Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 November 15

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November 15

What does it mean?

I am a Wikipedian currently active in Mandarin Chinese Wikipedia. I am now thranslating {{Writing guides}} into Chinese and I need a little help. What does "suggested" in "Suggested stages of an article" (see above) mean? I looked it up in all dictionaries I can get, but I am not sure which meaning is the one used on the template. Thank you! LikeKnowledge (talk) 04:21, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

To suggest means to put an idea forward for someone else's consideration. Here suggested means the same thing as recommended; that is, we advise the new editor to go through certain steps in creating a new article. Lesgles (talk) 05:07, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Therefore it doesn't mean "to make one suppose; cause one to suppose" (as in Her pale face suggests her poor health situation.). I see. Thank you for your explanation. LikeKnowledge (talk) 02:11, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) In this case, it means this is a good order to perform these stages, based on the experience of others. These others are, therefore, making suggestions. The sequence listed is not required, but by following it you will possibly avoid mistakes made by others, or make your work process more efficient than by going in some other order.    → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 05:13, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your explanation. LikeKnowledge (talk) 02:11, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

To suggest means "to say something you think it would be good for someone else to do". μηδείς (talk) 05:59, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. LikeKnowledge (talk) 02:11, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

It means "推荐的" or "建议的". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 13:34, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your corresponding Chinese translation. LikeKnowledge (talk) 02:11, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Allochthous, alternative and alternate, anonymously

You say 'allochthous' does not exist http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22154008 the attached scientific website discusses this - I was looking in your dictionary for a succinct definition — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.101.194.123 (talk) 11:56, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Please will you stop using the word 'alternate' when you really mean 'alternative'. Alternate is when two (or more) take things in turns; alternative is another option. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.101.194.123 ([ [User talk:2.101.194.123|talk]]) 11:57, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Allochthous would seem to be either an outright error for, or a little-used variant of, allochthonous. Deor (talk) 14:51, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

As for alternate/alternative: you are perfectly at liberty to continue using the words in that way, as I do myself. Neither you nor I have any authority to tell other people how to use their language; and I, anyway, would not try to do so. --ColinFine (talk) 17:22, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Is this writer here a dumb or a flowery writer?

I was asked by my college colleague to give my own opinions about his work.I don't like to depend solely on my own single judgement. Any way I have chosen to ask it here because this site, as I know, is trustworthy. This is not a comprehensive proofreading request. Just pick of the two options.

Here it is;

The government of any kind cannot support any tolerance of faith if that republic employs those men favoring one. Their views therefore would be inevitable to conform to their faith which will indirectly show its hostility towards religious system. Therefore this religious tolerance is only a title with no definitive substance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.205.55.231 (talk) 12:18, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

That's terrible writing. I can't even work out what the first two sentences mean, so I can't tell if the third one is actually a reasonable consequence of them or not. For example, "The government of any kind" is not natural English. "The government of any ..." is a phrase you would expect to be followed by the thing governed, eg 'country', 'state', 'church'. Does your colleague mean to say "Any kind of government cannot..."? If so, they might want to say "No kind of government can..." instead, as that's simpler and clearer. But the rest of the sentence is so muddled, they should probably start over anyway. AlexTiefling (talk) 12:38, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Reads a bit like google translate....Lectonar (talk) 12:53, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

The English is not "flowery", it's just bad. It reads like it's come out of some automated translation programme. As for the sense of it, I can just about follow the argument through the tortured English - the author is arguing that if anyone who works for a government follows a religion, it ipso facto means that that government cannot be tolerant of faith. It's been a long time since I've read such an original thought that was so ill-informed, spurious, illogical and just Wrong (capital W intentional). --Dweller (talk) 12:56, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Could be a translation from French, syntax-wise... Lectonar (talk) 13:00, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Please do not remove things unnecessarily. I have reinstated this question and its answers. AlexTiefling (talk) 13:08, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Thankyou, Alex, because many of us benefit from these sorts of discussions, at least slightly. I put this into google translate, and got the French: "Le gouvernement de tout genre ne peut supporter aucune tolérance de la foi, si cette république emploie ces hommes favorables à un. Leurs points de vue serait donc inévitable de se conformer à leur foi qui indirectement montrer son hostilité à l'égard du système religieux. Par conséquent, cette tolérance religieuse n'est qu'un titre sans substance définitif". Can anyone tell me if this is good French, or close enough? It reads very naturally to me, but I certainly can't judge the quality. I'm sure it's not quite grammatical, but it looks like it could be easily fixed. IBE (talk) 17:16, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

