Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 September 6

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September 6

"Sports events" or "Sporting events"

Which formulation is correct? I thought of this question after running across Category:Sports events and its contents, which use both formulations (see, for example, Category:Current sports events, Category:Future sporting events, Music at sporting events). Thank you, –BLACK FALCON ^(TALK) 05:14, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Both are "correct", though I would prefer the latter, and I suspect the former is more usual in the US than the UK.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 07:44, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

"Sporting" is used in the U.S. but is kind of an old-fashioned term. One of its more prominent vestiges is the publication called The Sporting News, which dates to the 1880s when the term was much more prominent. It had a rival newspaper in the early years called The Sporting Times. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 08:47, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

There are nuances to the words: "sporting" can suggest wagering or risk, as in "take a sporting chance"; there's a difference between sportsmanship and "a sporting nature". But "sporting event" and "sports event" are equally good, although each is faintly awkward for different reasons. You normally wouldn't say, for example, "we're having a songs event" in preference to "we're having a singing event" or "a race event" in preference to "a racing event", while the common names of many sports already end in "-ing" (whether as gerunds or participles) such as rowing, driving or skating. Don't ask me why footballing is acceptable (perhaps from Continental languages) while baseballing is absurd. [Calm down, you wiseacres, I know how your twisted, excitable minds would answer that question.]—— Shakescene (talk) 17:00, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your responses. –BLACK FALCON ^(TALK) 22:49, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Lewis Carroll

He once wrote "A stick I found weighed two pound/I sawed it up one day/In pieces of equal weight/How much did each piece weigh? (Everybody says a 'quarter of a pound' which is wrong"

What does this mean please and why does he say that they wrong? --88.109.132.126 (talk) 08:35, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

What book is that from? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 08:48, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

It would only be a quarter of a pound if there were 8 pieces. But nowhere does it say he sawed it into 8 pieces. It might have been only 2 pieces, in which case each would weigh one pound. -- JackofOz (talk) 08:50, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Knowing Lewis Carroll, there's something more going on here. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 08:52, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Bingo. [1] Opie left out one important word. "In pieces eight / Of equal weight." And the reason a quarter of a pound is wrong is because some of the total weight is lost in sawdust. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 08:56, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, sorry I did miss out 'eight'. I too thought about the sawdust, but it seemed to simplistic both to me and for Carroll!

Don't forget that he mainly wrote the puzzles for his young friends! --pma (talk) 14:51, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

That's ridiculous! You would have to use the EXACT same sawing technique on each piece you cut, and each piece would have to have the EXACT same strengths and weaknesses in the EXACT spots you saw in for you to be able to make the EXACT same amount of sawdust for each piece to weigh EXACTLY the same at the end of it all, right down to the molecular level. If you don't want to be that precise, then 'quarter of a pound' is fine. Simple as that. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 14:53, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I think you're missing the point. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 15:10, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

You mean, that some weight is lost as evaporation of liquid, due to the heat generated by the friction of the saw? --pma (talk) 17:22, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Or, that it's risky to jump to a conclusion without considering all the facts. Carroll would certainly be aware that it would be impossible to cut eight exactly identical pieces. But even if you could, you still have to take the sawdust into account. Now if you used a laser... Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 19:04, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

That's assuming the stick was perfectly uniform in its proportions. Has such a stick ever existed? -- JackofOz (talk) 21:22, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

He didn't say that he cut it into "identical" (in shape and size) pieces; he said that he cut it into pieces of equal weight. I don't know why one would want to quibble with the answer that he himself wrote (unless one wants to quibble with Portia, too): "In Shylock’s bargain for the flesh was found / No mention of the blood that flowed around: / So when the stick was sawed in eight, / The sawdust lost diminished from the weight." Deor (talk) 00:18, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Even if it were possible to produce such a stick (as compared with finding it somewhere), and if it were totally uniform in its molecular structure, it would likely be impossible to slice it such that the total mass of each 1/8th was identical. I think if Alice nitpicked Lewis over that point, he would have changed the subject and started to recite a few lines from "Jabberwocky". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 21:45, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

It may be a money riddle; comparing, for example, pound sterling with pieces of eight. --Jayron32 23:59, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure ol' Lewis would be pleased as punch that a riddle he wrote well over a century ago is still raising questions. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 00:06, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I certainly am !!--88.109.132.126 (talk) 07:01, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

kyujitai again

Please translate the words "epilogue", "general index" and "obituary" into Chinese or Japanese shinjitai and kyujitai and into Pinyin. Thank you, Doc Taxon (talk) 11:40, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

For many words, you can find the translations by going to the article on English Wikipedia (for example, search for Obituary) and then looking through the interlanguage links on the left-hand column. For example, Obituary links to 讣告 (fùgào) on zh-wiki. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 15:16, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

But it doesn't help finding out the term written in kyujitai and Pinyin, so I asked a question here. Or is it not allowed? Doc Taxon (talk) 15:42, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Those you can often find by pasting the characters into an online dictionary (for Chinese, good ones are nciku.com, dict.cn, and zhongwen.com). There's nothing wrong with asking here, I was just trying to also suggest some ways you can find these on your own if you need to in the future.

