still more of a curse than Hel. Even today, Scandinavian "slå ihjel" ("beat to Hel" - to kill) remains a common neutral term. (so it's not quite 'kill', which is more negative) Whereas our curse "hell" is "helvede", which is really a formation of "hel" + "vede" (punishment). IOW: "The punishment in Hel". So the negative association there doesn't come from "Hel" itself. So English 'hell' is more christian-ized. --Pykk (talk) 16:52, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

As with Scandinavian, it depends how it's used. Just as a comment, like "get the hell out" or "what the hell" is pretty mild. Telling someone to "go to hell", is rather worse. I recall in the early 90s or so, some kid (under age 10) in Virginia or North Carolina or someplace, who was a self-styled "preacher". His young career came to an abrupt end when he told a reporter on-camera to "go to hell", and it got widespread coverage (and probably a mouthful of soap). Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 17:16, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

That wasn't the point. In any language, the strength of curses depends on context. The point was, their 'hel' is not a curse in any context, except for when compounded with something else that's negative. The fact that 'asshole' is a curse doesn't make 'hole' a curse. --Pykk (talk) 17:00, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

In the Judaism of the Old Testament period, there was an underworld, but not really a hell -- it was believed that souls went down to Sheol to lead a shadowy afterlife, but there originally wasn't any real notion of divine judgement or punishment (that came in later, probably at least partially under Persian influence). AnonMoos (talk) 04:54, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I would think the Revelation, with all its fiery imagery, was written well before any Persian influence came along. Or was it? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 04:59, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Not even close (remember, it's part of the New Testament). It was probably written during the first century AD, many centuries after Persia began to exert significant influence. See Book of Revelation#Dating. -Elmer Clark (talk) 05:15, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

As I recall from Sunday School, Jesus referred to what we typically call Hell as "Gehenna", which was an analogy to a real place that was essentially a dumping ground with fires burning perpetually to purge the trash. A pretty powerful image, extrapolated into the imagery connected with Revelation. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 05:19, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Really not sure what you mean -- the Persian period in the history of Judea was ca. 530 B.C. to ca. 332 B.C., while the Book of Revelation was written late in the 1st century A.D. By the way, the Persian (Achaemenid) empire is the only one of the many empires ruling over Jewish-populated territories (including the Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Macedonian, Ptolemaic, Seleucid, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, British etc.) which the Jews have an unequivocally positive historical memory of... AnonMoos (talk) 05:25, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

irrelevant and inappropriate personal religious rant removed

That would be the view that the Bible is essentially a random collection. The traditional Christian view is that the Bible a continuum and that it all ties together. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 14:09, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Note: My comment above was in response to a comment by User:Cuddlyable3 that, while written sarcastically, made the point that Jesus did not write Revelation. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 13:08, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Origin of phrase

What is the origin of the phrase "The only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys?" Did Benjamin Franklin say that or was it someone else? Does anyone know who? Keraunos (talk) 07:14, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Let's give you a hint: if you're R.B., then the adage you've cited is B.F.'s.

Now try to guess who's B.F.

HOOTmag (talk) 09:04, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

How is that in any way helpful? Vimescarrot (talk) 10:41, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't know, but this claims it's a paraphrase. Searching for Benjamin Franklin "the only difference" mostly gives matches to a speech on churches. In the absence of evidence that it actually is a Franklin quotation, I'd suspect it's the Matthew effect - false attribution to a famous source of quotations. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 12:27, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't really sound at all like either something Franklin would say, or how he would say it. You'd have to wonder if the idea it's a paraphrase is an attempt to reconcile the attribution to Franklin with the fact that it doesn't really sound like him? --Pykk (talk) 17:48, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

It is a paraphrase of "Old boys have their playthings as well as young ones; the difference is only in the price." from Poor Richard's Almanac. meltBanana 21:10, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Right, and "Poor Richard's Almanac" was written by B.F.

See my first response at the top of this thread.

