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At the end of a novel, a writer may indicate where and when he or she wrote the work. But I'm not certain if the date comes before the place or the other way round, like "May,1990 in London" or "London in May,1990". I want your idea. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.249.225.219 ( talk) 01:42, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
What are they?\What is their common denominator? could someone please elaborate? Thanks. Ben-Natan ( talk) 01:50, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Late at night + just woken up + just starting work = brain is still in bed, ∴ bone question.
If 'alphanumerics' means 'letters and numbers', and 'numerals' (or 'digits') means 'numbers', then what is just 'a, b, c'? 'Characters' encompasses them all (and could include symbols, I guess). 'Alphabetic characters' springs to mind, but is there a single word? KägeTorä - (影虎) ( Chin Wag) 01:51, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Morning Language desk.
I recently played a round of a well known phone based word puzzle game which encourages playing rounds with people you know, kind of putting down words with friends, sort of thing. Other turn-based word puzzle games on a phone device are available.
While playing one round, I was permitted to play TAS. What that, then, asked my opponent? Not sure, responded I, but it allowed me to put SEXY on a triple-word tile, so I'm not particularly interested. Of course, that is not true, I had to try to find out. Only, came there none.
My trusty OED account helped little. I saw "tas" within entries, but not as an entry in its own right. So, language desk, unless I'm missing something really obvious, what could this little three letter word mean?
With thanks.... doktorb words deeds 03:37, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
This is a major 'problem' with online Scrabble-esque games. I have a problem when playing my brother in that he always jams a bunch of his letters into vaguely phonetic words until the game lets him play something. Its rarely a word either of us had heard before, but the computer accepted it and there is little to be done about it. 50.43.148.35 ( talk) 22:19, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
Although most dictionaries list the British word "ta" (meaning thanks) only as an interjection, Merriam-Webster shows it as a noun, for which the plural would be "tas". -- 50.100.193.30 ( talk) 01:06, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
TA might be accepted as an abbreviation for Teaching Assistant, in which case TAs would be its plural. DaveShack ( talk) 04:16, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
OED provides the pronunciation by "educated urban speakers of standard English in Britain and the United States" for the Latin cogito as /ˈkəʊɡɪtəʊ/ /ˈkɒ/.
To render that using IPA-en, would that be
/ˈkoʊɡɪtoʊ/ /ˈkɒ/ or /ˈkoʊɡ[invalid input: 'ɨ']toʊ/ /ˈkɒ/ ?
Similarly, would the IPA-en for Latin sum be
These modern pronunciations are for the cogito ergo sum article, which also provides the Classical Latin pronunciation ({{IPA-la|ˈkoːɡitoː ˈɛrɡoː ˈsʊm|}) in a footnote. humanengr ( talk) 06:15, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
US English, and I pronounce it with /ɒ/ and /ʌ/. I knew a bit of Latin once upon a time, but it seems pretentious to try to mimic Latin vowels when speaking in English. I mean, I'd never pronounce Venus "wennoos". For those of you who use the /oʊ/ and /ʊ/ vowels, do you have an /ɛ/ in "ergo"? I noticed the comment "don't forget, we don't pronounce the 'r'." Well, if you wanted to be authentic, you would pronounce it, wouldn't you? And use a pure /o:/ rather than a diphthong? If we can use the NURSE vowel for "ergo", as the OED has it, we're already so far off from a Latin pronunciation that I don't see how anyone can criticize using the COG vowel for "cogito" or the STRUT vowel for "sum", or even a soft gee. — kwami ( talk) 16:55, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
By the way — now I have some concerns about this /ˈsʊm/ in the Latin pronunciation. I'm sure I was taught /ˈsu:m/ instead (where no doubt the glide is an Americanization, but that's not my concern right now). Is there in fact a good reason to prefer /ˈsʊm/ over /ˈsum/, or vice versa, in the language of Cicero? -- Trovatore ( talk) 19:34, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
I started a new section on the cogito talk page to allow for further discussion. humanengr ( talk) 07:21, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
When is it accepted to use in one of them? 194.114.146.227 ( talk) 08:04, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks to your things, I've got it. Thank you! 194.114.146.227 ( talk) 09:03, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Can anyone please identify the Japanese characters in the scan at http://i61.tinypic.com/2m4zmac.jpg? It is a scan of a description of an electronic part in a 1960's factory catalog. Most of it is tables and graphs which I can understand, so I've only scanned the text. "6R-A3" is the standardised Japanese electronics industry part code. The designation "HiFi" and following few characters may or may not be the particular manufactuer's catchy marketing name for the device, or perhaps the family of devices that this part belongs to. 143.238.217.204 ( talk) 09:41, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