For Chinese, here are the translations with pinyin (someone else will have to do the Japanese):

English	Chinese	Hanyu Pinyin
epilogue	结束部分	jiéshù bùfen
	结束语*	jiéshùyǔ
index	索引	suóyǐn
obituary	讣告	fùgào

*(this, and 结言 and similar, might be closer to "conclusion" than "epilogue"; 结束部分 is probably best)

rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 16:31, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

but what about:

epilogue = 結文

general index = 總目錄

obituary = 追記

Doc Taxon (talk) 17:24, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

In any given language there are many different ways to say things; this is especially true in Chinese. The words you mention above are all things that translate roughly to those—结文 is literally "tying-up"+"language/writing", 总目录 literally "end"+"catalog", and 追记 "after"+"write down/record". These words would all get your point across to more or less extent; the ones in the table, though, I'm pretty sure are more accurate. (The translations in the table for index and obit are definitely the most accurate ones: 索引 is what you see written at the end of a book, and 讣告 specifically refers to obits published in newspapers/etc. The translation for "epilogue" is less clear, there are a ton of different compounds that are used.) Of course, no one can know for sure without seeing the context you intend to use these words in. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:51, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Also, if you want to check yourself, these are all words you can look up in nciku or another online dictionary. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:53, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I've most often seen the equivalent of epilogue being written as 后记 in Chinese - hòujì - "the record [of what comes] after".

Index, as Rjanag says, is 索引; 目錄, in Chinese at least, usually refers to "Contents".

讣告 (also known as 讣文) is what some dictionaries give as the translation for "Obituary", but the two are quite different. A 讣告 is usually more like what might be called a "death notice" in English - a simple notice that sets out the fact that a person died, and sometimes giving notice of the funeral and the surviving family. Obituary, in the sense of a biography of a recently deceased person, does not have an exactly equivalent genre in Chinese. A 祭文 is similar in form - it is a fairly detailed biography of a person, published shortly after their death. However, in terms of the form of publication, it is more like a eulogy - it is originally read out at the memorial / offering ceremony for the deceased.

A piece of 悼念文章 (dàoniàn wénzhāng; commemoration-of-the-dead composition) is probably the most commonly used term for the genre that is closest to an obituary. However, such a genre is almost always positive and less neutral than the usual obituary. It is also most often written by someone closely connected with the deceased, not by a professional writer or editor. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 00:46, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah, ok. I came across 后记 when I was first looking at this but all the 结s seemed more appropriate to me.

As for obituary, yeah, I figured 讣告 would be most accurate for things like the obituary section of a regular newspaper, with 20 brief obituaries of random people... perhaps not for something like NYT obituaries of famous people. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:00, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes - to clarify, when I said obituaries, I meant the long obituaries in the NYT and suchlike. The smaller notices, sometimes called "death notices" or "funeral notices" to distinguish them from long obituaries, can, of course, also be called obituaries. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 04:01, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

In Japanese, epilogue could be 結び/musubi, 終章/shūshū, 終節/shūsetsu, 終曲/shūkyoku 結末/ketsumatsu, or 終局/shūkyoku. General index is 総合指数/總合指數/sōgō shisū(economical term) or 総目録/總目録/sōmokuroku. Obituary is 死亡広告/shibō kōkoku, 死亡記事/shibō kiji or 追悼記事/tsuitō kiji. Oda Mari (talk) 04:54, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Agamid toes

What does this Latin term mean: Digiti inaequales, sublongi, non fimbriati.

I am not really sure about the punctuation (comma) between inaequales and sublongi. How would change the deletion of this comma the meaning of that term? Is inaequales an adjective or an adverb? What do you mean is the correct punctuation in this term, maybe is the one or other not usable? Thanks, Doc Taxon (talk) 17:21, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

It's just the idiosyncratic Latin that biologists use in describing plants and animals. It means "[The} toes [are] of unequal length, somewhat long, [and] not fringed." Inaequales, sublongi, and fimbriati are all adjectives. I'm not sure what you're asking about the punctuation, but the commas are there to separate the adjectives in a series, just as they would be in English. Deor (talk) 22:22, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

A user replied when I posted this question on Wiktionary and said that the punctuation was just fine. Ditto Deor (talk · contribs) above. L☺g☺maniac chat? 22:56, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Rhymes

I have read all of the relevant Wikipedia articles, I believe, about rhymes and words without rhymes, etc. Can someone please explain the following to me? I just don't seem to get it. Thanks.

