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October 30

Chinese (?) translation request

File:7 star praying mantis.jpg

What's this say?

Hi, can anyone tell me what the characters in this image say? I know there is a bunch of symbolic uses of the mantis in some Chinese culture, but all WP seems to say is that the Chinese Mantis is an inspiration for Northern_Praying_Mantis_(martial_art). Thanks, SemanticMantis (talk) 14:47, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If I'm not quite mistaken, it's just the same three characters given also as our gloss at the beginning of the Northern Praying Mantis (martial art) article: 螳螂拳, Pinyin: tāngláng quán [1] Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:12, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Aha! I actually considered that, but my character recognition ability is very poor. Barring any serious dispute, I think that's it. Thanks! SemanticMantis (talk) 15:18, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Any mistakes in the Korean in this image?

If any Korean-speaking Wikipedians are interested...

Please compare everything in Korean in File:Seatmap of Air China Flight 129 (ko).svg (except the Korean in the box since that content was originally in Korean) and check if it is a proper translation of File:Seatmap of Air China Flight 129 (en).svg

Thank you! WhisperToMe (talk) 16:36, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I know enough Korean to be dangerous, so it would be great if a native speaker can chime in. In case they don't, though, here are my comments:

"중국 국제 항공" would usually be written without spaces as "중국국제항공".
"flight 129" should be "129편" instead of "비행 129".
"바상구부" looks as though it should be "비상구".
I would have expected "날개 비상구" rather than "날개 부분의 ..." for overwing exits, but I'm not certain what term is actually used.
I can only guess whether "첫째승무원", etc. is the right way to count flight attendants.

Hopefully we'll have comments from someone more authoritative! --Amble (talk) 19:36, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

ø versus œ (ö) in Swedish IPA

I proposed a change to Help:IPA_for_Swedish_and_Norwegian on the talk page for the article, regarding English equivalents, but I don't have the expertise to make the change myself.

Currently the article says that ø has no usage in English, while œ is pronounced as the vowel in "burn". As a native speaker of Swedish (Gothenburg dialect) I don't think this makes much sense. The two vowels are quite similar, and I usually don't make any distinction between them. There are also large differences between Swedish dialects that makes it harder to define exactly how they're supposed to be pronounced. I propose that the two different symbols are kept, but both are explained with the English words "girl" or "burn".

I don't know if the right place to discuss is this page or said talk page. 95.80.46.25 (talk) 17:45, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There actually is a difference between those vowels in IPA, but not one that you could easily clarify with examples from English. The problem with using examples like "girl" or "burn" to illustrate these vowels is that the quality of those vowels varies quite a bit across English. In rhotic American English varieties, it is hard to separate the vowel from its R coloring, which isn't really a distinct consonant. In non-rhotic American and British varieties, the quality of those vowels varies regionally. Even within my own (largely non-rhotic American) region, there is variation by subregion and generation in the quality of the vowel. I think it really may be best to illustrate these vowels with reference to German or French words with a standard pronunciation. Marco polo (talk) 18:22, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

October 31

Sentence understanding problem

Hello.

Please read the following two sentences.

According to the team, the universe is 13.798 ± 0.037 billion years old, and contains 4.9% ordinary matter, 26.8% dark matter and 68.3% dark energy. Also, the Hubble constant was measured to be 67.80 ± 0.77 (km/s)/Mpc.

Is the Hubble constant saying that the universe is 67.80 ± 0.77 (km/s)/Mpc old? If so, "(km/s)/Mpc" doesn't make sense.

I don't understand?

(Russell.mo (talk) 18:14, 31 October 2014 (UTC))[reply]

What do you the highlighted bits mean?

This scenario is generally considered to be the most likely,[citation needed] as it occurs if the universe continues expanding as it has been. Over a time scale on the order of 1014years or less, existing stars burn out, stars cease to be created, and the universe goes dark.[34],§IID. Over a much longer time scale in the eras following this, the galaxy evaporates as the stellar remnants comprising it escape into space, and black holes evaporate via Hawking radiation.[34], §III, §IVG. In some grand unified theories, proton decay after at least 1034 years will convert the remaining interstellar gas and stellar remnants into leptons (such as positrons and electrons) and photons. Some positrons and electrons will then recombine into photons.[34], §IV, §VF. In this case, the universe has reached a high-entropy state consisting of a bath of particles and low-energy radiation. It is not known however whether it eventually achieves thermodynamic equilibrium.[34], §VIB, VID.

(Russell.mo (talk) 18:18, 31 October 2014 (UTC))[reply]

With regard to your second question, the symbol § stands for "section", so those notes are identifying the sections of the article cited in footnote 34 that contain the information. It appears to me that the first parts are roman numerals, so §IID would be Section 2D, §IVG would be Section 4G, and so forth. (For the benefit of other potential respondents, the article from which Russell.mo's passages are taken is Chronology of the universe.) Deor (talk) 19:35, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

With regard to the first question: No, Hubble's constant is not a measure of the age of the universe; it's a constant used in estimating the rate at which objects are receding from one another as a result of the expansion of the universe. "(km/s)/Mpc" means "kilometers per second per megaparsec". The current estimate of the age of the universe is given in the first sentence you quoted: 13.798 ± 0.037 billion years. (Any physicists here are welcome to correct anything I may have bollixed up in this explanation. I'm definitely not a physicist.) Deor (talk) 20:20, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Same here! -- (Russell.mo (talk) 04:28, 1 November 2014 (UTC))[reply]

(edit conflict) On the first question, the Hubble constant is a measure of how fast the universe is expanding; the units are "Rate of expansion per distance from the observer". That is, for a given distance from you (the observer) the objects that distance away seem to be all receding at a constant rate, and the rate of expansion increases steadily with increasing distance. The unit itself measures the rate of expansion in kilometers per second (or km/s), and the distance from the observer is measured in Megaparsecs, or Mpc (where a Megaparsec is a million parsecs), so the unit for the constant is "Kilometers per second per megaparsec" or "(km/s)/Mpc". What the constant is saying is that for an object 1 megaparsec away, it appears to be receding from you at a speed of 67.80 km/s. For objects 2 megaparsecs away, they would recede at twice that speed, and so on. --Jayron32 20:28, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That's not quite correct. It's only an average. Objects have different velocities relative to us, some approaching, most receding. The Andromeda Galaxy, for example, is going to get very, very up close and personal in about 4 billion years. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:25, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Lol, We'll be dead by that time. I think I get the idea, its the average measurement from hubble spacecraft (if an observer is in it, or the hubble spacecraft is an observer itself) how fast the universe is expanding... Am I Right? (Russell.mo (talk) 04:28, 1 November 2014 (UTC))[reply]

