Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 November 30

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November 30

definition of standing agreement

"shall create and execute a standing agreement regarding Non-Disclosure and Confidentiality requirements and shall execute specific agreements regarding confidentiality as required on a case by case basis"

Does standing agreement mean something similar to standing offer? As you terms that are already agreed to and so the agreement is ready for acceptance when the need arises? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cliffbament (talk • contribs) 03:58, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it is an open-ended agreement that applies when the conditions are met and until other arrangements are made. My neighbor and I have a standing agreement to look after each-other's property, mail and trash when the other is away travelling. I would be surprised if an on line dictionary didn't cover this, did you try any? μηδείς (talk) 04:54, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

There's no wiktionary entry. Cliffbament (talk) 07:06, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure standing agreement is a term of art. (It doesn't appear in Black's Law Dictionary, for instance.) You should look at the rest of the agreement to see if there is an interpretation clause setting out the definitions of terms used in the contract. Note that nothing mentioned here can or should be construed as legal advice of any sort. — SMUconlaw (talk) 11:43, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

American English exercise

Two questions concerning a course in American English (the native language of the teacher is British English):

1. In a test, you have to fill in the right word in the following sentence:

"The secretary typed up the monthly report in time but it is ..... not correct."

Possibly correct options are still and yet. Our teacher claims still to be the right answer, as with yet the word order would be incorrect. I believe the sentence only to make sense with yet it and ask for feedback.

2. Please look at the following sentence:

"This lady has joined a growing number of professional women in Japan are forking out $1000 to $50,000 a night for male companionship."

I think that a "who" is missing after "Japan" and that the sentence is plain incorrect (or is it plainly incorrect?) this way. Our teacher said that American English is a fast language, omitting the "who". Is that correct (of course, omitting the "are" also works)? --KnightMove (talk) 07:09, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Your teacher is right in the first case, and wrong in the second. Actually, you'll hear "that" more often than "who" in American English, though both are correct in this case. Or, as you point out, the version without "are". Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 07:49, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

If your teacher told you that the second sentence is correct as-is, I would advise you to find another teacher. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 08:31, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

And ask yourself why you are taking a course in American English that is not taught by an American native speaker. I'm a native American teacher with a lot of experience with British English, but I would never take it upon myself to tech a course in British English. Also, ask yourself why you're taking a course in "American English" in the first place. If you're not at proficiency level, the differences between the two standard forms of the language are of relatively minor significance, especially in the written form of the language. Foreign learners often grossly over-estimate the differences. All you really need to know is not to ask Americans for "rubbers" or "fags", and to pronounce "can't" the American way, even when in Britain. Otherwise, there is no possibility of serious misunderstanding. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 08:53, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

(squash)Actually, it's not an American English course. It's a B2/C1 English training course, and the teacher is mixing teaching material from both English varieties (not in a very logical way, I'm afraid). However, both sentences above were from American English sources. --KnightMove (talk) 09:52, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

What's the British way to pronounce "can't" ? "Cannot" ? StuRat (talk) 09:09, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Depending on whether you prefer near-open front unrounded vowels or open back unrounded vowels for that word, it could sound like something naughty. I've heard college students snicker at the name Kant, for example... Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 09:14, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

With an "ah" sound. Like American "font". If you don't get the sound EXACTLY right, it can come out as a word you shouldn't utter in polite company. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 09:17, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Most learners of exclusively non-American English learn "can't" with a long "ah" and "cunt" with a short "uh", and confusion is rare because the first word is one of the first words you learn, whereas the latter belongs in the "advanced idiomatic" part of the course. What I am saying is, if you learn English with a non-American pronunciation, then because you learn "can't" first by a long margin, there isn't an urge to modify your pronuinciation of "can't" to avoid confusion with "cunt" when you learn the second word; if anything, the tendency would be to make sure you pronounce the second word precisely to avoid confusion with the first. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:04, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

