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March 1

Chinese/English help: File:TNA332toShanghai.ogg

The audio in File:TNA332toShanghai.ogg goes so quickly that I cannot tell when the person switches from Chinese to English. What is she saying? Would someone mind posting the text in here? Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 02:17, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

She never speaks Chinese in that audio. What she said is described in the caption: "Transasia 332? Transasia 332, contact Shanghai 133.35, over", except that the file cuts off after "one three three decimal". --Bowlhover (talk) 22:38, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. So the audio stops after "Shanghai 133." right? WhisperToMe (talk) 01:24, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Do elders & children usually have different phonologies?

--96.40.43.34 (talk) 04:37, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

It depends what you mean, but children don't language acquisition acquire all the phonemes and clusters of their native languge at once. My niece who just turned three leaves out /r/s in clusters, so she says "Iss boken" for "It's broken". This is typical for all languages, and I have heard, but cannot remember where, that it's typical for children to take until the age of 12 to master the clusters and phonemes of the particularly complex Georgian language.

Even the language of the children once they reach adulthood tends to vary from that of the parents. My family is from Philly. My father says "yuge" and "atteetude" instead of my "huge" and "attitude" (Freudian slip?) My uncle called the football team the Iggles, while his children say the Eagles. I say "sawsage" for meat casings while he says "sahsage". If there were no variation like this there would be no language change (although the examples I give are not unconditioned sound changes). Look also at all the changes involved in a child who says "Nigga be frontin" where his parent might say "The fellow is putting on airs." μηδείς (talk) 22:13, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Linguistic Stereotypes

Why, in fantasy novels/films or even in sci-fi, do warrior culture races have languages that sound like Mongolian (and even have similar looking writing systems)? And elves and such have languages that sound like Latin with a British English RP accent? Is there something about the sounds of the languages that is intended to portray the nature of the people? In which case, is this true in real life? I doubt it, but I would like to ask our learned colleagues here. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 13:10, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

It's very subjective, but Tolkien has said Sindarin was modelled after Welsh and Finnish. His Adûnaic, what little is attested, e.g., "Ar Pharazon", seems Turkic and Semitic, while his Dwarvish supposedly has triconsonantal roots and the black speech strikes me as a Turkic/Persian/Northwest Caucasian mixture. There are apparently two competing trends, the attempt to seem prestigious (or coarse), and the attempt to sound exotic. μηδείς (talk) 18:38, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Obviously this will be coarse or exotic from the standpoint of the language of the reader of the main text. The Lord of the Rings in Mandarin or Arabic translation would have a very different feel. Tolkien addresses this in his Letters as well, giving advice on how not to translate some of the names into other European languages, and relating the funny experience of having the hosts at a Tolkien conference in the Netherlands offer him "Maggot Soup". μηδείς (talk) 20:30, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Medeis -- as I understand it, Sindarin was modelled on Welsh, while Quenya was modelled on Finnish and Latin, as far as phonology and phonotactics go... AnonMoos (talk) 01:08, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

I won't argue that, since the consonant mutations (like those in Welsh) are obvious in Sindarin. (The Sindarin plural ablaut has nothing to do with either Welsh or Finnish.) But I thought he worked backwards from Sindarin to Quenya, which he said stood in relation to it like Latin did to Welsh (i.e., indirectly, a là Italo-Celtic). -- User:Medeis

It's actually umlaut: assimilation to a lost final /i/. —Tamfang (talk) 09:04, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

in Sindarin, that is. —Tamfang (talk) 23:23, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

According to an old book I have here ("Learn Welsh for English Speakers"), Welsh does have singular-plural pairs such as corn-cyrn, esgob-esgyb, caseg-cesyg, bardd-beirdd, sant-saint etc... -- AnonMoos (talk) 13:58, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

I was wondering if that might be the case, AM, but our article on Welsh just says there are various endings. μηδείς (talk) 16:43, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Taking endings in the plural is presumably the more common noun pattern, but according to "Learn Welsh for English Speakers", there are not only the type of nouns listed above, but also vowel changes observable in feminine adjective forms (masculine tlws feminine tlos; masculine gwyn feminine gwen), and also in certain verbal forms (verbal noun torri third singular tyr; verbal noun datod third singular detyd) etc. AnonMoos (talk) 17:10, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, Welsh has a variety of vowel alternations, both productive and unproductive. The ones forming plurals, feminine adjectives, and second- and third-person singular verb forms are unproductive, but Welsh does have productive alternations between /ʊ/ or /ɨ/ in final syllables and /ə/ in nonfinal syllables, e.g. cwm /kʊm/ 'valley', plural cymoedd /ˈkəmoɨð/; dyn /dɨn/ 'person', plural dynion /ˈdənjon/. (The /ɨ ~ ə/ alternation is so productive and predictable it's not even reflected in the spelling.) Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:09, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

KageTora -- Not 100% sure what you're asking, but there are vague popular stereotypes of harsh "guttural languages" (lots of closed syllables and consonant clusters and back-of-the-mouth consonants), supposedly spoken by grim people in cold climates vs. melodic "liquid languages" (with open syllables, no consonant clusters, and few back of mouth consonants), supposedly spoken by people with languid lifestyles on idyllic south sea islands. AnonMoos (talk) 01:08, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

And there is a bitter irony in this stereotype as Wales and Finland are in the north, and winters in the latter are very harsh, plus all Finno-Ugric languages sound quite soft and smooth. While Arabs or Georgians with their "guttural" languages live in the sunny south.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 15:50, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

"is this true in real life?" Yes, real elves absolutely talk like that. —Tamfang (talk) 09:25, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

It's probably also worth noting that there are two main historical cultures seen (by westerners) as warrior races, the Vikings, and the Mongols under Gengis Khan (plus the samurai of Japan, but that tends to lean more towards heavy honour codes, and less towards invading others in popular culture). Frankly, would you be able to take a klingon seriously if he sounded like the Swedish Chef? MChesterMC (talk) 10:11, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

I think Tolkien and others are exploiting the old West European (or British to be precise) popular idea about "good" North-West ("Us") and "bad" South-East, North-East or simply East ("Them"). As "the old enemies of the Western civilisation" like Huns, Mongols, Arabs, Turks, and even Germans and Russians (if we count from the British POV) have come from these latter directions. --Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 16:02, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Since you're asking about stereotypes in fiction, check TVtropes. Here's some relevant pages I found: "Evil Sounds Deep" , "Everything sounds sexier in French" , and "Harsh Vocals" . Other related content here . Not the most academic resource, but tons of examples, and might be food for thought. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:03, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

French help: finding French language articles on the International School of Paris

I would like to have help finding French language articles on the International School of Paris. Is it called "International School of Paris" or "Ecole internationale de Paris" in French? I know the New York Times posted an article talking about the school. Surely the French newspapers have done this too? WhisperToMe (talk) 13:38, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

The French Misplaced Pages article about the school uses the name "International School of Paris", untranslated. If that helps any. --Jayron32 19:57, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing that out. I started that article. It is under the French version of AFD, so while I pointed out the New York Times article that is a source, I would like to see if there are more articles that talk about it. WhisperToMe (talk) 01:23, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Not much luck, but I did find an interview with the former headteacher. Alansplodge (talk) 02:29, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

And Visite à l’International School of Paris and a brief mention at - L'école et le retour en France. C'est tout. Alansplodge (talk) 02:29, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you so much! That interview will be very helpful! I archived it at http://www.webcitation.org/6NlaVtkPk WhisperToMe (talk) 06:16, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Based on fr:Wikipédia:Notoriété#Présentation des critères:

• "« Couverture significative et durable »
• Une « couverture significative » signifie que des sources traitent le sujet directement en détail, de telle façon qu'on puisse en extraire le contenu de l'article sans qu'aucun travail inédit ne soit nécessaire. Une couverture significative, durable va au delà de simples mentions ; elle doit comprendre au minimum deux sources secondaires considérées comme fiables, dont l'objet principal est le sujet de l'article, et qui doivent être espacées d'au moins deux ans (sauf exceptions précisées dans le chapitre « La notoriété doit être pérenne »). "

Does this mean that the article sources have to be about the subject? (In the English Misplaced Pages a source proving notability does not have to be centrally about the subject - it only has to have significant information about the subject) WhisperToMe (talk) 15:58, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

The French text means "must treat the subject directly and in details". It doesn't say the article must be solely about the subject. So, for example, an article about the American community in Paris that contains in-depth information about the school would be acceptable. If it mentions that there are some American schools, and talks in general about those schools, it would not be acceptable. That's my personal reading, though. --Xuxl (talk) 17:45, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

But it goes on to say that the sources must be centrally about the subject. "'Significant coverage' means that sources describe the topic directly and in detail, in such a way that the content of the article may be drawn from them without special effort. Lasting significant coverage goes beyond simple mentions; it must include at least two secondary sources that are considered reliable, whose main subject is the topic of the article, and which must be at least two years apart (except for the cases laid out in the section 'permanent notability'). Itsmejudith (talk) 06:43, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

March 2

St. George's, Grenada apostrophe

Why is there an apostrophe in the name of St. George's, the capital of Grenada? I had guessed that it might have originally been named St. Georges by the French, and that the English added the apostrophe in a process akin to back-formation, but I've not yet found any evidence to support that idea. -- ToE 00:46, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Could very well be a noun with possessive suffix, but without any explicit accompanying possessed (a phenomenon discussed not too long ago on this board). AnonMoos (talk) 01:00, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

No, the French called the place Ville de Fort Royal, but when the island was ceded to Great Britain in 1763, it was renamed St George's Town, Saint George being the patron saint of England. See Grenada: Carriacou - Petite Martinique by Paul Crask (p. 92). Alansplodge (talk) 02:04, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

