Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 November 14

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November 14

Glottal stops in Canadian indigenous languages

Please see the discussion at Talk:Sahoyúé-§ehdacho, the talk page of an article linked from the main page. Personally, I've seen the glottal stop represented as its specific symbol ʔ and, due to the visual resemblance, as a question mark ? or as the number seven 7, but I don't think I've ever seen it represented as a paragraph symbol §. Could you elaborate? --Theurgist (talk) 15:33, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Edit: Actually, it does seem to be sometimes represented as §, looking at the sources cited. --Theurgist (talk) 15:45, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Why are mini-organizations within a church called "ministries"?

Does this occur in all churches, or does this only occur in churches where there is no sharp divide between the clergy and laity? 140.254.229.115 (talk) 15:59, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Certainly not in every church (there is almost nothing that is in every church). But the older meaning of minister is "attend to the needs of (someone)", not to be a leader of a church. Rmhermen (talk) 16:20, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Etymonline has the etymology of minister at http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=minister&allowed_in_frame=0, and that of master at http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=master&allowed_in_frame=0.

—Wavelength (talk) 16:46, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

It certainly happens in churches with a separation between clergy in laity. The Catholic church has many lay ministries. I was a usher in my church, which was referred to there as a minister of hospitality. It wasn't meaningless; we were among other things there to assist the infirm to ease access to the other ministries. Mingmingla (talk) 19:39, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Just to be contrary, in the Church of England, a team of priests ministering to several parishes is called a Team ministry [1], which we don't seem to have an article about. Alansplodge (talk) 08:33, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

We can search for the word ministries in a Bible concordance. The one at http://biblesuite.com/bible.htm searches many versions simultaneously. At http://biblez.com/searchtopical.php?q=ministries, the top of the right-hand column has a link to http://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/12-5.htm. The practice described in the opening question (in the heading) might be a result of a particular interpretation of 1 Corinthians 12:5, which says (in part) "there are varieties of ministries", according to the New American Standard Bible.

(Incidentally, I propose the heading "Ministries" in churches as being adequately brief and adequately informative. The question in the present heading—Why are mini-organizations within a church called "ministries"?—can be in the discussion itself, along with the other question.)

—Wavelength (talk) 20:58, 14 November 2013 (UTC) and 20:05, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Russian help for File:SPB Newski house 61.jpg

How do you say "Head office of Rossiya" with Rossiya being the airline? I want to add it to File:SPB Newski house 61.jpg.

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 18:23, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I'd say "Главный офис авиакомпании Россия". — Kpalion^(talk) 20:30, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you WhisperToMe (talk) 20:37, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Definition needed for a word used in Colonial times in America

Hi! I hope you'll be able to shed some light concerning the definition of a word that I've been trying desperately to find, but have been unable to, so far. I hope you'll have better luck that I have. My search is regarding the show, "Sleepy Hollow" on FOX-TV. In several of the 7 episodes that have aired so far they show the headstone of Ichabod Crane's deceased wife. On this headstone is the phrase; "Here lies the DUFT of Katrina Crane....". I've searched on more sites I can count to learn the definition of the word, DUFT, but no one knows what it means!!! I even searched on sites that have goofy epitaphs; on sites of old cemeteries, etc. but I still don't know what DUFT means!! As you probably know "Sleepy Hollow" is set during the late 1700s, so I guess if you have access to word usage 250 years ago you might be able to solve this mystery. I wish you LOTS of good luck in your search! Gratefully, Nuts4Mutts Nuts4Mutts (talk) 21:22, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

The 'f' is almost certainly an 's' - 'dust' - as in the mortal remains. See our article on S for an explanation. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:27, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Or the article long s. Deor (talk)

Stan Freberg made fun of this quaint oddity in his "History of America" production. Ben Franklin is reading the Declaration for the first time: "When in the courfe of human eventf... Hey, all your esses look like effs!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:53, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Dirty books must have been confusing then, what with the f's looking like s's. :-) StuRat (talk) 04:34, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't think the elongated "s" was used at the starts of words, just in the middle or near the end. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:16, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

The article "Long s" says the following.

