Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 January 29

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January 29

Mardi Gras

Resolved

is Fat Tuesday. Is that 'fat' as in 'corpulent' or 'fat' as in 'lard'? --Frumpo (talk) 11:48, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

As in lard, except that it is an adjective. It could also be translated "Fatty Tuesday" or "Greasy Tuesday", but those don't sound as charming as "Fat Tuesday". +Angr 12:09, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

So you could describe a bowl of chips as 'gras'?--Frumpo (talk) 13:09, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

To judge from the examples at wikt:fr:gras#Adjectif, I think so. +Angr 13:29, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

The name comes from the idea of having your last chance to eat luxurious food (in the UK it's pancake day) before the start of Lent on the next day. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:35, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Also, Shrove Tuesday for those seeking absolution from sin. --Frumpo (talk) 13:09, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Either way, it involves beads. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:04, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Beads? Alansplodge (talk) 15:37, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Mardi Gras beads for some, rosaries for others. +Angr 15:54, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

But only pancakes in England. What a dull lot we are. Alansplodge (talk) 00:16, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Or the Australian version, the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, which is certainly not mardi, and usually not very gras. Steewi (talk) 02:02, 30 January 2010 (UTC) (edited for link - Steewi (talk) 02:04, 30 January 2010 (UTC))

The terms Mardi Gras and Carnival have been thoroughly hijacked. Alansplodge (talk) 09:30, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Surname - Sherliker

Can someone find the etymology of the surname "Sherliker" ? I understand it could be an occupation? doktorb _words^deeds 16:02, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

You asked the same question in 2006![1] No-one knew then! Sorry, but it was the only meaningful result Google could find. Alansplodge (talk) 00:25, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

This site lists it as a variant of the name Sholicar, which seems plausible. Click, in order, on the links under "Origins of the name" in the menu at the right-hand side of the page for a number of possibilities suggested by research into the name. This map is interesting; the name (at least in the form Sherliker) certainly seems to have its origin somewhere in the Lancashire-Merseyside-Manchester region. Deor (talk) 00:50, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like "kärleken" ("love" in Swedish), only with an "r" at the end :P Rimush (talk) 21:06, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks all. I searched for the name but coulnd't find my old question, I forgot I asked that far back! Thanks for the help, anyway :) doktorb _words^deeds 11:37, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

"Sher" means "bright" and "lik" is similar to "Licht" which means "light" as in "light-skinned." Maybe an old saxon word for very very light-skinned? Edit -- Just noticed: the site mentioned by Deor says this about "Sherlock": "Edward MacLysaght’s The Surnames of Ireland (1973) [says]: Sherlock, Scurlock scurlòg. This name, of early English origin, is generally taken to mean short-haired, but Reaney says it is fair-haired. One of the important families established in Ireland after the Anglo-Norman invasion ..." Meanwhile, according to Babelfish, "sher" is German for "shears," i.e., scissors. So it might mean "barber": shear-lock-er.

Optional commas before conjunctions

The standard rule gives "He wept, and she comforted him.", but for such short clauses it is permissible to omit the comma: "He wept and she comforted him.". (Right?)

When there is just one clause, the standard rule omits the comma: "She served as the judge and ruled in his favor.", "She served as the judge and the jury.", or "The boys and their fathers attended the tennis match.". Is it at all permissible to add the comma in those cases, at least when the phrases are long and it would assist in interpreting the sentence?

1. "She served as the judge for all of the cases submitted after the tribunal departed, and dismissed all but two of them." Omitting the comma here would suggest that the tribunal departed and dismissed. (Of course, it's trivial to add "she" after "and" here.)
2. "He had knowledge of bridge design and several other fields he was sure he remembered were mentioned by the recruiter, and police academy experience from his days in San Diego." Omitting the comma here would temporarily suggest that the recruiter and a police academy had mentioned the fields. It would be unpleasantly repetitive to make a new clause: "He had… recruiter, and he had police academy…".
3. "He cast aside all the doubts his opponents had so insidiously engendered in his mind, and with them his private fears that no one could succeed in the game." This would risk misinterpretation without the "with them", since it would look like another independent clause whose subject was "his private fears". But striking the comma and the "with them" would be little better, since then the engendering would seem to have happened in his mind and in his private fears.
4. "The dragons wearing the dwarven battle armor given to them at the suggestion of the royal strategists, and the bravest or most foolish among those that had not received such gifts, launched their attack immediately." Here the and cannot introduce an independent clause since the first clause hasn't even had its verb yet, and omitting the comma would seem to suggest that the bravest or most foolish had suggested the allocation of the armor. Meanwhile, I feel compelled to place a comma after the second part of the subject—as if it were an appositive or an "along with" construction or so—even though a comma separating subject and predicate is usually quite in error.

I'm not asking if these are the best ways to punctuate these sentences (or to express the same ideas), although general suggestions of how to avoid the problem are welcome; I'm more interested in knowing if, with their commas, these sentences have any merit whatsoever. --Tardis (talk) 17:10, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

there's no hard and fast rule on this, you really have to think if it in terms of the vocal usage. generally, a comma reflects a slight vocal pause (one which signifies to the hearer that what came before and what comes after are separate semantic groupings). sometimes it's required in text to clarify groupings that might otherwise be ambiguous; beyond that it's just a matter of personal style, or how the sentence sounds to you. --Ludwigs2 17:16, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

There are generally accepted loose rules or guidelines on comma placement. In some cases, for example the serial comma, there are competing rules on comma placement. Publishers and individual writers may adopt a set of preferences, or a style, on which of these rules to apply under different circumstances. However, the main goal should always be clarity, and there are times when these rules should be bent or broken in the interest of clarity. Your examples are cases where your punctuation departs from the usual rules for punctuation, but in these cases your departure is justified in that it improves clarity. In the case of your second example, though, you could avoid the unusual comma placement by recasting the sentence: "He had police academy experience from his days in San Diego and knowledge of bridge design and several other fields he was sure he remembered were mentioned by the recruiter." Better still would be to break up the sentence: "He had knowledge of bridge design and several other fields he was sure he remembered were mentioned by the recruiter. He also had police academy experience from his days in San Diego." I would be inclined to try breaking up the other example sentences as well. Marco polo (talk) 21:13, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Of the three unnumbered examples: In the first, a comma is fine (between two predicates). In the second, it's okay – if you mean to emphasize the second role – but a dash would be better. In the last, maybe okay to emphasize that the fathers' attendance is secondary to that of the boys, but in that case there ought to be a comma on both sides of "and their fathers" (I've often corrected this one). — In #4, how about dashes around the 'given' subclause? —Tamfang (talk) 03:49, 12 February 2010 (UTC)