No, it's even less comprehensible in French than in English. It may still be the case that it was originally translated from French, but translating it back again is no good at all. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:02, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

The OP's IP geolocates to the Philippines, so it's possible his friend is from there too. It's difficult to guess what the two first sentences mean. The third is also wrong, but understandable. That's Engrish to me. OsmanRF34 (talk) 18:31, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

This whole text sounds like the writing of my co-worker. A sample of one isn't proof, but this sounds very much like the writing of a non-native English speaker trying their best to sound academic for a college paper or something. Mingmingla (talk) 23:18, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Mingmingla's assessment, and I detect some reliance on a thesaurus in a mistaken bid to make the writing more "interesting" by using (inexact) synonyms. My attempted translation of the content is "No government can truly claim to practise tolerance of faiths if it is made up of people who adhere to one particular faith. They would inevitably be influenced by their faith, which will indirectly translate to the government's hostility towards other faiths. In this case, "religious tolerance" is in name only and has no substance." Words in italics are my additions in trying to make sense of the argument here. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:55, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

That's an amazing Gibberish to English translation, PalaceGuard008. I wish I had an automatic translator able to translate any text like that. I would then understand many more web-pages. OsmanRF34 (talk) 16:49, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

IPA transcription - Norwegian

I've uploaded some files of Norwegian names and tried to transcribe them using IPA. However, I'm not very well versed in IPA, so I'm not sure whether I've got them right. Could any Norwegian-speaking linguists listen to the files and tell me whether they are roughly accurate?

I've deliberately not included the spelling because that may influence the transcription.

Thanks in advance Sam Vimes 12:51, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

People who know absolutely nothing about a language trying to phonetically transcribe it often does not give very good results... AnonMoos (talk) 01:12, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Erm, Sam didn't say he didn't know Norwegian, only that he wasn't familiar with IPA. — SMUconlaw (talk) 10:35, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. I'm a native speaker of Norwegian. I'm just hoping there's some other speakers of Norwegian around who also know their IPA. Sam Vimes 10:52, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

I was referring to his request for IPA proofreaders -- I'm not sure how much use an IPA proofreader who knows absolutely nothing about Norwegian would be... AnonMoos (talk) 10:54, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Um, this is your second faux pas in this thread: he explicitly said "Could any Norwegian-speaking linguists listen to the files [...]" No such user (talk) 12:40, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

It seems to be somewhat self-contradictory, since someone who speaks Norwegian would presumably know what the spellings are, thereby evading his goal of eliminating influence of spelling. What he really wants is someone who speaks the Norwegian language, yet is completely illiterate in written Norwegian, yet is very familiar with the IPA -- there are likely to be very few people on the planet who meet this description, and I don't think he'll find them here... AnonMoos (talk) 00:39, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Sam, while the IPA records pronunciations and not spellings, having the orthographies tends to be more helpful for doing the IPA than not, especially if a pronunciation guide for the particular language is available. --Theurgist (talk) 17:30, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm ignorant of Norwegian but I can't help noticing that the first vowel in Njatun (Njåtun?) is more like /ɔ/ than like /o/ (compare the next item); the first vowel of Fredrik is more like /ɛ/ than like /ǝ/; and in Rukke the k sounds palatalized, which the transcription here doesn't capture. Apart from those items, the ogg sounds pretty much like what I expected from the IPA. —Blue-eyed Tamfang (talk) 09:47, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm on a hotel PC without sound, so I can't hear the recordings. Nevertheless, transcribing "Hanne" as "hɑːnə" seems strange to me. The "ː" symbol indicates that the vowel preceding it is long, doesn't it? Then "hɑːnə" would be "Hane", no? And the apostrophe that indicates that the stress is on the first syllable is missing. And is "Bøkko" really pronounced "bøːˈkuː"? (I thought it would be more like 'bøku, but then I'm neither very IPA savvy nor interested in speed skating). To me, there appears to be several problems with long and short vowels and with the placement of stress ("Haugland", for instance, stress on first syllable, and the "a" in "land" is short, "Sverre", stress is correctly placed, but the "e" in the first syllable is short. The IPA matches "Svære" (big, plural)). It would have been helpful if you had included the spellings of the names! --NorwegianBlue ^talk 14:06, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