• Why are fork and pork not considered a perfect rhyme?
• Why are love and of not considered a perfect rhyme?

Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro, 6 September 2009)

I can only speak from the midwestern USA perspective, but I would say that phonetically they are pronounced "faw-rk" and "pour-k"; and "luhv" and "ahv", although we midwesterners probably say "love" and "of" as rhymes. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 19:02, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I got blocked for trying to place this edit before, I'm going to be brave and see if I can insert it now:

"Fork" and "pork" are perfect rhymes, to me. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 19:33, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

To my ear, "fork" rhymse with "torque", or "Mork" as in "...and Mindy". The "o" is like an "aw" sound. Contrast with "Porky Pig", for example, where the "por" is like "pour". In your part of the English-speaking world, it may be different. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 19:37, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

We had this discussion a couple of weeks ago: "for" vs. "four". "Four", where I come from, rhymes with "pour", and "for" rhymes with "tore". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 19:39, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Blocked? Anyway: "fork/pork" and "love/of" are perfect rhymes to my New York tempered with Middle South tempered with 40 years in California accent. "Pork" and "pour" are different. "Coffee" and "toffee" are also different. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 19:40, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I speak a decent approximation of Received Pronunciation and fork/pork is pretty much a perfect rhyme when I say them. "Love" and "of" have completely different vowels, though ("love" has a central vowel, "of" has a back vowel). --Tango (talk) 19:47, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, I "received" my pronunciation while growing up in America. :) Regional accents will often vary - like whether the "oo" in "roof" rhymes with the "oo" in "look" or in "smoothe". I've heard it both ways in different parts of the midwest. My old Webster's shows the "o" in "for" and "fork" with a carat mark (circumflex) over it, to rhyme with "orb"; it shows the "o" in "pork" with a horizontal bar over it to rhyme with "old". It shows the "o" of "love" as a "u" with an upward-curvy thing over it, i.e. short u, to rhyme with "up"; it shows the "o" of "of" as either short o, or secondarily as "italic short u", to rhyme with the "u" in "circus". It would take a really trained ear to distinguish that short u sound from the one in "up". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 19:51, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

In my lexicon, "fork" & "pork" (both with the "pour" vowel) and "love" & "of" are perfect rhymes. Roof has the same vowel sound as "look", "foot", and "hoof". Just my 2¢ ... L☺g☺maniac chat? 21:22, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

In roughly the upper midwest, "roof" rhymes with "hoof". In roughly the lower midwest, "roof" rhymes with "goof". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 22:35, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

It may be interesting to read about the horse-hoarse merger in this context. People with the merger will rhyme "fork" and "pork"; people without the merger will not rhyme them. "Of" belongs to a class of function words, which includes also "was" and "because", whose stressed form has /ʌ/ (the vowel of strut or but) for most Americans but /ɒ/ (the vowel of lot or pot) for most Brits. +Angr 22:39, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Where I come from, which is nowhere in the areas shown on that map, "horse" and "hoarse" are virtually identical, while "fork" and "pork" do not rhyme. Here's a twist on the latter. I said I hear it as "pour-k". I was almost going to say "poor-k". The right way to say "poor" is "poo-er", and that's what they told us in school. But everyone went right ahead and pronounced "poor" exactly the same way as "pour", as also a homonym for "pore". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 22:45, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

In my dialect, horse and hoarse don't sound exactly equivalent, but close, but fork and pork rhyme, of and love have similar but slightly different sounds, but because sounds nothing like of and was. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 00:58, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

For me, horse and hoarse are complete homophones; fork and pork are perfect rhymes, of and love are perfect rhymes, and was, because, and fuzz are perfect rhymes. (Of course I mean the strong forms of of, was, and because, as they would be pronounced as the last word of a sentence.) +Angr 07:40, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

How interesting. For me, horse and hoarse are complete homophones; and fork and pork are perfect rhymes. But that's where we diverge. Of sounds nothing like love to me - of is pronounced over here like the last syllable in Ustinov (-ovv), and love rhymes with dove (the bird, not the past tense of dive: -uvv). Was, because and fuzz use three different sounds - was rhymes with Oz, fuzz rhymes with buzz, and because can be pronounced as be-cawz, be-caws or be-coz. -- JackofOz (talk) 08:40, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

