Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 October 19

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October 19

Line breaks in dates

Do the major style manuals say anything about proper use of line breaks within dates? For example, where would it be proper to break June 6, 1944 (if anywhere)? How about 6 June 1944? I'm looking for something authoritative rather than personal opinions, but I don't have one of the major style manuals. ‑‑Mandruss (talk) 01:53, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

It's a few (*cough-cough*) years since I was a desk editor and proofreader, but I don't remember being taught any proscriptions on breaking such a date. More relevantly to your question, I've just checked my old copies of Hart's Rules and Judith Butcher's Copy-editing (as well as a few other lesser-known works) and they have nothing to say on the subject.

In general, breaks need only be avoided if they cause a false reading (e.g. the legendary leg-

end), and I can't see that breaking such a date at either space would mislead. It might look ugly, especially in display text (i.e. headlines, chapter heads and such) so you'd want to avoid that.

In a work, or series of works, heavy on dates one might want to adopt a style rule governing breaks in dates, but this would be a decision specific to that work or series. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.219.80.169 (talk) 14:19, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Speaking as another retired copy-editor, I'm in agreement with the above, but a general rule is not to break a line between a numeral and whatever is being counted. This normally means units of measurement, but I would extend this to days of the month. So a break between month and year is fine, but not between day and month, if it can be avoided.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 15:49, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

It can almost always be avoided in places like Wikitext, by judicious use of {{nowrap|19 February}}. For my sins, I despise the look of split day/month and I always use this whenever I see an offender. I once worked in a place that was very big on this sort of thing, and letters we drafted for senior managers' signatures were sent back for correction if these and other details weren't nailed down. Factual and political correctness were also somewhere in the mix along with orthographic exactitude. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:34, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Of course WP is a little different than print media, because a printed page will either split a certain date, or it will not, but the text won't move. On WP, whether the date is split will depend upon browser font, window size, and other factors. E.g. it's highly likely that a date could appear split on my view and not on yours. So I tend to agree that we should always nowrap our dates. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:04, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Come and sit by me while we draft the Constitution and Rules of the Like-Minded Persons' Society. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:47, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the quality comments. I'll just add the obvious that a date at the beginning of a paragraph, which happens a lot (On 21 October 2014, ...), needn't be nowrapped. ‑‑Mandruss (t) 06:11, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Italian language question

I saw this text at an Italian restaurant: Chi lavora mangia. Chi non lavora mangia, beve e dorme. I think it means "One who works, eats. One who does not work, eats, drinks and sleeps." Is this correct? JIP | Talk 15:06, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Is that restaurant in Finland? I'm not Italian but it's not very difficult Italian so I'll venture to say this is correct. Google Translate more or less agrees. So we're all in agreement. As to the meaning maybe it is: "It's great to have a job. It's even more great not to have one." :) No stereotyping please :) Just humor. Contact Basemetal here 19:25, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

The translation is correct. The proverb is possibly originally Napolitano: "Chi fatica magna, chi nun fatica magna e beve.". The book A Buon 'Ntennitore ... Proverbs of Naples by Leonardo Antonio lists it as well, along with "Chi fatica magna e chi nun fatica magna gallina" ("He/she who works, eats, and he/she who doesn't work, eats chicken"). ---Sluzzelin talk 20:08, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

"Transliteration"

(NOTE:I'm not sure if this belongs here or another section. Feel free to move it or indicate where this question is more suitable for asking if it shouldn't be here.)

I've been reading Penguin Books' "The Sagas of Icelanders" (stylised as "the SAGAS of icelanders") that my dear father got for me this past Christmas, and whilst it's quite a swell volume, I have a few gripes with it.

My biggest gripe, aside from minor peeves such as them using "earl" for both earls and jarls indiscriminately, and using "autumn" for "Fall" (they could have chosen "Harvest" if they perceived "Fall" as being regionally biased, and I'd actually have preferred them going with "Harvest" anyways), is that they "transliterate" the letter edh (Ðð) with "d".

Now, my knowledge of the Icelandic language in terms of grammar and such is not very good, and all that I am aware of in regards to edh's use that might be able to help me determine when reading (as I often read to others) whether a transliterated name had an edh in it or not is that Icelandic doesn't use edh as the first letter of a word. As such, I have adopted the practice of pronouncing all medial and final "d"s in the volume as if they were edhs.

Now, the reason that I bring this up here is because I have noticed that this work is not the first to transliterate edh with "d". Furthermore, a video game of all things for the Nintendo 3DS chose to pronounce thorn and edh as if they were "t"s and "d"s (FYI: The Nintendo 3DS allows the letters thorn and edh to be input).

