Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 March 26

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March 26

ALP spelling

The Australian Labor Party adopted its present spelling in 1912, changing from the more usual "Labour" spelling that had previously been used. As the influences responsible for the spelling change are no longer of equal significance in Australia, have there been any significant attempts to rerename the ALP to "Australian Labour Party"? Nyttend (talk) 01:00, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

No. It's well entrenched now. (I can't prove a negative, but I'm confident you won't find any record of such a proposal.) And if there were any move to change it, it would attract adverse criticism along the lines of "Why aren't you focussing on your members' and the country's interests rather than cosmetic changes to your own name?". Imo. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:42, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Botanical notation

What is the correct interpretation of (3–) 5–9 (–13) in the first paragraph of Rose#Botany (version of 20:58, 12 March 2016)?
—Wavelength (talk) 01:40, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Just a guess, but it looks like it means "usually 5 to 9 of them, but sometimes as few as 3 or as many as 13". You could look in the article's history and see if someone added the parentheticals with an edit summary. Loraof (talk) 01:55, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

I have traced the history as far back as this revision at 03:02, 28 January 2006 (UTC).

—Wavelength (talk) 02:37, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

The hyphenated (not dashed) version was introduced at 23:09, 12 November 2004 (UTC).

—Wavelength (talk) 02:42, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps an active participant in Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants (such as User:Phyzome or User:JoJan or User:Circeus or User:Stevey7788) or an active participant in Wikipedia:WikiProject Horticulture and Gardening (such as User:Sarr Cat or User:SMcCandlish or User:Johnscotaus or User:Typhoon2013) can provide an explanation or an external reference or both.

—Wavelength (talk) 16:12, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

What is the correct alphabetical order when a title contains a blank space between words?

What is the correct alphabetical order? The two items are (1) In Old Arizona and (2) Informer. Is the first film title (In Old Arizona) considered to start with the characters I-N-Space-O-L-D, etc.? Or is it considered I-N-O-L-D, etc.? In other words, what is the third character, a "blank space" or the letter "O"? This is for Wikipedia purposes. But I'd also like to know for other non-Wikipedia purposes. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 07:20, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia sorts word by word. That is, As the World Turns comes before Ask a Silly Question, because As comes before Ask. Externally, some places copy that method; but others ignore spaces, hence these titles are treated as "Astheworldturns" and "Askasillyquestion", and the latter is sorted first because Ask---- precedes Ast----. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:37, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

In ASCII, the space character has the value 32. Letters A-Z are 65-90 and a-z are 97-122. An electronic sorting system most easily sorts As before Ask, since the space after the As has a lower value (32) than the k (107). No special coding need be done to accomplish this sorting, since the code already asks, "Is the value of character1 less than that of character2 for each pair of characters." ie:

is A (65) less than A (65)? (no, so no decision yet)

is s (115) less than s (115)? (no, so no decision yet)

is 32 less than k (107)? (yes, so ignore Ask a Silly Question and prepare to compare As the World Turns with the next phrase).

Akld guy (talk) 14:19, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

What's easiest for a computer to do may not be what's easiest for the human user for several reasons:

• Humans are likely to want case-insensitive sorting, so This sorts after that even though T in ASCII is 84 while t is 116.
• For some purposes humans are likely to want alphabetization by letters (see next paragraph).
• As soon as you start considering languages other than English and character sets larger than ASCII, automatic sorting in this manner is generally not possible.

Alphabetization by letters, i.e. ignoring spaces, is normal in dictionaries, because it means that they won't need to have entries like "backseat, see back seat" when a word or phrase is used in two forms that vary only by spacing or hyphenation. Alphabetization by words (i.e. spaces count) is common in other forms of reference book because it's convenient to group entries that start with the same word (so you don't find Newton in between New Mexico and New York). In short, there is no "the correct alphabetical order". --69.159.61.172 (talk) 18:28, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

To add to that: We were all taught "correct" alphabetical order, starting with A, B, C ... X, Y, Z. And that is the general rule, which works fine in most cases. But in particular contexts, one needs to be a little more sophisticated. Ultimately, there is no "one size fits all". One must consider what the purpose of a particular list is, and what order one's readers would expect to find it in, and give them what they want. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:21, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, all. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:13, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

What does it refer to here?