"He didn't go to the party. His concern for his daughter directed him toward home." I don't think "direct" is a proper choice in the above-mentioned context, but I can't figure out a right one. Could you enlighten me on this point? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.249.214.61 ( talk) 10:30, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Is "XY is starting to begin." simply a pleonasm, or does this actually make sense in English? -- KnightMove ( talk) 12:43, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
In data analysis, we often speak of a " representative sample", meaning that e.g. the features of a few thousand people are thought to capture the features of a whole country (let's set aside the details of sample choice, and assume it's done correctly with regard to the statistical approach).
The question: is "representative" a property that a sample only does or does not possess -- or does it make sense to use it qualified by degree? In other words, is "highly representative" more akin to "highly unique" (i.e. to be avoided in technical writing), or is "highly representative" more like "highly regarded" (i.e. no problem). My dictionary says "Representative: typical of a class, group, or body of opinion" -- which leads me to believe that "highly representative" is not good writing. On the other hand, I have the same problem with "typical", so I turn to you for semantic/linguistic thoughts on the topic. Thanks, SemanticMantis ( talk) 14:18, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the input. After some thought, I realize this is more of a math question than a linguistics question. I have now come to the position that "more representative" makes perfect sense. In the context of two subsets A, A' of X, we can (with perfect knowledge) quantify the representativeness with respect to X of A and A', and make comparative statements about the two properties. SemanticMantis ( talk) 15:15, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
First, may I have a Japanese image description of File:Arrows in Okazaki.jpeg? The English is "Advertisements at an intersection in Okazaki, Aichi, Japan, featuring many arrows. The image has been cropped and color-balanced from the original; please contact me if you would like the unaltered version."
May I also have a Japanese description of File:Arrows in Okazaki edit.jpeg? The English is "Advertisement at an intersection in Okazaki, Aichi, Japan, featuring a depiction of traffic lights using a shade of blue, rather than green, for use illustrating the Japanese section of Distinction of blue and green in various languages. Cropped from the original by User:Garrett Albright."
Second, what does the Japanese in File:Arrows in Okazaki edit.jpeg say? (Please post the Japanese characters and English translation so I can tag the image and post text of both)
Third, if you are interested, what do the other billboards in File:Arrows in Okazaki.jpeg say? (I understand this may take some time)
Thank you, WhisperToMe ( talk) 14:27, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Hi, may I please request a Chinese speaker take a look at Junior Writers Awards? There are a couple of references listed here and here. They are written in Chinese, and the mechanical translation I'm viewing isn't being very helpful. Basically I'm trying to figure out where we can put some inline-references. I'd also appreciate it if you could help to establish the subject's notability. I believe 2014 was the first year this award program was held, and we had some issues with conflict of interest and spam at the article. So any info you can dig up would be appreciated. The awards are based in Hong Kong and Macao. Much thanks! Cyphoidbomb ( talk) 15:37, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
As a semi-regular AfC reviewer I often see articles that use the phrase "based out of <place name>" instead of "from" or "in". It is used in reference to people, bands, companies, etc - practically anything that has a definite location. As it usually occurs in pop-culture articles I suspect the phrase may be peculiar to younger writers and, as far as I can tell, mostly Americans. I wonder where the phrase originated and how it has become so popularly and (IMHO) inappropriately used? Roger (Dodger67) ( talk) 18:13, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Hi, I've noticed guillemets 《 》 come up a lot in articles about Chinese subjects (and elsewhere I'm sure), for example here. MOS:QUOTEMARKS states that straight quotes are the preferred quotation mark for articles, but I'm curious what the procedure is in a table like below, where we are noting the Chinese title. Do we use italics/quotations as appropriate for major/minor works, or do we retain the guillemets?
