What is the word that means "user of big words"? d It sounds something like ....syscapalian...(sp?)
I just heard it in a movie.. 68.18.41.190 03:10, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the prompt reply! The link doesn't show anything of value?
does this make sense? how should it properly be written?
For example, blindness, a disability which encounters many things such as, one not being able to see anything, one being able to partly see, one being colour blind and one being low vision.
thank you
For example, blindness is a disability which encompasses everything from partial blindness (i.e being able to see with one eye {?}, colorblindess, and low vision) and total blindness (absolute loss of sight)
I'm not sure of this is right. Btw, low vision and being able to partail see???
when i say low vision i mean some one who can't see clearly and the other is partly blindess
While reading articles in Wikipedia I see that there is considerable use of abbreviation initials that are peppered with periods. I'm thinking of "U.S." for example. There are hundreds of similar.
Is there any definitive preference for "U.S." or is "US" permissable?
If I'm editing an article can I change any "U.S." style abbreviations to "US"-style?
Lin 08:03, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. You're very kind. Lin 06:14, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
A favorite band of mine recently put out a new album and the last song is entitled "Post Sco Ergo Propter Sco". So I was wondering if "Sco" is an actual Latin word and if so, what does this phrase mean? Thanks, Dismas| (talk) 09:02, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
What happened in the Rwanda genocide? Why did it happen? What was the United States goverment's response? Why? What was the aftermath?
Ok, this may be a dumb question for some but it isn't for me. I'm looking for a word for this definition. I've known someone for a long time, but I didn't even know it. PLEASE...find a word for this and if you do..email it to me [e-mail removed to avoid spam]
Thanks
Does anybody know how the word "florentine" came to mean "served with spinach" when it is appended to the name of a culinary dish?
I need some 'exotic' (to an English-speaker's ears) sounding words for 'people', 'man', or 'human'. The intent of the word is to be relatively easy to spell, non-insulting, and very general - I just need a cool sounding word to name a fictional group of people. Any help is appreciated! Ductape Daredevil 00:42, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
hi my name is brandee rose and i was just wondering how do i do my teachers project on this web on uusing power point becass i really want o know how i have an e-mail address it's [email removed to avoid spam]
I know that the best way to actually learn a language fluently is to live in a country where that language is spoken. Falling short of that does anyone have any tips on how to actually learn "to speak the language" not simply in the grammatical sense. Thanks in advance!
Also, I think listening to educational podcasts is better than television. There are podcasts in Japanese, Chinese, German, Spanish, and other languages. But first you need to pick up some essential vocabulary before anything else. Patchouli 13:23, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
I carry a mini-dictionary and a small notebook filled with example sentences and sample phrase. While walking or riding the bus, I try to memorze them and create dialogs .-- Jondel 10:33, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Technical Instrument Measure Existence
Simon Le Page 1988
I can't figure out what I am hearing when native English speakers talk, so I need some help.
Please tell me which of the italicized words John is using. Patchouli 13:12, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Why should they be shot on sight? -- Jesusfreak 14:02, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
I recently went to an unclaimed property site. I found my name on the list of unclaimed property/ I noted that it said the property was more than 100 dollars. YEA!!! I sent a claim ove the net. I recieved an e-mail. The e-mail was from the IRS.....Scary!!!!!! They said to fo to thier site and in a mailcenter at thier whoa!!!!...What do you call the IRS? Extortioers?? It referred to the money as a warrant....or were thry talking... ARREST....say it ain't so Irene!!! Information asap would be fabulous, Thanks, One Scared ole Woman
how language differs from dialect?
Hello,
Please let me know which phrase is correct:
There is an estimated 50,000 landmines in Uganda.
There are an estimated 50,000 landmines in Uganda.
Thanks!
Really, either of them work. They work because the person you say it to will understand. If you are writing a paper, however, I agree with Keenan Pepper. schyler 01:47, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
How do they introduce themselves and how do they sign off? What sort of salutation do they use? Bhumiya ( said/ done) 20:02, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
I recently started reading To Kill A Mockingbird and there is a part where the main character goes outside while it's snowing and hold out her tongue to catch a snowflake. She proceeds to say to her brother that it burns. He tells her that it is just so cold that it feels really hot. What I was wondering was what is the term used for this, that is something being so cold it feels hot, and the word for something being so hot it feels cold. Thanks. schyler 01:37, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
What is the difference between Pashto and Farsi?
I have a test coming up tomorrow. This is as much as we know, we get a poem or story, analyze it, and then talk about mood, point of view and so forth. We've also been told to talk about syntax, diction, and language. These all look the same (to me they really do) but their apparently different. Does anyone know how? I know language is "type" of language, ie. jargon, fomral. I was wondering if anyone knew a good website with a layout of how to write one of these essays or instructions on how to anaylze the story/poem (as I did poorly last time). Possibly something that has more suggestions on what one could write about as well, since I'm always short. Any help appreciated, thanks. C-c-c-c 02:06, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
What is the longest word in the English language? Consider: "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis"(sp?) -this is a lung disease but I need an English word instead of scientific names. Please help me. Thank You in advance. -- Siddhant 06:24, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Thankx. You pointed the exact link. -- Siddhant 07:39, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
What's the proper name for an upside down circumflex? -- HappyCamper 06:31, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
The hacek is different from the breve. The latter is rounded, so is like an upside-down circumflex. - lethe talk + 11:58, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
There is an aquarium in Vienna called the Haus des Meeres (House of the Seas). I don't understand why the article in the name is des - shouldn't it be der? The table here [2] shows that the plural definite article in the genitive is der, and Meeres is a plural noun. -- Richardrj 08:49, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
On the same subject, when I get letters, they are addressed to Herrn [my surname]. Why is this? I understand now that Herrn is the genitive singular of Herr, but I don't see why that should apply here. The genitive case relates to possession - what is possessive about this? -- Richardrj 09:33, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
der Herr des Herrn dem Herrn den Herrn
I've learnt that some languages like Sanskrit are declensional to the point that word order is totally free. If so, how would they map qualifiers like adjectives and adverbs with their corresponding nouns and verbs when there is more than one possible combination? Can someone give examples? -- Sundar \ talk \ contribs 09:44, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm reading James Lee Burke's "The Neon Rain", published in 1987 by Henry Holt and Company, Inc. It's the first book in the Detective Dave Robicheaux series. This series takes place in New Orleans, LA and Cajun country environs, as Dave Robicheaux is of Cajun extraction. Having been born in San Diego, I haven't a clue about some of the terminology used in the book. Wikipedia has been a great source for understanding many of the terms used in the book. However, (finally my question!) I have been unable to determine the meaning of the word "shuck" when used as noun. It is apparent that it is slang and probably regional. I would assume that it is related to the phrase "shuck and jive", and while I've heard that phrase before, I'm still not sure what "shuck" means even in this context. Thanks, Stuck-on-shuck -- 70.230.198.110 17:09, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
2. Informal Something worthless. Often used in the plural: an issue that didn't amount to shucks.
Thanks for the info! No-Longer-Stuck-On-Shuck! -- 70.230.198.110 02:42, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
I do not remember the use of the word pandemic when I was younger. When did the word come in to use and who started the use of this word.
Please and Thank You
Stan Putzke
for the purpose of a dinnertable discussion, could you give me, as precisely as possible (we are interested in possible glottal stops), the IPA transcription of the RP of
dab (ᛏ) 21:00, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I am at this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_in_the_United_States but I don't see any indication here or anywhere on the site where I can find the top 5 languages used in internet searches.
Any help you can provide will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
If someone's last name contains the word "von", as in " von Neumann", and one wanted to use just the last name at the beginning of a sentence, would one capitalize it or leave it lower case? Some sentences in the John von Neumann article do capitalize it in this context, but I just want to know if that sort of practice is correct. -- noosph e re 04:27, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
how do you say Bias or Landscaping in spanish?
(are partial | paisajemiento or áreas verdes correct?) Qrc2006 10:50, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Give the list of head-first languages and head-final languages. — Masatran 15:29, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Hello,
I was just wondering about the language situation in Transnistria. Transnistria is a breakaway state of Moldova. The country is not widely recognized by the international community.
I heard people say that Moldovan is very similar to Romanian and that some even consider it the same language. I also read that Moldovan is the dominant language in both Moldova (under Chisinau rule) and in Transnistrian, but in Transnistria they use the Cyrillic alphabet, while in the rest of Moldova they use the Latin alphabet.
However, recently I saw a documentary about Transnistria, and not only was everything written in Cyrillic alphabet, it appeared that Russian was the dominant language. There were only a handful of Moldovan schools, and they have to struggle to survive.
Can anyone clear this up for me? I will be very interested in any remarks.
Thx! Evilbu 18:57, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank you but I still don't get it. The situation is definitely complex, as Transnistria was once described as the part of Moldova that looks to the east, to Ukraine, but with the Orange Revolution Ukraine might turn more to the west itself.
So what about the language then. Everyone used cyrillic that I saw in that documentary, but Ukranians, even if they are dominant together with the Russians, don't speak the same language either. So the Russians enforce Russian on everyone else?
Evilbu 13:08, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
I have a dedication which I want to quote, but the name of the dedicatee is misspelled. What is the proper method used to show the name as it is printed as well as to show that the spelling used is incorrect? For example, the name is shown as "Fridjof Nansen" but the correct spelling is "Fridtjof Nansen." There is only one letter missing ("t"), but I want to show the correct spelling, preferably inside of the quote. Feel free to correct any of my grammar as used in this paragraph.
This issue comes up a lot when words spoken by some public figure are misspelled when converted into a written quote by a journalist. If I'm quoting the person using the "quote" written by the journo, I'll always correct the spelling because I consider I'm just finishing the journo's job. For example, when I see "can not" in a quote, I almost always change it to "cannot". "Can not" is a different concept and usually not what the speaker intended.
But there's a problem when the misspelled words commenced their life in written form. There's no single solution, it will depend on the circumstances. As well as what Angr and Shantavira have said, two other options are (a) quote them exactly without qualification (Fridjof), or (b) change "Fridjof" to "Fridtjof" and use square brackets to show this is your interpolation. You need to decide whether it's Nansen's name that's the real point, or whether the misspelling is somehow an important issue in whatever you're writing about. JackofOz 01:33, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
As a frequent RD contributor, I am quite confident that many who read this board are, as I, grammar pedants, and it is they in particular to whom I address this question, one that has troubled me for some time. A few months ago, I was copyediting a section of the Super Bowl XL article (which section now appears as its own article and changed “…some critics claimed he called it when the play clock had already struck zero. That would have penalised Pittsburgh 5 yards and made it 3rd and 11…” to “…some contended that the play clock hit zero seconds before Roethlisberger called for a timeout, which would have constituted a delay-of-game and resulted in the assessment of a five-yard penalty…”. Another editor, whom I think to be an excellent contributor, removed “the assessment of”, suggesting that the locution was unnecessarily verbose. Even as I have left (and will continue to leave, irrespective of the answers provided here) the sentence in the revised state, I wonder if others concur in my belief that “the assessment of” is, in a syntactic analysis, preferable. My argument, I suppose, rests primarily on the idea that a referee’s determining the existence of (and then whistling) a penalty in American football, or, even more aptly, in football qua soccer, is a significant interpolation between a player’s committing a foul and a penalty’s actually being enacted. While the primary actor in the scoring of a touchdown, for example, is the player (even as an official might make judgments as to whether a receiver caught a ball in bounds or whether the ball crossed the plane of the goal), upon which note I’d rest the contention that we ought to write “Joe Schmoe caught a 19-yard pass for a touchdown” (cf., “Joe Schmoe caught a 19-yard pass, which catching resulted in the ‘’assessment’’ of a touchdown”), the primary actor, IMHO, in the assessment of a penalty is an intervening actor, the referee, inasmuch as most assessments are discretionary (certainly more penalty assessments than touchdown assessments are discretionary), such that a given action doesn’t result in a penalty but, rather, in the assessment of a penalty. We are more likely, I think, to say that “Joe Schmoe caught a 19-yard touchdown pass” than to say that “Joe Schmoe committed a holding penalty” (rather, “Joe Schmoe was flagged for holding”), and I think such preference follows logically from the situation I set out. I certainly have entertained the idea that “the assessment of” ought also to be appended to sentences with respect to touchdowns, since one’s catching a pass doesn’t ‘’result’’ in anything; perhaps the use of result is altogether inelegant in any case. Notwithstanding that, though, is my “assessment” suggestion a hypercorrection/adduction of a distinction without a difference, or can it accurately be said that, since there is a cause more proximate to the assessment of a penalty than a player’s committing the penalty, the “assessment” locution ought to be preferred. (Even if I can’t make the list of users with the most edits, at least I can surely assume my place in the RD’s records book for “longest [and most inane] question.) Joe 00:01, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
I was told that the grammar of the German language is based on Sanskrit. Is this true? --Vikram
Thanks for clearing this up BluePlatypus and Bhumiya :) --Vikram
I would appreciate if someone can explain the reasons for describing English as an "AVO" language rather than an "SVO" language. (ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_order)
Vineet Chaitanya
In my traditional American education (note sarcasm), I found that I learned most of what I knew about English as a language from my French class. For a good 4 years, I had no idea what ˆ, `, ´, and ç were called in English. I also learned tenses in French long before I heard anything of them in English (e.g. plus que parfait). My teachers would often teach French through similar English ideas, naming them for the first time to me.
It makes me wonder if anyone else has had this experience, or has mourned years of defining "nouns", "verbs", and "adjectives". Why is it that in English class we learn nothing of English? I've had teachers recommend I take Latin if I want to learn about English. Is there a good reason why English classes in the US focus on literature? And getting into college... --
Keitei (
talk) 13:42, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
This sentence from Detroit, Michigan: "When Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick found himself behind in the polls in the 2005 election, his campaign tried to draw attention to his opponent, Freeman Hendrix's, support in the suburbs." It was recently changed from "opponent's, Freeman Hendrix, support" to the above. I would have guessed that the original was correct. Rmhermen 16:07, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
I think the link for "face validity" goes to "construct validity."
The Royalists' major asset was the Navy, who had declared themselves for the Prince of Wales.
— Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years' War#Origins (Emphasis mine)
Is the above sentence's grammatical number correct? “Themselves” feels wrong. I'd say “itself” or “herself”, but I am not a native speaker of English. If the word “Navy” is used like “police” in that sentence, shouldn't it be “The Royalists' major asset were the Navy, who had declared themselves for the Prince of Wales”? Wikipeditor 17:10, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
I'd say "The Royalists major asset was the Navy, which had declared itself... "Were" and "themselves" just don't sound right to me. Of course, I'm an American, and we treat almost all group nouns as singular, except for things like "police", whereas the British would be more likely to say "...were the Navy, who had declared themselves..."
In any case, mixing "was" and "themselves" is wrong by either the British or the American standard. It was probably written by an Englishman and proofread by an American or vice versa. Linguofreak 18:20, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
I saw a billboard for a Mini Cooper that had the tagline "OPEC, SCHMOPEC". I've often seen the "schm" prefix, used to show disdain for something or someone. Is there a name for this type of phrase?
Good afternoon....I am looking for a program or web page for translating Chinese into English. Any help would be greatly appreciated, Thank you.
how do i put info i got from an article on this website into my works cited? how is it supposed to be formatted and look?
hi, I just wrote an artice in English and I know that the same article exsists in Hungarian and Swedish, but I can't find the link to. Usually they are on the left side, but not this time. I want to be able to change the language of the article by one click. Can you please help me to do that? thanks
Hi, it's me again, I just tried like you said, and it seems to work. btw the article is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soltvadkert it's about my hometown. thanks again
A riddle is going around on email saying that there are 3 words in the English language that end in "gry". Two are "angry" and "hungry". What is the 3rd? The only clue given is "wiki", but I am completely confused by your site. I am assuming that the clue means to use this site. It says: "There are three words in the English language that end in "gry". ONE is angry and the other is hungry. EveryONE knows what the third ONE means and what it stands for. EveryONE uses them everyday; and, if you listened very carefully, I've given you the third word. What is it? _______gry?" The email claims if I send the riddle to 5 people that the answer will automatically appear on my screen. I know that won't happen. But if you could point me in the correct direction, or if you can get the answer, I would truly appreciate it.-----Judy Thomason
I'm writing the linguistics page of the Chaozhou language and would like to add a vowel quadrilateral like in the french phonology page, i tried to decipher the codes on the edits page, and tried replacing some vowels with the ones i want but i still can't do it. Can anyone tell me how i can make one? i'm quoting the French one here:
The vowels to the left of the dot • are unrounded; those to the right are rounded. See Vowel roundedness.
Merci!
Shingrila 03:47, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
the vowels i need for Chaozhou are [a], [i], [e], [o], [ɤ]/[ɯ]/[ə], [u], and their nasalised counterparts. Shingrila 06:18, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I was writing acticles in English about Hungarian towns. Then I went and added a link on the Hungarian sites so people will see that the article is also available in English. But for some reason I have been blocked from the Hungarian Wikipedia. Please help me! Thanks,
Eddie
how to write a letter given my apologise?
This is one way to do it.
You start with stating in the most sincere and regretful tone exactly what you're apologizing for. You then go on to describe how this matter affected you and others involved in your hearts and lives. Then you write the lessons you learned from the situation and how they will help you to do better in the future. Then you offer any assistance that may help to alleviate any suffering that was in some way caused by your actions. You close by talking about some of the wonderful qualities this person has and how they have positively affected your life. You might want to open with that also. Hmmm... I think that's everything. But this is for a personal letter, if it's a professional memo the guidelines change quite a bit. - LambaJan 18:41, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Could someone please translate this for me?
Beyaz atlı sımdı gectı buradan
Surarısı can elınden vurulmus
Cıksın daglar taslargayrı aradan
Beyaz atın suvarısı yorulmus
Ellerı elıme deymez olaydı
Gozlerı gozumu gormez olaydı
Bu gonul o gonlu sevmez olaydı
Beyaz atlı sımdı gectı buradan
Thanks!
deeptrivia (
talk) 01:39, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Cem Karaca lyrics; his article could sure use improvement! -- jpgordon ∇∆∇∆ 15:24, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, that's right! Still waiting for translation though. deeptrivia ( talk) 16:14, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Does anybody know the technical term for the "red-eye" effect in photography? I thought that it began with "hemo-", but I might be totally wrong. Please, please, please, if anybody knows, I'd greatly appreciate it. (I doubt that I'll be able to sleep until I find out!)
I have two questions:
Where is the Brahmi language mainly used today? What does the message mean and what does it say behind the picture of Anne Frank?
A Frenchie is translating an article into French, as is baffled by a word, sprunge. The sentence whence it comes is: James VI/I traced his origin to Fergus, saying, in his own words, that he was a "Monarch sprunge of Ferguse race". I told the budding translator to just ignore this quote, as nobody's going to miss it. I had a quick search through online dictionaries and a massive uni-owned one, with no reference to the word. However, I felt generous, and tried to sniff out a reference, and a few websites hinted it is a Middle English word, maybe related to the word sprog (the British definition). Anyone who knows more about Middle English, can they give a hand? Was my advice of "ignore things you can't translate" apt? Blimey, I do feel generous today. -- Won der fool 11:49, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Does anyone know if there's a gender neutral tem for aunt/uncle and niece/nephew. I can't find one anywhere but it seems odd if there isn't since every other relative word I can think of, has one. Anyone know? - Red Hot 17:41, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Киа дефиа легиа фервор'
Ве! Ла либер', чу суперос тиујн главојн?
Или кун швит' спит', ескит' кај терор'
Венос, форпренос, чу тенос ниан хавојн?
Јам тамбурас ла хиспан'!
Јам Поркул' импетас,
Ли аванце де лонтан'
Ал Берген' импетас.
Берг'-оп-Зом',
Кун реном',
Спиту ал хиспано.
Ниа хом', ниа дом'
Савај кун елано!
--
Quentin
Smith 18:14, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Could someone kindly explain the cultural references in this quotation? It comes from Dutch language
-- HappyCamper 21:13, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
hi, why do we say airplane but say (certainly in UK english)"aeroplane". is this what it used to be called? it seems weird when we pronouce airport phonetically... (even more weird is the french who say aéroport but then bail and call an airplane "un avion"). any suggestions?
hi, what are umlauts (german) called in english and french? (i.e. citroën) thanks
In French it's called tréma. The distinction between diaeresis and umlaut (diacritic) might not be strong in French. Both of them link to fr:Tréma. -- KJ 00:05, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Does anyone know the French word for chimera? Thanks. -- Think Fast 00:54, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
I have been looking to learn the Croatian language for a long time now (ever since I heard what it sounded like on ER). I would really appreciate any help in finding what would be the best way to do this (save going to Croatia or taking a college course). I am looking to be able to buy some sort of Audio disk package and/or book combination. If anyone knows of anything, that would be great. Ch u ck (척뉴넘) 06:05, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks very much...I'm probably gonna buy "Teach Yourself Croatian". Ch u ck (척뉴넘) 11:45, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
I have very old letters written in Norwegian from 1895 to about 1924. I am having a hard time finding someone to translate them for me. I understand the language has changed since then and I am wondering if that is why everyone I give them to can not translate them. If you could refer me to someone I would be grateful. Thanks. Beverly Bowman
Thank you very much. I will check it out.
