User talk:Eric Corbett/Archives/2016/July

The Man in the Moone

I'll suggest you not edit war to maintain your preferred version of this article. The university is where he got his degree, not from where he got his degree. μηδείς (talk) 01:00, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

• User:Medeis, I'm going to take this opportunity to remove your silly warning, since if there's anyone edit warring there it's you. I'm not going to revert you since I was nursed with the milk of human kindness, and I accept your apology about your unwise usage of the word "illiterate" in your edit summary. You are welcome to write your own FA, of course, and we'll be glad to improve its prose. Drmies (talk) 03:06, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

I didn't apologize, but I'll admit there's a better word; I just couldn't think of one at that point. As for reverting my edit because you didn't like the edit summary that's simple pointiness. I won't comment further here, it's unfair to Eric to inundate him with third party alerts. μηδείς (talk) 20:03, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Don't ever do that again. Eric Corbett 22:59, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Four years ago ...

forum
... you were recipient no. 139 of Precious, a prize of QAI!

from the cabal of the outcasts (the name you suggested in 2013), --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:39, 31 May 2016 (UTC) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:39, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Doesn't time fly! Even three years ago I still had some hope for Wikipedia, but not now. Eric Corbett 17:42, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

I think I understand and don't blame you. I still have hope for music (sacrilegious music?). Thought miserere nobis about another block today, commented before it happened, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:57, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

I think you probably mean sacred rather than sacrigelious. :-) Eric Corbett 19:03, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

nono, the composer asked an authority the question "Have I just written sacred music, or rather, sacrilegious music?" It's a pun in French ("Est-ce bien de la musique sacrée que je viens de faire, ou bien de la sacré musique?"), I understand, hard to translate. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:19, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

It's always good to learn something. Eric Corbett 19:37, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Great fun also to sing the music, concert Sunday in a week, - he knew to write for voices. 212 pages in the vocal score. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:50, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

I've been wondering how the French distinguish between sacrée and sacré in spoken speech. I'd pronounce them both the same for instance; is that the point of the pun? Eric Corbett 20:07, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

They seem to differentiate by word order, but I can only guess, - I know only enough French to read a menu. For French, I ask LouisAlain (banned in fr, to return to the eternal singing the praises of the banned). He translated all Bach cantatas to French, and now works the other direction, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:23, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Hello Monsieur Corbett, I've read the "Adler's Laws of Wikipedia" on your user's main page and couldn't agree more (particularly the 2 first points!)
As for sacré and sacrée, one is in the masculine form, the other in the feminine one. Musique being a feminine word, the adjective must adapt accordingly. It sounds absolutely the same and no distinction can be made in spoken French. The distinction can only be noticed when written down. As for "sacrilegious music", it would translate as musique sacrilège indeed but the meaning would be something akin to "Pagan music". Gerda is absolutely right, it's the word order (and the context) that gives its right meaning to the sentence. Une sacrée musique would go as "A damn (good) music". Paradoxically (apparently), something which would qualify as Sacré translates as damn. Sacré, in this case, always carries a flavour of some magnitude or respect. C'est une sacrée bonne musique ("it's a damn good music") can be used (like "it's a damn good" whatever) but C'est une sacrée bonne musique sacrée shows as made up for the sake of a (very) poor word game.

Gerda, I've just found out that even fr:Geistliche Gesänge, op.110 has been deleted... Ah the fool! LouisAlain (talk) 23:47, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

op. 110 is on my to-do-list to be expanded, after op. 106, but the damn good music first, - please get that to the article (adding, not replacing), with a source of course. There are many translations of Rossini's words, I picked the one that at least tries to follow the pun (and doesn't interrupt the flow by the French phrases thrown in). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:26, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I'd temporarily forgotten that French assigns gender even to inanimate objects. Eric Corbett 00:03, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Well, actually all languages assign gender even to inanimate objects, the English language with its unique gender must be an exception. 2 genders in all European languages (Italian, Swedish, Spanish...) 3 genders in German, 4 in Russian etc. LouisAlain (talk) 00:47, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps an exception that other languages ought to follow? I remember being quite astonished in my German lessons to discover that young girls were considered to be neuter. And the less said about German's ridiculous "der, das, die" the better probably. But I suppose you get used to it if you're brought up there. To my mind there are far more important things than matching the sex of adjectives to their nouns, or worrying about how to decline the word "the". Eric Corbett 01:06, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Any "-chen" is neuter in German, though das Mädchen is particularly bizarre. But as you say, it's just the way things are and you just get used to it. Consider that something colloquial like "that'll learn you" doesn't make sense in standard English, and chavs like to use the similarly grammatically hideous "Shouldn't of done that", or why "rough", "though", "through" and "borough" all end with the same four letters but are pronounced completely differently, which confuses the hell out of people learning English as a second language. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:38, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/The Man in the Moone, like utopia --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:42, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Today: "that together ... we've produced one of the best, if not the best, encyclopedic accounts of this rather short but surprisingly influential book you're likely to find anywhere". I agree. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:36, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

10 July

Took only 300 years to restore a good name. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:33, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Grooming a 12 year old

Hi Eric. I've been writing an article on Sabrina Sidney, a foundling girl who was taken in by Thomas Day when she was 12 and groomed to be his perfect wife. It makes for quite an interesting story, especially the techniques he used to strengthen her character. I'm very tempted to push the article towards featured, and having had a decent GA review from Montanabw, I was wondering if you might consider looking over the article as a copyeditor? I'd be very grateful! Worm^TT(talk) 16:23, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

And this isn't as creepy as it sounds but it is also even weirder than it sounds! Quite Dickensian, actually! She (wisely) never married the guy! Montanabw^(talk) 22:36, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Instead married his best friend and guy who chose her for the "experiment"! Haha ツStacey (talk) 11:47, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Editorial question

A reader contacted Wikimedia expressing concern about the use of the term "so-called" generally in Wikipedia and specifically used twice in this article: Sonnenstein Euthanasia Centre. I would be interested both in your general thoughts about the use of the term—is it something we should never use or try to use sparingly—and any specific comments you have about a better way to refer to the two subjects is used in this article.--S Philbrick(Talk) 13:03, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

(TPS comment, given Eric's absence) We actually have a written policy on this: So-called can mean commonly named, falsely named, or contentiously named, and it can be difficult to tell these apart. Simply called is preferable for the first meaning; detailed and attributed explanations are preferable for the others. ‑ Iridescent 13:07, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt response.--S Philbrick(Talk) 13:44, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Jim Corbett

This article might interest you. You can make it a good article. --Rainbow Archer (talk) 04:08, 29 July 2016 (UTC)