Why is Czech spelled with a cz? The use of the cz digraph to represent the "ch" (IPA: [tʃ]) sound isn't Czech; it's Polish. The Oxford English Dictionary's first recorded use of the word Czech comes from 1850, long after the Czech language had replaced cz with č. So why do we use the Polish spelling and not an anglicized version of the Czech spelling (like "Chech" or "Chek")? Mwalcoff 02:34, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
Other examples are Iraq, Qatar and Kiribati.
All these spellings have historical reasons. It is unheard-of that the spelling of a national adjective in a foreign language was a matter of international relations, I think. We spell "Japan", "China", "Greece", all these have no similarity to the native term used, but nobody interprets that as some sort of lack of respect. With "Polish was better established" I obviously meant from the perception of the English, not in Bohemia itself: Polish was a written language with some tradition, while I don't think there was already a whole lot of Czech newspapers or literature. Most English exonyms (relating to Europe at least) use French orthography. In this case, mediation must have been via Polish rather than via French. It would be interesting to uncover the particulars. I could imagine that a reason is that at the time of the emergence of "Czechia" as an independent entity, English-French relations were not very good (Napoleon and all), so that may be a reason the English didn't opt for the French spelling. As for "simplicity is god", there is a tendency to stay closer to the native term in names that become current today. Since k and q are completely different phonemes in Arabic, and since we do have the q letter, without being forced to use diacritics even, I see no reason why it shouldn't be used. Use of q in Arabic names has nothing to do with French, it is just an attempt to get as close to a precise transliteration without using diacritics. dab (ᛏ) 09:07, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
What is the history of the word bellhop?
My question is as follows:
Can anyone translate the following burial record which is in latin and dates from 1682?
"Clemens Salisbury huius ecclesia parochianus in sepulcrum descendit 2 Aprilis"
Any help would be very much appreciated.
Regards,
Robert
What is an A4 gate? Sentence is: "A4 gate folded in two" and the following, separate sentence, is. "A4 gate folded in three". I can't find it in any dictionary or encyclopedia.
On the other hand, I need to translate it into portuguese (spanish would do).
Thanks in advance, Mario Cesar (Mário César) [email removed]
Hello, I'm doing a project in my class. I took three words chlorophyll, photosynthesis, and top consumers. I have to get the meaning of these words and what they're for.
Can someone add that fancy IPA pronunciation (for the life of me, I still can't understand the system at all as explained on our page for it) to indicate on the Sputnik page that in Russian it is pronounced "Spoot-nik" whereas in the West it is usually pronounced as "Spuht-nik"? Thanks. -- Fastfission 03:14, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
I was listening to that "Flip Top Box" song on Something Awful, which is remixed from old cigarette commercials. The song opens with "I'm a guy who likes to work on my car. I like to take it apart and put it back together...", and I wondered: is that first sentence correct grammatically? Should it be "work on his car", because he is referring to himself in third person, or is it correct as it is because he is referring to himself in general? Silly question, I know, I thought it up on a bus on a particularly slow and dull day. —DO' И eil 10:50, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
What does the o' in o'clock stand for? i'm wondering what it is a short form of?
I need the following sentence to be changed to the active voice:
Accidents are caused by carelessness.
JackofOz 05:29, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
What is the origin and meaning of cheese it, as in the phrase "Cheese it, it's the cops'?
My writer colleagues and I are stumped. When writing, how do you distinguish between citizens of the Dominican Republic and Dominica? Is the proper term for both "Dominicans"? To add to the confusion, "Dominicans" also refers to Roman Catholic orders. We appreciate your guidance. -- 129.123.81.45 23:23, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Hi there! Today, I noticed that when I pronounce the "p" in the word "ineptitude", it sounds slightly different than the "p" and say, "peach". Are they supposed to be different? How are they written in the international phonetic alphabet? Thanks for your help! -- HappyCamper 01:53, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
What's a word starting with "t", synonymous with unreliable, episodic, and ephemeral? ‣ᓛᖁ ᑐ 09:58, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
The other word I occasionally find myself looking for has as synonyms shroud, aura, aspect, identity, identifier, and mask. Both words are quite puzzling when I find a need for them — their meanings are clear to me, but they can never be properly expressed. Is there a term for this situation more precise than lexical gap? ‣ᓛᖁ ᑐ 00:14, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
What is the meaning and origin of the terms "Indie Bop" or "Indie Music?" Thanks, stir1
I can't tell if this is a language question or a computer question, but since there are likely more people here experience with non-English keyboard layouts I figured this might be the place to start.
I sometimes need to type in a Russian keyboard layout in Mac OS X Tiger. I usually use the "Phonetic" layout which comes with OS X, because it transposes the Cyrillic alphabet onto the QWERTY English arrangement in a way which is easier for me to understand than the traditional Russian typewriter layout.
My problem is that I can't see any easy way to add accents to letters. Russian does not normally have diacritics but for learning purposes (and I am learning) they are often used to denote where stress falls, which is very important (in some verb forms the differences between two meanings depends entirely on stress patterns). In English of course I can easily add accents with (option+e)+(vowel) (áéíóú) but this doesn't work in the Russian keyboard at all. Switching back and forth between Russian and English keyboards seems a pain in the neck and does not seem to be what Russian typists do when they add stress marks to Wikipedia entries (see, i.e. Akademgorodok -> Академгородо́к; the "o" with the accent over it is not, I do not think, the same character as the U.S. keyboard "ó").
How can I add these diacritics given my setup? What's the best solution? -- Fastfission 02:07, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
The stress mark in question is U+0301 Combining Acute Accent (́ or ́). Unlike the Latin o-acute ó, if you want Cyrillic о with accent mark, it takes two Unicode characters to create "о́", and the second one is U+0301. I'm not sure how you could go about entering this accent mark using a Russian keyboard... it's not on any of the standard keys (the ones in the rows above the space bar), so if it was possible at all it would have to be through some Alt- or Ctrl- or Windows or Option key combination in a system-dependent way. This mark is only used in dictionaries and not in normal Russian text (except maybe things like disambiguating instrumental по́том from потом). -- Curps 09:24, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
By the way, the standard Russian keyboard layout would be worth learning... it's much more of a " Dvorak keyboard" layout than QWERTY. For instance, Cyrillic "а" is on the "f" key, so it's typed with the index finger, and so forth, and other common letters are likewise in logical places. -- Curps 09:34, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
How can be my name translated to Japanese? Its in Japanese format: Daróczi László. It must be with pronunciation information. Hungarian and Japanese are quite similar in pronunciation. I try to add some information regarding how to say my name: "Dar" as dar in Darude or Dark, "ó" is a bit longer o, "czi" is a hard one, do not count in the z and try to say c as in "ts" in tsunami and an i in gift. "Lá" is like li without the y sound in light, "sz" is s, "ló" is low or loo.
Or if the meaning is needed, the basic part of "Daróczi" is daróc, which means some kind of rough cloth, blanket, etc. László could be Leslie in English.
Thanks in advance! László from Budapest
Wow, thanks for you! I'll put it in my signature. So it could be written as "ダロクズィ・ラスロ - darokuzi rasuro" or "darootsi raasuroo". For the latter, the kanji form is the "ダローツィ・ラースロー"? A little correction: cz is just said as c, because it is an old form of a sound, and long accents (' ") only means longer sounds in the case of i,o, ö, u, ü, but a and á, e and é are different sounds, so I think the correct is "darootsi rasuroo"... :) By the way, I think its harder to truly translate my name, but in anyone does it, I would be thankful. My name's approximate meaning is above. --László
Yes, yes, it's not kanji, I missed it. The Japanese use katakana/hiragana for transliteration of foreign names. And I'm just curious about my name in Japanese, and I know that the "real" translation is when you translate the meaning... Thanks for your help! Or arigatou! --László
I'd like to know what the Spanish word "polvorete" means. None of the Spanish dictionaries I've tried have this word. Anybody know? KeeganB
Sorry, I should have pointed out that "el polvorete" is a noun. KeeganB
Would the sentence "Just wondering: Would you do this or would you do that" grammatically correct or not?
Thank you, Shardsofmetal [ Talk | Contribs ] 04:15, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
I have been taxing my brain for a word to phrase that means this: the concept that a task may actually take longer to perform when employing technology. For example, one wants to telephone store X. One dials 411 and the computer-generated operator takes several minutes to retrieve desired number. However, if one had looked up the number in the directory it would have taken less time. I am fairly convinced that there is an axiom that illustrates this phenomenon. A close synonym is rube goldberg?
Thank you in advance for your consideration. This has been a bee in my bonnet for a few days-- 64.136.49.228-- 64.136.49.228 07:55, 6 November 2005 (UTC)Indra
I know that there such a phrase exists. It is there in the lexicon, I have seen it in print but because my brain is fried, I cannot recall it. I take exception to your asserting that rube goldberg is not very close, I would argue that some new technologies are unduly complicated. For example, the computer-generated operator that responds to 411 call asks several questions before one is given the number and if, Lord forbid, there are two listings, one is kicked over to a live operator to whom one is required to repeat one's request. I assert said scenario is unduly complicated and slow. -- 64.136.49.228 12:15, 6 November 2005 (UTC)Indra
Are there ordinal adjectives like "Primary" and "Secondary" for 9 and 10? Thanks -- Colonel Cow 16:34, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
But these become increasingly obscure as one goes. I would guess that the majority of native English-speakers would never even use "tertiary", might not understand "quaternary", and certainly would not understand "quinary" or anything beyond. These are very artificial Latinisms. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:54, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
What are examples of syllable languages? ‣ᓛᖁ ᑐ 00:34, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
There is a Mexican ballad entitled "El Coyote" and the first line goes "Le pinté un cuatro al coyote" which literally means "I painted a four for the coyote" (Coyote is the nickname of a character in the ballad BTW) Anybody here know enough about Spanish idioms to tell me what the author meant by that?
What the author of the song is saying by "Le Pinte Un Cuatro Al Coyote" is he is blessing the dead man upon his feet. The song starts how the story ended and then explains why he killed him....and by saying that he is making the cross with the motion of the hand..(If you've seen it,...it appears like a number 4,...but is a cross of blessing)..which is very traditional in the mexican culture. Marcos Rosas from Tucson AZ ...January 2nd 2007..
mrosas42@aol.com
(No Question)
Instinct normally refers to a natural compulsion that you are born with, while habit is a skill that you learn, which then becomes a compulsion. For example, actions such as fight or flight reflex are instinct, while washing your hands after using the toilet is habit. smurrayinchester( User), ( Talk) 10:05, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
What the author of the song is saying by "Le Pinte Un Cuatro Al Coyote" is he is blessing the dead man upon his feet. The song starts how the story ended and then explains why he killed him....and by saying that he is making the cross with the motion of the hand....which is a very traditional in the mexican culture. Marc from Tucson AZ
What is the only english word ending in MT?
