Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 December 2

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December 2

Shantideva quote - looking for the Chinese version

(already posted to the ZH reference desk, but it looks pretty dead over there...)

I'm looking for an authoritative Chinese version (Trad/Simp both ok) of the following Shantideva quote:

As long as the sky exists
And as long as there are sentient begins,
May I remain to help
Relieve them of all their pain.

Thank you for any help you can provide! The Masked Booby (talk) 01:04, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I believe that the translation is: 乃至有虛空，以及眾生住，願吾住世間，盡除眾生苦. Source: http://xiii.myweb.hinet.net/articals/budway.htm, 8th and 7th lines from the end.--Itinerant1 (talk) 05:17, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

And boy, does Google make a hack job translating any of it. Here's the translation it offers for the next two lines. "All suffering beings, willing to note times daily newspaper! Germany ready for Buddha, sentient beings enjoy happiness!" --Itinerant1 (talk) 05:19, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Word that means FRIEND or FAMILY MEMBER or Same RELlIGON

thank you, I am looking for a word which I believe means FRIEND or FAMILY MEMBER or Same RELlIGONit souns like LONSMAN ,clearly I do not know how to spell this word your help is appreciated...thank you please e-mail me at..... [email redacted] ..........many thanks lemonsalt — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lemonsalt (talk • contribs) 08:01, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I separated this into its own question, because it appears to be unrelated to the Shantideva quote question above. I have also removed your email address, per Wikipedia policy; we answer questions publicly on the reference desk - we do not contact people individually. Posting an email address on Wikipedia can also result in increased spam, as Wikipedia is very widely accessed by all kinds of people around the world, so I would advise being careful about the personal information posted here. As for your question, I'll think about it, but no word is immediately coming to mind. Falconus^{p t c} 08:18, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

"landsman" ? ---Sluzzelin talk 08:39, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Brother? ― A. di M.​  10:37, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

"Paesan"? (Sometimes "paisan") --Shirt58 (talk) 10:44, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

The only term similar to your "lonsman" would be clansman (outside the KKK context). Check clan for the various meanings. --Incognito.ergo.possum (talk) 11:34, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't know, I think that the "landsman" as proposed by Sluzzelin is also quite similar. Falconus^{p t c} 13:12, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I have a suggestion similar to that of A di M: "brethren" implies both ethnic and religious membership, although it doesn't sound like "lonsman".VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 13:32, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Agree with Falconus -- and Yiddish influence (from לאַנדסמאַן) would explain why the "o" vowel pronunciation... AnonMoos (talk) 13:51, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Man created God in his image

Ludwig Feuerbach's aphorism "nicht Gott schuf den Menschen nach seinem Bilde, sondern der Mensch schuf Gott nach seinem Bilde." is idiomatic in German. It was actually printed in 1851 in a longer version "Denn nicht Gott schuf den Menschen nach seinem Bilde, wie es in der Bibel steht heißt, sondern der Mensch schuf, wie ich im »Wesen des Christentums« zeigte, Gott nach seinem Bilde." (see wikiquote) and in a shorter version "der Mensch schuf Gott nach seinem Bilde" (en: "Man created God in his image") on Feuerbach's memorial. Is there a quotable quote in English? --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 11:01, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

If you're looking for aphorisms along that line then there's always Xenophanes, who almost two-thousand years prior to Feuerbach quipped that

if cattle and horses and lions had hands

or could paint with their hands and create works such as men do,
horses like horses and cattle like cattle
also would depict the gods' shapes and make their bodies

of such a sort as the form they themselves have.

according to our article on him. Or were you asking for an English translation of the German quote? Gabbe (talk) 13:43, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I was looking for an English translation that can be used in Wikiquote. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 13:48, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Weird. On top of the Feuerbach article I see the personal appeal of Wikipedia programmer Brandon Harris and he looks like a re-incarnation of Feuerbach. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 14:00, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

There's a translation in footnote 47 here - "It was not God who created man in his image, as it is written in the Bible, but Man created God in his image, as I showed in 'The Essence of Christianity'" - but are you looking for a translation in a verifiable source? --Colapeninsula (talk) 14:35, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

There's another translation here [1] - it is quoted in translation in Church dogmatics, Volume 2, Part 1 By Karl Barth, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, Thomas Forsyth Torrance. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004, p 282: "For God did not create man in His image, as the Bible has it, but, as I have shown in Das Wesen des Christentums, man created God after his image." --Colapeninsula (talk) 14:41, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