How would the name Matejczyk be pronounced? Thanks, -- Chapuisat 17:54, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. --19:52, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Such as this year, it's June 6, 2006 (or 06/06/06; or previously 05/05/05, 04/04/04 etc.). I have googled using various "key" words and have come up empty-handed, except for what someone else described as "triple date". Any ideas?
Me and some friends are trying to figure out how many words we can make out of the word orchestra. I've gotten a lot of words but I need help finding the nine letter words. Some of my friends said they have two nine letter words. I can't find them to save my life. I heard that the other two were proper nouns. But I don't know if thats fact or not so, thanks in advance. -- Jesusfreak 22:17, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank You so much. If anyone can find anymore let me know. -- Jesusfreak 22:50, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
I need single words. Thank you. -- Jesusfreak 00:40, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank you all so much. I won't hold you back though. If you find more let me know. I found out that it can't be a proper noun. Once again, thank you! -- Jesusfreak 19:37, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Glad that I found this forum. On the door of trash chute in my apartment building, following warning is posted: "Persons keeping trash on floor will be subject to fine." This sentence can also be worded as "Persons keeping trash on floor will be subjected to fine." What is exact difference between these two, if any? Thanks. AshishG talk 01:12, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
"Subject to fine" to me means liable or vulnerable; it is possible that a fine will be assessed, and the landlord will be within their rights if they choose to enforce this, etc. "Subjected to fine" makes explicit the promise that this WILL come to pass; rather than a possibility, it describes a certainty. Tesseran 22:51, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
Would it be correct to say that French is the most common second language taught in British schools similar to that in American schools, Spanish is the most frequent taught second language? Chile 02:16, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Adambrowne666 03:41, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Example sentences: "The system comprises several elements." Or, "The system is comprised of several elements." Any thoughts as to which is preferred? -- Richardrj 09:43, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Comprises (or 'is composed of'). Some people will tell you that 'is comprised of' has now entered the realm of the acceptable, but they're ignorant, illiterate apes. Henry Flower
Searching for "comprise" at bartleby.com returns not only dictionary definitions, but also usage examples from literature and usage notes from the Columbia and American Heritage usage guides. -- Petershank 20:44, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Is there a one word for 'imaginary town' or fictitious town'? The Indian writer R.K. Narayan describes an imaginary town called Malgudy in his novel Malgudy Days. Is there a one word for such a town?
Would 'Ruritania' be appropriate to describe a fictional town?
Hello! My name is Vitor and i'm a profound admirer of the WikiPedia website and its concept. I've learned so much from this community, and i'm so grateful that i would be so happy to participate and help as much as i can! I haven't edited any article yet (but i haven't known Wikipedia that long), and 've been thinking so much of how to help... I've noticed that the website is translated in various languages, but not all articles! And so i would to help and translate as many articles as i can (all if possible!) to my language (portuguese)! But i've looked around and i haven't found any option to translate. And simply editing shouldn't work, because i would only be changing to portuguese an english article... I really hope i get the chance to help improve this amazing site! I await your answer! Thank you so much, best regards. -- vitinhov 16:06, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi there, i have used your website extensivly for a major university assignment, and i have searched all over the website but cant seem to find information so i can place this website in my reefrence list. Could you please help me to refrence Wikipedia in APA STYLE? thankyou so much for your time
That question recurs periodically. -- DLL 20:09, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
I am wondering if the proverbs on the list of "*Country* proverbs" were "born" in *country*? Eg, was all the proverbs on this page http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Finnish_proverbs "born", ie minted, in Finland?
What does 'somos nosotros' mean?
the FP on the Main Page has this sentence: "They mainly eat insects and some seeds." It sounds odd to me. Just ask for you guy's opinions.-- K.C. Tang 00:18, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi. I'm doing a project about Hong Kong Governors. and I wanna introduce places and things in Hong Kong which were named after them. Is there any word that explains "places and things named after somebody"? Thank you!!! Kahang 12:27, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank you so much! Kahang 00:16, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
I was instructed to come here to ask for tanslations; i also posted the request at Wiktionary, as suggested. I am requesting that the Geman Wikipedia article Abraham von Worms be tanslated into English as Abraham of Worms. I have pre-made links leading to the new page-to-be. I attempted a babelfish translation and found the text too difficult and too filled with specialized terms for the software to handle. I shall be posting this request elsewhere. Whoever does this work will have a great deal of my gratitutde as i will be using the page to link to many other pages in the grimoire and occultism areas. Thanks in advance. You may contact me at my talk page if you wish further details. Catherineyronwode 20:23, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Does someone know why textbooks are so-called? Textbooks frequently have pictures in addition to text, and other books (that are not textbooks) frequently carry only text.
What language is the song Starlight in Daden by Ekova? Would be awesome if I could get the lyrics. deeptrivia ( talk) 03:28, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
I have been given a special question for my Japanese homework. Does any other language have a separate alphabet for transliterations and loanwords, as the Japanese have Katakana?
Thanks -- Slayton
Back in the 1930s, Albright said that ancient Egyptian effectively had a syllabary to indicate both vowels and consonants when transcribing foreign-language names (while the ordinary writing for native Egyptian words indicated consonants only). I'm not sure whether any extra symbols were used (more probably only augmented interpretations of symbols already used in writing Egyptian, I would guess). AnonMoos 13:26, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
You may want to slap your Japanese teacher on your wrist for over-simplifying and increasing the ignorance of Japanese students across the world. Katakana isn't a separate alphabet for loanwords, it's a separate alphabet that is used for loanwords along with a handful of other things. It was originally used pretty much the same way hiragana is, and apparently in some areas of Japan the roles were reversed. A Japanese word (or a Sino-Japanese compound) spelled out in katakana is used similar to italics in English. If you say "katakana is a separate alphabet for transliterations and loanwords" it sounds like you're implying it was made for that purpose, which it wasn't. Sorry, I have a tendancy to snap at teachers who give chūtō-hampa (half-assed) explanations. freshgavin ΓΛĿЌ 17:57, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm writing a scientific article, but I keep using the term "come and go" quite often. Does anyone know an alternative (preferably a more scientific-sounding) term to replace this? --JD
Oh, sorry anonymous user. Here's the context: "A person with this disease has relapses of symptoms that come and go throughout their lifetime." --JD
Thank you thank you sooooo much! Oops, that wasn't it putting it very scientifically. Oh well, at least it effectively gets the message across. Anyways, before I continue to talk to myself, I would like to thank you for assisting me. Have a great day! --JD
I think you could relapse into symptoms. In fact, with chronic diseases like Lyme Disease or HIV, you don't really relapse into the disease, but rather the symptoms, such as the condition of AIDS. "Her AIDS relapsed" or "She relapsed into AMaybe I'm not really getting what the difference between a "condition" and the condition of having symptoms is. Maybe it's more correct in saying the disease relapsed: "His HIV relapsed, and he once more had full blown AIDS." Anyhow, in its broader sense of "return to" (i.e. he relapsed into silence), I think you could relapse into symptoms. On the other hand, I'm really tired, and upon rereading what I wrote, nothing makes sense. :-)
Also, I generally agree with you about "recur periodically." However, in a stricter sense of "periodically," "recur periodically" would imply a regularity of recurrence that "recur" doesn't denote. — vijay 08:36, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
A friend of mine has recently taken over running a fotolog page called borriscos. It's for interesting patterns made with light. We've been unable to find out what borriscos means - dictionaries haven't been of use. We think it may be a slang form of a portugese word, but neither of us speak the language. Can anyone help? -- Hughcharlesparker 10:45, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Brilliant. Thanks. -- Hughcharlesparker 23:36, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi. I would like to know what does "fountain of the art" mean; I am french and the meaning is not obvious to me. Does it mean something like source of inspiration? or somehing else. By the way, the original sentence is there. So, if somebody can translate this phrase, or at least give some synonyms, he/she is welcome. Thank you very much.
I was just making an IPA chart for the consonants of the She language and was looking for the little circle for devoicing. I can find both [ŋ] and [°], but how do i combine them?
Please to excuse if this has been brought up recently, but could someone please explain the situation with using a/an before words starting H? Highly, for an example, would it be an highly or a highly? Is there a correct form, or is it stylistic? Is it widely considered overly pretentious? Is it a regional thing? Thanks very much. Jahiliyyah 20:59, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Words that begin with a stressed syllable and the sound /h/ are preceded by a, as in "a highly respected person" or "a house". Word that begin with the letter h but start with a vowel sound are preceded by an, as in "an honest person" or "an hour". Difficulty arises in the case of words that start with the sound /h/ but begin with an unstressed syllable, like "historic": some people write and say "a historic" while other people write and say "an historic". In this case, both forms are considered acceptable, though I think "an historic" is less common in the U.S. than in Britain. (A separate issue is words that begin with the /h/ sound in some dialects but not in others, especially herb, which is pronounced with the /h/ sound in Britain but has no /h/ sound in America. As a result, Brits correctly write "a herb" and Americans correctly write "an herb".) Angr ( t • c) 21:16, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
I have one of those "definitions without a term" questions. What is the term for that phenomenon where a specific development or discovery seems to have arrived at by two or more completely unrelated people almost simultaneously? Ok, that definition was a bit clumsy, so I'll use an example: Sir Isaac Newton is commonly credited with the development of calculus, yet from what I understand, at least one other person, who had no contact with and had no knowledge of Newton's work, had developed calculus at almost exactly the same time, only to be beat out by Newton by an extremely short period of time. I always thought that the term was zeitgeist, but looking at its definition, although it seems to be vaguely related to the concept, zeitgeist just doesn't seem to be the term I'm looking for. Is there a more precise term, or was I right all along in assuming that zeitgeist was the term I'm looking for? Loomis51 22:48, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Most verbs have only one past participle. For example, the only past participle for the verb to walk is walked. Similarly, the only past participle for the verb to run is ran. However there happen to be a few verbs with two (or possibly more) past participles.
For example:
Why do a rare few verbs in the English language have alternate past participles when only one is necessary? Am I missing something? Just to prove my point, verbs somewhat synonimous to the above get by with only one past participle.
Is this perhaps just an accident of the English language or is there more to it?
This questioner may be interested in Newspeak. schyler 03:47, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
There are two linguistic change processes involved. Sneaked to snuck comes about by what is called rule extension. It consists of the the making of a weak verb into a strong one because of a reanalysis. It extends the strong verb rule to a formerly weak one. The opposing tendency, the loss of strong verbs generally, is a form of levelling, where irregularities are eliminated. A more recent, non-verbal case is mines for the first person possessive. mnewmanqc
could someone familiar with greek write an article for that? it is a controversial and most intriguing subject... I'm a bit surprised that there's no article for that yet...Cheers-- K.C. Tang 04:06, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
have I translated this right: Carl wants to go to Paris. Karl veut aller à Paris.
how do you read that?
is there any website in which I can hear this French sentence?
Carlrichard 12:11, 13 May 2006 (UTC)do you have a list of all the words that end in -uous? thank you.
grep uous$ /usr/share/dict/words
yields:Hi, trying to get a translation of a short English soundbite into Latin - proving difficult to do by book, and impossible to do online through translator services.
The phrase is, simply: 'Re-Unify Now!' and is meant to refer to the Roman Empire re-unifying through the European Union.
The nearest I have have managed to create so far is 'Reconsocio Extemplo!' but I have no idea if this is correct. Can anyone with a passing knowledge of Latin help?
- Frank
Thanks !
- F
Does anyone out there know if any current kings or or other royalty around the world speak German? Thanks Reywas92 15:24, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
Native or a second language. I'm just looking for a list. Reywas92 19:10, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
How is the Meriam in Merriam-Webster pronounced? I can't even find it in the online version of Merriam-Webster. Thanks.
How are these children books which, when opened, reveal foldable panoramas and similar stuff called? I've been looking for thewords but can't figure it out. Circeus 20:44, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
What is the correct pronunciation of Adaro? Thank you! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.61.144.241 ( talk • contribs) 20:53, 13 May 2006 UTC.
The language is English.
It is A race of sea spirits from the mythology of the Solomon Islands; see Adaro (mythology).
My guess would be Adaro (uh-darrow). Agree or disagree?
In the introduction to Tom Lehrer's song Send the Marines, he uses the word escalatio. What does he mean? Black Carrot 01:39, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Really, I have two questions here:
My copy is a scan of the original typewritten work, so it's difficult to tell exactly whats going on. The typewritten nature might explain the lack of the alternate sigma, but I'm not knowledgable enough to say. Does any of that make sense? — vijay 06:02, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, that just about answers everything. I'll stick with the polytonic orthography, for two reasons, 1) it lets me copy exactly (important since I don't know what I'm doing! :-) ) and 2) the text is referring to Eleusinian Mysteries, and so old Greek makes sense to me. I assume that my \hat{\omega} is, indeed, a circumflexed omega, although the type is poor, and if someone could confirm that for me, I'd appriciate it. About the sigmas, though. Am I right to say that if a word ends in sigma, it should always be printed <ς>? The article on sigma doesn't say when it came into existence. I assume that it's not a new invention, though, and that it should be used. I assume it wasn't available to the typist at the time. — vijay ( Talk) 22:59, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, all. A series of questions on how to get LaTeX working with \usepackage[polutonikogreek,english]{babel}
evolved into confirming my thoughts about this text. To conclude here: the apostrophy-epsilon was the typist's way of conveying a smooth-breathing mark over the epsilon. And, yes, the omega in των takes a circumflex, which may be represented in a number of ways, including the "hat" my source used, and the ~ that the babel/polutonikogreek package uses. Also, there's probably no good reason why the <ς> wasn't used. There probably was a bad one, though: the typographer didn't have one available. As my source is mainly english, with sparse greek phrases, I think that makes sense. Again, thanks. —
vijay (
Talk) 04:20, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Do you know, what is a verst? Thank you. I just think, whether it would be appropriate to replace versts in the lyrics with miles or kilometers, as versts might be too unknown to most people. ellol 08:45, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
He is the supposed author of the I Ching , but I can't figure how its pronounced with the two wats its written . Hhnnrr 11:55, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank you very much .. Hhnnrr 12:31, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Hey - a local band I have become involved with want to translate the name of their EP into Welsh, and I thought of no better place than Wiki to go and ask for help :) The album name is "The Path Not Taken", so any close equivilent to that i Gymraeg would be of great help to them.
Cheers doktorb | words 13:50, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
This has been answered elsewhere. "Y llwybr nas cymerwyd"
doktorb |
words 13:18, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
What is the short form of Ambassador, like Mr is the short form of Mister
Hello, I intend to learn a language called "Pali".Its an ancient Indian language that was used by people during the times of Gautam Buddha.All his sermons had been written and compiled in this language.Can Wikipedia help me learn this language and go through the scriptures?
I was having a conversation with an asian assosciate of mine and he, jokingly called me what I understood as sounding like:
Now I believe he is pakistani. I am aware these were insults but I dont know what htey mean or even what language they were in. I apologise for my ignorance.
The two commonest and most vulgar insults in Hindi / Urdu are 'behan-chod' and 'maadar-chod' which refer to the addressee having incestuous relations with his sister and mother respectively. Assuming that you didn't mishear the above and that your friend was a tad less obscene, the term 'bandar-chod' - not very common and hence, pretty hilarious - would mean 'monkey-fucker'. I'd hazard the first epithet on your list as having been 'lund choos' which would be the equivalent of the charming term 'cocksucker' and the last epithet on your list as having been 'bandar da gaand' which in Punjabi would be 'monkey's ass'. -- Giri.
Maybe it's not an insult if you don't understand it-- Teutoberg 17:28, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
thank you for the replies. You wouldnt happen to know any good ones I can use to combat him do you? thank you again.
Check out www.insultmonger.com. You'll find plenty of ammo there in any language you want. -- Giri.
The Brits call the Germans Jerries and I guess the word jerry-can follows from that relation.
What is the origin of this slang word jerry?
—Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Bud9691 (
talk •
contribs)
Does anyone know the year that the movie "ever after" was set in???
Thanks
P.S. please reply ASAP
I don't think your question has anything to do with languages to be honest... doktorb | words 13:19, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Could anyone explain to me the symbols, motifs and themes of the poem? I think I don't really get what the poet is trying to articulate through the poem. Thanks a lot.
Hello, writers. I'm looking for a word that describes the feeling of nostalgia for a promised future that didn't happen. For example, when I was a kid I was all but promised picnics on the moon by tht time I was an adult. Now, when I look at old sci-fi pictures from the 70's of people in massive earth-orbiting space stations, I have a certain longing for that initial feeling about the future. --Justin
There's a whole book "Yesterday's Tomorrow: Past Visions of the American Future" on this. See also The Gernsback Continuum and Raygun Gothic... AnonMoos 03:34, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks all! --Justin
How would I search for the saying "Don't shit where you eat?" I'm interested in the meaning and etymology. Thank you, Josh
You can go to a library with a Lexis or other full-text database account and ask the librarian to help you. It will have old newspaper and magazine articles, even including stuff like hip-hop mags and Playboy.-- Teutoberg 22:43, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Around here it's always been "Don't shit where you sleep". Why this needs an etymology I can't be sure, but in terms of usage it's usually to do with screwing around with co-employees or with housemates/roommates, but in a more general sense is "don't screw up with where you work/live". Not sure how old it is, but I bet it goes back way before World War I Skookum1 00:44, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm editing a wikipedia article about someone described as once being a "yak shepherd". I wasn't aware that yaks were sheep. Is there a more appropriate term? "Yakherd" isn't in the dictionary.... TheMadBaron 09:26, 16th of May 2006 (UTC)
Yakov Smirnoff ? :-) StuRat 15:40, 17th of May 2006 (UTC)
ooooooooooooooh Stu, that one was a groaner. NOW you're pushing it! Loomis51 00:30, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
please what is "all your writting needs" in latin. thank you so much.-- 196.201.156.90 15:06, 16 May 2006 (UTC)Anel-- 196.201.156.90 15:06, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Are there any basic spacial symbols that mean "in between" or "touching, on" or "motion towards" (or others) used in any typographical convention, preferably ones you can find in ASCII or on a basic American keyboard? I'm developing my own personal notation system for sign languages. For example, right now, I'm using:
L palm-in th/f1=chin, tap2
L handshape, palm orientation inward, then make the area between the thumb and index finger touch your chin and tap twice
(the sign for "lesbian" in ASL)
But maybe there are already established ways for showing in between instead of using my / or for contact instead of using my =
-- Sonjaaa 16:18, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I am, but I'm not sure if I like it or why it's even becoming popular. It's not as user-friendly as it could have been.-- Sonjaaa 21:55, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
The surname Bustamante is quite common in the Philippines. What does it mean? Is it from the Latin? 66.213.33.2 17:28, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
what is the hausa metaphor of the murfu?
Can a Canadian person please tell me how he or she prnounces the word "internship"? Do most Canadians place the accent like "in'-tern-ship" or do you place the accent "in-tern'-ship"? J. Finkelstein 01:36, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Now that we seem to have a consensus amongst us Canadians, who pronounces it the other way? From what I understand, Americans pronounce it the same. But Brits...I don't know... Loomis51 23:31, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Actually, come to think of it, (and this is both an interesting and odd discovery I just had,) the word "intern" can mean two completely different things, depending on how it's pronounced. One definition would be "an arrangement where a person new to a particular field gets on the job experience through a cooperative arrangement with the employer" and the other would be "the forced confinement of an individual by the state (usually by a totalitarian state, or at least in a totalitarian fashion, without due process of the law, due to one's political beliefs, ethnicity etc...)". In other words, "whereas I may get a job as an "INtern" at a Soviet television station, due to my dissident beliefs, the authorities may "inTERN" me in a special inTERNment camp." Loomis51 20:05, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Can some one please help me with the meaning of the phrase "Rust never sleeps".
Can anyone please tell me what is the word that describes a word that begins and ends with the same letter,eg Norman.
Thank You
Norman Martin
How can I learn this language —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.55.89.8 ( talk • contribs) .
what is the meaning of abigna?
Does French have retroflex consonants? — Masatran 16:34, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
could anyone knows the meaning of Abigna?
thank you, Guru
Contraction of "a big enough".
Okay, according to various lyrics websites, these are the lyrics to " Trenchtown Rock" by Bob Marley and the Wailers: [13]; [14]. So, can anyone tell me what "No want you fe galang so" means? What about "You want come cold I up"? Thanks, — BrianSmithson 18:37, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
I have a question about the history of the word diaphragm. I recently expanded the diaphragm page (a disambiguation page) to include many other uses of the word diaphragm. That got me interested in the history of the changing use of that word, and wondering which uses came first, and how each use relates to the other. It is fairly easy to look up the etymology of the original diaphragm word, but how could I get the dates of first use of all the other terms, and find oout how they are related to each other? Carcharoth 20:02, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
The ones that aren't dated (not shown) seem to be all the modern engineering uses of the term diaphragm. Presumably the OED hasn't got round to those yet. Carcharoth 22:51, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
In ancient Greek, the word diaphragma (pronounced diap-hrang-ma with aspirated "p") meant "partition wall" or "membrane which divides the lung from the stomach" (Reference: lesser Liddell and Scott). 05:58, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Hello, I'm looking for the original of the Thai word ปิ่นโต /pin.to/ (lunch box). I've learned before that the original word came from the Portuguese word. However I could not find the reference for that. The only word that I found is "pinto" meaning chicken.
