Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 April 14

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April 14

Is there a larger variation of the Sator Square?

The Sator Square is composed of 5x5 of chracters. Is there a larger English version of words that accomplish the same effect of making words up to down and left to right in each row in perhaps 6x6 or 7x7 characters? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.137.11.38 (talk) 12:42, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The article on word square has a few examples under "Modern English squares", up to order eight:

B I T	C A R D	H E A R T	G A R T E R	B R A V A D O	L A T E R A L S
I C E	A R E A	E M B E R	A V E R S E	R E N A M E D	A X O N E M A L
T E N	R E A R	A B U S E	R E C I T E	A N A L O G Y	T O E P L A T E
	D A R T	R E S I N	T R I B A L	V A L U E R S	E N P L A N E D
		T R E N D	E S T A T E	A M O E B A S	R E L A N D E D
			R E E L E D	D E G R A D E	A M A N D I N E
				O D Y S S E Y	L A T E E N E R
					S L E D D E R S

---Sluzzelin talk 12:50, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

And if you read on, it then gives an order-9 square and discusses attempts at an order-10 square. --Anonymous, 21:41 UTC, April 14, 2010.

Here's one order-10 attempt I came across in my travels:

D I S C U S S I N G

I N C A N T A T O R

S C A R L A T I N A

C A R N I T I N E S

U N L I K E N E S S

S T A T E S W R E N

S A T I N W E A V E

I T I N E R A T E S

N O N E S E V E N T

G R A S S N E S T S

The square's creator, Ted Clarke of Cornwall, acknowledges he had to "stretch the boundaries of language a little" to accommodate a word such as "nonesevent", the meaning of which, he says, is an event occurring on the 9th day before the Ides (e.g. of March). But it's not found in any dictionary. Needless to say ... well, apparently there's some need to say it since I intend to do so very soon; right now, in fact ... the solution is not universally accepted as valid. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 11:22, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

If "nonesevent" (i.e. "nones event") has any meaning at all, it would presumably be "an event occurring on the Nones", which according to the Roman calendar is either the 5th or 7th day of the month (depending on the month). AnonMoos (talk) 15:10, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction, AnonMoos. I was relying on the 2005 newspaper article I got this from, which was about "the world's hardest puzzle". I should know by now not to trust journalists' explanations of technical issues. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:38, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

There's a crucial problem with the answers so far: the Sator Square is a palindrome:

S A T O R
A R E P O
T E N E T
O P E R A
R O T A S

- and none of the examples offered so far are. I haven't got a working English example that's even that large, but these should do for a start:

T E N
E Y E
N E T

P E T S
E M I T
T I M E
S T E P

AlexTiefling (talk) 11:38, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

long word

According to [1] "in long clothes" is a word. What does it mean?174.3.123.220 (talk) 14:25, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

It's not a word, it's a phrase used as a synonym for "beginning". I've never heard it myself, but I guess it means "wearing baby clothes", since those are often one piece, rather than separate pants and shirt. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:39, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

My SOED defines "long-clothes" as "the garments of a baby in arms". Ghmyrtle (talk) 14:40, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

In Victorian times, babies which were too young to move around much on their own were often dressed in long gowns (often going past the feet). Once they started crawling around a lot on their own, then they were dressed in shorter gowns which left the feet free. They wouldn't really be dressed in gender-specific clothing (clearly-differentiated boys' and girls' clothes) until they started walking and talking. AnonMoos (talk) 14:58, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

A traditional infant's christening gown is a semi-surviving example of "long clothes" in the sense above (though it's mentioned only somewhat briefly on the Wikipedia Baptismal clothing article). AnonMoos (talk) 15:04, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The garb worn by the Popeye character called "Swee'Pea" is an example of one of those long gowns, which in the 1930s would still have been well-known. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:44, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

By the way, the word "shorten" is defined in the OED as having a meaning "To put a child into short clothes", with the quote "I have shortened our darling" ... AnonMoos (talk) 05:41, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