The first translation that Cola gave is the best one and does come from a verifiable source. The source is given here: [[2]] Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 14:56, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I always wondered with that sentence whether there was some possibility of mistranslation from the original text, but I don't know anything about ancient Hebrew to check. Is it possible that it could also be interpreted that God made Man in his imagination? Wnt (talk) 15:29, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you all. Unfortunately the English quote found in wikiquote by Dominus Vobisdu above is not verifiable. The German quote appeared in 1851 in the book "Vorlesungen über das Wesen der Religion", Lecture 20, on p. 241, and the only English translation of "Lectures on the Essence of Religion" that I can find is from 1967, translated by Ralph Manheim. Google book search shows the text in there, For God did not, as the Bible says, make man in His image; on the contrary man, as I have shown in The Essence of Christianity, made God in his image. but I cannot see the page number or the page itself in ordfer to verify it. Can you? --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 03:22, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I finally managed to see it in "Lectures on the Essence of Religion" on p. 187 (and also in "The Ring of the Nibelung") and inserted quotes in [[3]] and [[4]]. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 00:58, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Stone stripes on buildings.

On some large neoclassical type buildings you see a feature where alternating rows of stone blocks protrude from the walls to make broad horizontal stripes of raised stone that go across the entire wall of the building. Kinda like the feature labelled "19" in the image at right. What the heck is that called? I've crawled through a bazillion architecture pages here and I can't find a name. 216.136.51.242 (talk) 15:02, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

And how is it called in vertical? de:Lisene has interwiki-links to 17 languages, but not to English. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 15:51, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

The image description page says that number 19 is called bossage. Angr (talk) 16:15, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

First off, according to the German Wikipedia article, Lisenen are vertical. In English, I believe that such vertical protrusions are called pilasters. As for the horizontal protrusions you mention, according to this source, they seem to be called "belt courses". Marco polo (talk) 16:16, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Or string courses. See "Course (architecture)". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:53, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I think the general term is just "banding", whether it's accomplished by differences in materials or in profile. See the photo here, for example, where the blogger refers to the treatment of the ground-storey wall as "banded rustication" (similar examples can be found through a Google Images search for "banded rustication"). It's also used to produce banded columns, which I think is what the use in the OP's photo is intended to recall. A string course is usually a thinner and less repetitive element; see here, where the thin, lighter band between the ground storey and the upper ones is referred to as a string course, whereas bulkier banding is visible on the ground-storey wall. Deor (talk) 17:33, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

More German help

This may not be a problem with my understanding but a contradiction or ambiguity in the German article I am translating here, but anyway, I am having trouble with understanding a fact at the end of this paragraph:

• Max-Otto Friedländer (1880–1953) war, nachdem er auch das Flora-Theater betrieben hatte, 1934 zu Sarrasani nach Südamerika gegangen. Da er dort keine Existenzmöglichkeit fand, kehrte er 1935 nach Deutschland zurück, wo er kurzfristig in einem Konzentrationslager interniert wurde und anschließend emigrierte. Ludwig Friedländer (1877–1953) hatte die Produktion auf den modernen Offsetdruck umgestellt und konnte mit dem Chefzeichner Wilhelm Eigener (1904–1982) die Druckerei insbesondere in der Titelblatt- und Tierillustration weiterführen. Als „Devisenbringer“ wurde die Druckerei nach 1933 noch knapp zwei Jahre von der nationalsozialistischen Regierung geduldet; das traditionelle Friedländer- Druckersignet, ein herzförmiges Blatt mit gezacktem Rand, hieß nun die „Judenkirsche“. 1935 erschien das letzte Plakat der Firma Friedländer mit der Nummer 9078; 1938 wurde der Betrieb endgültig geschlossen.

My understanding is that this says the business was allowed to continue by the Nazi regime because it was a Devisenbringer only for two more years after 1933, and was shut down in 1935. But then it seems to say it was finally closed in 1938. Maybe the last part is about the physical building? Anyway, I don't know how to reconcile the contradiction I see between the shutting down two years after 1933, in 1935, and the final closing in 1938.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 18:12, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

The text says that the firm produced its last placard (and presumably its last print job) in 1935 and that the business was permanently closed in 1938. This suggests that the business remained on the books as a shadow entity after it ceased production in 1935. Possibly royalties it received were used to pay off creditors during this period, or physical assets such as printing presses or real property may have been sold off, though the text does not elaborate on the intervening years. The permanent closing in 1938 may have been a merely administrative and/or bureaucratic act. Marco polo (talk) 18:27, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks again Marco. Having read other sources that just say the business ended in 1935, and given the ambiguity, I am going to remove the material on 1938 and state something like that its last printing occurred in 1935.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:39, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

The German article on Wilhelm Eigener, the graphic artist, states that he was working as a designer with Friedländer until 1938. It is possible that the printers produced placards / posters only until 1935, after which they may have switched to different print products. Maybe a note on the German page can clarify the matter. --Incognito.ergo.possum (talk) 13:12, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Spastic

Does the word spastic come from the word spasm?--92.25.106.108 (talk) 20:10, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes. —Akrabbim^talk 20:58, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

It used to be the layman's term for a person who has Cerebral palsy or a similar condition, in which the sufferer's muscles are in uncontrolled tension or spasm. See also Spastic. Alansplodge (talk) 14:04, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

The Theory of Evolution -- "believe" or "accept" or "support" or "does reject" or "prove"?