I seem to find it very intermittent. I'm aware of the page view limit which is there for obvious reasons. However, I'm getting all sorts of problems:
I've tried looking at some blog searches to see if anyone else is getting many errors and haven't found anything. Anyone else getting this sort of behaviour? -- bodnotbod 18:21, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
How do you say the following words in Latin?
- list - panel/committee/association - director. (Dîrector?) - associate/assistant - the act of making or creating (Creâtiô?)
Thanks! —anon
What is the meaning of "clean chit"?
What does the Finnish word mee mean? Is it a heavily modified verb, or colloquial? ‣ᓛᖁ ᑐ 21:00, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
What is the antonym of Antagonist? I'm using it in the sense of a person in a fight who was the one to start it, and want a word that means "a person in a fight who was not the one to start it". The Antagonist entry at Wiktionary gives Protagonist as an antonym, but I have always understood this to mean (in this context) "one of the people who took part", not specifially on one side or the other. Thryduulf 00:08, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
I think instigator and target would work for my situation. Thank you. Thryduulf 09:08, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
Not really relevant, probably: Talmy's Force Dynamics uses Agonist versus Antagonist. — mark ✎ 22:00, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
No, I'm not trying to cite Wikipedia. ;-) I'm trying to figure out a specific situation with Turabian style but the answer will probably be similar in other styles as well. I've gone over my copy of A Manual for Writers but couldn't find a specific answer to this. I imagine it would have a subheading like "Component Part within a Work by One Author Edited by Another". It's the last part that's difficult. Here's what I have so far:
Now, Foucault wrote the article in question, in a book of his writings. The library catalogue of course lists Foucault as the author of Essential Works of Foucault. But Faubion has edited the volume, and needs mentioning for that reason, of course. But I worry that it could be misconstrued (by a purist, of course) as not indicating that Foucault wrote the entire book (despite the title), if another is listed as an editor. Can I indicate a primary author and an editor at the same time? What do I do if the primary author is also the author of the sub-section? It seems to violate some principle of redundancy. Or have I just lost my mind and am obsessing over the End Matter a bit too much? (Cf. Louis Menand, "The End Matter") Advice from a style stickler is requested... -- Fastfission 00:27, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm trying to find where the following Japanese words came from:
1. Yoroshiku 2. Gambatte 3. Shibui 4. Bimyou 5. Johcho (ga aru machi)
I've been trying to find Japanese etymological sources in English but can't seem to find any. I would specifically like to know:
Where does the word come from? Korea? China? Or is it an 'original' Japanese word? When was it coined? In what context was the word created? When did it become an "official" word (one recognized by the government)?
Even if there are no answers for it, any sources that could provide insight would be much appreciated.
Thank you so much!
I'm writting a science fiction novel, and I've got a place named Petrograd. I keep wanting to make the adjective form Petrogravian, for reasons I don't entirely understand. I'm almost sure that somewhere an adjective form has been made by turning a final plosive into a frictive, whether it be a d->v or not, but I can't for the life of me remember where. Is this fairly normal in some situations or is this an odd way of making the adjective form?-- Prosfilaes 05:15, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
why is a funeral called " funeral wake" ,when nobody rises? After all ,it is to commemorate and remember somebodys's death.
It's called a "wake" because no one sleeps during it. It's a vigil, a state of wakefulness. It's a watch over someone's dead body. If you're sitting up all night guarding a corpse, you're of little use if you're asleep. - Nunh-huh 06:41, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
I've read some explanation in an Indian newspaper long time back and do not remember that now. Can someone tell why people "fall" in love and not rise? -- Sundar \ talk \ contribs 06:48, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
How would you say "Go fly a kite" in Latin? I'm looking for a direct translation, NOT the idiomatic equivalent. Thank you! - ParkerHiggins 07:05, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
And the third half I didn't enjoy at all. This is a paraphrase of a Marvin quote, but that's not relevant. What is relevent is: What do you call it when someone says 'first half second half third half', and when someone says 'This is the worst. That is also the worst'? I probably didn't phrase that very well... Kid Apathy 11:17, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
How can we get the English-speaking world to stop saying "offshore" when they really mean "overseas"? Offshore is simply not a synonym of overseas. Offshore in my dictionary means "off or away from the shore; at a distance from the shore". While "a distance" is not limited, the sense is that it's a relatively short distance beyond the shoreline. It's possibly even within sight of the land, although not necessarily. An island 20 km from the mainland would still be offshore. But Indonesia is definitely not offshore in relation to Australia, or Cuba in relation to the USA. These are overseas.
What ever was so wrong with "overseas" that required it to not only be virtually discarded, but replaced with an alternative word that means something quite different? I wince every time I hear "offshore" (about 20 times a day), not only at the falsity of the usage, but also at the stupidity of the sheep-like people who feel obliged to ape every damn new-fangled form of expression just because it's become "the thing to say", regardless of its linguistic merit (or lack thereof). Oh, and please don't tell me that the language naturally changes and evolves and we must move with the times. Of course evolution occurs, but change for its own sake, and change for the worse, both of which have happened in this case, are never good ideas. JackofOz 11:28, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
As an American English speaker, I use "offshore" for shorter distances, and "overseas" for longer distances, although I do set the threshold higher. To me, "overseas" means clear on the other side of an ocean, so England would be "overseas" from the US but Cuba would be "offshore" (it's really quite close to Miami). StuRat 20:45, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
I am reading a book written by a scholar, whose name is Jan Willem Drijvers. I am sure he is Dutch, but I don't know how to pronounce his last name exactly. I hope somebody let me know the accurate pronunciation of this name. I will appreciate anybody's kind answer to my question.
In the article Aspiration (phonetics) it mentions that there are two distinct "p" phonemes in Cantonese. One of them looks like a little h after the p, and the other looks like a little z after the p. Can someone give examples of Chinese words which distinguish between the two? -- HappyCamper 03:22, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
I know I've read a WP article on it before, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was called! The article is on using English without words of Romantic origin, and it included a passage of the "To be or not to be" monologue, translated into Germanic English. Honestly, I'd just love to find the article again. -- ParkerHiggins 04:03, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
This has been bothering me for a while. Often Wikipedia editors use the conditional tense to describe past events that took place after an event previously mentioned. I am sure that there is a grammatical term for this, and I'd be happy if someone could identify that. My real concern is that this usage, while not incorrect, is probably best avoided in Wikipedia because (a) it is unnecessarily grandiloquent, and (b) it is potentially confusing to non-English readers. Here is an example from today's featured article, Dogpatch USA (emphasis added):
Wouldn't this be clearer if it were written in the past tense:
My instinct is to be bold, and just go ahead and make the changes, but I want to ask editors here if they think I would be out of line in doing so. What do you think? Ground Zero | t 14:56, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, it was kind of surprising language for a featured article. The article was well-researched, and quite thorough, so it was a good article, but there was a tendancy toward flowery language. I see that you edited. Nice job. I wonder if there is merit in trying to address this issue in the Guide to writing better articles. Something like:
Comments? Ground Zero | t 19:33, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
I'd like to point out that the conditional is a good way to describe the future from the point of view from the past. I see no reason to prohibit it. -- Mwalcoff 23:34, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
I have posted a comment about this for discussion at Wikipedia talk:Guide to writing better articles. Ground Zero | t 16:05, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
In the time of Homer (8th c. BC), was ou already [u:], or still [ou]? And, was u still [u(:)] or already [y(:)]? And if ou was already [u:] as early as that, how do you explain Greek spelling, in the first place? other words, is Greek orthography somehow hyper-archaic, representing a stage even earlier than the actual adoption of writing, and how is that possible? In a similar vein, Old English g: They teach you to read gif as yif even for the earliest texts; if [g] was lost as early as that, how is it possible that it made it into spelling at all? You would assume that at the earliest stage of writing, spelling would be strictly phonological? dab (ᛏ) 15:26, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Hello! :o)
I'm looking for this sentence to be translated. Problem is - I don't know what language it is to begin with. Thanks for your help. "Fecit meum facere res malus"
Sue
It's Latin, it sort of means 'I made this thing evil.' No doubt someone wise and learnéd will tell you better than I can. Proto t c 15:52, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
I know ceasar said "the die as been cast", but i've seen many people write "dye" as in an article of clothing, which is correct?
-- Angr/ tɔk tə mi 19:17, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
How would you say <He is modest and ingenious> in Latin? Thank you.
Does anyone know what the name Wilanda means, as in the Wilanda Downs Forest? I would really appreciate an answer. Thanks.
It was a personal name, possibly the first owner of the forest (which I understand is in NZ?) -- the name itself is possibly a feminine form of Wieland, the mythic smith. But I see that the Dutch were called "Wilanda" in Siam in the 18th century [7], probably an Austronesian attempt at pronouncing "Nederlander" dab (ᛏ) 16:46, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
Eddtheman has asked the following question on our help e-mail list. would like to know the order of 26 alphabet letters. Starting with the most used letter to the least used letter. I know e is the most used letter in the English alphabet. But I would like to know the order of the next 25 letters in the alphabet starting with the most used letter.
