Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 June 20

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June 20

Abdul Rehman Al-Sudais

When we search for the meaning of Sudais it gives the information about Abdul Rehman Al-Sudais.

Is it possible to find / Add the meaning and background of Sudais?

In December 2005 somebody made the page titled 'Sudais' into a redirect which points to Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais - presumably because they felt that there was nothing about 'Sudais' other than what was on that page.

If you think there is something (with appropriate references) which belongs on a page called 'Sudais' that is not about Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais, you can edit it. To get to the 'Sudais' page, when you type 'Sudais' into the search box and it takes you to A.R.Al-S, you will see a small message 'Redirected from Sudais' at the top. If you pick that 'Sudais' it will take you to the redirect page, and you can edit it. --ColinFine 00:22, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Definition

What is "retroactive infanticide by proxy"? --67.185.172.158 04:26, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Arranging indirectly to kill an adult, assuming you're reading The Mountains of Mourning by Lois McMaster Bujold. Ma Mattulich thought that Miles Vorkosigan should have been killed at birth because she believed he was a mutant. Since he was an adult by the time he met her, that's what the "retroactive" part refers to. It's "by proxy" because she doesn't try to do it in person. Clarityfiend 04:40, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

The meaning of the expression isn't arranging indirectly to kill an adult, but arranging indirectly to kill a child. Infanticide is "the practice of intentionally causing the death of an infant of a given species, by members of the same species - often by the mother." Lova Falk 17:51, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

You're missing the "retroactive" part. Literally, "retroactive infanticide" would mean making it true that someone had been killed as an infant. So unless we're talking about time travel, it's just a euphemism for an ordinary murder: "he should have been killed as a child, so I'll get that fixed (by having him killed now)." Without the "by proxy", it would be "so I'll fix it by killing him now." --Anonymous, June 21, 2007, 00:46 (UTC).

Sorry if this is a stupid/oft asked question

Um, I'm having a bit of an English language brain=fart right now. Is it "The Cartwrights awoke to snow..." or "The Cartwright's awoke to snow..."? --Cody.Pope 10:25, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

It's a plural, so there's no need for any apostrophe. -- JackofOz 10:29, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Read through apostrophe. I thought it would be "the cartwrights' " but I am not sure. The sister/sister's/sisters' bit seems to read (to me) like I am correct but who knows if that is selective interpretation! ny156uk 17:33, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Cartwrights. It's certainly not Cartwrights'. But some plurals (perhaps single letters and initialisms) do use an apostrophe. iames 17:35, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Aside from the special cases, a good thing to remember is that an apostrophe is used to show either omission (e.g. Lorne Greene's dead == Lorne Greene is dead) or possession (e.g. Lorne Greene's Emmy was awarded for his role as Ben Cartwright.) [n.b. I don't know if Lorne Greene got an Emmy for that role]. Never never never jamais (except in special cases) for plurals. --LarryMac | Talk 18:03, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Ny156uk, that bit about sisters etc was all about the correct use of possessive apostrophes. Your sentence about the Cartwrights has nothing to do with the possessive. It is a simple plural - like "Three books were sitting on the table". Would you ever write "Three book's were sitting on the table", or "Three books' were sitting on the table"? Hardly. Now, if you were talking about something belonging to the Cartwrights, then the possessive apostrophe would be needed; eg. "The Cartwrights' friends (= the friends of the Cartwrights) awoke to snow". Is that clearer? -- JackofOz 02:38, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I think one reason some people have trouble with the plurals of names, even though they're formed regularly, is that they get the ordinary plural confused with the use of a possessive plural to refer to a family's home. It's "The Cartwrights awoke", but it's "We were at the Cartwrights' last night". The second one is short for "We were at the Cartwrights' house last night", so the possessive plural is required. (People have trouble with this one also. Particularly when the name itself ends in S.) --Anonymous, June 21, 2007, 08:11 (UTC).

True. Such as "We were at the Joneses' last night". It looks horrible, but that's what the spelling rules say. -- JackofOz 08:34, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Adverb with quantifier?

Is the common adverbial phrase "Strangely enough" considered proper grammar? Strangely enough, I can't find any definite adivce about this in my grammar handbook. Thanks 84.254.189.64 18:10, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

There is nothing ungrammatical about this. In this case, the quantifier ("enough") modifies "strangely". "Enough" is unusual for an English quantifier in that it typically follows the word it modifies when it is used adverbially. (It generally precedes nouns when it is used as an adjective.) Marco polo 21:15, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

What to link in a Reference

I hope I am asking this question in the right area here — When an article has been written with a book as its title, and that book is listed in a Reference Section of another article is it correct to make that entry a link, or would it be better to make the link elsewhere, outside of the reference section? An article in mind is Dialectic, with entries in a reference section for two books by Popper, as well as Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy. Thanks for any assistance here, User:Newbyguesses - Talk 22:56, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I would normally link the first occurrence in each (sub)section, so if there is one occurrence in the main text and one in the References section, link bothy. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)#Overlinking and underlinking: what's the best ratio?, last bullet.  --Lambiam^Talk 23:10, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for clearing that up. I must have overlooked that section in MOS. Got it now though, so thanks again, Newbyguesses - Talk 23:54, 20 June 2007 (UTC)