First, let me point out that your grasp of transcription is extremely poor, so poor that you have no business adding your transcriptions to articles. Please refrain from doing so in the future.

I have given phonemic transcriptions of all the names below, following the most common system for phonemically transcribing Norwegian. I have not attempted to learn the Wikipedia system for transcribing Norwegian, as it seems extremely poorly thought out and fraught with inaccuracies. Basically, it seems like someone who spoke neither Swedish nor Norwegian first invented a bad transcription system for Swedish, and then thought to themselves "hey, I think I've read somewhere that Norwegian sounds a lot like Swedish; we can probably use pretty much the same system for Norwegian".

I have followed the tradition of using the inaccurate symbols ɳ and ʈ. Please note that I have simply transcribed the pronunciations in the sound files; I do not vouch for their accuracy.

/²heːge ²bøku/

/²maːri ¹hemer/

/²hane ²hæʋgˌlan/

/²iːda ²njoːˌtʉːn/

/²hoːʋar ²holmeˌfjuːr ¹luːeɳʈsen/ – /l/ stands for /l/ with the laminal diacritic, which I couldn't input.

/¹fredrik ˌfander¹horst/

/²espen ²oːˌɳeːs ¹ʋamen/

/²sʋære ²lʉnde ¹peːdersen/ – The speaker in this sound file has another accent. In the accent of the speaker in all the other sound files, Pedersen has /ʃ/ in lieu of /rs/.

/²turmud ²bjøːɳeˌtʉːn ¹hæʋgen/

/²espen ¹tʋæit/

/kri¹stofer ²faːgeˌliː ²rʉke/

/²hoːʋar ²bøku/

85.166.47.160 (talk) 14:50, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for providing the transcriptions!

You provoked a question in my mind: Why are the traditional symbols ɳ and ʈ inaccurate? Do they misrepresent the exact articulations of those sounds? Or do those sounds need to be transcribed phonemically as /rn, rt, rnt/, etc, on the grounds of their not constituting independent phonemes? --Theurgist (talk) 10:15, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

The only characteristic of Norwegian "retroflex" consonants that is always present is that of an apical articulation. Therefore, /n/ with the apical diacritic and /t/ with the apical diacritic must be used instead of /ɳ/ and /ʈ/, but I couldn't input those. For lots more about this, search for "norwegian retroflex gram simonsen". 85.166.47.160 (talk) 12:00, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. --Theurgist (talk) 06:40, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

notional/notational

Hi, the article Syllabus explains the meaning of "notional-functional", but is "notational-functional" something different, or another term for the same thing (even though "notional" and "notational" appear to have different meanings), or just a mistake? 86.171.42.231 (talk) 18:07, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