As promised, I am posting his question here. Capitalistroadster 22:59, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Source | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 1+2+3 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total number of letters | 5398 | 12851 | 25103 | 21703 | 43352 |
most common letter | E | E | E | E | E |
| V |
T | T | T | T | T |
A | O | O | O | O | |
I | A | A | A | A | |
N | I | N | N | I | |
R | N | I | I | N | |
O | S | S | S | S | |
S | H | H | H | R | |
H | R | R | R | H | |
L | L | L | L | L | |
C | U | U | U | U | |
D | D | D | D | D | |
M | C | G | Y | M | |
U | Y | Y | M | C | |
F | M | M | W | Y | |
P | W | W | G | G | |
G | P | C | F | W | |
W | F | P | C | P | |
B | G | F | P | F | |
Y | B | B | B | B | |
V | V | V | V | V | |
K | K | K | K | K | |
Q | X | Z | J | Z | |
X | J | J | X | X | |
Z | Q | X | Z | J | |
Least common letter | J | Z | Q | Q | Q |
Source 1 is a short georgraphy essay, 2 is a letter to a male friend, 3 is a letter to a female friend I hadn't seen in a year or so, 4 is a letter to my then girlfriend. Thryduulf 00:18, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Here is another analysis from a document with approx. 14,700 words. It shows more or less what your analysis shows but with some noteable differences. (Sorry about the messy presentation; I have some neat histograms which will have to wait until I get logged in. e 9487 t 7336 a 7058 o 6833 r 6435 n 6340 i 6064 s 5895 c 3954 l 3911 d 3016 p 2516 h 2245 m 2176 f 2143 u 1994 g 1323 y 1166 b 1038 v 967 w 810 k 487 q 296 x 255 j 147 z 89 letters 83981 words 14710
Hi could you translate my grandsons name'MIKEY' into irish gaelic for me? many thanks, Michael
The last two lines of the Franz Ferdinand song 'Darts of pleasure' are Ich heiße super-fantastisch/Ich trinke Schampus mit Lachsfisch. What does this mean? smurrayinchester( User), ( Talk) 08:49, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Hi--I need to know if there is a word meaning "every twenty years" I know about bi- tri- cent-quatri- etc. but I need the word for every twenty years, if there is one. if not, Ineed the lating word for twenty. Anyone?? Thanks
I need some type of software to learn my lists of vocabulary. CAn anybody help?
how do you solve complex maths and science problems intuitively?
What are some countries that do not speak english at all?-- 60.228.221.142
I'm writing a letter to an Austrian university, and I think my German is slipping. I am writing to a group of people I don't know, and I typed Sehr geehrte Herren! Then I thought this might be sexist, so I changed it to Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren! Then I felt it sounded a bit too theatrical. What is the correct formal German way to begin this letter? -- Gareth Hughes 16:45, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren, ich möchte darauf hinweisen, dass...
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren! Ich möchte darauf hinweisen, dass...
May I ask what "geehrte" means so I can learn a new phrase in German? And is there a preference in German to place Damen in front of Herren in modern letters, or is there no difference? -- HappyCamper 01:52, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
The "sehr ver-/geehrte", btw, is a remnant of 17th century Baroque excessive courteousness -- like the Sie address (3rd person plural, where else do you find anything like it). "Sehr" in the 16th century still meant "badly, dire", and only with over-use (a bit like "terribly", but "terribly" didn't quite get as far as "yours terribly faithfully" in standard letters) came to mean "very" in the 17th century. dab (ᛏ) 17:52, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
You know how there are lists of "most used words" right? Well is the some kind of "words from the dictionary that are least used" list somewhere? If so, I will promote the use of the rare words. -- Wonderfool t (c) 22:41, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
How do you pronounce the word siping and put it in IPA letters? (And also, if I don't know IPA, how do I begin to learn it well?) -- HappyCamper 01:57, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm seeing lots of character strings that I don't recognize as a known language. What are they? How can I learn more about them. Do they have a name?
I tried looking it up at http://tarjim.sakhr.com/, to no avail. BTW, are there any other online Arabic translators? -- tyomitch 20:13, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
I've found
this wordlist which gives "roses" and "flowers" as the variants. They fit in the context, but there's one more question: what are the things called "1st Plural" and "2nd Plural" in this list? For وَرْدَة ("rose" on tarjim.sakhr.com), the wordlist gives وُرُود as "1st Plural" and وَرْد as "2nd Plural" (the last one is "roses" on tarjim.sakhr.com)
I'm really confused now. -- tyomitch 22:34, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
وُرُود can be read a number of ways, so context is vital. Here are the various meanings:
The definitions are from Hans Wehr's MSA dictionary. The confusion of meaning is due to the root WRD meaning both 'to come/arrive' and, by extension, 'to blossom/bloom/redden/blush'. -- Gareth Hughes 12:29, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
(I made this name up because I don't know what else to call it)
If you take the word YES, and progressively advance each letter by one letter: YES > ZFT > AGU > BHV etc, you eventually come to OUI (which of course is French for YES). I've tried various other words and most don't result in any new words at all, and of those that do, almost all of them produce words that have no relationship to the original word. The YES/OUI pair is one of probably a fairly small set.
Is there an already coined name for this .. this .. word game? Does any list of these pairs exist? Is there a website? JackofOz 06:47, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
#!/usr/bin/perl # # Shift a word by one letter # sub stitute { # Shift letters $_[0] =~ y/A-Za-z/B-ZAb-za/; # Done return shift; } # Read the wordlist while (<>) { # Strip newlines chomp; # Remember this word push @words, $_; $word{$_} = true; } # No valid words yet my $num = 0; # Shift each word for my $word (@words) { my $next = $word; my %shift; # Examine all shifts for my $shift (1..25) { # Shift $next = stitute($next); # Ignore non-words next if not $word{$next}; # Remember this word $shift{$shift} = $next; } # Ignore unshiftable words next if not %shift; # Note the word print "$word:\n"; print "\t$shift{$_} [$_]\n" for (sort {$a <=> $b} keys %shift); print "\n"; # Count this word $num++; } # Count the words print "$num ", ($num == 1 ? "word" : "words"), "\n\n";
I was wondering if anyone knows the origin/meaning of the name Tenneil [or any variation of it]
Thanks
I am writing a letter to someone who goes by these titles:
Honorable Sir 'Wiley Coyote', Kt, OBE
Obviously, not really Mr. Coyote. The question is: how do I correctly and formally address a letter to this person? What does the Kt stand for?
Thanks if you can help.
I was wondering... You didn't put up a table for jargons when I need it most... Can you give me the meaning of jargon and please give me 25 examples?? Thank you. Arigato..,
I'm an English speaking spanish student, and I have a question about a particular grammatical structure. We've learned, in my class, about "Ojalá + subjunctive pluperfect" (or pluscuamperfecto), but not about "Ojalá + subjunctive present perfect" (or presente perfecto). An example of the construction in question would be "Ojalá que él lo haya hecho." I was wondering what a translation of that sentence might be like, or what the significance of the construction would be. Thanks! 63.193.91.60 20:38, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
When you are trying to repeat something someone said but it's not correct word-to-word, what is that called?
Thanks
209.239.26.134 01:47, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
Good morning: What do these words mean? "Taedas Ferentes"
Thank you.
In The Trial by Sadakat Kadri he writes "P[ain]",he explained,"is overrated" I am unable to find this "convention" or to understand its use or necessity in Shorter Oxford or on your admirable web site Can you help please Richard Morris www.richardmorrisplaywright.co.uk
hi my name is faust i live in australia .
i m in need of an exelent translator for a short text in english to be translated in old aramaic (the language of jesus) so if you don t mind helping me i will be so greatfull (i have been surching for someone for a few days and if you know someone please send me an e-mail. <email removed>
a few years ago I heard someone use the word "heliocastic" (sp?) to describe a regime that aims to remake the world by destorying everything that has come before. He used it in reference to the Khmer Rouge. I think it's a great word, but a google search yields no hits, I can't find it in any dictionaries I have at home or the office, and I don't have an OED around (and I don't subscribe to their site). The other thing that makes me suspicious is that I'm not sure if the etymology makes sense (if I'm spelling it right). Anyone have any ideas? Binkymagnus 01:05, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
See Harry Houdini. Were first and last name switched in native Hungarian at that time? First and last name were switched before, but now someone changed it to the way we westerners do it nowadays. - Mgm| (talk) 09:28, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
What is the female counerword for misogynist'?
who wrote the poem
Four seeds sown in a row one for the weed and one for the crow one to rot and one to grow
-- 86.130.166.251 17:33, 16 November 2005 (UTC)Gilmour-- 86.130.166.251 17:33, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
Just wondering,what is the purpose of a five year plan, relating to future career choices? (Jamie, Kit, Ont.)Nov 16.
How would you translate "Blood makes the grass grow: kill, kill, kill" into Latin? Neutrality talk 01:26, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
What is an antonym for acquire? 220.233.72.253 03:42, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
How'"give up"? User:Articuno1
Sorry to bother you but I have a question and could not find the answer. I am a French translator and trying to translate 'the church of Saint John' I do not know whether to say Saint-John church or Saint John church without hyphen. I have also seen St. John's church, or the Church of Saint-John ???thank you for your help.
I hope someone can help me with this.
I am a Nama speaker and is very grateful that you have information on this wonderful language. It is very difficult to get any info on this language, so thank you very much for putting it on your site.
My question is: How did you manage to write in Nama on this site? Because of the clicks and other 'unusual' characters, used in this language, i always thought that it wont be possible to write it on a webpage?
If i want to write entirely in this language on a webpage what would i need to do? Because i would like to further the presence of this language on the web by creating a site that is dedicated to it, so it would really be very helpful to know.
Your help in this matter will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you very much.
Leidago
Guinea- Bissau, Guinea, Equatorial Guinea- why do they all have the word Guinea in it?
Okay, I need some help with this one. A high-level student of mine delivered this sentence:
I corrected her, telling her it should be "pulling Jake away." She was surprised by that, but I told her that "to pull" was correct in this sentence form:
That is really freaking horrible, don't you think? Anyway, why do we use the present progressive "pulling" when stating a conditional when addressing "you," but we use the infinitive "to pull" when stating a conditional addressing nobody? (I think I stated that right…) Garrett Albright 04:59, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
Why were these people reverted?
What thread unites all the literary events that take place in Britain up to the time of Bede?
Can you please help me with these two answers I am having a very hard time with this information.
There was a bit in a French article, fr:Tro Breizh that said "Une vieille légende bretonne dit que ceux qui n'auront pas effectué leur Tro Breizh de leur vivant seront condamnés à le faire dans l'au-delà, en avançant de la longueur de leur cercueil, une fois tous les sept ans". The fist bit's fine, bit the second bit is unclear to me. Did the ghosts have to walk the equivalanet distance of the tour (600km) every seven years by pacing up and down in their coffin? That makes the most sense as a good legend and gramatically, but just to make sure -- Wonderfool t (c) 22:20, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
Why is it that British bands generally sing with an American English pronunciation of the 'a', such as in "I can't get no satisfaction"? This is almost invariably done, with the possible exception of the Kinks. DirkvdM 14:38, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
Re: Scouse vs Cockney. Somewhere long ago I heard that the old Newgate accent of London no longer exists - in the UK; it was picked up and exported wholesale to Australia. Ever heard of this? Skookum1 00:25, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
What is your definition of occupation? I understand the definition to be: the taking possession of a sovereign area by a foreign military force. If the definition is simply: the taking possession of an area by a foreign military force, then most (if not all) countries on the planet are occupied. If the former definition is correct, than few regions are occupied.
