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Frequently asked questions

Please check the FAQs page to read answers to common grammatical questions.

I'm actually trying to compare the featured article pages between the different language wikipedias (see Wikipedia:Featured articles in other languages). Could you please translate the pages names of the different FAs?

Arabic: مقالات مختارة
Dutch: Etalage
French: Articles de qualité
German: Exzellente Artikel
Italian: Articoli in vetrina
Portuguese: Os melhores artigos
Spanish: Artículos destacados
Tamil: சிறப்புக் கட்டுரைகள்

I've only been able to translate the Arabic name (Chosen articles) and the French (Quality articles). Thank you. CG 08:09, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

The German name is "Excellent articles" (Artikel can be both singular and plural), and I think the Portuguese one is "The best articles", but my knowledge of Portuguese only stems from similarity with other Romance languages which I know better, so don't take my word on that. By the way, the Swedish equivalent is Utvalda artiklar, which means "Chosen articles". 130.238.5.5 08:47, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, the Portuguese is "Our best articles". Circeus 19:11, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

Hello, Cedar guardian. First of all, 'Etalage' means 'Window' in Dutch. 'Articles de qualité,' I guess that you can guess that that means 'articles of quality.' German has already been mentioned; Italian's 'articoli in vetrina' is 'Articles in the window.' 130.238 is right about the Portuguese. The Spanish is 'outstanding articles.' Now, that leaves only Tamil. IINAG 10:04, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Might be worth looking at Wikipedia:Babel for an active Tamil-speaking user and asking them. Shimgray 15:13, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The Italian is also equivalent to "articles in the window" (as in a display window on a store, presumably). And yes, you have the Portuguese right. -- Jmabel | Talk
The Dutch etalage is only used for a shop window, not for all windows (a window is een venster, like French fenêtre and Latin fenestra). Babelfish is a bit too simple for this (the French word etalage gets translated as display). Figuratively, it is used for something that is put on display, something that is highlighted. Fram 11:43, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The Dutch word etalage (or the Flemish synonym uitstalraam) can be translated as display window. JoJan 16:12, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
"display" would probably not be an incorrect translation of "étalage" (which takes an accent BTW). It refers to any display of merchandises offered for sale. The word also cover the place (either a window, table, shelf etc.) where it is done (which is the meaning borrowed by Dutch AFAICT) and the action of doing so. The Spanish is "Notable articles" Circeus 19:11, September 4, 2005 (UTC)
In fact, "Os Melhores Artigos" (Portuguese) would mean "The Best Articles". In Spanish, "Articulos Destacados" would mean something like "Articles in the spotlight". This is all I can say to help. Milena 19:58, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

Questions from my students

I teach English in Japan. Every once in a while, my students ask me a question which I simply don't have an answer for… Do you know?

  1. We don't "ride an airplane from X to Y," we "fly from X to Y." But what if we took a boat? "Ride a boat" sounds just as "off" to me as "ride an airplane"… I thought maybe "sailed from X to Y," but that doesn't sound quite right for all forms of boating. Does a cruise ship or a motorboat "sail?"
  2. If you have both sons-in-law and daughters-in-law, what is the proper way to refer to them collectively? "Children-in-law?" That sounds iffy to me.

I know that, like most things in English, the answers to these might be subjective, but that's okay; I still welcome any input you may have. Thanks. Garrett Albright 15:06, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, one more from me that I just thought of… We pluralize "son-in-law" by saying "sons-in-law," but how would we make it possessive? "Son-in-law's X" sounds right to me, but would it actually be "son's-in-law X"? Garrett Albright 15:21, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think you got it right when you said "took a boat", but "take" implies a scheduled service (you wouldn't use it to refer to your own boat), and most scheduled boat services are ferries, so "take a ferry" is the more usual expression. "Ride", on the other hand, has connotations of doing it for pleasure, or for its own sake, as in "going for a boat ride, cycle ride, etc." Unfortunately, English does not have a word for everything, and "children-in-law" is not in the OED. It's meaning is clear, however, so I can't imagine anyone objecting to it. Shantavira 17:23, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Garrett: No, it would definitely be "son-in-law's"; the hyphens effectively make this one word. Shantavira 17:25, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
1. Boats: "How about a ride in my motorboat" or "we rode the ferryboat" would be fine but ride sounds wrong when referring to a boat after it becomes a ship. "We sailed on the QEII" or "we a cruised on the Disney Magic" is appropriate after the boat becomes a ship. Defining that transition is of course subjective (when does a pond become a lake?). You can of course sail on a sailboat of any size. All of this is my subjective opinion. ;-)
2. In-laws: First the easy one, just think of son-in-law as one word so the possessive would be son-in-law's as in this is my son-in-law's wife boat. As for a collective for the kids-in-law anything as such would seem contrived unless they are kids. For the adults the simplest thing would be to not concoct a collective at all and just say: "These fine folks are my daughter(s)-in-law and my son(s)-in-law. hydnjo talk 17:43, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Re the possessive, you don't need to think of son-in-law as a single word, because English puts 's at the end of the whole noun phrase, not just the end of the word. Eg we can talk about, say, the various queens of Europe (many queens, one Europe); but we'd talk about the queen of England's castle (the castle belonging to (the queen of England) ). Likewise, your several sons-in-law (many sons, one law, if it helps to think of it that way) but your son-in-law's children (the children of (your son-in-law) ). --Zeborah 23:38, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It's appropriate to say "we boated from x to y". Superm401 | Talk 00:52, August 29, 2005 (UTC)
Unless we did it on a raft. ;-) hydnjo talk 01:31, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I would say sons- and daughters-in-law over any other construction, despite potental confusion with sons and daughters-in-law without appropriate context. I agree that referring to them as children is undesirable when there's another option (afterall, it's not like you raised them so they don't have to put up with being called kids like yours do), especially an option that avoids an awkward, made-up word. I agree that son-in-law's is the right possessive, which leads to entertaining things like my sons-in-law's cars.
I also think that took a boat is best for any situation when you're describing going from point A to point B, but inappropriate for describing a pleasure trip from A out around a bit and back to A. Rode a boat is acceptable but not optimal. Sail a boat feels good for any sailboat trip or pleasure cruise, but wrong for non-sail-powered, businesslike transportation from A to B. — Laura Scudder | Talk 07:15, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • It might feel wrong, but "sailed" is the generic term for a vessel of any size. For example, "The Queen Mary sailed from Southampton". President Bush honored the veterans who sailed with Nimitz. Just do a google search for any ship name followed by "sailed" and you'll get hits. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 21:35, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Amazing that this comes up in an ESL class, I commend you and your students. I'm not sure that these subtleties would even come up in an EFL class. Good for you and your students. They do ask some questions at the margins which means that they are paying attention. I'm glad that you're having fun. hydnjo talk 03:58, 3 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Looking for a meaning for word

Tian Tian

Could you be more specific? In what context does this occur? If it's supposed to be Chinese, it could mean many things, depending on how it's originally written. One possibility is Tian, but there are many others. Also, Tyan is an electronics company; they make motherboards and stuff like that. --MarkSweep✍ 03:39, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Googling "tian tian means" indicates it's "more and more". Shantavira 17:36, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"Tian Tian" as a name (or adjective) can mean "Sweetie" or "very sweet" in Mandarin; it is also the Chinese name for Brittney Spears. Also, as an adverb it can mean "every day". ~ Dpr 07:20, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Could you translate more titles of FA pages in other language:

Czech: Nejlepší články
Greek: Επιλεγμένα άρθρα
Esperanto: Elstaraj artikoloj
Finnish: Suositellut sivut
Hebrew: מאמרים מומלצים
Indonesian: Artikel Pilihan
Icelandic: Úrvalsgreinar
Interlingua: Articulos del septimana
Japanese: 秀逸な記事
Norwegian: Utmerkede artikler
Polish: Artykuły na medal
Romanian: Articole de calitate
Slovak: Najlepšie články
Slovenian: Izbrani članki
Serbian: Сјајни текстови
Swedish: Utvalda artiklar
Tamil: சிறப்புக் கட்டுரைகள்
Thai: บทความคัดสรร
Tagalog: Mga napiling artikulo
Vietnamese: Bài viết chọn lọc
Chinese: 特色条目

All these pages were taken from the interlanguages links in the WP:FA page. Could you just check if they really point to the right page? Thank you.
And one more questions (sorry guys :)), the translation of the French Articles de qualité is Quality articles or Articles of quality, or it's the same? CG 16:44, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