Year | Title | Chinese Title | Role |
---|---|---|---|
1988 | A Magic Doctor in Suzhou | 《姑苏一怪》 | Ye Tianshi |
Many thanks, Cyphoidbomb ( talk) 21:36, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Year | Title | Chinese Title | Role |
---|---|---|---|
1988 | A Magic Doctor in Suzhou | 《姑苏一怪》 | Ye Tianshi |
or
Year | Title | Chinese Title | Role |
---|---|---|---|
1988 | A Magic Doctor in Suzhou | 姑苏一怪] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup ( help) | Ye Tianshi |
or
Year | Title | Chinese Title | Role |
---|---|---|---|
1988 | "A Magic Doctor in Suzhou" | "姑苏一怪" | Ye Tianshi |
If it helps, I use WP:AWB, and I'm trying to figure out whether or not it's worth my time to set up an automatica find/replace for guillemets, or if they're acceptable when we're translating Chinese text. I'll post my query at the MOS just in case this turns out to not be a good place to ask. Thank you, Cyphoidbomb ( talk) 01:36, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
Year | Title | Chinese Title | Role |
---|---|---|---|
1988 | A Magic Doctor in Suzhou | 姑苏一怪 | Ye Tianshi |
Language desk | ||
---|---|---|
< March 19 | << Feb | March | Apr >> | March 21 > |
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. |
At the end of a novel, a writer may indicate where and when he or she wrote the work. But I'm not certain if the date comes before the place or the other way round, like "May,1990 in London" or "London in May,1990". I want your idea. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.249.225.219 ( talk) 01:42, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
What are they?\What is their common denominator? could someone please elaborate? Thanks. Ben-Natan ( talk) 01:50, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Late at night + just woken up + just starting work = brain is still in bed, ∴ bone question.
If 'alphanumerics' means 'letters and numbers', and 'numerals' (or 'digits') means 'numbers', then what is just 'a, b, c'? 'Characters' encompasses them all (and could include symbols, I guess). 'Alphabetic characters' springs to mind, but is there a single word? KägeTorä - (影虎) ( Chin Wag) 01:51, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Morning Language desk.
I recently played a round of a well known phone based word puzzle game which encourages playing rounds with people you know, kind of putting down words with friends, sort of thing. Other turn-based word puzzle games on a phone device are available.
While playing one round, I was permitted to play TAS. What that, then, asked my opponent? Not sure, responded I, but it allowed me to put SEXY on a triple-word tile, so I'm not particularly interested. Of course, that is not true, I had to try to find out. Only, came there none.
My trusty OED account helped little. I saw "tas" within entries, but not as an entry in its own right. So, language desk, unless I'm missing something really obvious, what could this little three letter word mean?
With thanks.... doktorb words deeds 03:37, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
This is a major 'problem' with online Scrabble-esque games. I have a problem when playing my brother in that he always jams a bunch of his letters into vaguely phonetic words until the game lets him play something. Its rarely a word either of us had heard before, but the computer accepted it and there is little to be done about it. 50.43.148.35 ( talk) 22:19, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
Although most dictionaries list the British word "ta" (meaning thanks) only as an interjection, Merriam-Webster shows it as a noun, for which the plural would be "tas". -- 50.100.193.30 ( talk) 01:06, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
TA might be accepted as an abbreviation for Teaching Assistant, in which case TAs would be its plural. DaveShack ( talk) 04:16, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
OED provides the pronunciation by "educated urban speakers of standard English in Britain and the United States" for the Latin cogito as /ˈkəʊɡɪtəʊ/ /ˈkɒ/.
