Language desk | ||
---|---|---|
< September 6 | << Aug | September | Oct >> | September 8 > |
Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives |
---|
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages. |
Hello, I am wondering if anyone knows of the fastest way to text someone else's text and rewrite it so it's your own words? If I try to rewrite it in my own words outright it takes a long time and I end up unconsciously being unable to think of new ways to write things. If I just switch words with synonyms, run it back and forth through an automated translator, then run it through MsWord grammar check it takes a very long time and then it doesn't change it enough. If I try to do the main points, then it shrinsk the text to about 10% of the original size and it's no good as I want to keep the length in. Anyone know any good techniques for fast work on this? Is there any kind of computer software that would help in this? Juanita Hodges 03:49, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Do you know a way to do this fast? It's really really really hard and takes forever. Juanita Hodges 04:52, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Also, I'm not so much into making it my own words, but just not the other person's. Juanita Hodges 06:18, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
If this is work for school, you are asking for help cheating. Rewording might make it harder for your teacher to catch you with Google, but it would not lessen the offense of plagiarism. If your teachers have suggested to you that handing in the work of others, simply reworded, as your own is acceptable, they have misled you—this is the sort of thing that gets students expelled from college, employees fired from their jobs, and writers' careers ruined. Up-front attribution would be required: "The following are the exact ideas of (AUTHOR) (TITLE), copied except for rewording." (A citation of the source that did not make the wholesale derivation of your work from it clear would be dishonest.) Wareh 14:10, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Natural language processing is a notoriously difficult area of computer science research. I don't think there's a piece of software that even comes close to what you want to do. In fact, many of the Human Interface Tasks on Amazon Mechanical Turk amount to "paraphrase this text", precisely because humans can do it better than algorithms. 128.186.40.148 17:48, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
In linguistics books one comes across following type of sentences: 1. Problems involved in this, my East Coast friends are difficult to talk to about. 2. John is tough to believe the university would fire. 3. The prisoners are alleged to have been ordered to pick up the money.
As a non native speaker of English I find the above type of sentences pretty hard to understand. Do native speakers understand these type of sentences easily? Thanks 196.12.53.9 10:35, 7 September 2007 (UTC)Vineet Chaitanya
I guess this is a book on syntax with examples of dislocation and what not. Some of these phenomena might make sense only to people with certain dialects. -- Kjoon lee 19:19, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Sentence 2 is modeled on sentences like "John is a tough nut to crack" or "John takes a lot of patience to deal with". The reason that Sentence 2 doesn't work is that John is not the object of "believe". "John is tough to believe, because everyone knows he is a liar" is fine. (If you want to keep the word order, you could say "John is someone whom it's tough to believe the university would fire.") All these sentences should be grammatical and understandable. Tesseran
I agree with Capuchin that sentence three is the only one that a native English speaker could actually be expected to produce. Do these sentences have an asterisk ("*") in front of them, or are they part of a discussion of "transformational" syntax. These sentences look like the purported "underlying sentences" of "It is" constructions. Mike Dillon 23:53, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
"Getting herself arrested on purpose is hard for me to imagine Betsy being willing to consider _ ."
I would also like to thank all the respondents for their comments. 196.12.53.9 10:59, 9 September 2007 (UTC)Vineet Chaitanya
The opening sentence of the English version (the "official" English version) of the "Decision Concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" is:
“ | The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution now unfolding is a great revolution that touches people to their very souls and constitutes a new stage in the development of the socialist revolution in our country, a stage which is both broader and deeper. | ” |
I always thought it was strange to see the word "souls" here. The human soul (usually thought of as immaterial), a somewhat religious notion, seems very much out of place in the context of (materialist) Mao Zedong thought. Bourgeois mysticism! So, my question: does anybody know if the word that was used in the original Chinese text has the same connotations, or is it the translation? Skarioffszky 14:16, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Thank you! Skarioffszky 08:53, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
Is there is a term for prepositions that precede some surnames? For example, von, van and de. Also, I understand that it customary not to involve these prepositions when alphabetizing a list of names. For example, T. S. von Sperl, when alphabetised, would appear: Sperl, T. S. von. Can anyone clarify this? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.210.112.48 ( talk) 14:32, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm not a native speaker of English and I don't fully understand why that excerpt is so bad or amusing for its style. Can somebody, please, tell me why? -- Taraborn 17:43, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
The Peanuts character Snoopy begins his book with this sentence and proceeds to "write himself into a corner" (idiom). I think the line that later followed was: A prirate ship appeared on the horizon. I'm sure a Peanuts fan can clarify. LShecut2nd 17:17, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
Is there any language besides English that capitalizes so-called proper adjectives (like adjectives of nationality)? -- Lazar Taxon 19:34, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Any help is much appreciated. Thanks, anon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.155.166.86 ( talk) 21:03, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
I've been meaning to write a Double Dactyl poem to challenge myself, and since I feel in a creative mood I'm thinking of trying to form one today; my only problem is, I can't seem to think of any single-word double dactyls that haven't been used in poems I've just read. I feel that if I had the one-word portion of it, I could easily construe a poem around it, so my question is this: what are some good examples of single-word double dactyls? Preferably ones not listed either in the wiki or on this page [2], as I'm familiar with the poem examples on each and thus would tend towards a highly similar poem. Thanks for the help! Kuronue | Talk 21:45, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Author Tom Holland uses "Macavity" in his fine book* Rubicon to describe a characteristic of Crassus. I am unable to find a definition for this work in my simple library and the Wikipedia definitions (two), though excellent, are a questionable fit. I would apprecitate a confirmation or expansion of the Macavity definition.