  • Hello again, CG. The Czech (and the Slovak) is probably best translated as 'Select contributions.' I do not speak Esperanto, but I guess it would translate as 'star articles.' The Finnish seems to be 'recommended articles' (although I swear that I have seen the word 'sivut' used for 'skirt.') The Indonesian is 'choice articles.' The Icelandic is like 'top-drawer exhibitions.' The Norwegian is 'super articles', and Swedish is similar. The Romanian is 'articles of quality.' The Polish: 'medal articles?' The Japanese is like 'formidable/outstanding articles.' The Slovenian is 'Select contributions' too. Finally, out of the ones that I can do, the Interlingua is 'articles of the week.'
PS. Articles de qualité can be translated as either quality articles or articles of quality. There is no differentiation between the two, as far as I know.IINAG 10:08, August 30, 2005 (UTC)
The Tamil translation is correct. The link is ta:விக்கிபீடியா:சிறப்புக் கட்டுரைகள். -- Sundar \talk \contribs 10:16, August 30, 2005 (UTC)
And that translation would be? I don't see it anywhere, sorry. - Taxman Talk 15:29, August 30, 2005 (UTC)
My mistake. I didn't read the question properly. It means "special articles/essays". -- Sundar \talk \contribs 18:43, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you all for you help. Just one question: from where are you getting the translation? Is it from your knowledge of the language? Or from your knowledge of a similiar language? Or by using a translation software? Please could you specify because there is some conflicts. For example, The swedish Utvalda artiklar is translated as "Chosen articles" by a user and "super articles" by another one. Which one is right? CG 08:53, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

I'm a native Tamil speaker, so you can trust my translation. ;) -- Sundar \talk \contribs 09:49, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

Poems, lyrics and songs

What's the difference between a poem, a lyric and a song OR what's the difference between a poet, lyricist and songwriter ? I understand that lyrics and songs are meant to be sung. Can a poem be written with the same purpose ? Jay 18:37, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • A song is words plus music. The lyrics are the words. Sometimes lyrics are poems. Sometimes not. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 21:29, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Isn't it technically true that the correct word is "lyric"? A "lyric" is all the words of a song, correct? Zoe 22:06, August 30, 2005 (UTC)
      • All the words of a song can be correctly referred to either as "the lyric" or as "the lyrics" - at least, so Merriam-Webster's 11th says. I think the plural form is slightly more common. - Nunh-huh 22:17, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • Oh, sure, it's most common, I didn't realize that both were correct. Zoe 22:50, August 30, 2005 (UTC)
          • It may be one of those niceties that's disappeared through misuse and therefore become acceptable. I'm saving my powder for "hopefully".... :) - Nunh-huh 22:55, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
            • How about "I could care less"? Zoe 04:57, September 1, 2005 (UTC)
  • Would music here include the tune ? If a song is sung to a tune but with no accompanying music, would it still be a song ? How does this compare to a poem that is recited ? Aren't most poem recitations done in a singsong way ? Jay 17:36, 1 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • A tune is music; singing is applying music (a tune) to something. Whether the music is with voice or instruments doesn't matter, it's still music. So, if it's sung, it's automatically musical. As for poetry recitations-- I dare say that it's sad but true that many recitations are done in a nearly singsong way, but a well-read poem usually sounds like natural language. Poets and lyricists do very similar things, although a lyricist might be more likely to write words to fit an existing tune or with the intention of having a tune put to them. I always think of a songwriter as one who writes both words and music, but Encarta defines lyricist as "1. songwriter: a writer of words for songs, especially popular songs, 2. lyric poet: a writer of lyric poems". Elf | Talk 21:46, 1 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Building height in Amercian English

Reading the Effect of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans article, I've seen a few instances of residents being advised to go the second story of their building. I changed the first instance to storey, but I've since seen several more occurences of this. Storey is the correct spelling in British English for floors of a building, story without the 'e' is correct for other uses (e.g., in the context of a novel). Is this distinction made in American English or is story used in both contexts? Thryduulf 10:23, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I can't speak for Americans, but I am pretty sure that "storey" is the correct spelling in this case. Ground Zero | t 13:36, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think you have made an error in construicting your search. I belive that "story" is the normal U.S. spelling for this term. The following online dictionary citations seem to support this:

Main Entry: 3story
Variant(s): also sto·rey /'stOr-E, 'stor-E/
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural stories also storeys
1 a : the space in a building between two adjacent floor levels or between a floor and the roof b : a set of rooms in such a space c : a unit of measure equal to the height of the story of a building one story high
(Storey goes to this same entry)
sto·ry2
n. pl. sto·ries
A complete horizontal division of a building, constituting the area between two adjacent levels. The set of rooms on the same level of a building.
sto·rey
n. Chiefly British
Variant of story2.
sto·ry2
n. pl. sto·ries
A complete horizontal division of a building, constituting the area between two adjacent levels.
The set of rooms on the same level of a building.
sto·rey
n. Chiefly British
Variant of story2.
story (LEVEL)
noun: US FOR storey
story2 one horizontal division of a building; floor.
Story (Page: 1420)
Sto"ry (?), n.; pl. Stories (#). A set of rooms on the same floor or level; a floor, or the space between two floors. Also, a horizontal division of a building's exterior considered architecturally, which need not correspond exactly with the stories within. (Written also storey. )
story2
NOUN: Inflected forms: pl. sto·ries
1. A complete horizontal division of a building, constituting the area between two adjacent levels. 2. The set of rooms on the same level of a building.
storey. Chiefly British Variant of story2
storey
(N. Amer. also story)
noun (pl. storeys or stories) a part of a building comprising all the rooms that are on the same level.

I hope that is sufficient evidence. DES (talk) 14:29, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I consider myself a rather well-read American, and I've only ever encountered storey in British writing, never in American. — Laura Scudder | Talk 15:01, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Laura is absolutely right; "storey" is never used in American writing.--Pharos 16:17, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I almost "fixed" story to storey in a Wikipedia article but thought to look it up before saving it and was astonished to learn that "story" is the normal U.S. spelling—and further, that both forms come from the same root and that the spelling difference appears to have had an arbitrary origin. Amazing what you learn when you try to write for an encylcopedia. Sharkford 04:49, 4 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

And

I need some help here. The following sentence feels and sounds wrong to me, but I am unable to explain why:

Joliette was a federal electoral district represented in the Canadian House of Commons, and located in Quebec.

"Was" is doing double duty here: it is the predicate of the main clause of the sentence, and part of the compound past formation of "to locate". Why can we not do this? Thanks. Ground Zero | t 13:36, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I see nothing wrong with this, although I think it would read better as "Joliette was a federal electoral district represented in the Canadian House of Commons. It was located in Quebec." DES (talk) 13:46, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Do not fear the semicolon - "Joliette was a federal electoral district located in Quebec; it was represented in the Canadian House of Commons". Proto t c 14:00, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be tempted by: "Joilette was a federal electoral district in Quebec that was represented in the Canadian House of Commons", or (and this one might not be correct) "Joilette was a Quebecoise federal electora district (that was) represented...". Thryduulf 14:06, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
In my opinion, it's awkward because it's cramming two unrelated ideas into one sentence, which is tricky to do smoothly. I think it could be done better with parenthetical commas: "Joliette, located in Quebec, was a federal electoral district represented in the Canadian House of Commons." My toonie. Garrett Albright 17:51, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the comma shouldn't be there; in this position it either signals that the "and" represents a third item in a list or that the text after the comma is a self-contained phrase (argh, missing my vocabulary for this--a sentence within a sentence) but there's a verb missing--so it's not clear whether the "located in quebec" belongs to the "was" verb or to the "represented" verb, which makes one stumble as one sorts it out; in this case, it just happens to mean the same thing logically either way, but it's not the best phrasing. Elf | Talk 22:01, 1 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I'd go with Proto's suggestion, except that I'd also remove the word "located" which seems redundant. Loganberry (Talk) 03:18, 2 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The biggest problem with this sentence is that the words "a federal electoral district" and "represented in the Canadian House of Commons" are saying the same thing twice. Go with one or the other. I like "Joliette was a Canadian federal electoral district, located in Quebec"; deleting "located" wouldn't hurt, but I think it reads better with it. -- Anonymous, 00:28 UTC, September 7, 2005