That colloquialism could be handed down from one generation to another, its users being "shortenin' bred". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:15, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Definition

What is "fatihah." [2]?174.3.123.220 (talk) 15:19, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Sura 1 of the Qur'an... AnonMoos (talk) 15:27, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

What is "le premier pas"? (same place)174.3.123.220 (talk) 15:20, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

French for "the first step". -- Flyguy649 ^talk 15:30, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

What is "narrow end of the wedge"? (same place)174.3.123.220 (talk) 15:23, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

It's the part of a wedge that is put into the crack, (ie. the narrowest point of the triangular wedge). It's the part that goes first. -- Flyguy649 ^talk 15:30, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Metaphorically, the "narrow end of the wedge" (or "thin end of the wedge") is something small that leads to greater consequences. For example, relaxing the rules about some minor point may be seen as the "thin end of the wedge" that will result in more relaxation of the rules in increasingly significant points. +Angr 15:45, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Coincidentally (just before this question was asked), I was visiting the Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge article... AnonMoos (talk) 15:51, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like the "slippery slope" argument, or, "if you give them an inch, they'll take a mile". StuRat (talk) 17:04, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

plural of word

Mrs is a singlar ,what should be its plural.also what is plural of Miss. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.154.110.243 (talk) 16:33, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Both of them are adjectives so they have no plural. However, if you treat them as nouns(which you shouldn't) I guess "misses" is a mass noun, while the plural of "miss" would be "misses".--92.251.220.72 (talk) 16:40, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) Both are nouns. Miss is straightforward: the plural is Misses (as in John Singer Sargent's painting The Misses Vickers (see here). Mrs. is more difficult and rarely attempted as a plural, but the French Mesdames (plural of Madame; abbreviated to Mmes) has been used in English for the purpose - see Wiktionary. Karenjc 16:46, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Miss was widely used as a noun in the nineteenth century ("a young miss" etc), but a little less so in today's language. I think Mrs. is rarely used as a real noun (as opposed to an honorific title prefix), except in the fixed slang phrase "the Mrs". Historically, Mrs. was originally a contracted form of "Mistress", the feminine of "Mister"/"Master", but this doesn't help in trying to pluralize it, and the fact that it ends in a phonological [sɪz] sequence helps ensure that it doesn't have a real plural (the pronunciation [mɪsɪzɪz] would sound ridiculous...). AnonMoos (talk) 17:36, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

If you are trying to pluralize Mrs. in a sentence, recast the sentence so you don't need a plural form. If you're writing a letter, you can address it to "Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Jones", for example. The online Merriam-Webster's Learner's Dictionary suggests Mesdames, per Karnejc above.[3] -- Flyguy649 ^talk 17:47, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

But still, suppose a man has the habit of saying "the Mrs." for his wife. Now suppose he's been married several times. He's telling a story: "My first Mrs. said ABC, but my second Mrs. thought DEF, and my third Mrs.—" and at that point you interrupt and say "How many Mrs.es ([ˈmɪsɪzɪz]) have you had?" +Angr 18:05, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

We have narcissuses and censuses. -- Wavelength (talk) 19:25, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The Daniel Jones pronunciation of "censuses" would be [sɛnsəsɪz], so it's not the same thing as [mɪsɪzɪz]. AnonMoos (talk) 22:30, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

And missuses.—msh210℠ 19:35, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually, AnonMoos misses (sorry) a point made by Flyguy below. the feminine of "Mister"/"Master", but this doesn't help in trying to pluralize it well it does help: an accepted plural of Mister is Messieurs, sometimes written "Messrs", which backs up the similarly-derived plural Mesdames mentioned. Sussexonian (talk) 20:30, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The OED gives, for the plural, either Mrs. or Mesdames. This Canadian site also suggests Mmes. or Mms. (but I have never seen the latter). Ghmyrtle (talk) 20:49, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Or, in British English, any of those without the full-stop. Bazza (talk) 13:24, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Name of ideoligical conflict of the 20th century?