This is a little off the track, but perhaps you can explain what I think I hear sometimes in the Australian accent, in which a word with an "o" in the middle somehow gets an "r" in there somewhere. Like saying "home" is if it were spelled "herm". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 11:02, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh boy, don't get me started on the Aussie "o". Well, ok, but briefly. Many older Australians pronounce it "properly", with a rounded mouth. But many others seem to be embarrassed at having to do this, and what comes out is only vaguely related to an "o" sound. "Phone home, Noel" often sounds like "fine hime, Nile" or "fern herm, Nerl". You'll see TV presenters trying to say words with "o" sound, but with their mouths smiling as broadly as possible throughout their monologue, as if they were saying a long succession of "eeeeeee"s, or trying to look like the Queen Mother with her permanent smile. How on earth they think they can make an "o" sound like this beats me. -- JackofOz (talk) 13:02, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

They should watch Fargo (film) for practice on how to say the "o" the opposite way they're used to saying it. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 14:24, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

If "be-coz" is a possible pronunciation of because, then it can potentially rhyme with was for you, can't it? Anyway, I'm pretty sure that using the STRUT vowel in of, was, and because is a purely North American phenomenon (and not universal even there, especially in the case of because). +Angr 08:46, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

People around here say "worsh" for "wash", with almost the same vowel as horse. I think it's funny, as I am used to saying "wosh" (rhyming with, let's see, "bosh" or "gosh"). L☺g☺maniac chat? 01:09, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Because and was rhyme for me (RP). --Tango (talk) 01:16, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I also get teased by my east-coast acquaintances for saying "wash" as if it has an "r" after the "a". That's especially funny coming from people who pronounce idea as if it were spelled "idear". That leads to my emphasizing it as "wahsh", which sounds funny too. It's not really "worsh", it's more like "wawsh", but an almost-r sound tends to creep in there. "Because" to me is "bee-caws", and "was" is "wuhz". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 11:14, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, at least my grandma actually says "worsh" all the time. It's not just a almost-r, it's a full-fledged adult one. It is hilarious. I think. L☺g☺maniac chat? 20:21, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Some of these comments would benefit bigtime from a passing acquaintance with IPA. "In my dialect, boo rhymes with coo, whereas foo rhymes with goo" is not much help to someone for whom all four are alike!

To me (Midwest/California), for what little it's worth, fork=pork but love~of is more complicated: love is always central (ʌ) but of can be more back (ɔ,ɒ?). —Tamfang (talk) 19:13, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Follow up question

Thanks to all for the above input. It seems to me, then, that whether or not two words constitute a perfect rhyme depends on their specific pronunciations ... which may vary from one person to another. As such, two words may be a perfect rhyme for Person A, but not for Person B. Is that statement correct? I had assumed that the definition of a rhyme was more concrete and definite ... and not quite so loose, variable, or individualized. Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro, 7 September 2009)

Because of their ubiquity in nursery rhymes, and the way rhyme is taught to us in primary school by way of poetry etc, we get the idea fixed in our heads very early that rhyme is the concrete thing you refer to. But noooo. It depends absolutely on the dialect, idiolect, or whatever of the speaker/writer. I'm still astonished that some people don't regard "fork" and "pork" as rhyming - but the fact is they (those people) don't, and that's all there is to it. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:00, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Lexical sets allow you to find rhymes that should work in most accents if you are trying to write some kind of universal poetry. --Tango (talk) 01:20, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

The dictionary agrees with my midwestern dialect that "fork" and "pork" do not exactly rhyme, but they are close enough that they can still be used poetically. And you can always apply some literary license, like the song the people of The Wizard of Oz sing in which everything that sounds vaguely like "oz" is pronounced to rhyme exactly with "oz". Or you can take the Gilbert and Sullivan approach and deliberately change the pronouncation to make it rhyme:

I often find it comical how nature always does contrive

That every boy and every gal that's born into the world alive

Is either a little Liberal or else a little Conservative

Use the second line as the pronunciation guide for the first and third lines. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 11:19, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm puzzled. Are you saying that -ive in "alive" and "contrive" are pronounced differently? — Emil J. 11:25, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Do some accents put the stress on different syllables in each word (I think I stress the 2nd syllable for each, although it is a pretty weak stress)? That can often change the vowel slightly. --Tango (talk) 20:00, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Which dictionary? As has been made very clear, rhymes depend on accents. If your dictionary is giving rhymes then it will be based on some accent or other, and really adds nothing to this discussion. --Tango (talk) 20:00, 9 September 2009 (UTC)