Word generator

Is there any sort of program to generate meaningless words according to an existing language's syllable rules? I tried making my own (using what I know of Finnish syllable rules), but the resulting words look much too silly, I can't imagine them being any Finnish words, even if meaningless. — JIP | Talk 16:58, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I wrote something that vaguely fits the bill a number of years ago, based on an idea in ... Scientific American, maybe? The program takes as input an integer (k) and a (large?) block of text. Then it analyzes the text and records the number of times that each sequence of k letters occurs. Lastly, it creates a new, arbitrarily long output text probabilistically, using the frequencies it got from its analysis. Essentially, it repeatedly does the following: look at the last k-1 characters output, and consider all possible sequences of k characters that begin with those k-1 characters. Choose the next character randomly, according to how common each of the sequences of k characters is. Toss in a few special cases to deal with the beginning and end of the text, and you have an interesting random-text generator. If k is 1, then you get random sequences of letters, with letter frequencies the same as in the input text. If k is 2 or 3 you get things that look vaguely like words, which is probably what you want. When k gets up around 6, you get mostly real words (with some long non-words) thrown together in interesting, semi-comprehensible order. By the way, the program is long gone, so I can't give it to you. — Nowhither 17:38, 1 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Have a look for text generators based on Markov chains, which is presumably what Nowhither is talking about. You can also write one yourself easily, it's not too difficult. Dysprosia 01:40, 2 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The captcha generator for the Kareha image board script does something like this. It generates words like "infom" and "kumement" and "exege." You can see it in action here (be warned that some of the links at the top link to NSFW boards). However, if you don't know Perl, modifying the script for your own use won't be much fun. Garrett Albright 06:40, 2 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Word for a sort of decoration

I want to know the word for a sort of decoration. It is worn on the head and passes over the top of the head. It is horseshoe-shaped. -Juuitchan

Tiara? Thryduulf 17:13, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
No. It is worn over the head in almost exactly the same way as headphones. It is also flat: it does not stick up like a tiara. A 199-cm-tall lady wearing one of these would not have to duck walking through a 200-cm high doorway.
Is it worn basically to keep the hair in place? It sounds like what I'd just call a headband -- usually made from plastic covered in material and/or decorations of some kind. The ends rest just behind the ears. --Zeborah 19:48, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
This sort of hair band is usually known as an alice band in British English, after the eponym of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland who was often depicted wearing one. Bovlb 20:23:16, 2005-08-31 (UTC)
this image [1] shows what is variously known as an alice band, hair band and head band. The only one of these names that exclusively relates to this item though is alice band. Thryduulf 20:26, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
That is exactly the item I was asking about. -J

aswell or as well

Which is correct? I have always used 'aswell' but recently someone changed an edit containing 'aswell' to 'as well'. Can someone clarify this? Thanks in advance. Forbsey 17:04, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

AFAIK "as well" is correct. I have never seen "aswell" used in any sort of English writing and to the best of my non-native knowledge, it is an incorrect spelling. — JIP | Talk 17:12, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I've certainly never come accross aswell in British English, its always two words. I can't think of an occurence of it as a single word in American English, but I'm not going to categorically state it never happens there. Thryduulf 17:15, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
"Aswell," "alot," "ofcourse," "afterall," and "alright" all are abominations to mankind and are not to be used. Coincidentally, I posted a similar question to this in a Usenet group four and a half years ago. Garrett Albright 17:44, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting. Thanks for that! Forbsey 18:05, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Well, Garrett, I think many people would disagree with you concerning "alright". It's listed in a number of reputable dictionaries (although some do call it "nonstandard" and a couple call it "slang"). See http://www.onelook.com/?w=alright . Certainly, the rest are not standard English, though. — Nowhither 18:09, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If I stumbled across "aswell" while reading, I would mentally pronounce it a-swell and wonder what it meant. Zoe 05:01, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

The grizzled old captain stumped up onto the rolling deck of the ship. "The waves are large this morning, are they not?" he said to the first mate, who was leaning against a bulkhead. "Aye, sir," replied the mate, "the sea is indeed aswell." ;-) — Nowhither 17:27, 1 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Heh. That sounds about right.  :) Zoe 19:00, September 1, 2005 (UTC)
Nah! Nowhither is kidding us. But aswell does appear in the OED as an obsolete spelling of "as well", with a quotation dated 1596. Shantavira 12:19, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

vocab question - Hip hop slang

There is a certain hip-hop phrase that sounds like this:

"word is vaughn" ? not sure of the spelling but that is what it sounds like.

Wanted to info on the meaning, actual spelling etc Please advise att: <email address removed>

thanks

Dan Bucciarelli <email address removed>

  • Hey, Dan. I don't think that it is a good idea to post your e-mail address here. This place is really public, open to the view of all sorts. Furthermore, any response that you get is going to be here. I cannot find that word in the urban dictionary. In what song(s) does the word feature? We could check the spelling thus. IINAG 17:24, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • The phrase is likely "word is bond".

Year ranges

Any thoughts on "He was president from 1969–1982"?

This rubs me the wrong way. I figure "He was president 1965–1982" is fine, and so is "He was president from 1965 to 1982". But the nonparallel construction of the first example is icky.

— Nowhither 21:54, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • I agree with you that "He was president from 1969–1982" is non-parallel. But "He was president 1965-1982" is not a complete sentence in my books. I would go only with "He was president from 1965 to 1982". Ground Zero | t 21:58, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think the general principle is that the en-dash date format is akin to an abbreviation, and most abbreviated constructions don't fit in regular prose. "He was president 1965–1982" doesn't look good for the same reason "Before he was pres., he was gov. of Mass." looks weird. sɪzlæk [ +t, +c, +m ] 07:54, September 1, 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree that in prose text the construction with the dash doesn't work well. However, I do think that "This activity took place during 1993-4" is an acceptable shorthand for "This activity took place during 1993 and 1994." In a table or bulleted list "President: 1965–1982" seems fine to me. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Ranges for more info on this. DES (talk) 14:37, 1 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree with you on that point. There are exceptions to every rule. sɪzlæk [ +t, +c, +m ] 01:38, September 2, 2005 (UTC)

spanish

You might find the Wikipedia article on the Spanish language and/or the Spanish Wikipedia useful. Other than that, please ask a specific question. Thryduulf 16:20, 1 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

meaning of words

what is the meaning of following words?

- quintessential

- concomitantly

- whapping

    • Quintessential means to be the perfect example of something. For example, 'The Ferrari F393 is the quintessential sports car'.
    • Comcomitantly means to happen as a consequence. For example, 'I drank to much red wine - concomitantly, I feel sick'. The word 'consequentially' is more used nowadays.
      • Actually Comcomitantly means happening at the same time not as a consequence. The association with red wine is good as it was often used by to describe the blood and body of christ in the Catholic mass Comcomitant with the bread and wine i.e. they are all the same thing
    • 'Whapping' is either a mis-spelling of 'whopping', which means 'huge', or it's a portmanteau of clapping and whacking, and would mean something similar to the both of them. I suppose it could also be a mis-spelling of Wapping, which is a place in London. Proto t c 09:37, 2 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Japanese Name Help

So let's see if I have this right. Ichiro means "first son," from "ichi" meaning 'one' and "ro" meaning 'son.' So would "seventh son" be Shichiro? Thanks. --Brasswatchman 04:53, September 2, 2005 (UTC)

I suppose, but I live in Japan and I've never heard of a "niro," "sanro" and so on… It would probably be an odd name. Garrett Albright 06:34, 2 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Though you do occasionally get strange "logically numerical" names in English - I've worked with a woman called Tertia, who did indeed have two older sisters - so it's not that unprecedented. Shimgray 12:56, 2 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Was her nickname Trey? --Juuitchan
Number names were very common in Ancient Rome -- Quintus, Sextus, Septimus, Octavius, etc. Zoe 20:37, September 2, 2005 (UTC)
According to one of the articles, it was common in Japan, too - see Japanese names#Customs. I thought that this name might be an interesting one to give an only child - which suggests a Western influence, stemming from the common belief in a seventh son being lucky or somehow magical. The only downside I can think up is that "Shichiro" is kind of long on the tongue. Thanks. --Brasswatchman 04:03, September 3, 2005 (UTC)
It's shorter than Brasswatchman ;-) Shimgray 11:47, 3 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Heh. Fair enough. :) --Brasswatchman 02:56, September 4, 2005 (UTC)
You're largely correct, though "ro" doesn't really mean "son", it's just a name. Also, there's often another syllable at the beginning, for example "Shinichiro" for a first son. "ji" (meaning 'next') is used for a second son, e.g. "Bunjiro". Then the standard numbers are used, so a seventh son could indeed be named "Shichiro". --Auximines 21:07, 4 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Fantastic. Thank you all very much. --Brasswatchman 23:15, September 4, 2005 (UTC)
On second thought, just one more thing: how would "Shichiro" be pronounced? Shi-chi-ro? Or Sh-ichi-ro? Or something else that I'm not thinking of? Thanks. --Brasswatchman 23:16, September 4, 2005 (UTC)
Shi-chi-ro. "Sh" is not a valid syllable in Japanese (well…), and "ichi" is actually two: i-chi. And besides, "seven" in Japanese is correctly pronounced "shi-chi" (or "na-na," because the Japanese like to have at least two ways to pronounce just about everything, just to make things difficult for foreigners trying to learn the language). Garrett Albright 18:40, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
In normal speech the first vowel in shichi is reduced so that shichi 七 is pronounced something like /ʃətʃi/ or even /ʃtʃi/. (I guess that similarly shichirō 七郎 is pronounced something like /ʃtʃiɾo:/ but I'm not sure.) Gdr 19:11:35, 2005-09-06 (UTC)
Fantastic. Thank you all very much for your help. --Brasswatchman 16:26, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