HOOTmag (talk) 21:22, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Why so cryptic? And who is RB? Adam Bishop (talk) 01:01, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

The more cryptic the more romantic. R.B. is the OP's true name. I'll be glad to reveal it, provided he/she permits. HOOTmag (talk) 08:25, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

It's not a very good paraphrase, is it then? They're not really saying the same thing. --Pykk (talk) 16:55, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Stress in German Compound Words

My mother has a plant in her front garden called a Monarda. On the little plastic card with its name on it, it says 'Monarda' followed by a German name 'Schneewittchen' and the translation 'Snow White'. This got me thinking. In English, the phrase 'Snow White' is generally stressed on the second word, and when I pronounced the German out loud it only felt natural for me to stress the second syllable of 'Schneewittchen'. I'm now wondering what the correct place for the stress would be, as in German it is usually on the first syllable. How is it with compound words? --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 11:07, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

In a compound the main stress is usually put on the first word/element. (or perhaps I should say the second word is less stressed? - the overall stress pattern is the same.) If you stress both words as they'd be otherwise, it'd be interpreted as two separate words, which could have unintentional effects on meaning ("rothaarig" is "red-haired" but if you stress both words it becomes "rot, haarig" - "red, hairy" - not the description you wanted!) Sometimes the stress is moved to indicate contrast: Putting "employer" and "employee" together: "Arbeitgeber und Arbeitnehmer" moves the stress to the second word in both compounds. Sometimes it's just on the second word for no apparent reason: "Travemünde" --Pykk (talk) 17:42, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

In the original nursery tale, "Snow White and Rose Red", the stress in English speech is usually on White and Red (I think because you're contrasting White with Red, rather than Snow with Rose, especially to small children), but if one were to refer to a "snow-white gown", it's equally (if not more) likely that an English-speaker would stress "snow", emphasizing how white the gown is. And I think that personally (as a native English-speaker born in London but living in the U.S.) I probably put about equal stress on both Snow and White if I'm talking about Snow White alone, or about Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Native German speaker here, although not a linguist. I would say it depends which bit of the compound you want to emphasize. In the "Arbeitnehmer/Arbeitgeber" example stress on the second word is natural, since that distinguishes the two words, but "Arbeitgeber" could be pronounced with stress on the first syllable given the right context. I would put the stress on the second syllable of "Schneewittchen", just as in 'Snow White'.195.128.250.123 (talk) 22:21, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I thought so. It felt more natural to me that way, but I was wondering whether that was just my own language (English) influencing my German. And thanks to everyone else for your comments. Very interesting! --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 23:54, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, Schneewittchen is stressed on the second syllable, but what that shows is that it is not felt as a compound in German. A true compound, like Schneemännchen, would be stressed on the first syllable. Placenames usually take the non-compound stress even when they look like compounds, e.g. Salzgitter is stressed on the second syllable, but if it were a regular noun meaning "salt grid" it would be stressed on the first syllable. Interestingly, Norwegen (the German name of Norway) is stressed on the first syllable, as if it were still felt to be a compound. +Angr 07:51, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Right, that's what I was saying, the stress moves from the first word to the second when put together, for contrast. I'm not sure I'd say it's natural - they don't normally do that in Swedish and Norwegian. (So if you did, you'd seem to be over-emphasizing that word, as if correcting someone) --Pykk (talk) 16:46, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

When does a romanisation become a word?

I was recently involved in a dispute and someone tried to establish the wikt:shaku to be an English word instead of being an English romaji of Japanese. This led me wondering: what is the criteria for a romanisation to become a normal word? The people on Wiktionary seem to think it is an English word from the book citations but in this day and age of Google Books it's trivially easy to find any random word within published works. --antilived^{T | C | G} 20:28, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd say your safest bet would be to check whether a word is included in general-purpose English dictionaries by reputable publishers. Oxford English Dictionary is always a great starting point.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 21:00, September 17, 2009 (UTC)