So, I ask this:

Is there some underlying cause for perception of Icelandic thorns and edhs as being representative of anything other than /θ/ and /ð/? I've heard rumours of Icelandic /θ/ being actually closer to /θs/, but I cannot confirm that.

Might anyone here be able to shed some light on this matter? Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 18:29, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

I believe Old Norse ‹þ,ð›, though retained in Icelandic, generally merged with ‹t,d› on the mainland; so, if the letter ‹ð› is inconvenient, ‹d› is a natural substitute. —Tamfang (talk) 19:39, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

If the letter is problematic, then why not transliterate ð as "dh", or even "th" (as thorn is usually transliterated as), especially in the case of translation to English? That seems more logical to me. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 23:57, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

It's actually normal to 'transilterate' letters which are not common in English. Harald Hardrada is transliterated as so, even though his epithet was 'Harðráði'. If your book is an older book, it was probably written on a typewriter. If not, then the author either didn't know how to put the 'foreign' letters in, or had learned those spellings from older books whilst doing research for his. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 03:09, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, the latter is quite possible. Though I don't know why anyone would "transliterate" a letter that represented a sound that we also have in English with another letter shared by both languages that represents a completely different sound in both languages than the letter being replaced. I mean, they didn't "transliterate" thorn with "t", they translated it with "th" (as they should, because "th" represents the same phoneme as thorn). As such, it would have made sense to "transliterate" "ð" as "dh" (which has been used in other transliterations for the very same purpose, and would be understood and correctly pronounced by those who understood that). At least then people who understood the "transliteration" would be able to pronounce the names correctly, and the people who didn't understand the "transliteration" wouldn't be any more confused. It's a win-win situation. I mean, honestly, one would think that an attempted "transliteration" would have greater success in staying true to what the intended pronunciation was than actual transliteration from a non-Latin-alphabetic script to a Latin-alphabetic script, but I guess not. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 05:31, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

I think the wrong "transliteration" of one mere letter is not significant when all other particularities of Icelandic such as áéíóúýæö are ignored as well in English (in both spelling and pronunciation). It's a tradition in English to simply drop out diacritics - voi-là, we got "Dd" (as well as many examples from all other languages, I've just recently encountered "pismaniye" which was even occasionally pronounced with [s]). And I'm not surprised as from the typewriter epoch it has not been an easy task to type diacritics in English, most English speakers are "diacritic ignorant".--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 08:00, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

It just seems stupid that someone would ignore the fact that English has the same sound that edh provides in Icelandic (and, indeed, Old English used to use edh!) and just transliterate it as if we were a language that lacked dental fricatives. It's ridiculous. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 11:18, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

According to Henry Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Primer, both edh and thorn were interchangeable, with some dialects preferring one over the other, and both representing both voiced and voiceless dental fricatives. The switch to 'th' didn't solve anything, as 'th' also does the same job (cf. 'think' vs. 'this'). KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 23:05, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

That's not quite right, User:KageTora, thy and thigh are a minimal pair, as are wither and with 'er, etc. μηδείς (talk) 00:05, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

'Harvest' is not synonymous with 'autumn'. 'Fall' has another meaning other than 'autumn'. What's wrong with 'autumn'? AlexTiefling (talk) 19:54, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

As Penguin Books is a British publisher, it's likely to be written in British English. British people use "autumn" rather than "fall" for the season. Canadians apparently use both: see Fall or autumn: the Canadian dilemma. Alansplodge (talk) 12:52, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

What is the origin of the name Sierra Leone?

Hey, I have a question. What is the origin and meaning of the name Sierra Leone? Learn to Read Latin (talk) 20:22, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Did you read the first paragraph of Sierra Leone#European trading? Deor (talk) 20:25, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

(ec) History of Sierra Leone seems to imply that it was a mutation of "Serra Lyoa", which, according to the article translates to "Lion Mountains", and this site states that 16th century English explorers arrived and changed the Portuguese term to its current state. The exact reason behind "Lion Mountains", however, seems to be unclear. [1] suggests that the surrounding landscape's shape of a mountain lion was the reasoning, although I may have translated that poorly? ~Helicopter Llama~ 20:39, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

There's the article List of country-name etymologies. The "Sierra Leone" section says:

Adapted from Sierra Leona, the Spanish version of the Portuguese Serra Leoa ("Lion Mountains"). The Portuguese explorer Pedro de Sintra named the country after the striking mountains that he saw in 1462 while sailing the West African coast. It remains unclear what exactly made the mountains look like lions. Three main explanations exist: that the mountains resembled the teeth of a lion, that they looked like sleeping lions, or that thunder which broke out around the mountains sounded like a lion's roar.

