Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 July 20

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July 20

or not

What tone is implied by ending a question with the phrase "or not"? Seems to me it may imply impatience or perhaps a demand for a response. --Halcatalyst (talk) 00:48, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

I think you need to give an example so we understand the context. HiLo48 (talk) 00:55, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Halcatalyst -- do you mean that "or not" at the end of a sentence becomes like a Tag question? -- AnonMoos (talk) 01:05, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

"Or not" can sometimes mean that the speaker is trying to take back whatever he just said, usually because whoever he's speaking to is reacting negatively. The implication may be that the speaker is thoughtless or self-absorbed, but there may also be an implication that the other person is a cruel, irrational meanie. A classic example:

Husband: "Honey, wouldn't you love a new toilet brush set for your birthday?"

Wife: (glowers menacingly)

Husband: "...or not."

That's not the only possibility, though. --NellieBly (talk) 02:39, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

That's the only way I hear it (at least as a two-word phrase). A form of wembling or conflict avoidance. Interchangeable with "On second thought..." or "Then again...". People (typically men on TV) who use the terms can't decide what the better idea is, just know they're wrong, somehow, and scared to guess again. Something like a tag question, without the explicit question. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:12, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

• Examples might include: "Are you coming or not?" - "Is it raining or not?" - "Do you want to dance or not?" - "Are the kids fed or not?" --Halcatalyst (talk) 03:30, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

• It's going to depend on the way it's said. You put a question mark only at the end, which to me implies that it's not said in an angry way, in which case it doesn't "imply impatience or perhaps a demand for a response".

• Add an exclamation mark, to show it's said in an angry way, and then it does.

• Adding a pause could also imply uncertainty or lack of confidence: "Do you want to dance ... or not ?".

• Another case is where something changes mid-sentence: "Shall we eat dinner now ?" (opens oven door and smoke billows out) "... or not ?" StuRat (talk) 03:39, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

In other words, the use of the phrase isn't enough to imply any particular tone. --50.100.189.160 (talk) 04:06, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

But if you read someone yell "NOT!!!" after a sentence, it's proper to imagine in Wayne and/or Garth's's tone. Far less common today than a generation ago. I wish I could yell "NOT!!!" after that, but it's true. Still pops up here and there, though. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:30, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Unless there's a special case of the sort StuRat describes above, I'd say that the normal meaning is to ask the question neutrally - it removes the expectation of a positive answer that the question might have otherwise. It also makes it explicitly a closed question (which I think is where the secondary implication of wanting an immediate answer comes from). AlexTiefling (talk) 09:26, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

interlingual communication

I’m trying to find the name of this phenomenon. Essentially, it’s when people are speaking separate languages to each other, but still comprehend each other. What is this? --66.190.99.112 (talk) 03:58, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

The closest term I can come up with at the moment is "receptive bilingualism". That section uses an example that is similar to what you are talking about.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 04:54, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Typical of conversations between generations in immigrant households. -- Deborahjay (talk) 06:40, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Some linguists also call it "semi-communication", although I personally find that a bit of a misnomer. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:01, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

"Semicommunication"? What a bizarre term. There's even a movie about this, Um Filme Falado with a bunch of my favorite actors where they each speak their own language at dinner, yet understand each other well enough to hold a conversation. Tragic, but well worth seeing. Reminds one of the meaning of Boko Haram. μηδείς (talk) 23:09, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Mutual intelligibility? But that's for related languages.Cfmarenostrum (talk) 12:35, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

ObPersonal — while serving (in the British Army) in Germany, my father witnessed a striking example of this. A German truck driver arrived at a British Army base and reported in to the English duty clerk, who had only recently arrived and spoke no German. They proceeded to have an everyday, inconsequential conversation, each speaking only his own language but with no evident misunderstandings. My father (who had some German) was convinced that neither consciously realized the other was not speaking in his own language. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 12:32, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Wasn't this also practiced at the Mir space station? The Americans would talk in Russian and Russians in English. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 04:13, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Pronunciation of Russian aircraft models such as "Tu-2"

Many (but not all) Soviet and Russian aircraft have names that include the prefix assigned to the manufacturer or designer. So we have the Tupolev SB, but also the Tupolev Tu-2; the Polikarpov I-16 and the Polikarpov Po-2; the Beriev MBR-2 and the Beriev Be-30. I know how I would pronounce "MBR-2", but how would I say "Be-30"? Like the word "be", the individual letters "B-E", or would I say "Beriev 30"? Or something else? --203.96.145.52 (talk) 09:47, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

