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

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March 10

Online Dictionary

There was a definition linked to an online english dictionary, in a post maybe a a week ago.

(The original poster posted after me about a week ago, so this link may have appeared several days afterward.)

I am curious which dictionary this was. I am not sure if this was on the humanities desk, or language desk, or possibly entertainment desk.174.3.110.108 (talk) 05:59, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

It's hard to say without knowing what the context was. Have you tried looking in the Archives or searching them using the box near the top of this page? AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 09:08, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm a transparent proponent of Wiktionary -- always a good place to start...--达伟 (talk) 16:27, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Or if you prefer professional lexicography, several dictionary companies have made their dictionaries accessible online, although free access may not include their largest dictionary. Several of these free dictionaries and other reference sources can be searched simultaneously using the site www.onelook.com. --Anonymous, 17:47 UTC, March 10, 2010.

List of online dictionaries. --Normansmithy (talk) 17:55, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

The first 8 or so volumes of the 12-volume Oxford English Dictionary as published in 1933 are out of copyright, and some work has been done to get scans online. I'm not sure how many are up right now. 66.127.52.47 (talk) 11:03, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Congo

When referring to The Congo, as in the Republic of the Congo, does this refer to:

• the river
• the basin
• something completely different?174.3.110.108 (talk) 06:27, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

The country (usually the Republic of the Congo. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 06:30, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

And what is: "The Congo"?174.3.110.108 (talk) 06:36, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

The country (usually the Republic of the Congo). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 06:38, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Versus "Republic of Congo"? Why the determiner?174.3.110.108 (talk) 06:56, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Because the country formerly known as Zaire changed its name to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Actually I wouldn't be so sure about which country "Congo" refers to these days. Adam Bishop (talk) 06:58, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

So we have no etymology for "The Congo"?174.3.110.108 (talk) 07:10, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, it refers to the Kongo people, their language, and their kingdom, if that's what you mean. Adam Bishop (talk) 07:13, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

But you don't say, the republic of the france.174.3.110.108 (talk) 07:18, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

In French, the full name is "French republic" (République française). The article isn't part of the name either. --Kvasir (talk) 07:59, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

But we do say 'The Sudan', which refers to the region or the country. My belief FWIW has always been that these were names given to areas of Africa in the exploratory days of the 19th century and have stuck for whatever reason. Originally they referred to a diverse group of aboriginal people that it was inconvenient to refer to separately so the region rather than the people were named. Then there is 'The Lebanon'. . . Richard Avery (talk) 07:39, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Didn't Bonaparte call himself Emperor of the French? —Tamfang (talk) 20:33, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

(ec) I don't know why there's a "the" in there. Other countries include "the" as well: the Gambia, the Netherlands; island groups, like the Philippines, the Maldives, the Comoros, the Solomon Islands, the Marshall Islands; most countries whose name is "descriptive," like the United States, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Czech Republic, the Dominican Republic; and formerly the Ukraine, the Argentine, the Sudan, the Ivory Coast, the Lebanon. (And perhaps El Salvador counts too…) I'm sure there's a name for this phenomenon, but I don't know what it is. —Bkell (talk) 07:40, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually, The Ukraine is incorrect.174.3.110.108 (talk) 08:09, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

"The Ukraine" is falling out of use indeed. "The Gambia" can be easily explained. Originally it referred to the river Gambia. "The Netherlands" is such because "Netherlands" means "low lands", so The Lowlands make sense. (In French it's the same: Les Pays-bas, never just Pays-bas by itself). As for island groups it's because the name is "descriptive" like Bkell mentioned. --Kvasir (talk) 08:21, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

This is a very worthy entrant for our FAQs. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 07:50, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Not just countries but other geographical features - the Peloponnese, the Crimea, the Wirral, the Levant.... Ghmyrtle (talk) 07:59, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