I have added this detail to our article. Still needs some work though. Alansplodge (talk) 16:47, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you Alansplodge! -- ToE 23:41, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Russian help

Is this really Russian, and if so, is it grammatical? For the curious, this relates to the lost cosmonauts conspiracy theory. --Bowlhover (talk) 03:21, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, the intonation matches what is expected from the text, although the translation is not literal, and I cannot at all vouch for the provenance of the recording. Basically, I would say, "this sounds like a woman transmitting in Russian". I expect User:JackofOz and User:Любослов Езыкин will agree, maybe they will comment. But it's no more clear than "I buried Paul/Cranberry Sauce". μηδείς (talk) 04:43, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

It's so unclear to my hearing-loss-affected ears that I could not say what language it's in. Only because I'm told it's Russian, do I think I perceive some brief glimpses of Russianish intonation. But it could be Polish or Ukrainian or Bulgarian or Czech for all I know. If I'd been given no information, the best I could say is that it was not English. -- Jack of Oz 19:32, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Are you a fluent Russian speaker? If you can easily understand spoken Russian, but you can't understand this video, I'll have to assume the woman is not a native Russian speaker. --Bowlhover (talk) 22:28, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

No, I have never claimed to be a fluent Russian speaker, because I never have been. I can usually understand the general gist of what a Russian speaker is saying, but as I say, this recording is so unclear, I can't say what language it is, let alone understand what she's saying. I tried to match the translation with the sounds I was hearing, but I couldn't even do that. So, while I'm not prepared to confirm it's Russian, I'm not in a position to deny it either. -- Jack of Oz 03:19, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

That conclusion doesn't follow at all, Bowlhover. I can identify an orchid without being able to draw an orchid. I can tell the Beatles, Stones, or Hendrix are singing English without knowing what they are saying in English. Russian has very clear diagnostic features; a certain set of phonemes, free stress, with vowel reduction of unstressed vowels: akane and икaньe and a certain set of numbers which seem to occur in the recording. The woman seems to say один in a way that is very diagnostic of Russian, not Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Rusyn, or any other Eastern Slavic or even Slavic language. If you are going to ask for expert assistance, you might abstain from pretending to give your own. μηδείς (talk) 05:33, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

What are you talking about? I don't disagree with any of the statements you just made. My point was that if someone is supposedly speaking English, and I can't even identify the language as English despite being a fluent English speaker, I would suspect that person is either not speaking English or not a native speaker. Do you disagree with that? --Bowlhover (talk) 05:56, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I absolutely disagree with that. See Mondegreen. See fetuses recognizing their own language at birth It's perfectly possible to identify something as belonging to language X without being able to identify what exactly is being said in language X. Even fetuses do this. μηδείς (talk) 06:27, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Also (or maybe the same), the fluency of the listener's command of the spoken language has no bearing on whether they can identify the language when spoken by others. I know no Dutch and very little German but I can distinguish them from each other. I know maybe 2 words of Portuguese but I can distinguish it from Spanish. I know no Czech, Polish, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Serbian or Rusyn, but I can distinguish them all from Russian and (apart from Rusyn) from each other. I can distinguish Chinese from Japanese from Vietnamese from Cambodian ... -- Jack of Oz 07:31, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Note that this is a recording by the Judica-Cordiglia brothers, and almost certainly a hoax, probably with Russian-ish dialogue recorded by their (Italian) sister. Adam Bishop (talk) 02:21, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Adam, I saw your comment after having written mine. I'd also say that it looks like some woman was sitting in her dacha's veranda in a hot summer day and testing her newly bought tape recorder, that's why she was saying 1, 2, 3.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 15:15, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

If I wasn't aware it's in Russian I wouldn't comprehend anything. Only after having known it's Russian I could hear «1, 2, 3, 4, 5». And only after having read the translation and listening hard one more time I could recognize also «Слышите! Мне жарко!». My authoritative conclusion: it is incomprehensible gibberish. The description to the audio is an obvious anti-Soviet conspiracy rubbish about some good western guys (here they're Italians, hello Marconi!) revealing the Truth™ which had been hidden by the evil chthonic KGB. In fact this can be absolutely anything.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 15:08, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Follow-up on simulating and gibberish

Spun off from Adam Bishop's reply to the "Russian" question above: This kind of simulated (often improvised) rendering of a language has come up in questions before. I mean things like "Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer?" or "Prisencolinensinainciusol" (or Simlish). Is there a term (or even a list of notable examples) for this spoken version, beyond gibberish? ---Sluzzelin talk 07:41, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it's "double talk". See this brief video in four languages by perhaps the best practitioner of double talk ever. μηδείς (talk) 19:11, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

There are a couple good double talk scenes in His Girl Friday which is on youtube and out of copyright. This is a contemporary artist in English. μηδείς (talk) 19:26, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! ---Sluzzelin talk 03:20, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

A famous British talker of total gibberish was comedian Stanley Unwin. See, for example, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=323kQis2zbM 86.160.217.154 (talk) 15:04, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Books about Misplaced Pages or encyclopedias in languages other than English or French

There are a few books about Misplaced Pages and there are a few books about encyclopedias, but sources in languages other than English and French are difficult to find. Specifically I'm looking for books in languages other than English about encyclopedias outside of the best known Enlightenment and American examples (and on Misplaced Pages if about something other than the en.wikipedia). Is this better suited for Refdesk/Humanities? --— Rhododendrites |  16:25, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Category:Books about Misplaced Pages has a link to Arabic Misplaced Pages and a link to Portuguese Misplaced Pages.

—Wavelength (talk) 22:52, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

March 3

Word choice

Is it considered OK to repeat the word "that" in an English sentence? Or is it something that is not preferable, such that alternate wording should be found? An example is this sentence: I just realized that that is the name of my dentist, also. I know that it is grammatically correct; but is it considered "bad form"? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 15:54, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

So, you're asking for answers in the vein of linguistic prescriptivism, right? If so, it all depends on the style guide for whatever you're writing, and where (or if) it's published. My WP:OR is that it's publishable in some academic journals (I've done it), but I also try to re-word and avoid the form when possible. If you want to consider the linguistic descriptivism approach, this evidence , seems to indicate that the construction is tolerated, but on the decline. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:09, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I looked at that link (the one for "evidence" about the use being in decline). What exactly is that Google Books NGram Viewer? I have never seen that before. What exactly is it counting? What exactly is it keeping track of? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 22:50, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi User:Joseph A. Spadaro, Ngram means it can search for exact combinations of N-many words (up to N=5 at present). It searches a corpus of English language material (marked by time of publication), going back to 1800 in some cases (there is a separate corpus for BritEng, AmEng, French, etc.) Any book included in Google books is searched, and they are adding more material all the time. The vertical axis show how often the phrase appears in the corpus, compared to all other phrases of that length. Here is google's general info page on the Ngram viewer . I don't know much more about it than that, but it's a really cool way to get an idea of how often certain phrases are used in print. There is also a way to download their database for academic research, but I mostly use it as a quick way to check on usage over history (knowing there are some caveats, and I'm not trying to make any rigorous conclusions based on the results). It's primarily designed for language issues, but you can also see some history at play, e.g. compare incidence of "car" to "carriage", we can see that "car" surpasses "carriage" right around the introduction of the Model T Ford. Try it out, see what kinds of cool patterns you can find! SemanticMantis (talk) 15:51, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Very interesting, thanks! Yes, now that I am aware of this tool, I will definitely use it. Thanks again. I had never heard of that before. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:20, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Sometimes it really is the best and most appropriate and most concise construction. The two 'that's have different functions. Just as the two 'had's have different purposes in She had had to change her plans due to her mother's sudden illness; and then she'd met Tarquin, and that had changed everything. Absolutely nothing wrong with it, imo.

One very common overuse of 'that' is in sentences where the word is separated from its object by a longish parenthetical phrase and the writer/speaker sort of forgets they've already said 'that' and feels the need to say it again: I know in my heart that, even though most would violently disagree and most others would have trouble accepting my thesis without some moral gymnastics, that JackofOz is a fine fellow. Only one of those 'that's is required. Clumsy sentence and all, but just to make the point. -- Jack of Oz 19:24, 3 March 2014 (UTC) Here's a RL one that just arrived on my iphone: .. I still have expectations that when opening times are posted that the places will be open at those times (in reference to lax Central American shop opening practices). -- Jack of Oz 23:17, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Bold text