ARNOLD

Moved from Wikipedia:Ask a question. Bovlb 08:49:06, 2005-09-02 (UTC)

What is the meaning of the word ARNOLD?

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.220.82.125 (talk • contribs) 2005-09-01 22:08:30 PDT (UTC)

  • It means 'strong as an eagle', and is German in origin. IINAG 09:27, 2 September UTC


Pronouncing Ich and Ach (German)

[x] and [ç] in IPA. Could anyone present some tips on pronouncing these? I am not sure if this is the best place to ask this; if it is not, please tell me. Mga 01:19, 3 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

A while ago I asked this somewhere (I forget where) and I got this response: It's kind of hard to explain. There's a sound file of it at , maybe you can get it to work for you (I can't get it to open, but maybe that's just me). Basically, you have your tongue in the same position as for the English "y" sound of yes, but it's voiceless. If you say the "hy" sound of a word like human (assuming you don't pronounced that "yuman") and raise your tongue just slightly so as to make the noise a little louder, you're making the voiceless palatal fricative a/k/a ich-Laut. That help? --Angr/tɔk tə mi 23:53, 20 July 2005 (UTC) . --HappyCamper 01:40, 3 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
In my experience, the pronunciation of the "ch" in "ich" varies significantly. The pronunciation as you describe it seems to be the most common, but I have also heard native speakers pronounce it similarly to the English "k". — Nowhither 03:32, 3 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
For "ich-Laut" (IPA [ç]), it helps if you start by pronouncing a "sh" sound (as in English "shirt", IPA [ʃ]), then slowly move your tongue back and up. The ich-Laut is difficult for English speakers to pronounce at a native level because it is a palatal sound, and our only palatal is "y" ([j] in IPA), which is articulated in a completely different way. Don't worry if it sounds a little bit like [ʃ]; as English speakers, we haven't learned to distinguish between [ʃ] and [ç].
For "ach-Laut" (IPA [x]), start by pronouncing an "h" sound. Raise the back of your tongue, but not so high that it touches the roof of your mouth. (In that case, you'd get a [k] sound.) If you pronounce the sound continuously, it should sound a bit like a cat hissing. It helps if you don't think of it in terms of "k". The only reason borrowed German words contain [k] in place of [x]/[ç] is that [k] is the closest English sound in that articulatory position. sɪzlæk [ +t, +c, +m ] 06:09, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

I still cannot get it right, but I will keep trying. Thank you all. Mga 12:50, 3 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Something approaching the [ç] sound can in fact be found in (British) English at the start of the words Hugh, huge, humorous etc. Dictionaries tend to give the pronunciation as [hj], but the initial voiceless [h] causes devoicing and the actual pronunciation is more like [hç] or [hçj]. [ç] is the voiceless equivalent of the voiced palatal fricative [ʝ] which to English (or German) ears is pretty much the same as [j]. Try saying i-hugh and then dropping the "ugh" to be left with ich. Several German dialects use [ʃ] rather than [ç] so you are unlikely to be misunderstood if you stray too close to the [ʃ]
For [x], I'd start from [k] and lower my tongue a little rather than the reverse, but I guess that's a matter of what suits you best. Valiantis 15:09, 3 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Names in the UK

I'm writing an article about an English fellow of the 17th century. He had the same name as his father; should I title the article William Hustler, Jr. or William Hustler II? --Merovingian (t) (c) 11:07, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

You should strongly avoid using titles like this unless the person themselves actually used them, in my understanding. To the best of my knowledge, neither style was at all common in England of the period - "Jr." certainly is an Americanism - and as such it'd be pretty silly to call them that. Please avoid it unless you know it was used. (If nothing else, even if it's intended as a disambiguation, it could easily be taken for the name...) Strictly speaking, though, suffix (name) may help explain the difference between the two.
I'd recommend using something like William Hustler (surgeon) or William Hustler (1832), changing disambiguator as appropriate - or even just William Hustler, since we don't have an article on the father either. Shimgray 11:46, 3 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, thank you very much. --Merovingian (t) (c) 12:10, September 3, 2005 (UTC)
In England we might use "the Younger" and "the Elder" (see e.g. William Pitt). Public (i.e. private!) schools sometimes used "Major" and "Minor". We never use "Junior" or "II", they're both Americanisms. --Auximines 21:11, 4 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
"Never" is too strong. For example, the winner of the 2001 and 2002 British Hill Climb Championships was the Scottish driver Graeme Wight Jr (who spells his name like that, ie Jr rather than Jnr, jun etc, and without any punctuation). He is very rarely known as plain "Graeme Wight" because that name is used by his father, who competed alongside him for a while but does not call himself "Graeme Wight Sr". There's also W. G. Grace's son, who shared his name and is widely known as "W. G. Grace junior". Loganberry (Talk) 23:57, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it must be used sometimes in the U.K. because I see British publications have a distinctive abbreviation for it—Jnr—even in reference to Americans. In the U.S. and Canada it is alwas Jr, with or without a period. I have never seen jun and might not have recognized it without the above education. The advice to use only styles which the subject would have endorsed is the right answer, but more narrowly it should be said that Jr is used when one's name is identical to one's father's, II when the namesake is a more distant ancestor. Sharkford 00:44, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Arabic origin of fennec

Moved form Wikipedia:Translation into English:

Strictly speaking this is not a request for translation of an article, but I don't know where else to put this. In the fennec article the following appears: The name "fennec" apparently comes from the Arabic word for fox. Can an Arabic speaker verify this and expand or delete as appropriate? -EDM 16:02, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a native arabic, and i don't think i've ever heard the word "fennec" in my life. i'm deleting this section from the article.--Amr Hassan 12:09, 9 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It could be possible even if you're a native arabic. The arabic language is very complex, for example, did you know that there's more than 200 words that means "lion" in arabic? CG 12:28, September 3, 2005 (UTC)
According to dictionary.com], it comes from Arabic fanak, but it doesn't explain what fanak means. Zoe 19:05, September 3, 2005 (UTC)
According to an arabic dictionnary, فنك (fanak) means (This is an approximate translation):
An animal species from the Canidae family and the Carnivora order. Similar to a fox. He has large pointy ears, soft furr, agile legs. He wanders from sunrise to sunset. He feeds on birds, insects and reptiles. His habitat is the African continent and the Arabic peninsula. His furr in one of the best {Persian).
So "fennec" comes from the Arabic "fannak" which according to the last word comes from Persian.
Please add this conversation to Talk:Fennec and the information to the fennec article specifying the source. CG 20:32, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

. ISBN 2-7214-2228-6. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |Author= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Title= ignored (|title= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Year= ignored (|year= suggested) (help)

Request for translation from Arabic

Moved form Wikipedia:Translation into English:

اكتشاف المزيد من ابر البترول

(Added July 25 by anonymous user, who also deleted the Catalan section.--Prosfilaes 01:09, 26 July 2005 (UTC))[reply]

A machine translator reads that as "The more discovery which sharpen the petroleum". I'm not sure if that's relevant or not. grendel|khan 13:48, July 28, 2005 (UTC)


