Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 October 2

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

October 2

english language

importance of language in administration. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.219.254.32 (talk) 00:24, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I concur (after all what else can I do with a statement) but please see English grammar and note that all english sentences should have a verb and a subject. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.16.62.154 (talk) 00:26, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Really? Crikey. :) --Kjoonlee 01:33, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

But I do agree with one thing: you can't just write a noun phrase and a prepositional phrase and call it a sentence. --Kjoonlee 01:36, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm adding this in case the person who started this section is confused by these notes. Nobody can answer your comment because it is very vague. Wanderer57 (talk) 01:46, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Of course we can answer. 41.219: read the articles about importance, English, language and administration for that purpose. Mr.K. (talk) 08:17, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Translation

I'd appreciate if you could tell me what language this is / give me a translation:

blya izvilni

9 teb9 sproi/| 4e eto takoic

ya videl tebya no ne dumai

ehto you rus

70.162.28.222 (talk) 02:23, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

This is Russian put into a transliteration for computing purposes. I can't read it well enough for a translation. A better transcription might be something like: Byla izvilni. Ya tebya sproil(?) che eto takoits. Ya videl tebya no ne dumaj. Ehto you rus. была извилный. я тебя спроил ... ето такоиц. я видел тебя но не думай. Ето ю рус. I don't speak Russion, so that will be full of mistakes.

The only bit I can guess is: It was ???. I ???ed you ... this ... I saw you at home. ??? ??? ???. Steewi (talk) 03:08, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

(ec) If it's all one piece of text, it seems to be Russian, although some of the transliterations are very wonky. The only line that is indisputably Russian is "ya videl tebya no ne dumai" (I saw you but do not think ..).

blya izvilni - probably "byla izvilini" (there were bends/twists)

9 teb9 sproi/| 4e eto takoic - I think this should be "ya tebya sprosil <something> eto takoe" (I asked you <?> what it is)

ehto you rus - probably "chto" (what/that), but "you rus" has stumped me.

Putting it together: There were twists I asked you <?> <?> what it was I saw you but do not think that <?> <?>.

Best I can do with the material, sorry. Where did this come from, if you don't mind my asking? -- JackofOz (talk) 03:29, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Got far further with it than I did. FWIW, I seriously doubt that the last sentence is Ето у рысь ("It is with a lynx" :) Closest sensible sentence I could come up with is Что у нас, which IIRC means something like "what is ours". Possibly its some related language like Ukrainian rather than actually Russian? Grutness...wha? 04:59, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

This is some sort of illiterate gibberish sprinkled with Russian words. "blya izvilni" is probably "blya, izvini", which means "oh fuck... I'm sorry". --Ghirla^-трёп- 05:52, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Two statements

Which is preferable?

"Your goals can easily be achieved." or "Your goals can be achieved easily."

Am I correct in saying that they are both acceptable and mean the same thing, but the first one is a better choice?

--The Dark Side (talk) 03:36, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I think this is also possible: You goals can be easily achieved. Some English adverbs are very flexible about where they can occur. --Kjoonlee 04:12, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

IMO, yes. The Jade Knight (talk) 04:17, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

All three are grammatically correct but personally the first one sounds more natural. "Your goals can easily be achieved." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.25.96.244 (talk) 08:04, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

While possibly equivalent in meaning, there may be a slight difference in emphasis. The second has a bit more emphasis on the "easily", and may be preferred in contexts where the achievement of goals was not in doubt, but the difficulty of that achievement was in question (perhaps implicitly). e.g. if the lead-in question was "Is it possible to do X?", I'd go with "Your goals can easily be achieved.", but if the lead-in question was "How hard is it to do X?", I'd probably go with "Your goals can be achieved easily." -- 128.104.112.147 (talk) 16:14, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Power to seniority - one word?

Resolved

Hello,

Sorry I don't like the "is there one word" questions usually, and now I find myself asking one of those question! I am looking for a word with Latin roots or Greek roots, or both (in case someone coined it already), that would describe the power structure in Japanese traditional companies, who tend to give the promotions purely on seniority (that is how long you have been in the company and/or how old you are) rather than give promotions to those who deserve it (which I would call a meritocracy). None of my attempts (senioricracy, senatocracy, senilocracy, senocracy) seem to work. Thanks in advance. --Lgriot (talk) 04:01, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Cronyism? Grsz^talk 04:22, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I was looking for a "-cracy" or "-archy" word (democracy: power to the people; theocracy: power to god, well rather, the religion; Monarchy: power to the one; oligarchy: power to a few), but I didn't know cryonism, very interesting. It is not exactly the concept I am thinking of, though. --Lgriot (talk) 04:35, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