Not quite. Edwin Hubble came up with his constant decades before there were any spacecraft (at least human spacecraft - mwahahahaha). He noticed that objects, on average, were moving away from us faster the further away they were. The constant just tells us how much that average speed changes per megaparsec of separation from us. (It's not just us; if you were in a galaxy far, far away, it would be the same.) There is no Hubble spacecraft, AFAIK, just the Hubble Space Telescope, which is named after him. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:19, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I guess, I understand. -- (Russell.mo (talk) 17:40, 1 November 2014 (UTC))[reply]

Is that another way of saying "I don't understand"? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:55, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Lol

-- (Russell.mo (talk) 07:08, 2 November 2014 (UTC))[reply]

To be entirely accurate, it wasn't Hubble that came up with it in isolation (as though the thought sprang fully formed from his mind with no antecedents). The notion of an expanding universe was implicit in the Einstein field equations of General relativity, though Einstein was uncomfortable with the notion enough to introduce his Cosmological constant to counteract the expanding universe his equations told him should be happening. So Einstein himself deserves some credit, though accidentally. Secondly, a whole slew of scientists come between Einstein and Hubble and the proof of the expanding Universe, probably most importantly Georges Lemaître, but also not to be ignored include Alexander Friedmann, Howard P. Robertson, Arthur Geoffrey Walker. Hubble's contribution wasn't to determine the universe was expanding, nor was it to provide the law and constant that bear his name; his main contribution was the connection between Redshift of distant objects and Lemaître prediction of the expanding universe. Basically, Hubble found the evidence for the predictions, (and he also had better PR) so he's generally better remembered. But science doesn't happen in a vacuum; and these scientists and mathematicians worked among a community of like individuals, many of whom made important, incremental contributions to our knowledge in this area. --Jayron32 20:22, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I understand how they came up with the 13.8 bya measurement. I don’t understand how Hubble came up with his constant. If he wasn’t in a spacecraft, then he was on Earth. If he measured it from Earth then he is saying the constant can be understood from any part of the galaxy. The rate of expansion, I guess measured from the ‘primodial atom’ point to the farthest expansion point.

The blast, big bang, the so called cosmic inflation that was left after the blast, did it take 377,000 years for the blast to come to the state which left the trace of the cosmic inflation? What I mean to say, did one blast of an atom spread throughout space for 377,000 years?

And what the difference between 'space' and 'universe'. I thought universe is what everything is, from ‘primodial atom’ to the farthest expansion point. But in 'space' article says that the space is created during the 'big bang'. So what was it before, “white body”? White/blue/green/yellow/maroon back ground rather than black background? I know no one knows, I'm just trying to understand the difference between the word 'space' and 'universe'. Is space is where universe is created? -- (Russell.mo (talk) 07:08, 2 November 2014 (UTC))[reply]

No, the universe is mainly made up of space, with just the occasional bits of matter dotted around in space. Both space and time were created in the big bang, most likely from a singularity (a mathematical concept which is almost meaningless to a layman in this context, but basically just a single point). The rate of expansion is the same measured from any point in the universe because each current point was the centre 13.8 bya. The universe is not expanding into anything, it is just expanding, with nearly every galaxy moving away from nearly every other galaxy because of the metric expansion of space. The 377 000 years is just the time it took for the universe to cool sufficiently for atoms to form. Before that it was just plasma. Dbfirs 08:29, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If the universe is not expanding into any preexisting space, that is if space itself is expanding, is in fact created by the expansion of the universe, then how come this has any large scale effect in the end? Since space is expanding is it not true that not only the distances between galaxies should be increasing but also the distance between all of the elementary particles in the universe away from each other? In other words why would galaxies only be pulling away from each other? The particles those galaxies are composed of should also be pulling away from each other, thus canceling any effect. The way this concept is commonly explained does not make much sense. Contact Basemetal here 09:05, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That's a good question, and one that I used to wonder about, but apparently gravity within a galaxy, and atomic forces within matter, prevent the expansion in some way, so it is only the space between galaxies that expands. I'm not entirely happy with the explanation myself, and I suspect that there is something else going on that we don't yet fully understand. Dbfirs 10:43, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes there is a paradox in this explanation. If it's the distance that allows the galaxies to move away from each other then what happened when the universe was much smaller? How did the expansion even get started? And why are there galaxies in the first place? Why isn't matter uniformly distributed in the universe? Contact Basemetal here 15:43, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The expansion seems to be governed by dark energy, and it seems that the expansion is accelerating, and the amount of this mysterious dark energy is increasing at a corresponding rate while the amount of matter remains constant. Some other possibilities are suggested in Dark energy#Alternative ideas. The non-uniformity is usually explained by resonances in the early plasma (imagine the universe ringing like a bell) so that when atoms formed, some were closer together than others. See Structure formation for a technical explanation. Dbfirs 08:42, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Distances are measured indirectly by measuring the apparent brightness of a "standard candle", an object of known intrinsic brightness. Speeds are measured by redshift. —Tamfang (talk) 08:21, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Kilometers and megaparsecs are both units of length, so km/Mpc is a dimensionless ratio; thus Hubble's constant is in units of inverse time – so its reciprocal gives the time since the expansion began, assuming that its speed has been constant. —Tamfang (talk) 08:21, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

November 1

Laws with someone's name in them

I'm intrigued by the modern(?) naming phenomenon of things like Emily's Law and Oscar's Law. I find it annoying, because I can never remember what each law is meant to do (perhaps because I'm old), and whether Emily was a puppy. Is there a generic name for this naming habit? When did it start? HiLo48 (talk) 02:45, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Personally I've heard them both described as "named laws" or "namesake laws", though I'm interested to read others' input. ~Helicopter Llama~ 02:52, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

List of eponymous laws... -- AnonMoos (talk) 03:09, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, but that's just a bit too broad. (And includes neither Oscar nor Emily anyway.) HiLo48 (talk) 03:18, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The first signed one I remember (I'm not too old) was Polly's Law (better known as Three Strikes) in 1994. Adam's Law (or the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act) was called that on America's Most Wanted for many years before it became official. That likely helped the trend. That show was huge. Might still be. Not nearly as terrifying a theme song as Unsolved Mysteries, though. They're almost always something about childproofing, but sometimes about pleasing widows. Definitely catchier than "Bill 126" (or worse, "Bill's Law"). I guess the generic term would be "Eponymous Safety Law". InedibleHulk (talk) 04:08, November 1, 2014 (UTC)