It means "Discovery of more oil wells". By the way, I strongly recommend not to use machine translators, they are really inaccurate. One example is they missunderstood the Arabic word ابر which could be equally translated into "wells" or "needles" which could explain the word "sharpen" used. CG 11:52, September 3, 2005 (UTC)
he got "discovery" and "petroleum" right, didn't he? Of course MT will fail, but if you have no other options they can be really helpful. You have to do a lot of guesswork, of course. And with unvocalized Arabic, I'm surprised the translator did even as much as it did. dab (ᛏ) 17:33, 3 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Does that mean that, in some culture, wells were traditionally thought of as wounds in the earth? If so, that's interesting. Question: Is this well/needle double meaning only applicable to the world used for oil wells? Or is this word used for water wells as well? And does it actually refer to the well, or is it more properly the drill that makes the hole in the ground? — Nowhither 21:04, 4 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Oups, I think I made a mistake. The world إبر does mean "needles" and not "wells". The world "wells" is translated آبار. But in some dialects it could become very simiar to the first one. I think the mistake came from the sentence in arabic itself: it should be: اكتشاف المزيد من آبار البترول , unless the author wanted to use the world needle, and the sentence becomes: The discovery of more needles oil? Improbable, but still need to be verified by another arab-wikipedians. As for your analysis on the cultural relation between well and needle, I think it is unprobable, first, because there's really not a double well/needle. I showed that these two worlds have similarities in their plural form and not singular, and even their plural form are different. Second, the Arab people who used to live in desertic areas saw the wells which were a source of water as a blessing more than the wound in the earth. CG 09:49, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

Ah, another beautiful theory destroyed by ugly fact. :-) — Nowhither 19:44, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Meaning

Could you give me a meaning for Good Health in the Seneca language? My friend lives in Canandaigua, N.Y. and is starting a practice for holistic medication and living. Any ideas for a business name?

  • Go to Hol, What the Hol, variants thereof
  • Hol Body Health
  • Intercontinental Holistic Mission
  • An Apple a Canadaigua (okay, that's a stretch)
But seriously, sites like this and this give several good examples of why you really shouldn't use words in a foreign language as "decoration." Besides being disrespectful, it can be quite embarrassing if you get it wrong. Garrett Albright 17:14, 3 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

In-law question

Sort of a follow up to Garrett Albright's question:

My mother calls her son-in-law her son, and her daughter-in-law her daughter. Instead of mother-in-law, they both call her mom. I call them my brother and sister. My mother calls them both her children.

I've always thought that pretty much everyone referred to their family like this, because that is how we talk in my family.

The reason I bring this up is because I was reading Garrett's question, and I was wondering why nobody suggested just calling your "children-in-law" your children.


Is this uncommon? --Scapegoat pariah 19:26, 3 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt you'll find concrete stats on it, but I don't think "everyone" does it. I think there was an episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond" or some other popular sitcom dwelling on the discomfort a character feels when his mother-in-law demands he call her "Mom", rather than by first name (too informal for many, even in current North American culture) or Mrs. X (far too formal for many North Americans). To appear as a plot element suggests that it occurs but is not universally accepted. Now, are you also saying that she'd introduce her son-in-law to a third party as "my son"? And that you'd introduce him as "by brother"? That, I think, would be less common. And besides, she's going to have to explain why her daughter married her own brother...Sharkford 05:02, 4 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
My mother would introduce my sister's husband as her son, if she were showing a friend a photo of him or something like that. I think she would only specify that he is her son-in-law if her friend looked confused when she mentioned her daughter. And I would do the same.

Now that I think about it, I call my friend's mother "Mom". Is that uncommon? I can't really call her by her first name (her children don't ever call her by her first name, so how can I?) so what is commonly done? Mrs. Friendsmomslastname? --Scapegoat pariah 06:56, 4 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It's not uncommon, if you're from India. Also, it's considered discourteous to call an elder person by name in India. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 05:13, September 6, 2005 (UTC)
Interesting. I actually did call some of my friends' parents by their first names, and my parents' friends, too. In the English-speaking U.S. and Canada I'd bet on finding this evenly split with Mrs. Friendsmomslastname. I am aware of folks calling their in-laws Mom and Dad in direct addresss, but not on reference, and (as Laura suggests below) I would personally not be comfy with it. As for "that's my daughter, and that's my son, at their wedding", I don't think I've heard of that. But there's lots I haven't heard of. Sharkford 03:32, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I've never met someone who called friends' mothers "mom" in my experience (from big city in the South). All my friends use Mrs. X at first and then first names as they get to know them. The only exception is my Indian friends, who always call eachother's mothers Auntie. So it's all highly dependent on the culture, but where I came from Mom was off-limits for any but your mom. — Laura Scudder | Talk 17:36, 4 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
In the UK, "auntie" and "uncle" are often used for long-standing close friends of the family, generally who've known the child since a very young age - not the parents of friends in particular, but it could be. This generally causes a little bit of awkwardness later on as the child figures out which ones to stop addressing as relatives. (The proper term for this, apparently, is fictive kinship. I've never known anyone who'd address a friend's mother as their own (or, at least, it never came up in conversation). Certainly I'd always do the "Mrs. X" then later first name thing, but this has pitfalls - I know at least one parent of a friend who I think I've permanently avoided addressing by name, because I didn't know her surname (she was divorced) and wasn't willing to use the first name without going through the little ritual! Shimgray 01:39, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
As Laura mentioned, that's the same system Indian Americans use to address friends of parents or unknown elders in general sometimes. I'd always wondered the origins of that, since no one else I know uses that in the US. I didn't know if it was from the British, or if the analogous terms in the Indian language such as Mamaji, Masiji, etc were in common use and the practice came from that. Back to the original question, I think it depends on the closeness of the family. I think some do and some don't refer to in laws as mom or son, etc. - Taxman Talk 16:28, September 6, 2005 (UTC)
It seems to be very individual among Americans. My mom-in-law referred to me as her daughter, but I always referred to her as my mother-in-law or by her first name. I believe that my parents refer to their sons-in-law as sons-in-law, not as sons. We grew up calling my mom's cousin "Aunt" because she was about the same age as our other aunt and it was less confusing at the time than trying to explain about second cousins or once-removed cousins... Some people I know do have their kids call very close friends "aunt" or "uncle"; my brother-in-law, however, who had 6 siblings, absolutely prohibited his kids (with my sister, who had 4 siblings) from calling their very good friends aunt and uncle because he thought they had plenty of "real" aunts and uncles already and didn't want to further confuse them. Elf | Talk 20:44, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
"Aunt" or "Uncle" for "complex relation but older" is fairly common; my grandmother's sisters were my aunts, and their children my uncles, despite technically being great-aunts or something-cousins. It's all the same to a kid, really - they're relatives, they're older than you, you act respectful and they send you birthday cards. :-) As far as the close-friends thing goes, I've been thinking; maybe four couples were given courtesy recognition as aunt/uncle, though I can't remember when I stopped using that to address them. More than half a dozen cases, ten or so people, is uncommon SFAIK. There's probably voluminous sociology texts written on just this subject... Shimgray 23:29, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Blue hair in Serbo-Croat?

I saw this paragraph in Wikipedia:

In Serbocroatian, the word "plav" (for males) or "plavusa" (for females) is used to describe blondes. This may be because blondes commonly have blue or green eyes. Therefore, blonde hair is "plava kosa" (lit. "blue hair"). A blonde female is sometimes referred to as a "plavokosa", or "bluehaired-one".

What if she actually does have blue hair?

