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Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 February 10

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February 10

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Aqua

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Many cosmetics and toiletries list "aqua" as one of the ingredients. Why don't they say "water" instead? Astronaut (talk) 02:52, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

According to the International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients, "aqua" signifies purified i.e. deionized water. ---Sluzzelin talk 03:49, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So why don't they say "deionized water"? Or are they trying to convince their customers that the product is not made largely of water? Astronaut (talk) 04:14, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I couldn't find any explanation, apart from the alchemists' ad pharmacists' tradition of labeling ingredients in Latin. Yet for most items with common English names INCI seems to use the English word nowadays, "aqua" being the exception. According to this French site, "aqua" without attribute (such as "purificata"), e.g. needn't even mean deionized, but can be "distilled, from the source, or filtred". ---Sluzzelin talk 04:54, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"Aqua" is sometimes described as the "European trivial name" for water, as defined by the INCI. This site suggests that it is one of the "common names that should be more easily recognized by consumers in the EU where 11 different languages are spoken. The trivial names are based primarily on designations taken from the European Pharmacopoeia." Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:26, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That jibes with what I always assumed was the reason: namely that ingredients lists in Europe are always in a multitude of languages. For food items, you just have to give the ingredients list separately in each language, but for cosmetics and toiletries, water is the only thing whose name is significantly different. So rather than giving four ingredients lists where everything is virtually identical except that one says "water", one says "Wasser", one says "acqua", and one says "eau", they just give one list that says "aqua". +Angr 09:31, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, but if the product's package is otherwise predominantly in English and oriented toward an English-speaking market, might it not make sense to just put "water" is parentheses after the "aqua"? An extra word wouldn't seem to be that budget-unfriendly...--Dpr (talk) 10:19, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Adding the common name for different languages does mean that the manufacturer needs to keep different versions of the same list for different markets. But English has become so common that maybe they can use the same list with the added English word in all markets. If I felt like you I'd write a short letter or e-mail to my preferred provider of toiletries, thank them for making a product I've used for years, and ask that question. Most businesses love such mails from their customers and it's likely that you'd get a thoughtful response. If you do so, please let us know what came from it. — Sebastian 17:39, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Although the cost of producing multiple labels for different markets would itself be comparatively trivial, the additional procedures and precautions necessary to ensure that the right labels always go on the right market-destined products (and recalling the inevitable mistakes) might well be more costly. (I speak from some knowledge of the multinational pharmaceuticals packaging industry.) 87.81.230.195 (talk) 14:26, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Smash the Kaiser

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How do you write "Smash the Kaiser" in Greek? -- 03:26, 10 February 2010 User:Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy

Modern or Ancient Greek?--Dpr (talk) 10:17, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
'Smash' as in....? --KageTora - (影虎) (A word...?) 17:32, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
'Kaiser' as in....? After all, it could refer to a Kaiser roll, and maybe he's just talking about compressing a sandwich to make it fit in a box better. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:50, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Transliteration or translation into ancient/modern Greek? -- Flyguy649 talk 17:46, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What do you need this for? By default, I'd suggest the translation is Στουμπ θε Βικιπαίδεια Ρεφερεντς Δεσκ. — Sebastian 21:39, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In modern Greek. I need it for a propaganda poster I'm doing it for a history project. Also what about the same phrase in Portuguese. It seems Greek is a way too complicated language.
SebastianHelm was yanking your chain (as anyone who is familiar just with the Greek alphabet could see). From dribs and drabs of info gleaned from here and there, I've come up with ΣΥΝΤΡΙΒΕΤΕ ΤΟΝ ΚΑΙΖΕΡ, which would probably be understandable to a Greek, but whether it's the best way of expressing the intended meaning I have no idea... AnonMoos (talk) 02:13, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What's Stoump?--PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 03:01, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Stump -- there's no vowel sound corresponding to the u in Mod. Gk. The choices were Stamp, Stomp, or Stoump. -- Flyguy649 talk 03:55, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Nope, 'στουμπ' says 'stoub'. 'μπ' is pronounced 'b' or 'mb', as far as I know. --KageTora - (影虎) (A word...?) 04:19, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Κομπλιμέντο, your knowledge of Greek is really άμεμπτος! — Not! Before you contradict others, please check your facts. In some words (especially in foreign words), "μπ" is pronounced [mp] (Μαυρούλια, Γεοργαντσή, Τα νεα Ελλινικά για ξενόγλοσσους, 1979, p. 15). — Sebastian 07:53, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If you know so much, then it would have been nice if you had actually tried to answer the question (instead of what you did). AnonMoos (talk) 12:27, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
AnonMoos, my respect for your translation; I couldn't have come up with anything better. I'm sorry if my second reply came out harsh; it was just so tempting, given the two -μπ- words. — Sebastian 16:00, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(I was objecting solely and exclusively to your original message of "21:39, 10 February 2010", in fact...) AnonMoos (talk) 17:23, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
And I'm intrigued by it. Why did you render "the" as θε, when it's pronounced /ðə/, and Greek spells /ð/ with δ? And why did you put a τ into "reference"? +Angr 17:34, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good question! I had tried to come up with a transliteration, rather than a transcription; especially since I didn't know if the answer was expected in Modern or Ancient Greek. (Also, I wanted it to work not just for English words.) Since, for the purpose of a transliteration, there's no difference between voiced and unvoiced "th", "θ" is the obvious choice. The "τσ" is harder to explain: I couldn't use simply "σ" for "c", since that's already the natural transliteration for "s". So I thought about other languages in which the "c" sounds roughly like the "c" in "reference", but still different enough to require a different transliteration. Since Slavic languages, Esperanto, and German (which is less precise and unambiguous about it), all pronounce it like "ts", I chose "τσ" (the sound in ρετσίνα). I now realize that"ϡ" would have been a better choice, because, as I just read, it has been used to transliterate German "ß". BTW, I had also thought about how best to represent the "u" in stump; I didn't use "υ" since it would have been pronounced too differently, and I wanted to reserve that for "y". I had thought of using the digraph "ȣ", but I thought that would be too esoteric. I haven't thought it all through yet; maybe I should ask a question here about how to transliterate Latin letters into Greek. ;-) — Sebastian 20:10, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ukrainian/Russian names

