Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 March 21

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March 21

Fingers

If I let my fingers fing, then will they be finger than they are now once the hammers are done hamming and the lawyers have finished lawying? Also, will my Turing machine ever run out of things to ture? 38.117.71.132 (talk) 06:53, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Origin of language or Linguistics (and all the links from there) are probably what you are looking for. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 12:31, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Kind of reminds me of this joke - "If a lawyer can be disbarred, and a priest defrocked, doesn't it follow that electricians get delighted, cowboys deranged, musicians denoted, models deposed, judges distorted and mediums dispirited?" --Monorail Cat (talk) 03:02, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

More specifically, you're talking about Backformation. Indeterminate (talk) 04:54, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Medical college?

I was looking for a translation of "Kongl. Sundhetskollegiets" (the predecessor of "Medicinalstyrelsen") from Swedish into English. The best I came up with was "Royal College of Medicine", but maybe someone who knows more than my very, very basic knowledge of Swedish can come up with a better or more accurate translation. Astronaut (talk) 12:00, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

They were the follow up institution to the Collegium Medicum (Collegium medicorum) which is described to "ensure a high standard of medical care and represent the interests of doctors" I'm not familiar with medical institution labels. "Board of Medicine" or "Institute of Health" might work. "College" could be misunderstood as a teaching facility. I have seen it used to describe old organizations, though. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 13:08, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Such a quaint name! (almost all terms have an archaic feel in modern Swedish) Well, "Sundhet" is best translated as "Health", it's never had the more specific meaning of 'medicine'. As for 'kollegiet' (definite form of 'kollegium') it's kind of a false-friend here. It's the same as 'college' in its older meaning, as 'group of professionals' (e.g. the College of Cardinals). So it would be a bit lazy to translate it directly as 'college' and risk confusion with an educational institution. I think 'board' would probably work better to convey the same thing without the ambiguity. So "Royal Board of Health". --Pykk (talk) 13:20, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

 Done Thank you for you assistance. It helped me improve the translation used in the Amalia Assur article. Astronaut (talk) 14:11, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Capitalisation in titles of works

In the titles of works and texts, words such as "and", "the", "or" etc. are not capitalised; "The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table", for instance. Does there exist a Wikipedia article, section of an article, or, most helpfully, a list of words for which the lowercase is used in titles like this? Is there an effective way of judging whether to capitalise? It seems that articles and conjunctions are typically amongst this group, but I'm curious to find out if there is cemented convention. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 12:32, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization) states that: "In general, each word in English titles of books, films, and other works takes an initial capital, except for articles ("a", "an", "the"), the word "to" as part of an infinitive, prepositions and coordinating conjunctions shorter than five letters (e.g., "on", "from", "and", "with"), unless they begin or end a title or subtitle. Examples: A New Kind of Science, Ghost in the Shell, To Be or Not to Be." --Richardrj ^{talk email} 12:45, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

If you look at actual books and other titles you'll see that there is much disagreement on this. The passage Richard quotes is as good as any if you just want someone's standard to follow. --Anonymous, 22:55 UTC, March 21, 2009.

Also, the style differs depending on the context. The titles of books, used in the books themselves, are usually in ALL CAPITALS, as are other books by the same author in the list near the front, but books by other authors (or even the same author) that are named as sources generally follow the rules Richard outlined. For example, I've just pulled a book from my shelf more or less at random. It's called The Last Journey of William Huskisson - but on the front cover, the spine, the author biography page, and the title page, it's "THE LAST JOURNEY OF WILLIAM HUSKISSON". Other books by the same author are listed as "EXPENSIVE HABITS: THE DARK SIDE OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRY", et al. But go to the Sources and Acknowledgments section in the back, and you'll see reference to sources such as An Account of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:40, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Reduplication kanji

Why is the katakana for ma (マ) used in Kanji to indicate reduplication? It seems like such an odd choice. —Angr 16:21, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

The iteration mark 々 is different from the katakana マ. Take a good look at the mark on the ja article. 々 is a three stroke mark and マ is a two stroke letter. Oda Mari (talk) 16:43, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Oops, you're right. Thanks! —Angr 18:31, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

And, as a bonus, it's called 「繰り返し」 (kurikaeshi), which just means 'repeating'. This is the colloquial term for the symbol itself, and I am sure there is a more definitive technical term for it, but I can't find it. --KageTora (talk) 19:47, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Why is the kana for tsu used for geminate consonants? —Tamfang (talk) 23:19, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

In fact it's not (or not really). The geminate consonant is just a way to trascribe this concept to the Latin alphabet. Following, and logically for some, it's also used when transcribing a foreign word into katakana. --Kazu89 ^ノート 19:10, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Fine. Why is the kana for tsu used for the mora that isn't really a gemination? —Tamfang (talk) 09:49, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Translation French to Englush

Just trying to translate this

« C’est donc seulement à la toute fin du 19e siècle qu’une nouvelle doctrine politique s’installe dans le paysage idéologique, certes sous le nom de "nationalisme", mais dissimulant derrière cette désignation vague une étrange tentative de synthèse entre une vision traditionaliste de l’ordre social, une version scientiste de la "théorie des races" et une conception conspirationniste de l’ennemi (Juifs, francs-maçons, etc.), dont dérive l’appel xénophobe à défendre par tous les moyens la nation française menacée, la « vieille France » (Drumont), la « France des Français » (Soury). »

I came up with this, but it doesn't flow very well, and given my level in the language, I would be sure there are mistakes,

"It is therefore only at the very end of the 19th century that a new political doctrine appeared on the ideological landscape, though under the name of "nationalism", but concealed behind this vague description was a strange synthetic endeavour between the traditional vision of social order, the scientific version of the "theory of races", and the idea of the conspiracy of the enemy [Jews, Freemasons, etc..], which stems form the xenophobic appeal to defend the French nation by all means when threatened, the "old France" [Drumont], the France of the French "[Soury]."

so If anyone could help that would be great. I am looking to maximise semantic rather than structural cohesion. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.16.126.130 (talk) 17:07, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

"dont dérive l'appel xénophobe ..." from which derives the xenophobic appeal". Alright that doesn't flow well either, but the relative pronoun "dont" means "of which". The appeal (or cry or call) stems from the odd synthesis of visions, science and paranoia, not vice versa. ---Sluzzelin talk 18:38, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't "certes sous le nom de "nationalisme"" be better translated as "known under the name of nationalism"? Wrad (talk) 18:41, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

(after EC)That's pretty close, though I think you have things a bit reversed in the last sentence. I would suggest:

""It is therefore only at the very end of the 19th century that a new political doctrine appeared on the ideological landscape, known by the name of "nationalism" but concealing behind this vague description a strange attempt to synthesize a traditional vision of the social order, a scientific version of the "theory of races", and a conspiratorial view of the enemy [Jews, Freemasons, etc..], from which came the xenophobic appeal to defend by all means the threatened French nation, the "old France" [Drumont], the France of the French "[Soury]."

- Eron^Talk 18:45, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Why would one try to force all this into one sentence? Split it up. --Kazu89 ^ノート 19:13, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

It's a quotation. Hence the quotation markers.