The two words mean something very different: "notional" means "hypothetical" or "in the mind only" or "let's pretend for a minute..." or something like that. "Notational" means "written down". --Jayron32 18:23, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, but is "notational-functional" a recognised term like "notional-functional"? 86.171.42.231 (talk) 18:43, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Ah, sorry. I was only answering the linguistic question regarding the difference in meaning. --Jayron32 21:11, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Checking google, it appears to be a typo or misspelling. "notational-functional" turns up 183 results, and asks the question "Did you mean: "notional-functional"". If I change it to "notional-functional" I get 16,400 results. It's obviously a typo or misspelling. The correct term should be merely "notional-functional". If we check Google Ngrams: the graph is telling. Notional-functional exists in literature starts being used in the 1970s and peaks in the 1980s. Notational-functional is entirely unknown in print media. So, when people have proofreaders, the term simply does not exist. --Jayron32 21:16, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Right, of course I did the usual Google searches, but Book Search actually gave me about a dozen seemingly relevant hits for "notational-functional". Obviously this is far fewer than for the other version, and may be just noise or rubbish, but it was enough to make me wonder... 86.171.42.231 (talk) 00:25, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Greek newspaper research

Can someone, who reads Greek, tell me if there are reports of violence against Germans or German interests going on in Greece? (and being reported in the Greek press). OsmanRF34 (talk) 18:26, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't read Greek, but Google Translate indicates that this article documents such an incident. Marco polo (talk) 20:42, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

I saw a report in Stern to that effect. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:39, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Odd string of modifiers

I found this sentence in an undergraduate level textbook on media studies: "A knowlege of past and continued effect research is strategic, scientific and ethically important." Is it acceptable to drop the '-ally' suffix from 'strategic' and 'scientific'? Roger (talk) 20:02, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

No, it's wrong. Sorry, it's wrong if they are meant to modify "important". It is conceivable that they might be separate adjectives, but it reads awkwardly to me. "past and continued effect research" sounds odd to me too, and "knowledge" is misspelled (unless that was a transcription typo). 86.171.42.231 (talk) 20:27, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's a truly horrible sentence. Does the first bit mean "old effect research and effect research that came after it", or "research into past and continued effect(s)", or what? If strategic and scientific were meant to modify knowledge (although I don't see how they do, in context), then a comma after scientific would have removed the ambiguity, if not the ugliness. And if they weren't, then I'm going to cry. I do hope this textbook wasn't written by someone who is allowed to teach students, but it probably was. Sigh. - Karenjc 20:50, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Some clarification; "Effect research" is a noun phrase and the topic of the chapter. It has sections titled "Strategic importance", "Scientific importance" and "Ethical importance". The offending sentence is in the introduction. Roger (talk) 21:22, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

In that case the lack of "-ally" seems definitely wrong. I also wonder whether "continued" should be "continuing". 86.171.42.231 (talk) 21:38, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

"Strategic, scientific, and important ethically" would have been a better order if the author wanted to imply it was scientific and strategic but not importantly so. That is a bizarre choice of emphasis, however, so I would have used -ally thrice. Much of the worst prose I have ever read is in textbooks. μηδείς (talk) 22:18, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Samuel Kipi

Could I please get a translation of this?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 22:31, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

"Auch der Gouverneur von Hawaii, Seine Excellenz Samuel Kipi, fuhr mit uns nach Hilo, und ich wurde ihm vorgestellt. Er ist ein äusserst würdig und anständig aussehender strammer alter Herr in untadelhafter europäischer Kleidung. Aber auch er ging nicht wie wir in die Kajüte zur Tafel, sondern blieb oben auf Deck bei der Prinzessin sitzen und schmatzte mit rohen Fischen und Poi herum. Ich habe überhaupt nie einen Hawaiier auf unsere Weise essen sehen. Sie sind hierin konservativer als die Maoris, ihre nahen Verwandten."