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Looking at Ukrainian people's pages, I often found that their name is given in both Ukrainian and Russian spellings. For example: Viktor Yanukovych: Uk: Віктор Янукович, Ru: Виктор Янукович.
Some others have their name russified in the Russian Wikipedia: Yulia Tymoshenko: Uk: Юлія Тимошенко, Ru: Ю́лия Тимоше́нко; Anatoliy Kinakh: Uk: Анатолій Кінах, Ru: Анато́лий Ки́нах; Valeriy Pustovoitenko: Uk: Вале́рій Пустово́йтенко, Ru: Вале́рий Пустово́йтенко; Vasyl Durdynets: Uk: Василь Дурдинець, Ru: Васи́лий Дурдине́ц; Pavlo Lazarenko: Uk: Павло Лазарéнко, Ru: Па́вел Лазаре́нко.
Is there an explanation for this habit? Were these people born with a Russian name (some of my examples are ethnic Russian) and then they Ukrainified it when they become well-known? Is it a compulsory thing? Is every person in Ukraina expected to have two versions of their name and surname? Do only people born in Soviet Union have two names? Is it just a Russian habit to localize contemporary Ukrainian names? Does this happen only in Ukraina or also in Belarussia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, Moldova... --151.51.62.164 (talk) 13:12, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ukrainian is the sole official language in Ukraine, but Russian is also widely used and, especially in eastern and southern parts of the country, many people are native Russian speakers. I thinks it's natural then that Wikipedia articles give both Ukrainian and Russian spellings of their names. The spellings are different because Ukrainian and Russian alphabets are not identical. I suppose some Russian-speaking Ukrainians might object to having their names written in their passports in the official language rather than in their native tongue, but most probably the same happens in the opposit direction to Ukrainians and other Slavs living in Russia. — Kpalion(talk) 14:33, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The difference between the Ukrainian and Russian alphabets does not explain why the names are respelled. For a comparable Latin-based example, the Polish alphabet is different from the Czech alphabet, yet you don't see Polish names mangled to conform to Czech spelling in Czech publications, nor vice versa. The same goes for English, French, German, etc. The usual convention for languages using variants of the Latin alphabet (with some exceptions like Croatian) is to leave names from other languages using variants of the Latin alphabet unchanged (apart from cosmetic changes to things like diacritics, which are primarily motivated by technical difficulties). I have no idea why is it so different within the Cyrillic-writing world. —Emil J. 14:59, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Croatian isn't alone. Have you ever heard of the U.S. president Bils Klintons? That's not just a spelling difference; he even gets a nominative case ending added to each of his names. +Angr 15:30, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Džordžs V. Bušs is also cool :D Rimush (talk) 16:09, 10 February 2010 (UTC) [reply]
English does this all the time. From Anton Dvorak to Vienna to Lech Walesa. Slightly less common with some names now though.
English anglicize names only of historical people or monarchs. This happens in almost every language. Queen Elizabeth is Regina Elisabetta in Italian. Sometimes foreign letters or symbols are localized, but that's just a matter of technical difficulties. You can easily find Jan Novak instead of Jan Novák, but never John Newman--151.51.62.164 (talk) 16:37, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