The ones I remember best are Grimm's Law and Verner's Law. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:35, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Science/mathematics has had Boyle's Law and Avogadro's Constant and Maxwell's Equation and L'Hopital's Rule and Fermat's Last Theorem and zillions of others. I never had any trouble distinguishing these from each other, but when it comes to legal statutes and social advocacy, I'm with HiLo48. I can never remember who Emily was and why she had a List. And who the hell is Craig, for that matter? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:14, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This guy. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:04, November 2, 2014 (UTC)

I think HiLo48 is asking about laws (in the legal sense) and other protective means informally named after victims (often children). I didn't find a collective name for this type of nomenclature. One very early example, long before the 1990s' Megan's Law, Amber Alert, etc. is the Coogan law from the 1930s, but in this case the namesake was a well-known celebrity, unlike Megan, Adam, Amber, etc. ---Sluzzelin talk 19:53, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's what I was looking for. HiLo48 (talk) 15:56, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The idea that those are also called laws didn't even cross my mind, for some odd reason. Very few children get those sorts, stupid little things they are. Maybe if they were required to spend their time in the lab instead of playing outside? I'd call it Hulk's Law. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:02, November 2, 2014 (UTC)

That is, working in the lab. Can't forget all these annoying laws. I mean, unless you can. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:08, November 2, 2014 (UTC)

The Volstead Act is pretty well known. That happened in 1920.--Shirt58 (talk) 01:50, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Code of Hammurabi is (probably) before all our times. But I think this is only about first names, with apostrophes. Lawmakers would be more likely to get something about #hammyslaw or #andyslaw retweeted than something evoking eye loss or not drinking. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:19, November 2, 2014 (UTC)

[[User:HiLo48: just in case you haven't seen it, there's List of legislation named for a person, which I can't see linked above. Alansplodge (talk) 13:52, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Adjective for road traffic that goes in the same direction as you

Road traffic in the opposing direction to yours is "oncoming"; what's the adjective for traffic that goes in the same direction as yours? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.227.60.98 (talk) 03:19, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The best I can think of is co-moving, but the adjective is more commonly used in cosmology than for road traffic. Dbfirs 20:47, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Law-abiding? Outgoing? Equidistant? Right-lane (or left, wherever you are)? Normal?

If traffic's coming your way, that's because one of you is going backward. So I'd go with forward, even if it isn't an exact antonym. Might not be an exact one, since nobody cares when everything's flowing. Only the obstacles get noticed. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:58, November 2, 2014 (UTC)

Unless you're driving on a one-way street, you're going to see plenty of oncoming traffic, hopefully all in the other lane(s). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:33, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The way I typically hear it mentioned is when someone swerves (or bounces or flies) into it. If it's missing you by a safe distance, I wouldn't consider it oncoming. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:23, November 2, 2014 (UTC)

If you leave a road by taking a left-hand turn (in the US, where you drive on the right) onto a side road, and you need to cross over the opposing lane and give way, and you misjudge your departure and you smash into a vehicle in that lane, you would be guilty of turning against oncoming traffic. But if your exit was on your right, and you're not in the far right lane, and you turn into the path of vehicles that are still going in the same direction as you were until you turned, what would that offence be called? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 03:47, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In my case, driving without a licence. Greg's Law again. Not sure about the others. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:06, November 2, 2014 (UTC)

"Same-direction" traffic. Bus stop (talk) 01:25, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A quick google search indicates that's pretty much it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:38, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

My WWW search (not necessarily a Google search) for equidirectional traffic found some results, including http://www.google.ca/patents/US3941201, with the expression merger of two equidirectional single-lane traffic flows.

—Wavelength (talk) 01:54, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In general, all single-lane traffic flows are "equidirectional", or at least they better be. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:56, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The expression equidirectional lanes is used at http://www.google.com/patents/CN101654103A?cl=en.

—Wavelength (talk) 04:57, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I can accept the term "equidirectional lanes". What I can't accept is the notion that a single lane would be anything other than equidirectional. Unless they're trying in some roundabout way to explain what the term "equidirectional" means by providing a redundant synonym. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:59, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Suicide lanes weren't equidirectional, Bugs. And you must remember the "reversible lanes" on Lake Shore Drive, which were (supposedly) equidirectional at any given time but not equidirectional per se. Deor (talk) 09:52, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Those turning lanes are not traffic flow, they are for turning. And reversible lanes in Chicago and elsewhere, along with road construction where all traffic is reduced to single-lane, as well as logging roads in the mountains are, at any given moment, unidirectional. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:12, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"Equidirectional" or "unidirectional" is a reference to a road; it is not a reference to a flow of traffic. A "suicide lane" is equidirectional (or unidirectional). The suicide lane probably has road surface marking that defines where it can be used. The flow of traffic has to be referred to by terms that create a relationship between vehicles. "Oncoming" traffic is one of those terms. The question is what term refers to traffic going in the opposite direction as "oncoming" traffic. Bus stop (talk) 15:42, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The expression merger of two equidirectional single-lane traffic flows refers to two traffic flows where one traffic flow is equidirectional with the other traffic flow. For example, if two single-lane traffic flows are both westbound toward an interchange, then they are equidirectional (one with the other).

—Wavelength (talk) 16:42, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe you are right. I should not have said that "suicide lanes" are "equidirectional". Bus stop (talk) 17:24, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Though suicide is (said to be) a one-way ticket to Hell (southbound lane). InedibleHulk (talk) 04:35, November 3, 2014 (UTC)

What does it mean

In The Mikado, we find this bit:

Young man, despair,

Likewise go to,

Yum-Yum the fair

You must not woo.