Is there a name for the huge conflict between capitalism and communism, democracy, dictatorship and naziism that took place throughout much of the 20th century?--92.251.220.72 (talk) 16:38, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I've heard "the battle of ideas" used. StuRat (talk) 16:58, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I think you've identified several distinct conflicts. I don't think that they all share a single name. Indeed, I don't think that there was a single conflict between democracy and dictatorship, nor was there a single ideology of dictatorship. There were many different ideologies and many different struggles against dictatorship in different times and places. Marco polo (talk) 19:19, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

"The short twentieth century", or "The Age of Extremes", covers the period. Ghmyrtle (talk) 20:39, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Marco polo that there are several distinct conflicts here, not all of which took place on a global scale. Of those that did, the conflict between capitalism and communism is known as the Cold War (though that term usually refers only to the period 1945 - 1989), and the conflict between Naziism and other forms of government is known as World War II. John M Baker (talk) 21:01, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Basically I am looking for terms that refer to the period 1914-1989, in the same way Age of enlightenment and Victorian era refer to their respective times. Thanks Ghmyrtle, but those words don't suit my conext.--92.251.220.72 (talk) 22:18, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Pretty much this same question came up on one of the ref desks just a few days ago. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:23, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Well if it did, I didn't ask it. What exactly are you suggesting?--92.251.252.11 (talk) 16:16, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

There might not really be a term for this yet, since we're sort of still living in it (and how do we know it really ended in 1989?). In a couple of hundred years it will all be clearer (after the long twenty-first century, no doubt). Aside from Ghmyrtle's link, there is also a long nineteenth century, and an overlapping "long eighteenth century" (1688-1848) and "short eighteenth century" (1715-1789) as our 18th century article notes. Adam Bishop (talk) 03:52, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

At least a few call the war/repression aspects of the 20th century the "hemoclysm"[4]... AnonMoos (talk) 05:12, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Though this term wouldn't capture all of the ideological and geopolitical conflicts involved, you could certainly refer to that period as the "Rise of the US" or the "Rise and Consolidation of US Hegemony" Staplovich (talk) 21:21, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

The more traditional term is American Century, but the United States was minimally involved in Europe between 1919-1942, and so did not really participate in many phases of such conflict... AnonMoos (talk) 21:29, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

AnonMoos is absolutely right; I've definitely heard the term "American Century" before; though, to my ears, it smacks of US nationalism. That is, I feel the term is generally used in a proud manner, and seems tied to the current neoconservative agenda to expand US influence throughout the world. I would also say that many non-US citizens who live in the Americas resent the term "America" being used synonymously with "the United States of America." So it might be better to avoid that term? Staplovich (talk) 21:37, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I feel American century demeans the efforts of the Allied forces, which, contrary to popular media, were a huge mix of nations.--92.251.168.135 (talk) 22:04, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

It's always kind of funny that people who live outside of North America don't want to offend (say) Canadians and avoid saying "Americans". But to me, "American" can only refer to the United States. I think I would rather be offended if you referred to all of us as "American". Adam Bishop (talk) 00:12, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Hawaiian diacritical use not explained

The Hawaiian language contains many diacritic's and they are not explained within the language diacritical's page. Going to the United States section does not list them either, even though Hawaii is a part of the US. If an expert could be found, would appreciate the addition of this information to your website. Thank you. MRoof (talk) 18:27, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Is Hawaiian language#Orthography (writing system) unsatisfactory? —Tamfang (talk) 18:32, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

In fact, Hawaiian has only one diacritic, the macron. The only other "funny character" it has is the okina ‹ʻ›, but that's not a diacritic because it doesn't modify other letters. +Angr 19:43, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Puzzling use of "people"