(no questions today)
How can i write the word "love" or the phrase "i love you" in various scripts like in arabic, french, chinese, japanese etc? Also, what symbol is used for "love" in egyptian hieroglyphics and/or in various other symbolic scripts? Motifs are used all over the world for certain words in various languages. I wanted to know the motive used for "love" in various languages, countries, or in other sign languages etc.
Is there a plural of the word legislation? Could you say that the 'legislations are backward' , or that the 'legislations are extended' ? I can find the phrase 'legislations are...' , by googling, but it sure looks and sounds strange. Thanks if you can shed light.
According to this resource: http://law.anu.edu.au/studytools/STCommErr7.asp :
The word legislation is a bit like the word cake. We say 'one piece of legislation' or 'two pieces of legislation' or 'the legislation' (to refer to one Act or many). However, unlike with cakes, there is no such word as 'legislations' - the plural form remains legislation. To indicate a plural, you need to refer to the number of pieces of legislation. If you find this confusing, use the terms 'Act' and 'Acts' (or 'statute' and 'statutes') instead. These are made plural simply by adding an 's'.
In Genesis (King James English), God told Adam and Eve to "replenish" the earth. Webster's Dictionary says that this word means "to fill again". I would like to know what the Hebrew translation says, and is the precise translation to English "replenish"? Carrie, San Diego, CA
what is the japanese term for college?
Hello. I am a first time visitor to this site and not at all as informed as I might wish about the Inuit. I recently was given a young male husky-wolf mix dog a friend found in the wilds along the Arizona-California border he named Jack. My family has decided to find an Inuit translation to call him by if possible so that we could honor what we currently believe to be the native herritage of the breed. I am not sure if this is even an appropriate question, so please accept my apology if it is not. If is is appropiate please help with a translation to English along with a phoenetic spelling to help with pronounciation.
Patrick, Tammy, Tanner, and Brandy Mitchell
Another meaning of "Jack" is "worker" as in "lumber jack" or "jack of all trades". So, you might want to find the Inuit word for "worker". StuRat 21:18, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
I don't understand what badges they're talking about in this Kuro5hin thread. Can someone please clarify it to me? Samohyl Jan 13:24, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
On Carloman, son of Charles Martel, I found the term bloody judgment of Cannstatt. This is an overly literal translation of Blutgericht zu Cannstatt. Now, 'Blutgericht' was simply the term for any jurisdiction with the power to pronounce death sentences. What would be the most accurate English translation of this? Since the term is particular to the Holy Roman Empire, we may have to settle for Blutgericht, as with reichsfrei, but maybe there is a current English term? dab (ᛏ) 16:57, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
(Resetting indentation) It appears I wasn't that far off with my translation: at least we have an article on high, middle and low justice. However, that article needs work, and doesn't give any sources. (For instance, I have never heard of "middle justice", and the article's explanation that "this intermediate level is the least well defined, and sometimes absent in a specific jurisdiction" isn't exactly helpful.) Lupo 09:20, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
I didn't see this on military slang--what does "actual" mean when referring to something over radio? As in, "Charlie Six Actual, do you copy?"? grendel| khan 20:21, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm looking for a list of Unicode characters that are used exclusively in one language (for instance, " ß" is used exclusively in German and " ĉ" is used exclusively in Esperanto. Both Google and Wikipedia searches didn't turn up much. Can anyone help me out? -- Mcmillin24 23:19, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
Maybe Romanian Ș/ș (S/s with comma) and Ț/ț (T/t with comma)? Uncommon enough that in the English Wikipedia, we don't normally use them, because so few fonts include them. Instead, we use Ş/ş (S/s with cedilla) and Ţ/ţ (T/t with cedilla). See Romanian alphabet.
Most (maybe all) of the unique Vietnamese characters do not actually have Unicode code points, they have to be at least partially decomposed. For example, LATIN A WITH ACUTE ACCENT might be followed by COMBINING TILDE to produce LATIN A WITH ACUTE ACCENT AND TILDE. (I'm not even sure that particular combination exists, but you get the point. And you'd do the same for the N WITH DIARESIS that Angr calls an "n with umlaut" above. It's not an umlaut.)
Of course, once you get out of the Latin alphabet, there are a lot more. For example, even with Han unification, most Chinese ideographs are exclusively Chinese. The kana are exclusively Japanese.
Similarly, I believe Hangul is used exclusively for Korean, and I think Thai language and Khmer language each have a unique script, too. Then there's Sinhala script for Sinhala, Malayalam script for Malayalam language. Devangari, Syriac… A lot of Asian languages have unique alphabets, though some do share. Can't think of which are unique off the top of my head, and I've already taken about 20 minutes replying, but it should be only a few hours research to work out pretty comprehensively. See http://www.unicode.org/iso15924/iso15924-codes.html for a comprehensive list of scripts supported by Unicode. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:50, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
I believe that letters with the double acute accent are fairly rare: ӳ is used in Chuvash (only?), and ő and ű in Hungarian (only?) - Nunh-huh 19:10, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
in Denmark we have the letters: å, ø and æ that is only used in Denmark
The O-cedilla: I notice in the Wikipedia character-set at the bottom of the edit pages all the other vowels are given with cedillas: Ą ą Ę ę Į į Ų ų ; why is this not available for O-cedilla (see Old Norse Talk page). Skookum1 00:10, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
This is a hypothetical question on word origins and etymology I guess...What languages do "Wikipedians" speak? Or rather, what "should" a Wikipedian speak?
Wikipedians come from Wikipedia, and they speak Wikipedianese? -- HappyCamper 01:48, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied.
kind regards Vineet Chaitanya
But this debate completely misses the point of the question. The question is not whether or not the words comprise a complete sentence, it's "what is the main verb?". JackofOz 02:46, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
Unless, of course, "Pennies" is a person, persons or an organization who saved house numbers one and two at a time... In that case "saved" is the overt verb. Zocky 14:52, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
Could someone translate this Japanese sentence into an English one? :o) Thank you.
hai seimazen. cohee, cohee! hotto, doozo... arigato gozaimasu!
Gerard Foley 19:52, 24 November 2005 (UTC)sorry. coffee, coffee! hot, thanks!
How would I say 'Hello, Physics Teacher' in these languages? I don't understand IPA, but feel free to answer in it if you must. smurrayinchester( User), ( Talk) 19:20, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
Where does the phrase "Nothing can go wrong...can go wrong...can go wrong", ironically indicating that something has already gone wrong (the robot is malfunctioning or the record or CD is skipping) originate?
(No questions today)
(no questions today)
What is the word for the omission of a letter or word from a literary work's entirety?
--Travis Froggatt
I'm a law student editing an article written by a Canadian professor. She refers to a case dealing with a patent for a "fire check" device involved with gas burners. The more I read the case, the more I think that a "fire check" is something used in gas burners and less to detect smoke in houses. Thanks for your help.
I'm Canadian (Toronto) and I've never heard of a "fire check". I have smoke detectors. If my house burned down, my insurance company might give me a "fire cheque", but that's beside the point. Ground Zero | t 14:42, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Agree that in Britain if it means anything it probably means fire safety inspection. Ive never heard the phrase but "(annual) gas check" is certainly used as a synonym for gas safety inspection. Jameswilson 23:59, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
How would I correctly translate the Dutch word cabaretier to English? An example of a cabaretier is nl:Wim Sonneveld. — R. Koot 21:33, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
Why is it illegal to name a child Monica in Equatorial Guinea?
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.130.117.72 ( talk • contribs)
It was observed in the answer to the question "What is the main verb in the following sentence?" that the given "sentence" was really a "sentence fragment". As far as I know in my language Hindi a "finite subordinate clause" may be represented as an "orthographic sentence" but not a "non finite" one.
I would like to know, "How common is it to represent a "non finite" clause as an orthographic sentence in English? Does this happen only with past-participial forms or with other forms also?
I thank all the commentators for an enlightening discussion on my previous question.
Vineet Chaitanya
The understanding of how words fit together, how words rhyme, and how changes in sounds change words is called what? -- 67.177.139.171 18:33, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
On a scale of difficulty from, say, French to Russian, how difficult is Hebrew to learn for a post-adolescence native English speaker? -- Fastfission 02:29, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
I've noticed the names for days of the week in Finnish are all Germanic. I'm guessing this is mainly due to Swedish rule and consequent enforcement of Swedish timekeeping. Historically, did Finnish timekeeping differ much from the modern system, and in particular, what would days of the week have been called? ‣ᓛᖁ ᑐ 13:28, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
What is a skeleton crew?
What is the Morse code for S.O.S?
The Wikipedia Help Desk has received the following question from Jane Galligan.
I am interested in learning Arabic. After doing a bit of research, I found that I could learn Eastern Arabic or Egyptian Arabic. Which would be more useful in today's world in your opinion?
Sincerely, Jane G.
I have advised her that our Arabic article states that Egyptian Arabic is more widely used but would welcome any assistance that you may be able to offer.
Capitalistroadster 00:49, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
You might look into the demographics of where different languages and dialects are spoken, and what the cultures are there, and if you feel you would be comfortable interacting with them. There are Muslim cultures that restrict freedom of women compared to Western cultures, such that a woman coming from the West might not be able to make a comfortable living. So you pick what you want to learn based on your comfort levels with whay you have learned about the culture and legal structure there. AlMac|[[User talk:AlMac|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 06:58, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
What is Edgar Allan Poe's foster mom's maiden name?
The phrase " touch base" has an origin. Does anyone know the origin of this phrase? Is it a sports term applicable to baseball or an action term applicable to location ?
Its not used in Britain (although we do understand it) so I imagine it must come from baseball. Jameswilson 02:57, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
On an exciting debate I'm watching, the following was said: Ever wonder why babies and soldiers destined to be ground into hamburger had the "same" name? The Indo-European root "fa" is one used for speech and communication. The prefix "in" is used as a negation. Neither babies nor infantry men have a voice; they're not capable or entitled to have one and make their own decisions. Is this, in fact, where the words "infant" and "infantry" both come from? grendel| khan 19:23, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
From what I understand, the word 'infantry' comes from the concept of 'raising' (also in the sense of 'nurturing') local armies under the old feudal system. Knights were local feudal lords owning land, and all people living on that land were subjects of the knight. In times of war or strife, small 'armies' would be put together from amongst these subjects, mostly utilising weapons and equipment that they had at home. As most of the subjects were poor people, they did not have horses (or, if they did, they were either too valuable to use in battle, or of the wrong type), so they fought on foot. That is why the term 'infantry' came to mean 'foot soldiers'. -- Givnan 13:12, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Why is Czech spelled with a cz? The use of the cz digraph to represent the "ch" (IPA: [tʃ]) sound isn't Czech; it's Polish. The Oxford English Dictionary's first recorded use of the word Czech comes from 1850, long after the Czech language had replaced cz with č. So why do we use the Polish spelling and not an anglicized version of the Czech spelling (like "Chech" or "Chek")? Mwalcoff 02:34, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
Other examples are Iraq, Qatar and Kiribati.