I don't understand what the second line means. Any ideas? --108.202.177.21 (talk) 06:13, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Is it the "go to" that bothers you? "Go to" is just an exhortation like "come on". It's found all over the place in Shakespeare mostly with a negative meaning (expressing disapproval) but sometimes with a positive meaning (expressing encouragement) just like "come on" nowadays. Here it clearly expresses disapproval. I think it was already archaic in 1885. According to me the whole four lines mean: "Young man, give up hope and do not try to woo the pretty Yum-Yum". Contact Basemetal here 07:02, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That seems reasonable. I was thinking it was a roundabout way of telling him to "go to despair", but your explanation makes more sense. Pooh-Bah is telling Nanki-Poo to stay away from Yum-Yum, as she's spoken for. It doesn't quite work out that way, though. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:17, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, thanks. Somehow I didn't notice this in Shakespeare - he has too many weird words, so you start just ignoring stuff you don't know. In this case though, there's also "Likewise" which strikes me as weird, but presumably is just a filler iambic word to maintain the meter. --108.202.177.21 (talk) 07:19, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"Likewise" here is just another way of saying "and" I think but I agree that the choice of this particular word has surely something to do with the meter. Contact Basemetal here 07:36, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Far be it from Gilbert to tinker with words just to fit a meter. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:40, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@ 108.202.177.21: If "you start just ignoring stuff you don't know" when studying Shakespeare (or anyone else), you run the serious risk of misinterpreting things. For example, when Juliet declaims "Wherefore art thou Romeo?": wherefore is not in most people's lexica these days, and it's reasonable-ish to just assume it's an oldy-worldy way of saying where (it in fact means why). But it's not reasonable to assume a comma before Romeo. So, rather than it meaning "Where are you, Romeo?", as countless school productions have had it, it actually means "Why are you Romeo?" (in the sense of "Why couldn't you have been plain Mario Vercotti or something, rather than the son of my family's sworn eternal enemy?"). -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:05, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In earlier versions of the script, there is a character, a Lord, called Go-To. Like Poo-Bah and Pish-Tush, his name is a dismissive interjections (though the other two are each two interjections). --ColinFine (talk) 11:46, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Aside on go to: Apparently it also meant "have sex". This comes up in Othello, in an early conversation between Roderigo, who is infatuated with Desdemona, Othello's wife, and Iago, who for poorly explained reasons is scheming to bring about Othello's downfall. Iago has advised Roderigo on how to conquer Desdemona, not with any actual intent of helping Roderigo, but simply to further his own plot.
IAGO:

You charge me most unjustly.

RODERIGO

With nought but truth. I have wasted myself out of my means. The jewels you have had from me to deliver to Desdemona would half have corrupted a votarist: you have told me she hath received them and returned me expectations and comforts of sudden respect and acquaintance, but I find none.

IAGO

Well; go to; very well.

RODERIGO

Very well! go to! I cannot go to, man; nor 'tis not very well....

Modern audiences are unlikely to "get" these jokes except by reading the explanation in the footnotes. --Trovatore (talk) 19:23, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

My family of origin have always used the expression "get to", usually in constructions like "Stop wasting your time; now get to and finish your homework". I suppose it might be short for "get to it", but the "it" is never spoken. It's always "get to and <do something without delay>". Is this at all related to "go to"? My sense is that it has Irish roots. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:53, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Mixed gender in Latin

In Latin, does a group of mixed feminine and neuter nouns default to feminine forms, in the same way that a group of masculine and feminine nouns defaults to masculine? --Lazar Taxon (talk) 11:26, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently it's more complicated than that. This is what Bennett's New Latin Grammar says: (There are no page numbers in this file so I just cut and pasted here the relevant bits):

B. AGREEMENT AS TO GENDER.

1. When the Adjective is Attributive, it regularly agrees in gender with the nearest noun; as,—

rēs operae multae ac labōris, a matter of much effort and labor.

2. When the Adjective is Predicative—

a) If the nouns are of the same gender, the Adjective agrees with them in gender; as,—

pater et fīlius captī sunt, father and son were captured.

Yet with feminine abstract nouns, the Adjective is more frequently Neuter; as,—

stultitia et timiditās fugienda sunt, folly and cowardice must be shunned.

b) If the nouns are of different gender; then,—

α) In case they denote persons, the Adjective is Masculine; as,—

pater et māter mortuī sunt, the father and mother have died.

β) In case they denote things, the Adjective is Neuter; as,—

honōrēs et victōriae fortuīta sunt, honors and victories are accidental.

γ) In case they include both persons and things, the Adjective is,—

αα) Sometimes Masculine; as,—

domus, uxor, līberī inventī sunt, home, wife, and children are secured.

ββ) Sometimes Neuter; as,—

parentēs, līberōs, domōs vīlia habēre, to hold parents, children, houses cheap.

γγ) Sometimes it agrees with the nearest noun; as,—

populī prōvinciaeque līberātae sunt, nations and provinces were liberated.

c) Construction according to Sense. Sometimes an Adjective does not agree with a noun according to strict grammatical form, but according to sense; as,—

pars bēstiīs objectī sunt, part (of the men) were thrown to beasts.

Contact Basemetal here 11:55, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Searching for go to in Shakespeare

I went to Open Source Shakespeare to try and search for all the occurrences of "go to" in Shakespeare's works, but the way their search works means that I either get all of the passages containing a form of the verb "go" and the word "to" even possibly several words away, such as "And I in going, madam, weep o'er my father's death anew: but I must attend his majesty's command, to whom I am now in ward, evermore in subjection." (All's Well, I, 1) which of course gives me tons of irrelevant garbage, or else nothing because their search converts my search for "go to" to a search for "goto". Use of quotes doesn't do it. Does anyone have some clever idea as to how to use that tool to search just for occurrences of "go to" (and in general exact occurrences of phrases containing two or more words separated by spaces) or is that tool hopelessly flawed? Contact Basemetal here 23:22, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Go to advanced search, select for "SEARCH TYPE": "Exact keyword (slower)", put "go to" (without the quotes) in one of the search fields and press "search". Alternatively you can download the complete works of Shakespeare (in one book) from Project Gutenberg, then open it in whatever program or browser you prefer and search the file. - Lindert (talk) 01:22, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. It did work. I thought I was doing all that but in the end I was screwing up by clicking "GO" at the top right instead of "Search" at the bottom.

So I am happy to officially revise my statement and announce that the search works well on that site.

Regarding the search for "go to", focussing on the interjection (skipping all the "go to bed", etc., as in "She desires to speak with you in her closet ere you go to bed." (Hamlet, III, 2) that have nothing to do with the interjection) the first two examples I get are again in All's Well: "Go to, sir; you were beaten in Italy for picking a kernel out of a pomegranate; you are a vagabond and no true traveller: you are more saucy with lords and honourable personages than the commission of your birth and virtue gives you heraldry. You are not worth another word, else I'ld call you knave. I leave you." (II, 3) and "Go to, thou art a witty fool; I have found thee." (II, 4).

So to repeat: I was actually wrong about that search tool. It's a great tool. You can also search with regular expressions.

There are 202 occurrences of "go to" in the works of Shakespeare but of course most of those are not the interjection but "go to bed" type occurrences (there are actually 18 literal occurrences of "go to bed" in Shakespeare). There is no way a search engine could pick out those in a plain flat text. You'd need a ~~tokenized~~ marked-up text.

Anyway, have fun with Shakespeare. Highly recommended.

