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Contents 1 November 14 1.1 Japanese - two questions 1.2 Pronounciation of lasso 1.3 Stalin quote :ru:en 1.4 mystery word 1.5 Spanish pronunciation of "s" as "h" 1.6 Latin in USA 2 November 15 2.1 "I do do my laundry." 2.2 question 2.3 Latvian 2.4 About the English Language 2.5 IPA question 2.6 What is "the rhythm divine"? 2.7 German "zum Nachbarn" 2.8 Spanish question 3 November 16 3.1 Correct grammar 3.2 In What Language Is The Following? Thanks.100110100 10:05, 16 November 2006 (UTC) 3.3 Unable to speak 3.4 Plattdeutsch 3.5 O no! My horse fell again! 3.6 Pudsey fundraising 3.7 Origin of the term Lime 4 November 17 4.1 Proper Possessive Nouns 4.2 -i suffix for adjectives? 4.3 Lack of undeletability 4.4 English-Latin Translation 4.5 Referencing and Unnumbered Page 5 November 18 5.1 Translation from Italian to English 5.2 What's the language? 5.3 Dysphoria 6 November 19 6.1 Quick Grammar help 6.2 Latin translation of "database" 7 November 20 7.1 Plural Question 7.2 Hebrew Wikipedia 7.3 Questions about Spanish 7.4 Plaintext language corpora in natural languages 7.5 Norwegian name pronunciation 7.6 How many meaningful prefix and suffix does the English language have? 7.7 IPA for Ecce Homo 7.8 Quoting and Citing 7.9 research 7.10 anachronistic vocab 7.11 Translation into Korean? 7.12 Japanese translation 7.13 Fallacy name?

[edit] November 14

[edit] Japanese - two questions

1. On the subject of hanamichi (the large entrance/exit stage that goes into the audience in kabuki plays)- how would I say "the long hanamichi stage protrudes into the audience"?. Right now I've got はなみち　は　ながい (may need something here)　ぶたい (may need something here) かんきゃく　です。 2. Another question. I've got a conclusion. I want to say "overall, blah blah blah" or "in conclusion, blah blah blah". How would I do so? --Wooty  Woot? | contribs 00:32, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I haven't studied Japanese for a long time, but it seems you seriously need to check up on your Japanese grammar, I don't know any of the words, but if I am not mistaken, the syntax of the sentence should be "long - hanamichi - wa- audience - into (ni?) - protrude". Don't try to write complex sentence without having understood basic grammar... 惑乱 分からん 01:13, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm just writing a general outline of vocabulary. The grammar will come next. I'm thinking it'd be more like "long hanamichi ga (or maybe wa) audience de protrude desu". So similar to what you put. However, all I need is the "protrude" verb (or root + suru) that makes sense in this context. --Wooty  Woot? | contribs 01:24, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

After some dictionary work, I came up with "tsuntasu" or "tsuntashimasu" (i assume this is the masu form of this verb, didn't say if it was class 1 or 2). Would something like: "nagai no hanamichi wa kanyaku de tsuntashimasu" work? --Wooty  Woot? | contribs 03:59, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Maybe "Nagai hahamichi-wa kanyaku-no naka-ni 突き出されている" would do? I have no idea how the last bit should be pronounced. --Kjoonlee 05:26, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I'll just cut out the extraneous details (long, etc) and use かんきゃく　の　なか　で　はなみち　出張りま。 Thanks for the help! --Wooty  Woot? | contribs 05:36, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Possibly, that depends on emphasis, but I still wonder whether it shouldn't be はなみち は かんきゃく　の　なか　で 出張りま (is it -rimasu? It doesn't sound like a verb...) Probably a native speaker is needed here... 惑乱 分からん 13:48, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it's -masu, forgot the su :P. --Wooty  Woot? | contribs 16:46, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I asked a friend who lives in Japan, and he came up with 長い花道は観客席の中に張り出てある。 Nagai hamamichiwa kankyakusekino nakani haridetearu. He says it still sounds a bit funny, though. --Kjoonlee 14:50, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

When romanized, I think the spacing "Nagai hamamichi wa kankyakuseki no naka ni haridete aru" is simpler to read... 惑乱 分からん 15:17, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I'll try to remember that. :) I'm Korean so I tend to use Korean rules for postpositions. --Kjoonlee 15:45, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Works for me, even if it does sound funny. Thanks! --Wooty  Woot? | contribs 16:46, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

What? Maybe that might be, because you're not familiar with SOV grammar... 惑乱 分からん 17:39, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I was responding to the comment about a native Japanese speaker thinking the sentence "still sounds a bit funny, though", not that I think it sounds weird. Though the original English sentence is somewhat odd, in hindsight. I originally phrased it as "A long stage, the hanamichi, extends into the audience" which might have made more sense with my first attempt at translation. --Wooty  Woot? | contribs 01:20, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think you should attempt writing sub-clauses with so little knowledge... 惑乱 分からん 02:46, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

1. I would translate it as: 長い花道が観客席の中へ張り出している。 Nagai hanamichi ga kankyakuseki no naka he haridashiteiru. 2. 結局 Kekkyoku or 結論として Ketsuron to shite. --Kusunose 04:56, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

What does the words in 2 stand for? Synonyms? To what? 惑乱 分からん 14:48, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

2 is the answer for the second question. That is, they mean "in conclusion". --Kusunose 15:17, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Ah! OK, nice! They're placed at the beginning of a sentence, right? 惑乱 分からん 15:29, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes. --Kusunose 03:50, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pronounciation of lasso

My wife and I are having an argument about how to pronouce lasso. She is American and says it as it's spelt, while I'm from Britain and have always used it to rhyme with "you". Is this another UK/American thing or is it more complex? Catchpole 10:12, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

The Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary says "/læ'su:/, US also /'læsəʊ/", so it seems to be a UK/American thing. Webster gives both with no explanation. –Mysid☎ 12:49, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Is there a generally agreed explanation of the anomalous pronunciation /læ'suː/? Is this another /lɑnʒəˈɹeɪ/ case?  --Lambiam^Talk 08:32, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

What is "/lɑnʒəˈɹeɪ/ case"? Hevesli 08:34, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

"lingerie" has a completely bogus pseudo-French pronunciation among many... AnonMoos 12:51, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't know the answer to Lambiam's question, but I would mention the possibly parallel cases of wiktionary:vamoose and wiktionary:buckaroo --ColinFine 17:47, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stalin quote :ru:en

Moved from Humanitites

My query is written in full on the Medal For the Victory Over Germany Talk page: I seek an English translation of two brief lines in Russian appearing with Stalin's portrait on this medal's obverse side:

• НАШЕ ДЕЛО ПРАВОЕ
• МЫ ПОБЕДИЛИ

The English may well be canonical, something along the lines of "Our cause is just..." and the latter, a postwar adaptation of a line from a wartime speech. Thanks, Deborahjay 08:44, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I ran it through a couple of online translators and got "Our business right" "We have won" so you are probably correct: "Our cause is just....we are victorious". -THB 09:01, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

As a native Russian speaker, I endorse the above translation: "Our cause is just"; "We have won". --Ghirla ^-трёп- 15:27, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

МЫ ПОБЕДИЛИ is Russian-English-Russian mistranslation. Correct words are ПОБЕДА БУДЕТ ЗА НАМИ. And whole phrase sounds as НАШЕ ДЕЛО ПРАВОЕ, ВРАГ БУДЕТ РАЗБИТ, ПОБЕДА БУДЕТ ЗА НАМИ, which is translated "Our cause is just. Enemy will be destroyed. Victory will be our.". Also that phrase was not said by Josef Stalin, it said Vyacheslav Molotov in the first day of Great Patriotic War by radio. (I'm also native Russian speaker) -Ghoort 07:44, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] mystery word

When I was in a spelling bee in eighth grade, I was given a word I couldn't recognize, let alone spell. I have tried since then to find out exactly what the word was, with little luck. I remember it sounded something like linstuck or linstock. Does anyone know what (English) word this may be? Any guess would be much appreciated. Deyyaz ^{[ Talk | Contribs ]} 18:04, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Linstock?, meaning a slow match on a stick used to set off cannons. Rmhermen 18:50, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Related to the rare English word lunt. 惑乱 分からん 23:54, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spanish pronunciation of "s" as "h"

I have noticed that some Spanish speakers pronounce "s" at the end of unstressed syllables as "h", "las ciudades" might be pronounced as "lah siuthatheh". An example is found here Vanguardia de la ciencia - liquenes , in the item on lichens. The first time I noticed this was in an interview of Augusto Pinochet. Is this feature of certain dialects (which ones?) or sociolects, or what? --N·Blue ^talk 19:11, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

At Spanish dialects and varieties#Evolution, we are told, "The realization of syllable-final /s/ as a barely audible [h] or simply nothing is rather noticeable in many dialects, including the Argentine ones. In the Castilian variety, this tendency exists but is less marked." The brief discussion at Spanish phonology (under /s/) also seems to imply that the phenomenon can occur in Madrid Spanish too. Wareh 19:48, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

The person with the "s as h" pronunciation in the audio file that I linked to is Ana Crespo, who works in Madrid as a botanist at the Universidad Complutense, but I don't know if she actually is from Madrid. She also pronounces "c" as "s" (seseo). Can anyone pinpoint her dialect from the podcast? --N·Blue ^talk 21:04, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Anyone with a ceceo in Madrid would not likely be from Madrid. If she's Spanish, she'd be from Andalusia or the Canary Islands. I can never make audio files work on Wikipedia so I won't try.