I don't really expect a clean-cut decision here, but I'm interested in other people's reactions. I ran across this quotation from Gordon Brown, in reference to his preparation for the televised debates: "The best teacher is the people of Britain." Intuitively, this sentence strikes me as very odd, even while my analytic brain insists that it's grammatically correct. Perhaps it's simply a matter of old-timeyness, since a phrase like "the people of Britain" would almost always be accorded a plural concord in contemporary speech. I am nevertheless aware that the word "people" may still take a singular concord, depending on the sense of the word intended. And it wouldn't have bothered me if Brown had said "The best teacher is the British people". Even "The British people is the best teacher" would have sounded less strange to my ears. Incidentally, I'm American. Does Brown's sentence sound awkward to British speakers? LANTZY^TALK 19:48, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't sound very odd to my American ears. I can easily imagine an American politician saying "The best teacher is the people of America." Marco polo (talk) 20:33, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm also American, and it also sounds fine to me. It's even OK to say "a people", as in "The British are a people who talk funny". :-) StuRat (talk) 20:41, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

As a Brit it does sound odd to me - presumably the wording "The best teachers are the people of Britain" was not used for fear of offending real teachers. (I too can easily imagine an American politician saying "The best teacher is the people of America" - your last President committed far worse offences than that against the language.) Ghmyrtle (talk) 20:58, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

But Bush wasn't actually speaking English, was he ? :-) StuRat (talk) 14:06, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I believe it is meant to be read in the same way as if it said "the public" instead of "the people". I don't think this is the "'people' as a plural of 'person'" sense. --Anonymous, 21:48 UTC, April 14, 2010.

The speaker kind of painted himself into a corner verbally with that construct. However, it's worth noting that "people"/"populace" and "public" have similar derivations, the Latin populus and publicus respectively, which my Webster's says are "akin". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:12, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Anonymous. The meaning is not that individual people of Britain are each good teachers (as in "The best teachers are the people of Britain"), it's that collectively the people are a good teacher. The idea of course being that politicians should take their queues from the democratic will of the people, which is not to say that they should follow the opinion of any given random person on the street. Rckrone (talk) 06:58, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

That word ordering seems fine. "noun1 noun2" constructions are always replaceable with "noun2 of noun1"--92.251.220.72 (talk) 22:22, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Most of what Gordon Brown says sounds awkward to me. Alansplodge (talk) 00:16, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm reminded of what Lord Mancroft said: "Cricket - a game which the English, not being a spiritual people, have invented in order to give themselves some conception of eternity".  :) -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 03:40, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

The Labour Party seems to be making awkward constructions a key part of its election strategy, starting with its bizarre slogan "a future fair for all". AndrewWTaylor (talk) 07:48, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

It would certainly be a roller coaster ride. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:12, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

English plural says "people" can be a singular noun (see also Collective noun). In any case, it is permissible though sometimes awkward to link a singular and a plural noun by the copula "to be" (here "is") e.g. "a foot is twelve inches". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.41.72.25 (talk) 12:39, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

The subject of "is" is "teacher" (both singular); "people" (in any sense) is the complement. The alphabet is the ABCs; The ABCs are the alphabet.

-- Wavelength (talk) 14:12, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

List of Simplified Chinese Characters

Does there exist a list somewhere that lists all of the Chinese characters that have been simplified or a comprehensive list of all of the general simplification rules (ex: 門 ⇒ 门) as well as the unique simplifications? I've looked all over on the internet for some sort of a list that covers all of the simplification methods/all the characters that have been simplified but haven't been able to find one. Preferably, I'd like one that is available for free on the internet. -- Trevor K 20:00, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

It's linked from the Chinese version of the Simplified Chinese characters article: General Table of Simplied Characters. Click on 4, 5, and 6 for the three tables.

See also the proposed Common Chinese Characters Table, which is in the public consultation phase. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 22:53, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The one I have is called a dictionary. DOR (HK) (talk) 07:58, 15 April 2010 (UTC)