Contact Basemetal here 23:43, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Just to get you started:- "Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages: those that are married already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go." (Hamlet, Act III, Scene i. Alansplodge (talk) 16:16, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

November 2

Mock Japanese

In Finland, it has been a tradition for many decades to make up words in mock Japanese from Finnish words, in other words to write Finnish to sound like Japanese. Below I have listed some famous examples.

word	supposed meaning in mock Japanese	literal translation from Finnish
hajosikotojotasi	car repair shop	did your Toyota break down?
hitonisokitarisa	dentist	a bloody big tonsil
jokohamahumahuta	wrestler	should I whack already?
kanakusitakanasi	hen farmer	a hen peed behind you
sakotapajotakuta	police officer	give someone a fine
sikakusitakanasi	pig farmer	a pig peed behind you

Do any of these sound like anything in real Japanese? If so, what would such words in real Japanese mean? Of course they don't have to be 100% letter-to-letter matches. JIP | Talk 19:30, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There's also sumenikonäkökyky, supposedly meaning "optician" or "opthalmologist", literally meaning "did your sense of sight get fuzzy?", but as far as I'm aware, the Japanese language doesn't use front vowels to the same extent as the Finnish language, so it's unlikely a similar-sounding word exists in real Japanese. JIP | Talk 20:18, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What an odd custom. Whatever floats your Finnish boat, I guess. For what it's worth, Google Translate identifies two of those words as Swahili, one as Maori, and none as Japanese, but doesn't give an English translation for any of them. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 20:29, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Heh, don't you guys do that sort of thing in English? I thought it was pretty international. I'm sure we had some really really silly jokes of that pattern with mock Chinese in German when I was a kid, and I've heard mock-Japanese and mock-Turkish jokes in Greek too. But I have to admit the Finnish ones above look cleverer than ours. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:48, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The sequence -si- in Japanese is pronounced like english -shi-. This seams to be a problem with many of the fauxpanese words. Kanakusitakansi phonetically would be Kanakushitakanashi. There are other mutations as well. μηδείς (talk) 20:36, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

- Yes the syllables "si" and "hu" do not exist in traditional Japanese. When they are used in some styles of romanization they are actually used for syllables し/シ and ふ/フ which sound more like "shi" and "fu" resp. "Shi" and "fu" is actually what those syllables are written in the most common style of romanization. (To be more accurate the "fu" is bilabial in Japanese, not labiodental.) However for new borrowings from English you could conceivably manufacture a true "si" syllable in "new" Japanese that would be written like this: スィ and truly pronounced "si". But I can't find at the moment a specific Japanese word using it. (Note that most commonly an English word with "si" would be transcribed according to the traditional Japanese phonology, so "si" would become "shi" as in "Syria" which becomes シリア, pronounced "Shiria", not with that "new" Japanese "si" syllable; however that also depends on the age of the borrowing, older borrowings are more likely to be fully adapted to traditional Japanese phonology.) You could also in theory manufacture a real "hu" syllable along the same principles but I have never ever seen that. Contact Basemetal here 00:38, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Note also that what JIP along with all Finns writes as "jo" would be (Hepburn) romanized in Japanese as "yo" for よ/ヨ. In Japanese (Hepburn) "jo" represents another syllable which can be written in two ways (じょ/ジョ or ぢょ/ヂョ; the first way is much more common) and which is pronounced differently from Finnish "jo". Contact Basemetal here 00:53, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Last one I hope in this series: the h in the Japanese syllable "hi" is very strong, more like the "ch" of German "Ich" than probably a Finnish h would be before i; but before vowels other than i and u the h of Japanese and Finnish should be reasonably similar. All of this said, I'm also waiting for an imaginative Japanese speaker who, will all those caveats and approximations, will be able to make something Japanese out of those Finnish strings even though it's unlikely they will be as funny as the Finnish words. If you take "jokohamahumahuta" you could conceivably break it into Yokohama, fuma and futa. "Yokohama" is of course a city: 横浜, "futa" 蓋 means cover, and I don't know very well what to make of "fuma", but in the Japanese WP フマ is the name of a legendary bird from Iranian mythology (ペルシア神話上の伝説の鳥). So the whole thing, if used as one word would mean "the cover of a fuma mythical bird from Yokohama" but the phrase would be more likely to be: 横浜のフマの蓋 ("Yokohama no fuma no futa"). I hope that some competent Japanese speakers (certainly not my case by a long shot) can find other uses for those Finnish words so that at least one of them will make us all laugh. Contact Basemetal here 02:59, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I had hoped "hi" would be the last one, but no. One has to also say something about Japanese "u" and Finnish "u": Japanese "u" (when it is a full vowel, not a whispered one) is closer (though not identical) to Finnish vowel y rather than to Finnish vowel u. Actually the timbre of Japanese "u" varies according to context but by and large I think what I said is correct. In any case see Finnish phonology and Japanese phonology for more details. And, come to think of it, I could have referred to those articles to begin with instead of going to all this trouble. Last comment (I promise): I'm surprised that whoever designed Finnish orthography (who was it?) did not elect to represent as ü what's written in Finnish as y since from the point of view of vowel harmony y is in the same position with regard to u as ä to a and ö to o. A small inconsistency I guess. I have seen worse. And it sets Finnish apart from the spelling habits of many European languages that have that sound (German, Turkish, Hungarian, and even Estonian, a close relative of Finnish). Could it be Swedish influence? In Swedish (and Norwegian and Danish) too they use y for about the same sound. Contact Basemetal here 08:25, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I had two friends one a Tamil speaker (originally from India) and the other a Finnish speaker (born in the US but having grown up in a Finnish-American mostly Finnish speaking household in the U.S.) and both were good friends as well. The Tamil fellow was always kidding the Finnish fellow by giving mock Tamil interpretations of Finnish words, especially of Finnish surnames. It was hilarious and it was not made up only very slightly stretched at times as some Finnish vowels do not have Tamil counterparts. Some real Finnish long words have funny interpretations in this way as Tamil words. Both languages can have very long words. I wish I had written down some examples. Contact Basemetal here 00:38, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've started watching a decade-old American public access TV show about Japanese wrestling, and the commentators are quite fond of screaming "Udehishigigyakujujigatame!" at every sort of armbar. So now I do, too. Aside from that (which is sort of a word), they don't seem to know much Japanese. But they at least don't call him Kensooky Sasaki like that phoney baloney Tony Schiavone. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:06, November 3, 2014 (UTC)

Entirely besides the point, but the Phillies have a player named Cody Asche /kodi'æʃi/ and every time I hear his name I expect them to append "Matsumora" or the like. μηδείς (talk) 02:05, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

- But note "ti" and "di" do not exist in traditional Japanese either. What is romanized that way in some romanization styles (though not in the most common one; see above) is actually pronounced "chi" and "ji" resp. Even in the styles of romanization that allow for "di" the Japanese "ji" syllable is more likely to be romanized as "zi" though. In other words that's another syllable that can be written in Japanese in two different ways. Just like "jo" above. Contact Basemetal here 02:22, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Koji Kanemoto is a black t-shirt sort of guy, but I can't see him wearing this one. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:39, November 3, 2014 (UTC)