Thank you for any question. I searched on the Internet and found one lunchbox that similar to Thai lunchbox [15], but it's written in English not the Portuguese -- Manop - TH 03:52, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Very likely from the Japanese (the Thai ป isn't really a p, but sort of half way between p and b).
That said....
The Portuguese past participle bento, related to the Portuguese verb bendizer (to bless), stems from the Latin benedire, "to bless" (literally "to say well").... as in benedictus.
The Japanese word bento (弁当, べんとう) is said to have originated from a 16th Century military commander called Odo Nobunaga [16]. Odo Nobunaga had close links to the Jesuits [17], so it's possible that he borrowed the word from a Portuguese blessing.
If that's the case, then the Thai tiffin carrier might have same root as the name of the Pope. TheMadBaron 11:02, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Bento is also a very common Portuguese name (forename, surname and placename, and the name of at least one ship, São Bento (named after Saint Benedict, lost in 1554 [18]). Interestingly, Bento Fernandes, one of the "great missionary personalities of the time," was a contemporary of Odo Nobunaga, and active in Japan [19].... so maybe it was his lunchbox.... TheMadBaron 20:48, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
It's entirely possible, I suppose, that "bento" might have been a Portuguese term for a food carrier at the time, even if no longer used in modern Portuguese. If that's the case, the Thai word is perhaps as likely to have been borrowed directly from Portuguese traders, without Japanese influence. Either way, assuming that Freshgavin is correct, all signs indicate a Portuguese origin. TheMadBaron 21:09, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
According to my understanding pintoh (ปิ่นโต)is a kind of lunch box consisting of a stack of typically three to five cylindrical containers, strung one above another by metal strips, that also form a handle on top, sometimes called a tiffin carrier, an expression derived from an Indian word meaning 'light meal' or 'snack' and sometimes referring to 'lunch'. It is used for carrying food, usually light lunches prepared for schoolchildren by their mothers. The word pintoh literally means 'top-grow' and might be translated as 'to grow to the top'. This probably refers to the 'stack' in which the containers are placed on 'top' of each other and hence 'grows' to a certain height, although it might just as well refer to the fact that children grow as they eat. Yves Masure (autor Thailex, Thailand Lexicon).
I am creating a wiki using some of the content of http://www.dmoz.org.
I would like to know what interwiki language codes to use for the content of:
I am getting the codes from http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias.
For example, the interwiki language code is "fr" for:
I imagine one of them will use "zh"
Which ones do I need for Chinese Simplified and which for Chinese Traditional:
Thanks!
Brusselsshrek 09:35, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
OK, thanks. Hmmm. Let me ask a follow-up question then. If I map BOTH dmoz Simplified AND Traditional pages to wiki "zh" pages can you see a problem with overlapping? i.e. will pages, as far as you can see, end up with the same wiki name? I don't know enough about the two systems to know if the URL strings would be distinct. Let me give an example: If I start with the English page (phew!) http://www.dmoz.org/Science/ I can see that it has a link to language versions in both Chinese (Traditional) AND Chinese Simplified. These pages are:
Since the suffix of these two is different, I could render these two pages in a wiki as (I suppose):
BUT, is it 100% safe to assume that they will ALWAYS be different in the suffix of the URL? Thanks again! Brusselsshrek 09:59, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm, thanks, this is all very helpful to a non-Chinese speaker with the task of sorting this out. Since wiki seems to think a single "zh" suffices, is this Simplified/Traditional Chinese rather like the American/British English thing that a wiki page could be written in either as long as a whole page is consistent? (Sure, I understand traditional chars a lot more complex). My thought would be just to take ONLY the Dmoz Simplified pages into the wiki. In your view, would that lose a lot of valuable Dmoz info, or is the Simplified/Traditional content basically just a duplication but in a "different" language? Brusselsshrek 10:27, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
I am creating a wiki using some of the content of http://www.dmoz.org. I'm making good progress with finding each of the wiki language codes to use, but I would like to know what interwiki language codes to use for the content of:
I am getting the codes from http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias.
For example, the interwiki language code is "fr" for:
My Slovensko and Slovensky is even worse than my Chinese (which itself is limited to "Special Fried Rice").
Thanks! Brusselsshrek 11:00, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
That is strange, because "Slovensko" is also the native name for Slovakia. You can see how George Bush confused these countries. -- Mwalcoff 00:00, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks User:Henry_Flower, you're great at this! (How come you know all this stuff?)
Finally, what is the wiki language code (see above questions) for Taiwanese:
Where does the expression "ye high" come from? Old English?
I've been looking for a good definition, but there's just none to find (somebody add it to wiktionary, please).
Usage (I think): "He's about ye high (holds up hand to indicate the height of a person)" - O bli ( Talk) ? 19:39, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Does anyone know of a speech synthesis program (preferably free or maybe commercial, and for either Windows or Linux) which lets you input the required sounds phonetically in IPA or maybe say SAMPA / X-SAMPA rather than as orthography? It seems that most packages do "text to speech", but it would be nice to have a bit more control. Thanks. Arbitrary username 21:13, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Is it corret to say "So far to date" or should one stick to just either "so far", or "to date"? 159.134.255.9 00:04, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
While reading Sex Drugs and Economics, written by a British author, I came across the above phrase and I thought it was lovely but it was a novel expression to my American eyes. A few hours later I was listening to Neil Gaiman read on of his stories where an American tourist used the phrase and I realized it was nothing an American would have used as far as I know.
I would love to know how, where and when this phrase originated or at least a site that will not give me the run around while I'm trying to search for it.
Thanks so much for any assistance. - Kubzz 07:10, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank so much for the quick responses. :) - Kubzz 07:32, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
This line from Canadian raising puzzles me: "So, whereas the General American pronunciations of "rider" and "writer" are identical [ɹaɪɾɚ], those whose dialects include either the full or restricted Canadian raising will pronounce them as [ɹaɪɾɚ] and [ɹəɪɾɚ], respectively."
One of those words has a d in the middle, the other a t. I don't pronounce them the same and I grew up not far from the "classic" General American" region. Is this really correct or are only the vowels the same in both words. Rmhermen 22:43, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Following are lyrics (Persian) of Shakila's song Yegaaneh, which I completely love. It would be *awesome* if someone can translate it for me. Thanks a ton!
تا کی به تمنای وصال تو یگانه
اشکم شود از هر مژه چون سیل روانه
ای تیره غمت را دل عشاق نشانه
خواهد به سرآیدشب هجران تو یا نه
جمعی به تو مشغول و تو فارغ ز میانه
هر در که زنم صاحب آن خانه تویی تو
هر جا که شدم پرتو کاشانه تویی تو
در کعبه و در دیر چو جانانه تویی تو
منظور من از کعبه و بتخانه تویی تو مقصود تویی ...کعبه و بتخانه بهانه
ای تیره غمت را دل عشاق نشانه
بلبل به چمن زار گل رخسار نشان دید
پروانه در آتش شد و اسرار نهان دید
عارف صفت حمد تو از پیر و جوان دید
یعنی همه جا عکس رخ یار توان دید
دیوانه منم ..من که روم خانه به خانه
ای تیره غمت را دل عشاق نشانه
جمعی به تو مشغول و تو فارغ ز میانه
عاقل به قوانین خرد راه تو جوید
دیوانه برون از همه آئین تو پوید
تا غنچهء نشکفتهء این باغ که بوید
هر کس به زبانی صفت حمد تو گوید
بلبل به غزل خوانی و قمری به ترانه
رفتم به در صومعه زاهد و عابد
دیدم همه را پیش رخت راکع و ساجد
در بتکده رهبانم و در صومعه زاهد
گه معتکف دیرم و گه ساکن مسجد
یعنی که تو را می طلبم خانه به خانه
ای تیره غمت را دل عشاق نشانه
بلبل به چمن زان گل رخسار نشان دید
پروانه در آتش شد و اسرار نهان دید
عارف صفت حمد تو از پیر و جوان دید
یعنی همه جا عکس رخ یار توان دید
دیوانه منم ..من که روم خانه به خانه
ای تیره غمت را دل عشاق نشانه
جمعی به تو مشغول و تو فارغ ز میانه
deeptrivia ( talk) 00:35, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
What word refers to the process by which a company expands too fast and therefore loses its focus? For example, Yahoo! was created as a collection of favourite pages, and now they offer everything under the sun, and seem to have lost their focus. Google used to offer only search, but now they offer social networking and other services that have nothing to do with search. These services usually do not reflect the usual Google quality and corporate culture/values.
Another example could be an company initially offering high-quality online communication services, which clearly reflect their corporate culture and values; but then expanding into online games, then software, then telecommunications, etc. and their products in these new markets do not reflect the quality of their online communication services or their corporate culture/values.
This process does not occur if a company expands quickly, but still retains their focus, quality and corporate culture/values. -- J.L.W.S. The Special One 00:40, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
How does one pronounce "re," the short form of "regarding," as in To: John Doe From:Jane Smith Re: The pronunciation of the word at the beginning of this line!
Since it is a short form of "regarding" it seems "re" should rhyme with "tree."
I have had a boss who is sure it's pronounced as if it were spelled "ray," as in the musical notes "do, re me...," or as if it were Latin such as in the phrase "in re your estate," for example.
I don't like mispronouncing words and would love a definative answer!
Thank you.
What is the difference between Pakistani Punjabi language and Indian Punjabi language?
What are the rules for counting syllables in English? Does a syllable necessarily contain a vowel (phoneme)?
In the examples below, how many syllables do you count?
Based on some simple (simplistic?) rules I've seen, I got 2, 1, 1, and 2 respectively. The thing that I'm not sure about is in words like "slack", whether the whole word is one syllable or whether the "s" is in a separate syllable by itself. -- 68.238.243.228 16:08, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
How many words in the English Language are the same in the singular as the plural (for example: sheep, fish)? - Jayuu
"Thus, the following are all correct:
The second is certainly correct, the first could be correct if there were say black, white and green sands in the hourglass but I don't see how the third could ever be correct. Rmhermen 00:38, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
What does the word "Debauche" mean? I've looked it up on WP but to no avail. Help me. I hate words that aren't familiar.
Debauch as a transitive verb means to corrupt, to reduce the value of. See dictionary.com's page on the word. The give the etymology as old French de+ bauch - apparently bauch is a sort of beam, so I take debauch to mean "to steer away from the straight and narrow". -- Hughcharlesparker 19:15, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Is there any specific film review format? What I can find from the web is about what can be include in a review, but this is not exactly what I want.
This is a school assignment. In my rubric, there is a row which is called "genre format," so it is probably just about the style I write but not any specific format, is that right?
How do you say "In spirit and in truth", "Way, Truth, Life" and "In the Light of the Lord" in Latin? I have looked up various dictionaries but there are just too many options they offer, and I don't know which ones are the best words to use! Thanks a lot!
Thank you guys a whole bunch! This really helps me a lot :)
'Strike chord' or 'Strike a chord have been used often to discribe being touched by something, correct? What is the imterpretation of the subject/headline in layman's term?
SY
Hello,
In the Praat program for Audio/Voice analysis they use Jitter and Shimer to describe pulses in the Voice.
Is it a standard experssion? since I didn't found any reference outside.
What is the meaning of high or low jitter and shimer? In the sense of what causes it? what is it reflecting?
Thanks, Mushin
If the prefix "octo-" means eight, then why is october the 10th month of the year? 24.107.18.136 20:54, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Which one is preferable in American English when a person is speaking, quote "..." unquote or quote-unquote "...?" Patchouli 20:56, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
I believe that it is incorrect to say "unquote" and that "end quote" is preferable. -- 24.19.240.196 18:28, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Is there a word for someone who favors one ethnic group over another? For instance, if a Hutu discriminates against a Tutsi or if a Japanese discriminates against a Korean. I can only come up with the word racist, but here the discrimination is inside the race.
I know that there is no ethnicist; is there another single word? Patchouli 20:59, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
It's called nationalism (one of two senses of the word) or chauvinism. Zocky | picture popups 16:53, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
In a coffee break at work, my colleagues and I debated the possibility of coming up with a valid English sentence of at least four seven words, where every word has exactly 9 letters. Can this be done? A barnstar (or maybe a brainstar) for the longest sentence.
JackofOz 02:08, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
How about "Everybody considers elephants necessary"? Does it have to make sense logically or just grammatically? This shouldn't be too difficult, you just won't be able to use any of the most frequently used Germanic-based words. Adam Bishop 02:24, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Extending that, "Everybody considers Ukrainian elephants necessary." Or "Everybody considers Ukrainian elephants necessary drawbacks." Although, that last one's stretching it, there should really be a "to be" in there. Black Carrot 02:30, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Hah! "Virtually everybody available helpfully considers verbosely formatted sentences, tautology following tautology, validates immediate deletions forthwith." That's 15! Proto|| type 12:25, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
What is the verb form of "Wikipedia," if there is an accepted or prevailing form? Aside from contributing to the decay of the English language, a verb would be of great convenience. I would no longer have to say, "I want to look up an article on [topic] in the Wikipedia," simply, "I want to [verb] [topic]."
Then what is the gerund form? I usually use "wikipediing," but perhaps there is another form that would be more aesthetic. (While someone's at that, find a nice form for the participle too.)
Boy, I sure wish that this site had chosen a name which rolls more easily of the English-speaker's tongue. Like RMS (GNU???), the founders gave little thought to a marketable name. - lethe talk + 15:57, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
I recently was told that the IPA spelling for Detroit is off. However, I am not sure exactly what it should be and would appreciate some feedback on this. Pentawing Talk 04:31, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
What does /x\ mean or stand for? I have searched wiki and google and have only come up with unrelated results.
When I visited Japan recently, I was astonished by the prevalence of the use of Katakana which replaced a lot of Hiragana or Kanji. I wonder where can I find official or academic survey about this phenomenon.
Hi everyone
What does 'to lose one's thread mean literally and what is the origin of the phrase. Thank you v much.
I am trying to find the correct spelling for "holus bolus", as well as, the original language, and, the English translation. It seems to be a less popular phrase these days. 70.27.185.36 13:48, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
What is the name for a story which begins with the ending, and then travels backwards in order to show how the events shown happened? smurrayinchester( User), ( Talk) 14:25, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
I've heard umami pronounced several ways. Who knows? -- hydnjo talk 17:36, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
You may want to check out the article on the International Phonetic Alphabet. "Sounds like" and "rhymes with" isn't that helpful because English is pronounced differently in different parts of the world. That said, the wav file you linked two is roughly saying [juː.mɑ.mɪi]. The vowels would be promounced differently, and the opening sound is wrong. (If anything, "tsunami" would probably be the closest "rhymes with", assuming Japanese pronunciations).-- Andrew c 23:27, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Is there a word that is used to describe a word which describes itself. I cant think of any examples but say, for example:
the meaning of the word" elaplozaba" is simply "elaplozaba"
Heh, I know it sounds like a silly question but yes.
Thank you
I am trying to find a word/phrase that means something that proves itself... Such as the fact that such and such exists is proof enough of its right to exist. It's not syllogism, or Q.E.D. but something in that ballpark. Thank you for any help (Annie).
Res ipsa loquitur? Henry Flower 23:29, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Although this is a specific real-life example, there are things called self-authenticating documents. Ardric47 23:40, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Ipso facto? Adam Bishop 01:56, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Can I use the word Solipsism (n.) in this way? (Annie)............"c'est le va sans dire"??hotclaws**==( 82.138.214.1 13:25, 24 May 2006 (UTC))
(moved from Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities)
A pedometer or step counter is a device, usually portable and electronic, which counts each step a person makes.
So what are people who likes pedometers a lot called? Ohanian 00:25, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I knew it! Newspeak had a real-life counterpart! schyler 10:23, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Which script is this, in which this Pali bible is written ? deeptrivia ( talk) 04:15, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
So, burmese it is, then. Thanks! deeptrivia ( talk) 13:36, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
The following are well known: 10 years = 1 decade, 100 years = 1 century, 1000 years = 1 millenium. Does anyone know if there is a name for a 10,000 year period? (if not, lets invent one) Thanks
I am making a map of Sudan in the SVG format. The map I'm using as a base ( Image:Sudan political map 2000.jpg) uses a system of Arabic transliteration that includes the characters H with cedilla (Ḩ), D with cedilla (Ḑ), and T with cedilla (Ţ). None of these characters show up properly when the SVG is uploaded to Wikipedia, probably because the Wikimedia servers don't have fonts installed that include these characters. I could, of course, disregard the cedillas, but I want to be as accurate as possible. The Encyclopædia Britannica seems to use a dot under the letters instead of a cedilla, but the dotted versions don't work either. Is there another recommended system of transliteration for AL BAḨR AL AḨMAR, AL QAḐĀRIF, and AL KHARŢŪM? — Bkell 19:36, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
There are quite a few transcription systems for Arabic, but almost all of them that properly distinguish between separate Arabic letters use diacritic combinations which are not in ISO-8859-1, so if you can't use characters outside of ISO-8859-1, then switching transcription systems won't really help. The dots are more common than the cedillas in most fields -- in this case, I would just manually position the dots underneath the letters using an ordinary non-diacritic period or stop character. AnonMoos 02:41, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
This problem is really annoying. I had a teacher who would type out the velearized H, D, S, and T in capitalized form and the nonvelearized ones in lowercase form. I prefer the dots, but... You could just write it out in a made up transliteration that would be easy to follow for those who are unfamiliar with Arabic transliterations, and in this case you would omit the distinction. You would then make up for this by supplying the IPA version alongside it. - LambaJan 14:07, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
I was pleased to find that on your slam poetry entry there was Regie Gibson, a slam poet. He came to our school and we all loved him very much. I was wondering if you could find out a little more about him and post it on this site. I think that he would appreciate this very very much. He has a very kind soul and loves kids. This would mean a lot to him. Regie taught our classes a lot including, slam poetry, how to make your own poems, the sound of language, the rythm in language and many others. Thank you very much.
Be bold : gather data and add them to the page, it's easy. No personal souvenirs please. -- DLL 21:54, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
In your opinion, what is the easiest, least confusing, and successful method of teaching for a student learning English as a second language when the student and the teacher share a common language by which to communicate? If you do not have the name of the method, please mention some of the techniques, such as using many pictures to represent words. Thank you.-- El aprendelenguas 21:12, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback so far. To clarify further, I am looking for a method to teach English as a second language to a Spanish-speaker in the United States. Therefore, the student has already been emmersed in an English-speaking environment. I have been instructed to use the Laubach Method to English as a teaching basis, but I can include other teaching methods as well to better cover the required material. I speak Spanish, but the Laubach method is designed enable a instructor to teach a student English with no means by which to communicate. For example, the Laubach method says to use universal gestures for "listen" and "repeat." Is it okay for me to use Spanish when I am teaching the student, at least for these gestures? How about to explain English grammar? To provide a definition for English words that are unfamilar to the student?-- El aprendelenguas 01:43, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
A friend of mine studying language in France mentioned a theory to me that holds that the syntax of a language plays a role in determing the thinking patterns of those who grow up with that language as their primary language. For example, if your language has no word for numbers higher than 100, you will likely have difficulty conceptualizing large numbers of things. I remember this theory from my university studies too, but have completely forgotten the name of the person who originally proposed it. However, I'm certain that it's not who my friend is studying, as that person only wrote his thesis about 50 years ago, and I think the theory is older than that. Can anyone offer any leads as to who originated this theory? I would run a search for the name of the theory, but I've forgotten that as well. Thx. -- DavidGC 23:40, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I've noticed some American english and Mexican/ American Spanish speakers use swear words as terms of endearment between friends (i.e. ¿Qué pasa güey? or 'Tsup, bitch?). Do any other languages do this? I'm guessing it's cultural, but I'd be interested to know if such a thing exists in any other european or asian languages.-- The ikiroid 03:00, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Same in Thai, although for females as well as males. Henry Flower 18:46, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
My friends don't, but my mum's friends do. We're Korean. -- KJ 01:33, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
In the Midlands of England, "Cock" is used a lot
(see #6).
Slumgum |
yap |
stalk | 01:43, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
What word do you use to describe someone who can't stand the sight of blood and gore? The only one I can think of is "squeamish". Do you know of another (and perhaps better) one? -- 68.238.243.228 04:33, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
I came across this while writing an essay. Usually, all words that begin with a vowel are preceeded by "an" instead of "a". However I noticed I didn't write this in the sentance "How do we achieve these goals of a utopian future". Why don't I write "an utopia" - it doesn't sound right, I know, but why is it an exception to the rule? What other exceptions are there? -- DanielBC 06:53, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
The "an historical" phenomenon developed in dialects of English in which initial /h/ was dropped in unstressed syllables, so "historical" was actually pronounced "istorical" and thus warranted an an. Some people mistook that for a rule saying "use an before /h/," but in those dialects no one ever said "an history book." In American English it's mainly an overcorrection by people who are insecure about whether their princiation sounds high-class enough. · rodii · 21:07, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
What is the most effective way to encourage my fellow students to speak in English. I live in the Philipines and English is the second language here. thanks.
