Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 April 15

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April 15

Sou desu ne.

What's does "Sou desu ne." mean in this dialogue:

– Yoru wa nanji goro nemasu ka.

– Sou desu ne. Jyuuichiji goro desu ne.

The answerer means by "Umm... In about 11 o'clock" or "You asked me when I go to bed? It's in about 11 o'clock."? --RD1821 (talk) 04:36, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

It is a conversational filler like "umm". Eijirō is a great resource for this sort of thing: http://eow.alc.co.jp/search?q=そうですね. You have to search with kana, though; I don't think it supports romaji. -- BenRG (talk) 05:07, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia has an article called Aizuchi which specifically covers these sort of fillers in Japanese. "sō desu ne" is specifically mentioned. --Jayron32 16:11, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Young adult fiction vs young adult

Why is "young adult fiction" really targeted at teenagers and "young adult" referring to people in their twenties and early thirties? Is "youth" referring to teenagers or teenagers and children and people in their twenties? If a 13-year-old female marries a 16-year-old male, then will they be adults or teenagers? What if they were betrothed when they were babies and married at 3 and 6? 140.254.77.179 (talk) 17:23, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Those definitions do tend to depend on which country you are in. In the UK you officially become an adult at age 18. Below that you will normally be described as a young person, or a youth, from the age of 13, and as a child when younger than 13. A young adult will usually be someone aged from 18 to about 25, but there is no formal definition of that. If a 13-year-old female marries a 16-year-old male the male will go to prison, and the marriage will not be legal (both must be at least 16). 81.132.106.10 (talk) 17:59, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

It is possible to be both a teenager and an adult according to the laws and customs of many countries. The age of majority is often 18. But a person is still often referred to as a teenager at 18 or 19 since their age ends with the suffix -teen. Marriage need not be part of the question. And as suggested by the previous responder and myself, the answers you receive to these varied questions are going to be different depending on which country's laws and customs you're referring to. And even sometimes by which state/provence/etc. of an individual country that you're referring to. Dismas|^(talk) 18:06, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

[Edit Conflict] (ObPersonal from a former Bookseller and Publisher's editor) Bear in mind that these categories are used by the Publishers (and Bookshops) to target their customers as effectively as possible. Young people are quite sensitive to inferences about their age and maturity level, so in this particular context the category names are in part intended to be slightly flattering to the age groups actually concerned. Once into adulthood most book buyers don't care how a book is labelled or shelved: at 59 I regularly buy and enjoy "YA" and "Children's" literature if it's well written, this being the most important factor for me. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 185.74.232.130 (talk) 18:15, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Indeed. I didn't read the Harry Potter books until my 30s. And I read the Chronicles of Narnia series somewhere in there as well, having only read some of it as a child. Many avid readers I know wouldn't care what something is labeled by the publishers as long as it's good. Dismas|^(talk) 18:21, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

I giggled when I saw somebody on a train reading the "adult" edition of Harry Potter - identical except for less cartoony cover art. --ColinFine (talk) 17:30, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

As I know that Colin knows, such dual-age cover art has also been employed for other popular SF/Fantasy works, such as Terry Pratchett's ouvre. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 185.74.232.130 (talk) 13:09, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

My wife (40 years old) reads YA fiction voraciously and enjoys it. She's working through Rick Riordan's books now. My 10-year old son is reading the same series, and also enjoying it. --Jayron32 20:21, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

I interpret the target audience as being the minimum age the average kid would be comfortable with the work or to grasp it well. Obviously, precocious kids could read them at a younger age. But if the book is good, it's good. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:28, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

I've also noticed the terms "young men" and "young women" being used as an exaggeration to describe boys and girls. StuRat (talk) 17:57, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

One of the characteristics of young adult fiction is that, with very few exceptions, it isn't sexually risque or sexual. I will also comment that the audience for young adult fiction often includes readers who are not young adults in the legal sense because they are teenagers (or even pre-teenagers who read at the high school level). Robert McClenon (talk) 19:21, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Jchekovitch spelling

I was just reading Anne Jackson, where it says:

• "Jackson's father, whose original name was John Jchekovitch, immigrated from Croatia in 1918".

I checked the source, and it has Jchekovitch there too. This doesn't ring true to me as a correct spelling, but I can't quite think what it perhaps ought to have been. I searched Jchekovitch to see if there were any alternative spellings, but all I got were hundreds of mirrors of the above sentence. It seems to apply uniquely to Anne Jackson's father.

Any takers? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:52, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

A possibility is that his name was John J. Čeković (or perhaps originally Jovan J. Čeković or Ivan J. Čeković). Čeković is most often a Serbian surname, but it also occurs in Croatia. Marco polo (talk) 00:14, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes, maybe. Another possibility is Jacekovic. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:54, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

@JackofOz: Jacek seems to be rather a Polish name, so it is doubtful that a South Slavic surname would derive from a West Slavic name. I wanted to suggest Đaković with jch being a very peculiar way of represeting đ, but it is as well very doubtful. But the most probable variant is simply and obviously Ishaković from Bosnian Ishak (read [is-hak], from Arabic; cf. English Isaac). The first part might as well be from Yiddish Yitzhak or a corruption of Serbo-Croat Christian Isak/Izak.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 19:25, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

I did wonder about an initial "I" (some German names use "J" for "I"), but I couldn't see what might be following it. --ColinFine (talk) 12:43, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

@ColinFine: In German Fraktur "I" looked more like "J". Actually there were no distinction between "I" an "J" there, so words such as Ich would be printed like Jch (${\mathfrak {Ich}}$). In handwriting "I" and "J" as well are often confused, so I would not be surprised if the editor while reading the autobiography manuscript mistook "I" for "J", and some other letters of an unusual foreign name as well.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 10:14, 21 April 2016 (UTC)