The weakening of /s/ to [h] or elision is very widespread in Spanish. It is typical of what is sometimes called the lowland dialects, including most of Southern Spain, the Canaries, the Caribbean, and most of coastal Ibero-America except Pacific Mexico, Peru, and perhaps parts of Central America (I'm not sure about that). Because of the large-scale migration of Andalusians to Barcelona and Madrid, the weakening can be found there too, particularly in the working classes. Someone, not me, oughta clean up the Spanish phonology pages. Argentine Spanish has that feature, but it is far more widespread. I did ceceo, and that was enough for now. mnewmanqc 01:55, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

• Thank you! --N·Blue ^talk 17:33, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Latin in USA

Do students in USA learn Latin in high school?--Light current 23:12, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Very few. It has a certain degree of inverse "geek chic", and the Junior Classical League sponsors some colorful and imaginative activities[1], but the number is still rather small.. AnonMoos 23:23, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

So you would say most US High school and even college graduates would not understand Latin?--Light current 23:26, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

It's shocking, isn't it? ;) 惑乱 分からん 23:57, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

In public schools, it is not especially popular among students, however in many private schools (especially Catholic ones) it is popular if not required. Anecdotally, in my school, there are more students in Latin than in French, but both languages combined do not come close to the amount of students in Spanish. -- FaerieInGrey 23:55, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Is Latin still commonly taught anywhere, even in Catholic schools? Rmhermen 00:05, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, as far as Google tells me. Not as much as French and Spanish, but I can't find another language that is more common. -- FaerieInGrey 00:12, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Is there a nation on earth where college graduates generally do understand Latin? That would surprise me, though I do realize the language is popular enough in Finland to keep Nuntii Latini going. There has been something of a resurgence of interest in Latin in U.S. high schools, such that Latin teachers at that level are in demand. Wareh 00:09, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

The notion of "college graduate" is tied to the Anglo-Saxon educational system and is not easily transferred to nations having a different system (i.e., most). With the Bologna process, the bachelor's degree may (perhaps) evolve into something equivalent in the European context.  --Lambiam^Talk 08:50, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I just checked 4 of my local Catholic schools and only the one associated with the Jesuit University even offered Latin. Rmhermen 00:23, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I had a class that was after a Latin class, so I know it's offered at the Jesuit university I attend. Whether that's a trend, I have no idea. --Wooty  Woot? | contribs 01:31, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I would be quite surprised to find any reasonably large American university that doesn't... -Elmer Clark 01:51, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I studied it in my final 4 years of grade school (ages 10-14 and it was a public gifted program, most public grade schools don't offer latin), and it was available to me in high school (I went to Lane Tech) as were French, German and Spanish (similar offerings were at other schools I considered when picking a high school, one specializing in languages offered 13 different langueages to students). After 4 years of Latin I had no interest in studying in HS, and frankly as I was in the Engineering Science program I didn't feel the need for any of the other languages. Illinois dropped the requirement for students to take 2 years of 'foreign language' when I was a sophmore (15-16 years old, this was the early nineties), so I never did study a language further. Several of my friends studied latin in grade school as part of a Catholic school education as well. Robovski 04:59, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

My public high school offered Latin and I assume it still does. My brother took two years of it and learned nothing, but earned A's. The teacher strongly emphasized history and, after two years, didn't even get through all the conjugations. My brother can't even form a sentence. The students spent most of their time building little models of ballistae and taping "ianua" labels on bathroom doors. A lot of people took it because it was such an easy class. You could get extra credit for wearing bedsheets on test days. I shit you not. I don't know if most U.S. Latin classes are like that, but that's my experience. Bhumiya (said/done) 22:08, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] November 15

[edit] "I do do my laundry."

Is this sentence grammatically correct? "I do do my laundry." (In response to "You don't do your laundry.") Thanks! -66.108.149.44 01:32, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Certainly. Here's another example, "Do what you do do well". JackofOz 01:37, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Btw, washing the do-do out of your pants is an icky problem. Best of luck.  :) JackofOz 01:44, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Ah I see it now! But.... do do you think you should have mentioned it? --Light current 01:53, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

That last interrogative sentence seems the strangest to me, maybe it should be "do you do think" (or maybe not...)? 惑乱 分からん 02:48, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the last non-interrogative parenthetical statement - "maybe not". In fact, definitely not.JackofOz 05:32, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

What? 惑乱 分からん 14:49, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

In "to do one's laundry," "to do" is used as a normal verb. Just like you say, for emphasis: "I do <wash my undies>," you can say: "I do <do my laundry>." Likewise with "to do something": "I do <do it>." Note that when spoken the emphatic auxiliary verb "do" is stressed. In "Do you think so?", on the other hand, "do" is a dummy auxiliary verb and cannot be emphasized by another "do". In general auxiliaries are not stacked because this requires an infinitive they are lacking *"I will can walk and I shall can walk." The auxiliary "do" is exceptional because the verb can also be used as a normal verb and then has an infinitive. However, it appears to me that as an auxiliary verb it is equally defective: *"I will do eat meat."  --Lambiam^Talk 08:21, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

While the do-do referred to above is more scatalogical and is more commonly spelled "doo-doo" (or poo-doo if you are in a Star Wars film). Robovski 04:49, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] question

hello :this website is available in 14 languages. why not the arabic language also ? there is over 400 million arabic people in the world. thank you

If you check the main page and look in the lower left hand corner there is a box with a ton of other languages. Maybe that will help? 152.3.72.50 03:37, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

See Arabic Wikipedia / http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/. Possibly the article you looked at didn't have a corresponding article written in Arabic, yet... 惑乱 分からん 03:38, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

The previous posts have pointed out what is probably your misunderstanding. But please be aware an article exists in Wikipedia (in any language) for one reason only: because somebody was interested enough to start writing it. If you want more articles in the Arabic Wikipedia, please start writing some! --ColinFine 05:27, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, every different language Wikipedia is unique in its userbase and the information covered. The articles are rarely directly corresponding translations of other language articles... 惑乱 分からん 14:52, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Latvian

Can anyone find me a good (and free) Latvian-to-English block text translation site? I've been trying, but they aren't as easy to find as German- and French-to-English. And I think there might be a dialect problem, since some words I type into those I can find work, and some don't. Black Carrot 06:14, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] About the English Language

Hi, I wanna know how do we study and improve our grammar and vocabulary? I don't do well in my composition, comprehension and in English language itself so I'm trying to improve them. How do we extend our vocabulary? And how do we improve our grammar? I really want to learn more about the english language and of course get better results for my upcoming test. So do you guys have any tips on how to improve my English Language? Anyway, I'm a Singaporean.

By the way, what is another word for "good and bad"? As in this sentence - "My birthday was both good and bad, my mum bought me a xbox 360 but my girlfriend ditched me." And what is another word for "asking for too much"? As in this sentence - "He wants a playstation 2, billabong shorts, many cd games, a cool ipod nano, a brand new computer, and a latest handphone design! Isn't he asking for too much?" Denester 13:43, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

For improving your vocabulary: read a lot of literature with a good dictionary at your side and look up every word you don't know. Write stories in various styles (humoristic, literary, historic, ...) and let people who know English very well correct them. Use a thesaurus to find the right words, or nice alternatives. I don't know a specific word for simultaneously good and bad. "Ambiguous" indicates multi-interpretability, which would include "both good and bad" but is much less specific. You yourself may be said to be "ambivalent" about that memorable birthday. For "asking for too much" you can say "greedy" in one word, but that does not imply the "asking" aspect (he could just be taking everything).  --Lambiam^Talk 14:27, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

You could possibly say something like "My birthday left me with mixed sentiments", or something similar... 惑乱 分からん 14:54, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

There's always "bittersweet." Wareh 15:37, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

It's common for Americans to say something was "Okay" (or OK) when they actually mean "it could have been better" (and is usually followed by an observation of something that would have been better or could have been different) so you could say (for example) "My birthday was Okay; I just wish Jean had turned up." Robovski 04:47, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Also, you need to decide which English you want to learn. From your use of the word "mum", I'd say you're going for UK English (in US English, it would be "mom"). Your English looks quite good to me, however, compared with many of our posters (even those who are allegedly native English speakers). StuRat 17:45, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

This might not work on a very large scale, but one thing that helped me with my vocabulary was attaching images or stories to the words. In fifth or sixth grade my English teacher read us a book that used stories to illustrate the meanings of some advanced (for a fifth-grader, anyway) words, and they helped enormously.