In English, the word "black" is used to describe people with brown skin. I suspect the answer to your question is similar to the answer to the analogous question in English; if you need to refer to someone with really black, obsidian-black skin, you'd would say really black, or obsidian-black.--Prosfilaes 03:45, 4 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I presume there's a Serbocroatian word for "dyed". Sharkford 05:04, 4 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Unicode troubles

Is there any program that can turn poorly rendered coding (from Japamese, Chinese, etc.) (i.e.: ƒA[ƒ€ƒXƒgƒƒ“ƒO) into the characters/letters they're supposed to represent? Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 06:46, 4 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

No, more likely it's an issue with Rhymeless's web browser encoding settings. Some Japanese/Chinese/Korean/etc webmasters assume that their audience's web browsers will use Japanese/Chinese/Korean/etc character encoding settings by default, so they don't follow the good practice of defining it themselves. Tim, what web browser are you using, and what page are you trying to look at? Garrett Albright 08:39, 4 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't actually a problem with *my* browser; my primary concern has to do with poorly-encoded files received from other people. I'd just like to get my mp3s tagged and filed correctly. Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 09:12, 4 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
You can use recode, or iconv, or save the bytes to a file and try to open on vim, or save the bytes to a file, open on Mozilla Firefox, and use View>Character Encoding>Auto-Detect>Universal. I'm sure there are countless other ways to do it. --cesarb 16:15, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean by saving the bytes to a file? -Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 03:29, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Saving the characters to a file without any further encoding (because if you use UTF-8 as your default encoding, like I do, each of these characters are represented by several bytes). One simple way to do it is to save using a single-byte encoding, like for instance ISO8859-1. --cesarb 15:59, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Russian textbooks

Can anybody recommend a good school-style textbook for learning Russian, hopefully appropriate to middle school/early high school? Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 06:47, 4 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There's a pretty straightforward set of introduction textbooks called НАЧАЛО: When in Russia that would be appropriate for that level of expertise (it is used in colleges but it is really very basic and I doubt any different than what would be used in a high school). It is published by McGraw-Hill. If you search on Amazon.com or Froogle.com for "NACHALO" you should be able to find copies of it, new and used. It is good enough quality to be used at the University of California, Berkeley for undergraduate and graduate courses. --Fastfission 16:59, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sandwich, Diesel, Spoonerism

how did sandwich, shrapnel, diesel, spoonerism and nicotine become apart of our language

Do the Sandwich, Shrapnel, Diesel, Spoonerism and Nicotine articles help? (More names that became words: [2]). David Sneek 08:30, 4 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
They are not apart of our language. These are all still valid English words, not separated from the language at all. That being said, check out Wiktionary:sandwich, Wiktionary:diesel, and Wiktionary:spoonerism for etymologies of those words, and Nicotine#History and name for the etymology of "nicotine." Shrapnel has etymology in its first paragraph. Looks like these are all words named after people. Garrett Albright 08:36, 4 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I think he or she means "a part of our language"... David Sneek 09:04, 4 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Word for this concept?

Is there a word for the concept of hearing of a parody or other derived work of some fictive story (book, movie, TV show etc.) before hearing of the story itself? — JIP | Talk 14:29, 4 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • In the case of most of the parodies I've seen on MadTV of shows I've never seen, I'd say "good luck" probably applies. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 17:45, 4 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've never heard a word for that, but it seem to happen more and more. A related phenomenon: knowing a melody only as a sample in new song, but not knowing the original song. ike9898 17:05, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

If the phenomenon needs a name, I propose "Father William effect", since almost everyone encounters Lewis Carroll's parody "You are old, father William" in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland before they come across Robert Southey's original, "The Old Man's Comforts And How He Gained Them", if indeed they ever read the latter. Gdr 22:40:52, 2005-09-08 (UTC)

"Treibhireas Bunaiteachd" (Chivas Regal seal)

At the top of the seal that appears on a bottle of Chivas Regal whisky are the words "TREIBHIREAS BUNAITEACHD". Can anyone identify this language or translate the phrase? Also, what is the correct pronunciation of "Chivas"? (I've always pronounced it "shih-vahss" but suspect that's incorrect.) -- Avocado 01:25, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

  • Sounds like Gaelic. I don't know what it means. "Chivas" is probably pronounced "shih-vah" without the "s" sound at the end. — JIP | Talk 05:02, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • It's Scottish Gaelic for "Honesty Constancy". Treibhireas is pronounced /ˈtʃʰrʲevərʲəs/ and bunaiteachd /ˈpunətʃʰəxk/ with an unaspirated P (and yes, that final /k/ for the letter D is correct!). Longman's Pronunciation Dictionary gives /ˈʃɪvæs/ and /ˈʃiːvəs/ as the possible pronunciations of Chivas. I don't know anything about the origin of this name, but even if it is French, names in French often don't follow the spelling rule that final S is silent (e.g. Saint-Saëns, where the final s is pronounced). --Angr/tɔk tə mi 06:25, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • At least in California, Chivas is pronounced "SHEV-us". Zoe 22:11, September 5, 2005 (UTC)
  • It's 'she-vass'. Like 'She-Ra', but with a 'vass' instead of a 'ra'. Proto t c 09:59, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Mass of etymological sources over time.

I wondered if there's any easy way to grasp the number of available English etymology resources (ie written works) available to those working on English dictionaries over time.

Obviously, now, they are too numerous to quantify, but there was clearly a point from which very few survived.

Is there any kind of database with figures from earlier times or (would almost be too good to be true) a graph?

Not quite the same thing, but even a chart showing the number of references used in the OED by year would be interesting to see.

I should add that this isn't an area of expertise of mine, so if it's a silly question then, well, it's because I'm silly. --bodnotbod 15:47, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

Basically, what you're asking for is the amount of written text in the English language recorded from any given year, listed over time? It's an interesting thought, and I'll see what I can find. The OED thing won't quite work, though, because they pick an earliest use and then a representative selection later on, so that'd be a surprisingly flat graph. Shimgray 23:22, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

there are sample corpora like the Helsinki corpus, designed to cover a stretch of time. Keeping track of all texts will become practically impossible from the 16th century or so. The Old English corpus is quite small, 30M or so, so it is easy to keep track of that. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle is an excellent source for drawing graphs over time (although it is rather too small, of course, to allow safe conclusions). See here for an example where I drew graphs showing the rise of the English article and some pronouns in the ASC. dab (ᛏ) 11:01, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Another inane Spanish translation request

Yes, it's just what it sounds like. My Spanish textbook gives the definition of "listo/a" as "smart", but I distinctly remember hearing "listo" used in a Spanish TV program to mean "ready". It also comes up on FreeTranslation.com to mean "ready". Is what I've heard before right, or is my textbook right, or both? Hermione1980 21:15, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't "smart" be "elegante"? Zoe 22:15, September 5, 2005 (UTC)
I don't know. There again, FreeTranslation translates "elegante" to "elegant", but it's not infalliable. (I'm near the beginning of a college-level Beginning Spanish course, so I have no clue.) Hermione1980 22:27, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Easy: ser listo means "to be smart", while estar listo means "to be ready". — File:Austria flag large.png ナイトスタリオン ㇳ–ㇰ — 22:17, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, okay. I don't understand why it has two radically different definitions, but it does, so I must live with it. Thanks! ::copies translations to Notepad for future reference:: Hermione1980 22:27, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Because of the significant grammatical difference between 'ser' and 'estar'. You probably need to read up on this soon. There are a lots of adjectives with a non-trivial difference in meaning when used with 'ser' or 'estar': try 'aburrido', 'interesado', 'negro', 'orgulloso', 'vivo', 'cansado', 'violento'... the list goes on... --Ngb ?!? 22:34, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'd always thought that ser listo had connotations of "clever", more than just plain smart, but I don't read a lot of Spanish either. Incidentally, that difference between ser and estar is probably important enough for an explicit explanation somewhere among our spanish language or spanish grammar articles. - Taxman Talk 16:17, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

  • It can be closer to clever or smart, depending on context, probably tending a little more toward clever, quick-minded. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:57, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

To be "clever" or "smart" is to be "in charge", or "ready" for anything. The meanings are not 'radically different' at all, it's all a question of being 'inherently' "ready" (ser), or 'occasionally' "ready" (estar). dab (ᛏ) 10:54, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Communication with or without -s

Can someone help me to explain when to use the word COMMUNICATION with or without an -s

In a company name is the proper word Communications or communication?

example: Jones Communication Ltd

Grateful for any help

John

John, the form with the s would be the most popular here. Communication is the transfer of information: either by language, waving flags, e-mail or so forth. The s simply marks the plural. If a company uses the plural in its name, it suggest that the company's business is numerous forms of communication (at least two). However, the singular, witout the s, does not necessarily imply that the company deals with only one form of communication. The singular noun can be understood to stand for all types of communication — a collective noun. Thus, less can be more: a 'communications' company may deal in a number of forms of communication, but a 'communication' company deals in communication. Clear as mud? Gareth Hughes 13:04, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Just to add that both forms are in use - neither is right or wrong, but an Internet search brings up six times more references to "Communications Ltd" than to "Communication Ltd". Shantavira 17:29, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
What makes it "right" or "wrong" for a company name is what the company calls itself. Unless you're trying to make up a new company name--in that case, yeah, you'll have to decide what it is that you're dealing with, as discussed above. Elf | Talk 20:32, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
In my opinion, communication connotes the abstract concept of sharing information, while communications connotes the study of communication, or the industry involved in communication. So if I were to name a business, I would name it XYZ Communications, not XYZ Communication. —Bkell 22:02, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Translation for "search" in Arabic and Greek