One that even gets some native English from the South is never shorten couldn't even further to cou'nt in the North of England, even in fast speech! -- Q Chris (talk) 18:35, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the teacher is correct on the first one and incorrect on the 2nd. Another way to fix the 2nd is to change "are" to "in". StuRat (talk) 09:09, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

KnightMove -- I think that "not yet" will occur much more frequently than "yet not" in almost any variety of English. "Yet not" is equivalent to "but not", and is not a time indicator. AnonMoos (talk) 09:07, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks - this helps a lot in understanding subtleties around "yet"! --KnightMove (talk) 09:52, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

For the first one, the sentence is actually correct as it stands (minus the ellipsis of course). However, do you want to convey a different meaning? If you want to say "the report is not correct despite the secretary typing it up", then the word to use is "still". I can't think of a sense in which "yet" would be correct in this example. For the second one, the "who" is required. --TammyMoet (talk) 09:35, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

My interpretation was the following:

• Still not correct implies there was a process going on which should have perfected it. "To type up" something usually means not to change it in any way and is usually not interpreted in this way. Furthermore, "in time" puts an emphasis on something completely different. So I think the sentence wants to express, in other words:
• "The report was typed up in time. There is no problem with the duteousness of our secretary. But unfortunately and unforeseenly, she has made mistakes. So we are sorry that as of now, we are not able to deliver a correct, useful report."

And I think that this "as of now" has to be replaced with yet, not with still, however I accept that AnonMoos is right, for this purpose it has to be written in another place. With still, the sentence says, from my point of view:

• "The secretary was instructed to finalize the report, which posed a notable problem for us, however she failed and it is still not correct."

But this seems quite implausible (I can hardly imagine such a context), and then it would hardly make sense to add the "in time" and change the emphasis of the entire sentence.

I ask for feedback to this thinking. --KnightMove (talk) 10:09, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

"It is not yet correct" or "it is not correct yet" makes just as much or as little sense as "it is still not correct" - "it is not yet correct" or "it is not correct yet" implies some on-going process whereby the report will automatically become correct, like the way wet ink becomes dry, which is not the case here. If I want to say "it has not yet been corrected", that's what I would say. "Is correct", in this context, would not mean the same as "has been corrected". I think "still" is fine if the choice is only between "yet" and "still".

The situation where "it is still not correct" would make sense would be where "typing up" in the context carries the connotation that the secretary would also fix up errors. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:02, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Well. I believe that without any addition, the sentence would put an emphasis on the fact that the secretary has made mistakes. (Like some superior says "She's dutiful, but not sufficiently competent.") With "yet" I would assume that it puts an emphasis on the fact that no correct report is available at the time given, without any further implication. Wrong? --KnightMove (talk) 11:59, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

"But it is not yet correct" makes it sound like the report is in some kind of automatic process by which it would become correct, which may be true in context but acontextually makes just as much or as little sense as "it is still not correct"; put another way, this context would be just as likely or unlikely as the scenario where the secretary would have been expected to proofread or correct it, which would make "still" correct. If I want to say that no correct report is available at the present time using an analogous form of words, I would say "The secretary typed up the monthly report in time but it has not been corrected yet." It is simply not idiomatic English to say "the report is not correct" if you want to indicate "no correct version is available".