I know that this is rather nit-picky. But, I am curious about it nonetheless, from a style-guide point of view. If you look at the nominees of the 86th Academy Awards, they list the names of the winners in bold print. For example, the winner of Best Picture is: 12 Years a Slave – Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Steve McQueen, and Anthony Katagas. The winner of Best Actor is: Matthew McConaughey – Dallas Buyers Club as Ron Woodroof. My question is: if we are going to be precise and stylistically correct, are the words such as "and" and "as" actually supposed to be in bold print? Or should just the names themselves be in bold, but not the words such as "and" and "as"? In other words, is it correct, as is? Or should it be that the bold "starts" and then "stops" and then "starts again", etc.? Is the bolding of the words "and" and "as" just a lazy and incorrect way of typing this? Or is it the correct way of presenting bold text material? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 16:07, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Related to your question above, the only "correct" format is in terms of the house style guide. In the absence of such a style guide, people often turn to language mavens like Strunk & White, but I don't recall if they say much about usage font weight. Things like plays and movie scripts have strict rules about bolding and italics, that wouldn't matter at all for e.g. a novel. One thing that has bugged me in the past: some places allow me to use italics for emphasis, while others disallow it. Then, because italics are not allowed for emphasis, I have to give emphasis through repetition, which is tedious, and repetitive ;) (Nb it looks like you changed some of your wording after I typed this, so this might not be that helpful for your revised question.) SemanticMantis (talk) 16:19, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. (I only revised some minor formatting of my original question, when I made the edit; there were no substantive edits to the wording of the question.) So, I guess what I am asking is: what is the Misplaced Pages style of doing this? And, outside of Misplaced Pages, what is the correct style (I have to imagine that this has come up before)? I guess the question is: is the word "and" a part of the winner's name; is the word "as" a part of the winner's name? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 16:32, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, looks like I was misreading a bit then. Anyway, our WP style guide is at WP:MOS. There's instructions on italics, and a few mentions of bolding within quotes, but I can't easily see anything directly applicable to your question. Since this is Misplaced Pages, you could even be WP:BOLD, and add some info to our MOS on bolding! On the other hand, we have a few users here who know the ins-and-outs of the main English style guides, so maybe they will chime in. For what it's worth, I agree that un-bolding "and" and "as" seems better. Compare to title case, where we have e.g. "The Lord of the Rings", not "The Lord Of The Rings". Since you're specifically talking about movies here, you may enjoy this NYT piece on formatting for movie posters . There too, "and" and "with" are typographically demoted, compared to actor names. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:50, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Wow! Who would have imagined that creating a movie poster was that complicated?!?!?!?!??! Made my head spin. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:28, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

I disagree with Semantic Mantis about the unbolding of 'and' and 'as'. This is a confusion with the rules about what words not to capitalise in the name of a movie, book, play, musical or opera. There, one does not capitalise articles or conjunctions unless they're the first word. So it's 12 Years a Slave, not 12 Years A Slave. But bolding of a name or title applies to the whole thing or none of it: 12 Years a Slave, not 12 Years a Slave. The title of an article always appears in the lede, bolded. The entire title is bolded. In our Oscar lists, we bold winners to distinguish them from other nominees. Film titles are bolded. That's the entire title. This may have been agreed explicitly somewhere long ago, or it may have just developed that way and now everyone copies what others have done. But we most certainly have a very strong implicit consensus. We can't go around making up a different practice just because one person thinks it "seems better" their way. There's a process for changing things like this. -- Jack of Oz 19:06, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Jack, I believe you're misreading what Semantic Mantis said. They're not talking about little words within a title, they're talking about words between titles in the bolded list. FWIW I agree with them. --ColinFine (talk) 19:23, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, woddaya know, I misunderread (not the only one). I too agree that "and" and "as" in those cases are not part of anyone's name or any film's title, and should not be bolded. Previous response strucken. -- Jack of Oz 19:39, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps the reference to title case was a red herring :) SemanticMantis (talk) 21:02, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Alphabetical order

In "normal life", we would normally alphabetize a person's name according to their last name (surname). However, on Misplaced Pages, an article title such as, say, George Washington would appear (alphabetically) under the "G" and not the "W" (simply because "G" is the first letter that appears in the article title, without regard to the fact that it represents the person's given name and not his surname). So, here is my question: When we are creating a list in alphabetical order on Misplaced Pages, should an article title such as "George Washington" be listed alphabetically under "G" or under "W"? Is there some Misplaced Pages policy on this? I am not necessarily referring to the name/title being presented in a list of other names. But, more so, when the name/title is being listed alongside other Misplaced Pages article titles that are not necessarily names. For example, let’s say that we have a "See also" list in an article; and we want to list the "See also" items in alphabetical order. Which of these "See also" lists would be correct (if the goal is alphabetical order)?

== See also ==

• George Washington
• Latvia
• Special Olympics

Or

== See also ==

• Latvia
• Special Olympics
• George Washington

In the first case, it is alphabetized as: G, L, S. In the second case, it is alphabetized as L, S, W. I would imagine that the "correct" alphabetization (in the "real world") would be the L, S, W approach (the second one listed above). But, in terms of a Misplaced Pages list, that almost seems to defeat the purpose (when the article titles are G, L, S; as in the first example above). So, do we have any policy or style guide – or any preference – in this regard? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 16:39, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages uses the "common names" axiom, which is why George Washington is the article and Washington, George redirects to that article. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 17:01, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, but you have confused me. What does that mean, in terms of my above question? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:19, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

George is listed under the W's in categories and lists of people. If we're talking about say bridges, then I'd put the George Washington Bridge under the G's. As for a mixed list of people and non-people, you'd need to provide an example. I can't recall seeing such an animal. For the See also section, there's usually too few entries to make it necessary to alphabetize it. I generally order it by relevance to the article. Clarityfiend (talk) 17:40, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but that is exactly the point of my question. If it was a list of solely people's names, then it would make sense to list them by surname. If it was a list of solely other entities (i.e., not people's names, like the George Washington Bridge or George Washington High School), then we would list them by "first letter" of title. My question is when both are mixed. I gave the example above (Latvia, Special Olympics, etc.). I didn't specifically look for a "real" example in Misplaced Pages; I am sure they abound. I have seen them many times, which is why I finally decided to ask today. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:38, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

I found two "real" examples. The first is Single-bullet theory. I myself actually added in the name of James Tague (just yesterday, I believe). And I was not sure where to place it, alphabetically. I also wanted to find an independent example, one which I took no part in. The very first page I decided to look at was Richard Nixon. And that article has the same type of example I am referring to (a "See also" section, with a mix of people and non-people). Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:49, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

As I said before, in a mixed See all listing, it doesn't make sense to list them alphabetically at all; that's just for entries of the same type. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:05, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Clarityfiend has given you excellent guidance. As an example: List of people from New York will show you first an exception, the presidents in chronological order, and then the sorting by last name as the general rule. WP:MOS and the The Help Desk should be of use to you as well. Oh, and don't mind Baseball Bugs, he just likes to chime in as much as he can.54.80.71.128 (talk) 18:04, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

And don't mind 54, who is a harassment-only sockmaster. And since Joseph didn't get what I meant, in normal writing and speaking you're more likely to say "George Washington" than "Washington, George". Hence, George Washington is the "common name". In a printed encyclopedia, typically it would be last-name-first. But not in Misplaced Pages. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 18:30, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, Baseball Bugs, I certainly "got" all that. I just wasn't sure how that information (which I already knew) addressed my specific question above about "See also" list alphabetizing. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:32, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

In "see also" sections, there appears to be no hard-and-fast rule. And your example is a serious apples-oranges-and-bananas situation, as there is no obvious commonality. But if you look at the disambiguation page Leonardo, for example, you'll see they tend to be listed alphabetically by last name, even though the "last, first" construction is not used. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 18:43, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

With Latvia, Special Olympics, and George Washington ... I just made up an example, off the top of my head. The thrust of the question dealt with the letters (in that case, the L, S, and G or W distinction). The words themselves were not important. So, I just made up a list with letters that illustrated the point I was making. (I was not at all concerned with the actual words, in order to make my point.) Yes, clearly, the Latvia / Special Olympics / George Washington titles are a mixed bag of apples and oranges and such. If we are "stuck" on this (very minor) point, I gave two "real life" examples above (Single-bullet theory and Richard Nixon). I am quite sure that there are many hundreds of other examples on Misplaced Pages. I see it all the time because, in fact, one of my pet peeves is to alphabetize "See also" lists. Richard Nixon happened to be the very first article that I decided to look at. And, lo and behold, it had exactly the type of example I am asking about above. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:00, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

If your seemingly random lists of words or topics were part of the index to a book, for example, George would definitely be under W. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 19:48, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. In a printed book, yes, clearly. But, I am trying to get some clarification for Misplaced Pages purposes. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:49, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

You may find Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Lists of some use. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 21:17, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

I just found out that the Misplaced Pages MOS states that "See also" lists should preferably be alphabetized. Here: Misplaced Pages:Guide to layout#See also section. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 22:57, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Recently, in my routine editing of many articles, I came across an article where a list of personal names was alphabetized by last name, although they were presented with the first names first. I did not spend time to find out how that was accomplished, and I do not know whether a template was used.

—Wavelength (talk) 03:38, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps you are talking about the "sort name" template? It appears, for example, in this article: List of actors who have appeared in multiple Best Picture Academy Award winners. There, all of the actor names are listed as First Name, Last Name. However, when the Name column is sorted, it will sort by Last Name, First Name. The first actor on the list, (Ben Affleck). gets sorted as an "A" for Affleck, not as a "B" for Ben. Yet, his name is listed as "Ben Affleck". This is done with the "sort name" template (documented here: Template:Sortname). Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:26, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

That template was probably used in the article that I mentioned.

—Wavelength (talk) 18:05, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Why is it bad to ask God to damn things?

Why are idiomatic phrases "God damn it!" and "that goddamn son of a bitch" considered curse words? I mean, if you dissect them and interpret them literally, then you'll just asking God to damn things. 140.254.227.87 (talk) 16:33, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

See curse. ("A curse ... is any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to some other entity.") Looie496 (talk) 16:58, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

So, why is it bad to curse in that sense of the term? 140.254.227.87 (talk) 18:21, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

In case you mean "curse words" less literally, more in the general sense of profanity, see also "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain". ---Sluzzelin talk 17:06, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Is that related to blaspheming the Holy Spirit, which is bad, because it's basically seeing good as evil and evil as good and deliberately accusing someone or something of wickedness and condemning it? Would a Roman Catholic priest forgive blaspheming the Holy Spirit if it had been done unintentionally? 140.254.227.87 (talk) 18:21, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

In one sense, an analogy would be: thou shall not call the CEO at corporate headquarters with every petty dispute. — Preceding analogy added by 71.20.250.51 (talk) 18:36, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, not really. God is all-knowing, all-seeing, and all-powerful. The notion of God being "too busy" is a bogus notion created by some sects to justify their hierarchies. I think of it more like the boomerang factor - you ask God to curse someone, He might check your own record first. And it's arrogant. But mostly, it's just uncouth. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 18:58, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, you are basically using your own power to command the Allpowerful to curse one of his own creations. It's about as rude as saying "Fuck your broken lightbulb, Dad, it keeps flickering." μηδείς (talk) 19:07, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

That's why I added "in one sense" -- mainly relating to "in vein" meaning "not unless you really, really mean it". — Preceding clarification added by 71.20.250.51 (talk) 19:23, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

That's more of it. The idea is that you're profaning the concept of God's judgement by flippantly calling on him to judge something/someone when you don't mean it. If you believe in the concept of an unending hell, you're not going to make such a statement seriously (i.e. as a prayer to God to send someone there) without an extremely good reason, and of course you won't make such a statement in this sense if you don't believe in such a concept. For that reason, it's generally considered profanity. Of course, if you really do mean that, it is a curse, but not in the sense of "cussing." 149.160.174.45 (talk) 21:49, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Why are contractions pronounced from two syllables to one syllable?

