Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 July 12

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July 12

"Wikipedia is bias"

Allegations of bias are part of my life here at Wikipedia, but I get the distinct impression that more and more I'm seeing comments like the above, where clearly "Wikipedia is biased" is what is meant. I get "HiLo is bias". I see "The article on XXXXX is bias". To me it's just poor English. Is it acceptable anywhere? (Of course, when someone condemning me can't use correct grammar, it tends to simply strengthen my resolve.) HiLo48 (talk) 03:43, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

See User:Wavelength/About English/D-dropping.

—Wavelength (talk) 03:46, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Wow, you have been busy! Want to add "bias" to that page? Maybe you need a section on adjectives. HiLo48 (talk) 03:51, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

I could probably add many others also, but the existing ones are sufficient for now.

—Wavelength (talk) 04:00, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

In the same semantic range, I also often hear "prejudice" in place of "prejudiced". I'm not 100% sure, but I think I've even heard "he's a prejudist", where "prejudiced" has been reinterpreted as a noun containing the suffix -ist. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 05:35, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

What bothers me about "bias" as an adjective is that it's being used so much now that I suspect dictionaries will list it as normal in 20 years time. I accept that language evolves. I just wish it wouldn't evolve through ignorance. HiLo48 (talk) 05:52, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Then again, ignorance is bliss. Not blissful. Makes sense if they're using it like that, to say bias is a fundamental part of an encyclopedia anyone can edit. But no. They're probably just spelling the adjective wrong. InedibleHulk (talk) 06:10, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

And pedants are annoy... --Jayron32 18:39, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

"P3dantz R Annoy" [insert cat photo here], instant meme! - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 11:19, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Go to war with them, and find peace. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:12, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Here's a sighting from 1994. -- BenRG (talk) 20:59, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Complete with followup comments ridiculing its usage. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:02, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Another usual suspect is "So-and-so is a renown artist". Or even "reknown". Sometimes "reknowned". All ugh. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 10:20, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

"Sloppy spelling si teh Ugh" ? - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 11:19, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Well at least they didn't say "Wiki is bias". I am not sure why but I'm seeing Wiki used in this way much, much more often lately. Nails on a chalkboard.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:10, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, rubs off on the Mega Man Knowledge Base. Robots either have the points or don't. Not a lot of room for interpretation there, though calling Wood Man "very unique" isn't cool. When I was a younger Grammar Nazi, I'd spell "reknowned" myself. At least it was logical. Can't be renowned without people knowing you. No excuse for "Wiki" and "renown artist". InedibleHulk (talk) 23:15, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Did you think the stressed syllable was spoken like "noun", or like "known"? If the latter, where did you acquire that pronunciation from (if you didn't make it up)? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:21, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Sounded like "noun", but figured it was just one of those things, like how "demonstrable" isn't like "demonstrate" or "able". As for the Wiki thing, it confused someone just today at the Wikipedia help desk (3.10). Not to be confused with Wikipedia's help desk. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:50, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Ain't nuffin new. Lingistic change often trickles up from the ignorant. In this case English is becoming more like Chinese, with more interchangeable parts of speech. For decades now, any noun can be verbed, and nowadays we have this fun thing with adjectived nouns. Jim.henderson (talk) 12:13, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

"Adjective noun is adjective" ? - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 11:19, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

How long ago was the "car park" invented? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:42, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

You and me, we go to a café. And there I say: "I'm a beer, how about you?" This wouldn't be so surprising if, say, I were a lower-intermediate learner of English whose first language was Japanese. Reason being, the copula within "I'm" is translated directly and a little inaccurately from the (optional) Japanese copula da, whose ascriptive use differs from the ascriptive use within English of BE. I've no particular reason to think that Japanese is unusual here: I wouldn't be surprised to learn that "[X] is [Y]" (where the correct English would be something like "[Y] is right for [X]", "[X] is marked by [Y]" or similar) were a direct if inaccurate translation from other languages too. (NB I haven't looked at the contexts, which may all be of English as a first language.) ¶ A very odd statement above: I accept that language evolves. I just wish it wouldn't evolve through ignorance. A language normally evolves via inaccurate/different first language acquisition. If "ignorance" includes the unschooled, then (as infants are unschooled) you could say that languages normally evolve through ignorance. Although the debasement of English is a staple within blather by "language mavens", I haven't read any convincing argument that English is becoming or has become debased. So there's nothing to worry about. -- Hoary (talk) 11:51, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Names of Germany