My 1965 Merriam-Webster Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary lists "romanize", with its two meanings (making more like the Romans, and converting to the Roman alphabet used on this page), so it's safe to consider it a word, although not one used very frequently in places that have always used the Roman alphabet. Before China embarked on her National Romanisation Project, I think many people associated the word with Kemal Atatürk and the modernization of Turkey in the 1920's, which included romanizing (romanising) the written language. There's an occasional very specialised use for "romanise" in typographical contexts: i.e. changing the italic forms of letters to upright (or Roman) ones, or creating a Roman font to match an existing italic or Black Letter one. —— Shakescene (talk) 21:23, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I think he's asking when a specific borrowing becomes accepted as an English word, not about the word "romanization" in particular. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 21:35, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I see. That possible meaning was in the back of my head, but I didn't look closely enough at that little indefinite article, "a". Or I could have looked up the wikilink that antilived provided. :-) —— Shakescene (talk) 22:13, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

(actually, I added the "a" after your message :) ) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 03:24, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Yea my thoughts get a bit incoherent when I'm sleep-deprived. I really need to sleep earlier... --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:01, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

As User:Ezhiki suggested, the word shaku is in the Oxford English Dictionary (Volume XV, page 148). As for inclusion, lexicography, like linguistics, is primarily concerned with being descriptive rather than prescriptive. Putting personal like or dislike aside, it relies on actual citations in various texts to determine usage and meaning. For English shaku, the OED has citations from early 18th century on up to the modern. Bendono (talk) 09:32, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

OMG.. are you.. stalking me? :p That aside this is quite contrary to your strict policy of having article discussions (and more) on the talk page. --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:03, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

We are now straying from the purpose of the help desk, but since you asked I will respond. I have been contributing to the Help Desk for years, as can be verified from my contributions. Both Language and Computers are on my watch list, and I occasionally check Mathematics. Bendono (talk) 09:00, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

"Taking part in a nature trail"?

Please see [4]. Is "taking part in a nature trail" a Britishism, or did the author mean "taking part in a nature hike"? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 21:46, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

As a native speaker of American English, in all my years of conversation and schooling, I've never heard anything like that. "Trail" is a noun describing a specific, concrete object, so I don't see how you can take part in it. Normally only an activity like cooking, boating, creating, etc. can be used with "taking part."--71.111.194.50 (talk) 23:31, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm British. We tend not to say "hike" here. But, yes, a "nature trail" is a mere walk through some wooded territory, a forest that type of thing. Many preserved nature places have "trails" that are marked out for visitors to walk through so nobody gets lost. --bodnotbod (talk) 23:36, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

["Trail" is a noun describing a specific, concrete object,] - never heard of someone trailing behind someone else? I guess it comes from that, when you walk through woodland through a narrow path, if there's a number of you, you would have to walk in single-file... so one trails behind the other. As such you may see a signpost saying "NATURE TRAIL" at the head of a path. --bodnotbod (talk) 23:39, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I would say "going on a nature trail" (I'm British). "Hike" is usually used for more energetic walks than I would expect from a nature trail. When I was a scout we went on hikes, for example. They were long walks ("long" is relative to the ages of those taking part) often through difficult terrain. "Rambling" is similar to "hiking". --Tango (talk) 23:44, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

(ec)To clarify, in the UK a nature trail is "a walk through a (probably wooded area) with the express intention of admiring, studying, or experiencing nature - specifically natural (non-domesticated) plants and animals" , it can also mean " a path set out with the intention of doing the above".

In the UK I'm not aware of a "nature hike" being in use.

So it's probably a britishism.83.100.251.196 (talk) 23:47, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

To me, a trail is a path on the ground, not an activity. Taking part in a nature trail sounds like he's lying on the ground and people are walking on him. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 01:28, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

So is it really true that nature trail is an activity in British English? Does the following sentence sound right in British English?

"As part of their ecology course, the students engaged in a nature trail."