All these spellings have historical reasons. It is unheard-of that the spelling of a national adjective in a foreign language was a matter of international relations, I think. We spell "Japan", "China", "Greece", all these have no similarity to the native term used, but nobody interprets that as some sort of lack of respect. With "Polish was better established" I obviously meant from the perception of the English, not in Bohemia itself: Polish was a written language with some tradition, while I don't think there was already a whole lot of Czech newspapers or literature. Most English exonyms (relating to Europe at least) use French orthography. In this case, mediation must have been via Polish rather than via French. It would be interesting to uncover the particulars. I could imagine that a reason is that at the time of the emergence of "Czechia" as an independent entity, English-French relations were not very good (Napoleon and all), so that may be a reason the English didn't opt for the French spelling. As for "simplicity is god", there is a tendency to stay closer to the native term in names that become current today. Since k and q are completely different phonemes in Arabic, and since we do have the q letter, without being forced to use diacritics even, I see no reason why it shouldn't be used. Use of q in Arabic names has nothing to do with French, it is just an attempt to get as close to a precise transliteration without using diacritics. dab (ᛏ) 09:07, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
What is the history of the word bellhop?
My question is as follows:
Can anyone translate the following burial record which is in latin and dates from 1682?
"Clemens Salisbury huius ecclesia parochianus in sepulcrum descendit 2 Aprilis"
Any help would be very much appreciated.
Regards,
Robert
What is an A4 gate? Sentence is: "A4 gate folded in two" and the following, separate sentence, is. "A4 gate folded in three". I can't find it in any dictionary or encyclopedia.
On the other hand, I need to translate it into portuguese (spanish would do).
Thanks in advance, Mario Cesar (Mário César) [email removed]
Hello, I'm doing a project in my class. I took three words chlorophyll, photosynthesis, and top consumers. I have to get the meaning of these words and what they're for.
Can someone add that fancy IPA pronunciation (for the life of me, I still can't understand the system at all as explained on our page for it) to indicate on the Sputnik page that in Russian it is pronounced "Spoot-nik" whereas in the West it is usually pronounced as "Spuht-nik"? Thanks. -- Fastfission 03:14, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
I was listening to that "Flip Top Box" song on Something Awful, which is remixed from old cigarette commercials. The song opens with "I'm a guy who likes to work on my car. I like to take it apart and put it back together...", and I wondered: is that first sentence correct grammatically? Should it be "work on his car", because he is referring to himself in third person, or is it correct as it is because he is referring to himself in general? Silly question, I know, I thought it up on a bus on a particularly slow and dull day. —DO' И eil 10:50, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
What does the o' in o'clock stand for? i'm wondering what it is a short form of?
I need the following sentence to be changed to the active voice:
Accidents are caused by carelessness.
JackofOz 05:29, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
What is the origin and meaning of cheese it, as in the phrase "Cheese it, it's the cops'?
My writer colleagues and I are stumped. When writing, how do you distinguish between citizens of the Dominican Republic and Dominica? Is the proper term for both "Dominicans"? To add to the confusion, "Dominicans" also refers to Roman Catholic orders. We appreciate your guidance. -- 129.123.81.45 23:23, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Hi there! Today, I noticed that when I pronounce the "p" in the word "ineptitude", it sounds slightly different than the "p" and say, "peach". Are they supposed to be different? How are they written in the international phonetic alphabet? Thanks for your help! -- HappyCamper 01:53, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
What's a word starting with "t", synonymous with unreliable, episodic, and ephemeral? ‣ᓛᖁ ᑐ 09:58, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
The other word I occasionally find myself looking for has as synonyms shroud, aura, aspect, identity, identifier, and mask. Both words are quite puzzling when I find a need for them — their meanings are clear to me, but they can never be properly expressed. Is there a term for this situation more precise than lexical gap? ‣ᓛᖁ ᑐ 00:14, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
What is the meaning and origin of the terms "Indie Bop" or "Indie Music?" Thanks, stir1
I can't tell if this is a language question or a computer question, but since there are likely more people here experience with non-English keyboard layouts I figured this might be the place to start.
I sometimes need to type in a Russian keyboard layout in Mac OS X Tiger. I usually use the "Phonetic" layout which comes with OS X, because it transposes the Cyrillic alphabet onto the QWERTY English arrangement in a way which is easier for me to understand than the traditional Russian typewriter layout.
My problem is that I can't see any easy way to add accents to letters. Russian does not normally have diacritics but for learning purposes (and I am learning) they are often used to denote where stress falls, which is very important (in some verb forms the differences between two meanings depends entirely on stress patterns). In English of course I can easily add accents with (option+e)+(vowel) (áéíóú) but this doesn't work in the Russian keyboard at all. Switching back and forth between Russian and English keyboards seems a pain in the neck and does not seem to be what Russian typists do when they add stress marks to Wikipedia entries (see, i.e. Akademgorodok -> Академгородо́к; the "o" with the accent over it is not, I do not think, the same character as the U.S. keyboard "ó").
How can I add these diacritics given my setup? What's the best solution? -- Fastfission 02:07, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
The stress mark in question is U+0301 Combining Acute Accent (́ or ́). Unlike the Latin o-acute ó, if you want Cyrillic о with accent mark, it takes two Unicode characters to create "о́", and the second one is U+0301. I'm not sure how you could go about entering this accent mark using a Russian keyboard... it's not on any of the standard keys (the ones in the rows above the space bar), so if it was possible at all it would have to be through some Alt- or Ctrl- or Windows or Option key combination in a system-dependent way. This mark is only used in dictionaries and not in normal Russian text (except maybe things like disambiguating instrumental по́том from потом). -- Curps 09:24, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
By the way, the standard Russian keyboard layout would be worth learning... it's much more of a " Dvorak keyboard" layout than QWERTY. For instance, Cyrillic "а" is on the "f" key, so it's typed with the index finger, and so forth, and other common letters are likewise in logical places. -- Curps 09:34, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
How can be my name translated to Japanese? Its in Japanese format: Daróczi László. It must be with pronunciation information. Hungarian and Japanese are quite similar in pronunciation. I try to add some information regarding how to say my name: "Dar" as dar in Darude or Dark, "ó" is a bit longer o, "czi" is a hard one, do not count in the z and try to say c as in "ts" in tsunami and an i in gift. "Lá" is like li without the y sound in light, "sz" is s, "ló" is low or loo.
Or if the meaning is needed, the basic part of "Daróczi" is daróc, which means some kind of rough cloth, blanket, etc. László could be Leslie in English.
Thanks in advance! László from Budapest
Wow, thanks for you! I'll put it in my signature. So it could be written as "ダロクズィ・ラスロ - darokuzi rasuro" or "darootsi raasuroo". For the latter, the kanji form is the "ダローツィ・ラースロー"? A little correction: cz is just said as c, because it is an old form of a sound, and long accents (' ") only means longer sounds in the case of i,o, ö, u, ü, but a and á, e and é are different sounds, so I think the correct is "darootsi rasuroo"... :) By the way, I think its harder to truly translate my name, but in anyone does it, I would be thankful. My name's approximate meaning is above. --László
Yes, yes, it's not kanji, I missed it. The Japanese use katakana/hiragana for transliteration of foreign names. And I'm just curious about my name in Japanese, and I know that the "real" translation is when you translate the meaning... Thanks for your help! Or arigatou! --László
I'd like to know what the Spanish word "polvorete" means. None of the Spanish dictionaries I've tried have this word. Anybody know? KeeganB
Sorry, I should have pointed out that "el polvorete" is a noun. KeeganB
Would the sentence "Just wondering: Would you do this or would you do that" grammatically correct or not?
Thank you, Shardsofmetal [ Talk | Contribs ] 04:15, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
I have been taxing my brain for a word to phrase that means this: the concept that a task may actually take longer to perform when employing technology. For example, one wants to telephone store X. One dials 411 and the computer-generated operator takes several minutes to retrieve desired number. However, if one had looked up the number in the directory it would have taken less time. I am fairly convinced that there is an axiom that illustrates this phenomenon. A close synonym is rube goldberg?
Thank you in advance for your consideration. This has been a bee in my bonnet for a few days-- 64.136.49.228-- 64.136.49.228 07:55, 6 November 2005 (UTC)Indra
I know that there such a phrase exists. It is there in the lexicon, I have seen it in print but because my brain is fried, I cannot recall it. I take exception to your asserting that rube goldberg is not very close, I would argue that some new technologies are unduly complicated. For example, the computer-generated operator that responds to 411 call asks several questions before one is given the number and if, Lord forbid, there are two listings, one is kicked over to a live operator to whom one is required to repeat one's request. I assert said scenario is unduly complicated and slow. -- 64.136.49.228 12:15, 6 November 2005 (UTC)Indra
Are there ordinal adjectives like "Primary" and "Secondary" for 9 and 10? Thanks -- Colonel Cow 16:34, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
But these become increasingly obscure as one goes. I would guess that the majority of native English-speakers would never even use "tertiary", might not understand "quaternary", and certainly would not understand "quinary" or anything beyond. These are very artificial Latinisms. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:54, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
What are examples of syllable languages? ‣ᓛᖁ ᑐ 00:34, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
There is a Mexican ballad entitled "El Coyote" and the first line goes "Le pinté un cuatro al coyote" which literally means "I painted a four for the coyote" (Coyote is the nickname of a character in the ballad BTW) Anybody here know enough about Spanish idioms to tell me what the author meant by that?
What the author of the song is saying by "Le Pinte Un Cuatro Al Coyote" is he is blessing the dead man upon his feet. The song starts how the story ended and then explains why he killed him....and by saying that he is making the cross with the motion of the hand..(If you've seen it,...it appears like a number 4,...but is a cross of blessing)..which is very traditional in the mexican culture. Marcos Rosas from Tucson AZ ...January 2nd 2007..
mrosas42@aol.com
(No Question)
Instinct normally refers to a natural compulsion that you are born with, while habit is a skill that you learn, which then becomes a compulsion. For example, actions such as fight or flight reflex are instinct, while washing your hands after using the toilet is habit. smurrayinchester( User), ( Talk) 10:05, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
What the author of the song is saying by "Le Pinte Un Cuatro Al Coyote" is he is blessing the dead man upon his feet. The song starts how the story ended and then explains why he killed him....and by saying that he is making the cross with the motion of the hand....which is a very traditional in the mexican culture. Marc from Tucson AZ
What is the only english word ending in MT?