I don't get why contractions are pronounced from two syllables to one syllable. No matter how fast I say the two words, they just don't add up to right sound in the contraction. When I say "shall not" very quickly, it sounds like "shit" and "aht", not "shan't." Perhaps, the contractions were originally derived from archaic speech, or perhaps they were originally derived from writing and then pronouncing those written contractions? Examples include:

• "I can not" becomes "I can't" (Preterite: I couldn't)
• "I shall not" becomes "I shan't" (Preterite: I shouldn't)
• "I will not" becomes "I won't" (This becomes trickier when you consider the fact that you pronounce the long o sound. Where does the long o come from anyway? Preterite: I wouldn't)
• "I may not" becomes "I mayn't" (Uncommon, but nevertheless a valid phrase. Preterite: I mightn't)
• "I am not" becomes "I ain't" (Preterite: I wasn't) 140.254.227.87 (talk) 18:08, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

EO has a brief discussion of "won't". Unfortunately, our Contraction (grammar) article seems to be more of a list than a history. But English-speakers tend to shorten things, a process which presumably happens over the course of time, no in one fell swoop. Such as "folks'll" as the pronunciation of "forecastle". And there's the handling of the abbreviation "St." for "Saint". In America we still say "Saint" when we see "St." (or "Street", but that's another thing). Brits tend to say "St." as "Sint" or "Snt". ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 18:27, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Contractions exist in the language because that's what people say (or said). The process of contraction happens at different times and places, and may not be obvious according to the phonetics of a different time or place. Shakespeare wrote many contractions that are not normal today (such as "i'th" for "in the", or "upon's" for "upon us"); some of these may have been for metrical reasons, but it seems likely that they were drawn from the everyday spoken language. Those two have not lasted, unlike the ones you list. On the other hand, there are far more contractions in current English than these: it is just that most of the rest are hardly ever acknowledged in writing. Examples are "gimme", "gissa"*, "wanna", "havta" and "gonna". I have noticed myself saying /ˌkʲævəkʌpə'ti/ ("Kyavvercuppertea", or "Kyavvuhcuppuhtea" for non-rhotics) meaning "Can I have a cup of tea". Some contractions reduce the number of syllables; others do not.

*For those unfamiliar with "gissa", it is a British (especially but not exclusively Scottish) contraction of "give us a", and often means "give me a".

The "why" is because speech is a trade off between the effort of pronouncing words and the effort of understanding them. There are various processes that happen in language change, such as assimilation, metathesis, syncope and epenthesis which can all be described with some justice as the product of laziness. Whenever these have occurred, they probably started off as a feature of rapid speech of some group (often of young people) and gradually became established in the language. The contractions you are talking about have been around, we know, for several hundred years, and they are normal in everyday speech; but they have not so far driven out the older forms, and fashion does not accept them for certain registers. --ColinFine (talk) 19:53, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

140.254.227.87 -- Won't is ultimately due to l vocalization, which occurs in a number of languages (and several dialects of English), by no means always in morphologically complex "contractions". Anyway, "n't" is actually a clitic form (some linguists have even argued that it's actually a negative inflectional suffix), so it's not surprising that the sound changes it induces in the preceding word are not the same as generalized fast speech changes... AnonMoos (talk) 03:07, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

See the photo I've just added to the top of this section, from Arkansas, USA. The caption says "Southern drawl", but it's definitely here in the Great Lakes region as well. Definition 6 at the Urban Dictionary provides a fuller example. Nyttend (talk) 13:14, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

I think "Jeet Yet?" is a fairly generalized American English fast speech form (not sure why we don't have an article on "fast speech"), with the further reduction "Jeechet?" ... -- AnonMoos (talk) 13:44, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

No, joo? μηδείς (talk) 18:19, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Odd. I had a coworker from Indiana once that said she had a hard time at first understanding Californians when she moved there, and gave "j'eet yet?" as an example. So I don't know how widespread it is. — kwami (talk) 20:41, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Actually, "Jeechet?" , as AM gives is what you hear. People don't weaken "Did you eat" to "Jeet" without also weakening the second -t yet sequence to -chet. (IN other words, "Jeet yet" is half attempted phonetics and half orthography as taught, not spoken.) As far as I am aware, Jeechet is common to General American, including the eastern Midland dialects. In fact, Jeechet? No, joo? is a running joke in my immediate family. See also Mairzy dotes. μηδείς (talk) 23:16, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

British colonial insertion of "r"s where they don't belong.

I have recently come across a few words like Burma which have an /r/ and which I have always thought were supposed to do so because of the "r" being in the native form. But it isn't. Burma should be /bəma/. Burmese language syllables don't have final /r/s, only -/ʔ/ and -/ɴ/ occur, and the "r" is only found in loans from English and Sanskrit and Pali. So it turns out the Burma spelling is most likely the approximation of a non-rhotic colonial, and the "r" should actually be silent if one wants to approximate the original language.

I have also come across this in a few other terms, probably in geographical names, in areas with largely vowel-final words colonised by the British. Can anybody mention other examples, or give any comment? Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 19:02, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Not quite the same, but until quite recently, I always assumed "Ahmed" started out like the German "Ach". Then I learnt that the Ah- simply denotes a long a, and it was spelt that way because "Amed" would have resulted in people saying "Ay-məd". -- Jack of Oz 20:08, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Fraid not, Jack. Our article Ahmad transliterates the Arabic as "ʾaḥmad", with a stronger aspirate than English /h/. No doubt some English-speaking Ahmeds drop the /h/, because that phoneme does not occur preconsonantly in English; but it's certainly there in Arabic. --ColinFine (talk) 20:20, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks again, Colin. Time to reassume my assumption, sort of. -- Jack of Oz 20:52, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

The "h" in Ahmad is technically a voiceless pharyngeal consonant. The same consonants ħ-m-d ح - م- د appear in both "Ahmad" and "Muhammad" due to Semitic root morphology... AnonMoos (talk) 02:54, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Of course, a coda /ħ/ is likely to be misheard as a long vowel by someone who doesn't realize it's there; see, for example, and . Which probably explains why so many English speakers pronounce things like coda /ħ/ in Arabic and coda /h/ in Turkish with spitty uvular sounds. Lsfreak (talk) 21:03, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

The only other example I can immediately think of, coincidentally, is "Myanmar". I believe there are others, but I can't think of any at present. --ColinFine (talk) 20:20, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

There's also the Korean name Park, which is a variant of Pak or Bak. -- 87.151.45.156 (talk) 20:30, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes! Park is one of the two other instances I couldn't remember. I was very surprised by that one. μηδείς (talk) 21:14, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

That may just be a case of the word being Anglicized to match an English word. (If the original name had an extra r, as in "Prark", they probably would have taken it out.) StuRat (talk) 20:17, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

• This looks like a case of intrusive R becoming standardized. It could be that the first English speakers to establish the English name for these places had an accent with intrusive R, and as such, became standardized. --Jayron32 23:02, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't think it's anything to do with the intrusive R, which is to do with generalising the restoration of a final /r/ before a vowel-initial word to other words which never had a final /r/ but are historically vowel-final. Two of the three cases that have been mentioned involve an <r> before a consonant, which is an entirely different context. It's simply that the most common way of writing the sound /ɑ/ in non-rhotic British English is <ar>, and all the plausible ways of writing a stressed /ə/ in non-rhotic British English include an <r>: <er>, <ur> or <ir>. --ColinFine (talk) 00:10, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Our article on Rhotic and non-rhotic accents, subsection "Effect on spelling" has some more examples, including schoolmarm and parcheesi/pachisi. ---Sluzzelin talk 01:15, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

A couple of non-written examples are the pronunciation in rhotic Northern Ireland of "lager" as "lar-ger", and sometimes "Peugeot" as "per-zho". --Nicknack009 (talk) 18:12, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

"Peugot" may just be trying to approximate the French front-rounded vowel with the most soundalike English vowel; some rhotic dialects in the U.S. pronounce "hors d'oeuvres" as . Anyway, "worsh" (with pronounced r) in place of "wash" used to be a shibboleth in some parts of the U.S. Midwest (don't know to what degree it still is). AnonMoos (talk) 13:49, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

• I am still a little confused by User:Alansplodge's statement above that father and farther are homophones for him. Does that mean there are semi-literate spellings like farther for the male parent, or darnce for dance? Am I just going on context when I assume that father and farther in arrhotic RP are not identically pronounced? I would swear if you asked me that the two words would be quite distinct, even in the example, "I must go a little bit, father" and "I must go a little bit farther". Is there no compensatory lengthening? μηδείς (talk) 19:54, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