Thank you.
22:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC) Tyro Pi
I've been told "apostel" refers to some sort of certification of birth certificates in Spanish. It is paperwork I need to bring my daughter back from Mexico. Please help me figure this out, I can't find any other help.
Thank you, Angela Thatcher —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.255.38.216 ( talk) 23:14, 7 September 2007 (UTC) (Deleted email address to protect from spam.) Bielle 23:32, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Earlier today I got into a rather lively discussion with an American colleague of mine over the correct pronunciation of the word schedule. Being British, I favo(u)red "sh", while he believed "sk" to be correct. To "prove" our points, we came up with lists of root words with hard and soft "sch"s, with a pint of Guinness going to the winner.
Hard (Him):
|
Soft (me):
|
As you can see, I won the prize, but was it because I was right, and soft sch-s are more common, or was it just a better vocabulary on my part? (Nice to have a win/win :).) And yes, we were both aware that the differences between American and British English meant that technically we're both "correct". Chalk it up to Anglo-American rivalry and a prior argument about the correct choice between caravan and travel trailer. GeeJo (t)⁄ (c) • 23:19, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
You're both wrong. They're both correct and acceptable, to different people. -- Kjoon lee 12:02, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
Language desk | ||
---|---|---|
< September 6 | << Aug | September | Oct >> | September 8 > |
Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives |
---|
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages. |
Hello, I am wondering if anyone knows of the fastest way to text someone else's text and rewrite it so it's your own words? If I try to rewrite it in my own words outright it takes a long time and I end up unconsciously being unable to think of new ways to write things. If I just switch words with synonyms, run it back and forth through an automated translator, then run it through MsWord grammar check it takes a very long time and then it doesn't change it enough. If I try to do the main points, then it shrinsk the text to about 10% of the original size and it's no good as I want to keep the length in. Anyone know any good techniques for fast work on this? Is there any kind of computer software that would help in this? Juanita Hodges 03:49, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Do you know a way to do this fast? It's really really really hard and takes forever. Juanita Hodges 04:52, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Also, I'm not so much into making it my own words, but just not the other person's. Juanita Hodges 06:18, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
If this is work for school, you are asking for help cheating. Rewording might make it harder for your teacher to catch you with Google, but it would not lessen the offense of plagiarism. If your teachers have suggested to you that handing in the work of others, simply reworded, as your own is acceptable, they have misled you—this is the sort of thing that gets students expelled from college, employees fired from their jobs, and writers' careers ruined. Up-front attribution would be required: "The following are the exact ideas of (AUTHOR) (TITLE), copied except for rewording." (A citation of the source that did not make the wholesale derivation of your work from it clear would be dishonest.) Wareh 14:10, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Natural language processing is a notoriously difficult area of computer science research. I don't think there's a piece of software that even comes close to what you want to do. In fact, many of the Human Interface Tasks on Amazon Mechanical Turk amount to "paraphrase this text", precisely because humans can do it better than algorithms. 128.186.40.148 17:48, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
In linguistics books one comes across following type of sentences: 1. Problems involved in this, my East Coast friends are difficult to talk to about. 2. John is tough to believe the university would fire. 3. The prisoners are alleged to have been ordered to pick up the money.