Can someone give me translations of the word "search" (as a noun) into Arabic and Greek and into any other language? -- Sundar \talk \contribs 14:15, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

Well, I can tell you that "to search" in Spanish is "buscar". Zoe 07:13, September 7, 2005 (UTC)
Spanish: búsqueda. German: Suche. Too lazy for more right now. ^^;; — File:Austria flag large.png ナイトスタリオン ㇳ–ㇰ — 09:16, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Template:Lang-ar — baḥth. Template:Lang-el: erevna. Gareth Hughes 10:28, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Advice: go to the Wikipedias in other languages and record their term for the 'search' button. — mark ✎ 10:42, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
see also [3]. ([4] verb). dab (ᛏ) 10:49, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
That won't always get you the noun, though. At Irish Wikipedia the search button says "Cuardaigh", which is a singular imperative verb form. Also, some of the smaller foreign Wikipedias are designed by people whose command of the language in question is not always impeccable, so you can't be sure that what they use is really accurate. --Angr/tɔk tə mi 10:59, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks everyone. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 04:37, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

Letter ayn in Arabic

Does an IPA symbol exists for the letter ;ع (ayn) called "laryngeal voiced fricative". I searched but it seems like not, maybe because this sound isn't used in any Indo-european language. CG 11:50, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

The IPA symbol ʕ is used for the voiced pharyngeal fricative (Arabic ayn). --Angr/tɔk tə mi 11:54, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
No really? I've saw it but I though it was an exclamation mark showing that there was no symbol. lol. CG 20:07, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

I would like also to know if it's only used in Arabic? CG 20:09, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

The exclamation point (!) is a different phonetic symbol. ʕ isn't used only in Arabic, but Arabic is certainly the most widely spoken language that has it. Biblical Hebrew had it (I think some Mizrahi and Sephardi dialects still do), and some Northeast Caucasian languages have it, for example. --Angr/tɔk tə mi 20:41, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Thabk you for the info. But I meant interrogation point not excalamation. CG 08:59, September 8, 2005 (UTC)
  • Let me enlighten thee. I was born in Iran, and attended school there for five years. Also, my former name began with ;ع.  ;ع exists in both Farsi and Arabic. (Farsi and Arabic use the same alphabet and sounds, except that Farsi has four more letter.) My name was Ali. Ali begins with ;ع I haven't spoke Farsi for more than six years, but I remember this stuff. The sound of ;ع is close to \a\ as in the first syllable of Ali and master. However, there is one problem because \a\ is a two-step sound. First, you open your mouth wide and then you end it in a schwa \ə\.  ;ع does not have this schwa. If you speak Arabic or Farsi, you know that ther is another letter that look like l with the same sound as ;ع, or rather the converse since ;ع has the sound of l.

--anonym

Farthest v furthest

Four men are in a line: 

A B C D

Is man D farthest or furthest from A? Alternately, is this just a toss-up? Both are superlatives of far but I'm not seeing much on their respective connotations — Lomn | Talk / RfC 20:46, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Originally (wayyyy back) they had the same origins, but FARther/est has come to be associated with distances and further/est with increases in any other kind of dimension ("he was further confused by the answers to his question"). Elf | Talk 20:52, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! — Lomn | Talk / RfC 21:16, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think there may be American and British English differences going on here too; I have been told by Brits that British English speakers would almost never use the words farther/farthest, only further/furthest. --Angr/tɔk tə mi 21:26, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I confirm that in British English, farthest in particular looks very odd and I would have assumed it was a miss-spelling of furthest had I not read it here. --Nantonos 21:46, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • D is farthest from A becase of the distance. Furthermore, the distinction of farthest and furthest is not a toss-up. Further is used to specify degree; hence, we shall not discuss this matter further.

--anonym

The Island of Chuuk

I had recently looked up on the Island of Guam and I was very shocked to see under unofficial languages listed Chuukese as a language used so that if a homeless person talks to you you could pretend not to understand english. Yet you have a whole page on the Island of Chuuk. If you would like to know more about the Island I would suggest you talk to Mr. Sachuo at the University of Guam. I am sorry I dont know his first name but I do know him as a respected Chuukese educator at the University of Guam. If you can not contact him I would also suggest Mr. Robert Balajadia at the Guam Community College. When I was in high school he was my Chamorro Studies teacher and I am pretty sure he can guide you in the right direction.

Someone must have cleaned that up because I see there are a lot of recent edits in that area and I no longer see the material that you're talking about. Elf | Talk 00:22, 10 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Etiquette and Manners

In traditional Iranian culture, it is a custom to once or twice refuse to take something if asked to do so on an occasion to show politeness. For example, if I go to a relative's house and the host asks me to take an apple or orange off the table to eat, then it is polite for me to first say no but say okay when asked to take the fruit the second or third time.

Is there an English word to describe the behavior of wanting to take something but not doing so at first out of politeness?

--anon

I don't think there's exactly a word for it, but you could perhaps say it is an act of modesty. Or, for an outsider to follow this behavior, it would be an act of polite deference to the foreign culture; like how I had to get used to taking off my shoes when entering other people's apartments in Japan. Garrett Albright 04:16, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
See also the Come to Dinner game. Bovlb 05:32:27, 2005-09-08 (UTC)
    • Also in Finland, people take off their shoes when entering private apartments, regardless of whether the apartment is their own or not. When entering public buildings such as schools, offices or shops, people keep their shoes on. I seem to remember Finland and Japan are the only countries in the world where people don't wear shoes at home. — JIP | Talk 09:09, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I find the mere thought of routinely wearing shoes at your or someone else's private home strange. Doesn't the floor get dirty? Don't your feet get cramped? When you first get out of bed in the morning, and get dressed, do you immediately put your shoes on, and only take them off when going to bed at night? Or do you wear shoes in bed too? — JIP | Talk 09:32, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • That all depends on the climate. In places I've lived (Texas, Southern California, Colorado) you would take off your shoes only if the weather outside was particularly wet. For most of the year it's warm and dry, so you only track a little dust in with you, which easily sweeps off the mostly non-carpeted floors. I know in places like Michigan, floors are more often carpeted for warmth, and shoes come off more often because there's more slush and mud and carpet to dirty. — Laura Scudder | Talk 19:49, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Here in Germany, many people don't wear shoes at home, but it's far from universal. Some people ask you to take your shoes off when you visit; most people don't. Even after eight years here (I'm originally from the U.S.) I'm still surprised when people ask if they ought to take their shoes off when they visit me. I always say they can if they want to but they can leave their shoes on if they want to, too. --Angr/tɔk tə mi 09:42, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Here in Austria, I'd have said it's almost universal you don't wear shoes at home yourself. When visiting someone else, it's usual for the guest to ask whether they should take their shoes off, and for the host to reply that they needn't. Many people still take them off, just because it's more comfortable that way. ::shrugs:: I definitely wouldn't agree with JIP's generalization, though; I've been to Spain, Sweden, and the UK a number of times, and my host families there did (of course ;)) take off their shoes at home. — File:Austria flag large.png ナイトスタリオン ㇳ–ㇰ — 12:33, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • When I was seven, my family lived in Vienna for a few months and I went to an Austrian school. There we had to take our shoes off and wear slippers in the building. I thought it was the funniest thing I had ever heard of. (And going to school on Saturdays completely scandalized me!) --Angr/tɔk tə mi 18:14, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • In the U.S., it mostly holds true that people include donning shoes as part of getting dressed. And, once dressed, they usually stay dressed. So, when I wake up in the morning, if I just hang out in my bathrobe, I might wear slippers if it's cold but go barefoot otherwise, but when I get dressed for the day, my shoes go on and stay on (unless they're horribly uncomfortable, in which case they'll probably come off as soon as I get home). Do floors get dirty? Well, as mentioned, most homes have mats outside the door for wiping one's feet and many have another inside the door. If shoes are oozing mud or water, yes, people will probably take them off inside the door. This varies from household to household, although the only places I recall encountering specific directives to remove shoes when you come inside are people with white carpets (or valuable ones, such as collectible persian-style), Asian homes, and some first-generation European homes. Elf | Talk 17:40, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Curious. In Canada, shoes come off pretty much universally, although on floors instead of carpet they might be left on if you are just rushing in and out again and it is summer and dry. In the winter it would be very dirty and wet, and your feet would get awfully warm awfully quickly. I've always figured that the northern U.S. works similarly. I can't tell what part of the U.S. you're from, but I have a hunch it is a place that doesn't get a lot of snow, maybe? — mendel ☎ 18:08, September 8, 2005 (UTC)
        • Have lived in upstate New York, Colorado, and California.:-) In the winter in snow, many people wore boots or various shoe protectors, which did come off when you came inside, just like your coat and hat did. Sure, I'd always take of my shoes if I was likely to track icky wet crud into the house, and I think most people would. But otherwise, shoes pretty much stay on. Elf | Talk 19:00, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • Also here in Florida -- at least in my social circles -- sandals are popular, and it's pretty common for those to be taken off in the house. Especially when I lived on the beach and they would often be covered in sand. (Personally, I never wear shoes in my house unless I'm planning to go out soon.) Mindspillage (spill yours?) 18:30, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I heard once that this same custom used to hold in some continental European countries. The problem was, when exchange students would go to the U.S. and stay with host families, they would politely refuse the first time they were offered something. But Americans take such a refusal at face value, and don't offer again, so the poor kids would go to bed half-starved. --Angr/tɔk tə mi 06:15, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This kind of false refusal for politeness' sake happens in Indian culture too. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 08:05, September 8, 2005 (UTC)
I know of many people of Scandanavian descent in the Wisconsin/Minnesota area who practice false refusals, so it is not unheard of here. In general Americans consider it polite to offer more food than the guest can eat, so that they have to leave leftovers on the plate; whereas in many parts of Europe it's impolite for the guest to not clean the plate. So I would suspect that some students starved while others gorged depending on the combination of customs. — Laura Scudder | Talk 19:49, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