No, I can confirm that they are homophones for me too and for most of my fellow English natives round here. --TammyMoet (talk) 19:59, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

I, on the other hand, can confirm that for me, my family, and the people we know, father and farther are definitely not homophones. I have no obvious "regional" accent, and am frequently teased for speaking with very pure RP. RomanSpa (talk) 00:22, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, User:RomanSpa. Can you say what the difference is to you between these two words, either in IPA if you know it, or by what they rhyme with or in a subjective description? Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 20:02, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't know IPA, I'm afraid, so I can only really give a rather useless subjective description, which is that you say each word exactly as you read it. That is, "farther" is "far" + "ther", while "father" is "fa" + "ther". This rather begs the question, of course! For what it's worth, the 'R' sound is less obvious in "far" than it is in "farther", though it's still there. In this and similar cases, the "ar" combination seems to sound slightly lower in tone than the vowel on its own. Sorry not to be more help. RomanSpa (talk) 20:40, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

It sounds as if you have just a tiny trace of rhotacism in your RP. I would use that pronunciation distinction only if I needed to distinguish between the two words without spelling them out. In my local dialect, they are distinguished by having a longer vowel in farther. Dbfirs 09:53, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

• I can confirm that the ga-il in Lark Rise to Candleford (TV series) is always going on about her Par and her Mar, back home in the hamlet, with the littl'uns. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:21, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Juggernaut. If I hadn't looked it up, I would have never guessed it derives from Jagannath. I would have rather thought it comes from German. — Kpalion 20:27, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, the OED transcribes father and farther the same. μηδείς, as Jack of Oz suggested above, this is just like Americans inserting aitches where they don't belong. "Oh" doesn't have an "h" sound in it, and neither does "ah!". At the time the h-convention was established, much more of England was rhotic, but words that have crept in since then often have "r" instead. (Not just "Myanmar", but "Burma"! – cf. Bamar.) This only seems "colonial" because it only works for non-rhotic accents, and so we don't see it in the States, but we get it in Australia too. The US convention can be seen in spellings like Ohno for Japanese Ōno, despite there being no in that name. The Korean name "Park" is even spelled "Pahk" in the US, for example with Induk Pahk. "Pak" would be mispronounced "Pack", so some remedy is needed. — kwami (talk) 20:34, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Not sure this exactly what you're looking for, but reading some of the linguistic descriptions by traders, trappers or missionaries from the early days of American colonization is downright painful. Unless you already know the language, it's impossible to tell which r's are real. Lsfreak (talk) 21:03, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

My favourite uberhypercorrective colonial spelling is the Queensland town of Caboolture. I am certain no word in any local indigenous language has the sound of a -ture ending (tjuə). Everyone ends it like -cha or -chə, but that spelling would never have done for our forefathers. -- Jack of Oz 23:44, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Thought of another: Bristol has no etymological /l/. I'd heard similar things about some places in France or Spain that are with a double-el, despite only ever being /j/, but a few quick searches of the cities I was thinking didn't reveal anything. Lsfreak (talk) 01:49, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

• Thanks, some really excellent answers. Although Kwami seems to have missed that his answer Burma was the example with which the entire thread began. (I sometimes read these threads bassupackwards myself.) Isn't Bristol Welsh for titties? How is the Welsh spelt? μηδείς (talk) 05:43, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Welsh? No. If in doubt, suspect rhyming slang. Bristol City. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:16, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Agree not welsh but for info Bristol in Welsh is Bryste. -- Q Chris (talk) 10:10, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Vietnamese phrase

I'm seeing the phrase "TIEU-LENH CUU HOA" in an early 1970s picture of a sign on a huge building in Saigon. What could it mean, and what are the correct diacritics? The sign's in the background, so I can't see the diacritics clearly, but I think there's something on top of the "E" in the first word, on top of and below the "E" in the second, on top of the first "U" in the third, and on top of the "O" in the fourth. Below the phrase are lots of words in smaller type, and i can't read them. Google Translator thinks it means "Sub-command fire," which makes no sense. 149.160.174.45 (talk) 21:54, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

"Tiêu lệnh cứu hỏa"? I think it means "fire-fighting equipment"—like fire extinguishers, fire blankets, ladders, hoses, etc. --Canley (talk) 01:01, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

March 4

Cuneiform in Misplaced Pages

In the entry to Inanna, the cuneiform symbol for deity has been changed into two boxes. The first character in her name looks like an 8-pointed asterisk.

I believe further town the same box character has replaced other cuneiform translations from the original Misplaced Pages entry.

My guess is that somebody updated the server or some other computer maintenance was performed and it could not decipher the characters in question. — Preceding unsigned comment added by IloveAgentScott (talk • contribs) 19:25, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

This probably isn't the result of a change to the Inanna article itself or Misplaced Pages's servers. I suspect the problem is on your end, that those unicode characters are no longer displayed. Were there any recent changes to your PC ? StuRat (talk) 21:18, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

I am curious how to see those cuneiforms. I looked up cuneiform articles here on Misplaced Pages after I read this above, installed some cuneiform fonts on my Windows 8.1 after and tried to fiddle with the fonts on "internet options", but to no avail. Still only boxes. Grateful for definite articles on how to make it work on Windows 8. Star Lord - 星王 (talk) 07:17, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

IloveAgentScott -- the first character in writing "Inanna" is a determinative, not really part of the name as such. It only has the shape of an eight-pointed asterisk in early cuneiform (File:Cuneiform sumer dingir.svg). In later conventionalized cuneiform, it looks like File:B010ellst.png. For the main character, see File:B153ellst.png (or in earlier form, File:Inannasumerianblack.png)... AnonMoos (talk) 10:35, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

March 5

Need help with summary of Nepali references / establishment of notability

Hello friends! There is a new-ish article on Kumud Pant and it's coming off as an autobiography/vanity piece to me. There are three references, one to a modeling gallery which does nothing to establish notability here, a second reference to an interview here, which also seems a little sketchy, and this article which is written in another language, that I am assuming is Nepali. (Please forgive me if I am wrong, I'm always happy to learn. ) If anyone familiar with the language can take a look and see whether or not the source, and the subject is notable, I'd appreciate it. I'm also curious if there might be another article out there on him that does a better job of establishing notability. Currently though, all the roles listed in his article look like background and incidental roles. "Man at bar" and such. If we can't get better RSes, I will probably take the article to AfD. Dhan'yavāda! (I copy/pasted that...) Cyphoidbomb (talk) 03:08, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

UPDATE: This may be a non-issue. I've nominated the article Kumud Pant for speedy deletion. The user has taken ownership of the article and is deleting talk page comments, removing constructive edits from the article, etc. You are still invited to comment, but please note there is a speedy nom. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 06:25, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Question about Japanese sources: How much do they talk about the Liceo Mexicano Japones? Are they independent of the school?

I found this source on a Japanese university website:

• 月本　成児 (前日本メキシコ学院日本コース:大阪府枚方市牧野小学校). "日本メキシコ学院の教育力向上に向けて." (Archive) 在外教育施設における指導実践記録. 在外教育施設における指導実践記録 32, 21-24, 2009-10-12. Tokyo Gakugei University. - See NII entry in Japanese

It mentions the Liceo Mexicano Japones (日本メキシコ学院). Is this source significantly about the school or does it have significant content about the school? Is it independent of the school in every way? What is the name of the author? What is his/her background? What is the name of the academic journal?

I also found this from a Nikkei newspaper in Brazil:

• "再浮上する日伯学園構想――第四部　日本と国際学校－（３）－日墨学院①－〝独系のような学校を〟－駐在員と共に周到に準備." (Archive) Nikkey Shimbun (ニッケイ新聞 Nikkei Shinbun, Jornal do Nikkey). ３月２７日（水）.

Would this be a reliable source to use in the article Liceo Mexicano Japones?

What about this one?

• Soejima, K (副島 健治). "メキシコの日本語教育" (Archive). Polyglossia 11, 185-197, 2006-03. 立命館アジア太平洋大学言語研究センター. (See CiNII)

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 04:56, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

The author is Seiji/成児 Tsukimoto/月本. He was the assistant principal of LMJ and is the princpal of Makino elementary school in Hirakata. I found this version. #5 and #6 are the reports on LMJ, #5 is written by Tsukimoto and #6 by Nakakita. The title of the yearly report is 在外教育施設における指導実践記録集 and your source is #32/第３２集. Tsukimoto's report is about what they did to improve the students' math at LMJ. There is one more page on LMJ at the Nikkei site. Soejima's "メキシコの日本語教育 is about ja education in Mexico in general. I think they are all reliable. Oda Mari (talk) 10:12, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you! I added the Jornal do Nikkei (ニッケイ新聞) articles! While Tsukimoto once worked for the school, did Nakakita ever work for the school? There may be an issue with Tsukimoto having been a former employee, but if Nakakita never was then it's another independent reliable source. WhisperToMe (talk) 11:47, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Nakakita was a teacher at LMJ from April 2006 to March 2009. 在外教育施設における指導実践記録集 are the reports by teachers who worked in Japanese schools abroad. Oda Mari (talk) 16:28, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

I see. Thank you so much for your help, Mari! I know the Jornal do Nikkey are independent sources, so that should help. WhisperToMe (talk) 22:16, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Transcription and translation of Korean markings

Could anyone who speaks the language please transcribe (and, if possible, translate) the red stamps on the map Daedongyeojido, to be included on the image description page? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:28, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

• Anyone? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:09, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, after spending 3/4 of an hour of trying to load the image in my browser, then downloading it and discovering that opening it in any image viewer pretty much hangs my computer, I can see why there wasn't much response.