There's always gerontocracy. The Jade Knight (talk) 04:45, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, it is what I was looking for, but now that I remember the word, it seems that I can't use it, because it sounds like the power is in the elderly, not just the "older than you" type of people. Thanks anyway. --Lgriot (talk) 07:57, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Is seniorate a word in English? If it is, this could be an answer to Lgriot's question. If not, then this article should be probably moved to a different title. A Google search for this word (restricted to English) returns relatively few hits, most of them in the context of Polish or Czech history, so it might be just a calque from the Polish seniorat or the Czech seniorát. pl:Seniorat and cz:Seniorát are both interwiki-linked to Agnatic seniority, which is a little narrower term. — Kpalion^(talk) 17:45, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, with English, anything can become a word if it catches on. I've never heard "seniorate," though. In the U.S., you'll hear "the seniority system" often, though that's not the single word you're looking for. Could you use something like "a kind of corporate gerontocracy," extending the metaphor to show you mean that status results from time with the organization (rather than just age)? --- OtherDave (talk) 18:41, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

War with oneself

Hello,

Can you help me? What phrase can be used in order to express a man's war with himself (when he fights against his bad qualities)?--Slav9ln (talk) 05:28, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

In English, perhaps self-improvement or self-help. In Islam, this is one of the main meanings of jihad. Itsmejudith (talk) 07:44, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

You are your own worst enemy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.25.96.244 (talk) 08:02, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Fighting his demons? - X201 (talk) 08:34, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps "inner struggle"; or, more extremely, "inner conflict". jnestorius^(talk) 08:41, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Psychomachia? Deor (talk) 12:09, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for help!!--Slav9ln (talk) 17:40, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

A study about English

Please help me describe the relation between online English study and English. please elaborate the question. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Griffplll (talk • contribs) 09:01, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I am afraid I do not understand the question, could you please say more? Strawless (talk) 17:28, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Maybe the second "English" refers to a subject at school. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 10:55, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Would it help to look at English as a Foreign or Second Language and Electronic learning? BrainyBabe (talk) 14:34, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Is there an equivalent to "teenager" etc in those other languages?

I'm starting a new section here to answer a question JackofOz asked in the What age section of September 29. There is an equivalent in Polish. It's nastolatek (feminine: nastolatka), a calque from English, derived from -naście, a suffix appearing in all numbers from 11 (jedenaście) to 19 (dziewiętnaście); plus lata, "years"; plus -ek/-ka, a diminutive suffix. And as you might guess, "teenagers" in Poland are aged 11–19. I don't know of equivalents in any other langauges. Like Jack, I'd be glad to learn, if there are more. — Kpalion^(talk) 09:02, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

In German, you just use Teenager. The German ending is -zehn and it runs from 13 to 19 (11 and 12 being elf and zwölf), but since -teen is not a morpheme of German, I don't know to what extent it's associated with ages ending in -zehn in English. Perhaps one of our native German speakers can say whether 11- and 12-year-olds are considered Teenager in German. (Aside: perhaps more common in German than Teenager is Jugendlicher "youthful one", which I think spans from 14 to 20.) Irish uses the word déagóir for "teenager", which is calqued on English using the word déag which forms the numbers from 11 to 19 (11 = a haon déag, 12 = a dó dhéag, ..., 19 = a naoi déag), but again I can't say whether 11- and 12-year-olds are considered déagóirí or not, though logically (as in Polish), they could be. —Angr 09:15, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

In Dutch there is "tiener". As in English and German, the ending "-tien" runs from 13 ("dertien") to 19 ("negentien"). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.171.56.13 (talk) 09:38, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

French has "ado" from adolescent, since there is no common ending for the -teen numbers. I'm not sure what ages that covers though. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:19, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

In Finnish we have a common suffix for numbers from 11 to 19, but it's not one that would be easily adapted. Instead we have borrowed "teen-aged" from English, mangling the first part into "teini" and translating the rest. The resulting word "teini-ikäinen" is in common use as an adjective, and we use the short form "teini" for the noun "teenager". There's also "teini-ikä", literally "teen age", for "teens". 84.239.160.166 (talk) 20:31, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I realize I'm late here, but in case someone is still reading, the word teini is not in fact mangled English but twice mangled Greek: diakonos begat Swedish djäkne which in the 16th century begat Finnish teini, originally a junior priest but later a student. The contemporary use of teini as the exact equivalent of teen is no more than a few decades old. (The same thing holds for some other pairs of contemporary Finnish and English colloquialisms as well, eg. dorka and dork, where the Finnish dorka is originally from Russian durak and used to mean a crazy person, but now means an uncool one.--Rallette (talk) 07:46, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

