User talk:Garik/Archive 3

Delivered sometime in January 2008 (UTC). SatyrBot (talk) 23:30, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

LGBT WikiProject Newsletter

Delivered by SatyrBot around 17:14, 3 March 2008 (UTC) SatyrBot (talk) 17:35, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Requests for Mediation

Your Voice Counts!

Hello Garik! Its been a LONG time since we spoke! Wow! Didnt know you were family too! lol. Anywhos, I am looking for mediation on the below issue, if you could express an opinion as to weather we should allow countries to have colored borders and title headers. I'd be greatly appreciative!

Wales [Cymru] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) Wales
Flag Coat of arms

Greetings Wales community! We need your Voice! We need mediation and impute from the wider community who regularily contribute to articals of Wales interest. At issue is the use of a distinctive border around the country info box, as well title bar. The issue seems to have become a crusade against Wales by certin editors, who have almost never contributed to and practically never visit (by their own admission) the Wales page. I do not tust the motives of the editor, who seems to be stalking my edits and reverting them purposefully. This editor even dismisses the colors of Wales red and green saying that Wales does not have any official colors! (quote: "I imagine that this use of "national colours" (of which Wales has none by custom or tradition)...", Unfortunatly, I must deal with these cyber bullying tactics if I am to contribute here. However, I implore the Wales commmunity to weigh in on the topic of allowing info box borders and title headers. Please submit views on Template talk:Infobox Country and talk:Wales. If the wider Wales community decides not to support a border and title header color in the colors of Wales then I will withdrawal from this position. However, I and other editors do feel it makes the Wales page far more distinctive. Sincerly, David Llewellyn♦Drachenfyre♦·Talk 05:59, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Welsh accent

Hello there Garik, I have been listening to sound accent/voice clips on the BBC Voices 2005 study and have to say have noticed there seems to be some siliarities in the pronounciation of some words between Welsh and North-East English - inpaticular the non-Newcastle accents.

Mam is used for mother (though this is not unique), year is pronounced 'yer'. The 'O' sound in No is often often flat and long, and in general some of the vowels have similarities.

Have you heard the north-east accents? 167.1.176.4 (talk) 11:02, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I've heard people say similar – I know a couple of Northumbrians (though, as you say, not Newcastrians) who get regularly mistaken for Welsh. I've never seen anyone do a detailed comparison, though it's certainly an interesting fact. I'd assume it was simply coincidental (the way many South-east Asian accents are said to sound a bit Welsh), though I suppose arguments could be made for there being some deeper reason. Are you bringing this up in relation to a particular article by the way? garik (talk) 12:03, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Hello again Garik, no this wasn't really inreference to an article, i don't think i've seen any studies on the subject and would suggest no proper ones have taken place, shame though cos i bet it has entered a few peoples minds, Wiki would have us on that Original Research rule anyhow.

The north-east is a strange one as it seems to be a 'germanic' safety seat - if you know what i mean by that (think labour safety seats), people like to put the accent and vowel tones (it is a bit sing-song though i'd suggest not as much as Welsh) down to the Danes or what have you. Anyway i just wanted to know your thoughts on it. Influence from Gododdin ? 167.1.176.4 (talk) 12:37, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

It would be nice to think that it's something to do with a Brythonic substrate, but, to be honest, I'm not sure how you'd ever get the right sort of evidence to reject the null hypothesis of coincidence. What's more, I've known English-speaking Scandinavians before now who get mistaken for Welsh. I think it's just a reaction to any accent with that rising intonation. garik (talk) 17:47, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Aye that Gododdin suggestion was a bit wild wasn't it.

Anyway on the BBC Voices thingy, there is one accent that the site describes at Cardiff and it sounds 100% like a full-on strong Glasgow accent, i was shocked! I still dont really know it fi was a mistake or not. 167.1.176.4 (talk) 07:58, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Pervert

I have never in my life looked up pervert on Wikipedia. I believe you have the wrong person as I have my own account. 70.240.221.74 (talk) 17:33, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

If you look here, you'll see that a user of your IP address did indeed edit the Perversion article. In fact, the only edits from this address have been to edit Perversion and to write the above message on my page.