The location names on the map are all labelled in hanja. The red stamps are also in hanja, but mostly in the seal script style, which is sometimes intelligible to native speakers of Chinese. I can recognise a few that are basic vocab sometimes done in seal script for decoration, like 學.

I'll upload an enlargement of some of the stamps, and lets see what the scholars think. Peter aka --Shirt58 (talk) 03:28, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Looks like the same stamps all along the coastline. This is a close in as I could get to a nice clear group before my image viewing software fell over.

OK, starting the big, scarlet, easy to read square in the middle:

(In the traditional direction, top to bottom, right to left. Sorry, no pronunciation, don't know any Korean.)

• Line 1: I dunno. Could this possibly be cursive hangul? (ㅓ is eo/ŏ, isn't it?)
• Line 2: 大 學 校 (university)
• Line 3: 圖 聿 (map, brush?)... erm, this is probably really simple

Can someone please jump in here before I make any more of a numpty of myself?--Shirt58 (talk) 06:41, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

• Line 1: 서울 (Seoul)

(W00t! Look at me! I recognized a word in hangul (that was probably blatantly obvious from the context) ! Look at meeeee!) --Shirt58 (talk) 10:20, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

• So, most likely they are labels for cities? (Also, sorry about that; forgot that most readers are unfamiliar with the issues of opening large images... Photoshop usually handles it for me) — Crisco 1492 (talk) 09:09, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Etymology of Yiddish איידים (pron. aye-dim) - "son-in-law"

Does anyone know of an etymology for this word? (And while i'm at it, for the word שווער pron. shver, meaning father-in-law)

The joke goes that the son-in-law take his father-in-law to court for not giving him the promised dowry. The F.I.L. denies that he ever promised any and says bring witnesses (in Hebrew: aye-dim). The S.I.L. having no witnesses says at least take an oath (in Yiddish: shver like 'swear') denying it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.125.212.112 (talk) 18:21, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Most likely from the same roots as the obsolete German words "Eidam" and "Schwäher" (See also Proto-Germanic "aiþumaz" and "swehuraz" at Wiktionary as well as this etymology of "Eidam"). ---Sluzzelin talk 19:35, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Definitely like Sluzzelin says. Older Yiddish books that use German-style spellings use Template:Hebrew and Template:Hebrew‎, which correspond exactly to the German forms. The joke is just a joke. הסרפד (call me Hasirpad) 01:35, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I would assume "Schwäher" and "Schwieger" have a related etymology... AnonMoos (talk) 09:41, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

As does Schwager/Schwägerin. See also wikt:sweor הסרפד (call me Hasirpad) 20:01, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

March 6

What is fucken going on?

Odd question, but I daresay an important one for our troubled times.

If I had to transcribe the speech of someone who was swearing, it might include things like I hate that fuckin' asshole. Yet, when people write the word online, as often as not it's spelt as fucken, and that spelling seems to have become entrenched in the pop culture world up to a point - see .

Do people genuinely not know that it's an abbreviation for fucking, or is it something else now? I can understand (if never forgive) that certain strata of people don't use apostrophes much anymore, but I'd still expect to see them writing fuckin, not fucken. Do they think it's a verb, like strengthen, liken, etc. (that's assuming they have the faintest idea of what a verb is ...)?

What is fucken going on here? -- Jack of Oz 02:39, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Of all the abuses of the written word wrought upon humanity through online communication, this little bugbear is the first on your list? --Jayron32 02:52, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

To be fair, we don't know whom else has been asked to answer for the mistakes of humanity... (Also, he's not a n00b) Cyphoidbomb (talk) 03:06, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Jayron, the questions I happen to ask here do not represent the matters of monumental moment with which I wrestle during my frequent dark nights of the soul. Well, not necessarily.  :) -- Jack of Oz 04:13, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

JackofOz My guess is laziness or idiocy is likely to blame. When I was a kid, the less linguistically adept children would say "fuckin' egg" instead of "fuckin' A". The youths today are more apt to write "I'm homeeeeeee", (which makes absolutely zero sense to me, as the E is silent) instead of "I'm hooooooome!" My guess is that they didn't grow up reading comics, or that the former is some kind of deliberate joke that's become a meme. I doubt even the Misplaced Pages Reference Desk have the proper tools to account for what the kids are doing today. (And yet I eagerly await proof to the contrary!) My hypothesis is that kids are spending less time ensconced in the written word, or at least the grammatically correct written word, so they're not picking up on the nuances of language, and/or not making the intellectual connection between the verbal language and the written language and/or maybe they don't (yet) have the tools to articulate properly. Not much of an answer, I suppose, but fucken 'ell wot you want, innit?! Cyphoidbomb (talk) 03:06, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Analogy with strengthen, liken is less likely than with driven, taken. —Tamfang (talk) 04:29, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

"Fucken" looks less like "fucking" than "fuckin'", so perhaps appeals more to those who don't want to be really seen to be swearing in public? HiLo48 (talk) 06:40, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Don't worry, Jack. The world will only collapse when they start hypercorrecting and writing things like "Kentucky Fried Chicking". KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 08:25, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I knew a guy name Kentucky who tried fricking. μηδείς (talk) 20:31, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Stan Freberg was way ahead of you there, KageTora: From the PC version of Old Elderly Man River: " He doesn't plant potatoes, He doesn't plant cotting, And those that plant them, Are soon forgotting ...". -- Jack of Oz 08:53, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Y tink it'z un olbaneezzum en Inglesh. Tha Gramer partizanz yousiolley vrite lak dhet.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 14:24, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

My guess is that as long as they're rebelling against conventional taste, which they may see as prissy, they might as well also rebel against conventional spelling, which they may see as pedantic.

Next: bitchen or bitchin'? —JerryFriedman (Talk) 14:50, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

It seems to me that fucking, when used descriptively, can be a participle (it's listed http://www.thefreedictionary.com/fucking as an adjective and adverb though), so fucken is its past participle if used correctly, thus the fucken written writing of it isn't completely useless. That's to my ear, and I've been told I've got pixie ears too... --Modocc (talk) 15:48, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Father Ted introduced "feck" to the rest of the British Isles, which falls into the same category I believe. Americans have "freakin'" too. Alansplodge (talk) 16:53, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Given that Fucken and Fuckin have the exact same root, there really isn't any reason why one is less vulgar or preferable to the other than if one needs to convey tense or they just don't care. --Modocc (talk) 19:51, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

So, until then, they were feckless? Clarityfiend (talk) 20:25, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

• Last Halloween, my parents' neighbors had their grandson visiting with his sisters. He was dressed as Captain Hook with a patch and a parrot and a black tricorner. His little sisters were dressed as his henchmen. The neighbors don't live too close, and my mom's friend wanted her to see them, so the daughter drove them over, but the girls were already alseep in the car. The boy came up and rang the bell, held out his bag, and said, "Trick or treat." My mother said, "Oh, how cute!" "But where are your buccaneers?" Annoyed, the boy answered, "Under my buccan hat!" 20:28, 6 March 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Medeis (talk • contribs)

Boom! Boom! Alansplodge (talk) 22:38, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Or "Badump bump!" if you prefer. Thanks for pointing that out Medeis - I refer you to Basil Brush but it has its roots in the music hall tradition. Alansplodge (talk) 09:15, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

I believe it's an attempt to appear fresh while giving a taste of the pronunciation. When people talk about being "fucken angry" they usually don't pronounce the eng (hence the dropping of the "g") and they also tend to alter the vowel sound as well. Kind of like writers who use phrases such as "the hell?", to illustrate how speakers sometimes omit, or don't speak as loudly, the "What..." portion. See also: gummint, prolly, etc. Matt Deres (talk) 17:39, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

That's what I'd guess as well. In "fuckin'", the reduced vowel can be anywhere in the range in my American accent, and more careful pronunciations feel like they're right in the middle of cardinal /ə ɛ/. Lsfreak (talk) 20:43, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Urban Dictionary says: “Easy way to identify you're chatting with an illiterate &/or child.” Good enough for me. Thanks to all who chimed in. -- Jack of Oz 23:30, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

future of media & media's future

Hi! When I read an article about Internet news stories, I came across a sentence which quite confused me: "If social is the future of media, then optimistic stories might be media's future." I can't figure out the difference between "the future of media" and "media's future". Would any friend enlighten me on the point? Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.249.239.155 (talk) 03:30, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I think they mean the same thing here (wordsmithing requires that you avoid repeated words or phrases). However, I prefer "The future of media" as it doesn't personify the media in the way that "media's future" does. I would have written "If social is the future of media, then expect more optimistic stories." StuRat (talk) 03:48, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I think (or suspect) the first means what the media are destined to become and the second means what will keep media alive. —Tamfang (talk) 08:42, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Suprematism

'The term suprematism refers to an abstract art based upon “the supremacy of pure artistic feeling”' ..here. What is the Russian word or root from which this term is derived? Thanks. Omidinist (talk) 06:19, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

From ru:Супрематизм: Супремати́зм (от лат. supremus — наивысший).

