Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2021 June 13

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June 13

Bilateral talks

When a national leader sits down and has a talk or series of talks with another national leader, why is it necessary to refer to this as "bilateral talks"? That just tells us there were two people involved ... which we already knew. Same query for "multilateral talks" when there are many people involved. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 03:07, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

I think the emphasis is on two (or more) "sides" (involving teams of supporting staff behind the scenes) rather than two (or more) individuals, and I understand the implication to be that such talks involve formulating, presenting and mutually agreeing official policies of international significance, rather than just exchanging views ("frankly" or otherwise). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.2390.195} 2.122.0.58 (talk) 04:02, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

You may be misunderstanding the meaning of "bilateral" in a political context. In your example, the word is not there to tell us that "there were two people involved". It is there to describe the kind of talks the parties are involved in: talks in furtherance of bilateralism.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 05:15, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

When two world leaders meet, it's rarely to just shoot the breeze, so since bilateralism is such a broad term, one could by default assume it's the case. But politicians and journalists have to puff up such events with empty, but important sounding, words. That's their attempt at lateral thinking. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:17, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Yeah that is nonsense and William Thweatt is correct. The word "bilateral" does not mean that there were two people involved, it means that they are talks about relations between the two countries. As opposed to multilateral talks, which are carried out under the auspices of a multilateral organization such as the EU or the UN. --Viennese Waltz 09:49, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

So, then, there must be occasions where the leaders of two countries talk to each other but they're not "bilateral talks". True?

I asked this question because Scott Morrison was expecting to have "bilateral talks" with Joe Biden at the G7 meeting in Cornwall, but then Boris Johnson turned up and so there were three in the room. According to the media, the "bilateral talks" immediately became "trilateral talks". Yet, Morrison was apparently surprised by this turn of events, and it seems he wouldn't have been prepared/briefed to talk about the sort of stuff that would have been discussed at a properly arranged "trilateral talks". In this sense, what made the difference was just the one extra party, and it was not because they were discussing matters relating to their relationships. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 10:16, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, certainly. It's not about the number of people in the room, it's about the subject of their discussions. if Johnson sits down with Macron to discuss UK-French relations, they're bilateral talks. If he sits down with Macron to discuss UK-EU relations, they're multilateral talks. --Viennese Waltz 11:09, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Correcting you on that last bit: if Johnson and Macron talk about the EU, without anyone from the EU present, they're still bilateral talks, the EU simply being the bilateral issue being discussed. Note that these talks are usually prepared in advance, with briefing notes, key points to raise, and expected outcomes provided to participants. If the two just run into one another at an event and exchange words, it's an "informal discussion". It could result in some outcome useful to bilateral relations, or could simply be an exchange of pleasantries with no further impact (except that it's always useful to have a pre-existing personal relationship with another leader, in case an issue does come up at some future time that needs to be resolved). Xuxl (talk) 11:56, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Right. So the media was totally talking out of their collective asses when they said that the bilateral talks between Biden and ScoMo became trilateral as soon as BoJo entered the room. How surprising. Not. Thanks, all. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:27, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

• It's not the number of people in the room, it is the number of political positions represented. Insofar as two different political entities, such as the United States and say Britain, may have different political goals, when leadership from those countries meet, it is considered a "bilateral meeting", with each side negotiating for compromises from the other. If the two people in the room are, say, Biden and Kamala Harris, it isn't a bilateral talk; they both represent the same political entity, and have the same goals. The term "bilateral support" is used often in the context of bills in the U.S. congress that garner significant support from both major political parties. There are hundreds of "people in the room" there. --Jayron32 14:11, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Laneway

I ran across this article, which uses laneways to denote certain features of Melbourne's urban landscape; the usage was unfamiliar to me, so I entered "laneway" in the search box and found that it redirected to Lane, an article that seems to bear no relation to the usage in question. The Wiktionary definition—"(Canada, Scotland, Ireland, Australia) A narrow roadway; a lane"—and some Googling helped me understand that the Melbourne laneways are basically what I would call alleys or alleyways. I've never heard laneway used to denote what the "Lane" article deals with, so I guess my question is, Would it be useful to change the redirect target of Laneway to Alley, or is my desire to do so just a reflection of my linguistic parochialism? Deor (talk) 17:47, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Canadian here. We know it from the rise of laneway houses, which would indicate that it should redirect to Back lane ("A back lane, laneway, or alley is also a service, or access road behind houses")? which face back lanes. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:23, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Hmmm, it appears, on further examination, the Aussies (and maybe the Scots) call a laneway something that pedestrians use, so maybe laneway deserves its own article to enumerate the different usages. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:32, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Our article lane is misleadingly titled. Country lane is nearer to what a lane is, but you get lanes in towns and cities as well, not all of them back lanes, and you get those in the country too. An alley is a sort of lane, as are twittens, opes, etc. Laneways are mentioned repeatedly at alley. DuncanHill (talk) 20:45, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Better throw Wynd into the mix as well. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.0.58 (talk) 04:26, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