There's also German "Backfisch" (never understood where that one comes from...) AnonMoos (talk) 21:56, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd still like to know how 11-year old Polish nastolatki feel when they discover they're now younger than teenagers in English-speaking countries. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:39, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Backfisch is a term from fishery and describes a young fish. The etymology of that isn't really clear, looking at the German wikipedia. It's an obsolete term nowadays, though. Baranxtu (talk) 13:15, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Czech uses mládež, literally "(a) youth." -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:11, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

And adolescent has varying definitions. BrainyBabe (talk) 14:35, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

In Swedish we have the same "system", as 13-19 is called tretTON, fjorTON, femTON, sexTON, sjuTON, arTON and NitTON every person within this age group is called a TONåring, regardless wether they are male or female.

"have all but"

"A month ago, Mr. Frome realized that the hobbyists, most of them men over 50 with six-figure incomes, had all but stopped buying the planes and replacement parts — including a new electronic device, developed by Fromeco, that logs flight data. Sales plummeted from a $1 million annual rate to half that level, and they are still falling."

From the New York Times. What does "had all but stopped" means here? From the context, I understand that they have stopped buying the planes. However, I thought that "have all but + V" meant "have all except + V". So the sentence in question would mean: they have not stopped buying.

Other examples are: "We had all but forgotten you, Prince" (=> Not forgotten) "Hope of finding Fossett alive all but gone". (=>there is still hope).

Mr.K. (talk) 09:32, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

"All but" used to confuse me too, it actually means "almost" or "nearly". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.171.56.13 (talk) 09:43, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, 'all but' is even in the dictionary. I was parsing it as 'have all' + 'but' not 'have' + 'all but'.Mr.K. (talk) 09:59, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

omonimus

in article R3B the word "omonimus" is used. theres nothing i can find on the net which defines it (tho some articles use it) and i just checked my compact oed and nada. any ideas? a misspelling perhaps? thanks Mission Fleg (talk) 10:51, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

All I can think of is "homonymous", but that doesn't make sense in the context of that article. —Angr 11:22, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Eponymous? -- BenRG (talk) 11:33, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Ominous? The other two suggestions may work but would be redundant. So I don't know if you want to attribute poor style choices or poor writing to the author.--droptone (talk) 11:44, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I guess Monoimus would be right out... -- AnonMoos (talk) 19:06, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd say it's a misspelling for "eponymous", but I'd also say the phrase in which it occurs doesn't need to exist at all. It reads as if the LAND detection setup includes a detector called LAND. It's possible to have an array of detectors, known collectively as LAND, and also call one of the individual detectors LAND. But that seems a very confusing way of naming things. Or "omonimus" might be technical jargon for a particular type of detector, of which LAND (the second one) is an example. But I'd expect it to be linked or footnoted or otherwise explained, if that's the case. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:29, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I think that Angr has the word right -- "homonymous" -- and Jack has the reason right, although neither of them believes it! The sentence is trying to say that the word LAND has two meanings, one referring to the individual neutron detectors and another referring to the whole setup containing them. This is not really very confusing -- it's perfectly commonplace to refer to a device in terms of its most important part, or to name it by using its most important part adjectivally -- and hardly needs calling attention to. --Anonymous, 03:13 UTC, October 3, 2008.

ok, thanks for the chuckles :) and the info, i'll change it to homonymous and ask the author. which, come to think of it, is probably what i should have done to start with! cheers Mission Fleg (talk) 08:36, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Latin jokes

On the printing block used by T&A Constable Ltd / Edinburgh University Press is written "Firma Pererrat Aquas Et Constabilitur Eundo". What is this in English? Supposedly it contains three jokes or puns. Any guesses as to what they might be please? Kittybrewster ☎ 11:46, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I guess it means "[something] firm wanders through water and is made stable by moving". I don't see the jokes, aside from the contradictions. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:16, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, there's the pun involving English firm (="company"), for one. And constabilitur as a pun on "Constable" in the firm's name. Deor (talk) 13:28, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I may be really overthinking this one, but there's also the point that this motto would scan as a hexameter if one read constabilitur with a false quantity in the penult (i.e., as constabilītur), in which case the second half of the verse would sound like "Constable itur eundo"—"Constable is moved by moving." Deor (talk) 02:21, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I think Deor has this bang on in terms of identifying the intended jokes. As for the meter, the line is certainly intended as a dactylic hexameter (far too much of a coincidence otherwise). As for the false quantity, is it really false? I read the 'i' as long, admittedly because I could see right away that the meter was dactylic. But if the underlying verb is like 'audio' the quantity is correct. I can't say I remember this verb occuring in classical Latin, and I don't have Lewis and Short by me, but it seems plausible to think that it does conjugate like 'audio'. Maid Marion (talk) 13:12, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like they were trying to be way too clever. Must be a 19th century motto then :) Adam Bishop (talk) 21:13, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Six sigma projects

i have a question posted for one of the most important thing to me at present regarding six sigma projects, i have had no response whatsoever, is there a way i can expedite the process or reach to the poople of similar interests,would serve a great purposeVikram79 (talk) 18:39, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