From http://synonym-dictionary.info/Словарь_синонимов/167756/Супрематия: супрематия: верховенство, главенство, господство, первенство, превосходство. No such user (talk) 08:20, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you very much. Omidinist (talk) 08:58, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

UN and varieties of English

It looks like a similar question was asked in the past, but the answerer referred to United Nations#Languages, which doesn't exist anymore, and I wasn't able to find an answer at Official languages of the United Nations either. Does the UN use or prefer a specific variety of English? As it oversees the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Health Organization, does it use Oxford spelling? --BDD (talk) 21:14, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

They use Oxford. Go here and click on the editorial manual, which takes you here, and the "spelling" link takes you here. Nyttend (talk) 23:27, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! --BDD (talk) 23:55, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Polecat

Does the word Polecat originate from 'Polish cat'? Just to clear something up. A quick Google search would suggest that this is a possibility. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 22:38, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

"...the first element is perhaps Anglo-French pol, from Old French poule, "fowl, hen" (see pullet (n.)); so called because it preys on poultry." Online Etymology Dictionary - polecat (n.) Alansplodge (talk) 22:42, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

The OED concurs that "pol" is one possible origin, but casts doubt on the likelihood, saying " a premodifying compound would be a very unusual word-formation type in French" ... "Alternatively, it has been suggested that the first element may be related to Anglo-Norman pulent , pullent and Old French, Middle French pullent stinking, disgusting, dirty", citing the regional (non-standard) French "chat putois" (stinking cat). I think the word is too old to derive from "Polish", but no-one knows for sure. The French Wiktionary gives no etymology for the French name putois. Dbfirs 09:41, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks very much! --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 17:29, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

March 7

website that compares the (Iranian and Slavic) languages

Iranic

Is there a website that shows a sentence in English and its translation in different languages of Iranian languages family: Persian, Tajik, Pashto, Lur, Kurdish, Dari Persian, Gilaki, Mazandarani, and Baloch for example "I am black", "I am twenty-four years old" and it comes with an audio sample to understand? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.148.80 (talk) 01:02, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

See http://www.omniglot.com/writing/langfam.htm#ie and follow the links to the pages for the specific languages, where each language has a passage from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). See the full text of the UDHR in English at http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/, and versions in other languages by following the links from http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Pages/SearchByLang.aspx.

—Wavelength (talk) 01:37, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Slavic

Is there a website that shows a sentence in English and its translation in different languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Czech, Slovak, Slovenian, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Macedonian and Polish for example "I am old", "I am twenty-four years old" and etc? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.148.80 (talk) 01:07, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

See http://www.omniglot.com/writing/langfam.htm#ie and follow the links to the pages for the specific languages, where each language has a passage from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). See the full text of the UDHR in English at http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/, and versions in other languages by following the links from http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Pages/SearchByLang.aspx.

—Wavelength (talk) 01:37, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

You left out Rusyn as well as Kashubian and Upper Sorbian and Lower Sorbian, and there's no such thing as the Bosnian language. μηδείς (talk) 02:35, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Funny that, 'cos that article you linked to says "Bosnian is one of the three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina, along with Croatian and Serbian." Are you taking issue with that statement? --Viennese Waltz 08:12, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

You quote the second sentence after skipping the first; it's simply a variety of Serbo-Croatian. Nyttend (talk) 12:00, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Except that Bosnia has an army and a navy, which means that Bosnian must be a different language. --Jayron32 12:03, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Tell a Bosniak that he's speaking Serbo-Croatian and he will rightly take offence. As far as he's concerned, he's speaking Bosnian. --Viennese Waltz 08:05, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

See for a take on language in Bosnia... AnonMoos (talk) 17:51, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

P.S. Bosnia barely touches the coast, so I doubt there's much of a navy... AnonMoos (talk) 17:59, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Too shay. --Jayron32 18:50, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

• Rusinski gets 1,480k ghits. Bozanski get 43k ghits. See buffer state and European Union. The sad shame is that Bosnia is basically the land between Serbia and Croatia which neither could annex with impunity. Except for the exclave of Serbs around Banja Luka, the land would probably have been entirely split between the two as a settlement of the war. Even now it is split in two, between a nominal Bosnia and Herzegovina and a telling "Republika Srpska". There's no linguistic or cultural unity that corresponds to this product of the Dayton Agreement. μηδείς (talk) 22:46, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Arabic dialects comparison website with audio sample

Is there a website where there is a sentence in English and its translation in Standard Arabic and its different dialects: Syrian, Lebanese, Jordanian, Palestinian, Iraqi, Kuwaiti, Bahraini, Saudi, Omani, Yemeni, Emirati, Egyptian, Tunisian, Algerian, Moroccan, Libyan, Sudanese, Comorian, and Mauritanian for example give me 90 grams of almond nuts, I am twenty-four years old and its come with an audio sample? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.148.80 (talk) 01:19, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

You've been given answers above for other languages. The websites you were told about above would work for these (and any other random languages you intend to ask us about next). --Jayron32 02:27, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Note that this question was asked 18 minutes before anyone responded up above. Nyttend (talk) 12:03, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Although editors may find these repetitive questions problematic, we have not, in fact, offered a suitable answer for this question. The Omniglot site linked above does not offer texts in different Arabic dialects, only in standard Arabic. Our own Varieties of Arabic lists several phrases side-by-side in several Arabic dialects. Marco polo (talk) 14:05, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Here is a video showing different Arabic dialects: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEjGATxtjhE --Soman (talk) 00:52, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

I counted 31 varieties of Arabic at http://users.elite.net/runner/jennifers/, but that website apparently presents mostly words and phrases, and pronunciation is not available at this time (http://users.elite.net/runner/jennifers/faq.htm#pronounce).

—Wavelength (talk) 01:10, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

There is Global Recordings Network.—Wavelength (talk) 03:10, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

The Lonely Planet has its phrase-books in some Arabic dialects: Moroccan, Tunisian, Egyptian, Levantine, Gulf. The good side of these they all have the identical list of phrases in all languages (no advertisement). The bad side they all have very bad transcription "for absolute dummies". It would be much better if they use at least ISO or ALA-LC, not to mention the IPA.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 12:54, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

does anyone really say pot-ah-to

There's a famous song that goes "I say to-may-to, you say to-mah-to." I have actually met people that say to-mah-to. But what about the second line? Does anyone really say pot-ah-to in an unselfconscious, non-joking way? Evidence, Youtube links, etc. would be welcome.--24.228.94.244 (talk) 01:20, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Just for the sake of links: "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" is the song, and that article does have something on pronunciation at the time (2nd paragraph), though nothing on potato. ---Sluzzelin talk 01:27, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

The word "potato" comes from "patata", so it's possible that it was pronounced "po-tah-to" at some point, but like the OP, I've never heard it said that way apart from that song. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 02:03, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

• The source is a Carib word, batata, "sweet potato". Whether it ever rhymed with mulatto is up to the lyricist. μηδείς (talk) 02:28, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

"To-mah-to" (/təˈmɑːtəʊ/) is the standard pronunciation in the UK, and I've never heard "to-may-to" (/təˈmeɪtoʊ/) except in American films. The pronunciation "po-tah-to" is not used anywhere that I know about, and is just a joke based on the pondian difference for tomato. Potato rhymes with "Plato" and NATO everywhere doesn't it? Dbfirs 09:08, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

There's the Scottish 'tattie' -- Q Chris (talk) 09:33, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Oh yes, we also have that dialect word too, but we pronounce it with a long vowel: "tatie" (/teɪtɪ/ or /teɪtə/). Dbfirs 10:05, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

The Scots go with /tætɪ/. -- Q Chris (talk) 10:28, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Or "tater" in a number of English dialects. Alansplodge (talk) 13:09, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that the Scots use the æ vowel (despite Collins). Wiktionary says | for the Scots pronunciation. Perhaps we have some speakers of Scottish English who can clarify? Dbfirs 16:51, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

I'd transcribe the second unstressed vowel as /ɘ/ to distinguish from the /e(ː)/ (RP /eɪ/), though traditionally they're transcribed similarly. And /ɔ/ is rather short. --Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 18:51, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

The Scottish "tattie" is a homophone of "tatty". A quick look at Help:IPA for English shows that æ is correct but International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects suggests ɐ̟ for the Scottish vowel (I'm not Scottish but I had a Glaswegian grandmother). The southern English "tater" uses eɪ (rhymes with "waiter"). Alansplodge (talk) 19:28, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

I knew and I agree (though such a precision is not so necessary as the vowel can have many allophones). I've just raised an objection to tatt which sounds a little exaggerated Scottish pronunciation for me.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 21:56, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. Alansplodge (talk) 23:45, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

As far as U.S. sources go, Webster's Third and Kenyon and Knott only have variations on po-tay-toh, nothing like po-tah-toh. However both have "tomato" with ah as well as ay.--Cam (talk) 18:26, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

• Given the original Nahuatl language for tomato is tomatl, it seems evident this has been converging with potato < batata. Tobacco is derived either from Arabic tabbaq "herb" or Haitian Taino tambaku to smoke a pipe. μηδείς (talk) 20:29, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Writing correct English. Just some minor help.

As seen in the last sentence below, can one write that all those attributes "goes in favour" of Henry? Is that correct or wrong English? As you can no doubt see, what I am trying to tell here is simply that father considers Henry as better than William at all those things mentioned. I did not find a way of saying it that I liked, and I'm not even sure if I can use that phrase "goes in favour" in this case.

"In response to William’s persisting attempts to be made heir their father had, a short time before he passed away, made a list where he set the two brothers up against each other to tell their strengths and weaknesses. Fighting-skills, courage, leadership, determination, moral, fairness and loyalty were among the many attributes that he considered going in Henry's favour." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.247.62.59 (talk) 19:56, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

The part you are worried about is fine - but the first sentence needs a bit of tweaking: the word is "persistent" not "persisting. I think you need a comma after "heir". The word "tell" is OK but would be better as "discern" or "determine" or "outline". Hope this helps. --TammyMoet (talk) 12:18, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Persistent/persisting, silly mistake easy to make.. But thnx for pointing it out. Your answer was very helpful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.247.62.59 (talk) 15:52, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

(In addition to TammyMoet's suggestions), in the second sentence, moral is an adjective among a list of nouns and should be changed to morality (or deleted since it's covered by concepts already listed); also remove the hyphen from fighting-skills. Apart from that, going in Henry's favour does seem a little awkward, and would be better rendered as, to be in Henry's favour.--Jeffro77 (talk) 02:18, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

March 8

Japanese help: Kanji for Kouhei Asoh, pilot of Japan Airlines Flight 2

I was looking for the kanji of Kouhei Asoh, pilot of Japan Airlines Flight 2. This site http://longtailworld.blogspot.com/2013/07/asoh-defense-and-jal-2-water-landing-sfo.html gives a last name of Kanji but the first name is in hiragana, probably because the author doesn't know the kanji.