I'm not sure what the pronoun "it" refers to in the context as follows: "There hasn't been a good effort to introduce Westerners to the spirit," said Derek Sandhaus, a spirits consultant who lived in China for almost a decade and wrote "Baijiu: The Essential Guide to Chinese Spirits," one of the few books on the liquor. But baijiu's reputation precedes it. Does "it" refers to the book Derek Sandhaus wrote or a good effort? Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.249.223.247 (talk) 07:51, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

"It" refers back to "baijiu", the distilled sorghum wine which is the subject of Sandhaus' book. Tevildo (talk) 09:44, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

It can't refer back to "baijiu", because then the sentence would say "But baijiu's reputation precedes baijiu", which is unlikely to be the meaning. And the intended antecedent cannot be "a good effort", because the first sentence says that the good effort does not exist. So "it" must refer to the book. In situations like this, the writer should avoid creating this kind of confusion by avoiding using the pronoun. Loraof (talk) 14:57, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

It does mean that, I'm afraid. "Precedes" in this sentence means "arrives before", not "is more important than". We can re-write it as "The drink's reputation has arrived [in the West] before the drink itself". "X's reputation precedes it/him/her" is a common idiomatic English expression, and the pronoun always refers to X in this case. Tevildo (talk) 15:32, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Okay, I'll buy that. Loraof (talk) 17:05, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Another question about alphabetical order: when the title of a film or book is a person's first name and last name

Let's say that we have a person's name of John Smith. If we were to place that in alphabetical order, it would fall under the letter "S" for "Smith" (and not under the letter "J" for "John"). My question is: if we have a book or a film with the title "John Smith", what letter is that alphabetized under, the "J" or the "S"? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 08:02, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

If I was sorting by title then I would alphabetise under "J", because the whole thing is the name of the book or film. The fact that it is also the name of a person is secondary, and not everything on the list is going to be a name of a person. Imagine, for example, that you have copies of both Johnny English and Johnny English Reborn and want to put them in alphabetical order. It would be odd for them not to be next to each other, but the second is not a name.

If I was sorting by name, e.g. listing biographies based on who the subject is, then I would alphabetise by the "S". If Mike Smith is subject of a biography called Cheese, John Smith is the subject of a biography called John Smith (subtitle "Life of a Cheesemonger") and Kevin Smithson is subject of a biography called Edam made easy, then sorted by subject name they would go John Smith (Smith J), Cheese (Smith M), Edam made easy (Smithson K). Kahastok talk 10:44, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

In short, for the third time, there is no single correct answer. --69.159.61.172 (talk) 21:31, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

And for what it's worth, the UK company I work for alphabetises its lists of employees (for email addresses, for telephone numbers, etc.) by first name. As is well known, this is also normal practice in Iceland. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 5.66.243.108 (talk) 22:19, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

The company I work for has recently started doing the same. Not though that previously, the name would have been recorded as "Smith, John". You wouldn't have seen a list that was sorted by surnam but gave the given name first. Iapetus (talk) 01:42, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

@Wardog: (aka User Iapetus) - Why would it be a growing trend for businesses to sort by first name? That seems quite odd to me. One's last name is usually cut-and-dry: Smith is Smith and it's always spelled S-m-i-t-h. A first name might be Joseph or Joe or Joey or whatever. Seems like there'd be a lot of inconsistency and variation. And, interestingly, I don't even know the first names of many people I work with, just their last names. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:05, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

I'm guessing because first names are increasingly becoming the primary lookup value. Whereas in years gone by you'd be referring to (and thinking of) your colleagues as Mr Smith and Mr Jones, in many "modern" workplaces people are increasingly going by their first names, so you're thinking of them a "Joseph" and "Albert". (Obviously, not all workplaces have taken to the practice). This certainly causes issues if "William" is normally known as "Bill", but that's easily solved by alphabetising people by the name they commonly go by, rather than by the one on their passport. I'll also note that last names are not often cut-and-dry as to spelling. "Smith" might be simple (though the Smithes may disagree), but other names might not be. For example, Jenna Fischer and Isla Fisher don't share a last name, and the Cantors will be on a different directory page than the Kantors. -- 160.129.138.186 (talk) 17:21, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Just to comment on your opening rationale: Even on Wikipedia you'll find longish lists of notable people sorted by given name rather than by surname: Albert Hargrave, Brenda Arkwright, Charles Brown, Diane Smith, Edgar Black, Frances Anderson ..... I can't bring to mind a specific example right now, but I've spent time re-ordering some, while others were a bit daunting. I don't know who ever does this, or how it can possibly be useful outside of a special context, but some people certainly do it. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:59, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