"Correct" does not mean the same as "corrected" the way "dry" might mean the same as "dried" in this context. In fact, in speech, you could even say "but the report is not corrected yet", but that is still not the same as "but the report is not correct yet". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 17:03, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm a BritE speaker, but I'm boggled that "but it is yet not correct" is chosen by anybody as the preferable form. To me, placing "yet" there before "not" is almost impossible: only in a very mannered, old-fashioned way of speaking, with the meaning of "nevertheless". For me the only possible answer to the question as posed is "still"; "yet" would work after "not", but not before it. --ColinFine (talk) 14:10, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree that you should not trust a native speaker of British English to know what is or is not correct in American English, and vice versa. The only exception might be a linguist who has spent several years in the other country and whose specialty is the other country's idiom. I, too, am an American English speaker who is somewhat familiar with British English. I have actually worked in the UK—for two short periods, once as an editor, no less—but I would not presume to teach British English. Marco polo (talk) 15:47, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm a BrEng native speaker with reasonable knowledge of AmEng. I don't think there's a so-called 'pond difference' in either of these cases. In the first case the teacher is right, whatever dialect you speak, and in the second he's wrong. I would add that "and yet it is not" in place of "but it is not" would be grammatical, and more or less equivalent in meaning. 'Yet' means almost the same as 'but' when it's used as a co-ordinating conjunction, but has a meaning more like 'still', 'already', or 'by now' when used as an adverb of time. And I concur with the earlier posters that the second sentence needs 'who' or 'that', or else could lose 'are'. AlexTiefling (talk) 18:14, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

• I agree with AnonMoos and ColinFine above that "yet not" doesn't mean the same thing as "not yet". The first yet means "nevertheless", the second means "up to and including now". μηδείς (talk) 18:19, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

@ Tammy-- you could say "The secretary typed up the monthly report in time but it is yet not correct" meaning it is nevertheless incorrect. It would be rare and a bit stilted, ("yet it is not correct" would be the natural way to say it) but if said out-loud with the proper emphasis it will be understood. μηδείς (talk) 18:24, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

While "it is yet not correct" is barely comprehensible to a modern English speaker, it is not standard British or American English. An English-language learner should avoid nonstandard usages even if they are (barely) comprehensible. Marco polo (talk) 20:16, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Oh, yeah, totally unrecommended. Olivier could have pulled it off. μηδείς (talk) 20:19, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks to all. One last question for ColinFine: Why are you boggled about this? I guess, different meanings of yet depending on word order are rather a subtelty of English language, so is it so astonishing that an English learner does not understand them at once? --KnightMove (talk) 16:37, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, it is a matter of experience. I would agree with everyone here that "still" would be used at the end of that long sentence. However, in a short sentence, it would probably make no difference and just be a matter of emphasis: "It is yet not correct." or "It is not correct yet." or "It is not yet correct." All work. (Even, "And yet, it is not correct.") Good luck. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:43, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

"It is yet not correct" could be an outlier. If I ever spoke that sentence, I would mean it to mean "It is, however, not correct" or "It is, nevertheless, not correct", and I would punctuate it accordingly in writing, e.g. "I admit that what you say seems to make a lot of sense. It is, yet, not correct". I can't imagine a circumstance under which I'd ever write the version without commas, because I'd never use it to mean "It is not correct yet". -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:20, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Is it possible that a journal essay is made without footnotes?

I was looking for open access journal articles and I have found this 8 page essay which has no end notes or footnotes instead it only has one statement written under the article body saying something about professorship. Anyway can a journal article be without this end notes?

This a part of the essay;

Indeed, perhaps this law of motion is just a single manifestation of a greater law: things will go as they will go unless interfered with. When things are running straight and steady, so to speak, the best thing to

* Professor of philosophy, King’s College, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania 18711, USA. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joshua Atienza (talk • contribs) 12:48, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Short journal articles which are editorials or opinion pieces sometimes lack footnotes or endnotes. — SMUconlaw (talk) 13:17, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

English

"Shortly after midnight, police officers completed the three pages of minutes of the interrogation."

Is the above sentece correct? Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritzl_case — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.224.66.230 (talk) 16:27, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it is correct, but note that the word 'minute' does not refer to a time period, but to "a (usually formal) written record of a meeting." (wiktionary definition 4) - Lindert (talk) 16:34, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

It is a bit clumsy, though. I would recast it along the lines of "police officers completed the minutes of the interrogation, which ran to three pages." --Viennese Waltz 16:47, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree that it's clumsy:

1) "Midnight" makes us think of time, and thus, when we hit the word "minutes", we think of the unit of time. Reversing the order would avoid this problem: "Police officers completed the three pages of minutes, of the interrogation, shortly after midnight".

