Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 February 19

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February 19

Strudel and the @ in Hebrew

The Wikipedia entry on the @, or ampersat reads: In Hebrew it is colloquially known as strudel (שטרודל). The normative term, invented by the Academy of the Hebrew Language, is kruhit (כרוכית), which is a Hebrew word for strudel.

Does anyone know why or how the ampersat came to be termed this way in Hebrew in the first place? Wolfgangus 00:45, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

It looks like a strudel viewed from the end. In Czech, they call it a "Zavináč," which means "herring," because it looks like a rolled-up piece of fish. -- Mwalcoff 02:46, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Looks somewhat like a Sushi roll from above... 惑乱 分からん 14:21, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, but unfortunately they chose not to exercise artistic license with アットマーク. 61.25.248.86 06:43, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Aaah, "atto maaku"... 惑乱 分からん 14:39, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

So the term arose strictly from how it looked, which seems to be common across a number of languages. Thanks very much for the input. Wolfgangus 15:12, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Kodaň

Does anyone have any idea why Copenhagen is called "Kodaň" in Czech and Slovak? It is called something similar to its Danish name (København) in seemingly every other language. -- Mwalcoff 03:20, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Suspicious/Suspect

We hear about the authorities clearing buildings because of "suspicious packages" etc. I'm never sure if this language is right. I suspect that the people doing the suspecting are suspicious, but the objects themselves are not suspicious but suspect. Any thoughts? JackofOz 03:47, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Maybe they´re trying to sound clever and that´s why they say it like that instead of saying "suspect". A.Z. 04:17, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

"Suspicious" can refer to either having a suspicion (as people do) or arousing suspicion (as the objects do). In fact the OED lists the latter as the primary meaning, and has an older attestation for it (albeit only by 60 years).

1340 Ayenb. 226 Þe uerste [þing] is him-zelue kepe and priueliche bi ine his house, naȝt uor to uolȝy þe uelaȝredes suspiciouses.

--Ptcamn 04:28, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I suspect you're right. Thanks. JackofOz 01:09, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

name of anniversary

A school has been open for 6 years. What do call the 4th year of students to commemorate their anniversary year? ....school`s 4th anniversary year`s class? Is this correct? If not, what would you say?

You could refer to it as the __th anniversary (reunion, maybe?) of the class of ____. FruitMart07 22:21, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Simplified vs Traditional Chars (on Chinese Wikipedia)

On the Chinese Wikipedia, what is the policy for simplified vs traditional character usage in articles? Is it similar to the english WP policy of American vs British spelling conventions (both are acceptable)? Just from inspection, it looks like most articles are written in Traditional - not too surprising since I believe WP wasn't accessible on the mainland until recently. Does anyone have any suggestions for how to identify the articles using Simplified Chars? (I'm learning Chinese and I have some software that only supports characters in the GB_2312 encoding, so until I find some bitmap fonts using the Big5 encoding, I'm limited to looking at Simplified characters.) - Aagtbdfoua 13:19, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

• Disregard, I should have just read the article at zh.wikipedia.org, which I didn't realize existed until trying to get the link to work. - Aagtbdfoua 13:27, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

archiving the 18