For example, one that i will probably always remember is the story for the word 'ubiquitous'. First it gave the dictionary definition. Then it described a scenario with a person named 'U.B.', who was going on a trip or something so he'd called in to work. At some point two people from his job went to the train station to find him, and they each saw him boarding different trains (in other words, he appeared 'ubiquitous' to them). The author wrapped up the whole story by having the boss exclaim, 'U.B. quit us!'

There were several stories like that in the book and i think the words they described were instantly etched in my mind. They were somewhat complex words for a kid that age, but i understood them just as well then as i do now, because of those stories. Of course, i'm a native speaker of English, so i'm not sure how well that would work for someone who's learning it as a second language, but if there are any words that you're struggling to comprehend it's worth a shot. Look up the word, write your own short story to illustrate its meaning, and study the story a few times. Might work.

Music is another good way to learn vocabulary. Most of the German i know, for example, i learnt from Rammstein and Megaherz songs. Jackie Chan, i believe, had a similar experience — a lot of his vocabulary in English comes from listening to country music (which he said works good for learning English because of the slow pace).

For the good-and-bad thing i would say it left you with 'mixed feelings' (which is probably a more common, and less 'stuffy', term in conversational English than 'mixed sentiments'). ~ lav-chan @ 19:10, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Very true about music. Most of the Italian and German I know, I learned from opera and lieder. JackofOz 02:26, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

In the context you gave, "asking for too much" is "greedy". He's greedy. -THB 04:38, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for all your comments. I guess I should start reading the newspapers and magazines to find out more new words to add into my vocabulary. I did learn some new words from what you guys written above. For the "good and bad" word, I guess is ambivalent and mixed feelings/sentiments was the word I'm looking for. And for the "asking for too much" word, I'm shocked that the word greedy didn't went through my mind, greedy should be the answer. But there's still one unsolved question - How do I improve my grammar? And, do you guys know any good dictionary? By the way, I'm only 13 years old. Thanks again. Denester 06:13, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I prefer www.dictionary.com because it has entries on each word from several dictionaries as well as a thesaurus. For slang I use www.urbandictionary.com although you can't always trust what it says 100%. The best way to improve vocabulary is to read and if you don't know what a word means, and can't figure it out from context, to look it up in the dictionary. To improve grammar, read well-written books. You can also study grammar. Another option, because of your age, is to go to the best schools and universities you can get into and afford to pay for so that you will be exposed to people who use language well. Overall, the best way to learn a language is to use it by reading, writing, and speaking, with native speakers. Good luck! -THB 06:36, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok i'll go for www.dictionary.com. Well in Singapore, we usually speak Chinese (for chinese people. Malay will usually use malay and Indians will usually use Tamil) but not English. So there is hardly any native speakers here. Last request from me - Can you guys spare me any good and useful vocabulary words? Any words which is good and useful. Thanks in advance. Denester 08:34, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

• You can listen to a lot of British radio programs over the internet.Search for the BBC and you'll find loads available as live broadcasts,repeats and downloads.They have dramas,news,sports humour etc and good webpages. Hearing English spoken is often a real help.hotclaws**== 14:47, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

For vocabulary words, sign up dictionary.com's Word of the Day. You may also use lists like this: http://www.freevocabulary.com/. However, I still think the best way to build your vocabulary is to incorporate words that you run across while reading because those words are more likely to be useful to YOU. Using a thesaurus also builds your vocabulary, but in depth, not so much as breadth, making the language you use richer. -THB 16:12, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Also, I have long said that the best way to learn a language is to date someone who speaks it. You should probably wait a while for that, though! -THB 16:14, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

The best way to learn (grammatical) spoken language is indeed to speak it. But I'm guessing that, if you're interested in improving your grammar, you probably want to be able to write grammatically. Without doubt, the best thing you can do is to read as many well-edited books (i.e., not the internet) in English as possible. Even expert writing instruction and corrections to your writing are of no use without reading as widely as possible (and I say that as a college professor who sometimes teaches writing and corrects students' papers; it's only too obvious that their weaknesses come from not having read enough books). Wareh 16:38, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

You can get some good classics free at http://www.gutenberg.org. -THB 17:08, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok! Thanks for your help. I hope I could improve my English asap!Denester 04:28, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IPA question

I have a IPA question as follows. Lingerie article give pronnunciation as French original /ˈlɛ̃ʒʀi/ and as English [ˌlɑn(d)ʒəˈɹeɪ]. My question is why is one using /../ and other [..] in these IPA? when is to use /../ and when [..]? I did read IPA article but does not say. Thank you.

Hevesli 14:39, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

• // slashes mean phonemic transcription; in this case, "dance" is transcribe like /dans/ or /dæns/.
• [] square brackets mean phonetic transcription; in this case, if you insert a [t] sound between [n] and [s], then you trancribe it as [dants] or [dænts]. --Kjoonlee 15:50, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
  • So in short, // phonemic transcription is what you do to write down what's in people's heads, or what people try to pronounce.
  • [] Phonetic transcription is what you do to write down what comes out of people's mouths, or what people actually end up saying.

--Kjoonlee 15:51, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

The default bracketing characters for IPA are square brackets. The use of square brackets doesn't imply anything about what is being transcribed other than that the symbols inside are IPA characters. Slashes on the other hand, explicitly mean phonemic transcription, as contrasted with any transcription which is not phonemic. It is perfectly legitimate and reasonable to put phonemic transcriptions in square brackets. Using slashes is typically only necessary in cases where a distinction between phonemic and nonphonemic transcriptions is important, which tends to only be in discussions of phonology. On the other hand, many times broad, phonemic transcriptions are written using slashes even if it is not necessary. The International Phonetic Association does not recommend the use of slashes for IPA, but permits them to be used for phonemic transcriptions.

In general, claiming that a particular transcription is a phonemic transcription carries with it a substantial set of assumptions and conclusions about the phonology of a language, which, even for a well-studied languages like English, are not generally agreed upon, even among linguists (especially among linguists). While this is a somewhat subtle point, the use of phonemic slashes for IPA transcriptions on Wikipedia might be construed as violating NPOV policy, because it presumes that the phonological theory used to generate the transcription is correct. For example, some phonologists argue that the vowel of sum and the second vowel of sofa are the same phoneme, with the difference being that the former is stressed and the latter is reduced. As such these phonologists would transcribe those vowels using the same symbol—in this case the schwa symbol ə. Other phonologists consider them to be separate vowels and use separate symbols for transcribing them: ʌ for the vowel in sum and schwa for the reduced vowel at the end of sofa. Thus, if you see a transcription for sum that looks like /səm/, there is the implicit claim that the "short u" vowel is the same as schwa, which is not something everyone agrees with. On the other hand if you see a transcription like [səm], the claim is much less strong, because this represents just a surface rendering of the speech which even if it is underlyingly /sʌm/, could very well be produced like [səm]. Nohat 06:08, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What is "the rhythm divine"?

My e-mail: <removed>

First - questions on the WP reference desks are answered on the wiki, not by mail. I have removed your email, as you probably don't want it on the wiki where it can be harvested by spammers.

Secondly, you'll have to give more context for your question. Google gives many references to songs and radio programmes of that name, but I don't know what you are asking about.

Please sign your contributions with four tildes (~~~~) --ColinFine 17:56, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

If your question is: what do these words mean? – it is a bit old-fashioned poetic way of saying "the divine rhythm". It has no inherent meaning; it just means: the rhythm that has the quality of whatever the speaker means by "divine".  --Lambiam^Talk 22:13, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd have to see the context to be sure, but would guess that means the movement of the planets and moons, and the daily, monthly, and yearly cycles those cause on Earth. StuRat 01:35, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Lambiam has said what the words mean. Another answer would be: "Rhythm Divine" is the title of a song by Enrique Iglesias (lyrics). Wareh 16:41, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] German "zum Nachbarn"

I don't understand why the above phrase (meaning, presumably, "to the neighbours"), which I have seen in written German, is the way it is. As I understand it, the German for neighbour is der Nachbar, and the plural is die Nachbarn. 'Zu' takes the dative, so shouldn't "to the neighbour" be translated as "zum [zu dem] Nachbar" and "to the neighbours" be rendered as "zu den Nachbarn"? --Richardrj ^{talk email} 19:33, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

There's also Nachbarn for singular genitive/dative/accusative.--gwaihir 19:57, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Ah, OK. I knew it added an 'n' in the genitive but didn't realise it changed in the dative and accusative as well. Thanks. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 20:08, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Just as a follow-up, I had a look at German nouns which says that "most nouns do not take declensions in the accusative or dative cases. A small class of mostly masculine nouns called "weak nouns" takes the ending -n or -en in all cases except the nominative." Presumably therefore der Nachbar is one of those weak nouns? Is there any way of recognising them? --Richardrj ^{talk email} 09:42, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't know, I'm merely a native speaker.--gwaihir 18:04, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Go to this page: [2] and check out the section marked "weak declension". That should answer your question. Lesgles (talk) 02:36, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spanish question

I was reading the newspaper El Pais the other day, and I noticed a something interesting in the article Liberados tres de los 150 secuestrados en un centro de estudios de Bagdad:

Separaron a los hombres de las mujeres, les quitaron los teléfonos móviles, los sacaron del edificio a punta de pistola con las manos atadas y se los llevaron en 20 camiones. Y todo en unos 10 ó 15 minutos.

