Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 April 26

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April 26

Permissive plus preposition

I've googled and can't find a good answer to this, hope you can help.

In the sentence "the conditions used were not permissive to circadian rhythms" (I know it sounds awful); is the construction "permissive to" OK, or would another preposition be better?

Cheers,

Aaadddaaammm (talk) 15:34, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

The construction is not incorrect grammatically, but as you recognize, it is awkward. It is also unclear. Instead of "were not permissive to", I would use a verb such as "did not accommodate" or—depending on the meaning you want to communicate—"disrupted". Marco polo (talk) 16:04, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Agree with Marco. Use "permit" as a verb instead of as an adjective: "did not permit".Even with the change, though, it is difficult to figure out what the senstence is supposed to mean. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 16:08, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

(ec) If you feel compelled to keep the jargonic construction, it seems that "permissive for" is a little more popular nowadays. Lesgles (talk) 16:14, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

If you add "permissive of" to that Ngrams search, that would seem to be perhaps more common than either. The question is, Which, if any, is used in the particular construction that the OP has in mind? (Like Dominus Vobisdu, I'm having trouble figuring out the intended meaning of the expression.) Deor (talk) 16:26, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

See wikt:conducive.—Wavelength (talk) 16:11, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

• I would use "compatible" here -- "the conditions were not compatible with circadian rhythms". However a much better solution is to say what you actually mean, e.g., "lesioning the SCN completely abolished circadian rhythms". In other words, avoid vague words like "conditions" and "permissive"; replace them with nouns and verbs that are more meaningful. Looie496 (talk) 16:46, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

If you want to keep the word permissive the usual wording would be "permissive of", not "permissive to". Googling "permissive of" verbatim shows plenty of examples of this sense. "Googling "permissive to" shows phrases like "change from permissive to restrictive" but none in the sense used above. Of course it is bad scientese in any case, and I'd follow the advice the other editors have given. μηδείς (talk) 17:19, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

It almost seems that the author was looking for "conducive to" but could only remember the "sive" suffix of the word at the time.165.212.189.187 (talk) 17:53, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Or they originally used conducive but changed it to avoid the sort-of awkward phrase "conditions were not conducive"165.212.189.187 (talk) 19:47, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks everyone, I went with "not compatible with" in the end. Aaadddaaammm (talk) 09:25, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Urdu qāf transliterated as qu

I have noticed in a few words, e.g. Muhammad Ali Jinnah's title Quaid-i-Azam (قائد اعظم‎) and the name Quader, that Urdu ق is transliterated as qu. Is there a phonetic reason for this, or is it maybe just the result of the English reluctance to have a q without a following u? Lesgles (talk) 16:22, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Category:Urdu romanization might be helpful.—Wavelength (talk) 16:28, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Neither of the articles Wavelength links to shows qaf as qu, and I have seen the name Qader before, but not Quader. μηδείς (talk) 17:13, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

I actually saw Quader in our article Uddin and Begum Urdu-Hindustani Romanization; it seems that one of the creators did not follow his own romanization! I also found Abdul Quader Molla and Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury, though they are Bangladeshi. Lesgles (talk) 20:45, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, there were what, 20 romanizations of Qaddhafi's name while he was alive? ... μηδείς (talk) 00:14, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Our footnote says: ... Gaddafi's name has been romanized in various different ways [sic; as opposed to various identical ways]. A 1986 column by The Straight Dope lists 32 spellings known from the U.S. Library of Congress, while ABC and MSNBC identified 112 possible spellings. A 2007 interview with Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi confirms that he used the spelling "Qadhafi", and Muammar's official passport used the spelling "Al-Gathafi". -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 00:54, 28 April 2013 (UTC)