I seem to find it very intermittent. I'm aware of the page view limit which is there for obvious reasons. However, I'm getting all sorts of problems:
I've tried looking at some blog searches to see if anyone else is getting many errors and haven't found anything. Anyone else getting this sort of behaviour? -- bodnotbod 18:21, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
How do you say the following words in Latin?
- list - panel/committee/association - director. (Dîrector?) - associate/assistant - the act of making or creating (Creâtiô?)
Thanks! —anon
What is the meaning of "clean chit"?
What does the Finnish word mee mean? Is it a heavily modified verb, or colloquial? ‣ᓛᖁ ᑐ 21:00, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
What is the antonym of Antagonist? I'm using it in the sense of a person in a fight who was the one to start it, and want a word that means "a person in a fight who was not the one to start it". The Antagonist entry at Wiktionary gives Protagonist as an antonym, but I have always understood this to mean (in this context) "one of the people who took part", not specifially on one side or the other. Thryduulf 00:08, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
I think instigator and target would work for my situation. Thank you. Thryduulf 09:08, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
Not really relevant, probably: Talmy's Force Dynamics uses Agonist versus Antagonist. — mark ✎ 22:00, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
No, I'm not trying to cite Wikipedia. ;-) I'm trying to figure out a specific situation with Turabian style but the answer will probably be similar in other styles as well. I've gone over my copy of A Manual for Writers but couldn't find a specific answer to this. I imagine it would have a subheading like "Component Part within a Work by One Author Edited by Another". It's the last part that's difficult. Here's what I have so far:
Now, Foucault wrote the article in question, in a book of his writings. The library catalogue of course lists Foucault as the author of Essential Works of Foucault. But Faubion has edited the volume, and needs mentioning for that reason, of course. But I worry that it could be misconstrued (by a purist, of course) as not indicating that Foucault wrote the entire book (despite the title), if another is listed as an editor. Can I indicate a primary author and an editor at the same time? What do I do if the primary author is also the author of the sub-section? It seems to violate some principle of redundancy. Or have I just lost my mind and am obsessing over the End Matter a bit too much? (Cf. Louis Menand, "The End Matter") Advice from a style stickler is requested... -- Fastfission 00:27, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm trying to find where the following Japanese words came from:
1. Yoroshiku 2. Gambatte 3. Shibui 4. Bimyou 5. Johcho (ga aru machi)
I've been trying to find Japanese etymological sources in English but can't seem to find any. I would specifically like to know:
Where does the word come from? Korea? China? Or is it an 'original' Japanese word? When was it coined? In what context was the word created? When did it become an "official" word (one recognized by the government)?
Even if there are no answers for it, any sources that could provide insight would be much appreciated.
Thank you so much!
I'm writting a science fiction novel, and I've got a place named Petrograd. I keep wanting to make the adjective form Petrogravian, for reasons I don't entirely understand. I'm almost sure that somewhere an adjective form has been made by turning a final plosive into a frictive, whether it be a d->v or not, but I can't for the life of me remember where. Is this fairly normal in some situations or is this an odd way of making the adjective form?-- Prosfilaes 05:15, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
why is a funeral called " funeral wake" ,when nobody rises? After all ,it is to commemorate and remember somebodys's death.
It's called a "wake" because no one sleeps during it. It's a vigil, a state of wakefulness. It's a watch over someone's dead body. If you're sitting up all night guarding a corpse, you're of little use if you're asleep. - Nunh-huh 06:41, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
I've read some explanation in an Indian newspaper long time back and do not remember that now. Can someone tell why people "fall" in love and not rise? -- Sundar \ talk \ contribs 06:48, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
How would you say "Go fly a kite" in Latin? I'm looking for a direct translation, NOT the idiomatic equivalent. Thank you! - ParkerHiggins 07:05, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
And the third half I didn't enjoy at all. This is a paraphrase of a Marvin quote, but that's not relevant. What is relevent is: What do you call it when someone says 'first half second half third half', and when someone says 'This is the worst. That is also the worst'? I probably didn't phrase that very well... Kid Apathy 11:17, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
How can we get the English-speaking world to stop saying "offshore" when they really mean "overseas"? Offshore is simply not a synonym of overseas. Offshore in my dictionary means "off or away from the shore; at a distance from the shore". While "a distance" is not limited, the sense is that it's a relatively short distance beyond the shoreline. It's possibly even within sight of the land, although not necessarily. An island 20 km from the mainland would still be offshore. But Indonesia is definitely not offshore in relation to Australia, or Cuba in relation to the USA. These are overseas.
What ever was so wrong with "overseas" that required it to not only be virtually discarded, but replaced with an alternative word that means something quite different? I wince every time I hear "offshore" (about 20 times a day), not only at the falsity of the usage, but also at the stupidity of the sheep-like people who feel obliged to ape every damn new-fangled form of expression just because it's become "the thing to say", regardless of its linguistic merit (or lack thereof). Oh, and please don't tell me that the language naturally changes and evolves and we must move with the times. Of course evolution occurs, but change for its own sake, and change for the worse, both of which have happened in this case, are never good ideas. JackofOz 11:28, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
As an American English speaker, I use "offshore" for shorter distances, and "overseas" for longer distances, although I do set the threshold higher. To me, "overseas" means clear on the other side of an ocean, so England would be "overseas" from the US but Cuba would be "offshore" (it's really quite close to Miami). StuRat 20:45, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
I am reading a book written by a scholar, whose name is Jan Willem Drijvers. I am sure he is Dutch, but I don't know how to pronounce his last name exactly. I hope somebody let me know the accurate pronunciation of this name. I will appreciate anybody's kind answer to my question.
In the article Aspiration (phonetics) it mentions that there are two distinct "p" phonemes in Cantonese. One of them looks like a little h after the p, and the other looks like a little z after the p. Can someone give examples of Chinese words which distinguish between the two? -- HappyCamper 03:22, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
I know I've read a WP article on it before, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was called! The article is on using English without words of Romantic origin, and it included a passage of the "To be or not to be" monologue, translated into Germanic English. Honestly, I'd just love to find the article again. -- ParkerHiggins 04:03, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
This has been bothering me for a while. Often Wikipedia editors use the conditional tense to describe past events that took place after an event previously mentioned. I am sure that there is a grammatical term for this, and I'd be happy if someone could identify that. My real concern is that this usage, while not incorrect, is probably best avoided in Wikipedia because (a) it is unnecessarily grandiloquent, and (b) it is potentially confusing to non-English readers. Here is an example from today's featured article, Dogpatch USA (emphasis added):
Wouldn't this be clearer if it were written in the past tense:
My instinct is to be bold, and just go ahead and make the changes, but I want to ask editors here if they think I would be out of line in doing so. What do you think? Ground Zero | t 14:56, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, it was kind of surprising language for a featured article. The article was well-researched, and quite thorough, so it was a good article, but there was a tendancy toward flowery language. I see that you edited. Nice job. I wonder if there is merit in trying to address this issue in the Guide to writing better articles. Something like:
Comments? Ground Zero | t 19:33, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
I'd like to point out that the conditional is a good way to describe the future from the point of view from the past. I see no reason to prohibit it. -- Mwalcoff 23:34, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
I have posted a comment about this for discussion at Wikipedia talk:Guide to writing better articles. Ground Zero | t 16:05, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
In the time of Homer (8th c. BC), was ou already [u:], or still [ou]? And, was u still [u(:)] or already [y(:)]? And if ou was already [u:] as early as that, how do you explain Greek spelling, in the first place? other words, is Greek orthography somehow hyper-archaic, representing a stage even earlier than the actual adoption of writing, and how is that possible? In a similar vein, Old English g: They teach you to read gif as yif even for the earliest texts; if [g] was lost as early as that, how is it possible that it made it into spelling at all? You would assume that at the earliest stage of writing, spelling would be strictly phonological? dab (ᛏ) 15:26, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Hello! :o)
I'm looking for this sentence to be translated. Problem is - I don't know what language it is to begin with. Thanks for your help. "Fecit meum facere res malus"
Sue
It's Latin, it sort of means 'I made this thing evil.' No doubt someone wise and learnéd will tell you better than I can. Proto t c 15:52, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
I know ceasar said "the die as been cast", but i've seen many people write "dye" as in an article of clothing, which is correct?
-- Angr/ tɔk tə mi 19:17, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
How would you say <He is modest and ingenious> in Latin? Thank you.
Does anyone know what the name Wilanda means, as in the Wilanda Downs Forest? I would really appreciate an answer. Thanks.
It was a personal name, possibly the first owner of the forest (which I understand is in NZ?) -- the name itself is possibly a feminine form of Wieland, the mythic smith. But I see that the Dutch were called "Wilanda" in Siam in the 18th century [7], probably an Austronesian attempt at pronouncing "Nederlander" dab (ᛏ) 16:46, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
Eddtheman has asked the following question on our help e-mail list. would like to know the order of 26 alphabet letters. Starting with the most used letter to the least used letter. I know e is the most used letter in the English alphabet. But I would like to know the order of the next 25 letters in the alphabet starting with the most used letter.