Why is there an accent on the "o" in the final sentence? Or is it just a typo?

It's to help keep it from being mistaken for a zero. --Anonymous, 23:35 UTC, November 15.

Probably not, but as for my answer: No se. (I hope I'm not missing accents... I suck at those...) Cbrown1023 00:10, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, if your Spanish was trying to say "Not himself", then you're okay, but if you wanted to say "I don't know", then it's No sé. User:Zoe|(talk) 03:44, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

"Probably not"? Well, that's what it says here; that's all I know. --Anon, 05:00 UTC, November 16.

Definitely yes, as the plexoft link above states. It used to be used more widely, but now is restricted to numeral lists. mnewmanqc 13:27, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] November 16

[edit] Correct grammar

Is the phrase "I did all the jobs you asked" correct grammar?

In the form "I did everything you asked" this is quite common. So I can't say it's wrong, and certainly not when spoken. Nevertheless, it's not great either. I prefer: "I did all the jobs you asked me to do."  --Lambiam^Talk 07:39, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

M-W gives sense 2b for ask: "to make a request for", with the example "she asked help from her teacher". I would mark that example with (?), meaning it's grammatically questionable for me (it sounds funny). The verb request can take as a predicate something of the form <subject> <infinitive verb phrase>, as in "I requested she be here on time", and so can ask, as in "I asked she be here on time". I have repeated that sentence to myself a few times over the past few minutes, and sometimes it sounds totally unobjectionable, and sometimes it sounds completely wrong. Weird! Nohat 09:05, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Lambiam with the comment that "me to do" is implied in the original example. Of course, it could also be "I did all the jobs you asked about." -THB 16:16, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I would have said "I did all the jobs you asked for." --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 08:52, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, one doesn't ask for jobs. Better as "I did all the jobs you asked me to do". JackofOz 23:27, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] In What Language Is The Following? Thanks.100110100 10:05, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

pasukan na paano naman kami

Filipino? --Richardrj ^{talk email} 10:10, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Or Tagalog. -THB 16:21, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Looks a bit like Indonesian, so that could be. But Malagasy is also in that language group. But when I google the phrase there are several results from .ph, which is the tld for the Philippines, but none for .mg, so Tagalog sounds more likely. DirkvdM 07:48, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Those are actually two Filipino sentences. Pasukan na. Paano naman kami. It means "It's school time once again. How about us?" It's not really the literal meaning, but it's very close to the real meaning.

[edit] Unable to speak

Can someone remind me of the verb that's used to indicate someone is unable to speak? - Mgm|^(talk) 10:15, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Don't know about a verb, but the noun and adjective are mute. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 10:29, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

• It was something starting with an 's' like stuck or something. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:31, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
  • struck dumb mabye? --WhiteDragon 21:03, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Silence? --WikiSlasher 10:35, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

The closest thing to a verb I can think of is "to mute", but you'd have to use it in a passive sense: I was muted, I am mute.--Prosfilaes 10:39, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Well I'm speechless.--Shantavira 11:27, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

• I've heard "stultified" used that way.hotclaws**== 14:52, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

There is a technical term aphasia. RJFJR 15:06, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Archie Bunker often told Edith Bunker to "stifle yourself". -16:03, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Plattdeutsch

Does any body knows what 'otto' and 'waalkes' mean in Plattdeutsch (low German)? Your help will be greatly appreciated.

it's just a name. See Otto Waalkes. --Janneman 16:41, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Otto originally comes from a Germanic root ot- meaning riches, if that's what you were asking. Waalkes I don't know. Lesgles (talk) 02:30, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

The ending "-s" in a Germanic family name is often a patronymic: "son of". So for "Waalkes": "son of Waalke". Indeed, "Waalke" is found as a given name, and I found both combined in the Frisian name Waalke van Borssum Waalkes. The ending "-ke(n)" in Low Germanic is a diminutive: "little Waal". A possible meaning of "Waal" is Walloon, but this seems a bit unlikely for a given name. Another possible source is a shortened form of some saint's name, e.g. Saint Walericus.  --Lambiam^Talk 07:24, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

If I understood the Dutch correctly, according to a Dutch database of given names the name "Waalke" is derived from "Wale", which comes from the name of a saint Wala, who has no article in Wikipedia but is mentioned as a son of Bernard, son of Charles Martel.  --Lambiam^Talk 07:48, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] O no! My horse fell again!

Translation please: any language of the sentence: 'my horse fell down the toilet' -please also write which language you translated to thanks 17:34, 16 November 2006 (UTC)17:34, 16 November 2006 (UTC)17:34, 16 November 2006 (UTC)~~san

This question was asked recently at the RD; see Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2006 November 9#My Horse has fallen/fell down the toilet.  --Lambiam^Talk 17:59, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pudsey fundraising

Hi, I've been searching the whole wide web for free translations for "teddy bear". This is for my little sister, who is doing it to fundraise for children in need. I have already found most common european languages, and I was wondering if you could think of anywhere else to look.

Roxyrulz 18:35, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Using the "in other languages" links at the article Teddy bear:

• German: Teddybär
• Spanish: Osito de peluche
• French: Ours en peluche
• Icelandic: Bangsi
• Italian: Teddy Bear
• Hebrew: דוב צעצוע
• Malaysian: Beruang Teddy
• Dutch: Teddybeer
• Japanese: テディベア (Tedibea)
• Norwegian (bokmål): Teddybjørn
• Polish: Miś
• Portuguese: Urso de pelúcia
• Russian: Плюшевый мишка
• Finnish: Teddykarhu
• Swedish: Nallebjörn
• Tamil: டெடி கரடிக்குட்டி
• Thai: หมีเท็ดดี้
• Chinese: 泰迪熊

 --Lambiam^Talk 20:12, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

And the Wiktionary article Teddy bear further lists:

• Catalan: Osset de peluix, Osset de feltre
• Finnish: Nallekarhu
• Hungarian: Maci, Mackó
• Interlingua: Teddy Bear, Urseto teddy
• Portuguese: Ursinho de pelúcia

Note the difference for Finnish; teddykarhu and nallekarhu appear to be synonyms. Portuguese ursinho is simply the diminutive of urso.  --Lambiam^Talk 20:23, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

It's the same for Swedish and Finnish, "Nallebjörn" and "Teddybjörn", generally are synonyms... (If anything, "Teddybjörn" would refer to original Steiff bears, or something like that...) Norwegian and Danish also have "bamse". 惑乱 分からん 21:29, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Origin of the term Lime

I was wondering if anyone knows about the origin of the term lime in geology/chemistry. Thanks, --WhiteDragon 21:00, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Dictionary.com gives various similar etymologies; one is: Middle English lim, from Old English lm, birdlime. See lei- in Indo-European Roots. -THB 21:09, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I was thinking of adding it to the Lime article. Can I use dictionary.com's content on wikipedia? --WhiteDragon 20:24, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] November 17

[edit] Proper Possessive Nouns

Which is more proper: " Selous' Mongoose " or " Selous's Mongoose ?" -- VGF11 00:29, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

See: Apostrophe#Possessive forms of nouns ending in s. -THB 01:41, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, that section needs a rewrite citing some references that go the other way. Fact is, both spellings are widely used and accepted as correct. --Anonymous, 07:10 UTC, November 17.

Ok. Thanks. -- VGF11 23:22, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] -i suffix for adjectives?

I have noticed that the suffix -/i/ seems to indicate adjectives in many languages (in English, such as in the word "healthy", in Hebrew, like the word "Yisraeli" "Israeli", in Arabic, like in "`iraqi" "Iraqi", possibly in other languages from Southern- and Central Asia, and appearently in Japanese). Does this indicate anything? Mo-Al 00:54, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

From etymonline.com:

adj. suffix, "full of or characterized by," from O.E. -ig, from P.Gmc. *-iga (cf. Ger. -ig), 
cognate with Gk. -ikos, L. -icus.