See Template:Sortname.—Wavelength (talk) 23:15, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

On the quiz site Sporcle, quizzes where you pick from a list of names are usually sorted by first name, although some of them do sort by surname (or as I would say, correctly). Apparently the choice is up to the author of the individual quiz. I find it annoying. --69.159.61.172 (talk) 01:47, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, all. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:14, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

You're gonna find "Mildred Pierce" among the "M"s in the card catalog. Just sayin'. - Nunh-huh 13:26, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

dateline should show place?

Please see the document in the below link: http://www.universityofcalicut.info/Orders/U.O.No.8612%20dtd%2005.08.2015_on04march2016.pdf The document is dated in an unusual manner. Dated, Calicut University.P.O, 05.08.2015. What sort of a dating is that? Does it have currency in any other parts? Thanks for information, — Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.139.185.2 (talk) 09:54, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

See Calendar date ~ Date format and Date format by country. Note that Calicut University is in India, which uses the Day-Month-Year format, rather than the Month-Day-Year used by Americans but not by anybody else, so 05.08.2015 is 5th August 2015. Alansplodge (talk) 13:08, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

It's not true that only Americans use Month-Day-Year; it's also common in here in Canada. So is Day-Month-Year. Year-Month-Day is seen as well. It's a nuisance if you have a pile of things like receipts from different stores and you want to sort them by date. --69.159.61.172 (talk) 18:37, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

I believe the OP's question is why "Dated" is followed not by a date, but by a location and then a date. I've never seen that in the US. Loraof (talk) 15:05, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Ah yes. Quite right, my apologies. Alansplodge (talk) 15:52, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Also, does India use European-style dating? That is, is it May 8th or August 5th? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:27, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

By European format, do you mean global format, apart from a few countries? 213.105.166.119 (talk) 18:08, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Global format would be ISO 8601, that is, YYYY-MM-DD. clpo13_(talk) 18:11, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

According to Date format by country#Map, India uses date.month.year. Loraof (talk) 15:34, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes, 5th August (I had already provided you with the link above Bugs, do try to keep up). Alansplodge (talk) 15:53, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

I'd say it's not normal UK usage to include the place with the date, though it is in various European languages - I've seen it in French and German. On the other hand, my work recently involved me processing bank direct debit mandates from the Republic of Ireland, and the new-style SEPA mandates do include a box for the place immediately before the box for the date (I suspect the design is influenced by the non-English-speaking Euro-using countries) -- Arwel Parry (talk) 17:05, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

The title used the word "dateline", and to me that refers specifically to the start of a newspaper article. These days newspaper articles are always worded as if they were written on the day that the paper is dated, so if you see "yesterday" in an article it means the day before that (very often the day when the article was written). But decades ago you would commonly see things like "NEW YORK, March 24" at the start of an article, and then you knew that "yesterday" in the article meant March 23. Nowadays they would only write "NEW YORK", meaning that the article was written there, but I believe the term "dateline" is still used. See dateline. --69.159.61.172 (talk) 18:37, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Back in the 1920s correspondents had great difficulty getting their stories out of Russia. It got so bad that on one occasion nobody could work out whether the dateline was old or new style. 78.149.118.97 (talk) 18:51, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

That doesn't appear to make any sense. Russia adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1918. There must have been a transitional period before the whole country fell into line, but the Soviets had special ways of enforcing rules, and by the 1920s, all their published dates were New Style. Maybe some obscure people in the back woods of Siberia were still hanging on to Old Style, but they'd hardly be the source of international news stories. Or maybe the source was a non-lay organisation, like the Russian Orthodox Church, which was excluded from the conversion.-- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:50, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

But the Russian Civil War came after that. Perhaps the counter-revolutionary Whites, or some of them, did not go along with the Reds' calendar change? I don't know, but if so, it would reconcile what 78.149 and Jack are saying. --69.159.61.172 (talk) 01:51, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Why did the ancient Romans abbreviate everything?