What is the question? --Sean 20:26, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Titular character

My understanding of the word "titular" is as explained at titular ruler, a person who has a title but little or none of the powers that that title implies. However, I’m seeing more and more examples of its use to mean the title role in a play, movie or opera. Such as:

Inspired by an earlier musical version of the same story by Ken Hill, The Phantom of the Opera opened at Her Majesty's Theatre in London on 9 October 1986, starring Michael Crawford as the titular character, Sarah Brightman as Christine, and Steve Barton as Raoul.

Has this become a recognised usage, or is likely to become so over time? Why did it ever change from the perfectly fine "in the title role", which has had a long history?

I see that Titular character currently redirects to "Title role", which is useful but, like any redirect, it has its downside. People who think that "titular character" is the correct way of describing a title role may not become aware that it’s inappropriate. Until they do (if they ever do), they’ll just keep on writing "titular character" in square brackets and they’ll never be the wiser unless they happen to click on the link they’ve created and suddenly notice that they’re not at the "Titular character" page but at the "Title role" page. Comments, anyone? -- JackofOz (talk) 23:37, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

The answer to your question "Has this become a recognized usage?" appears to be yes; at least, it's recognized in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, which gives as sense 3 of titular "of, relating to, or constituting a title <the ~ hero of the play>". I'll check what the OED has to say when I get home. Deor (talk) 23:59, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I see this question has come up before, in 2006 - see [1] @ "Titular versus Eponymous". The view then seemed to be as I described above. Has Merriam-Webster upgraded since then? -- JackofOz (talk) 00:15, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

The copy of M-W I was looking at was the eleventh edition (2003). Now that I've made my way home to my beloved books, I see that the OED (second edition) records the same sense, even specifying as an example "titular character, title rôle." The illustrative quotation containing the expression "titular character" is from the London Daily News of 7 June 1889: "Madame Gargano in the titular character appeared to far better advantage than in 'Il Barbiere'." Make of that what you will. Deor (talk) 01:05, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

In a related use, the Roman Catholic church has titular bishops. In general, these are bishops not in charge of an actual diocese -- e.g., a coadjutor biship, an auxiliary bishop, a papal nuncio. They are bishop (in the sense of pastor) in name only, since there's no real diocese. Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican secretary of state under John Paul II, was titular bishop of Albano, Italy, which also has a diocesan bishop, Cardinal Agostino Vallini. --- OtherDave (talk) 01:03, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

• The SARA corpus gives more "in name only" uses than "eponymous", but a good few of the latter. There is some potential for ambiguity, I suppose, though not in the SARA examples. Where the same root [title, interest] produces distinct derivatives [entitled/titled/titular, uninterested/disinterested] people tend to confuse them if the difference in meaning is not obvious from the form of the words. It won't do any good to complain about how a useful distinction is being lost: if it were that useful, people wouldn't get confused. And in many cases, the distinction was never clearcut to begin with. jnestorius^(talk) 01:41, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, if you look at the etymology of "titular" given in Titular ruler, you see that it means "of or belonging to the title" - so in that sense a "titular character" would be "the character of or belonging to the title (of the play)". The "titular character" meaning is given as valid by the OED online, with usage references for that meaning going back to 1665 (with an actual usage of "titular character" in 1889). Note that the "without power" sense usage examples date back to 'only' 1611. As a sort of folk etymology, it makes sense that the "in title only" connotation of "titular ruler" comes from the fact that it is assumed that a plain "ruler" has both title and power. You only specify he's a "titular" ruler if he doesn't have the power - otherwise the "titular" is redundant, as the possession of the title is assumed. -- 128.104.112.147 (talk) 16:10, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

There's a new question @ the Humanities desk that refers to "the titular diamond necklace that so ruined Marie Antoinette". The link takes us to The Affair of the Necklace, a film, although the questioner seems to be referring to the historical necklace and not just the movie about it. Would this be a reasonable use of "titular", given the above responses. It seems odd to me; I wouldn't have even used "eponymous" in this case, but if it came to choice between the two words, I'd have picked the latter. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:10, 4 October 2008 (UTC)