Does anyone know what the kanji for Kouhei Asoh is? WhisperToMe (talk) 02:39, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

I tried to find out the kanji, but nothing came out. The pilot's name is only found in the blog you provided. Oda Mari (talk) 15:08, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

That's very interesting. Do Japanese sources that talk about his crash refuse to print his kanji? I know he had public hearings in front of the NTSB. WhisperToMe (talk) 18:34, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

The blog actually has 漢字不詳 written after his hiragana given name. 漢字不詳 means 'kanji unknown'. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 09:03, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't think they refuse to print his name. The incident can be found in some lists with a short description without personal names. As it was an old incident and nobody died, probably they think the details are not needed. I think the name cannot be found only on the web, but the name should be in the newspaper articles then, if you search it in the library. Oda Mari (talk) 10:29, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Etymology of Bandurki, Rusyn for Potato

Given the recent discussion of potato, I was curious if anyone could offer an explanation of the Rusyn language term for potatoes, bandurki? I assume the singular is bandurka, and the first vowel may be an o since I have trouble distinguishing between unstressed o and a. (I get five ghits for bondurki.)

The Slovak and Polish words for potato come from the root zem- for "earth" and the Ukrainian and Russian words come from the German Kartoffel, which seems to be a mutation of truffle, influenced by Erdapfel, "earth-apple". The Hungarian is burgonya, so no luck there either. Thanksμηδείς (talk) 05:18, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Many other European languages, where they don't use a variation of "potato", have some variation of "Earth". Like your alternative German word above, the preferred French term for potato is "wikt:pomme de terre" lit "apple of earth" (except in Canadian French, where it is "patate"). In Dutch, it is likewise "aardappel". In Greek, it is a γεώμηλο, "geomilo" or "earth apple". Maybe the Rusyn word comes from that tradition. What is apple or ground/earth/dirt in Rusyn? --Jayron32 06:01, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Got a lead. The word "дырка" or "dyrka" means "hole" in Russian, according to "Google Translate"; which also offers "potato" as an alternative possibility. So the "-durka" part in Rusyn may come from "hole" What is Rusyn for "hole"? --Jayron32 06:18, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

The Ukrainian etymological dictionary (V. I, 1982, p. 133) gives: Ukr bandura, bandurka "potato" came from Pol bandurki. Also Slk bandurka, Cz , brambor. All came from the name of the German land of Brandenburg. The connection (by Machek) of Cz brambor with Latvian bimbulis, bumbulis "potato" is not convincing. See also barabol’a (also came from Brandenburg).--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 12:38, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

• Thanks, everyone. Ruysn is a typical Slavic language, and for the most part intermediate between Eastern Slovak, Southern Polish, and Western Ukraine, all of which it is mutually intelligible with. There are lots of works for hole, but the most common would probably be jama or dup, which I have heard. ("Earth would be zemya.) But once again Ljuboslov comes to the rescue with the Ukrainian etymological dictionary giving the word as also found in Polish and Slovak. And given the hint I do recall hearing the Brandenberg etymology a long time ago, but had forgotten it. My thanks to all. μηδείς (talk) 18:09, 8 March 2014 (UTC) Resolved

So then, User:Любослов Езыкин, and the rest, what about sibulja for onion?

Does that come from Sevilla? μηδείς (talk) 18:14, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, it's "cebolla" in spanish, which comes latin "cepulla", diminutive of "cepa" DRAE. Cfmarenostrum (talk) 23:26, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

In the UED: Ukr tsybul’a "onion" came from Pol cybula from HGer zibolle, zebulle from Lat caepula from caepa from Gr *κήπη/*κήπια "garlic". Also Rus dialect tsibul’a, Bel tsybul’a, Cz cibule, Slk cibul’a (Rusyn got the word from the latter).--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 00:40, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Interesting. So that means the Spanish and the Rusyn both come from the Greek. I always assumed it was from Seville. μηδείς (talk) 03:23, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

feel a twinge in her nose

Hello! I have a question here. To describe how a woman was moved to tears, can I say "She felt a twinge in her nose and began to cry."? I wonder if the phrase "feel a twinge in her nose" can be used in this way. If it can't, how can it be revised? Is there any phrase in English involving the word "nose" which can be used in this context? Thank you so much! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.202.187.153 (talk) 10:55, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

I've heard "prickling/tickling in her nose " used to describe the feeling.All the links to an example I found led to fanfic porn sadly so I choose not to give an example.Hotclaws (talk) 17:42, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

"Twinge" is a poor choice of word in this context. It indicates a sudden sharp, spasmodic pain, usually muscular. Is this what you feel in your nose just before you weep? Probably not. A "prickling" in the nose would be better. However, noses are not generally a good thing to mention in a description of being moved to tears, to be honest. The image of someone's nose dribbling in sympathy with the tears flowing from their eyes is not an attractive one. - Karenjc (talk) 00:29, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Arabic help: Finding Arabic names of Dearborn city institutions and Dearborn Public Schools campuses

Is anyone skilled at Arabic willing to find the Arabic names of the following?

• The city institutions of Dearborn, such as: (you can do a Google site search of cityofdearborn.org )
  • Dearborn Public Library
    • Henry Ford Centennial Library
    • Bryant Branch
    • Esper Branch (this is the main Arabic collection branch) - former name is the Warren Branch
• The schools of Dearborn Public Schools? (you can do a Google site search of dearbornschools.org/)

Thanks, WhisperToMe (talk) 12:08, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

According to this document, the Dearborn Public Library code of conduct, "Dearborn Public Library" is "مكتبة ديربورن العامّة". That seems weird, shouldn't it be " المكتبة العامة ديربورن"? Oh well.

Henry Ford Library is "مكتبة هنري فورد في ديربورن". I can't find anything including "Centennial".

I assume Bryant Library would be "مكتبة بريانت في ديربورن" but I don't see any results for that.

Esper Library is "مكتبة أسبر في ديربورن".

You want all the Dearborn schools? There seems to be 36 of them...that would take some more time :) Adam Bishop (talk) 14:48, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes please. What you found is very helpful! Thanks! I'll note the Arabic on the talk pages: Talk:Dearborn, Michigan and Talk:Dearborn Public Schools.

WhisperToMe (talk) 15:55, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Now see: File:Henry Ford Library.JPG and ar:ديربورن، ميشيغان - Your Arabic is now there :) WhisperToMe (talk) 16:10, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Chinese characters and radicals

In Chinese writing, is there a difference between a radical and a character that consists only of that radical? 86.176.208.60 (talk) 20:07, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Think of it like the difference between the letter A and the word 'a' as in 'there is a pencil on the table'. It's not 100% exactly the same but I think it's a good analogy. Duomillia (talk) 21:31, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

However, the word "a" does not mean "letter a", and yet the radical does actually mean the same as the character (maybe ignoring a few quibbles where meanings have shifted). 86.176.208.60 (talk) 00:09, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

What kind of difference do you mean? If you mean a difference in appearance, then certainly. Compare 足 and 跟: the second character's radical is the first character, but they look different in size and shape. If you mean a difference in meaning, then a character is the smallest semantic unit (morpheme) of Chinese. You can't ask what the radical in a character means, because it doesn't have a meaning on its own. You might as well ask whether "the" has the same meaning in the words "the" and "their". --Bowlhover (talk) 05:52, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

OK, maybe it wasn't the best-thought-through question ever; actually it was prompted by my misunderstanding of something I read elsewhere, which I have now corrected. However, I don't agree much with the "the/their" analogy either. Most often the radical does have a meaning within a character, so I think it is more like the "water" in "waterfall" than the "the" in "their". 86.176.208.60 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 12:46, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

March 9

bake/roast potatoes

I know we can either "bake" or "roast" potatoes, but is there any difference between the two verbs here? Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.221.156.11 (talk) 02:21, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

They are similar. But no one would roast a cake. Both terms refer to cooking by exposure to dry heat, but baking would generally be in an enclosed area (such as an oven) whereas roasting may or may not be enclosed.--Jeffro77 (talk) 02:23, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

In America, a baked potato is a whole potato with the skin on, usually an Idaho variety intended for baking, cooked for an hour or more at over 400F.. It has a lighter, puffy consistency. Roasted potatoes are usually quartered (at least halved) or cut smaller, from usually peeled white or red potatoes. They have a denser consistency, and are usually cooked longer at lower temperatures. μηδείς (talk) 03:15, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

In the UK, roast potatoes are cooked in fat or oil, while baked (also called jacket) potatoes are cooked 'dry'. Rojomoke (talk) 06:33, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

in irregular rhythm

In the sentence "The rain dropped on the rooftop in irregular rhythm.", I'm not sure if "in irregular rhythm" is used properly as I have never seen such a phrase before. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.221.156.11 (talk) 02:57, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

"The rain dropped on the rooftop in an irregular rhythm" is correct. You left out the indefinite article. μηδείς (talk) 03:20, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

It would generally be better to say with an irregular rhythm.--Jeffro77 (talk) 06:54, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Japanese electronic device legends

Can some nice person please identify the Japanese characters in the equipment control knob labels show in http://i59.tinypic.com/jic1gy.jpg? I tried NewOCR.com, but it has no idea. 120.145.172.89 (talk) 14:15, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

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