That's for the English origin, the Japanese and Semitic suffixes are probably unrelated, although I lack knowledge of those languages' respective etymology. 惑乱 分からん 01:13, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

It's called coincidence. --ColinFine 02:19, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

There are two types of adjectives in Japanese: -i adjectives (atsui, samui, tanoshii, omoshiroi, etc) and -na adjectives (byooki[na], suki[na], kirai[na]). The overwhelming majority are -i adjectives. But I believe it is a coincidence. --Wooty Woot? | contribs 02:52, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

The 'na' adjectives are derived from Chinese nouns, whereas the 'i' adjectives are purely native, though it is still probably a coincidence, as Japanese is an Ural-Altaic language, and non of the other languages in this family show this. CCLemon 04:24, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the Ural-Altaic theory is highly disputed... 惑乱 分からん 14:12, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, it has been proved that the 'Japanese nation' (i.e. discounting the Ainu) came from three distinct areas of Asia: South-East (Malaysia-Indonesia-Polynesia), East-Central (Indochina-China), and North-East (Korea-Mongolia-Siberia), and using comparative historical linguistic techniques, it is possible to 'prove' links to a large number of languages in those areas, but many linguisticians prefer to put Japanese into the Ural-Altaic group because of the strong similarities in grammar between Japanese and Mongolian. --CCLemon 12:23, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

It seems to be possible, although your statement seems to be disputed in three major areas:

• 1. There's no definite linguistic evidence Japanese is Altaic.
• 2. There's no definite linguistic evidence the Altaic languages really is a language family.
• 3. There's no definite linguistic evidence that the Uralic languages are connected to the Altaic languages.

惑乱 分からん 14:54, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I didn't exactly say it was definite (notice the quotes around the word 'prove', plus the use of 'prefer to' and 'similarities'). Also, don't forget,in statements 1,2, and 3 above, you could just as easily put a 'not' in all three of them. Getting back to the original question, though, something I completely forgot to mention was that the 'i' ending of native adjectives in Modern Japanese comes from '-ki' in older Japanese. The 'k' just dropped out over time, so ありがたき (arigataki) -> ありがたい (arigatai). This is actually one reason why we say ありがとう (arigatou (a+u>ou in classical Japanese)), instead of the more grammatically correct (even now) form ありがたく (arigataku), as 'k' is a weak consonant in Japanese.CCLemon-安部さん万歳！ 14:25, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I can believe that it's a coincidence, but I know there's a phenomenon whereby some sounds are more likely to have some meanings (like close vowels often being used for small things). Mo-Al 05:32, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I believe what you are looking for is Phonosemantics aka "Sound symbolism". Nohat 05:46, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

The Semitic-language suffix is called the "Nisba" in Arabic grammatical terminology, and the "Gentilic" in traditional Christian Bible exegesis. In many forms of the Semitic suffix, it contains a "y" consonant, but never a "k" consonant. AnonMoos 12:44, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lack of undeletability

If something is impossible to undelete, is it unundeletable or nonundeletable? NeonMerlin 01:29, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

It would be irrecoverable. If you must use "undelete", non-undeletable is certainly better than unundeletable because you could say it with a straight face. -THB 01:40, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Why does it have to be either/or? If you use either of those words, people will understand you (provided they are familiar with the concept of 'undelete', and don't lose count of syllables in the first). End of story. --ColinFine 02:21, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Or just use "unrecoverable"! --Wooty Woot? | contribs 02:49, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Or just "not undeletable." :) --Kjoonlee 03:43, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

It's deleted, full stop. ;) But seriously, I agree with the people that say unrecoverable. Undelete is specific to a particular process. Vespine 04:01, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

But why do you think the original question is not about this particular process? You can undelete a deleted file by dragging it from the Trash bin to the desktop or another folder. Warning: This does not work for write-only files; once deleted, a write-only file is <not undeletable>. However, you can still recover the file by using the DiskSpy facility. Question: can <not undeletable> be replaced by a single word, and if so, which is the best choice? As the context shows, "unrecoverable" will not do here. --Lambiam^Talk 07:04, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Unundeletable won't do, either, as it's equivalent to "deletable", which is a different thing entirely. It seems to be a choice between "non-undeletable" or "not undeletable". JackofOz 07:23, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Please see litotes and then try to justify this absurd claim. --ColinFine 18:21, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

If "deletable" is really the process, it would be better to say, "Once the file has been deleted, it cannot be undeleted." -THB 11:27, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

This is representative of several answers that amount to 'neither, find another way of saying it'. Why? The OP wants to use one word. Agreed that in some circumstances these forms might be a bit confusing, but that's to do with how clear the speaker wants to be, not with whether some word or other is 'correct' (whatever that may mean). --ColinFine 18:21, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

If you are referring to my answer(s), I never used the term "correct" or "incorrect". I used the term "better". It is usually true in English (and all other languages with which I am familiar) that one word is "better" than another at expressing a particular idea in a particular situation. -THB 18:48, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

True, you did say 'better', not 'correct', and my anti-pedant filter jumped in. Sorry. But you didn't say 'better in a a particular situation', you said 'better'. --ColinFine 17:28, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

And, against all odds, a miracle happened. I say that because it was something that was as good as done – signed, sealed, delivered and unundoable – and right after I prayed like crazy about it, it was magically undone.[3] It is clear that the author of these lines did not mean doable for the word I made bold for emphasis. The author meant: "that cannot be undone". I see nothing wrong with this. "To undo" is a transitive verb, giving rise in a regular way to the adjective "undoable", and there is a productive prefix "un-" to negate the "-ability" of such adjectives: ungoogleable, unshaggable, unbombable, unundeletable, and so on. --Lambiam^Talk 00:42, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

The problem with unundeletable is that it is a repulsive neologism with better alternatives available. Google gives ONE instance of its use. -THB 05:31, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Could it be that you are already repulsed by the neologicality of the verb to undelete? Otherwise I cannot explain this high level of repulsivity. --Lambiam^Talk 07:29, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

It's the "unun". -THB 21:34, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Even without a doubled "un-", "undeletable" is by itself quite problematic. Some may understand it as a synonym of "recoverable", others "indelible". --71.244.101.6 03:39, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

"Unun" is the name of a band. -THB 19:35, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] English-Latin Translation

Can anyone suggest a rough translation of the phrase "You don't know what you've got till it's gone" as used in the Joni Mitchell Song (Big Yellow Taxi). I've tried assembling sentences like "We only appreciate that which we no longer possess" but my Latin was never very strong at school and 20 years on it hasn't improved. I'm try to define a humerous motto to go on a coat of arms, so terseness will be valued. Rob Burbidge 10:33, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Quod habeas ignoras donec abitum. This is literally second-person "you" (singular), that is, someone you're addressing. If you want "impersonal" you, like "One doesn't know ...", I'd use the Latin equivalent of "We don't know ...": Quod habeamus ignoramus donec abitum. Or, more stuffy: "Man doesn't know ...": Quod habeat homo ignorat donec abitum. (Latin homo does not imply maleness.) Disclaimer: I'm not a native Latin speaker. --Lambiam^Talk 10:56, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think donec abitum is Latin. Try donec abiit. Maid Marion 14:02, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Abitum is the past participle neuter of abeo, here used as a predicate (with a zero copula) of a null subject. --Lambiam^Talk 14:31, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I know - but I still don't think donec abitum is Latin! It may of course just be my ignorance, which you could dispel by pointing to a few analogous phrases in classical authors, but it just don't sound right! Could you say 'donec ventum'? Again, it just doesn't sound right - surely a classical author would say 'donec venit'? I'm not terribly good at analysing grammatical points, but these participles, with their passive form, don't seem right with intransitive verbs. I know that Vergil can say 'Itur in antiquam silvam', which implies that 'Itum est in ...' is OK, which perhaps implies that 'Abitum est in ...' is also OK. But it still don't sound right! Maid Marion 15:21, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I thought abiit and abitum est are almost interchangeable, at least in late Latin. This page from the Dutch Wiktionary, perhaps not the most authoritative source, gives abitum est as alternative to abiit. Googling for abitum est gives a few hits, one from Justinian's Pandects, the others from Mediaeval or later sources. So you may be right that in classical Latin this sounds funny. As I said, I'm not a native Latin speaker. --Lambiam^Talk 18:31, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure about later Latin, Lambiam, but in classical Latin I think phrases like itur, itum est, ventum est have a sense similar to French 'on va', ie where the subject is deliberately left vague: 'there is a going (by whom, I don't care to say)'. Where the subject is specified I think it is unnatural, or perhaps plain wrong, to use this kind of phrase. One uses the active form instead. As I said, I could easily be proved wrong if someone knows the classical literature better than me and can quote some parallels; but I think I have a reasonable feel for the language, and in this case it just feels wrong. Maid Marion 18:39, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Sounds promising. Do you think there is a terser form? I'm thinking of "quot hominem, tot sentenitae" (there are as many opinions as there are people) as a model. Something along the syntactic lines of "quot [absent things], tot [loved things]". Assuming of course I understand the meaning of quot and tot. :) Rob Burbidge 11:18, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Something terser might be along the lines of 'Nihil amatum nisi perditum', literally 'Nothing loved unless lost', or donec (until) in place of nisi (unless). Amatum is not the best word, but I'm in the office with no access to reference books, so I'm a bit short of inspiration! Maid Marion 14:07, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Might be better in plural ... would that be 'nihil amata nisi perdita'? I wonder what the verb "to miss" would be in latin ('miss' in the sense of feeling a sense of loss 'missing you'). Would there be some kind of noun form of perd- such as 'perditae' or 'perditentes' = those [things] that are lost? Then we could have [we miss] [only] [those things that are lost] in three words. Sorry if that awful latin makes you wince, I'm guessing here. Rob Burbidge 16:59, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Nihil amata doesn't work - nihil is singular, amata is plural. You could say nulla amata, but it wouldn't sound very idiomatic. The singular appears much more natural to me. As for 'some kind of noun form', 'perditum' effectively is a noun meaning 'lost (thing)'. 'To miss' would be desiderare, so one could say 'nil desideratum nisi perditum', but again this doesn't sound quite the right verb to me, not sure why. Maid Marion 18:34, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