In American English, that would be very wrong. It would have to be "...engaged in a nature walk" or "..made observations along a nature trail". I would be interested and surprised to hear that you can engage in a nature trail in British English. Marco polo (talk) 15:39, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

"Went on" or "took part in" (as per the OP) would be more natural than "engaged in", but all three are acceptable BrE. Tevildo (talk) 16:26, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Does this help :

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=%22went+on+a+nature+trail%22&btnG=Search&meta=

also http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=%22took+part+in+a+nature+trail%22&btnG=Search&meta= this would be standard usage.83.100.251.196 (talk) 17:01, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

It's an activity AND a type of path/walk. (verb/noun)83.100.251.196 (talk) 17:03, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Maybe it is just a deliberate misuse of language for its attention-getting qualities? Bus stop (talk) 17:10, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

And maybe it's not. Maybe it's just a dialect difference. Malcolm XIV (talk) 17:53, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, 83.100. I did a couple more searches and satisfied myself that a trail is, indeed, an activity for speakers of British English. For Americans it is no more than a footpath. This is yet another of those trans-Atlantic differences. Marco polo (talk) 17:28, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes we also have "history trails" too (google for examples) It is probable that the use as a noun is confined mostly to tourism and educational activities, specifically in promotional material (though it has caught on and been accepted) and I think may be a comparatively recent use of the word. Curiously I always assumed the usage was influenced by or inherited from a transatlantic term...83.100.251.196 (talk) 18:55, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

In the US, a history trail would be a visit to several different historical sites in a row. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 04:25, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

September 18

I lost my grandmother's dictionary

Before I ever learned pronunciation in school, I learned pronunciation from a Winston Dictionary from the 1940s.

There was no schwa. The letters A, E, O and U each had one or two sounds differentiated by symbols on top that were simply called schwa when I first learned pronunciation in school.

There were also two different versions of o in dog. One was used in the words cord and law. That much I remember. So why is that not the o in dog? Both sounds had a pointy hat on top but one o (in dog) was italicized, and in my textbooks, the one sound had a dot.

Since my father moved out of the house I live in ten years ago, I haven't been able to find the dictionary. He might have taken it with him. When the house he lived in was being cleaned out after his death nine years ago, I didn't see it.

Does anyone know where I might find pronunciations that specific? Wikipedia seems to used the more simplified sounds I learned in school.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:11, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Pronunciations all depend on what accent you use. In my accent (Received Pronunciation) the o's in "cord" and "dog" are very similar, but not quite the same. I think the o is "dog" is more rounded. Wikipedia uses IPA, which is very specific, although the very precise notation isn't always used - see Phonetic transcription#Narrow versus broad transcription. --Tango (talk) 20:41, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

a manor in Central Park

Hello, I am making a painting of a manor in Central Park and I would like to write on it the following text: " in the heart of Central Park a manor is for rent for XXX a day or weekly". Would you please tell me if this text is correct in english language? I must say I am french. The sense of the text that I would like to write is that in the park is a manor that would be rented for a certain price for a day or for a week. Thank you. Francis Martin

"In the heart of Central Park is a manor which can be rented for XXX a day" would be the most natural way of putting it. Tevildo (talk) 21:54, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

To add the "weekly" part, I'd say, "In the heart of Central Park is a manor which can be rented for $20.00 per day, or $100.00 weekly." The text would change a little if the intent is that the person writing that text is the owner or an advertiser of the place. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:10, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. Francis Martin

Not sher

Is Sherpa a title or a name (e.g. Apa Sherpa, Babu Chiri Sherpa)? Clarityfiend (talk) 22:58, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I think it can be either. For the people you identify, it seems to be their name. For others, it's a "title" of sorts, but it really just refers to their ethnicity, in the same sense as "the Gurkha <name>" or "the Spaniard Pablo Picasso". It's also synonymous for "guide" when referring to a guide who happens to be of Sherpa origin. When I was a kid, I was taught that the person who accompanied Hillary to Everest was "Sherpa Tensing", i.e. I thought his given name was Sherpa and his surname was Tensing. I now know that Tenzing was his given name, his surname was Norgay, and "Sherpa" was a patronistic title. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:16, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

The article says "Sherpa" comes from two words meaning "east people", and has come to stand for the mountain guides. It definitely suggests a title held in high esteem. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 00:14, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm interested only in the instances where it's attached to somebody's name. My suspicion is that it's a title bestowed on outstanding mountaineers (here Norgay is referred to as Tenzing Norgay Sherpa), but I can't find anything to back that up. Clarityfiend (talk) 10:33, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

It was originally a term for an ethnic group who were good at climbing mountains and subsisting at high elevations, and has evolved into a title of honor. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 11:26, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