As promised, I am posting his question here. Capitalistroadster 22:59, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Source | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 1+2+3 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total number of letters | 5398 | 12851 | 25103 | 21703 | 43352 |
most common letter | E | E | E | E | E |
| V |
T | T | T | T | T |
A | O | O | O | O | |
I | A | A | A | A | |
N | I | N | N | I | |
R | N | I | I | N | |
O | S | S | S | S | |
S | H | H | H | R | |
H | R | R | R | H | |
L | L | L | L | L | |
C | U | U | U | U | |
D | D | D | D | D | |
M | C | G | Y | M | |
U | Y | Y | M | C | |
F | M | M | W | Y | |
P | W | W | G | G | |
G | P | C | F | W | |
W | F | P | C | P | |
B | G | F | P | F | |
Y | B | B | B | B | |
V | V | V | V | V | |
K | K | K | K | K | |
Q | X | Z | J | Z | |
X | J | J | X | X | |
Z | Q | X | Z | J | |
Least common letter | J | Z | Q | Q | Q |
Source 1 is a short georgraphy essay, 2 is a letter to a male friend, 3 is a letter to a female friend I hadn't seen in a year or so, 4 is a letter to my then girlfriend. Thryduulf 00:18, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Here is another analysis from a document with approx. 14,700 words. It shows more or less what your analysis shows but with some noteable differences. (Sorry about the messy presentation; I have some neat histograms which will have to wait until I get logged in. e 9487 t 7336 a 7058 o 6833 r 6435 n 6340 i 6064 s 5895 c 3954 l 3911 d 3016 p 2516 h 2245 m 2176 f 2143 u 1994 g 1323 y 1166 b 1038 v 967 w 810 k 487 q 296 x 255 j 147 z 89 letters 83981 words 14710
Hi could you translate my grandsons name'MIKEY' into irish gaelic for me? many thanks, Michael
The last two lines of the Franz Ferdinand song 'Darts of pleasure' are Ich heiße super-fantastisch/Ich trinke Schampus mit Lachsfisch. What does this mean? smurrayinchester( User), ( Talk) 08:49, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Hi--I need to know if there is a word meaning "every twenty years" I know about bi- tri- cent-quatri- etc. but I need the word for every twenty years, if there is one. if not, Ineed the lating word for twenty. Anyone?? Thanks
I need some type of software to learn my lists of vocabulary. CAn anybody help?
how do you solve complex maths and science problems intuitively?
What are some countries that do not speak english at all?-- 60.228.221.142
I'm writing a letter to an Austrian university, and I think my German is slipping. I am writing to a group of people I don't know, and I typed Sehr geehrte Herren! Then I thought this might be sexist, so I changed it to Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren! Then I felt it sounded a bit too theatrical. What is the correct formal German way to begin this letter? -- Gareth Hughes 16:45, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren, ich möchte darauf hinweisen, dass...
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren! Ich möchte darauf hinweisen, dass...
May I ask what "geehrte" means so I can learn a new phrase in German? And is there a preference in German to place Damen in front of Herren in modern letters, or is there no difference? -- HappyCamper 01:52, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
The "sehr ver-/geehrte", btw, is a remnant of 17th century Baroque excessive courteousness -- like the Sie address (3rd person plural, where else do you find anything like it). "Sehr" in the 16th century still meant "badly, dire", and only with over-use (a bit like "terribly", but "terribly" didn't quite get as far as "yours terribly faithfully" in standard letters) came to mean "very" in the 17th century. dab (ᛏ) 17:52, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
You know how there are lists of "most used words" right? Well is the some kind of "words from the dictionary that are least used" list somewhere? If so, I will promote the use of the rare words. -- Wonderfool t (c) 22:41, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
How do you pronounce the word siping and put it in IPA letters? (And also, if I don't know IPA, how do I begin to learn it well?) -- HappyCamper 01:57, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm seeing lots of character strings that I don't recognize as a known language. What are they? How can I learn more about them. Do they have a name?
I tried looking it up at http://tarjim.sakhr.com/, to no avail. BTW, are there any other online Arabic translators? -- tyomitch 20:13, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
I've found
this wordlist which gives "roses" and "flowers" as the variants. They fit in the context, but there's one more question: what are the things called "1st Plural" and "2nd Plural" in this list? For وَرْدَة ("rose" on tarjim.sakhr.com), the wordlist gives وُرُود as "1st Plural" and وَرْد as "2nd Plural" (the last one is "roses" on tarjim.sakhr.com)
I'm really confused now. -- tyomitch 22:34, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
وُرُود can be read a number of ways, so context is vital. Here are the various meanings:
The definitions are from Hans Wehr's MSA dictionary. The confusion of meaning is due to the root WRD meaning both 'to come/arrive' and, by extension, 'to blossom/bloom/redden/blush'. -- Gareth Hughes 12:29, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
(I made this name up because I don't know what else to call it)
If you take the word YES, and progressively advance each letter by one letter: YES > ZFT > AGU > BHV etc, you eventually come to OUI (which of course is French for YES). I've tried various other words and most don't result in any new words at all, and of those that do, almost all of them produce words that have no relationship to the original word. The YES/OUI pair is one of probably a fairly small set.
Is there an already coined name for this .. this .. word game? Does any list of these pairs exist? Is there a website? JackofOz 06:47, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
#!/usr/bin/perl # # Shift a word by one letter # sub stitute { # Shift letters $_[0] =~ y/A-Za-z/B-ZAb-za/; # Done return shift; } # Read the wordlist while (<>) { # Strip newlines chomp; # Remember this word push @words, $_; $word{$_} = true; } # No valid words yet my $num = 0; # Shift each word for my $word (@words) { my $next = $word; my %shift; # Examine all shifts for my $shift (1..25) { # Shift $next = stitute($next); # Ignore non-words next if not $word{$next}; # Remember this word $shift{$shift} = $next; } # Ignore unshiftable words next if not %shift; # Note the word print "$word:\n"; print "\t$shift{$_} [$_]\n" for (sort {$a <=> $b} keys %shift); print "\n"; # Count this word $num++; } # Count the words print "$num ", ($num == 1 ? "word" : "words"), "\n\n";
I was wondering if anyone knows the origin/meaning of the name Tenneil [or any variation of it]
Thanks
I am writing a letter to someone who goes by these titles:
Honorable Sir 'Wiley Coyote', Kt, OBE
Obviously, not really Mr. Coyote. The question is: how do I correctly and formally address a letter to this person? What does the Kt stand for?
Thanks if you can help.
I was wondering... You didn't put up a table for jargons when I need it most... Can you give me the meaning of jargon and please give me 25 examples?? Thank you. Arigato..,
I'm an English speaking spanish student, and I have a question about a particular grammatical structure. We've learned, in my class, about "Ojalá + subjunctive pluperfect" (or pluscuamperfecto), but not about "Ojalá + subjunctive present perfect" (or presente perfecto). An example of the construction in question would be "Ojalá que él lo haya hecho." I was wondering what a translation of that sentence might be like, or what the significance of the construction would be. Thanks! 63.193.91.60 20:38, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
When you are trying to repeat something someone said but it's not correct word-to-word, what is that called?
Thanks
209.239.26.134 01:47, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
Good morning: What do these words mean? "Taedas Ferentes"
Thank you.
In The Trial by Sadakat Kadri he writes "P[ain]",he explained,"is overrated" I am unable to find this "convention" or to understand its use or necessity in Shorter Oxford or on your admirable web site Can you help please Richard Morris www.richardmorrisplaywright.co.uk
hi my name is faust i live in australia .
i m in need of an exelent translator for a short text in english to be translated in old aramaic (the language of jesus) so if you don t mind helping me i will be so greatfull (i have been surching for someone for a few days and if you know someone please send me an e-mail. <email removed>
a few years ago I heard someone use the word "heliocastic" (sp?) to describe a regime that aims to remake the world by destorying everything that has come before. He used it in reference to the Khmer Rouge. I think it's a great word, but a google search yields no hits, I can't find it in any dictionaries I have at home or the office, and I don't have an OED around (and I don't subscribe to their site). The other thing that makes me suspicious is that I'm not sure if the etymology makes sense (if I'm spelling it right). Anyone have any ideas? Binkymagnus 01:05, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
See Harry Houdini. Were first and last name switched in native Hungarian at that time? First and last name were switched before, but now someone changed it to the way we westerners do it nowadays. - Mgm| (talk) 09:28, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
What is the female counerword for misogynist'?
who wrote the poem
Four seeds sown in a row one for the weed and one for the crow one to rot and one to grow
-- 86.130.166.251 17:33, 16 November 2005 (UTC)Gilmour-- 86.130.166.251 17:33, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
Just wondering,what is the purpose of a five year plan, relating to future career choices? (Jamie, Kit, Ont.)Nov 16.
How would you translate "Blood makes the grass grow: kill, kill, kill" into Latin? Neutrality talk 01:26, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
What is an antonym for acquire? 220.233.72.253 03:42, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
How'"give up"? User:Articuno1
Sorry to bother you but I have a question and could not find the answer. I am a French translator and trying to translate 'the church of Saint John' I do not know whether to say Saint-John church or Saint John church without hyphen. I have also seen St. John's church, or the Church of Saint-John ???thank you for your help.
I hope someone can help me with this.
I am a Nama speaker and is very grateful that you have information on this wonderful language. It is very difficult to get any info on this language, so thank you very much for putting it on your site.
My question is: How did you manage to write in Nama on this site? Because of the clicks and other 'unusual' characters, used in this language, i always thought that it wont be possible to write it on a webpage?
If i want to write entirely in this language on a webpage what would i need to do? Because i would like to further the presence of this language on the web by creating a site that is dedicated to it, so it would really be very helpful to know.
Your help in this matter will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you very much.
Leidago
Guinea- Bissau, Guinea, Equatorial Guinea- why do they all have the word Guinea in it?
Okay, I need some help with this one. A high-level student of mine delivered this sentence:
I corrected her, telling her it should be "pulling Jake away." She was surprised by that, but I told her that "to pull" was correct in this sentence form:
That is really freaking horrible, don't you think? Anyway, why do we use the present progressive "pulling" when stating a conditional when addressing "you," but we use the infinitive "to pull" when stating a conditional addressing nobody? (I think I stated that right…) Garrett Albright 04:59, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
Why were these people reverted?
What thread unites all the literary events that take place in Britain up to the time of Bede?
Can you please help me with these two answers I am having a very hard time with this information.
There was a bit in a French article, fr:Tro Breizh that said "Une vieille légende bretonne dit que ceux qui n'auront pas effectué leur Tro Breizh de leur vivant seront condamnés à le faire dans l'au-delà, en avançant de la longueur de leur cercueil, une fois tous les sept ans". The fist bit's fine, bit the second bit is unclear to me. Did the ghosts have to walk the equivalanet distance of the tour (600km) every seven years by pacing up and down in their coffin? That makes the most sense as a good legend and gramatically, but just to make sure -- Wonderfool t (c) 22:20, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
Why is it that British bands generally sing with an American English pronunciation of the 'a', such as in "I can't get no satisfaction"? This is almost invariably done, with the possible exception of the Kinks. DirkvdM 14:38, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
Re: Scouse vs Cockney. Somewhere long ago I heard that the old Newgate accent of London no longer exists - in the UK; it was picked up and exported wholesale to Australia. Ever heard of this? Skookum1 00:25, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
What is your definition of occupation? I understand the definition to be: the taking possession of a sovereign area by a foreign military force. If the definition is simply: the taking possession of an area by a foreign military force, then most (if not all) countries on the planet are occupied. If the former definition is correct, than few regions are occupied.