How about this guy? Contact Basemetal here 03:42, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ha ha! He will never defeat the awesome fighting spirit in this guy! Ha ha! InedibleHulk (talk) 04:47, November 3, 2014 (UTC)

These are the real Japanese words I found in the nonsense words in Finland. Koto is 事/a thing or a matter, 古都/an ancient city, and 琴/koto (instrument). Hitoni is 人に/to the human/to someone. Takanas(h)i/高梨/小鳥遊 is a family name like this one. Sakota/迫田 is also a family name. S(h)ikaku is 四角/a square, 死角/a blind spot, 刺客/an assassin, 視角/the optic angle, and 視覚/(the sense of) sight. S(h)itakana is "Did you do that?". If the 6th word is "shitaku shitakana", it could be "Are you　ready?". Oda Mari (talk) 10:11, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Some funny faux-Japanese names are made of Russian words (often swear words), here some examples.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 16:44, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Car repair shop is 自動車修理工場/jidōsha shūri kōjō, dentist is 歯医者/haisha or 歯科医/shikai, wrestler is レスラー, hen farmer is 養鶏家/yōkeika, police officer is 警察官/keisatsukan, and pig farmer is 養豚家/yōtonka in real Japanese. Jokohamahumahuta sounds like Yokohama funa uta/横浜舟歌/Yokohama boat song, as far as I know, there's no such song though. Oda Mari (talk) 18:38, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Quebec accent

Hello, the word tête is really pronounced [taɪ̯t] in Quebec French, are Quebec French pronunciations considered as incorrect ? 199.59.78.19 (talk) 20:43, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, not in Quebec, obviously, but in France, yes, the pronunciation would be considered non-standard. Dbfirs 21:29, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe a Quebecker wrote the limerick about Tate and his tête-à-tête at 8:8. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 22:45, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure whether you are actually the editor called Fête (pronounced like fate) from Montreal, but, if not, you might be interested in this from the French Wiktionary:

France (Paris) : [tɛt] France (Provence) : [tɛ.tə] Canada français (variante/région 1) : [tɛːt] Canada français (variante/région 2) : [tɑɛt]

sans les e caduques et où chaque prononciations correspond clairement à une région. - Dakdada (discuter) 20 février 2006 à 17:03 (UTC)

Va pour les e muets qui encombrent, mais pour ce qui est de la prononciation canadienne française il n'y en a pas vraiment deux (pas de sous-régionalisation, en tous cas). C'est juste que je ne suis pas certain de la transcription phonétique correcte. Les deux proposées semblent cerner la véritable prononciation, qui est à quelque part entre les deux... Urhixidur 22 février 2006 à 14:22 (UTC)

Ah d'accord... C'est peut-être un [æ] comme en anglais 9_9 Sinon tu pourrais plutôt faire un enregistrement (si c'est possible) ; il ne vaut mieux pas écrire la prononciation phonétique avant d'en connaitre la bonne transcription, ça pourrait induire en erreur sinon. - Dakdada (discuter) 22 février 2006 à 16:58 (UTC)

/tɛːt/ est la prononciation québécoise standard, /tɑɛt/ est la prononciation québécoise populaire. Fête

Je confirme. Nepas ledire (discussion) 29 juillet 2012 à 17:36 (UTC)

That blocked editor has a "bee in his bonnet" about Anglicised versions of the French vowel. He's probably not you if you live in Toronto. Dbfirs 23:14, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The French in Quebec generally retains distinctions between sounds which are lost in France and diphthongs are also often used instead of pure vowels. You may consult Quebec French phonology Diphthongization. This gives some insight on the pronunciation of "tête". --2.245.216.148 (talk) 04:14, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That's a useful article, though I still think that the pronunciation [taɪ̯t] is an Anglicisation, or rather an Americanization of the original Fench. Dbfirs 09:05, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know, but Quebec French seems to be even more conservative than European French. It's probably the pronunciation in France, which has changed more. The introduction says Quebec French still keeps clear distinctions between some pure vowels, don't know about what caused the diphthongs though. (If I remember correctly, [ɛ̃] and [œ̃] have merged to [æ̃] in France, at least the North with Paris, where the news anchor pronunciation is from I think, but dictionaries don't change their transcriptions. I assume reasons could be that they are already used to transcribing it that way or it doesn't seem to bother anyone. Customs for IPA in French are a bit outdated.) --2.245.216.148 (talk) 22:23, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

November 3

word for fear of snow

I am looking for the word for phobia of snow. Can you help thanks 71.114.56.28 (talk) 04:36, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Chionophobia - I love search engines. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 04:39, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I hate snow. Sadly, the only Google result for "chionocide" is about a rhododendron (after first telling it I'm not looking to kill time). InedibleHulk (talk) 04:56, November 3, 2014 (UTC)

If you're looking for information on killing snow then Greek has to go with Greek and Latin with Latin. So either "chionoctone" or "nivicide" (both are unknown to Google). And how do you propose to kill snow? With a blowdryer like Calvin? Contact Basemetal here 05:19, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

PS As to the rhododendron that seems to be a common typo. The real name is Rhododendron chionoides Contact Basemetal here 05:28, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Right, my bad on the Classics. Thanks for killing one of my last hopez with that typo, too. Every hairdryer will have to pull its weight, though I think combining Greek fire and Latino Heat may do just the trick. A little Heliosol, perhaps. Snow's close enough to fungus. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:37, November 3, 2014 (UTC)

Fearing snow and hating snow are not particularly the same thing. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:11, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You can fear it without hating it, but can't hate it without fearing it. InedibleHulk (talk) 06:19, November 3, 2014 (UTC)

I've dealt with snow all my life (so far). I don't like snow. Sometimes I hate it. But I don't fear it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:55, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You may be right, or you may just dislike it, the way I hate Snow Patrol or others hate Mondays. Though Googling "I hate Mondays" finds mostly "I Don't Like Mondays", so I guess words aren't what they used to be. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:24, November 4, 2014 (UTC)

Whether hating or disliking, I should have recalled what someone once told me, "You can't hate something unless it is capable of hating back." So "I hate snow" is shorthand for "I am unhappy that there is snow on the ground." But I don't fear the snow. I fear that other drivers will drive as if there isn't snow on the pavement. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:37, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see what any of this has to do with the topic. If you just want to shoot the shit online, Facebook is that way --->. ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 06:23, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Words and fear. Two out of three ain't bad. Besides, I'm not on Facebook. InedibleHulk (talk) 06:28, November 3, 2014 (UTC)