However, this section is unsourced, like much of the article is. --Theurgist (talk) 22:21, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Word for "internationally socioeconomic"

I'm writing an article about reform proposals for the United Nations Security Council, particularly those that favor the establishment of more permanent seats for Africa and other developing parts of the world. Right now I'm referring to these proposals as seeking a "more fully equitable geographical and socioeconomic distribution of power," but the use of the word "socioeconomic" there looks wrong to me, since that would typically connote economic differences within a society, and not between societies. Any suggestions for another word? Evan ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:56, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't think that the adjective that you want exists. I'd try using a prepositional phrase instead, for example "a more equitable distribution of power across regions and levels of development". Though isn't the point to be more representative of the world's population rather than of the world's land area? Presumably no one is calling for a seat for Antarctica. In that case, maybe "a more equitable distribution of power among the world's people, without favoring developed countries." Marco polo (talk) 01:17, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, some sentence reorganizing may be in order. I have been writing for a little over twelve hours with few breaks! There is definitely a word I remember from a sociology class I took, though. I'm not sure it was an adjective, but it related to the basic concept of categorizing countries by their individual levels of industrial and economic development. Ah, well, I think I've got this particular sentence figured out anyway. Thanks, Marco! Polo! Evan ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:22, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Global stratification was the term I had in mind. I don't think there's any forgivable way of turning that into an adjective. Evan ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:27, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

If the intent is across societies, perhaps simply 'economic' is a suitable term. If the meaning is across developed and developing economies, you may have to spell that out explicitly. Peter Grey (talk) 23:51, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

IPA symbol

Is there an IPA symbol just describing the release of air from the nose (not a particular sound)? --2.245.206.58 (talk) 22:07, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

h̃? (Or ɲ̊ and ɳ̊ and ŋ̊ too)? ---Sluzzelin talk 22:41, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Does any one of these depict interjections like "hm"? --2.245.206.58 (talk) 01:47, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't think so, because all those symbols link to voiceless sounds, and "hm..." usually represents a voiced sound. The distinction is covered at Voice_(phonetics). Short version - most Eng speakers voice "zzzz" but pronounce "ssss" voicelessly, and the sounds are otherwise rather similar. SemanticMantis (talk) 13:58, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't mean the syllabic [m̩], which is voiced, but the "h" before the "m". How do you transcribe this? The "h" is obviously not like the "h" in "house". --2.245.174.10 (talk) 18:07, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

How about [m̥]? It's what Sluzzelin is suggesting, but with lips closed. 82.83.106.162 (talk) 20:56, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I was assuming this was a syllabic emm, since it seemed to imply closure of the lips. Intonation makes the difference here between Hm? and Mmmm! μηδείς (talk) 00:01, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

New old words

Every year lexicographers add new modern words to the dictionary. Are there cases where old words from the English (or any other language) corpus were rediscovered and then added? For example from a long forgotten text. Or maybe words that were accidentally overlooked. --151.41.132.187 (talk) 22:53, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

I think vanilla English dictionaries wouldn't bother to include words that have fallen out of usage so long ago that they've been "forgotten" and are "rediscovered". Sometimes words that seem to be falling out of popular usage (but are still far from being entirely forgotten) make a comeback for whatever reason; being (re)listed in a dictionary not being one of them, I guess. But you might find something more similar to what you're thinking of with those non-English languages that have influential, creative language authorities. This is a wild guess, but I imagine Hebrew, Icelandic, Korean or Chinese language authorities might turn to all sorts of texts – including recently (re)discovered old texts – when they feel a need to coin a term or to replace a non-native term for something. And "rediscovered" words are a thing. But I haven't heard of both of these coinciding, i.e. a hitherto unknown word being "rediscovered" and then successfully pushed back into usage. If "unknown not to linguists but to Joe Average" is good enough for you, you might find a few such words when you look at the purge of Japanese or even some sino-Korean terms from the Korean language and their deliberate replacement with either revived words of native stock that had survived in dialects (or old documents?) or words newly coined from such material. English speakers would probably ignore or ridicule such attempts; this is not necessarily the case with other languages. 82.83.106.162 (talk) 22:40, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Words lost from the English language are compiled in the Compendium of Lost Words.

—Wavelength (talk) 23:13, 20 October 2014 (UTC)