(after edit conflict) How about 'aestimare'? "Quicquid dum teneas non aestimas" = "While you have anything you do not value it". (I think 'dum' needs a subjunctive, but I'm rusty.) Could also render as 'you do not know (the value of) it', which is closer to the original. Note that 'habeo' is 'be accustomed to', not 'have' in the sense of 'possess'. --ColinFine

I did think of aestimare, but the problem is that aestimatum is not like English valued. We use the English word invariably in the sense of 'highly valued', whereas the Latin word is neutral: assessed, evaluated, not necessarily highly valued. By the way, dum isn't always followed by subjunctive, and in fact would (I think) be followed by the indicative in your suggested sentence. I don't understand your comment about habeo not having the sense of possess: possess is certainly its usual meaning. Maid Marion 18:45, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Maid Marion - I think that strengthens my case for 'aestimare', because the original is 'You don't know what you've got till it's gone': it doesn't say 'value'. "Quicquid dum tenes non aestimas" then.

I withdraw the comment about 'habeo': I don't know where I got it from. --ColinFine 19:00, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Being very simple, you could say quod habet non aestimat. I think the use of the third person singular is appropriate here, as with tags such as quod vult valde vult. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 19:10, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

To which I'd like to add: quod mort volde mort. But aren't you overlooking the problem with aestimo mentioned above? Perhaps then: Quod habet non amat? I'm afraid though that the original idea may no longer be recognizable. This could refer to a spoiled brat who always demands the newest toys, or someone too depressed to appreciate anything at all, or just suffereing the effect of a change in taste. --Lambiam^Talk 00:20, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

One final effort to limit the motto to three words, as suggested by the original questioner: sola perdita amata. 'Only lost [things] [are] valued.' Maid Marion 10:28, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

But as I said above, the original doesn't say anything about 'love' (or even 'value') - it says 'know'. --ColinFine 05:34, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I only have a dim memory of the song, but it seems crystal clear that the singer's meaning is that you fail to value things until you lose them. And I'm pretty sure that that is what the original questioner is looking for (correct me if I'm wrong, but referring back to his original question - 'appreciate' - I doubt if I am). Maid Marion 11:06, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

se iuvare is "to delight", so sole se iuvat in perditis". I still think aestimare is better, and I do know the song at its context. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 23:37, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I've almost lost the will to live, but here goes again. By 'sole' I presume you intend 'solum'. The third person doesn't work, it has to be the second person if you intend the sense 'one appreciates'; third person could only mean 'he, she or it appreciates', ie it refers to some person known to the author and presumably to his intended audience. I'm suspicious of the phrase se iuvare, but would like to be convinced - perhaps you can cite a use of the phrase in this meaning from a classical author? And finally, once again, aestimare means 'evaluate', so I don't see how this can be relevant here, unless it is qualified (eg magni aestimare could mean 'estimate highly'). Maid Marion 08:19, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Many thanks to everyone who took part in this discussion! I think "sola perdita amata" is close enough in spirit to the original quotation, and terse enough to fit into a motto. I'm constantly impressed at the helpfulness of contributors to all aspects of wikipedia; thank you all. Rob Burbidge 09:42, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Referencing and Unnumbered Page

Ok, I have a reference that I need to cite, but I am not sure how to do it. The reference comes from a book. There is an unnumbered page at the start of the book. It is after the Title Page and the page talking about the books publication, but before the Table of Contents. The page has a definition of the subject, but nothing else. What is the proper way to cite this unnumbered page?Balloonman 20:55, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Usually the first numbered page of a book isn't page 1 but something like page 7 or 9 (or that would be page vii or ix if the front matter is numbered separately, most commonly done in hardcover books). So you can just count backwards -- if the page you want is 4 pages back from page ix, then it's page v and that's how you cite it. Include any blank pages in your count, so the odd numbers are always the right-hand pages.

If the book does start with page 1 and there are unnumbered pages before it, I think you need to be explicit: "unnumbered page following copyright page". However, if you're following a particular style guide for citations, it might have something to say.

--Anonymous, 23:25 UTC, November 17.

You're right, it starts on page ix... will count backwards. thanksBalloonman 23:46, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

In referencing you should use whatever style is given on the page, including any initial Roman numerals. Clio the Muse 00:00, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] November 18

[edit] Translation from Italian to English

I dont know if this is the right section to ask this,if its not,just delete this:

Where can I find a translations of Eros Ramazotti songs,I know Italian a little bit,but not good enough to understand everything hes saying.

Thank you(if its in wrong section,just delete the question) --YXYX 04:14, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

It's not in the wrong section. :) Check out http://www.eros-ramazzotti-lyrics.com/, they seem to have just what you're looking for. –Mysid☎ 08:08, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much,my girlfriend is crazy about Eros and we argued about the meanings in some songs,so thats why I need it.The site you gave me is excatly what I was looking for.Thanks again YXYX 22:31, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What's the language?

Hello all! I've just been doing some narcissistic Googling for my various user names and have discovered that a web site has used one of my pictures from Flickr to illustrate their article about Hard Gay! Could anyone please tell me language of the site? Here's a sample:

"Kysyin Shujilta ihan piruuttani, että mitähän seksuaalivähemmistöt hahmosta meinaavat."

For the whole article, go here: [4]

The funny thing is, my picture is not of Hard Gay, but of two teachers I used to work with dressed like him. Phileas 08:29, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

It is Finnish. (Your sample means "I asked Shuji, just to be nasty, about what would the sexual minorities think of the character.") The heading says "Hard Gay - maybe he got the inspiration for the costume from Tom of Finland" –Mysid☎ 08:51, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I thought it was Finnish too but I don't speak it at all :). Isn't there a rule that says : long, weird words with lots of double vowels-->Finnish?Evilbu 16:12, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Or Dutch, for that matter. :) I think Finnish is logical and the pronunciation is easy, because it is written phonetically. (Or because I'm native...) –Mysid☎ 17:37, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Hey! :p I speak Dutch and I'm a native,but I guess it's no coincidence that you brought that up:). Once you get emphasis right (on the right syllable), the pronunciation in Dutch becomes very easy, there's a few rules but once you know them, there you go. The same cannot be said about English (war<-> that, wear<-> weak)and French (parlent-ils <-> ils parlent)... It's not because our languages are not that easy that they don't make sense :).

Finnish is considered "weird" because it's so different from English, not because it's necessarily intrinsically difficult. 惑乱 分からん 19:13, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Or (IIRC) as CBS 60 minutes so eloquently put it: "Alphabet soup gone crazy!". 惑乱 分からん 16:35, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

For future reference, this website identifies which language a sentence of 5 or more words is written in. In my experience its very good, although not infallible. Thryduulf 20:27, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm the owner of that blog and yes, it's in Finnish. I replied to you in your blog. The easiest way to identify the language or ask about the use of the picture would have been leaving a comment in my blog - English is so universal that it's more than likely that a non-English blog's owner can still reply in English. :) --Sumiko 06:16, 21 November 2006 (UTC) (Suviko, more active in fi-Wikipedia)

[edit] Dysphoria

Can someone provide me the Greek spelling of the word dysphoria? I would like to use it in the article. Thanks! --Ginkgo100 ^{talk · e@} 22:42, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Liddell & Scott says δύσφορος is the adjective, so I'm pretty sure the noun is δυσφορία. —Keenan Pepper 02:48, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's right. If you wanted a transliterated representation of the Greek spelling, then dysphoria is already fine. Wareh 03:02, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you both... would it be accurate for me to say: from Greek, δυσ (bad) + φορία (mood) ? --Ginkgo100 ^{talk · e@} 03:51, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