As you suggest, this is the language desk, and we're talking about language. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:55, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

With regard to the problematic nature of many of these -phobia terms, and chionophobia in particular, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chionophobia. Deor (talk) 06:34, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I hear that the Eskimos have thousands of words for chionophobia. rʨanaɢ (talk) 08:14, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Grin Since they're supposed to have a hundred words for "snow" they only need another hundred words for "phobia" Apparently Boas's four "Eskimo words for snow" got inflated to a hundred in about 70 years. (Read the article). Then Kate Bush halved that figure 30 years later. There's hope we'll get an accurate count around 2050. Contact Basemetal here 08:57, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This is all wrong. You are trying to base the word on khio- which is a recent development. Ancient Greek is used for phobias, hence niphophobia. μηδείς (talk) 18:51, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Not necessarily; χιών did exist in Ancient Greek, and had plenty of compounds in χιονο- too. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:06, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  - I see it's listed in Lidell and Scott, but what's the etymology and time frame? (I know Modern Greek is khionidzi; "it snow-izes") Niph- comes from PIE sneigwh-, cognate with the Latin and English. That's got to be the preferable root. Khion is like medeis, you only use it because outis was already taken. 21:15, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
There are 5 google hits for niphophobia. There are even fewer for nivophobia – all of 2. (One of the 3 hits turned out to have the meaning: Fear of using any translation of the Bible other than the one most familiar to the phobic. Who knew?) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:29, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Nivophobia is based on the (pseudo-)Latin, not the Greek root, Jack. Still waiting for the etymology and time frame of khio-, since when I studied Attic Greek the word was niph- and I have given sources. μηδείς (talk) 23:13, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  - BTW, ponaszomu, to je "snig pada". μηδείς (talk) 23:18, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Χιών was certainly used in Homer, and so was the verb νέφω ("to snow") and other νιφ- words. Both χιον- and νιφ- words occur in the Attic tragedians and later works, so I'm not sure what you mean by "time frame". There's some indication that χιών referred primarily or originally to snow on the ground, whereas νιφ- words referred to falling snow, but the recorded usages and compounds don't consistently reflect that distinction. Deor (talk) 23:44, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to have answered a question I have asked, so thanks. And I think a fear of fallen, rather than falling snow is about as absurd as one can get. So, again, thanks, Deor. μηδείς (talk) 02:42, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tell that to the chionophobes! Contact Basemetal here 17:14, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Absurd if you're dealing with ankle-deep stuff. Not so much when you're trekking through waist-deep stuff, with hidden snags and crags underneath. Even in an open field, with the sun smiling down, there's snowblindness. Fallen snow can weigh down branches onto power and phone lines, leaving you in the dark with your car snowed in. Then you hear the wolves howling and soon realize the call is coming from inside the house!

Though that last thing isn't so common. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:52, November 5, 2014 (UTC)

Frequencies of the first letters of a word in Latin

Where can I find the equivalent of this data for Latin? I already found the letter frequency of Latin[2], but I also need the letter frequency of the first letters of Latin words. WinterWall (talk) 06:12, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Get any large Latin text, search for sequences "space plus a letter" (" a", " b" etc.), in a table of Excel or similar write down the occurrences and count out percentage. You can write a mini-program, or do it manually with any text editor with "find all" function (like Notepad++).--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 17:44, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There's two ways to define frequency: with respect to the corpus and with respect to the lexicon. Contact Basemetal here 04:35, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

American committing crimes abroad

Moved to Humanities desk. Sorry, my bad! --50.46.159.94 (talk) 07:36, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

November 4

Little Turkish translation, please

I'd just appreciate a Turkish translation or paraphrase of the following sentence:

This article was translated from en:Frank Major, written by Behemoth, Dacho2, Magioladitis, Plasticspork, Punkrock pulgas, Taketa, Tassedethe, and Uncle Dick.

If you want background, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Frank Major, Talk:Frank Major, and Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2011 April 2 (final section). Thanks! Nyttend (talk) 00:40, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The sound of pouring rain

There's a psithurism (The sound of wind in the trees and rustling of leaves) and tintinnabulation (the sound of ringing bells), but what's the word (if there's any) of the sound of pouring rain? 149.78.124.20 (talk) 12:31, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

pitter-pattering? Contact Basemetal here 12:38, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"Pluviosity"? Might not be exactly what you're looking for, but it's entirely possible that it shares a common prefix ~Helicopter Llama~ 12:39, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In some contexts, white noise. Matt Deres (talk) 14:17, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"Trickle-trickle, splash-splash / Tell me, how long will this rain last?" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:30, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Some of these links may help. --Jayron32 15:05, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to that link, I've discovered a lovely new word. Petrichor is the scent of rain on dry earth, or the scent of dust after rain. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:32, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"But now it's time for me to go. The autumn moon lights my way. For now I smell the rain, and with it pain, and it's headed my way." Contact Basemetal here 18:53, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

November 5

Hebrew words for "god" and "gods"

While on Stack Exchange, I saw this question, and was piqued by some of the responses. While I know from my religious education classes that "Elohim" is used in the singular for "God" in translations of the Bible, I was not as aware of the fact that the plural was apparently supposed to be "Elohim" as well, at least in the Biblical context (e.g. here). However, in the comments, some native Hebrew speakers on the same site argue that the plural is meant to be "Elim", instead of "Elohim"

Why might there be such a discrepancy? I suspect that it might be an issue of a shift in meaning (differences in Biblical Hebrew and modern Hebrew), but I don't know Hebrew, and so don't know how to check this. Unfortunately, given my lack of Hebrew abilities, I'm also curious about this because of the religious context of some of the appearnaces of the word. --Morningcrow (talk) 00:51, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What you are missing is that there are two words in Hebrew (Biblical and Modern) for deities: el (pl. elim) and eloha (pl. elohim), though only elohim is used also in the singular sense; elim always refers to gods multiple gods. Modern Hebrew thus usually uses the unambiguous elim when referring to multiple gods. הסרפד (call me Hasirpad) 01:31, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

To add some details to Hasirpad's explanations see Names of God in Judaism#El and the three sections below (Elah, Eloah, Elohim). As an aside: people commonly believe there is a connection between the Arabic word Allah and the Hebrew words El or Elah. But that is not correct. The connection is actually with Eloah: Allah is a contraction of Al-Ilah and Ilah is the exact cognate of Eloah. Nitpicking note: strictly speaking it's Eloah not Eloha. The 'a' is a 'patah gnuva' before a 'he' with 'mappiq'. In carefully printed or written Hebrew Bibles that patah is written between the 'lamed' and 'he' (which as I said carries a mappiq). Nowadays, when vocalization is used at all (which is not very often) the patah is most often written squarely below the 'he' which may give rise to the incorrect pronunciation 'eloha' Contact Basemetal here 03:23, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