The question is basically what it says in the title. From what I have seen from images of ancient Roman coins, tablets and signs, pretty much every word was abbreviated when written. Why is this? JIP | Talk 23:14, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

• To save space and effort. My source is college Latin, so no link. But on coins you have limited space and difficulty creating dies for very small letters, while large marble monuments had to be visible at a distance, and chiseling stone is not easy. Compare this to modern-day texting. μηδείς (talk) 00:04, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

LOL. In fact they were just too busy on Facebook. Martinevans123 (talk) 00:09, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

We still have F.D. and D.G. REG (By the Grace of God, Queen), on British coins. Alansplodge (talk) 12:39, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

I, for one, love Latin numerals. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:49, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Adding to the etymologies in Martinevans123's link, the flushing toilet was invented by one Thomas Crapper. In Oxford some decades ago there was a luxury car hire company called "Crappers". I don't know if they ever got round to changing their name.

Looking at the coins in my purse, I see a great deal of abbreviation. I don't think Americans experience this. The origin of this is that every document had to be painstakingly written out by hand. To reduce the tedium

• There were no spaces between words
• Everything was written in capital letters
• Everything that could reasonably be shortened (i.e. oft - recurring words and endings) was shortened, as the liberal use of the tilde (~) demonstrates. 80.5.88.48 (talk) 14:48, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

I can just see Crappers' hire car slogan - "Crappers goes like the clappers". Akld guy (talk) 07:21, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Your first two points are causally backwards, IP 80. What we call capitals came first, miniscules were invented when ink and parchment with a flowing, rather than a carved script became more common. Likewise, the boustrophedonic style of writing came first. The adoption of left-to-right writing and the use of spaces were latter developments. μηδείς (talk) 01:47, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Minuscule or miniscule? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:43, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Another reason is that Latin has longer words than English. Compare the Q a couple below here, where "spinal cord" is 10 characters and "medulla spinalis" is 15. The longer the words are, the more incentive and ability there is to abbreviate. Nobody is going to abbreviate a 2 letter word. StuRat (talk) 15:38, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

What time is it in your world? Now Götterdämmerung, that's a mouthful. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:44, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

I've seen that Twilight Zone episode, but didn't get the reference. Did he hyper-abbreviate in his files he kept on everyone ? StuRat (talk) 22:14, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

But they didn't have to argue over definite and indefinite articles, did they? Martinevans123 (talk) 15:57, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

BTW, we have an article on Thomas Crapper but he only patented some improvements to the flushing mechanism, the myth seems to arise from a linguistic coincidence. See Thomas Crapper: Myth & Reality. Alansplodge (talk) 01:24, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Whoah!! I refuse to let this thread get hijacked by some random discussion about crap! Martinevans123 (talk) 13:03, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks to TARQVINIVS, ancient sewer reptiles not only crapped out of their cloacae, but into one. A vicious cycle. Where the water returned to after that has been thankfully lost to history. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:08, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Also a real pioneer with fat clowns, it seems. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:20, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Where do you think the "doo doo" in "doo doo doo-doo, doo-doo doo doo doo-doo" came from? InedibleHulk (talk) 20:27, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

"omfg-wow". They had those funny clown cars too?? ....Apparently "Ancient Rome's clown was a stock fool called the stupidus"..... (but not the VW beetle, of course). Martinevans123 (talk) 21:26, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Buffoons in warped mirrors never get old. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:42, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Speak for yourself dearie. But I see from your "warped mirror" source that "Genesius is considered the patron saint of actors, lawyers, barristers, clowns, comedians, converts, dancers, people with epilepsy, musicians, printers, stenographers, and victims of torture." Quite a portfolio there, you must admit. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:54, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

I don't think Vitus would be amused by this. With the blessing of St. Anthony, someone should dig them up and match them at the Coliseum. We'll see who's laughing then! Or were skeleton battles only a Greek thing? InedibleHulk (talk) 23:22, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Remember that a fair amount of the Latin you may be seeing is from monuments. When you're carving in stone, you don't want any more letters than are necessary -Nunh-huh 13:28, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Were Roman abbreviation rules "carved in stone" in some way?? Martinevans123 (talk) 14:16, 31 March 2016 (UTC)