No, there is no Greek word φορία. The Greek word δυσφορία (which was used in the Hippocratic corpus in the meaning "malaise, discomfort" – see link above) is compounded from δυσ- and the verbal root φερ-/φορ- seen in φέρω "carry, bear" (which in turn is from this Indo-European root). Thus the compound adjective δύσφορος means "hard to bear," and δυσφορία is an abstract noun describing the state that is hard to bear or uncomfortable. The idea of "mood" doesn't come into it anywhere except later and secondarily, and the idea of dys- here is difficulty (not "bad"). Wareh 04:14, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! That's exactly what I was looking for. I added it to the article and credited you on the talk page (per GFDL plus you deserve it). --Ginkgo100 ^{talk · e@} 14:35, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] November 19

[edit] Quick Grammar help

"Cornell has one of the most comprehensive student services programs anywhere." Is that sentence grammatically correct? Or should there not be a "s" on the end of "program"? Jamesino 03:53, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

It is correct as quoted. If you get rid of the s on the end of "programs," it will be incorrect. In "one of the programs," "of the programs" is a partitive phrase, expressing the larger whole (the group of plural programs) out of which Cornell's singular program is the one being considered. "Fred is one of the nicest PEOPLE (not person) I know." Wareh 04:17, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

A vaguely related question: is it correct to use "only" in a sentence such as "Delta Air Lines is one of the only mainline carriers in the world to own their own flight school, called Delta Connection Academy"? I hear this increasingly often, and each time it strikes me as wrong, although it would be fine used like this: "The only mainline carriers in the world to own their own flight school are Acrobatics Aviation, Bugaboo Blazers, Crooked Connections, and Delta Air Lines." --Lambiam^Talk 07:57, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, in this case, my gripe would be that the possessive of "Delta Air Lines" is "its" rather than "their" since it is both singular and inanimate. I can't find anything wrong with the use of "only", though. What exactly is wrong with it? —Keakealani 08:06, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Using "its" makes it worse! You get the partitive phrase "of the only mainline carriers in the world to own its own flight school" with a disagreement between plural "carriers" and "its". What is wrong with it is that it feels wrong. If you replace "only" by "few", or add some definite number as in "the only four", the feeling of wrongness disappears. The fact that I encounter this usage implies that some other speakers have no such qualms. Apparently you are one of the only people belonging to that group. --Lambiam^Talk 08:20, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

If you are going to use 'their', referring to the plurality of the carriers, then you would have to use ' schools ' to agree with it, otherwise the sentence would imply that they are all joint owners of a single school. However, I would stick with 'its'. Getting back to the 'only' question. I think you would need to quantify the 'only' a bit more. Maybe by saying 'one of the only mainline carriers known to have its own flight school', as in 'Fred is one of the only people I know who has ever climbed Mt. Fuji'. Just saying 'only' on its own gives the listener the feeling that an extra word has creeped into the sentence, or some others have escaped. I'm not sure if there is any right or wrong in it, it just sounds odd and lacking in something the way you said it. CCLemon-安部さん万歳！ 13:16, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

First off, "only" is incorrect; something can't be "one of the only". If there's more than one, then that's "the few".

Next, "their"/"its" should agree with "are"/"is", i.e. with "Delta Air Lines". Thus:

Delta Air Lines are one of the few mainline carriers in the world to own their own flight school...

Or:

Delta Air Lines is one of the few mainline carriers in the world to own its own flight school...

The former would be correct in BE, where companies etc. are plural entities. EdC 14:18, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

First, "incorrect" is incorrect. If the only four airlines that have a flight school are A, B, C, and D; then A is one of the only airlines that have one. It's logical and grammatical. The question is whether the expression makes sense as used.

The issue is the use of "only" to imply a small fraction -- people who say "one of the only" normally mean it to imply "one of the few". Now compare these cases:

1. The world has 1,000 airlines, 4 (A,B,C,D) with schools and 996 without.
2. The world has 8 airlines, 4 (A,B,C,D) with schools and 4 without.
3. The world has 5 airlines, 4 (A,B,C,D) with schools and 1 without.

In cases 1 and 2 you could easily say that A,B,C,D are the "only" airlines with schools. In case 3 you never would, even though it's logically correct; you'd be more likely to say that E is the "only" one without a school. So "only" does indeed suggest "relatively few". But I think that even people who say "one of the only" would be more likely to describe A as "one of the only" in case 1 than in case 2. It suggests a greater degree of rarity. In fact, it can pretty much be replaced by "one of the few". And clearly some people would prefer it to be.

Conclusion: make your own decision about using it. Accept that some people find nothing wrong with it.

--Anonymous, 21:11 UTC, November 19.

Some spirited discussion of "one of the only" at this blog. Two points incline me against those who sternly disapprove of this usage. (1) A very large number of items can still be the only ones of their class; in these cases "few" is misleading without fussy qualification ("relatively few," etc.). (2) It's hard to impeach the logic of this defense (to quote from a comment at the blog entry I linked):

if you can have "the only things saved from the house were the pen and the dog," then I don't see how you can't have "one of the only things saved from the house was the dog."

(See the full comment and compare a longer one in a similar vein.) On the other hand, the phrase surely can sometimes be a symptom of imprecise or inelegant thinking. It's also worth knowing that using it will lower your worth in the eyes of people who insist on "running the gantlet" and "interpretative." Wareh 21:30, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, Anonymous and I were typing some very overlapping thoughts at exactly the same time. Wareh 21:33, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

A comma might help.martianlostinspace 16:39, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Latin translation of "database"

What would be a possible translation into Latin of the modern word "database"? Thanks for any ideas. ==Alex==

Librarium, perhaps.--Shantavira 15:16, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

"Database" doesn't appear to be in the glossary on Vicipaedia. -THB 19:26, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but there will be a word, as the Vatican still use Latin, and have therefore have to create words like this. I know there are dictionarie spublished with this sort of thing in, but I don't knwo where you could find one on the internet. Martinp23 19:37, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

There is Vocabula computatralia which suggests datorum ordinatrum, data, or plicae datorum. Probably not very accurate though. Adam Bishop 20:59, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

The Vatican's Lexicon of new words has no entry for database – at least I can't find one, whether for database or base di dati or banca dati. --Lambiam^Talk 21:11, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Datarium would be a neologism, but formed in analogy to other Latin words. --Lambiam^Talk 21:19, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

• "Modern" word? "Data" is Latin already, and "base" derives from Latin as well. So you're already using Latin, in a sense. Anyway, datorum ordinatrum seems popular enough. Personally I prefer the word the Icelanders constructed. (Gagnagrunnur) --BluePlatypus 04:20, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Datorum ordinatrum is in several online glossaries: [5] [6] -THB 04:38, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] November 20

[edit] Plural Question

What is the plural of "corps"?

It's the same spelling, only pronounced as "cores," with the "s" sounded out. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by bibliomaniac15 (talk • contribs) .

bibliomaniac15 is right. See Wiktionary:corps for slight variants in dialect.--El aprendelenguas 01:25, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hebrew Wikipedia

Hebrew text is read right to left. Why? I don't know. Paragon12321 01:48, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Arabic and many other ancient languages are written that way as well. -THB 02:25, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Why is English read left to right? In antiquity it was more ad lib. — see boustrophedon. Wareh 03:28, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

There is an advantage to left-to-right, since most people are right-handed. That means that most people can write with a pen without dragging their hand over the written material and smudging it. Older written languages, like Hebrew, which predate ink pens, wouldn't have to worry about this issue. I would guess that this is why only a few languages are written right-to-left. StuRat 06:58, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

True, and one of the reasons they used to cite back in the dark ages when left-handed children were made to learn to write with their right hand. Obviously, it would have been unthinkable to let schoolchildren use pencils. Thank God for Laszlo Biro. Incidentally, if you haven't yet, try to write in mirror image with your weak hand, whichever it is. It's surprisingly easy. --Rallette 08:35, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I tried that and it came out looking like Hebrew. Hmmmm. :) Btw, the dark ages seem to have lasted into the 20th century in the Netherlands, because my father, who was left handed, was forced to write with his right hand. Something similar still exists today, with children being forced to take in info verbally, even if they are better at reading (like me), which is actually faster, so that's even worse. But I'm going a bit too far off-topic now. DirkvdM 08:45, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

By the dark ages, I meant circa 1950, when this was still the case in Finland. --Rallette 09:09, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Questions about Spanish

I've been trying to refresh my Spanish skills with a Pimsleur language learning tape. I think the people on the tape are native (Latin American) speakers, but there are a few things that seem wrong to me based on my experience with Spanish. (I lived in Venezuela for two years.) Here are some examples. I hope you can tell me what is correct, or what sounds more "native".