There was a Malaysian(they look like filipinos),where I studied who was scolded(in (Tagalog)) in the library for speaking in English. The librarian apologized after finding out his nationality. There are Anglophone southeast asians, balikbayans(returnees from other countries),chinese etc who speak English. However, they are made to feel ashamed for speaking English and 'pretending to be rich'. Tagalog is to be highly esteemed. But a person shouldn't feel ashamed to speak English. Here in Tokyo , many filipinos are so proud of their English ability specially when they see non-Anglophones struggling to communicate in English.-- Jondel 02:29, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Like when you're looking to the East as the sun is setting, and it's all different colors and a different sky than the one at sunset. Whats that Called?
I submitted your question to The Stanford Solar Center yearly this morning, and received their reply about 2:30 PM (pacific).
According to The Stanford Solar Center, the other side, or "backside" of the sunset is called the "far-side". If you want to explore the science of looking at "the other side", or far-side, of the sun, you can look at;
http://soi.stanford.edu/data/farside/index.html
Katiebugggg13
Katiebugggg13 04:28, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
I seem to recall hearing this expression when I was younger - does anyone know what it means? — Quantum Eleven 08:18, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Think back to the days when stage coaches played a important role in transporting people, mail, goods, and currency, across the U.S.. It was necessary to employ drivers and security. The person who sat up front with the driver, was commonly armed with a shotgun. He wasn't driving, he was "riding shotgun".
Katiebugggg13 04:47, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
What is the correct capitalization of titles of novels in Spanish? I’ve always been told that only the first letter of the title (excluding names of places, people, etc.) is capitalized, but then I’m not really sure as I’ve never had to write a book report in Spanish.
Many of the wikipedia articles on biology use latin terms. One common usage is
I understand that the Viperinae could be treated as a collective noun or as a class like how one would use birds. I imagine that the correct usage should be the
Can someone confirm the correct usage. Shyamal 11:44, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Got two phrases that I would like to render in Latin. I haven't taken it in uh, a decade so its a little rusty.
1. "I came, I saw, I snooped". I can't find a good synonym for snoop in the Latin dictionaries online, so right now I've just got "vini, vidi, ..."
2. "They shall not hide". Would "non abscondobunt" work?
Thanks! Namlemez 23:57, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
While everyone's translating things into Latin here... A few months ago I wondered how to say "which implies" in Latin, as in "We know that 3x = 6, which implies that x = 2." — Bkell ( talk) 02:57, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
It is veni, vidi, vinci (I won)—
Argentino (
talk/
cont.) 17:47, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
i would greatly enjoy adding this word to the english language...
narcissexual - one who exhibits sexual attraction to his or her self.
why is this not a word? why is this not a prodominant insult? i will never know the answer to this question. but maybe, with a little help, it will become one.
- tyler wilson
What does the phrase "fake muppet" mean please?
maybe you could try contacting an Irish wikipedian to answer your question. Go to an Irish talk page or something, or Irish language talkpage, etc. Also, please sign your comments! Use the signiature button on an editing page, if you have the java toolbar enabled. Like this: MαRΤiαΠ ĿostiηSPΛĊΞ 17:17, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Seeing as well (for also) at the beginning of a sentence makes me shiver. Can this usage be justified? -- Halcatalyst 00:47, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Here's an example of what I don't like: John is a master angler. As well, he enjoys hiking and camping. I don't know that I'd call it improper usage, because people who ought to know better use it, but as I said it doesn't seem right. I prefer He also enjoys hunting and fishing or He enjoys hunting and fishing as well. I guess my problem with the usage is that it puts too much emphasis on what is really only the equivalent of a transitional connective. As if the person wanted to say, John is a master angler. AS WELL, he enjoys hunting and camping. -- Halcatalyst 18:05, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
The use of "As well" with a comma at the beginning of a sentence is not used in American English but is very common in Canadian English for some reason. The article Richardson family murders contains a sentence starting with "As well." The contributor was User:Yank4323. The editor must want people to think he or she is American, since it's technically illegal for Canadians to write what he did on the Internet. But the person's language belies his or her nationality. -- Mwalcoff 03:38, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Which of the two titular phrases is the one commonly used by someone experiencing a temporary departure? Google searches do not seem to provide me with the answer and it is proving confusing. Help would be much appreciated. -- WarpObscura 04:22, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
I have noticed that in the New York-New Jersey English article, people are constantly adding impressionistic dictionaryesque pronunciations such as the following incomprehensible (to me) case "House" is pronounced "huose," much as in today's Cape Breton accent, stressing the "u." When I know what they mean, I switch things like this to IPA, but I'm not sure what to do in this case. I am not familiar enough with the speech in question and I can only speculate what the person meant. Should it just be cut on the theory that if someone has no idea how to write it in IPA, they are probably just operating on unreliable hunches?
Referring to the same article, it seems to me that NY and NJ should be entirely different articles. The first refers to NYC dialect, which is spoken mainly by European Americans in the NYC dialect region ranging from extreme NW Jersey to the middle of Long Island. The second refers to all the dialects spoken in the state of New Jersey, of which NYC dialect is only one. I'm not immersed enough in the ways of the Wikipedia to do anything about it, but I am worried that the matter will only get worse, if for example, people start adding upstate NY speech, which is entirely different again. Anyone who's an admin can help? mnewman
When I was a child my parents used to say boly (IPA [ˈboʊli]) instead of bed, for example, time for boly. My grandmother is from Iceland and speaks better Icelandic than English, so that's probably what language it's from, but I haven't been able to find it in an Icelandic dictionary. I guess it's also possible it's Hungarian, from the other side of my family. Anyone know where this word comes from? Any clues would be appreciated. — Keenan Pepper 07:18, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Can anyone explain why or what causes people to have different regional accents depending on where they come from.
which sounds like a load of original research hooey to me. Well, I'm sure no one theory can account for all sound changes, and evolutionary linguistics doesn't have a well-established micromodel. But surely there are theories as for why languages change. One obvious stimulus that has been observed many times is juxtaposition of disparate languages due to migration. Thus English as spoken in India is quite different from English in the US due to the presence of other Indian languages. - lethe talk + 21:37, 27 May 2006 (UTC)Nobody knows why, but all languages vary from place to place and time to time. Writing does not keep languages from changing. This would be true if we learnt languages from reading books. We do not. We learn our native tongue by imitating the speakers in our environment. Only dead languages are immune to sound change. Perhaps the best explanation is to note that everything changes, and language is one part of everything.
I have a copy of the first trombone solo from Mahler's symphonie 3. It is really cool sounding, the only problem is that I don't know what is written under the staff in German. I tried using a n online translator but it either totally misinterprets the sentence or doesn't even translate the word. I need some help. At the top of the piece it says to play it, "Langsam, schwer; Bei den gehaltenen Tönen Schalltrichter in die Höhe!" Then a little after the solo starts it has Triolen nicht schleppend in parenthesis. About half-way through the solo it says Weider schwer. Right after that it says wild which I am going to assume means wild in English also. About 10 measures from the end it says Vorwärts. Two measures later Pesante. And finally in the last two measures it says mit Dampfer but there is a diaersis over the a and m in Dampfer. It probably goes over the a and my printer just messed it up. Any help would be great. Thanks. schyler 23:58, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank you very much. I did have a feeling that pesante wasn't german and was a traditional music word like forte. schyler 01:19, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
I have two questions. Does r in the title have to be capital or lowercase according to the rules of standard American English?
Next, I want to know whether debt-ridden means someone with a huge debt who has just gotten rid of the debt through bankruptcy or other means ,or does it mean someone who has much debt at the present? Patchouli 03:27, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
What is the real etymology of this name (coming from Dune by Frank Herbert) ? 83.5.204.39 12:38, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
What languages were used two thousand years ago? — Masatran 14:29, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Latin, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit, Proto Germanic, Biblical Hebrew language (silver age), Old Chinese, Demotic Egyptian were all spoken about 2000 - 3000 years ago. Proto Celtic might be a bit earlier and Old Church Slavonic might be a bit later, check those articles, I don't know. As others have mentioned, every language on Earth today other than conlangs had a precursor 2000 years ago. However, many ancient languages were not written down, or all records were lost. Many ancient languages can be reconstructed if the descendent languages are well attested throughout history, this is where all knowledge of Proto Germanic comes from, for example. It's reconstructed based on its descendants. This method doesn't work for languages with no written history and no established genealogy. Thus I don't know how possible it would be to reconstruct ancient Native American or Khoisan languages of 2000 years ago. Probably not at all possible. - lethe talk + 15:41, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
What does this sentence mean ? Taiji is the co-substantial union of yin and yang .Thanks Hhnnrr 23:23, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Well then will using the word union only give the same meaning ? Hhnnrr 23:52, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
I had ethnic Indonesian classmates here in Tokyo in 1986.(yess I'm old) During that time, they told me it was forbidden to speak or write Chinese in Indonesia. -- Jondel 04:19, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank God! Hope it stays that way.-- Jondel 13:03, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
the word may not be spelled exactly like this but sounds like this, "huh-beol," in Manchu. it is supposed to mean a part of a human body. is anyone familiar with this Manchu word?
Are these constructions interchangeable? 'Such that' seems to appear mostly in mathematical problems and the like, but I suspect these mathematicians are just being pseudy and 'so that' would do just as well. -- Richardrj 07:41, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I was reading that most languages have more consonants than vowels, so that sentences written without vowels can still be understood in context and with some effort, because there are fewer vowels (as opposed to consonants) to choose from when guessing. And I don't mean just Semitic languages. But are there any languages which actually have more vowels than consonants, where vowels carry the bulk of the meaning? PeepP 16:41, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
You also need to decide if you're including diphthongs and triphthongs as separate vowels. If so, Thai has 21 consonants and 39 vowels. We have an interesting, but charmingly vague little article on the Sedang language, which has 24 pure vowels and, if you include diphthongs, "between 33 and 55 vowel sounds altogether". No word on the number of consonants, though. Henry Flower 17:54, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I've read a few WP articles on the topic in English and German. They say a lot about, for example, what diacritics an alif can carry and where they must be placed, but little as to how the result is transliterated, transcribed and pronounced. I gather that an alif carrying a hamza above must be a glottal stop + short vowel a, pronounced as something like [ʔæ], but I'm still not sure what to do with alifs that do not carry anything. Are they always used to indicate a long vowel ā? If so, is my vocalised strict WP transliteration of سوق أهراس as Sūq ’Ahrās correct?
What is the transliteration for مداوروش by the same system? Should I place an apostrophe between the first and second letter when transcribing or transliterating it?
Are these two names normally vocalised (as above) when written in the Arabic script, or only in encyclopedias and the like?
If it is not clear from what I wrote above: I know next to nothing about Arabic, its writing system and its phonology.
Wikipeditor 18:21, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
It indicates a hamza. Technically, it's not an apostrophe, but a quote – must be a peculiarity of the proposed WP system.
You say the hamza and short vowel “are not usually explicitly written” – I guess you mean when writing in the Arabic alphabet? Hence, سوق أهراس would normally appear as سوق هراس, right? Or do you mean I should omit the vowel in the transliteration (i.e. Sūq Hrās instead of Sūq ’Ahrās)?
Is the second name (مداوروش) Mdāwrūsh, Mdawrūsh, or something else? I fail to find how ر between consonants can be ū in the rules, but Mdawrwsh must be wrong, so I guess it's ū.
Thanks for your reply. Wikipeditor 01:33, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks a lot, everybody. Wikipeditor 17:00, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
How would you say
Enduring Lie
in Latin?
I need to know for a project I am doing.
Thank you very much!
So - if a guy dies and he's confirmed dead by a doctor-guy - some other guy will come along and haul the dead guy off. Usually he will use a special dead-guy vehicle for this - painted black and long so the dead guy can rest comfortably in a horizontal position inside a wooden box. I only know the name of this vehicle from American movies - it sounds like "hearst" or "hurst" - whatever... but the search I need to do involving this word turns up all wrong and Wikitionary is like "wtf?" when I ask it. So what's the correct spelling/wording for this particular vehicle? Gardar Rurak 23:27, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I posted a question on what seemed to be the "French Wikipedia" version of the RD. First of all, I couldn't even log in. Is my username and password only good for English Wikipedia? Why wouldn't my account be good for ALL versions of Wikipedia? Second, as this was my actual question: Is the link to something called oracle in the French Wikipedia the same as the RD here? If so, we should all feel lucky that we're English speakers, as the French version, even though it's the third largest after English and German, leaves much do be desired. Loomis51 00:33, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Loomis, although I am speaking about the internet in general now, I also find a lot of mistakes by US'ers like :"Their you can find a car. There coming. They where angry." Mistakes like that are usually made by people who pronounce English properly but don't know how to spell, and not by people who learnt the language, as they had to read books for that. Well English is the most useful language, but sometimes I wonder whether it could have been different (remember Esperanto?). Despite usefulness, it isn't the most 'normal either' : you practically never use the simple present tense, and for negations you use an auxiliary verb (I do not work. We just say : I work not.) But I agree, it's a vicious circle, I KNOW if it's not a regional matter, English Wikipedia will be vastly superior, so I usually ignore the Dutch speaking Wikipedia, and I don't contribute to it a lot... Evilbu 10:48, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
I am not Dutch. I speak Dutch though. The Dutch wikipedia is essentially there for Flanders, the Netherlands and Suriname. A US'er is someone with as nationality : from the United States. If there is a better word for that, please tell me. Actually learning from books is very good! I see that in school here, the generation behind me has to do all sorts of fun stuff "write poetry, do a little acting,..."...but in the mean time the fundamental elements of Dutch/French/English are neglected! But that is actually not what I meant. I meant : there are certain mistakes that someone who has learnt that language by reading (and then I mean, by a teacher writing it on a blackboeard) won't make. The French sometimes write "J'ai travailler. Vous mangé. Taiser-vous". When you pronounce it, there's no real difference. But I learnt to speak those words at the same time I learnt how to write them. (I on the other hand always guess the gender wrong and use 'subjonctive' when it's not necessary...) It's the same in Dutch, our verbs (usually) end in en/d/t/dt. That's how you get the dreaded d-t-errors in Dutch. I don't think someone who learnt the language will make these mistakes.
What was the first name of this Square.
What does the word vatican means?
Thank you for your help.
How do you write 'salt' in Ancient Greek? Thank you. 172.128.94.79 02:34, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
ساث هس ةغ لاثقسف بقهثىي ثرثق ه اشي pls give me the meaning of this sentence as soon as possible thjanks shahana
It's in Arabic script, but it isn't in Arabic, and there are some strange features (such as ta marbuta at the beginning of a word and alif maqsura in the middle of a word) which would seem to indicate that it's garbled in some manner... AnonMoos 21:32, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
I've always had trouble deciding where to put the period in a sentence that ends with a closed parenthesis or closed quotation marks (or both). (or both.)? The correct placing of comas is also a bit confusing.
For example, I'd greatly appreciate if someone could tell me which of the following puntuations are correct, and which aren't:
Thanks! Loomis51 12:03, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
While listening to the audio commentary in Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, I noticed that many of the developers ( Valve Corporation, based in Bellevue, Washington) share a similar accent, which notably has a long, "posh" 'o': as in "Lorst Cohst." As I don't know much about American accents, I was wonderingly idlely if this is a regional Washington accent or just a coincidence. Thanks! Sum0 15:34, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
hi,
many eons ago my french teacher told us that in french, problems (le problem, le crime, etc) are generally masculine and solutions (la solution, la police etc) are feminine. is this actually true? if so, is it true for any other languages with genderised nouns? cheers! -- 87.194.20.253 18:50, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
OMG she was! i cant believe i fell for the one... thanks! 87.194.20.253 19:04, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
LOL, also very typical for female French teachers is to always write elle/il instead of il/elle, even though the latter is the convention. Evilbu 09:48, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Hello, sorry to bother you but i´m looking for the sings the military and police enforcement uso when there must be absolute silence and the meaning of them, i hope you can help me, thank you very much
we should say "the always growing speed" or "the always-growing speed"? any difference between American and British usages here?-- K.C. Tang 02:48, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I am a new user so please bear with me. My question is: Did language originate from one place, i.e. africa and then travel colloquially throughout the world or did it spontanteously emerge/burst out of various regions, i.e. asian/arabic vs.latin/germanic, etc.
Can a word be considered a hyperbole if its associated meaning has become so common that it is an actual definition of the word? To illustrate the problem, here's my example:
"Mary flew to the kitchen to put out the grease fire."
Now obviously, the main meaning of the word "fly" is "to move through the air". However, the very next meaning is "to move quickly". So can "flew" truly be considered a hyperbole? Or is it just a simple usage of the word?-- SeizureDog 07:23, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
History of words, terms, and expressions
My questions concern the origin and meaning of words/terms/expressions in the English language and English/Colonial America/American culture.
1. Including past and present uses and definitions of words, and words that are no longer included in current dictionaries
> What specific form of language study (or specific Etymology), breaks words (mainly vocabulary) down into sections, revealing the root of that word and its’ additional attributes, that when chained together (as in the word), find the literal meaning of/description of/influence on/origin of, that word ?
EXAMPLE:
Fortnight Lily = ( Fortnight = { Old English f owert ne, fourteen + Old English niht, night } = { Middle English fourtenight, alteration of fourtene night, fourteen nights Old English f owert ne, fourteen; kwetwer + Old English niht, night; nokwt. } = { A fortnight is a unit of time equal to two weeks: that is 14 days, or literally 14 nights. The term is common in British English, Hiberno-English and Australian English, but rarely used in American English. It derives from the Old English feowertiene niht, meaning "fourteen nights". } = { A period of 14 days; two weeks. } )
+
( Lily = { Etymology: Middle English lilie, from Old English, from Latin lilium 1 : any of a genus (Lilium of the family Liliaceae, the lily family) of erect perennial leafy-stemmed bulbous herbs that are native to the northern hemisphere and are widely cultivated for their showy flowers; broadly : any of various plants of the lily family or of the related amaryllis or iris families 2 : any of various plants with showy flowers: as a : a scarlet anemone (Anemone coronaria) of the Mediterranean region b : WATER LILY c : CALLA LILY 3 : FLEUR-DE-LIS 2 } )
= Fortnight Lily
EXAMPLE: Vernal Equinox = ( vernal. Etymology: Latin vernalis, alteration of vernus, from ver spring; akin to Greek ear spring, Sanskrit vasanta 1 : of, relating to, or occurring in the spring <vernal equinox> <vernal sunshine> 2 : fresh or new like the spring; also : YOUTHFUL - ver•nal•ly /-n&l-E/ adverb )
+
( equinox. Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French or Medieval Latin; Middle French equinoxe, from Medieval Latin equinoxium, alteration of Latin aequinoctium, from aequi- equi- + noct-, nox night -- more at NIGHT 1 : either of the two points on the celestial sphere where the celestial equator intersects the ecliptic 2 : either of the two times each year (as about March 21 and September 23) when the sun crosses the equator and day and night are everywhere of equal length The word equinox derives from the Latin word for equal night )
= Vernal Equinox
EXAMPLE: Autumnal Equinox = ( autumn. Etymology: Middle English autumpne, from Latin autumnus 1 : the season between summer and winter comprising in the northern hemisphere usually the months of September, October, and November or as reckoned astronomically extending from the September equinox to the December solstice -- called also fall 2 : a period of maturity or incipient decline <in the autumn of life> - au•tum•nal /o-'t&m-n&l/ adjective - au•tum•nal•ly /-n&-lE/ adverb )
+
( equinox. Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French or Medieval Latin; Middle French equinoxe, from Medieval Latin equinoxium, alteration of Latin aequinoctium, from aequi- equi- + noct-, nox night -- more at NIGHT 1 : either of the two points on the celestial sphere where the celestial equator intersects the ecliptic 2 : either of the two times each year (as about March 21 and September 23) when the sun crosses the equator and day and night are everywhere of equal length The word equinox derives from the Latin word for equal night. ) = Autumnal Equinox
2. Expressions with historical roots > What is the term for the study of expressions and their historical origin and original reference, especially unsavory/demeaning/racial, gender specific, etc., used in the past and especially in the present (without regard to their meaning), in the U.S.A.?
EXAMPES:
Cotton Pick’n Hands
Indian Giver
3. Referring to questions and answers to above 1. & 2. > Can you refer some good internet sites that would be helpful as searches/references/collections for these topics?
I do hope that you are able to understand what I am trying to ask. Please let me know if you need any further clarification.
Thank you in advance for your time and concern. Sincerely, Katiebugggg13
Thank you for your guidance. I did indeed read the “Do Your Homework” section above. The only reason that I posted here, was that I was unable to find my answers on-line. I am asking for specifics that I was unable to find. Have no fear, “History of Words, Terms, and Expressions” is not associated to anything, but my own curiosity and want to explore. I thought I might get some help from someone who could point me in the right direction.
So, if you are out there, I would appreciate any constructive assistance you might share.
Thank you.
Katiebugggg13 01:56, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Hi,
Is there a word that means someone who performs a property valuation? I have looked up valuer but it seems not to exist. Thanks David Vaughan
I frequently find myself in situations where someone asks me a question beginning with "Hypothetically..." and then they continue with a condition that is very improbable, or even preposterous. Is the a name for this "hypothetical" statement, or a fancy retort? Thanks!-- El aprendelenguas 21:41, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
What is the word that means "user of big words"? d It sounds something like ....syscapalian...(sp?)