To render that using IPA-en, would that be
/ˈkoʊɡɪtoʊ/ /ˈkɒ/ or /ˈkoʊɡ[invalid input: 'ɨ']toʊ/ /ˈkɒ/ ?
Similarly, would the IPA-en for Latin sum be
These modern pronunciations are for the cogito ergo sum article, which also provides the Classical Latin pronunciation ({{IPA-la|ˈkoːɡitoː ˈɛrɡoː ˈsʊm|}) in a footnote. humanengr ( talk) 06:15, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
US English, and I pronounce it with /ɒ/ and /ʌ/. I knew a bit of Latin once upon a time, but it seems pretentious to try to mimic Latin vowels when speaking in English. I mean, I'd never pronounce Venus "wennoos". For those of you who use the /oʊ/ and /ʊ/ vowels, do you have an /ɛ/ in "ergo"? I noticed the comment "don't forget, we don't pronounce the 'r'." Well, if you wanted to be authentic, you would pronounce it, wouldn't you? And use a pure /o:/ rather than a diphthong? If we can use the NURSE vowel for "ergo", as the OED has it, we're already so far off from a Latin pronunciation that I don't see how anyone can criticize using the COG vowel for "cogito" or the STRUT vowel for "sum", or even a soft gee. — kwami ( talk) 16:55, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
By the way — now I have some concerns about this /ˈsʊm/ in the Latin pronunciation. I'm sure I was taught /ˈsu:m/ instead (where no doubt the glide is an Americanization, but that's not my concern right now). Is there in fact a good reason to prefer /ˈsʊm/ over /ˈsum/, or vice versa, in the language of Cicero? -- Trovatore ( talk) 19:34, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
I started a new section on the cogito talk page to allow for further discussion. humanengr ( talk) 07:21, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
When is it accepted to use in one of them? 194.114.146.227 ( talk) 08:04, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks to your things, I've got it. Thank you! 194.114.146.227 ( talk) 09:03, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Can anyone please identify the Japanese characters in the scan at http://i61.tinypic.com/2m4zmac.jpg? It is a scan of a description of an electronic part in a 1960's factory catalog. Most of it is tables and graphs which I can understand, so I've only scanned the text. "6R-A3" is the standardised Japanese electronics industry part code. The designation "HiFi" and following few characters may or may not be the particular manufactuer's catchy marketing name for the device, or perhaps the family of devices that this part belongs to. 143.238.217.204 ( talk) 09:41, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
"He didn't go to the party. His concern for his daughter directed him toward home." I don't think "direct" is a proper choice in the above-mentioned context, but I can't figure out a right one. Could you enlighten me on this point? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.249.214.61 ( talk) 10:30, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Is "XY is starting to begin." simply a pleonasm, or does this actually make sense in English? -- KnightMove ( talk) 12:43, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
In data analysis, we often speak of a " representative sample", meaning that e.g. the features of a few thousand people are thought to capture the features of a whole country (let's set aside the details of sample choice, and assume it's done correctly with regard to the statistical approach).