"The governor of Hawaii, his excellency Samuel Kipi, also traveled [by ship] with us to Hilo, and I was introduced to him. He is an extremely worthy and proper-looking sturdy old gentleman in impeccable European clothing. But he, too, did not go as we did into the cabin to dine at the table, but stayed sitting above on the deck with the princess and chomped away at raw fish and poi. I haven't ever seen a Hawaiian dine in our manner. In this, they are more conservative than the Maoris, their close relatives." Marco polo (talk) 22:52, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Wouldn't an emphasized "auch" be better translated as "as well", rather than just "also"? (The governor of Hawaii, his excellency Samuel Kipi, traveled [by ship] with us to Hilo as well...) μηδείς (talk) 23:03, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

One would have to know what preceded it to be sure, but the sentence-initial auch could also be "even". Angr (talk) 00:43, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

You are both right, I missed the emphasis. In this case, it certainly isn't "even". The author has spent the last couple of paragraphs mentioning that the Hawaiian princess was on the ship and discussing her person and circumstances. He then goes on to mention Kipi. "As well" would be better than "also". Marco polo (talk) 01:51, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you very much. --KAVEBEAR (talk) 02:12, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, agreed with Angr about "even" and the need for context, and luckfully we've got Marco with the full source and answer. μηδείς (talk) 02:29, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Peeps, Weemz, Sandz etc

How did names like Pepys, Wemyss, Sandys and probably others get pronounced Peeps, Weemz, Sandz? Or, if you prefer, how did names pronounced like that get spelt like that? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 23:24, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

After I typed the above, I did some digging of my own and found this, which says Pepys is pronounced as written (Peppis) these days and that "Peeps" has become archaic, except for the diarist and the Pepys Cockerell family. That's all well and good, but the diarist is the only Pepys I've ever heard of, so there's not much chance I'll be using the modern pronunciation any time soon. There's also this, which says Wemyss is pronounced either "Weemz" or "Wimz" - but either way, the spelling would still trip up the unwary. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 23:24, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

When you finish solving your mystery, you can work on cracking the tomb-bomb-comb problem. English orthography is rarely logical or consistent. You may be able to find some antecedent reason as to what changed, but it will likely never be satisfactorily predictable or consistent. --Jayron32 00:01, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

I require you and your kind to solve the mystery. That's what you're supposedly here for, isn't it?  :) :) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 00:58, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Hurry as you comb through your tome, for Tom has a bomb, which will soon boom and put you in your tomb. StuRat (talk) 06:59, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

These spelling/pronunciation mismatches are quite a regular affectation in British (would-be) upper-class families: cf Featherstonehaugh ("fanshaw"), Cholmondeley ("chumley"), Mainwaring ("mannering"), Fiennes ("fines") and the like. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 00:46, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Sure, but these 3 seem to suggest there's a regular rule that the y of final -ys is silent, and that at least in some cases the preceding vowel is lengthened. Maybe it's too small a sample size to extrapolate with such confidence. Can anyone think of any similar names? There's Powys (surname), but it doesn't seem to quite fit the pattern. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 00:58, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

There's Glamis ("glahms"), which is of a similar pattern (though it's a place, not a surname). AndrewWTaylor (talk) 01:03, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Pure speculation here, but I suspect Pepys and the like are survivals of a late Middle English plural or genitive form (Pepe's) or perhaps a Northern form. In early modern English, the normal spelling might have been Pepes. In late Middle English, the pronunciation might have been something like /peːpɪs/, by about 1400 more like /peːpəs/, then by the reduction of schwas after long vowels /peːps/ then via the Great Vowel Shift /piːps/. If this is right, then Wemyss could have gone through the same process. Marco polo (talk) 02:02, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

I'd bet the entire pot at Jeopardy that Marco polo's got the correct answer. after spending a few minutes trying to find a source I couldn't, but it looks like Colin Fine's actually commented on the Middle English genitive elsewhere, so he may be the go-to guy on this. μηδείς (talk) 02:28, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Have I? I wonder what I said. Anyway, I was going to say something very similar to Marco Polo, except that I wasn't going to speculate about the origin of the ending. But I guess genitive or plural makes sense (compare Italian surnames in -i and Slavonic ones in -ov and variants). --ColinFine (talk) 12:12, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=middle+english+posessive+colin+fine&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 μηδείς (talk) 18:27, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, we seem to have a consensys. Thankys to Marco polo and all thosys who agreed with him.  :) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 18:50, 16 November 2012 (UTC)