I just heard it in a movie.. 68.18.41.190 03:10, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the prompt reply! The link doesn't show anything of value?
does this make sense? how should it properly be written?
For example, blindness, a disability which encounters many things such as, one not being able to see anything, one being able to partly see, one being colour blind and one being low vision.
thank you
For example, blindness is a disability which encompasses everything from partial blindness (i.e being able to see with one eye {?}, colorblindess, and low vision) and total blindness (absolute loss of sight)
I'm not sure of this is right. Btw, low vision and being able to partail see???
when i say low vision i mean some one who can't see clearly and the other is partly blindess
While reading articles in Wikipedia I see that there is considerable use of abbreviation initials that are peppered with periods. I'm thinking of "U.S." for example. There are hundreds of similar.
Is there any definitive preference for "U.S." or is "US" permissable?
If I'm editing an article can I change any "U.S." style abbreviations to "US"-style?
Lin 08:03, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. You're very kind. Lin 06:14, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
A favorite band of mine recently put out a new album and the last song is entitled "Post Sco Ergo Propter Sco". So I was wondering if "Sco" is an actual Latin word and if so, what does this phrase mean? Thanks, Dismas| (talk) 09:02, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
What happened in the Rwanda genocide? Why did it happen? What was the United States goverment's response? Why? What was the aftermath?
Ok, this may be a dumb question for some but it isn't for me. I'm looking for a word for this definition. I've known someone for a long time, but I didn't even know it. PLEASE...find a word for this and if you do..email it to me [e-mail removed to avoid spam]
Thanks
Does anybody know how the word "florentine" came to mean "served with spinach" when it is appended to the name of a culinary dish?
I need some 'exotic' (to an English-speaker's ears) sounding words for 'people', 'man', or 'human'. The intent of the word is to be relatively easy to spell, non-insulting, and very general - I just need a cool sounding word to name a fictional group of people. Any help is appreciated! Ductape Daredevil 00:42, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
hi my name is brandee rose and i was just wondering how do i do my teachers project on this web on uusing power point becass i really want o know how i have an e-mail address it's [email removed to avoid spam]
I know that the best way to actually learn a language fluently is to live in a country where that language is spoken. Falling short of that does anyone have any tips on how to actually learn "to speak the language" not simply in the grammatical sense. Thanks in advance!
Also, I think listening to educational podcasts is better than television. There are podcasts in Japanese, Chinese, German, Spanish, and other languages. But first you need to pick up some essential vocabulary before anything else. Patchouli 13:23, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
I carry a mini-dictionary and a small notebook filled with example sentences and sample phrase. While walking or riding the bus, I try to memorze them and create dialogs .-- Jondel 10:33, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Technical Instrument Measure Existence
Simon Le Page 1988
I can't figure out what I am hearing when native English speakers talk, so I need some help.
Please tell me which of the italicized words John is using. Patchouli 13:12, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Why should they be shot on sight? -- Jesusfreak 14:02, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
I recently went to an unclaimed property site. I found my name on the list of unclaimed property/ I noted that it said the property was more than 100 dollars. YEA!!! I sent a claim ove the net. I recieved an e-mail. The e-mail was from the IRS.....Scary!!!!!! They said to fo to thier site and in a mailcenter at thier whoa!!!!...What do you call the IRS? Extortioers?? It referred to the money as a warrant....or were thry talking... ARREST....say it ain't so Irene!!! Information asap would be fabulous, Thanks, One Scared ole Woman
how language differs from dialect?
Hello,
Please let me know which phrase is correct:
There is an estimated 50,000 landmines in Uganda.
There are an estimated 50,000 landmines in Uganda.
Thanks!
Really, either of them work. They work because the person you say it to will understand. If you are writing a paper, however, I agree with Keenan Pepper. schyler 01:47, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
How do they introduce themselves and how do they sign off? What sort of salutation do they use? Bhumiya ( said/ done) 20:02, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
I recently started reading To Kill A Mockingbird and there is a part where the main character goes outside while it's snowing and hold out her tongue to catch a snowflake. She proceeds to say to her brother that it burns. He tells her that it is just so cold that it feels really hot. What I was wondering was what is the term used for this, that is something being so cold it feels hot, and the word for something being so hot it feels cold. Thanks. schyler 01:37, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
What is the difference between Pashto and Farsi?
I have a test coming up tomorrow. This is as much as we know, we get a poem or story, analyze it, and then talk about mood, point of view and so forth. We've also been told to talk about syntax, diction, and language. These all look the same (to me they really do) but their apparently different. Does anyone know how? I know language is "type" of language, ie. jargon, fomral. I was wondering if anyone knew a good website with a layout of how to write one of these essays or instructions on how to anaylze the story/poem (as I did poorly last time). Possibly something that has more suggestions on what one could write about as well, since I'm always short. Any help appreciated, thanks. C-c-c-c 02:06, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
What is the longest word in the English language? Consider: "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis"(sp?) -this is a lung disease but I need an English word instead of scientific names. Please help me. Thank You in advance. -- Siddhant 06:24, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Thankx. You pointed the exact link. -- Siddhant 07:39, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
What's the proper name for an upside down circumflex? -- HappyCamper 06:31, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
The hacek is different from the breve. The latter is rounded, so is like an upside-down circumflex. - lethe talk + 11:58, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
There is an aquarium in Vienna called the Haus des Meeres (House of the Seas). I don't understand why the article in the name is des - shouldn't it be der? The table here [2] shows that the plural definite article in the genitive is der, and Meeres is a plural noun. -- Richardrj 08:49, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
On the same subject, when I get letters, they are addressed to Herrn [my surname]. Why is this? I understand now that Herrn is the genitive singular of Herr, but I don't see why that should apply here. The genitive case relates to possession - what is possessive about this? -- Richardrj 09:33, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
der Herr des Herrn dem Herrn den Herrn
I've learnt that some languages like Sanskrit are declensional to the point that word order is totally free. If so, how would they map qualifiers like adjectives and adverbs with their corresponding nouns and verbs when there is more than one possible combination? Can someone give examples? -- Sundar \ talk \ contribs 09:44, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm reading James Lee Burke's "The Neon Rain", published in 1987 by Henry Holt and Company, Inc. It's the first book in the Detective Dave Robicheaux series. This series takes place in New Orleans, LA and Cajun country environs, as Dave Robicheaux is of Cajun extraction. Having been born in San Diego, I haven't a clue about some of the terminology used in the book. Wikipedia has been a great source for understanding many of the terms used in the book. However, (finally my question!) I have been unable to determine the meaning of the word "shuck" when used as noun. It is apparent that it is slang and probably regional. I would assume that it is related to the phrase "shuck and jive", and while I've heard that phrase before, I'm still not sure what "shuck" means even in this context. Thanks, Stuck-on-shuck -- 70.230.198.110 17:09, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
2. Informal Something worthless. Often used in the plural: an issue that didn't amount to shucks.
Thanks for the info! No-Longer-Stuck-On-Shuck! -- 70.230.198.110 02:42, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
I do not remember the use of the word pandemic when I was younger. When did the word come in to use and who started the use of this word.
Please and Thank You
Stan Putzke
for the purpose of a dinnertable discussion, could you give me, as precisely as possible (we are interested in possible glottal stops), the IPA transcription of the RP of
dab (ᛏ) 21:00, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I am at this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_in_the_United_States but I don't see any indication here or anywhere on the site where I can find the top 5 languages used in internet searches.
Any help you can provide will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
If someone's last name contains the word "von", as in " von Neumann", and one wanted to use just the last name at the beginning of a sentence, would one capitalize it or leave it lower case? Some sentences in the John von Neumann article do capitalize it in this context, but I just want to know if that sort of practice is correct. -- noosph e re 04:27, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
how do you say Bias or Landscaping in spanish?
(are partial | paisajemiento or áreas verdes correct?) Qrc2006 10:50, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Give the list of head-first languages and head-final languages. — Masatran 15:29, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Hello,
I was just wondering about the language situation in Transnistria. Transnistria is a breakaway state of Moldova. The country is not widely recognized by the international community.
I heard people say that Moldovan is very similar to Romanian and that some even consider it the same language. I also read that Moldovan is the dominant language in both Moldova (under Chisinau rule) and in Transnistrian, but in Transnistria they use the Cyrillic alphabet, while in the rest of Moldova they use the Latin alphabet.
However, recently I saw a documentary about Transnistria, and not only was everything written in Cyrillic alphabet, it appeared that Russian was the dominant language. There were only a handful of Moldovan schools, and they have to struggle to survive.
Can anyone clear this up for me? I will be very interested in any remarks.
Thx! Evilbu 18:57, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank you but I still don't get it. The situation is definitely complex, as Transnistria was once described as the part of Moldova that looks to the east, to Ukraine, but with the Orange Revolution Ukraine might turn more to the west itself.
So what about the language then. Everyone used cyrillic that I saw in that documentary, but Ukranians, even if they are dominant together with the Russians, don't speak the same language either. So the Russians enforce Russian on everyone else?
Evilbu 13:08, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
I have a dedication which I want to quote, but the name of the dedicatee is misspelled. What is the proper method used to show the name as it is printed as well as to show that the spelling used is incorrect? For example, the name is shown as "Fridjof Nansen" but the correct spelling is "Fridtjof Nansen." There is only one letter missing ("t"), but I want to show the correct spelling, preferably inside of the quote. Feel free to correct any of my grammar as used in this paragraph.
This issue comes up a lot when words spoken by some public figure are misspelled when converted into a written quote by a journalist. If I'm quoting the person using the "quote" written by the journo, I'll always correct the spelling because I consider I'm just finishing the journo's job. For example, when I see "can not" in a quote, I almost always change it to "cannot". "Can not" is a different concept and usually not what the speaker intended.
But there's a problem when the misspelled words commenced their life in written form. There's no single solution, it will depend on the circumstances. As well as what Angr and Shantavira have said, two other options are (a) quote them exactly without qualification (Fridjof), or (b) change "Fridjof" to "Fridtjof" and use square brackets to show this is your interpolation. You need to decide whether it's Nansen's name that's the real point, or whether the misspelling is somehow an important issue in whatever you're writing about. JackofOz 01:33, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
As a frequent RD contributor, I am quite confident that many who read this board are, as I, grammar pedants, and it is they in particular to whom I address this question, one that has troubled me for some time. A few months ago, I was copyediting a section of the Super Bowl XL article (which section now appears as its own article and changed “…some critics claimed he called it when the play clock had already struck zero. That would have penalised Pittsburgh 5 yards and made it 3rd and 11…” to “…some contended that the play clock hit zero seconds before Roethlisberger called for a timeout, which would have constituted a delay-of-game and resulted in the assessment of a five-yard penalty…”. Another editor, whom I think to be an excellent contributor, removed “the assessment of”, suggesting that the locution was unnecessarily verbose. Even as I have left (and will continue to leave, irrespective of the answers provided here) the sentence in the revised state, I wonder if others concur in my belief that “the assessment of” is, in a syntactic analysis, preferable. My argument, I suppose, rests primarily on the idea that a referee’s determining the existence of (and then whistling) a penalty in American football, or, even more aptly, in football qua soccer, is a significant interpolation between a player’s committing a foul and a penalty’s actually being enacted. While the primary actor in the scoring of a touchdown, for example, is the player (even as an official might make judgments as to whether a receiver caught a ball in bounds or whether the ball crossed the plane of the goal), upon which note I’d rest the contention that we ought to write “Joe Schmoe caught a 19-yard pass for a touchdown” (cf., “Joe Schmoe caught a 19-yard pass, which catching resulted in the ‘’assessment’’ of a touchdown”), the primary actor, IMHO, in the assessment of a penalty is an intervening actor, the referee, inasmuch as most assessments are discretionary (certainly more penalty assessments than touchdown assessments are discretionary), such that a given action doesn’t result in a penalty but, rather, in the assessment of a penalty. We are more likely, I think, to say that “Joe Schmoe caught a 19-yard touchdown pass” than to say that “Joe Schmoe committed a holding penalty” (rather, “Joe Schmoe was flagged for holding”), and I think such preference follows logically from the situation I set out. I certainly have entertained the idea that “the assessment of” ought also to be appended to sentences with respect to touchdowns, since one’s catching a pass doesn’t ‘’result’’ in anything; perhaps the use of result is altogether inelegant in any case. Notwithstanding that, though, is my “assessment” suggestion a hypercorrection/adduction of a distinction without a difference, or can it accurately be said that, since there is a cause more proximate to the assessment of a penalty than a player’s committing the penalty, the “assessment” locution ought to be preferred. (Even if I can’t make the list of users with the most edits, at least I can surely assume my place in the RD’s records book for “longest [and most inane] question.) Joe 00:01, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
I was told that the grammar of the German language is based on Sanskrit. Is this true? --Vikram
Thanks for clearing this up BluePlatypus and Bhumiya :) --Vikram
I would appreciate if someone can explain the reasons for describing English as an "AVO" language rather than an "SVO" language. (ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_order)
Vineet Chaitanya
In my traditional American education (note sarcasm), I found that I learned most of what I knew about English as a language from my French class. For a good 4 years, I had no idea what ˆ, `, ´, and ç were called in English. I also learned tenses in French long before I heard anything of them in English (e.g. plus que parfait). My teachers would often teach French through similar English ideas, naming them for the first time to me.
It makes me wonder if anyone else has had this experience, or has mourned years of defining "nouns", "verbs", and "adjectives". Why is it that in English class we learn nothing of English? I've had teachers recommend I take Latin if I want to learn about English. Is there a good reason why English classes in the US focus on literature? And getting into college... --
Keitei (
talk) 13:42, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
This sentence from Detroit, Michigan: "When Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick found himself behind in the polls in the 2005 election, his campaign tried to draw attention to his opponent, Freeman Hendrix's, support in the suburbs." It was recently changed from "opponent's, Freeman Hendrix, support" to the above. I would have guessed that the original was correct. Rmhermen 16:07, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
I think the link for "face validity" goes to "construct validity."
The Royalists' major asset was the Navy, who had declared themselves for the Prince of Wales.
— Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years' War#Origins (Emphasis mine)
Is the above sentence's grammatical number correct? “Themselves” feels wrong. I'd say “itself” or “herself”, but I am not a native speaker of English. If the word “Navy” is used like “police” in that sentence, shouldn't it be “The Royalists' major asset were the Navy, who had declared themselves for the Prince of Wales”? Wikipeditor 17:10, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
I'd say "The Royalists major asset was the Navy, which had declared itself... "Were" and "themselves" just don't sound right to me. Of course, I'm an American, and we treat almost all group nouns as singular, except for things like "police", whereas the British would be more likely to say "...were the Navy, who had declared themselves..."
In any case, mixing "was" and "themselves" is wrong by either the British or the American standard. It was probably written by an Englishman and proofread by an American or vice versa. Linguofreak 18:20, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
I saw a billboard for a Mini Cooper that had the tagline "OPEC, SCHMOPEC". I've often seen the "schm" prefix, used to show disdain for something or someone. Is there a name for this type of phrase?
Good afternoon....I am looking for a program or web page for translating Chinese into English. Any help would be greatly appreciated, Thank you.
how do i put info i got from an article on this website into my works cited? how is it supposed to be formatted and look?
hi, I just wrote an artice in English and I know that the same article exsists in Hungarian and Swedish, but I can't find the link to. Usually they are on the left side, but not this time. I want to be able to change the language of the article by one click. Can you please help me to do that? thanks
Hi, it's me again, I just tried like you said, and it seems to work. btw the article is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soltvadkert it's about my hometown. thanks again
A riddle is going around on email saying that there are 3 words in the English language that end in "gry". Two are "angry" and "hungry". What is the 3rd? The only clue given is "wiki", but I am completely confused by your site. I am assuming that the clue means to use this site. It says: "There are three words in the English language that end in "gry". ONE is angry and the other is hungry. EveryONE knows what the third ONE means and what it stands for. EveryONE uses them everyday; and, if you listened very carefully, I've given you the third word. What is it? _______gry?" The email claims if I send the riddle to 5 people that the answer will automatically appear on my screen. I know that won't happen. But if you could point me in the correct direction, or if you can get the answer, I would truly appreciate it.-----Judy Thomason
I'm writing the linguistics page of the Chaozhou language and would like to add a vowel quadrilateral like in the french phonology page, i tried to decipher the codes on the edits page, and tried replacing some vowels with the ones i want but i still can't do it. Can anyone tell me how i can make one? i'm quoting the French one here:
The vowels to the left of the dot • are unrounded; those to the right are rounded. See Vowel roundedness.
Merci!
Shingrila 03:47, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
the vowels i need for Chaozhou are [a], [i], [e], [o], [ɤ]/[ɯ]/[ə], [u], and their nasalised counterparts. Shingrila 06:18, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I was writing acticles in English about Hungarian towns. Then I went and added a link on the Hungarian sites so people will see that the article is also available in English. But for some reason I have been blocked from the Hungarian Wikipedia. Please help me! Thanks,
Eddie
how to write a letter given my apologise?
This is one way to do it.
You start with stating in the most sincere and regretful tone exactly what you're apologizing for. You then go on to describe how this matter affected you and others involved in your hearts and lives. Then you write the lessons you learned from the situation and how they will help you to do better in the future. Then you offer any assistance that may help to alleviate any suffering that was in some way caused by your actions. You close by talking about some of the wonderful qualities this person has and how they have positively affected your life. You might want to open with that also. Hmmm... I think that's everything. But this is for a personal letter, if it's a professional memo the guidelines change quite a bit. - LambaJan 18:41, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Could someone please translate this for me?
Beyaz atlı sımdı gectı buradan
Surarısı can elınden vurulmus
Cıksın daglar taslargayrı aradan
Beyaz atın suvarısı yorulmus
Ellerı elıme deymez olaydı
Gozlerı gozumu gormez olaydı
Bu gonul o gonlu sevmez olaydı
Beyaz atlı sımdı gectı buradan
Thanks!
deeptrivia (
talk) 01:39, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Cem Karaca lyrics; his article could sure use improvement! -- jpgordon ∇∆∇∆ 15:24, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, that's right! Still waiting for translation though. deeptrivia ( talk) 16:14, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Does anybody know the technical term for the "red-eye" effect in photography? I thought that it began with "hemo-", but I might be totally wrong. Please, please, please, if anybody knows, I'd greatly appreciate it. (I doubt that I'll be able to sleep until I find out!)
I have two questions:
Where is the Brahmi language mainly used today? What does the message mean and what does it say behind the picture of Anne Frank?
A Frenchie is translating an article into French, as is baffled by a word, sprunge. The sentence whence it comes is: James VI/I traced his origin to Fergus, saying, in his own words, that he was a "Monarch sprunge of Ferguse race". I told the budding translator to just ignore this quote, as nobody's going to miss it. I had a quick search through online dictionaries and a massive uni-owned one, with no reference to the word. However, I felt generous, and tried to sniff out a reference, and a few websites hinted it is a Middle English word, maybe related to the word sprog (the British definition). Anyone who knows more about Middle English, can they give a hand? Was my advice of "ignore things you can't translate" apt? Blimey, I do feel generous today. -- Won der fool 11:49, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Does anyone know if there's a gender neutral tem for aunt/uncle and niece/nephew. I can't find one anywhere but it seems odd if there isn't since every other relative word I can think of, has one. Anyone know? - Red Hot 17:41, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Киа дефиа легиа фервор'
Ве! Ла либер', чу суперос тиујн главојн?
Или кун швит' спит', ескит' кај терор'
Венос, форпренос, чу тенос ниан хавојн?
Јам тамбурас ла хиспан'!
Јам Поркул' импетас,
Ли аванце де лонтан'
Ал Берген' импетас.
Берг'-оп-Зом',
Кун реном',
Спиту ал хиспано.
Ниа хом', ниа дом'
Савај кун елано!
--
Quentin
Smith 18:14, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Could someone kindly explain the cultural references in this quotation? It comes from Dutch language
-- HappyCamper 21:13, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
hi, why do we say airplane but say (certainly in UK english)"aeroplane". is this what it used to be called? it seems weird when we pronouce airport phonetically... (even more weird is the french who say aéroport but then bail and call an airplane "un avion"). any suggestions?
hi, what are umlauts (german) called in english and french? (i.e. citroën) thanks
In French it's called tréma. The distinction between diaeresis and umlaut (diacritic) might not be strong in French. Both of them link to fr:Tréma. -- KJ 00:05, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Does anyone know the French word for chimera? Thanks. -- Think Fast 00:54, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
I have been looking to learn the Croatian language for a long time now (ever since I heard what it sounded like on ER). I would really appreciate any help in finding what would be the best way to do this (save going to Croatia or taking a college course). I am looking to be able to buy some sort of Audio disk package and/or book combination. If anyone knows of anything, that would be great. Ch u ck (척뉴넘) 06:05, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks very much...I'm probably gonna buy "Teach Yourself Croatian". Ch u ck (척뉴넘) 11:45, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
I have very old letters written in Norwegian from 1895 to about 1924. I am having a hard time finding someone to translate them for me. I understand the language has changed since then and I am wondering if that is why everyone I give them to can not translate them. If you could refer me to someone I would be grateful. Thanks. Beverly Bowman
Thank you very much. I will check it out.