(no questions today)
How can i write the word "love" or the phrase "i love you" in various scripts like in arabic, french, chinese, japanese etc? Also, what symbol is used for "love" in egyptian hieroglyphics and/or in various other symbolic scripts? Motifs are used all over the world for certain words in various languages. I wanted to know the motive used for "love" in various languages, countries, or in other sign languages etc.
Is there a plural of the word legislation? Could you say that the 'legislations are backward' , or that the 'legislations are extended' ? I can find the phrase 'legislations are...' , by googling, but it sure looks and sounds strange. Thanks if you can shed light.
According to this resource: http://law.anu.edu.au/studytools/STCommErr7.asp :
The word legislation is a bit like the word cake. We say 'one piece of legislation' or 'two pieces of legislation' or 'the legislation' (to refer to one Act or many). However, unlike with cakes, there is no such word as 'legislations' - the plural form remains legislation. To indicate a plural, you need to refer to the number of pieces of legislation. If you find this confusing, use the terms 'Act' and 'Acts' (or 'statute' and 'statutes') instead. These are made plural simply by adding an 's'.
In Genesis (King James English), God told Adam and Eve to "replenish" the earth. Webster's Dictionary says that this word means "to fill again". I would like to know what the Hebrew translation says, and is the precise translation to English "replenish"? Carrie, San Diego, CA
what is the japanese term for college?
Hello. I am a first time visitor to this site and not at all as informed as I might wish about the Inuit. I recently was given a young male husky-wolf mix dog a friend found in the wilds along the Arizona-California border he named Jack. My family has decided to find an Inuit translation to call him by if possible so that we could honor what we currently believe to be the native herritage of the breed. I am not sure if this is even an appropriate question, so please accept my apology if it is not. If is is appropiate please help with a translation to English along with a phoenetic spelling to help with pronounciation.
Patrick, Tammy, Tanner, and Brandy Mitchell
Another meaning of "Jack" is "worker" as in "lumber jack" or "jack of all trades". So, you might want to find the Inuit word for "worker". StuRat 21:18, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
I don't understand what badges they're talking about in this Kuro5hin thread. Can someone please clarify it to me? Samohyl Jan 13:24, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
On Carloman, son of Charles Martel, I found the term bloody judgment of Cannstatt. This is an overly literal translation of Blutgericht zu Cannstatt. Now, 'Blutgericht' was simply the term for any jurisdiction with the power to pronounce death sentences. What would be the most accurate English translation of this? Since the term is particular to the Holy Roman Empire, we may have to settle for Blutgericht, as with reichsfrei, but maybe there is a current English term? dab (ᛏ) 16:57, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
(Resetting indentation) It appears I wasn't that far off with my translation: at least we have an article on high, middle and low justice. However, that article needs work, and doesn't give any sources. (For instance, I have never heard of "middle justice", and the article's explanation that "this intermediate level is the least well defined, and sometimes absent in a specific jurisdiction" isn't exactly helpful.) Lupo 09:20, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
I didn't see this on military slang--what does "actual" mean when referring to something over radio? As in, "Charlie Six Actual, do you copy?"? grendel| khan 20:21, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm looking for a list of Unicode characters that are used exclusively in one language (for instance, " ß" is used exclusively in German and " ĉ" is used exclusively in Esperanto. Both Google and Wikipedia searches didn't turn up much. Can anyone help me out? -- Mcmillin24 23:19, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
Maybe Romanian Ș/ș (S/s with comma) and Ț/ț (T/t with comma)? Uncommon enough that in the English Wikipedia, we don't normally use them, because so few fonts include them. Instead, we use Ş/ş (S/s with cedilla) and Ţ/ţ (T/t with cedilla). See Romanian alphabet.
Most (maybe all) of the unique Vietnamese characters do not actually have Unicode code points, they have to be at least partially decomposed. For example, LATIN A WITH ACUTE ACCENT might be followed by COMBINING TILDE to produce LATIN A WITH ACUTE ACCENT AND TILDE. (I'm not even sure that particular combination exists, but you get the point. And you'd do the same for the N WITH DIARESIS that Angr calls an "n with umlaut" above. It's not an umlaut.)
Of course, once you get out of the Latin alphabet, there are a lot more. For example, even with Han unification, most Chinese ideographs are exclusively Chinese. The kana are exclusively Japanese.
Similarly, I believe Hangul is used exclusively for Korean, and I think Thai language and Khmer language each have a unique script, too. Then there's Sinhala script for Sinhala, Malayalam script for Malayalam language. Devangari, Syriac… A lot of Asian languages have unique alphabets, though some do share. Can't think of which are unique off the top of my head, and I've already taken about 20 minutes replying, but it should be only a few hours research to work out pretty comprehensively. See http://www.unicode.org/iso15924/iso15924-codes.html for a comprehensive list of scripts supported by Unicode. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:50, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
I believe that letters with the double acute accent are fairly rare: ӳ is used in Chuvash (only?), and ő and ű in Hungarian (only?) - Nunh-huh 19:10, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
in Denmark we have the letters: å, ø and æ that is only used in Denmark
The O-cedilla: I notice in the Wikipedia character-set at the bottom of the edit pages all the other vowels are given with cedillas: Ą ą Ę ę Į į Ų ų ; why is this not available for O-cedilla (see Old Norse Talk page). Skookum1 00:10, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
This is a hypothetical question on word origins and etymology I guess...What languages do "Wikipedians" speak? Or rather, what "should" a Wikipedian speak?
Wikipedians come from Wikipedia, and they speak Wikipedianese? -- HappyCamper 01:48, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied.
kind regards Vineet Chaitanya
But this debate completely misses the point of the question. The question is not whether or not the words comprise a complete sentence, it's "what is the main verb?". JackofOz 02:46, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
Unless, of course, "Pennies" is a person, persons or an organization who saved house numbers one and two at a time... In that case "saved" is the overt verb. Zocky 14:52, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
Could someone translate this Japanese sentence into an English one? :o) Thank you.
hai seimazen. cohee, cohee! hotto, doozo... arigato gozaimasu!
Gerard Foley 19:52, 24 November 2005 (UTC)sorry. coffee, coffee! hot, thanks!
How would I say 'Hello, Physics Teacher' in these languages? I don't understand IPA, but feel free to answer in it if you must. smurrayinchester( User), ( Talk) 19:20, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
Where does the phrase "Nothing can go wrong...can go wrong...can go wrong", ironically indicating that something has already gone wrong (the robot is malfunctioning or the record or CD is skipping) originate?
(No questions today)
(no questions today)
What is the word for the omission of a letter or word from a literary work's entirety?
--Travis Froggatt
I'm a law student editing an article written by a Canadian professor. She refers to a case dealing with a patent for a "fire check" device involved with gas burners. The more I read the case, the more I think that a "fire check" is something used in gas burners and less to detect smoke in houses. Thanks for your help.
I'm Canadian (Toronto) and I've never heard of a "fire check". I have smoke detectors. If my house burned down, my insurance company might give me a "fire cheque", but that's beside the point. Ground Zero | t 14:42, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Agree that in Britain if it means anything it probably means fire safety inspection. Ive never heard the phrase but "(annual) gas check" is certainly used as a synonym for gas safety inspection. Jameswilson 23:59, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
How would I correctly translate the Dutch word cabaretier to English? An example of a cabaretier is nl:Wim Sonneveld. — R. Koot 21:33, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
Why is it illegal to name a child Monica in Equatorial Guinea?
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.130.117.72 ( talk • contribs)
It was observed in the answer to the question "What is the main verb in the following sentence?" that the given "sentence" was really a "sentence fragment". As far as I know in my language Hindi a "finite subordinate clause" may be represented as an "orthographic sentence" but not a "non finite" one.
I would like to know, "How common is it to represent a "non finite" clause as an orthographic sentence in English? Does this happen only with past-participial forms or with other forms also?
I thank all the commentators for an enlightening discussion on my previous question.
Vineet Chaitanya
The understanding of how words fit together, how words rhyme, and how changes in sounds change words is called what? -- 67.177.139.171 18:33, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
On a scale of difficulty from, say, French to Russian, how difficult is Hebrew to learn for a post-adolescence native English speaker? -- Fastfission 02:29, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
I've noticed the names for days of the week in Finnish are all Germanic. I'm guessing this is mainly due to Swedish rule and consequent enforcement of Swedish timekeeping. Historically, did Finnish timekeeping differ much from the modern system, and in particular, what would days of the week have been called? ‣ᓛᖁ ᑐ 13:28, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
What is a skeleton crew?
What is the Morse code for S.O.S?
The Wikipedia Help Desk has received the following question from Jane Galligan.
I am interested in learning Arabic. After doing a bit of research, I found that I could learn Eastern Arabic or Egyptian Arabic. Which would be more useful in today's world in your opinion?
Sincerely, Jane G.
I have advised her that our Arabic article states that Egyptian Arabic is more widely used but would welcome any assistance that you may be able to offer.
Capitalistroadster 00:49, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
You might look into the demographics of where different languages and dialects are spoken, and what the cultures are there, and if you feel you would be comfortable interacting with them. There are Muslim cultures that restrict freedom of women compared to Western cultures, such that a woman coming from the West might not be able to make a comfortable living. So you pick what you want to learn based on your comfort levels with whay you have learned about the culture and legal structure there. AlMac|[[User talk:AlMac|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 06:58, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
What is Edgar Allan Poe's foster mom's maiden name?
The phrase " touch base" has an origin. Does anyone know the origin of this phrase? Is it a sports term applicable to baseball or an action term applicable to location ?
Its not used in Britain (although we do understand it) so I imagine it must come from baseball. Jameswilson 02:57, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
On an exciting debate I'm watching, the following was said: Ever wonder why babies and soldiers destined to be ground into hamburger had the "same" name? The Indo-European root "fa" is one used for speech and communication. The prefix "in" is used as a negation. Neither babies nor infantry men have a voice; they're not capable or entitled to have one and make their own decisions. Is this, in fact, where the words "infant" and "infantry" both come from? grendel| khan 19:23, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
From what I understand, the word 'infantry' comes from the concept of 'raising' (also in the sense of 'nurturing') local armies under the old feudal system. Knights were local feudal lords owning land, and all people living on that land were subjects of the knight. In times of war or strife, small 'armies' would be put together from amongst these subjects, mostly utilising weapons and equipment that they had at home. As most of the subjects were poor people, they did not have horses (or, if they did, they were either too valuable to use in battle, or of the wrong type), so they fought on foot. That is why the term 'infantry' came to mean 'foot soldiers'. -- Givnan 13:12, 3 December 2005 (UTC)