• They say "soy de estados unidos". I would use the article: "soy de los estados unidos".
• They ask "¿usted trabaja en Caracas?" and other questions in a similar form. I tend to invert word order when asking a question, "¿trabaja usted en Caracas?"
• They always say "Yo lo sé" for "I know", whereas I would never use the "lo".
• They always say "solo" for "only", whereas I was taught to say "solamente", and I don't understand the difference.
• They pronounce "exactamente" with an English "x" sound, which I thought doesn't exist in Spanish. (Compare "Mexico", pronounced with the Spanish "j" sound.) --Grace 03:29, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

"¿Usted trabaja en Caracas?" is perfectly good Spanish and the pronunciation of the 'x' in 'Mexico' is really an exception (just try pronouncing 'excepción' that way). As for the other questions, no sé exactamente, so I won't try answering them. DirkvdM 09:05, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

According to my dictionary, "solo" (without an accent) is an adjective, meaning "alone", whereas "sólo" (with an accent) and "solamente" are adverbs, both meaning "only" or "exclusively". So you would say: "Estoy solo en casa." ("I am home alone"), and I suppose "Solamente pienso en salir" and "Sólo pienso en salir" would be synonymous. --N·Blue ^talk 13:37, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I might be wrong here, but an impression I got is that "Solamente pienso en salir" would be "I'm only thinking of leaving", and "Sólo pienso en salir" "I'm just thinking of leaving", clearly different connotations... 惑乱 分からん 14:10, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I think you may be right. Any native Spanish speakers around to resolve this? --N·Blue ^talk 18:17, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong -- but I thought only as an adjective or noun is único, as in el único, "the only one", or la única página, "the only page". Isn't solo only (heh) for only as an adverb and alone as an adjective? --Ginkgo100 ^{talk · e@} 20:28, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

As stated above, "solo" as an adjective means "alone", not "only". "Estoy el único en casa" would mean "I am the only one at home"; "Estoy solo en casa" means I" am home alone" (Still no natives around?). --N·Blue ^talk 20:46, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Plaintext language corpora in natural languages

I'm working on a neural network to classify natural languages, and for training I need large samples in various different languages. Is there anywhere I can freely (as in beer and as in speech) get samples of different languages - the more the merrier, but at least, say, 10? Samples would preferably be long enough to be representative of the language - thousands or tens of thousands of words each or longer. ASCII is obviously insufficient for most languages, so unicode is preferred. Thanks, ^L_Wizard @ 04:35, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Couldn't you use text from wikipedia? All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details.) Skarioffszky 09:49, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

That's certainly a possibility, and one I've considered, but it's surprisingly hard to get the text from Wikipedia into easily-usable form. The raw code has all sorts of annoying links and markup, and I can't seem to find any easy to way to dump the body text as rendered to a usable format. ^L_Wizard @ 10:44, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

If you use Lynx (web browser), you can do: lynx -dump 'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&printable=yes' > dumped_page.txt to save HTML to text.

Oops, sorry. It doesn't handle Unicode very well.. :( --Kjoonlee 14:41, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it does. The problem is the language setting of your console where the dump is dumped to. -- 85.179.15.106 19:31, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

You might now something I don't, because I can't get it to work with LANG=en_US.UTF-8. --Kjoonlee 04:03, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikisource then? Less markup, fewer links. And another idea: the rejected European constitution, in 21 languages. It would be nice if someone found a use for it. Skarioffszky 11:02, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Project Gutenberg has entire free books in a number of languages. They usually come in plain text. --Grace 11:44, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Norwegian name pronunciation

How is the Norwegian name Trygve Lie (the first Secretary General of the United Nations) pronounced?

Is the last name a long "i" sound (as in a falsehood), or is it like "lee", or is it "lee-eh", or something else?

What are the vowel sounds in the first name? One or two syllables, and which gets emphasis?

This is my understanding, but I'm not a speaker of Norwegian, so I'd be happy to be corrected:

/ˌtɾygʋə 'liə/

Rather /ˌtɾygʋə 'li:ə/, anyway... (Roughly "lee-eh"). By the way, he's a popular fellow in Norwegian crosswords... ;) 惑乱 分からん 14:08, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't know how to represent the pitch accent. Informally, the last name is like "lee-eh" but the second syllable is very weak, like the first "a" in "around". The first name has two syllables, of which the first gets the stress. The "r" is not trilled, but a single flap, almost like a "d". The "y" is like French "u", German "ü". The "v" is soft, like a "w" but also a bit like initial "r" in English. The final "e" is again like "a" in "around". --Lambiam^Talk 08:31, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Here is the pronunciation by a native: Image:Trygve lie.ogg. --N·Blue ^talk 12:58, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

And here's an audio link: Norwegian pronunciation (help·info) --Kjoonlee 14:26, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How many meaningful prefix and suffix does the English language have?

As topic tittle59.149.91.57 13:59, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IPA for Ecce Homo

Though I'm not familiar with IPA, I think the Late Latin would be /'ɛktse 'homo/. The current version at Ecce Homo has an Italian-influenced version as first. Thoughts? --Brand спойт 15:28, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I had assumed it'd be similar to /'ɛke 'ho:mo/ , but that might perhaps be earlier Latin... 惑乱 分からん 15:36, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I suppose it's probably intentionally modern Ecclesiastical Latin that's given, rightly or not. My question would be, for the more Classical pronunciation offered (and possibly the later one too), shouldn't the first "o" be rather ɔ? Wareh 15:39, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I've remembered it is clearly Latin, not Late Latin pronunciation of "cc" combination (kts, e.g. Koktseyus for Cocceius). --Brand спойт 01:32, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quoting and Citing

How do you quote and cite an author when you're listening to an audio format of a book instead of reading it. Is there an MLA format for that? Am I going to have to buy the book to be able to quote him appropriately in an essay?

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/10/ try this page. You can cite it for sure without buying or picking up a copy of the book. 152.3.73.203 21:33, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] research

Hello, My name is Laura Palmer and I do my second to last year of schooling with the New Zealand Correspondence School. For English we have to get resources for research on a topic. My topic is on an area where language has changed and am doing it on changes in gender issues in language..I was just wondering if you could please give me any helpful information on this or any links to sites and books etc where useful information could be found.

Thank you for your time, Laura Palmer

ps could you please email me on (email removed) with your reply

I can't email you, but maybe you could look at Gender-neutral language in English for one possible topic. I found that by going to language and looking at the see also list at the bottom. As for finding sources, first pick a topic, then check online for scholarly articles or make your way to a public university for some literature. By the way, I wouldn't use Wikipedia as a primary source for anything serious, but as a means to sources or for topic hunting, it's a decent portal. 152.3.73.203 21:26, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] anachronistic vocab

What is the term for a word in curent usage which is inherently arachronistic? eg dialing a phone number on a touch tone phone. --AHI 20:08, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I am sure this isn't what you are looking for but "anachronism"? 152.3.73.203 21:29, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Translation into Korean?

How might one say the following in Korean? (This is not a homework project, but rather a home-maintenance project).

In an emergency, it should be possible to exit the building through the front door, even when that door is locked.

Thanks, Vectro 00:19, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

비상시에는 정문이 잠겨있더라도 정문을 통해 밖으로 나갈 수 있습니다. --Kjoonlee 03:52, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Maybe 대문 is better, if it's a home. 비상시에는 대문이 잠겨있더라도 대문을 통해 밖으로 나갈 수 있습니다. --Kjoonlee 04:48, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Japanese translation

Can somebody help translate this article ja:アリーン冷却器? --HappyCamper 00:51, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Until next time: Wikipedia:Translation_into_English#Japanese-to-English 惑乱 分からん 01:28, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I think you just mean to say "next time". : ) freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ 04:58, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fallacy name?

Not sure if this should be in Language RefDesk. If it's in the wrong place, please tell me where it should be.

Often I hear from others when I criticize their work the phrase "well let's see you do any better". For an example, maybe a sculpture or something someone made that is just awful. I'll say "wow, that looks really bad" and they'll say "well I'd like to see you do better!". In essence, they are saying that because I can't do something that means I can't criticize their work. This HAS to be an informal fallacy of some sort. If it is, what's the name of it? --Wooty Woot? contribs 04:33, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

This is not an answer, but I expect it's simply a reaction to judgmental language. If you said "I don't like that sculpture" rather than describing it as "bad", maybe they would accept that more readily. JackofOz 04:51, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Constructive criticism would be even better. :) --Kjoonlee 04:53, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Trust me, it happens even when I give constructive criticism. I know it's logically idiotic (just because I haven't built a car doesn't mean I can't judge one, only that I am a bit less qualified to talk about technicalities) I just can't find the word for it. --Wooty Woot? contribs 05:28, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

• It's mildly off-topic.
• It could be an implicit ad-hominem attack.
• It looks as if it involves denying the antecedent
  1. If you can do it yourself, then you can offer constructive criticism.
  2. You can't do it yourslf.
  3. Therefore you can't offer constructive criticism. ← ERROR

--Kjoonlee 06:49, 21 November 2006 (UTC)