How would the name Matejczyk be pronounced? Thanks, -- Chapuisat 17:54, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. --19:52, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Such as this year, it's June 6, 2006 (or 06/06/06; or previously 05/05/05, 04/04/04 etc.). I have googled using various "key" words and have come up empty-handed, except for what someone else described as "triple date". Any ideas?
Me and some friends are trying to figure out how many words we can make out of the word orchestra. I've gotten a lot of words but I need help finding the nine letter words. Some of my friends said they have two nine letter words. I can't find them to save my life. I heard that the other two were proper nouns. But I don't know if thats fact or not so, thanks in advance. -- Jesusfreak 22:17, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank You so much. If anyone can find anymore let me know. -- Jesusfreak 22:50, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
I need single words. Thank you. -- Jesusfreak 00:40, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank you all so much. I won't hold you back though. If you find more let me know. I found out that it can't be a proper noun. Once again, thank you! -- Jesusfreak 19:37, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Glad that I found this forum. On the door of trash chute in my apartment building, following warning is posted: "Persons keeping trash on floor will be subject to fine." This sentence can also be worded as "Persons keeping trash on floor will be subjected to fine." What is exact difference between these two, if any? Thanks. AshishG talk 01:12, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
"Subject to fine" to me means liable or vulnerable; it is possible that a fine will be assessed, and the landlord will be within their rights if they choose to enforce this, etc. "Subjected to fine" makes explicit the promise that this WILL come to pass; rather than a possibility, it describes a certainty. Tesseran 22:51, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
Would it be correct to say that French is the most common second language taught in British schools similar to that in American schools, Spanish is the most frequent taught second language? Chile 02:16, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Adambrowne666 03:41, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Example sentences: "The system comprises several elements." Or, "The system is comprised of several elements." Any thoughts as to which is preferred? -- Richardrj 09:43, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Comprises (or 'is composed of'). Some people will tell you that 'is comprised of' has now entered the realm of the acceptable, but they're ignorant, illiterate apes. Henry Flower
Searching for "comprise" at bartleby.com returns not only dictionary definitions, but also usage examples from literature and usage notes from the Columbia and American Heritage usage guides. -- Petershank 20:44, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Is there a one word for 'imaginary town' or fictitious town'? The Indian writer R.K. Narayan describes an imaginary town called Malgudy in his novel Malgudy Days. Is there a one word for such a town?
Would 'Ruritania' be appropriate to describe a fictional town?
Hello! My name is Vitor and i'm a profound admirer of the WikiPedia website and its concept. I've learned so much from this community, and i'm so grateful that i would be so happy to participate and help as much as i can! I haven't edited any article yet (but i haven't known Wikipedia that long), and 've been thinking so much of how to help... I've noticed that the website is translated in various languages, but not all articles! And so i would to help and translate as many articles as i can (all if possible!) to my language (portuguese)! But i've looked around and i haven't found any option to translate. And simply editing shouldn't work, because i would only be changing to portuguese an english article... I really hope i get the chance to help improve this amazing site! I await your answer! Thank you so much, best regards. -- vitinhov 16:06, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi there, i have used your website extensivly for a major university assignment, and i have searched all over the website but cant seem to find information so i can place this website in my reefrence list. Could you please help me to refrence Wikipedia in APA STYLE? thankyou so much for your time
That question recurs periodically. -- DLL 20:09, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
I am wondering if the proverbs on the list of "*Country* proverbs" were "born" in *country*? Eg, was all the proverbs on this page http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Finnish_proverbs "born", ie minted, in Finland?
What does 'somos nosotros' mean?
the FP on the Main Page has this sentence: "They mainly eat insects and some seeds." It sounds odd to me. Just ask for you guy's opinions.-- K.C. Tang 00:18, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi. I'm doing a project about Hong Kong Governors. and I wanna introduce places and things in Hong Kong which were named after them. Is there any word that explains "places and things named after somebody"? Thank you!!! Kahang 12:27, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank you so much! Kahang 00:16, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
I was instructed to come here to ask for tanslations; i also posted the request at Wiktionary, as suggested. I am requesting that the Geman Wikipedia article Abraham von Worms be tanslated into English as Abraham of Worms. I have pre-made links leading to the new page-to-be. I attempted a babelfish translation and found the text too difficult and too filled with specialized terms for the software to handle. I shall be posting this request elsewhere. Whoever does this work will have a great deal of my gratitutde as i will be using the page to link to many other pages in the grimoire and occultism areas. Thanks in advance. You may contact me at my talk page if you wish further details. Catherineyronwode 20:23, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Does someone know why textbooks are so-called? Textbooks frequently have pictures in addition to text, and other books (that are not textbooks) frequently carry only text.
What language is the song Starlight in Daden by Ekova? Would be awesome if I could get the lyrics. deeptrivia ( talk) 03:28, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
I have been given a special question for my Japanese homework. Does any other language have a separate alphabet for transliterations and loanwords, as the Japanese have Katakana?
Thanks -- Slayton
Back in the 1930s, Albright said that ancient Egyptian effectively had a syllabary to indicate both vowels and consonants when transcribing foreign-language names (while the ordinary writing for native Egyptian words indicated consonants only). I'm not sure whether any extra symbols were used (more probably only augmented interpretations of symbols already used in writing Egyptian, I would guess). AnonMoos 13:26, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
You may want to slap your Japanese teacher on your wrist for over-simplifying and increasing the ignorance of Japanese students across the world. Katakana isn't a separate alphabet for loanwords, it's a separate alphabet that is used for loanwords along with a handful of other things. It was originally used pretty much the same way hiragana is, and apparently in some areas of Japan the roles were reversed. A Japanese word (or a Sino-Japanese compound) spelled out in katakana is used similar to italics in English. If you say "katakana is a separate alphabet for transliterations and loanwords" it sounds like you're implying it was made for that purpose, which it wasn't. Sorry, I have a tendancy to snap at teachers who give chūtō-hampa (half-assed) explanations. freshgavin ΓΛĿЌ 17:57, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm writing a scientific article, but I keep using the term "come and go" quite often. Does anyone know an alternative (preferably a more scientific-sounding) term to replace this? --JD
Oh, sorry anonymous user. Here's the context: "A person with this disease has relapses of symptoms that come and go throughout their lifetime." --JD
Thank you thank you sooooo much! Oops, that wasn't it putting it very scientifically. Oh well, at least it effectively gets the message across. Anyways, before I continue to talk to myself, I would like to thank you for assisting me. Have a great day! --JD
I think you could relapse into symptoms. In fact, with chronic diseases like Lyme Disease or HIV, you don't really relapse into the disease, but rather the symptoms, such as the condition of AIDS. "Her AIDS relapsed" or "She relapsed into AMaybe I'm not really getting what the difference between a "condition" and the condition of having symptoms is. Maybe it's more correct in saying the disease relapsed: "His HIV relapsed, and he once more had full blown AIDS." Anyhow, in its broader sense of "return to" (i.e. he relapsed into silence), I think you could relapse into symptoms. On the other hand, I'm really tired, and upon rereading what I wrote, nothing makes sense. :-)
Also, I generally agree with you about "recur periodically." However, in a stricter sense of "periodically," "recur periodically" would imply a regularity of recurrence that "recur" doesn't denote. — vijay 08:36, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
A friend of mine has recently taken over running a fotolog page called borriscos. It's for interesting patterns made with light. We've been unable to find out what borriscos means - dictionaries haven't been of use. We think it may be a slang form of a portugese word, but neither of us speak the language. Can anyone help? -- Hughcharlesparker 10:45, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Brilliant. Thanks. -- Hughcharlesparker 23:36, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi. I would like to know what does "fountain of the art" mean; I am french and the meaning is not obvious to me. Does it mean something like source of inspiration? or somehing else. By the way, the original sentence is there. So, if somebody can translate this phrase, or at least give some synonyms, he/she is welcome. Thank you very much.
I was just making an IPA chart for the consonants of the She language and was looking for the little circle for devoicing. I can find both [ŋ] and [°], but how do i combine them?
Please to excuse if this has been brought up recently, but could someone please explain the situation with using a/an before words starting H? Highly, for an example, would it be an highly or a highly? Is there a correct form, or is it stylistic? Is it widely considered overly pretentious? Is it a regional thing? Thanks very much. Jahiliyyah 20:59, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Words that begin with a stressed syllable and the sound /h/ are preceded by a, as in "a highly respected person" or "a house". Word that begin with the letter h but start with a vowel sound are preceded by an, as in "an honest person" or "an hour". Difficulty arises in the case of words that start with the sound /h/ but begin with an unstressed syllable, like "historic": some people write and say "a historic" while other people write and say "an historic". In this case, both forms are considered acceptable, though I think "an historic" is less common in the U.S. than in Britain. (A separate issue is words that begin with the /h/ sound in some dialects but not in others, especially herb, which is pronounced with the /h/ sound in Britain but has no /h/ sound in America. As a result, Brits correctly write "a herb" and Americans correctly write "an herb".) Angr ( t • c) 21:16, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
I have one of those "definitions without a term" questions. What is the term for that phenomenon where a specific development or discovery seems to have arrived at by two or more completely unrelated people almost simultaneously? Ok, that definition was a bit clumsy, so I'll use an example: Sir Isaac Newton is commonly credited with the development of calculus, yet from what I understand, at least one other person, who had no contact with and had no knowledge of Newton's work, had developed calculus at almost exactly the same time, only to be beat out by Newton by an extremely short period of time. I always thought that the term was zeitgeist, but looking at its definition, although it seems to be vaguely related to the concept, zeitgeist just doesn't seem to be the term I'm looking for. Is there a more precise term, or was I right all along in assuming that zeitgeist was the term I'm looking for? Loomis51 22:48, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Most verbs have only one past participle. For example, the only past participle for the verb to walk is walked. Similarly, the only past participle for the verb to run is ran. However there happen to be a few verbs with two (or possibly more) past participles.
For example:
Why do a rare few verbs in the English language have alternate past participles when only one is necessary? Am I missing something? Just to prove my point, verbs somewhat synonimous to the above get by with only one past participle.
Is this perhaps just an accident of the English language or is there more to it?
This questioner may be interested in Newspeak. schyler 03:47, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
There are two linguistic change processes involved. Sneaked to snuck comes about by what is called rule extension. It consists of the the making of a weak verb into a strong one because of a reanalysis. It extends the strong verb rule to a formerly weak one. The opposing tendency, the loss of strong verbs generally, is a form of levelling, where irregularities are eliminated. A more recent, non-verbal case is mines for the first person possessive. mnewmanqc
could someone familiar with greek write an article for that? it is a controversial and most intriguing subject... I'm a bit surprised that there's no article for that yet...Cheers-- K.C. Tang 04:06, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
have I translated this right: Carl wants to go to Paris. Karl veut aller à Paris.
how do you read that?
is there any website in which I can hear this French sentence?
Carlrichard 12:11, 13 May 2006 (UTC)do you have a list of all the words that end in -uous? thank you.
grep uous$ /usr/share/dict/words
yields:Hi, trying to get a translation of a short English soundbite into Latin - proving difficult to do by book, and impossible to do online through translator services.
The phrase is, simply: 'Re-Unify Now!' and is meant to refer to the Roman Empire re-unifying through the European Union.
The nearest I have have managed to create so far is 'Reconsocio Extemplo!' but I have no idea if this is correct. Can anyone with a passing knowledge of Latin help?
- Frank
Thanks !
- F
Does anyone out there know if any current kings or or other royalty around the world speak German? Thanks Reywas92 15:24, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
Native or a second language. I'm just looking for a list. Reywas92 19:10, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
How is the Meriam in Merriam-Webster pronounced? I can't even find it in the online version of Merriam-Webster. Thanks.
How are these children books which, when opened, reveal foldable panoramas and similar stuff called? I've been looking for thewords but can't figure it out. Circeus 20:44, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
What is the correct pronunciation of Adaro? Thank you! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.61.144.241 ( talk • contribs) 20:53, 13 May 2006 UTC.
The language is English.
It is A race of sea spirits from the mythology of the Solomon Islands; see Adaro (mythology).
My guess would be Adaro (uh-darrow). Agree or disagree?
In the introduction to Tom Lehrer's song Send the Marines, he uses the word escalatio. What does he mean? Black Carrot 01:39, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Really, I have two questions here:
My copy is a scan of the original typewritten work, so it's difficult to tell exactly whats going on. The typewritten nature might explain the lack of the alternate sigma, but I'm not knowledgable enough to say. Does any of that make sense? — vijay 06:02, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, that just about answers everything. I'll stick with the polytonic orthography, for two reasons, 1) it lets me copy exactly (important since I don't know what I'm doing! :-) ) and 2) the text is referring to Eleusinian Mysteries, and so old Greek makes sense to me. I assume that my \hat{\omega} is, indeed, a circumflexed omega, although the type is poor, and if someone could confirm that for me, I'd appriciate it. About the sigmas, though. Am I right to say that if a word ends in sigma, it should always be printed <ς>? The article on sigma doesn't say when it came into existence. I assume that it's not a new invention, though, and that it should be used. I assume it wasn't available to the typist at the time. — vijay ( Talk) 22:59, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, all. A series of questions on how to get LaTeX working with \usepackage[polutonikogreek,english]{babel}
evolved into confirming my thoughts about this text. To conclude here: the apostrophy-epsilon was the typist's way of conveying a smooth-breathing mark over the epsilon. And, yes, the omega in των takes a circumflex, which may be represented in a number of ways, including the "hat" my source used, and the ~ that the babel/polutonikogreek package uses. Also, there's probably no good reason why the <ς> wasn't used. There probably was a bad one, though: the typographer didn't have one available. As my source is mainly english, with sparse greek phrases, I think that makes sense. Again, thanks. —
vijay (
Talk) 04:20, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Do you know, what is a verst? Thank you. I just think, whether it would be appropriate to replace versts in the lyrics with miles or kilometers, as versts might be too unknown to most people. ellol 08:45, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
He is the supposed author of the I Ching , but I can't figure how its pronounced with the two wats its written . Hhnnrr 11:55, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank you very much .. Hhnnrr 12:31, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Hey - a local band I have become involved with want to translate the name of their EP into Welsh, and I thought of no better place than Wiki to go and ask for help :) The album name is "The Path Not Taken", so any close equivilent to that i Gymraeg would be of great help to them.
Cheers doktorb | words 13:50, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
This has been answered elsewhere. "Y llwybr nas cymerwyd"
doktorb |
words 13:18, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
What is the short form of Ambassador, like Mr is the short form of Mister
Hello, I intend to learn a language called "Pali".Its an ancient Indian language that was used by people during the times of Gautam Buddha.All his sermons had been written and compiled in this language.Can Wikipedia help me learn this language and go through the scriptures?
I was having a conversation with an asian assosciate of mine and he, jokingly called me what I understood as sounding like:
Now I believe he is pakistani. I am aware these were insults but I dont know what htey mean or even what language they were in. I apologise for my ignorance.
The two commonest and most vulgar insults in Hindi / Urdu are 'behan-chod' and 'maadar-chod' which refer to the addressee having incestuous relations with his sister and mother respectively. Assuming that you didn't mishear the above and that your friend was a tad less obscene, the term 'bandar-chod' - not very common and hence, pretty hilarious - would mean 'monkey-fucker'. I'd hazard the first epithet on your list as having been 'lund choos' which would be the equivalent of the charming term 'cocksucker' and the last epithet on your list as having been 'bandar da gaand' which in Punjabi would be 'monkey's ass'. -- Giri.
Maybe it's not an insult if you don't understand it-- Teutoberg 17:28, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
thank you for the replies. You wouldnt happen to know any good ones I can use to combat him do you? thank you again.
Check out www.insultmonger.com. You'll find plenty of ammo there in any language you want. -- Giri.
The Brits call the Germans Jerries and I guess the word jerry-can follows from that relation.
What is the origin of this slang word jerry?
—Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Bud9691 (
talk •
contribs)
Does anyone know the year that the movie "ever after" was set in???
Thanks
P.S. please reply ASAP
I don't think your question has anything to do with languages to be honest... doktorb | words 13:19, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Could anyone explain to me the symbols, motifs and themes of the poem? I think I don't really get what the poet is trying to articulate through the poem. Thanks a lot.
Hello, writers. I'm looking for a word that describes the feeling of nostalgia for a promised future that didn't happen. For example, when I was a kid I was all but promised picnics on the moon by tht time I was an adult. Now, when I look at old sci-fi pictures from the 70's of people in massive earth-orbiting space stations, I have a certain longing for that initial feeling about the future. --Justin
There's a whole book "Yesterday's Tomorrow: Past Visions of the American Future" on this. See also The Gernsback Continuum and Raygun Gothic... AnonMoos 03:34, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks all! --Justin
How would I search for the saying "Don't shit where you eat?" I'm interested in the meaning and etymology. Thank you, Josh
You can go to a library with a Lexis or other full-text database account and ask the librarian to help you. It will have old newspaper and magazine articles, even including stuff like hip-hop mags and Playboy.-- Teutoberg 22:43, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Around here it's always been "Don't shit where you sleep". Why this needs an etymology I can't be sure, but in terms of usage it's usually to do with screwing around with co-employees or with housemates/roommates, but in a more general sense is "don't screw up with where you work/live". Not sure how old it is, but I bet it goes back way before World War I Skookum1 00:44, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm editing a wikipedia article about someone described as once being a "yak shepherd". I wasn't aware that yaks were sheep. Is there a more appropriate term? "Yakherd" isn't in the dictionary.... TheMadBaron 09:26, 16th of May 2006 (UTC)
Yakov Smirnoff ? :-) StuRat 15:40, 17th of May 2006 (UTC)
ooooooooooooooh Stu, that one was a groaner. NOW you're pushing it! Loomis51 00:30, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
please what is "all your writting needs" in latin. thank you so much.-- 196.201.156.90 15:06, 16 May 2006 (UTC)Anel-- 196.201.156.90 15:06, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Are there any basic spacial symbols that mean "in between" or "touching, on" or "motion towards" (or others) used in any typographical convention, preferably ones you can find in ASCII or on a basic American keyboard? I'm developing my own personal notation system for sign languages. For example, right now, I'm using:
L palm-in th/f1=chin, tap2
L handshape, palm orientation inward, then make the area between the thumb and index finger touch your chin and tap twice
(the sign for "lesbian" in ASL)
But maybe there are already established ways for showing in between instead of using my / or for contact instead of using my =
-- Sonjaaa 16:18, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I am, but I'm not sure if I like it or why it's even becoming popular. It's not as user-friendly as it could have been.-- Sonjaaa 21:55, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
The surname Bustamante is quite common in the Philippines. What does it mean? Is it from the Latin? 66.213.33.2 17:28, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
what is the hausa metaphor of the murfu?
Can a Canadian person please tell me how he or she prnounces the word "internship"? Do most Canadians place the accent like "in'-tern-ship" or do you place the accent "in-tern'-ship"? J. Finkelstein 01:36, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Now that we seem to have a consensus amongst us Canadians, who pronounces it the other way? From what I understand, Americans pronounce it the same. But Brits...I don't know... Loomis51 23:31, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Actually, come to think of it, (and this is both an interesting and odd discovery I just had,) the word "intern" can mean two completely different things, depending on how it's pronounced. One definition would be "an arrangement where a person new to a particular field gets on the job experience through a cooperative arrangement with the employer" and the other would be "the forced confinement of an individual by the state (usually by a totalitarian state, or at least in a totalitarian fashion, without due process of the law, due to one's political beliefs, ethnicity etc...)". In other words, "whereas I may get a job as an "INtern" at a Soviet television station, due to my dissident beliefs, the authorities may "inTERN" me in a special inTERNment camp." Loomis51 20:05, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Can some one please help me with the meaning of the phrase "Rust never sleeps".
Can anyone please tell me what is the word that describes a word that begins and ends with the same letter,eg Norman.
Thank You
Norman Martin
How can I learn this language —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.55.89.8 ( talk • contribs) .
what is the meaning of abigna?
Does French have retroflex consonants? — Masatran 16:34, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
could anyone knows the meaning of Abigna?
thank you, Guru
Contraction of "a big enough".
Okay, according to various lyrics websites, these are the lyrics to " Trenchtown Rock" by Bob Marley and the Wailers: [13]; [14]. So, can anyone tell me what "No want you fe galang so" means? What about "You want come cold I up"? Thanks, — BrianSmithson 18:37, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
I have a question about the history of the word diaphragm. I recently expanded the diaphragm page (a disambiguation page) to include many other uses of the word diaphragm. That got me interested in the history of the changing use of that word, and wondering which uses came first, and how each use relates to the other. It is fairly easy to look up the etymology of the original diaphragm word, but how could I get the dates of first use of all the other terms, and find oout how they are related to each other? Carcharoth 20:02, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
The ones that aren't dated (not shown) seem to be all the modern engineering uses of the term diaphragm. Presumably the OED hasn't got round to those yet. Carcharoth 22:51, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
In ancient Greek, the word diaphragma (pronounced diap-hrang-ma with aspirated "p") meant "partition wall" or "membrane which divides the lung from the stomach" (Reference: lesser Liddell and Scott). 05:58, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Hello, I'm looking for the original of the Thai word ปิ่นโต /pin.to/ (lunch box). I've learned before that the original word came from the Portuguese word. However I could not find the reference for that. The only word that I found is "pinto" meaning chicken.