September 19

Standards

Ok, here's the thing. We have come to expect high standards in all things:

• customer service - a restaurant that is untidy or unclean will fail; a waiter who provides bad service to a customer will be reported, disciplined, or even sacked; a sales assistant who does not know the products they're trying to sell will not achieve their sales targets, or sell the wrong things, resulting in customer complaints
• work performance - an employee who fails to meet standards will suffer a similar fate
• construction - buildings are expected to be properly constructed, safe, habitable, professionally finished etc; a brick wall that has thousands of red bricks but a few stray white ones - or a wall that has sloppy cementing - would be regarded as sub-standard
• entertainment – a singer who consistently sings off key or forgets their words is destined for the scrapheap; a comedian who fails to make people laugh very much will not get gigs
• sport – a player who consistently loses will not advance in their career
• and the list goes on ad infinitum.

But when it comes to written English, there’s a definite trend in the opposite direction. Of recent years, there's been a burgeoning of material about style, grammar, punctuation, spelling and so on – but it mainly seems to be preaching to the converted. All the while, people are coming up through the "education system" without being told about nouns, verbs, adjectives and the rest, and the results speak for themselves. This is analagous to an electrician who knows nothing about volts, amps, resistance, or the risks of electrocution. People are not being held to the sorts of standards that were once taken for granted with English; further, they seem to be encouraged to write any way they like, as long as their intended meaning gets through. It's generally considered ill-mannered to correct anything anymore. That seems to also apply to teachers. I cite as evidence the fact that, with a few notable exceptions, most questions we receive on the Ref Desk contain egregious spelling, grammar and punctuation errors. I acknowledge that our questioners do not all come from English-speaking backgrounds, but my observations still appy to the ones who do.

So, to my question: Why have standards in most areas of life risen noticeably, while those in the area of the language we all use have dropped so markedly? Can anything be done about this, and does anyone in a position to do something about it care enough to change it? -- JackofOz (talk) 00:05, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Jack, my answer would be that, with the possible exception of entertainment (including sports), standards have not in fact risen in the past 40 or 50 years. They've been on a plateau at best. If anything, customer service has deteriorated. The bottom line is the bottom line. The only thing that matters any more to the corporate chiefs who rule our world is profit. In other areas of life, I think we are succumbing to cultural decadence and creeping barbarism. Obviously this is my POV. Marco polo (talk) 01:02, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Alternatively, the standards of English usage are no worse than they ever were, among people who are not professional editors. But now that the Internet exists, a great deal more of the writing that you see is not professionally edited. (Even print publications in some cases are less well edited than they used to be, because Internet competition has cut into their profitability.) Wikipedia, of course, is a proud to be a major part of the problem. --Anonymous, 02:06 UTC, September 19, 2009.

I don't agree. Before the emergence of the Internet, ordinary people used to write each other letters. As I recall, 30–40 years ago nearly everyone made an effort to conform to standards for spelling, grammar, and punctuation, even if less educated people did not always succeed in conforming to those standards. I think Jack is talking about a growing indifference to or willful disregard for standards, at least in written English. This disregard, I think, is something relatively new. I don't think this is entirely due to the Internet, though chat rooms have contributed to it. I think that the root cause is a mix of anti-intellectualism and the rejection of certain kinds of discipline. Marco polo (talk) 03:10, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

It is possibly not accurate to say that standards among non-professionals are no worse than they've been previously. The reason for this (i.e. the reason why standards may in fact have been higher in the future) is that since the 1970s, the study of language has leaned against prescriptivism. That means, at least in the United States and probably most English speaking countries, those in authority -- scholars and teachers -- are less willing to impose the same strict standards as they were before, when children were chastised publicly for "poor" grammar. This is also true in literature and poetry -- students are taught to use their "authentic" voice, regardless of whether they are following the "standard." My perception, with a certain amount of experience/exposure to back it up, is that things are somewhat--but not completely--different in countries such as France or China. France is certainly proud of its strict tradition in matters linguistic and surely likes to maintain them. In China (much of the reason being that Mandarin is not most peoples' mother tongue hence it has to be learned exogenously at school), a high emphasis is placed on using language according to the standard. Ordinary Chinese (Han) who want to be teachers have to take proficiency certification in Mandarin (even when they've spoken it fluently since the age of 7 or so), and there is extremely rigorous supervision of television and radio journalists to ensure they have a "standard" accent, and non-standard accents (for broadcasters) are very much frowned on.