"The long, medial or descending s (ſ) is a form of the minuscule letter s formerly used where s occurred in the middle or at the beginning of a word, for example "ſinfulneſs" ("sinfulness"). The modern letterform was called the terminal, round, or short s.

It can be compared with the Greek minuscule sigma, appearing as σ in word-initial and word-medial positions, and ς in word-final positions.

—Wavelength (talk) 17:14, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

"There is a traffic commit on your route."

Sometimes, when my Navman GPS becomes aware of a traffic jam ahead, it makes the above announcement. What's a "traffic commit"? It's possible I'm mishearing it. What could it be? HiLo48 (talk) 23:29, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Must be a traffic event. This phrase comes up various times in the manual: [2] --Amble (talk) 00:48, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Can 'event' be misheard as 'commit'? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:15, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Sure doesn't sound like "event" to me. But these devices do have strange voices. HiLo48 (talk) 06:33, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Depends on the speaker (person) and the speaker (hardware), but yes, I think so. The first vowel in "event" would have to be reduced to something like /ʌ/. That's natural enough; I sometimes pronounce it that way as part of a phrase. The hard part would be V vs. M, which would have to simply be unclear in the playback. But I haven't heard this particular GPS. --Amble (talk) 06:56, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Google found me exactly one valid example of the term "traffic commit" - here. "Local Traffic Commit" appears here, but if you read further, you'll see this is a typo for "Local Traffic Committee". Clearly, "traffic commit" is not a term anyone is reasonably expected to know, and as it is never used in the GPS manual, the conclusion is clear: You're as deaf as a post. :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:11, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Wot? HiLo48 (talk) 00:18, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

My mum's TomTom GPS told her, after she had put in the address of a place six miles away, that she was already there. I wouldn't trust these things. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 08:32, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

We long ago accepted that when people come to our place for the first time, we're gonna get frantic phone calls advising us their GPS is telling them they've arrived, but they're somewhere with no houses anywhere in sight. There are some weird folks who choose to use a mysterious ancient tool called a road map, and for some reason they never, ever seem to have such a problem. We give all new guests clear and simple instructions that a child could follow, but the GPS users throw that info out the window and just plug the address into their GPS in the vain expectation this will do the job. It never does. We know this is going to happen, which is why we always explain how to get here and don't just give them the address. But does that work? Never yet. Except, as I say, for the people who don't use GPS's, and who actually follow our simple instructions. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 11:53, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Oh, there's no way I'd depend fully on my GPS. One amusing feature I found recently was when I drove to Lake Mungo. (Click on that link if you haven't heard of it. Most people find it fascinating.) Perhaps because of the name, it displayed the lake area in its usual bright blue colour for areas of water. The problem with that is that it's a dry lake bed, and has been for 17,000 years. I treat the device as a sometimes useful addition. If I avoid a traffic jam (or commit?) in my city area by just heading off my planned route onto what seems a likely side road, it can often quickly find me a good way around the problem. Still wish I knew what it was saying HiLo48 (talk) 21:02, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Jack, I bet this guy has been your guest once before, and I hope you give more comprehensible directions than this guy. Aɴɢʀ (talk) 12:32, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, and yes, Angr. It's really as incredibly simple as "Continue past the showgrounds/footy field, and we're the very first house on the right; our driveway is exactly where the speed limit changes from 80 kph to 100". That's all there is to it. Human brains can deal with this, as long as they're engaged. GPS's can't. Getting people to engage their brains is the tricky part. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:24, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Traffi c'evnt as suggested above sounds very likely. They aren't going to want to say accident, it's too controversial. Plus, if the machine has an American or East Asian accent it might be harder to interpret. μηδείς (talk) 00:33, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

No, it's an Australian voice, but it sure mutilates some street and place names. HiLo48 (talk) 00:43, 16 November 2013 (UTC)