As a non native speaker of English I find the above type of sentences pretty hard to understand. Do native speakers understand these type of sentences easily? Thanks 196.12.53.9 10:35, 7 September 2007 (UTC)Vineet Chaitanya
I guess this is a book on syntax with examples of dislocation and what not. Some of these phenomena might make sense only to people with certain dialects. -- Kjoon lee 19:19, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Sentence 2 is modeled on sentences like "John is a tough nut to crack" or "John takes a lot of patience to deal with". The reason that Sentence 2 doesn't work is that John is not the object of "believe". "John is tough to believe, because everyone knows he is a liar" is fine. (If you want to keep the word order, you could say "John is someone whom it's tough to believe the university would fire.") All these sentences should be grammatical and understandable. Tesseran
I agree with Capuchin that sentence three is the only one that a native English speaker could actually be expected to produce. Do these sentences have an asterisk ("*") in front of them, or are they part of a discussion of "transformational" syntax. These sentences look like the purported "underlying sentences" of "It is" constructions. Mike Dillon 23:53, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
"Getting herself arrested on purpose is hard for me to imagine Betsy being willing to consider _ ."
I would also like to thank all the respondents for their comments. 196.12.53.9 10:59, 9 September 2007 (UTC)Vineet Chaitanya
The opening sentence of the English version (the "official" English version) of the "Decision Concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" is:
“ | The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution now unfolding is a great revolution that touches people to their very souls and constitutes a new stage in the development of the socialist revolution in our country, a stage which is both broader and deeper. | ” |
I always thought it was strange to see the word "souls" here. The human soul (usually thought of as immaterial), a somewhat religious notion, seems very much out of place in the context of (materialist) Mao Zedong thought. Bourgeois mysticism! So, my question: does anybody know if the word that was used in the original Chinese text has the same connotations, or is it the translation? Skarioffszky 14:16, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Thank you! Skarioffszky 08:53, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
Is there is a term for prepositions that precede some surnames? For example, von, van and de. Also, I understand that it customary not to involve these prepositions when alphabetizing a list of names. For example, T. S. von Sperl, when alphabetised, would appear: Sperl, T. S. von. Can anyone clarify this? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.210.112.48 ( talk) 14:32, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm not a native speaker of English and I don't fully understand why that excerpt is so bad or amusing for its style. Can somebody, please, tell me why? -- Taraborn 17:43, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
The Peanuts character Snoopy begins his book with this sentence and proceeds to "write himself into a corner" (idiom). I think the line that later followed was: A prirate ship appeared on the horizon. I'm sure a Peanuts fan can clarify. LShecut2nd 17:17, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
Is there any language besides English that capitalizes so-called proper adjectives (like adjectives of nationality)? -- Lazar Taxon 19:34, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Any help is much appreciated. Thanks, anon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.155.166.86 ( talk) 21:03, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
I've been meaning to write a Double Dactyl poem to challenge myself, and since I feel in a creative mood I'm thinking of trying to form one today; my only problem is, I can't seem to think of any single-word double dactyls that haven't been used in poems I've just read. I feel that if I had the one-word portion of it, I could easily construe a poem around it, so my question is this: what are some good examples of single-word double dactyls? Preferably ones not listed either in the wiki or on this page [2], as I'm familiar with the poem examples on each and thus would tend towards a highly similar poem. Thanks for the help! Kuronue | Talk 21:45, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Author Tom Holland uses "Macavity" in his fine book* Rubicon to describe a characteristic of Crassus. I am unable to find a definition for this work in my simple library and the Wikipedia definitions (two), though excellent, are a questionable fit. I would apprecitate a confirmation or expansion of the Macavity definition.
Thank you.
22:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC) Tyro Pi
I've been told "apostel" refers to some sort of certification of birth certificates in Spanish. It is paperwork I need to bring my daughter back from Mexico. Please help me figure this out, I can't find any other help.
Thank you, Angela Thatcher —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.255.38.216 ( talk) 23:14, 7 September 2007 (UTC) (Deleted email address to protect from spam.) Bielle 23:32, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Earlier today I got into a rather lively discussion with an American colleague of mine over the correct pronunciation of the word schedule. Being British, I favo(u)red "sh", while he believed "sk" to be correct. To "prove" our points, we came up with lists of root words with hard and soft "sch"s, with a pint of Guinness going to the winner.
Hard (Him):
|
Soft (me):
|
As you can see, I won the prize, but was it because I was right, and soft sch-s are more common, or was it just a better vocabulary on my part? (Nice to have a win/win :).) And yes, we were both aware that the differences between American and British English meant that technically we're both "correct". Chalk it up to Anglo-American rivalry and a prior argument about the correct choice between caravan and travel trailer. GeeJo (t)⁄ (c) • 23:19, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
You're both wrong. They're both correct and acceptable, to different people. -- Kjoon lee 12:02, 8 September 2007 (UTC)