However, because of the way some internet providers work, multiple computers may share an IP address (as is explained at the bottom of the talk page for this address, so it may well not have been you personally who made the edits. They did, however, come from this IP address, which is where the warning was directed. The answer is to create your own account, which you say you've already done. So no worries. garik (talk) 17:53, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

LGBT WikiProject Newsletter

This newsletter was delivered by §hepBot around 16:02, 11 June 2008 (UTC). ShepBot (talk) 16:15, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

England/ Wales/ Scotland/ N. Ireland

Hallo, I thought that I'd contact you here because, otherwise, the discussion will turn into a full-on debate and take over the page! I'm trying to think of any countries which contain countries that are also part of the same country and I cannot. I'm not saying that there aren't any, just that I can't think of any. If you can help me, I may be forced to concede. With just about all of the countries that I can think of, I can "name" the inhabitants, for example; Chinese people come from China, Senegalese, from Senegal, Finnish from Finland, Russian from Russia, Egyptian from Egypt. What do you call someone from the U.K.? I didn't mean that because the U.K. was a kingdom, that prevented it from being a country but that it was a collection, for want of a better word, OF countries, both declared and recognised and therefore, how could it be a country? (Zippstar (talk) 19:30, 11 June 2008 (UTC))

Hi. You seem to be asking several different questions here:

1) Are there any other countries that contain countries?

Hard to say. the UK is certainly unusual in this regard, but then it's unusual in other respects too. The best modern example is Spain. This contains Catalonia and part of the Basque Country. Admittedly, not everyone would call Catalonia a country, but very many people certainly would. And no one would deny that Spain is a country. A good historical example is the Soviet Union, which was itself a country, but contained within itself numerous smaller countries.

2) Are there any other countries where the name for the inhabitants is related to the name for the country?

How about the Netherlands? And we don't call inhabitants of the USA Usanians — not in English anyhow. The thing is that this is specific to the English language in any case.

3) What do you call someone from the UK?

British or (as a noun) a Briton.

4) Can a collection of countries be called a country?

Yes, why not?

So people from Britain are called Britons, and some of those Britons are Welsh, others English, other Scottish, and others Northern Irish. Some, who have lived all over the country, call themselves just British. But this still has nothing to do with whether or not the UK is a country. It is a Kingdom made up of smaller parts that are themselves countries. None of this means that the UK itself is not also a country. I don't understand your difficulty here: why can't a collection of countries also be a country? Even if the UK were the only example in the modern world of this phenomenon, there's nothing to say that it can't be so. garik (talk) 20:20, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Hallo, again.

You have raised some good points. Indeed, people from the Netherlands/ Low Countries/ Holland, we call Dutch. Is Britain not the island comprising England, Scotland and Wales? Northern Ireland is not part of Great Britain or the British Isles, so why would its inhabitants be called British? The U.S.A are, of course, the United States of America and the inhabitants are known, simply, as Americans. Difficulty? I think that, probably, for the first time, I'm questioning my notion of what a country is. (I hope that I'm not the only one.) I've never known the U.K. as a country but a nation of countries, likewise the Soviet Union (C.C.C.P.), as my father lived there, specifically Russia. What did we call those people? I'm always questioning and my family come from a land that had its own rules before borders were drawn by foreigners, so maybe I'm used to seeing things differently. Thank you for your input. Feel free to write to me any time.(Zippstar (talk) 22:04, 11 June 2008 (UTC))

Linguistics

Indeed - that's exactly what I did too. And now, let's not get into issues about 'origns' or it might get tricky for both of us. Eagerly awaiting the discussion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Supriyya (talk • contribs) 19:20, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Supriya 19:22, 14 June 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Supriyya (talk • contribs)

More linguistics

She's at it again... AndrewCarnie (talk) 05:51, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into work... garik (talk) 13:53, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Linguistics lead

uh, yes, I'm sorry, my revert may have been ill-advised. I do think the lead I reverted to contains a listing of central sub-topics that would belong there, and which got lost in your revert, but I probably didn't ponder the precise phrasing well enough. Feel free to revert for now, and I'll try to get back to this with some more time on my hands later. Regards, dab (𒁳) 13:55, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

LGBT WikiProject Newsletter (July 2008)

• Newsletter delivery by xenobot 12:59, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Oxford Wikimania 2010 and Wikimedia UK v2.0 Notice

Hi,

As a regularly contributing UK Wikipedian, we were wondering if you wanted to contribute to the Oxford bid to host the 2010 Wikimania conference. Please see here for details of how to get involved, we need all the help we can get if we are to put in a compelling bid.