In many parts of the United States, there is a small entryway called a mud room. It may have benches, but will certainly have hooks and possibly racks, where coats, jackets, umbrellas and muddy shoes or boots are removed and stored prior to entering the main part of the house. Zoe 21:47, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

Pronunciation of Kegon

What is the proper pronunciation of the name of the Japanese Buddhist sect Kegon? Thanks, anon.

華厳 is pronounced like [kegõɴ], or in some dialects, [keŋõɴ]. Note that the terminal [ɴ] causes the preceding [o] vowel to be nasalised. See Japanese phonology for details. Gdr 22:17:26, 2005-09-08 (UTC)

About Cockney?

I would like to ask wheter cockney is a dialect or a slang?

It is a dialect which has its own slang. The two terms are not exclusive. Garrett Albright 05:48, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

treibhireas bunaiteachd

This is the seal of Chivas Regal scotch whisky. What does it mean? Regards Donald Sinclair dmsin@mpx.com.au

We've actually already answered that question on this page! It's Scottish Gaelic for "Honesty Constancy". Treibhireas is pronounced /ˈtʃʰrʲevərʲəs/ and bunaiteachd /ˈpunətʃʰəxk/ with an unaspirated P (and yes, that final /k/ for the letter D is correct!). --Angr/tɔk tə mi 05:57, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

short German to English translation needeed

I´m looking for a kind person to translate the few German sentences in article Anuschka Tischer. The sentences are in italic and are titles of Tischer´s works. Cheers. Doidimais Brasil 04:13, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

Done (though I'm not at all sure this person is notable enough for an encyclopedia article). --Angr/tɔk tə mi 06:06, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Is this Farsi correct?

http://tinypic.com/dlhk6u.png

The above sentences was found in a New Zealand "How to vote" leaflet. Is it supposed to have so many "a" in it? Thanks. 60.234.144.135 05:00, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • I haven't written or read anything in Farsi for ten years, but I recognize some of the words, and it looks correct to me.

--anonym

I don't know any Farsi at all, but I'm pretty sure there aren't supposed to be Latin letters like "a" stuck in the middle of words otherwise written in the Arabic alphabet. Try posting the question at Talk:Persian language as well as here. --Angr/tɔk tə mi 06:04, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"Cædmon" etymology from proto-Welsh

If anyone has a clue about this, see Talk:Cædmon regarding an undefined ("private use area") Unicode character. Also asking at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities. -- Curps 15:23, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The transcription of Welsh from any period will only require those characters properly defined by Unicode. There will be absolutely no need to use this character (). The supplemenatary private use area does not have any universally assigned characters, so its use is not appropriate on Wikipedia. Gareth Hughes 17:07, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I've taken care of it. --Angr/tɔk tə mi 19:25, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

question for the "slang" reference expert

Hi, just read you excellent synopsis on HIP HOP MUSIC and it did answer many questions we had about slang and origns BUT we still have one questions: What does rgt mean, as in, "My favorite rgt right now are the Cornerstone mix CDs."

I don't know, but I'll make some guesses:
  • There is a company called "RGT Music" ( http://www.rgtmusic.com/ ). Perhaps their works were what was referred to.
  • Some people use "RGT" to mean "Reggae Torrent".
  • It could be a typo, which should have said, "... favorite right now ....".
By the way, there is nothing wrong with asking your question here, but you might get better answers at Talk:Slang used in Hip-Hop Music. Also, please sign and date your posts on discussion pages (like this one). Uses four tildes in a row: "~~~~". — Nowhither 17:21, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Professional Designation Order

What is the correct order for professional designations, political designations and academic designations? Which one comes first? Thanks, Jana

Hallo, Jana! Have a look at style (manner of address). It doesn't answer your question, but might be the place to start researching through the many Wikipedia articles which are linked from that article. The only combination I know about is Rev Dr or Revd Dr — the Rev(d) always goes first. Gareth Hughes 18:03, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I happen to know that its always 'General Sir not Sir General. I think Sir generally comes last, e.g. His Excellency Sir... and The Hon. Sir. Thryduulf 22:01, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Also: Admiral Lord Nelson not Lord Admiral Nelson. ("Lord Admiral" might get confused with Lord High Admiral, which is an office rather than a title, and in the UK is now vested in the Queen.) Another example: Rt. Hon. General Sir George Hewitt, KCB. Loganberry (Talk) 23:27, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"Zion in Hebrew"

Hello!

I can't seem to find my son's name "Zion", written in hebrew and arabic on the internet. Can anyone please show me or tell me where I can find it? Thanks for any help you can give me.

Sincerely, Zion's mommy

In Hebrew, that would be ציון, pronounced /tsiˈjon/ in Standard Israeli Hebrew. For Arabic, I'm not sure (since it's a Hebrew word, not an Arabic one), but my best guess is صيون --Angr/tɔk tə mi 21:08, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Anglified Japanese to pictogams

In the article Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea I added mention of the Japanese title of the show, wich is aparently "Acirckadia Monogatari" (acording to a comment posted on the Internet Movie Database entry on the show), what I was wondering is if anyone could "translate" that anglified (or whatever the term is) title into proper Japanese pictograms? --Sherool 00:55, 10 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • "Acirckadia" is not possible in the Japanese syllabary. Possibly "Acirokadia" or "Acirakadia"? -- Jmabel | Talk 04:40, September 10, 2005 (UTC)
    • I'm assuming "Acirckadia" was a mistake for "&Acirc;kadia", i.e. "Âkadia". The circumflex is often used to denote long vowels in romanization of Japanese; Âkadia is just the "japanization" of Arkadia (the place mentioned in the show). As a foreign word, it wouldn't be written in kanji ("pictograms") in Japanese, it would be written in the katakana syllabary, thus: アーカディア. --Angr/tɔk tə mi 06:54, 10 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • According to this IMDB entry, it should be "Arkadia". So "アルカディア物語" would correspond to that. However, googling seems to show that the full title is おにぎり・アルカディア物語 (ONIGIRI ARCADIA MONOGATARI) but unfortunately I can't read Japanese, so you'd have to confirm that. -- Curps 07:36, 10 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
"おにぎり?” Onigiri? Garrett Albright 15:45, 10 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, yeah rice ball? Seems an odd word to put in the title... --Sherool 16:05, 10 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Japanese is not written in pictograms, but in a combination of logograms and letters. See Japanese writing system for details. Gdr 11:38:56, 2005-09-10 (UTC)

Thanks for all the info :) --Sherool 15:52, 10 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Capitalization of terms based on names

If a word is based on a person's name (eg Marxist, Darwinian, Satanic), does the new word get capitalized? Andjam 16:18, 10 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Normally, yes. This is how any dictionary will show them. But there are a few words that become so familiar that people forget they are based on a name. Biro and hoover (at least the UK) spring to mind. Shantavira 17:08, 10 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
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