In Science, I am unsure how to describe agreement when one finds evidence that supports the theory of evolution. Is it correct to say "I believe in Darwin's theory of evolution, because I have evidence it does", or "I accept Darwin's theory of evolution because of this evidence", or "This evidence suggests that it supports that natural selection is occurring among the population", or "This evidence does reject the null hypothesis that evolution is not occurring among the population; therefore, the population of the species is indeed evolving due to selective pressures to fit in its surroundings", or "This evidence is proof that evolution exists, that species can evolve, and there is no counter-evidence to deny this claim"? I have been told that I should not use the word "proof" or "belief" and should use alternative terms, "support" or "does reject". Should I use the term, "accept"? Does the term "accept" give any connotations of a dogmatic, unscientific belief that cannot ever be changed or questioned or doubted despite the overwhelming evidence that really favors it? I hope to write in a manner that refrains from talking like a dogmatic scientist who is close-minded to the possibility of evolution not occurring, despite the overwhelming evidence says it does. 164.107.189.253 (talk) 20:20, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Evidence supports the theory of evolution, which is why scientists accept it. Science never proves anything, and in a strict mathematical sense does not even disprove anything. It is based on induction, i.e. generalization, which is not logically sound ("in Scotland there is at least one sheep that looks black on one side", not "in Scotland all sheep are black" (in the strict sense, not even the first claim is "proven" by an observation - maybe you've had a small stroke that changed your color perception, or maybe the master programmer running the World Simulator had a joke on you)). What science delivers is a series of increasingly better models of the world that allow us to make and test predictions about it. The more predictive power a model has, and the more of its predictions have come true, the stronger the trust in the theory. However, that trust is always provisional. Almost all of our scientific theories are almost certainly wrong - even the most successful ones like general relativity and quantum dynamics. However, they are typically not wrong in the obvious "they are useless" manner, but rather in subtle details and very unusual situations. Even Newtons theory of gravity, while strictly wrong, is good enough for nearly all everyday situations. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:50, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

So, the most incorrect statement that I can make is "I believe in the theory of evolution" or "I have faith in this theory". Those two statements would imply something untrue, right? 164.107.189.253 (talk) 21:46, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I think you might get some benefit from http://www.notjustatheory.com/ and our article Evolution as fact and theory.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 21:50, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

This article says, Faith is confidence or trust in a person or thing, or a belief that is not based on proof." So, maybe I can say, "I have faith in this theory," after all, due to the evidence. Thanks! 164.107.189.253 (talk) 21:55, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Compare wikt:believe with wikt:believe in. To say that you "believe in evolution" is not really scientific, though it might come up in a dispute against people with a conflicting religious belief. It is proper to say that you "believe the theory of evolution" or "believe that evolution is the correct explanation" within the normal context of scientific opinion. IMHO. Wnt (talk) 00:34, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Another way to say it would be, "I believe in science, and I accept evolutionary theory." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:25, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

A better way to say it is "I believe in my senses, but I cannot absolutely prove that they are correct". Ultimately, there is no way to "prove" anything, even that your own experiences are trustworthy. Can you prove to yourself that your entire experience is not an elaborate hallucination? Not really. So, at some level you need to trust what your senses are telling you, not because you can prove that they are correct, but because you cannot operate in the world under the assumption that you can't trust your senses. You also have to trust other people's senses and what they tell them; there's no way that you can contain all of human knowledge in your head, so at some point you have to trust that other people aren't all lying to you 100% of the time, even if you have no absolute proof that they are not. There is no absolute proof of anything, there is just an acceptable level of evidence. As stated above, science develops models that make predictions about how the world should work; as long as those predictions are correct, we go with that model. The theory of evolution is accepted because it works, it is a productive theory insofar as it makes predictions about the world that come true. All models are wrong, some are useful. --Jayron32 05:37, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually I don't like "accept" so much, because it makes it sound like you have some arbitrary choice to accept or reject, whereas the scientific perspective is simply that you want to know whether something is true or false and once that's out of the way your reaction is obvious. Of course, every now and then people break with a purely scientific perspective for one reason or another. I would use it in certain instances, e.g. that Einstein didn't accept probabilistic interpretations of quantum mechanics, to highlight the difference between someone seeing what appears to be sufficient evidence versus being philosophically unwilling to believe it. Wnt (talk) 14:12, 3 December 2011 (UTC)