So maybe not an article of its own, but perhaps a disambiguation page listing Alley, Back lane, Country lane (if the latter are ever called laneways), etc.? Deor (talk) 21:02, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

We've got Lane (disambiguation) already. DuncanHill (talk) 21:14, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, but that has lane as the primary use and doesn't cover these other uses. It should certainly include Back lane and Country lane, but I think we probably need a Laneway dab page as well, as that term is little known in the U.S. Deor (talk) 22:38, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

I was thinking this was related to the Hoddle Grid in Melbourne, where the city was laid-out with alternating wide thoroughfares and narrow service roads, but it seems the latter are just called "little streets". Alansplodge (talk) 22:36, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

See Lanes and arcades of Melbourne (we also have Lanes and arcades of Perth). Deor (talk) 22:40, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Which uses the term "laneways" and links to St Jerome's Laneway Festival. Alansplodge (talk) 23:08, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

About 50 years ago I lived in this neighborhood in Edmonton. You will see a similar layout there, but the term we used was not "little street", "back lane", "laneway", or "alley", it was specifically "back alley", and I'm adding that to the list of alternatives in back lane. They were used for access to garages and by garbage collectors. Similar things in some cities would have street names or numbers, but not in Edmonton; if you switch to Street View you can see that they have no street signs. --184.145.50.201 (talk) 05:54, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps even more importantly than access to garages and by garbage collectors, laneways were used by collectors of nightsoil. HiLo48 (talk) 09:47, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

English person here. I had a great holiday (remember those?) in Australia in 2017, including visits to (and walking tours around) Melbourne and Sydney. Our local guide in the latter referred to what I would call alleys (narrow, pedestrian-only paved rights-of-way, usually linking one or more larger parallel(ish) streets) as "laneways". Bazza (talk) 08:24, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Don't forget snicket and ginnel. And, for that matter, the other 25 or so words in wikt:Thesaurus:alley. In Brighton there is "The Lanes". "Laneway" is one I've never encountered. --ColinFine (talk) 21:59, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

From Outhouse#Australia we learn that C20 housing developments built without sewerage depended on the "dunny lanes" that ran along the bottom of the gardens to provide access for the nightsoil collectors. "These access lanes can now be worth considerable sums, see Ransom strip".--Carbon Caryatid (talk) 23:20, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Spanish Verbs The indicative has five simple tenses - but only 4 are listed

After the heading 2.1 The indicative we only get (4) Four.... The indicative has five simple tenses The simple tenses are the forms of the verb without the use of a modal or helping verb. The following are the simple tenses and their uses: 2.1.1.1 Present (presente) 2.1.1.2 Imperfect (pretérito imperfecto) 2.1.1.3 Preterite (pretérito indefinido) 2.1.1.4 Future (futuro simple or futuro imperfecto

Getting confused. This is my first entry at the reference desk and not sure if it's the place to ask the question if it requires a modification to the page, but I am no expert on Spanish.

Hawkinkler (talk) 18:40, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Courtesy link: Spanish_verbs#The_indicative. This may have to do with the following sentence about the conditional mood ("In older classifications, the conditional tenses were considered part of an independent conditional mood"). If this is the case it's still a bit confusing and could be handled better. Personuser (talk) 19:25, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

There are three kinds of people: those who can count and those who can't. The article here used to say, "The indicative mood has four simple tenses." Then, in 2007, someone added the "condicional simple or pospretérito" without upping the count. Years later, in 2009, another editor adjusted "four" to "five". The next year, yet another editor reorganized the treatment, moving the condicional simple to a new section "The Conditional Mood", again without adjusting the count. No one until now seems to have observed the resulting mismatch. Curiously enough, something rather similar perspired at the Spanish Wikipedia. Up until 7:56, 10 November 2020 (UTC), the Spanish Wikipedia listed no fewer than ten indicative tenses, one of which was the Pospretérito or Condicional simple. Then an editor split the list into five simple and six composite tenses, with an empty(!) section for the Condicional simple in the list of simple tenses, and a copy of the old Pospretérito section in the list of composite tenses. The latter section presents Condicional simple as an alias of pospretérito, as before. It appears that the orphaned section heading Condicional simple under the rubric Tiempos simples is an edit leftover resulting from an editing mistake, and that the list of ten tenses should have been split four + six.  --Lambiam 22:03, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

One of my first Wikipedia edits (over 15 years ago) was pointing out an inconsistency in article Anglosphere over whether it contained 5 or 6 nations... AnonMoos (talk) 01:45, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

  Fixed (also on the Spanish Wikipedia).  --Lambiam 07:54, 14 June 2021 (UTC)