I think Marco Polo has hit on something central to the answer to your question -- in the past (e.g. early 20th century), in the United States at least -- people of all levels of education had a strong awareness of "the standard" and believed that they were obligated to follow it as much as possible, even relatively minor things like personal letters.--71.111.194.50 (talk) 03:14, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

JackofOz, what you call "standards" other people call prescriptivism. Just because people aren't using the grammar you and I learned in outdated schoolbooks doesn't mean that their language is "worse"; it's just different. Keep in mind that French (one of the most staunchly defended languages today) was originally nothing more than "bad Latin", and lovely proper BBC English likewise used to be just a vulgar tongue. Languages don't get better or worse, they just change with use.

And, on a side note, it's quite silly to think that we can "change" the language of millions of people through nothing but a quick round-table discussion in a dark corner of the Internet. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 03:31, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Marco Polo hit a chord: "growing indifference to or willful disregard for standards" - to which I would add ignorance of standards. It's one thing to spurn standards and speak with one's own authentic voice, and that may have a certain merit; but it's quite another not to know what the standards one is spurning are in the first place. That's where the education system comes in. There's a great tension between prescriptivism and descriptivism, and both certainly have their role to play. But we cannot do without the teaching of fundamentals, and if that comes under the heading of prescriptivism, so be it. A person who wants to build a new type of machine must first know how existing machines are built. I realise that people acquire their language skills and habits from many sources other than dry academic tomes. But those books are still the basis of style guides and the like. Yes, they need to be regularly updated as the language changes, certain forms of expression become outdated, and new ones come into vogue. I'm not at all arguing against language change, because that would really be silly. But we see, for example, words ending in -ant often spelled as -ent, and vice-versa. These are still considered errors; no dictionary worth its salt would acknowledge "precedant" as a word, or even as a legitimate alternative spelling of "precedent". So what! - you might say. If the meaning is clear, what difference does it make how a word is spelled? - you might ask. To which I would ask, why bother having dictionaries and grammar books at all? -- JackofOz (talk) 06:18, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

No evidence is presented above to back up the assertion that standards of writing English have fallen. If the evidence is that a given set of discrete solecisms have become more commonplace, yes of course one can come up with such a set. One always could. Languages change; the contributory changes routinely infuriate those who aren't at the forefront of those changes.

As for spelling, I can't manage to work up even a microtizzy over the misspelling "precedant". It's a very understandable misspelling and I'd be surprised if it weren't common, either now or fifty years ago.

Most people's writing skills are mediocre. Nothing new here, as you'll see if you examine what's written on the back of decades-old postcards in junk stores. What's new is that subjects of particular interest to you are written up on this website (and elsewhere) by anyone, whereas decades ago writing on those subjects would have reached you via a set of filters -- higher education, professional copyeditors and proofreaders, and so forth.

[W]hy bother having dictionaries and grammar books at all? I do have an E-E dictionary, because it came as a package with the bilingual dictionaries that were my reason for buying an electronic gadget. I very rarely use the E-E dictionary, and certainly never for spelling. The grammar book is different: I have CGEL because I'm intrigued by certain apparent oddities in English and am curious about the patterns underlying them. But perhaps you're asking why schoolkids should have dictionaries and grammar books. On the former, I've no opinion. I've no reason to think that grammar books would be of any interest or use to them, unless those grammar books were conceived very differently from the soporific prescriptivist guides for the linguistically (and socially?) insecure. And may the gods protect both children and adults from such charlatans as "Strunk and White". -- Hoary (talk) 10:07, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