See our article on this issue: The#Geographic_uses. --Kvasir (talk) 08:10, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Disappointingly, a paragraph rather than an article - and it doesn't shed any light on why the "the" is used for some places but not others. Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:30, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

"The Ukraine" is not incorrect, it's just old-fashioned now. The Congo has a "the" for the same reason the Gambia does, because the country is named after the river. "The Yucatan" is another example that is probably old-fashioned nowadays. +Angr 08:24, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

The OP answered his/her own question in the question: "When referring to The Congo, as in the Republic of The Congo...." In this case it unequivocally refers to the Republic of The Congo, because this is specified using the words 'as in'. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 11:08, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't think they did. They unequivocally refer to the use within the country's name. The question could (I think) be rephrased "The Republic of the Congo is the republic of which geographical feature or other thing named 'the Congo'?" Regions can be named after people (e.g. England, France) or things (e.g. Rhineland) that can be found there. It's not obvious, I think, to the OP (or me) what this country is named after. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 14:38, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, after this long roundabout discussion it eventually became more clear what the OP was trying to ask. He could have saved a lot of trouble if he had just said "What does 'the Congo' in The Republic of the Congo refer to?" rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 15:01, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

The OP's question seemed pretty clear to me. It's hardly any different from your rephrasing of it. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 15:09, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

@Rjanag:Maybe because your interlanguage borrows from many different languages?174.3.110.108 (talk) 01:25, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Proper noun which takes an article (such as Internet) are referred to as "weak" proper nouns, I believe. Here is a discussion on language log about them. This post from today, notes that the presenc eor absence of an article might be an arbitrary feature, like gender: "Now, my default hypothesis is that this is a genuinely arbitrary syntactic distinction. There's no explanation; the functionalists who (doubtless) will run around in circles trying to find a subtle semantic link between all strong proper names, and a subtle distinction between them and weak proper names, will be wasting their time. "The Internet" is a weak proper name, so the definite article is obligatory. End of story." Circéus (talk) 20:42, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

What is "language log".174.3.110.108 (talk) 01:22, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Language Log. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:27, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

And let's not forget Bongo Congo. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:58, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Four different pen names

Dear colleagues, The British author Anthony M. Daniels, better known under his pen name Theodore Dalrymple, wrote an article 'Where nobody knows your name' in the Globe and Mail on 16 february 2008. In it Daniels wrote: "In a way, I am an expert om pseudonymity. In my time, and for a variety of reasons, I have written under four different pen names." He is a prolific writer and he writes both under his own name and under the pen name Theodore Dalrymple. In the past he has written under the pen names Edward Theberton en Thursday Msigwa. So he has published under four different names, including his own name. Strictly speaking, I think, there must be a fourth pen name (a relevant sentence in the current article is based on this strict interpretation), but I doubt whether this is intended in the phrase quoted above. My guess would be that when he wrote it Daniels thought of his own name as one of his pen names. Does this guess sound plausible in a British or American ear (I am Dutch)? Theobald Tiger (talk) 13:52, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

To my British ear, it (his counting his real name as a pen name) sounds like a perfectly plausible minor slip or deliberate variant usage of the term, but it's equally plausible that he was obliquely alluding to a fourth pen name in the strict sense, making five published names in all. The ambiguity cannot be resolved without direct evidence (such as identifying a fifth name, or asking Mr Daniels directly). 87.81.230.195 (talk) 17:06, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

I think the usage is the same here in North America. Incidentally, if anyone thinks that four pseudonyms is a lot, they should take a look at John Creasey. --Anonymous, 17:53 UTC, March 10, 2010.

Or R. L. Fanthorpe. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 18:23, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your answers. Though I do think that four or five names is quite a lot, I didn't expect anybody to be surprised at it; I just wanted to know how many. Theobald Tiger (talk) 18:44, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

In my experience as a long-time book collector, former bookseller and former book editor, anything up to half-a-dozen is not particularly unusual. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 00:46, 11 March 2010 (UTC)