If you go by "AK-47", the letters would be pronounced separately, while if you go by "MiG-21", they would be pronounced as a word. For "I-16", the two options would be identical... AnonMoos (talk) 10:27, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

But... be careful with AK-47; the Soviets didn't even use the 47 prefix. It was tacked on by western intelligence, representing the year, 1947. In Soviet Russia, it was an "AK" without the 47, or the "Kalash'". - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 06:11, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

What did you expect? Another "Soviet Russia" joke? ;) - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 06:08, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

When I collected aircraft numbers, the arrival of a Tupolev Tu-104 would cause huge excitement amongst the young boys gathered at London Airport. And we invariably called it a TU104, also pronouncing each digit separately. Thincat (talk) 09:35, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

In this documentary video [1] they say "tu-dva". That suggests you'd also want to say "tu-two" in English, unless you want to avoid confusion with a tutu. I've seen another documentary that similarly pronounces the prefixes similarly. --Amble (talk) 14:49, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Differences in meanings

What are the differenes in the shade of meanings of the following sentences:
1. There was half an hour left for the last entry.
2. Half an hour was there for the last entry.
3. Half an hour was left for the last entry.
Thanks. 14.139.82.7 (talk) 10:24, 20 July 2014 (UTC)Vineet Chaitanya

Number 2 is either archaically poetic or incorrect... AnonMoos (talk) 10:29, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Depends on which word you stress. If you stress 'there' it is modern. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 12:58, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

If you stress "there", then it's no longer an existential sentence, and so the meaning is completely different from 1 -- and "Half an hour" has to be some kind of quasi-concrete entity which can be present in a location, or some kind of quasi-volitional entity which can "be there for" something else... AnonMoos (talk) 16:27, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

I am not sure which type of measuring system for time you might have, but halves of hours do exist in our usual measuring system. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 17:26, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

In #2, the absence of the word "left" means that "half an hour" is more likely to be the entry itself, as in filling out a time card, while the others sound more like half an hour is allotted to complete the last entry.

Also, depending on where the emphasis is, you might change the meaning. For example, emphasis on "half an hour" would indicate that this is an unusual amount of time, either less then needed or an excessive amount. StuRat (talk) 14:27, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Japanese translation help

So, i've been working on the Man With A Mission article and in reviewing the Oricon charts, I noted an addition to the DVD page for the band. It's the third one on there, most recent one. I was able to determine that this is a movie of some kind and that the theme song for it is Your Way from the Man With A Mission album Tales of Purefly. So, I need two pieces of help.

1. What is the name of this film in understandable English? Because Google Translate is giving me "Www unusual life after making customs", which clearly is...not right. Or not very intelligible, at least. What's a better translation?

2. Is the ranking on Oricon of #60 for 1 week for the film or for the band's Your Way song due to it being used in the film?

If I could get some help with this, it would be very appreciated. Silverseren^C 21:39, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

1. "Going to the sex industry changed my life lol", or something like that. According to its Japanese Wikipedia article it's a 2channel post-turned-book-turned-movie about a guy who falls in love with a call girl. 2. The previous highest ranking (過去最高位) is 60th place; the current ranking is 3rd place (on the left). I assume that's the DVD's sales rank among DVDs that mention Man With A Mission in their metadata. -- BenRG (talk) 00:12, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Ah, okay, so it's not something I would need to add to the article. Good to know. Thanks for the help. Silverseren^C 00:23, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

I guess I must be wrong about the meaning of the ranking numbers, unless they have 168+ albums. 過去最高位 does mean "highest past rank", 登場回数 means "times appearing", and the colored numbers on the left are also ranks of some sort, but I don't know how to interpret them. -- BenRG (talk) 00:40, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

The numbers on the left seem to be "(total) sales rankings" (売り上げランキング, uriage rankingu) An explanation of what that means is given in the box "売り上げランキングとは" located below album #7. Basically it says that this ranking, reflects (covers), in principle, total sales for CDs, DVDs, and BRDs released since 1988; however, it also says that this ranking does not necessarily include the sales of all CDs, DVDs, and BRDs released since 1998. My best guess is that this ranking only reflects sales (downloads) of these albums through this particular website. I hope that helps and sorry advance if I'm getting it wrong. - Marchjuly (talk) 04:32, 24 July 2014 (UTC)