2) I'd avoid the double "of"s by changing the last one to "summarizing the interrogation results": "Police officers completed the three pages of minutes, summarizing the interrogation results, shortly after midnight".

3) The word "minutes" is normally used for meetings, not interrogations, so perhaps a better word would be "report": "Police officers completed the three page report, summarizing the interrogation results, shortly after midnight".

4) Of course, having excised the word "minutes", we can now put it back in the original order: "Shortly after midnight, police officers completed the three page report, summarizing the interrogation results".

StuRat (talk) 18:16, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Read in context, it seems to be getting into an irrelevant level of detail. The only purpose of mentioning the time is to explain why Fritzl was not charged till the following day: it took the police two hours to question Elisabeth. Obviously, they'd have been taking notes during such an interrogation, so that doesn't need to be mentioned. The fact that it was three pages of notes is mindlessly trivial. So, I'd change

• Shortly after midnight, police officers completed the three pages of minutes of the interrogation, to
• Police officers completed the interrogation shortly after midnight. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 18:19, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the length of the report is trivial, but the difference between completing the interrogation after midnight, versus the report, is not. Interrogating people past midnight might introduce concerns that the info was coerced. If the interrogation was completed earlier, but it then took some time to clean up the handwritten notes and/or transcribe audio recordings and type up a report, that would make the jury happier. StuRat (talk) 18:26, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Mongolian Wikipedia

Whom to concern it, Dear Mr. / Mss I am happy to use and read Wikipedia encyclopedia for science and history. However Mongolian translation has not in Wikipedia encyclopedia. Because of this necessary reason, we need help to translate read Wikipedia encyclopedia in Mongolian language.

 Could you please, pay attaention on  this problems.

I hope your help to us, immediately. If you immediately set English to Mongolian programs on your websites, it will help to Mongolian whole country's all population even do all teenagers and students. In that reason, I spend time and beg you for over problems, for our all human development, all population, and education of all teenagers, people and business process. I absolutely hope you to help, set send that programs on Wikipedia encyclopedia for us and our country for our human, education and business development.

Thank your heartily attention to my e-mail. I am really appreciating you.

Best regards,

Doctor, Leader of Science Tsolmon — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.0.128.29 (talk) 16:29, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

If you are asking for a Mongolian version of Wikipedia, that already exists: see Mongolian Wikipedia. You seem to refer to programs that translate English articles to Mongolian. Such software may already exist and can be used by individual users, but Wikipedia as a project generally does not use software-translated materials, because those tend to be inaccurate. Anyway, it would be more effective (if you are a speaker of Mongolian) to discuss these matters on the Mongolian Wikipedia. - Lindert (talk) 16:50, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Also, Simple English Wikipedia may be of interest. --Viennese Waltz 16:52, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Looking for correct idiom and its origin

I just came upon a colleague at work, with five different kinds of highlighters, making some kind of elaborate color-coded organization chart on a piece of paper and I said jokingly "what is this black magic?" I know there's an expression like this but I don't think that's quite it and I also want to know where it's from, if traceable. "What is this voodoo/witchcraft/...?" Just can't remember the exact phrase or where I picked it up from even though it tripped right off my tongue!--108.27.62.131 (talk) 20:58, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

"What kind of hocus pocus is this?" perhaps? Clarityfiend (talk) 22:29, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

There's also a difference in possible phrasing. Are you looking for something like "What is this voodoo?" or something like "What is this, voodoo?" μηδείς (talk) 22:47, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

The use of expressions of the form "What _____ is this?" (often expressive of surprise or astonishment) seems to be quite popular these days. "What sorcery is this?" and "What witchery is this?" both get plenty of Google hits, and not too long ago we had a question here about "What mockery is this?" Deor (talk) 22:57, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm fond of "What fresh hell is this?" Dorothy Parker. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 06:04, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

• "What witchery is this?" μηδείς (talk) 19:44, 5 December 2012 (UTC)