The average citizen is not all that good with spelling and usage, nor does the average citizen think spelling and usage are particularly important. The internet is used by the average citizen. Need I say more? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 10:13, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, I could say a lot more, because you've hit exactly the point I'm wanting clarity about. When a guy buys a car, he wants it free from mechanical faults, with the duco gleaming brilliantly and without any imperfections. When we order a meal at a restaurant, we want it properly cooked, beautifully presented, and tasting great. When we pay good money to go the movies, we're upset when it turns out to involve less than good acting, or has a crap story, or whatever. We care about these things, and so many other things. They matter to us. We expect high standards. So why do so many people not care about the language they use all day, every day? My experience, for what it's worth, is that they used to care more than they do these days, mainly because they were taught the basics, and were taught they were important things to know; just as important as how many horsepower a certain car has, or how many goals some football team kicked in 1997, or where the fish are biting tomorrow. They may have never particularly cared, but they could not avoid knowing, because it was more or less drummed into them. Nowadays, it's not. The message from above is: it doesn't matter all that much, so just more or less make it up as you go along. Who decided it no longer matters, and how did they arrive at that conclusion? And why do many linguists, who do care about language, defend this system where many people who've gone through 12 years of school still need to do remedial English classes before being allowed to enter university? (Because that's the reality of what happens these days, and it's a relatively recent thing.) -- JackofOz (talk) 11:15, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

They don't care because they don't think it's important. A car free of mechanical faults is important. Writing "are" instead of "our", for example, they not only don't think is important, they'll criticize someone who criticizes it. Maybe it's just a passive-aggressive type of rebellion. I don't know. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 11:24, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Wrestling Fora

What is caw?

What is t2?174.3.110.93 (talk) 01:17, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I think CAW means "Create A Wrestler" and refers to computer games where you can create a custom character.83.100.251.196 (talk) 01:35, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Possibly "I thought t2" means "I thought that too" but I'm not sure.83.100.251.196 (talk) 01:37, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Assassination

Comparing the two versions here, which is more appropriate to say? I wouldn't think it makes sense to say that somebody died after being assassinated - they died because they were assassinated. I don't really know! Grsz¹¹ 03:48, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, the second version is better. Once you're assassinated, you're already dead. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 03:58, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

If we said somebody was assasinated and then died, we would say Reagan was assassinated but didn't die, and that doesn't happen. Grsz¹¹ 04:02, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Letters of marque

Would I be issued "a letter of marque" or "(a) letters of marque"? I thought it was the latter—that "letters of marque" referred to one or many—on analogy with letters patent (which I may also be wrong about). Our article seems to indicate I am incorrect. ÷seresin 04:10, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Must resist temptation... I've always heard/read 'letter of marque' when talking about one document. For what it's worth, the entry in my Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea has it as singular, and one of Patrick O'Brian's books was entitled The Letter of Marque, which I suppose would have been changed if it had been wrong. AlexiusHoratius 04:40, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

The expression in Article One of the United States Constitution is "letters of marque and reprisal", which suggests plural usage in that context - that is, Congress wouldn't be restricted to issue just one such letter. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 09:00, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Ç

Are there any languages which have both the letter “ç” and the sound [ç]? --88.76.254.9 (talk) 06:20, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, French has the letter "ç" and colloquial French often puts a [ç] sound at the ends of words ending in /i/ (e.g. oui as [wiç]. Or did you mean, are there any languages where the letter "ç" stands for the sound [ç]? I don't know of any languages where it does. +Angr 08:58, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

It occurs to me Manx has both the letter "ç" and the sound [ç] as a full-fledged phoneme (unlike French), but <ç> is not the letter that corresponds to /ç/. <ç> is used only in the digraph <çh>, which stands for /tʃ/, while /ç/ is spelled <ch> or <gh>. +Angr 10:00, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Unusual palatalized consonants

Are there any languages which have the sound [hʲ]? --88.76.254.9 (talk) 09:32, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

There are dialects of Irish that have been analyzed as having it, but it isn't clear to me that it's really phonetically distinct from [h] in some environments and from [ç] in others (and both /h/ and /ç/ are definitely phonemes of Irish). Put another way, Irish might have /hʲ/ as a phoneme distinct from /h/ and /ç/, but if so, its surface realizations seem to always overlap with those of /h/ and /ç/. +Angr 09:57, 19 September 2009 (UTC)