Thank you for any question. I searched on the Internet and found one lunchbox that similar to Thai lunchbox [15], but it's written in English not the Portuguese -- Manop - TH 03:52, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Very likely from the Japanese (the Thai ป isn't really a p, but sort of half way between p and b).
That said....
The Portuguese past participle bento, related to the Portuguese verb bendizer (to bless), stems from the Latin benedire, "to bless" (literally "to say well").... as in benedictus.
The Japanese word bento (弁当, べんとう) is said to have originated from a 16th Century military commander called Odo Nobunaga [16]. Odo Nobunaga had close links to the Jesuits [17], so it's possible that he borrowed the word from a Portuguese blessing.
If that's the case, then the Thai tiffin carrier might have same root as the name of the Pope. TheMadBaron 11:02, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Bento is also a very common Portuguese name (forename, surname and placename, and the name of at least one ship, São Bento (named after Saint Benedict, lost in 1554 [18]). Interestingly, Bento Fernandes, one of the "great missionary personalities of the time," was a contemporary of Odo Nobunaga, and active in Japan [19].... so maybe it was his lunchbox.... TheMadBaron 20:48, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
It's entirely possible, I suppose, that "bento" might have been a Portuguese term for a food carrier at the time, even if no longer used in modern Portuguese. If that's the case, the Thai word is perhaps as likely to have been borrowed directly from Portuguese traders, without Japanese influence. Either way, assuming that Freshgavin is correct, all signs indicate a Portuguese origin. TheMadBaron 21:09, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
According to my understanding pintoh (ปิ่นโต)is a kind of lunch box consisting of a stack of typically three to five cylindrical containers, strung one above another by metal strips, that also form a handle on top, sometimes called a tiffin carrier, an expression derived from an Indian word meaning 'light meal' or 'snack' and sometimes referring to 'lunch'. It is used for carrying food, usually light lunches prepared for schoolchildren by their mothers. The word pintoh literally means 'top-grow' and might be translated as 'to grow to the top'. This probably refers to the 'stack' in which the containers are placed on 'top' of each other and hence 'grows' to a certain height, although it might just as well refer to the fact that children grow as they eat. Yves Masure (autor Thailex, Thailand Lexicon).
I am creating a wiki using some of the content of http://www.dmoz.org.
I would like to know what interwiki language codes to use for the content of:
I am getting the codes from http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias.
For example, the interwiki language code is "fr" for:
I imagine one of them will use "zh"
Which ones do I need for Chinese Simplified and which for Chinese Traditional:
Thanks!
Brusselsshrek 09:35, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
OK, thanks. Hmmm. Let me ask a follow-up question then. If I map BOTH dmoz Simplified AND Traditional pages to wiki "zh" pages can you see a problem with overlapping? i.e. will pages, as far as you can see, end up with the same wiki name? I don't know enough about the two systems to know if the URL strings would be distinct. Let me give an example: If I start with the English page (phew!) http://www.dmoz.org/Science/ I can see that it has a link to language versions in both Chinese (Traditional) AND Chinese Simplified. These pages are:
Since the suffix of these two is different, I could render these two pages in a wiki as (I suppose):
BUT, is it 100% safe to assume that they will ALWAYS be different in the suffix of the URL? Thanks again! Brusselsshrek 09:59, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm, thanks, this is all very helpful to a non-Chinese speaker with the task of sorting this out. Since wiki seems to think a single "zh" suffices, is this Simplified/Traditional Chinese rather like the American/British English thing that a wiki page could be written in either as long as a whole page is consistent? (Sure, I understand traditional chars a lot more complex). My thought would be just to take ONLY the Dmoz Simplified pages into the wiki. In your view, would that lose a lot of valuable Dmoz info, or is the Simplified/Traditional content basically just a duplication but in a "different" language? Brusselsshrek 10:27, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
I am creating a wiki using some of the content of http://www.dmoz.org. I'm making good progress with finding each of the wiki language codes to use, but I would like to know what interwiki language codes to use for the content of:
I am getting the codes from http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias.
For example, the interwiki language code is "fr" for:
My Slovensko and Slovensky is even worse than my Chinese (which itself is limited to "Special Fried Rice").
Thanks! Brusselsshrek 11:00, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
That is strange, because "Slovensko" is also the native name for Slovakia. You can see how George Bush confused these countries. -- Mwalcoff 00:00, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks User:Henry_Flower, you're great at this! (How come you know all this stuff?)
Finally, what is the wiki language code (see above questions) for Taiwanese:
Where does the expression "ye high" come from? Old English?
I've been looking for a good definition, but there's just none to find (somebody add it to wiktionary, please).
Usage (I think): "He's about ye high (holds up hand to indicate the height of a person)" - O bli ( Talk) ? 19:39, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Does anyone know of a speech synthesis program (preferably free or maybe commercial, and for either Windows or Linux) which lets you input the required sounds phonetically in IPA or maybe say SAMPA / X-SAMPA rather than as orthography? It seems that most packages do "text to speech", but it would be nice to have a bit more control. Thanks. Arbitrary username 21:13, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Is it corret to say "So far to date" or should one stick to just either "so far", or "to date"? 159.134.255.9 00:04, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
While reading Sex Drugs and Economics, written by a British author, I came across the above phrase and I thought it was lovely but it was a novel expression to my American eyes. A few hours later I was listening to Neil Gaiman read on of his stories where an American tourist used the phrase and I realized it was nothing an American would have used as far as I know.
I would love to know how, where and when this phrase originated or at least a site that will not give me the run around while I'm trying to search for it.
Thanks so much for any assistance. - Kubzz 07:10, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank so much for the quick responses. :) - Kubzz 07:32, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
This line from Canadian raising puzzles me: "So, whereas the General American pronunciations of "rider" and "writer" are identical [ɹaɪɾɚ], those whose dialects include either the full or restricted Canadian raising will pronounce them as [ɹaɪɾɚ] and [ɹəɪɾɚ], respectively."
One of those words has a d in the middle, the other a t. I don't pronounce them the same and I grew up not far from the "classic" General American" region. Is this really correct or are only the vowels the same in both words. Rmhermen 22:43, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Following are lyrics (Persian) of Shakila's song Yegaaneh, which I completely love. It would be *awesome* if someone can translate it for me. Thanks a ton!
تا کی به تمنای وصال تو یگانه
اشکم شود از هر مژه چون سیل روانه
ای تیره غمت را دل عشاق نشانه
خواهد به سرآیدشب هجران تو یا نه
جمعی به تو مشغول و تو فارغ ز میانه
هر در که زنم صاحب آن خانه تویی تو
هر جا که شدم پرتو کاشانه تویی تو
در کعبه و در دیر چو جانانه تویی تو
منظور من از کعبه و بتخانه تویی تو مقصود تویی ...کعبه و بتخانه بهانه
ای تیره غمت را دل عشاق نشانه
بلبل به چمن زار گل رخسار نشان دید
پروانه در آتش شد و اسرار نهان دید
عارف صفت حمد تو از پیر و جوان دید
یعنی همه جا عکس رخ یار توان دید
دیوانه منم ..من که روم خانه به خانه
ای تیره غمت را دل عشاق نشانه
جمعی به تو مشغول و تو فارغ ز میانه
عاقل به قوانین خرد راه تو جوید
دیوانه برون از همه آئین تو پوید
تا غنچهء نشکفتهء این باغ که بوید
هر کس به زبانی صفت حمد تو گوید
بلبل به غزل خوانی و قمری به ترانه
رفتم به در صومعه زاهد و عابد
دیدم همه را پیش رخت راکع و ساجد
در بتکده رهبانم و در صومعه زاهد
گه معتکف دیرم و گه ساکن مسجد
یعنی که تو را می طلبم خانه به خانه
ای تیره غمت را دل عشاق نشانه
بلبل به چمن زان گل رخسار نشان دید
پروانه در آتش شد و اسرار نهان دید
عارف صفت حمد تو از پیر و جوان دید
یعنی همه جا عکس رخ یار توان دید
دیوانه منم ..من که روم خانه به خانه
ای تیره غمت را دل عشاق نشانه
جمعی به تو مشغول و تو فارغ ز میانه
deeptrivia ( talk) 00:35, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
What word refers to the process by which a company expands too fast and therefore loses its focus? For example, Yahoo! was created as a collection of favourite pages, and now they offer everything under the sun, and seem to have lost their focus. Google used to offer only search, but now they offer social networking and other services that have nothing to do with search. These services usually do not reflect the usual Google quality and corporate culture/values.
Another example could be an company initially offering high-quality online communication services, which clearly reflect their corporate culture and values; but then expanding into online games, then software, then telecommunications, etc. and their products in these new markets do not reflect the quality of their online communication services or their corporate culture/values.
This process does not occur if a company expands quickly, but still retains their focus, quality and corporate culture/values. -- J.L.W.S. The Special One 00:40, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
How does one pronounce "re," the short form of "regarding," as in To: John Doe From:Jane Smith Re: The pronunciation of the word at the beginning of this line!
Since it is a short form of "regarding" it seems "re" should rhyme with "tree."
I have had a boss who is sure it's pronounced as if it were spelled "ray," as in the musical notes "do, re me...," or as if it were Latin such as in the phrase "in re your estate," for example.
I don't like mispronouncing words and would love a definative answer!
Thank you.
What is the difference between Pakistani Punjabi language and Indian Punjabi language?
What are the rules for counting syllables in English? Does a syllable necessarily contain a vowel (phoneme)?
In the examples below, how many syllables do you count?
Based on some simple (simplistic?) rules I've seen, I got 2, 1, 1, and 2 respectively. The thing that I'm not sure about is in words like "slack", whether the whole word is one syllable or whether the "s" is in a separate syllable by itself. -- 68.238.243.228 16:08, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
How many words in the English Language are the same in the singular as the plural (for example: sheep, fish)? - Jayuu
"Thus, the following are all correct:
The second is certainly correct, the first could be correct if there were say black, white and green sands in the hourglass but I don't see how the third could ever be correct. Rmhermen 00:38, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
What does the word "Debauche" mean? I've looked it up on WP but to no avail. Help me. I hate words that aren't familiar.
Debauch as a transitive verb means to corrupt, to reduce the value of. See dictionary.com's page on the word. The give the etymology as old French de+ bauch - apparently bauch is a sort of beam, so I take debauch to mean "to steer away from the straight and narrow". -- Hughcharlesparker 19:15, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Is there any specific film review format? What I can find from the web is about what can be include in a review, but this is not exactly what I want.
This is a school assignment. In my rubric, there is a row which is called "genre format," so it is probably just about the style I write but not any specific format, is that right?
How do you say "In spirit and in truth", "Way, Truth, Life" and "In the Light of the Lord" in Latin? I have looked up various dictionaries but there are just too many options they offer, and I don't know which ones are the best words to use! Thanks a lot!
Thank you guys a whole bunch! This really helps me a lot :)
'Strike chord' or 'Strike a chord have been used often to discribe being touched by something, correct? What is the imterpretation of the subject/headline in layman's term?
SY
Hello,
In the Praat program for Audio/Voice analysis they use Jitter and Shimer to describe pulses in the Voice.
Is it a standard experssion? since I didn't found any reference outside.
What is the meaning of high or low jitter and shimer? In the sense of what causes it? what is it reflecting?
Thanks, Mushin
If the prefix "octo-" means eight, then why is october the 10th month of the year? 24.107.18.136 20:54, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Which one is preferable in American English when a person is speaking, quote "..." unquote or quote-unquote "...?" Patchouli 20:56, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
I believe that it is incorrect to say "unquote" and that "end quote" is preferable. -- 24.19.240.196 18:28, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Is there a word for someone who favors one ethnic group over another? For instance, if a Hutu discriminates against a Tutsi or if a Japanese discriminates against a Korean. I can only come up with the word racist, but here the discrimination is inside the race.
I know that there is no ethnicist; is there another single word? Patchouli 20:59, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
It's called nationalism (one of two senses of the word) or chauvinism. Zocky | picture popups 16:53, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
In a coffee break at work, my colleagues and I debated the possibility of coming up with a valid English sentence of at least four seven words, where every word has exactly 9 letters. Can this be done? A barnstar (or maybe a brainstar) for the longest sentence.
JackofOz 02:08, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
How about "Everybody considers elephants necessary"? Does it have to make sense logically or just grammatically? This shouldn't be too difficult, you just won't be able to use any of the most frequently used Germanic-based words. Adam Bishop 02:24, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Extending that, "Everybody considers Ukrainian elephants necessary." Or "Everybody considers Ukrainian elephants necessary drawbacks." Although, that last one's stretching it, there should really be a "to be" in there. Black Carrot 02:30, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Hah! "Virtually everybody available helpfully considers verbosely formatted sentences, tautology following tautology, validates immediate deletions forthwith." That's 15! Proto|| type 12:25, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
What is the verb form of "Wikipedia," if there is an accepted or prevailing form? Aside from contributing to the decay of the English language, a verb would be of great convenience. I would no longer have to say, "I want to look up an article on [topic] in the Wikipedia," simply, "I want to [verb] [topic]."
Then what is the gerund form? I usually use "wikipediing," but perhaps there is another form that would be more aesthetic. (While someone's at that, find a nice form for the participle too.)
Boy, I sure wish that this site had chosen a name which rolls more easily of the English-speaker's tongue. Like RMS (GNU???), the founders gave little thought to a marketable name. - lethe talk + 15:57, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
I recently was told that the IPA spelling for Detroit is off. However, I am not sure exactly what it should be and would appreciate some feedback on this. Pentawing Talk 04:31, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
What does /x\ mean or stand for? I have searched wiki and google and have only come up with unrelated results.
When I visited Japan recently, I was astonished by the prevalence of the use of Katakana which replaced a lot of Hiragana or Kanji. I wonder where can I find official or academic survey about this phenomenon.
Hi everyone
What does 'to lose one's thread mean literally and what is the origin of the phrase. Thank you v much.
I am trying to find the correct spelling for "holus bolus", as well as, the original language, and, the English translation. It seems to be a less popular phrase these days. 70.27.185.36 13:48, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
What is the name for a story which begins with the ending, and then travels backwards in order to show how the events shown happened? smurrayinchester( User), ( Talk) 14:25, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
I've heard umami pronounced several ways. Who knows? -- hydnjo talk 17:36, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
You may want to check out the article on the International Phonetic Alphabet. "Sounds like" and "rhymes with" isn't that helpful because English is pronounced differently in different parts of the world. That said, the wav file you linked two is roughly saying [juː.mɑ.mɪi]. The vowels would be promounced differently, and the opening sound is wrong. (If anything, "tsunami" would probably be the closest "rhymes with", assuming Japanese pronunciations).-- Andrew c 23:27, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Is there a word that is used to describe a word which describes itself. I cant think of any examples but say, for example:
the meaning of the word" elaplozaba" is simply "elaplozaba"
Heh, I know it sounds like a silly question but yes.
Thank you
I am trying to find a word/phrase that means something that proves itself... Such as the fact that such and such exists is proof enough of its right to exist. It's not syllogism, or Q.E.D. but something in that ballpark. Thank you for any help (Annie).
Res ipsa loquitur? Henry Flower 23:29, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Although this is a specific real-life example, there are things called self-authenticating documents. Ardric47 23:40, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Ipso facto? Adam Bishop 01:56, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Can I use the word Solipsism (n.) in this way? (Annie)............"c'est le va sans dire"??hotclaws**==( 82.138.214.1 13:25, 24 May 2006 (UTC))
(moved from Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities)
A pedometer or step counter is a device, usually portable and electronic, which counts each step a person makes.
So what are people who likes pedometers a lot called? Ohanian 00:25, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I knew it! Newspeak had a real-life counterpart! schyler 10:23, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Which script is this, in which this Pali bible is written ? deeptrivia ( talk) 04:15, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
So, burmese it is, then. Thanks! deeptrivia ( talk) 13:36, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
The following are well known: 10 years = 1 decade, 100 years = 1 century, 1000 years = 1 millenium. Does anyone know if there is a name for a 10,000 year period? (if not, lets invent one) Thanks
I am making a map of Sudan in the SVG format. The map I'm using as a base ( Image:Sudan political map 2000.jpg) uses a system of Arabic transliteration that includes the characters H with cedilla (Ḩ), D with cedilla (Ḑ), and T with cedilla (Ţ). None of these characters show up properly when the SVG is uploaded to Wikipedia, probably because the Wikimedia servers don't have fonts installed that include these characters. I could, of course, disregard the cedillas, but I want to be as accurate as possible. The Encyclopædia Britannica seems to use a dot under the letters instead of a cedilla, but the dotted versions don't work either. Is there another recommended system of transliteration for AL BAḨR AL AḨMAR, AL QAḐĀRIF, and AL KHARŢŪM? — Bkell 19:36, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
There are quite a few transcription systems for Arabic, but almost all of them that properly distinguish between separate Arabic letters use diacritic combinations which are not in ISO-8859-1, so if you can't use characters outside of ISO-8859-1, then switching transcription systems won't really help. The dots are more common than the cedillas in most fields -- in this case, I would just manually position the dots underneath the letters using an ordinary non-diacritic period or stop character. AnonMoos 02:41, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
This problem is really annoying. I had a teacher who would type out the velearized H, D, S, and T in capitalized form and the nonvelearized ones in lowercase form. I prefer the dots, but... You could just write it out in a made up transliteration that would be easy to follow for those who are unfamiliar with Arabic transliterations, and in this case you would omit the distinction. You would then make up for this by supplying the IPA version alongside it. - LambaJan 14:07, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
I was pleased to find that on your slam poetry entry there was Regie Gibson, a slam poet. He came to our school and we all loved him very much. I was wondering if you could find out a little more about him and post it on this site. I think that he would appreciate this very very much. He has a very kind soul and loves kids. This would mean a lot to him. Regie taught our classes a lot including, slam poetry, how to make your own poems, the sound of language, the rythm in language and many others. Thank you very much.
Be bold : gather data and add them to the page, it's easy. No personal souvenirs please. -- DLL 21:54, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
In your opinion, what is the easiest, least confusing, and successful method of teaching for a student learning English as a second language when the student and the teacher share a common language by which to communicate? If you do not have the name of the method, please mention some of the techniques, such as using many pictures to represent words. Thank you.-- El aprendelenguas 21:12, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback so far. To clarify further, I am looking for a method to teach English as a second language to a Spanish-speaker in the United States. Therefore, the student has already been emmersed in an English-speaking environment. I have been instructed to use the Laubach Method to English as a teaching basis, but I can include other teaching methods as well to better cover the required material. I speak Spanish, but the Laubach method is designed enable a instructor to teach a student English with no means by which to communicate. For example, the Laubach method says to use universal gestures for "listen" and "repeat." Is it okay for me to use Spanish when I am teaching the student, at least for these gestures? How about to explain English grammar? To provide a definition for English words that are unfamilar to the student?-- El aprendelenguas 01:43, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
A friend of mine studying language in France mentioned a theory to me that holds that the syntax of a language plays a role in determing the thinking patterns of those who grow up with that language as their primary language. For example, if your language has no word for numbers higher than 100, you will likely have difficulty conceptualizing large numbers of things. I remember this theory from my university studies too, but have completely forgotten the name of the person who originally proposed it. However, I'm certain that it's not who my friend is studying, as that person only wrote his thesis about 50 years ago, and I think the theory is older than that. Can anyone offer any leads as to who originated this theory? I would run a search for the name of the theory, but I've forgotten that as well. Thx. -- DavidGC 23:40, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I've noticed some American english and Mexican/ American Spanish speakers use swear words as terms of endearment between friends (i.e. ¿Qué pasa güey? or 'Tsup, bitch?). Do any other languages do this? I'm guessing it's cultural, but I'd be interested to know if such a thing exists in any other european or asian languages.-- The ikiroid 03:00, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Same in Thai, although for females as well as males. Henry Flower 18:46, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
My friends don't, but my mum's friends do. We're Korean. -- KJ 01:33, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
In the Midlands of England, "Cock" is used a lot
(see #6).
Slumgum |
yap |
stalk | 01:43, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
What word do you use to describe someone who can't stand the sight of blood and gore? The only one I can think of is "squeamish". Do you know of another (and perhaps better) one? -- 68.238.243.228 04:33, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
I came across this while writing an essay. Usually, all words that begin with a vowel are preceeded by "an" instead of "a". However I noticed I didn't write this in the sentance "How do we achieve these goals of a utopian future". Why don't I write "an utopia" - it doesn't sound right, I know, but why is it an exception to the rule? What other exceptions are there? -- DanielBC 06:53, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
The "an historical" phenomenon developed in dialects of English in which initial /h/ was dropped in unstressed syllables, so "historical" was actually pronounced "istorical" and thus warranted an an. Some people mistook that for a rule saying "use an before /h/," but in those dialects no one ever said "an history book." In American English it's mainly an overcorrection by people who are insecure about whether their princiation sounds high-class enough. · rodii · 21:07, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
What is the most effective way to encourage my fellow students to speak in English. I live in the Philipines and English is the second language here. thanks.