The question: is "representative" a property that a sample only does or does not possess -- or does it make sense to use it qualified by degree? In other words, is "highly representative" more akin to "highly unique" (i.e. to be avoided in technical writing), or is "highly representative" more like "highly regarded" (i.e. no problem). My dictionary says "Representative: typical of a class, group, or body of opinion" -- which leads me to believe that "highly representative" is not good writing. On the other hand, I have the same problem with "typical", so I turn to you for semantic/linguistic thoughts on the topic. Thanks, SemanticMantis ( talk) 14:18, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the input. After some thought, I realize this is more of a math question than a linguistics question. I have now come to the position that "more representative" makes perfect sense. In the context of two subsets A, A' of X, we can (with perfect knowledge) quantify the representativeness with respect to X of A and A', and make comparative statements about the two properties. SemanticMantis ( talk) 15:15, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
First, may I have a Japanese image description of File:Arrows in Okazaki.jpeg? The English is "Advertisements at an intersection in Okazaki, Aichi, Japan, featuring many arrows. The image has been cropped and color-balanced from the original; please contact me if you would like the unaltered version."
May I also have a Japanese description of File:Arrows in Okazaki edit.jpeg? The English is "Advertisement at an intersection in Okazaki, Aichi, Japan, featuring a depiction of traffic lights using a shade of blue, rather than green, for use illustrating the Japanese section of Distinction of blue and green in various languages. Cropped from the original by User:Garrett Albright."
Second, what does the Japanese in File:Arrows in Okazaki edit.jpeg say? (Please post the Japanese characters and English translation so I can tag the image and post text of both)
Third, if you are interested, what do the other billboards in File:Arrows in Okazaki.jpeg say? (I understand this may take some time)
Thank you, WhisperToMe ( talk) 14:27, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Hi, may I please request a Chinese speaker take a look at Junior Writers Awards? There are a couple of references listed here and here. They are written in Chinese, and the mechanical translation I'm viewing isn't being very helpful. Basically I'm trying to figure out where we can put some inline-references. I'd also appreciate it if you could help to establish the subject's notability. I believe 2014 was the first year this award program was held, and we had some issues with conflict of interest and spam at the article. So any info you can dig up would be appreciated. The awards are based in Hong Kong and Macao. Much thanks! Cyphoidbomb ( talk) 15:37, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
As a semi-regular AfC reviewer I often see articles that use the phrase "based out of <place name>" instead of "from" or "in". It is used in reference to people, bands, companies, etc - practically anything that has a definite location. As it usually occurs in pop-culture articles I suspect the phrase may be peculiar to younger writers and, as far as I can tell, mostly Americans. I wonder where the phrase originated and how it has become so popularly and (IMHO) inappropriately used? Roger (Dodger67) ( talk) 18:13, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Hi, I've noticed guillemets 《 》 come up a lot in articles about Chinese subjects (and elsewhere I'm sure), for example here. MOS:QUOTEMARKS states that straight quotes are the preferred quotation mark for articles, but I'm curious what the procedure is in a table like below, where we are noting the Chinese title. Do we use italics/quotations as appropriate for major/minor works, or do we retain the guillemets?
Year | Title | Chinese Title | Role |
---|---|---|---|
1988 | A Magic Doctor in Suzhou | 《姑苏一怪》 | Ye Tianshi |
Many thanks, Cyphoidbomb ( talk) 21:36, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Year | Title | Chinese Title | Role |
---|---|---|---|
1988 | A Magic Doctor in Suzhou | 《姑苏一怪》 | Ye Tianshi |
or
Year | Title | Chinese Title | Role |
---|---|---|---|
1988 | A Magic Doctor in Suzhou | 姑苏一怪] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup ( help) | Ye Tianshi |
or
Year | Title | Chinese Title | Role |
---|---|---|---|
1988 | "A Magic Doctor in Suzhou" | "姑苏一怪" | Ye Tianshi |
If it helps, I use WP:AWB, and I'm trying to figure out whether or not it's worth my time to set up an automatica find/replace for guillemets, or if they're acceptable when we're translating Chinese text. I'll post my query at the MOS just in case this turns out to not be a good place to ask. Thank you, Cyphoidbomb ( talk) 01:36, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
Year | Title | Chinese Title | Role |
---|---|---|---|
1988 | A Magic Doctor in Suzhou | 姑苏一怪 | Ye Tianshi |