75.41.110.200 (talk) 16:30, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Lithuanian is another example. Actually, ethnic Poles in Lithuania object to having their names officially written in Lithuanian (Krzysztof Ławrynowicz → Kšyštof Lavrinovič, Czesław Okińczyc → Česlav Okinčic, Waldemar Tomaszewski → Valdemar Tomaševski, etc.). So it's not just the case of Cyrillic-written languages. — Kpalion(talk) 15:54, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
At least now I have an idea on how to pronounce them without having to learn IPA :P Rimush (talk) 16:08, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Which is odd, considering that Poles often convert the surname of Frédéric Chopin (who was born in Poland of a French-born father and a native Polish mother) to Szopen. -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 02:52, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's a different situation. In Lithuania: Lithuanian law stipulates that everyone who has Lithuanian citizenship and resides within the country has to forcibly Lithuanianize their name (i.e. spell it in the Lithuanian phonetics and alphabet). Also, there seems to be a strange custom to phonetically localize EVERY foreign name in both Lithuanian and Latvian (in Estonian is the exact opposite). Besides, as far as I know, in the Ukrainian case, it's not a matter of just sound. Names seem to be translated (Павло turned into Па́вел). In the Lithuanian case, Krzysztof should have been translated into Kristupas, not Kšyštof. --151.51.62.164 (talk) 16:20, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, Christoffa Corombo is known as Cristoforo Colombo in modern Italian, Cristóbal Colón in Spanish, Christopher Columbus in English and still other names in other languages. It's the same pattern here, except that it applies not only to well known historical figures, but to everybody. — Kpalion(talk) 18:43, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sport vs sportS in American English

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Why do we say that he likes to watch premium cable "sportS channels" instead of "sport channels"? --68.219.18.185 (talk) 22:00, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Because more than one sport is shown. Woogee (talk) 22:31, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Makes sense.--68.219.18.185 (talk) 22:41, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, it's more complicated than that. Noun adjunct says "Noun adjuncts were traditionally mostly singular (e.g., "trouser press") except when there were lexical restrictions (e.g., "arms race"), but there is a recent trend towards more use of plural ones." (Whoever wrote that chose a telling example, since "trouser" doesn't normally occur in the singular at all, except by staff in clothing shops). --ColinFine (talk) 23:37, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Math vs. Maths... It's just a dialectical difference, really. North Americans refer to bands in case sensitive, British do it in the plural, even when the band name is singular, generally speaking. It's just one of those things. 70.79.246.134 (talk) 00:30, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Case sensitive? You mean in the US it's genEsiS, inxs and pInK fLOYd? Tonywalton Talk 01:05, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Math/maths is not comparable to sport/sports. The former are alternative abreviations of MATHematicS (mathematic, with the same meaning, is obsolete according to SOED); the latter are not abbreviations. Mitch Ames (talk) 01:05, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Careful, there's a load of things being conflated here:
  • The question was about the use of the plural form for a noun adjunct. I believe the section I quoted is about as full an answer as you will get to this question.
  • I don't think it's much to do with dialect (though particular phrases may be in use on only one side of the pond). For example, "Sports jacket" and "sports car" are definitely British expressions.
  • The use of a singular or plural verb with a collective noun is an entirely different question from the number of the noun. Yes, there is a difference between UK and US, but it's not as simple as 70.79 suggests: Americans generally use only singular verbs with collectives, in Britain both singular and plural verbs are possible, depending on whether the collective is being regarded as a unit or as a collection of members.
  • Finally, "math/maths/mathematics" is singular in all varieties of English AFAIK, notwithstanding the 's', so it is not relevant to the question. --ColinFine (talk) 00:06, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
According to SOED mathematics is plural - originally plural of mathematic, although the singular is now obsolete - but now treated as singular. Originally it was the sciences (plural) of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy etc. Now it is "the abstract deductive science of space, number, quantity, and arrangement...". Mitch Ames (talk) 02:50, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Surely that means that mathematics is now singular, whatever number it may once upon a time have been regarded as having. The SOED is not usually known for engaging in horticultural circumflagellation, and this is not the place for it to start. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 08:25, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly so, Jack: it is singular.
I have struck out my comment about dialect above: I was wrong (as this thread on the help desk has shown me). I did not realise that 'sport' in the singular does not get used as a general term in the US. --ColinFine (talk) 08:35, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Direct quote from SOED, 6th edition. Note the "noun pl" on the first line:

I trump your SOED with the online OED: "In early use always construed as a plural, and usually preceded by the. In modern use regarded as a mass noun, except when used of calculations."

In any case, this is irrelevant. A language is defined by how it is used, not by what a lexicographer has managed to capture of it. --ColinFine (talk) 18:30, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. In any case, my original point was that math/maths are different abbreviations of the same word (ie mathematics, regardless of whether that word is singular or plural), rather than different usages of singular/plural, as is the case with sport/sports - ie math/maths is relevant when discussing the use of sport/sports. Mitch Ames (talk) 02:06, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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