There was a Malaysian(they look like filipinos),where I studied who was scolded(in (Tagalog)) in the library for speaking in English. The librarian apologized after finding out his nationality. There are Anglophone southeast asians, balikbayans(returnees from other countries),chinese etc who speak English. However, they are made to feel ashamed for speaking English and 'pretending to be rich'. Tagalog is to be highly esteemed. But a person shouldn't feel ashamed to speak English. Here in Tokyo , many filipinos are so proud of their English ability specially when they see non-Anglophones struggling to communicate in English.-- Jondel 02:29, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Like when you're looking to the East as the sun is setting, and it's all different colors and a different sky than the one at sunset. Whats that Called?
I submitted your question to The Stanford Solar Center yearly this morning, and received their reply about 2:30 PM (pacific).
According to The Stanford Solar Center, the other side, or "backside" of the sunset is called the "far-side". If you want to explore the science of looking at "the other side", or far-side, of the sun, you can look at;
http://soi.stanford.edu/data/farside/index.html
Katiebugggg13
Katiebugggg13 04:28, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
I seem to recall hearing this expression when I was younger - does anyone know what it means? — Quantum Eleven 08:18, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Think back to the days when stage coaches played a important role in transporting people, mail, goods, and currency, across the U.S.. It was necessary to employ drivers and security. The person who sat up front with the driver, was commonly armed with a shotgun. He wasn't driving, he was "riding shotgun".
Katiebugggg13 04:47, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
What is the correct capitalization of titles of novels in Spanish? I’ve always been told that only the first letter of the title (excluding names of places, people, etc.) is capitalized, but then I’m not really sure as I’ve never had to write a book report in Spanish.
Many of the wikipedia articles on biology use latin terms. One common usage is
I understand that the Viperinae could be treated as a collective noun or as a class like how one would use birds. I imagine that the correct usage should be the
Can someone confirm the correct usage. Shyamal 11:44, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Got two phrases that I would like to render in Latin. I haven't taken it in uh, a decade so its a little rusty.
1. "I came, I saw, I snooped". I can't find a good synonym for snoop in the Latin dictionaries online, so right now I've just got "vini, vidi, ..."
2. "They shall not hide". Would "non abscondobunt" work?
Thanks! Namlemez 23:57, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
While everyone's translating things into Latin here... A few months ago I wondered how to say "which implies" in Latin, as in "We know that 3x = 6, which implies that x = 2." — Bkell ( talk) 02:57, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
It is veni, vidi, vinci (I won)—
Argentino (
talk/
cont.) 17:47, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
i would greatly enjoy adding this word to the english language...
narcissexual - one who exhibits sexual attraction to his or her self.
why is this not a word? why is this not a prodominant insult? i will never know the answer to this question. but maybe, with a little help, it will become one.
- tyler wilson
What does the phrase "fake muppet" mean please?
maybe you could try contacting an Irish wikipedian to answer your question. Go to an Irish talk page or something, or Irish language talkpage, etc. Also, please sign your comments! Use the signiature button on an editing page, if you have the java toolbar enabled. Like this: MαRΤiαΠ ĿostiηSPΛĊΞ 17:17, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Seeing as well (for also) at the beginning of a sentence makes me shiver. Can this usage be justified? -- Halcatalyst 00:47, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Here's an example of what I don't like: John is a master angler. As well, he enjoys hiking and camping. I don't know that I'd call it improper usage, because people who ought to know better use it, but as I said it doesn't seem right. I prefer He also enjoys hunting and fishing or He enjoys hunting and fishing as well. I guess my problem with the usage is that it puts too much emphasis on what is really only the equivalent of a transitional connective. As if the person wanted to say, John is a master angler. AS WELL, he enjoys hunting and camping. -- Halcatalyst 18:05, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
The use of "As well" with a comma at the beginning of a sentence is not used in American English but is very common in Canadian English for some reason. The article Richardson family murders contains a sentence starting with "As well." The contributor was User:Yank4323. The editor must want people to think he or she is American, since it's technically illegal for Canadians to write what he did on the Internet. But the person's language belies his or her nationality. -- Mwalcoff 03:38, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Which of the two titular phrases is the one commonly used by someone experiencing a temporary departure? Google searches do not seem to provide me with the answer and it is proving confusing. Help would be much appreciated. -- WarpObscura 04:22, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
I have noticed that in the New York-New Jersey English article, people are constantly adding impressionistic dictionaryesque pronunciations such as the following incomprehensible (to me) case "House" is pronounced "huose," much as in today's Cape Breton accent, stressing the "u." When I know what they mean, I switch things like this to IPA, but I'm not sure what to do in this case. I am not familiar enough with the speech in question and I can only speculate what the person meant. Should it just be cut on the theory that if someone has no idea how to write it in IPA, they are probably just operating on unreliable hunches?
Referring to the same article, it seems to me that NY and NJ should be entirely different articles. The first refers to NYC dialect, which is spoken mainly by European Americans in the NYC dialect region ranging from extreme NW Jersey to the middle of Long Island. The second refers to all the dialects spoken in the state of New Jersey, of which NYC dialect is only one. I'm not immersed enough in the ways of the Wikipedia to do anything about it, but I am worried that the matter will only get worse, if for example, people start adding upstate NY speech, which is entirely different again. Anyone who's an admin can help? mnewman
When I was a child my parents used to say boly (IPA [ˈboʊli]) instead of bed, for example, time for boly. My grandmother is from Iceland and speaks better Icelandic than English, so that's probably what language it's from, but I haven't been able to find it in an Icelandic dictionary. I guess it's also possible it's Hungarian, from the other side of my family. Anyone know where this word comes from? Any clues would be appreciated. — Keenan Pepper 07:18, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Can anyone explain why or what causes people to have different regional accents depending on where they come from.
which sounds like a load of original research hooey to me. Well, I'm sure no one theory can account for all sound changes, and evolutionary linguistics doesn't have a well-established micromodel. But surely there are theories as for why languages change. One obvious stimulus that has been observed many times is juxtaposition of disparate languages due to migration. Thus English as spoken in India is quite different from English in the US due to the presence of other Indian languages. - lethe talk + 21:37, 27 May 2006 (UTC)Nobody knows why, but all languages vary from place to place and time to time. Writing does not keep languages from changing. This would be true if we learnt languages from reading books. We do not. We learn our native tongue by imitating the speakers in our environment. Only dead languages are immune to sound change. Perhaps the best explanation is to note that everything changes, and language is one part of everything.
I have a copy of the first trombone solo from Mahler's symphonie 3. It is really cool sounding, the only problem is that I don't know what is written under the staff in German. I tried using a n online translator but it either totally misinterprets the sentence or doesn't even translate the word. I need some help. At the top of the piece it says to play it, "Langsam, schwer; Bei den gehaltenen Tönen Schalltrichter in die Höhe!" Then a little after the solo starts it has Triolen nicht schleppend in parenthesis. About half-way through the solo it says Weider schwer. Right after that it says wild which I am going to assume means wild in English also. About 10 measures from the end it says Vorwärts. Two measures later Pesante. And finally in the last two measures it says mit Dampfer but there is a diaersis over the a and m in Dampfer. It probably goes over the a and my printer just messed it up. Any help would be great. Thanks. schyler 23:58, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank you very much. I did have a feeling that pesante wasn't german and was a traditional music word like forte. schyler 01:19, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
I have two questions. Does r in the title have to be capital or lowercase according to the rules of standard American English?
Next, I want to know whether debt-ridden means someone with a huge debt who has just gotten rid of the debt through bankruptcy or other means ,or does it mean someone who has much debt at the present? Patchouli 03:27, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
What is the real etymology of this name (coming from Dune by Frank Herbert) ? 83.5.204.39 12:38, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
What languages were used two thousand years ago? — Masatran 14:29, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Latin, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit, Proto Germanic, Biblical Hebrew language (silver age), Old Chinese, Demotic Egyptian were all spoken about 2000 - 3000 years ago. Proto Celtic might be a bit earlier and Old Church Slavonic might be a bit later, check those articles, I don't know. As others have mentioned, every language on Earth today other than conlangs had a precursor 2000 years ago. However, many ancient languages were not written down, or all records were lost. Many ancient languages can be reconstructed if the descendent languages are well attested throughout history, this is where all knowledge of Proto Germanic comes from, for example. It's reconstructed based on its descendants. This method doesn't work for languages with no written history and no established genealogy. Thus I don't know how possible it would be to reconstruct ancient Native American or Khoisan languages of 2000 years ago. Probably not at all possible. - lethe talk + 15:41, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
What does this sentence mean ? Taiji is the co-substantial union of yin and yang .Thanks Hhnnrr 23:23, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Well then will using the word union only give the same meaning ? Hhnnrr 23:52, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
I had ethnic Indonesian classmates here in Tokyo in 1986.(yess I'm old) During that time, they told me it was forbidden to speak or write Chinese in Indonesia. -- Jondel 04:19, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank God! Hope it stays that way.-- Jondel 13:03, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
the word may not be spelled exactly like this but sounds like this, "huh-beol," in Manchu. it is supposed to mean a part of a human body. is anyone familiar with this Manchu word?
Are these constructions interchangeable? 'Such that' seems to appear mostly in mathematical problems and the like, but I suspect these mathematicians are just being pseudy and 'so that' would do just as well. -- Richardrj 07:41, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I was reading that most languages have more consonants than vowels, so that sentences written without vowels can still be understood in context and with some effort, because there are fewer vowels (as opposed to consonants) to choose from when guessing. And I don't mean just Semitic languages. But are there any languages which actually have more vowels than consonants, where vowels carry the bulk of the meaning? PeepP 16:41, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
You also need to decide if you're including diphthongs and triphthongs as separate vowels. If so, Thai has 21 consonants and 39 vowels. We have an interesting, but charmingly vague little article on the Sedang language, which has 24 pure vowels and, if you include diphthongs, "between 33 and 55 vowel sounds altogether". No word on the number of consonants, though. Henry Flower 17:54, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I've read a few WP articles on the topic in English and German. They say a lot about, for example, what diacritics an alif can carry and where they must be placed, but little as to how the result is transliterated, transcribed and pronounced. I gather that an alif carrying a hamza above must be a glottal stop + short vowel a, pronounced as something like [ʔæ], but I'm still not sure what to do with alifs that do not carry anything. Are they always used to indicate a long vowel ā? If so, is my vocalised strict WP transliteration of سوق أهراس as Sūq ’Ahrās correct?
What is the transliteration for مداوروش by the same system? Should I place an apostrophe between the first and second letter when transcribing or transliterating it?
Are these two names normally vocalised (as above) when written in the Arabic script, or only in encyclopedias and the like?
If it is not clear from what I wrote above: I know next to nothing about Arabic, its writing system and its phonology.
Wikipeditor 18:21, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
It indicates a hamza. Technically, it's not an apostrophe, but a quote – must be a peculiarity of the proposed WP system.
You say the hamza and short vowel “are not usually explicitly written” – I guess you mean when writing in the Arabic alphabet? Hence, سوق أهراس would normally appear as سوق هراس, right? Or do you mean I should omit the vowel in the transliteration (i.e. Sūq Hrās instead of Sūq ’Ahrās)?
Is the second name (مداوروش) Mdāwrūsh, Mdawrūsh, or something else? I fail to find how ر between consonants can be ū in the rules, but Mdawrwsh must be wrong, so I guess it's ū.
Thanks for your reply. Wikipeditor 01:33, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks a lot, everybody. Wikipeditor 17:00, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
How would you say
Enduring Lie
in Latin?
I need to know for a project I am doing.
Thank you very much!
So - if a guy dies and he's confirmed dead by a doctor-guy - some other guy will come along and haul the dead guy off. Usually he will use a special dead-guy vehicle for this - painted black and long so the dead guy can rest comfortably in a horizontal position inside a wooden box. I only know the name of this vehicle from American movies - it sounds like "hearst" or "hurst" - whatever... but the search I need to do involving this word turns up all wrong and Wikitionary is like "wtf?" when I ask it. So what's the correct spelling/wording for this particular vehicle? Gardar Rurak 23:27, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I posted a question on what seemed to be the "French Wikipedia" version of the RD. First of all, I couldn't even log in. Is my username and password only good for English Wikipedia? Why wouldn't my account be good for ALL versions of Wikipedia? Second, as this was my actual question: Is the link to something called oracle in the French Wikipedia the same as the RD here? If so, we should all feel lucky that we're English speakers, as the French version, even though it's the third largest after English and German, leaves much do be desired. Loomis51 00:33, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Loomis, although I am speaking about the internet in general now, I also find a lot of mistakes by US'ers like :"Their you can find a car. There coming. They where angry." Mistakes like that are usually made by people who pronounce English properly but don't know how to spell, and not by people who learnt the language, as they had to read books for that. Well English is the most useful language, but sometimes I wonder whether it could have been different (remember Esperanto?). Despite usefulness, it isn't the most 'normal either' : you practically never use the simple present tense, and for negations you use an auxiliary verb (I do not work. We just say : I work not.) But I agree, it's a vicious circle, I KNOW if it's not a regional matter, English Wikipedia will be vastly superior, so I usually ignore the Dutch speaking Wikipedia, and I don't contribute to it a lot... Evilbu 10:48, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
I am not Dutch. I speak Dutch though. The Dutch wikipedia is essentially there for Flanders, the Netherlands and Suriname. A US'er is someone with as nationality : from the United States. If there is a better word for that, please tell me. Actually learning from books is very good! I see that in school here, the generation behind me has to do all sorts of fun stuff "write poetry, do a little acting,..."...but in the mean time the fundamental elements of Dutch/French/English are neglected! But that is actually not what I meant. I meant : there are certain mistakes that someone who has learnt that language by reading (and then I mean, by a teacher writing it on a blackboeard) won't make. The French sometimes write "J'ai travailler. Vous mangé. Taiser-vous". When you pronounce it, there's no real difference. But I learnt to speak those words at the same time I learnt how to write them. (I on the other hand always guess the gender wrong and use 'subjonctive' when it's not necessary...) It's the same in Dutch, our verbs (usually) end in en/d/t/dt. That's how you get the dreaded d-t-errors in Dutch. I don't think someone who learnt the language will make these mistakes.
What was the first name of this Square.
What does the word vatican means?
Thank you for your help.
How do you write 'salt' in Ancient Greek? Thank you. 172.128.94.79 02:34, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
ساث هس ةغ لاثقسف بقهثىي ثرثق ه اشي pls give me the meaning of this sentence as soon as possible thjanks shahana
It's in Arabic script, but it isn't in Arabic, and there are some strange features (such as ta marbuta at the beginning of a word and alif maqsura in the middle of a word) which would seem to indicate that it's garbled in some manner... AnonMoos 21:32, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
I've always had trouble deciding where to put the period in a sentence that ends with a closed parenthesis or closed quotation marks (or both). (or both.)? The correct placing of comas is also a bit confusing.
For example, I'd greatly appreciate if someone could tell me which of the following puntuations are correct, and which aren't:
Thanks! Loomis51 12:03, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
While listening to the audio commentary in Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, I noticed that many of the developers ( Valve Corporation, based in Bellevue, Washington) share a similar accent, which notably has a long, "posh" 'o': as in "Lorst Cohst." As I don't know much about American accents, I was wonderingly idlely if this is a regional Washington accent or just a coincidence. Thanks! Sum0 15:34, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
hi,
many eons ago my french teacher told us that in french, problems (le problem, le crime, etc) are generally masculine and solutions (la solution, la police etc) are feminine. is this actually true? if so, is it true for any other languages with genderised nouns? cheers! -- 87.194.20.253 18:50, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
OMG she was! i cant believe i fell for the one... thanks! 87.194.20.253 19:04, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
LOL, also very typical for female French teachers is to always write elle/il instead of il/elle, even though the latter is the convention. Evilbu 09:48, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Hello, sorry to bother you but i´m looking for the sings the military and police enforcement uso when there must be absolute silence and the meaning of them, i hope you can help me, thank you very much
we should say "the always growing speed" or "the always-growing speed"? any difference between American and British usages here?-- K.C. Tang 02:48, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I am a new user so please bear with me. My question is: Did language originate from one place, i.e. africa and then travel colloquially throughout the world or did it spontanteously emerge/burst out of various regions, i.e. asian/arabic vs.latin/germanic, etc.
Can a word be considered a hyperbole if its associated meaning has become so common that it is an actual definition of the word? To illustrate the problem, here's my example:
"Mary flew to the kitchen to put out the grease fire."
Now obviously, the main meaning of the word "fly" is "to move through the air". However, the very next meaning is "to move quickly". So can "flew" truly be considered a hyperbole? Or is it just a simple usage of the word?-- SeizureDog 07:23, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
History of words, terms, and expressions
My questions concern the origin and meaning of words/terms/expressions in the English language and English/Colonial America/American culture.
1. Including past and present uses and definitions of words, and words that are no longer included in current dictionaries
> What specific form of language study (or specific Etymology), breaks words (mainly vocabulary) down into sections, revealing the root of that word and its’ additional attributes, that when chained together (as in the word), find the literal meaning of/description of/influence on/origin of, that word ?
EXAMPLE:
Fortnight Lily = ( Fortnight = { Old English f owert ne, fourteen + Old English niht, night } = { Middle English fourtenight, alteration of fourtene night, fourteen nights Old English f owert ne, fourteen; kwetwer + Old English niht, night; nokwt. } = { A fortnight is a unit of time equal to two weeks: that is 14 days, or literally 14 nights. The term is common in British English, Hiberno-English and Australian English, but rarely used in American English. It derives from the Old English feowertiene niht, meaning "fourteen nights". } = { A period of 14 days; two weeks. } )
+
( Lily = { Etymology: Middle English lilie, from Old English, from Latin lilium 1 : any of a genus (Lilium of the family Liliaceae, the lily family) of erect perennial leafy-stemmed bulbous herbs that are native to the northern hemisphere and are widely cultivated for their showy flowers; broadly : any of various plants of the lily family or of the related amaryllis or iris families 2 : any of various plants with showy flowers: as a : a scarlet anemone (Anemone coronaria) of the Mediterranean region b : WATER LILY c : CALLA LILY 3 : FLEUR-DE-LIS 2 } )
= Fortnight Lily
EXAMPLE: Vernal Equinox = ( vernal. Etymology: Latin vernalis, alteration of vernus, from ver spring; akin to Greek ear spring, Sanskrit vasanta 1 : of, relating to, or occurring in the spring <vernal equinox> <vernal sunshine> 2 : fresh or new like the spring; also : YOUTHFUL - ver•nal•ly /-n&l-E/ adverb )
+
( equinox. Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French or Medieval Latin; Middle French equinoxe, from Medieval Latin equinoxium, alteration of Latin aequinoctium, from aequi- equi- + noct-, nox night -- more at NIGHT 1 : either of the two points on the celestial sphere where the celestial equator intersects the ecliptic 2 : either of the two times each year (as about March 21 and September 23) when the sun crosses the equator and day and night are everywhere of equal length The word equinox derives from the Latin word for equal night )
= Vernal Equinox
EXAMPLE: Autumnal Equinox = ( autumn. Etymology: Middle English autumpne, from Latin autumnus 1 : the season between summer and winter comprising in the northern hemisphere usually the months of September, October, and November or as reckoned astronomically extending from the September equinox to the December solstice -- called also fall 2 : a period of maturity or incipient decline <in the autumn of life> - au•tum•nal /o-'t&m-n&l/ adjective - au•tum•nal•ly /-n&-lE/ adverb )
+
( equinox. Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French or Medieval Latin; Middle French equinoxe, from Medieval Latin equinoxium, alteration of Latin aequinoctium, from aequi- equi- + noct-, nox night -- more at NIGHT 1 : either of the two points on the celestial sphere where the celestial equator intersects the ecliptic 2 : either of the two times each year (as about March 21 and September 23) when the sun crosses the equator and day and night are everywhere of equal length The word equinox derives from the Latin word for equal night. ) = Autumnal Equinox
2. Expressions with historical roots > What is the term for the study of expressions and their historical origin and original reference, especially unsavory/demeaning/racial, gender specific, etc., used in the past and especially in the present (without regard to their meaning), in the U.S.A.?
EXAMPES:
Cotton Pick’n Hands
Indian Giver
3. Referring to questions and answers to above 1. & 2. > Can you refer some good internet sites that would be helpful as searches/references/collections for these topics?
I do hope that you are able to understand what I am trying to ask. Please let me know if you need any further clarification.
Thank you in advance for your time and concern. Sincerely, Katiebugggg13
Thank you for your guidance. I did indeed read the “Do Your Homework” section above. The only reason that I posted here, was that I was unable to find my answers on-line. I am asking for specifics that I was unable to find. Have no fear, “History of Words, Terms, and Expressions” is not associated to anything, but my own curiosity and want to explore. I thought I might get some help from someone who could point me in the right direction.
So, if you are out there, I would appreciate any constructive assistance you might share.
Thank you.
Katiebugggg13 01:56, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Hi,
Is there a word that means someone who performs a property valuation? I have looked up valuer but it seems not to exist. Thanks David Vaughan
I frequently find myself in situations where someone asks me a question beginning with "Hypothetically..." and then they continue with a condition that is very improbable, or even preposterous. Is the a name for this "hypothetical" statement, or a fancy retort? Thanks!-- El aprendelenguas 21:41, 31 May 2006 (UTC)