English modestly revised spelling – looking for a souce

Some fifty years ago I read a Penguin paperback, I think with a story by Shaw, typeset in a just slightly modified spelling. With just a few new letters like – if I remember well – mirrored ɔ or ǝ it was well readable, just looked a bit strange. I cannot find anything about this particular spelling initiative. The Savian alphabet is much too extreme. Anybody knows or remembers? – [email protected] and Fritz Jörn (talk) 08:42, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Can't really help but here are two links you might find useful: The Shaw Society and The English Spelling Society. Besides there are the references and the links in the WP articles that cover English spelling reforms and/or Bernard Shaw and this article on English spelling reform at RationalWiki which you may use for the references. But if I may suggest a change of methodology I would first try to identify that short story by Shaw. If around 1964 it was typeset the way you say it must still be printed in the same way. (You may ask the Shaw Society). It will then be easier to point to the precise flavor of revised English spelling you have in mind. It will also be a way to check if your recollections from 50 years ago are accurate. I'm sure you have an excellent memory but 50 years is a long time. Contact Basemetal here 09:19, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Initial Teaching Alphabet and UNIFON had some degree of prominence in the 1960s, but they don't seem to match your description, and neither was connected with Shaw... AnonMoos (talk) 13:28, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

ἐῶ

ἐῶ is contraction of εἰμί ("μεμνημένος σαφῶς ἐῶ")? Which dialect? where can I find a table for this contraction?

Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities#ἐῶ (ancient greek)

--132.64.30.220 (talk) 09:47, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

To add to what I already stated at the other desk where I suggested it is a subjunctive: I don't think this can be an indicative (and thus a contraction of an indicative; beside how can you ever expect a form such as εἰμί to contract to ἐῶ? this would be phonetically absurd) because if this is middle perfect of the verb μιμνήσκω (attic: μεμνημένος ὦ) then the middle perfect indicative has its own independent form, not a (periphrastic? is that the word?) combination of the middle perfect participle and the verb εἰμί (unless of course in some dialects that is the case). Also the results I gave you from Perseus did not give any indicative. If this is from Menander (you didn't answer; see 5th line of this page) then it seems I am more or less right (see 4th line of the English translation: "I well remember"; σαφῶς of course means clearly) although my recollections of Greek syntax are too faint to remember what use of the subjunctive this would be in a principal clause. To summarize: I reiterate that to me this is not a contraction, it is a dialectal form of the subjunctive. The question that puzzles me still though is why Menander would have used an Ionian form? Is the character that speaks this line supposed to be from somewhere Ionian was spoken? Does the New Comedy make characters speak in their own dialect? I thought we had some competent Hellenists here. Where are they all gone? Contact Basemetal here 11:30, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So when the time come, the boy must die?

This quote is from Severus Snape in the last Harry Potter movie. Could someone explain the grammar of the when-clause? It's apparently not present indicative, maybe subjunctive? I'm familiar with the subjunctive in Romance languages, but I'm not sure if/why it's used here. Does it have anything to do with the "must" in the main clause? --2.246.8.156 (talk) 17:07, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It does appear to be subjunctive, but while it could be argued that it's technically correct, it seems pedantic. I don't think I've ever encountered anybody using the subjunctive in a construction like that before. Could be a hypercorrection. --Nicknack009 (talk) 17:39, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think hypercorrection means that it's a mistake, but I assume they would pay attention to that in such expensive movies. Also consider that it was a quite tragic scene and the sentence was pronounced very clearly and even repeated. Did this bother any native speakers? --2.246.8.156 (talk) 18:04, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You might need to go back to the source material, and see if he said it that way in the book also. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:41, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

From what little I know about the Harry Potter stuff, I'm fairly certain this wouldn't apply, but FWIW, this construction (as a variation of "...when the time comes...", not as subjunctive) is perfectly normal in the dialect/sociolect where I was raised (Southern/Appalachian American English), I've also heard it in African American Vernacular English.--William Thweatt ^Talk^Contribs 20:47, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Punctuation

Are there different Wikipedia groups to join? I ask because I cannot bring myself to abide by the guidelines I have read here for placement of periods and commas with quotation marks. I am going to put my periods and commas inside quotation marks when I deem they belong there, not according to the examples I just read within this site.

I realize this is a global project. Does that explain your choices?

Thank you.

Editor's Daughter Austin, TX

If you've absorbed so much about punctuation, then you probably already know that there are different customs around the Anglosphere, and we are indeed a global project. What matters more than the "right" or "wrong" way do punctuate is that our treatment is consistent, this is why we have manual of style. Do you have a problem with the guidelines at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style? If you want to quote something in an article, it's fine to write e.g. "according to SemanticMantis, 'some people take punctuation style too seriously.'" -- WP is the encyclopedia anyone can edit, and we encourage you to do so. However, you also don't own the content you contribute any more, and you can't complain too much if someone else changes your punctuation to conform to our style guide. A more appropriate place to discuss the content of the style guide would be at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:55, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I'm not sure what you what you mean by "different Wikipedia groups." We have projects, here at WP, like Wikipedia:WikiProject_Punctuation and Wikipedia:WikiProject_Manual_of_Style. There are also many other sites that use wikimedia software, but most of them are not directly affiliated with wikipedia. These can be called "wikis", but they are not "Wikipedia," e.g. Wikia.com or conservapedia.com or wookiepedia.com or bulbapedia.com. You can also edit at other wikis and encyclopedias, but Wikipedia doesn't care much what you might do there :) SemanticMantis (talk) 21:01, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, I am an American professional editor, and I much prefer Wikipedia's style on punctuation around quotation marks to the prevailing American style. The American style creates ambiguity. When a comma or a period appears inside quotes in an American publication, you never know whether the comma or period was part of the cited text. Wikipedia's style eliminates that ambiguity. For that reason, I follow the Wikipedia (and British) style in my own writing. Marco polo (talk) 21:23, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There's also our policy WP:ENGVAR, which mandates that each of our 4 million-plus articles is written in one and only one variety of English, be that American, British, Canadian, Australian, Indian or what have you. Consistency of dialect extends to punctuation styles, and I know there are many, many articles written using the punctuation you like (and which I and some others detest). If I'm editing such an article, I'll bite the bullet and write "defense" rather than "defence" etc etc, and enclose commas inside quotes. But I expect the same respect from Americans who edit articles in BrEng, AustEng etc. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:55, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]