This has been bothering me since my grade school days. Why is Germany named so differently in different languages? It's "Deutschland" in German, "Germany" in English, "Saksa" in Finnish, "Alemagne" in French and "Nemetország" in Hungarian. None of those are like each other at all. JIP | Talk 06:38, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

There is the article "Names of Germany", which lists six main groups of names according to their origin, plus a few other names that don't belong to any group. As for why, the lead of that article states: "Because of Germany's geographic position in the centre of Europe, as well as its long history as a non-united region of distinct tribes and states, there are many widely varying names of Germany in different languages, perhaps more so than for any other European nation". --Theurgist (talk) 06:52, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

See also the article "Exonym and endonym".    → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 09:07, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

See also: Hesse, which is not mentioned in Names of Germany. It doesn't seem to be the origin of any official name for Germany, in spite of the Hessian (soldiers), but it gave Hassium its name. A questionable honor, since hassium is unbelievably dense. - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 11:38, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Is this sentence correct?

The introduction of Golden Age of Porn ends with:

"The contrast of video porn with the film era's relatively high production values led to the days of theatrical released pornography film being dubbed the adult industry's golden age."

Is this sentence correct? I think there is missing something like "... being dubbed [and ended] the adult industry's golden age." ?! --KnightMove (talk) 08:33, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

You've mistaken "dubbed" for an intransitive verb, but here it's a transitive verb meaning "named", as in "The king dubbed him Sir Lancelot."

It's an ugly sentence, but the only actual errors are that (1) "theatrical" should have an "ly" on the end and (2) "pornography film" should be "pornographic film" or "pornographic films" or "pornography on film" or "film pornography". The reason it's ugly is that the long phrase "the days of theatrical released pornography film" simply refers to the same thing as short phrase "the film era" earlier in the sentence. It's more natural to put the long version first and use a short version to refer back to it—or to use a pronoun or, in this case, "the latter". "The contrast of video porn with the film era's relatively high production values led to the latter being dubbed the adult industry's golden age." --50.100.189.160 (talk) 09:42, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

From a pedantic perspective, "being" is a gerund in the sentence, so it strictly should be "pornographic film's being dubbed". However, I wouldn't regard this change as essential. Tevildo (talk) 11:37, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

• That claim is disputed. I say the original version is better. --50.100.189.160 (talk) 19:37, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you two. It seems I have mistaken "dubbed" for "dropped", at least I assumed a meaning like that. Please check my change of the sentence. --KnightMove (talk) 17:40, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

It still has "pornography film" - any of 50.100's suggestions would be OK, with my preference for "pornography on film". Incidentally, I would replace "gratuitous" in the previous sentence with "graphic" or "explicit" or something similar. "Gratuitous" means (literally) "free" and (figuratively) "unnecessary", neither of which is intended here. Tevildo (talk) 18:53, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Well, golden age porn was graphic and explizit as well. I interpreted the meaning as "arbitrary" - no scripts that deserve the name, no plot, no consistency, no remarkable individual porn, all the same **** ?! --KnightMove (talk) 07:25, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

OK, how about "uncreative", "formulaic", "pedestrian", "stereotyped"? Or you could expand it as you have above - "quickly reverted to being extremely low budget, with no meaningful scripts, no plots, no consistency, and no remarkable individual performances." Is the sentence derived from the reference (Lehman)? If so, what's his original wording? Tevildo (talk) 08:00, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Your enumerated "actual errors" aren't necessarily errors at all. See flat adverb (and reference) and noun adjunct . That said, I would agree that "theatrically released pornographic films" does sound better. -- 160.129.138.186 (talk) 19:04, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Ok, done. --KnightMove (talk) 14:33, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Seems to me the misreading probably lies in attaching dubbed to film (as, to be fair, it often is) rather than to days. —Tamfang (talk) 05:01, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Highly Irregular Languages?

Hi.

Are they any highly irregular languages which use different words rather than affixes or changes in spelling to show plurality of nouns or changes in tense, etc.?

example Ik nash (man sing) dos deek (men sang)

Prsaucer1958 (talk) 22:41, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Not a direct answer, but the article on suppletion might interest you. It highlights Ancient Greek's suppletive verbs more than once. ---Sluzzelin talk 22:51, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Even in English we have "A person goes" vs. "People went". —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:57, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

• I have read descriptions of the Navajo language and Georgian language that describe their verbs as so complex that they basically don't have regular forms. I don't know enough about either to form a judgment, but the examples sure are scary. μηδείς (talk) 01:02, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

You can find some ideas at http://www.omniglot.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=207.

—Wavelength (talk) 20:39, 13 July 2014 (UTC)