We are also in the process of forming a new UK Wikimedia chapter to replace the soon to be folded old one. If you are interested in helping shape our plans, showing your support or becoming a future member or board member, please head over to the Wikimedia UK v2.0 page and let us know. We plan on holding an election in the next month to find the initial board, who will oversee the process of founding the company and accepting membership applications. They will then call an AGM to formally elect a new board who after obtaining charitable status will start the fund raising, promotion and active support for the UK Wikimedian community for which the chapter is being founded.

You may also wish to attend the next London meet-up at which both of these issues will be discussed. If you can't attend this meetup, you may want to watch Wikipedia:Meetup, for updates on future meets.

We look forward to hearing from you soon, and we send our apologies for this automated intrusion onto your talk page!

Addbot (talk) 23:52, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Linguistics: Speech and writing

Hi Garik. While I understand that informal written language is language nonetheless, isn't the primary reason why spoken language is thought of as "more important to linguistic study" that it is natural language, whereas the written language is arbitrary assigned to language and is usually dictated by those in power (ie, the standard language speakers)? Thanks for your time. Languageleon (talk) 10:19, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi Languageleon. Actually, I'm not sure that is a very important reason. Now, orthography is certainly heavily standardised, but not all writing follows standard spelling rules, and sometimes the level of standardisation only goes as far as spelling in any case: written language can be nothing more than a representation of spoken language, sometimes word for word. Moreover, spoken language may be just as strongly standardised as written language. Now, it is true that writing allows speakers to take a lot more time over formulating what they want to say, and also allows readers considerably more processing time. This has certainly had its influence on written language; and some of that influence has extended to spoken language. Overall, though, the main reasons for focussing primarily on speech is that speech (and signing) is developmentally and evolutionarily older than writing. That said, it may be worth adding that a more tentative version of what you put; maybe something like "Owing to the context in which it appears, writing tends more than speech to conform to standardised rules"? garik (talk) 11:02, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. In my studies, it always seemed to be the reason why writing was never quite as "important" as speech, but they may have just simplify it for us undergrads! Languageleon (talk) 21:19, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm open to discussion though! The more I think about it, the more I think something probably should be included on this, although I can't think exactly how best to put it: it's too simplistic to say that written language is heavily standardised and spoken language isn't. garik (talk) 16:53, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Alright! Well, I suppose I shouldn't have used "standard" as my exact terminology. My intent was to point out that written language is not a natural-occurring phenomena--instead, it is a symbolic art form created by human thought. Humans didn't decide to start speaking; they did, however, decide to start writing. I only brought up the point of "standard" because there is a "correct" way and an "incorrect" way of writing, whereas linguistics places no value on spoken language. I hope I'm being clear--that isn't always one of my strong suits! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Languageleon (talk • contribs) 01:22, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that linguistics passes no value judgements on written language either. For those who do, there is a "correct" and an "incorrect" way of speaking, just as much as there is for writing. The fact that humans didn't decide to start speaking, but did decide to start writing, is a separate issue, which is already addressed in the article. garik (talk) 10:43, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

ring a ring o' roses

Indeed, I just did a search, and I found that the section you just removed from the article had been lifted directly from http://www.infoplease.com/cig/dangerous-diseases-epidemics/bubonic-plague.html . Nice catch. Kingturtle (talk) 13:29, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject LGBT studies Newsletter

This newsletter was sent by §hepBot (Disable) at 21:09, 12 November 2008 (UTC) by the request of Moni3 (talk)

Welsh / Anglo-Welsh literature

You may be interested in contributing to the discussion here. Regards, Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:45, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Dashes

No policy actually which one should be used. Its just that I am using a tool that's why it was included in that edit. Please feel free to change it. --Efe (talk) 23:37, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

File:Sesiwn Fawr.jpg listed for deletion

An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, File:Sesiwn Fawr.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Skier Dude (talk) 06:08, 15 December 2008 (UTC)