Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 December 26

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December 26

Spanish translation

Could someone possibly translate "La Conferencia de Nyon ha sido un éxito para la política de seguridad colectiva, y principalmente para Francia. Ya en tiempo oportuno, adelantándonos a los acontecimientos, hicimos observar a nuestros lectores que cuando se hiciera sentir de modo más efectivo la iniciativa francesa en la política que hasta el presente se ha dirigido desde Londres, Italia y Alemania encontrarían más dificultades para el desarrollo de su abominable y sangriento chantaje." from Spanish for me? Had a go on Google translate, it it's struggling with the long sentences. I know the gist but would like to add it to an article (or some of it). Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 00:43, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

That second paragraph has some oddities to it that I can't quite figure out, so this probably doesn't help all that much:

La Conferencia de Nyon ha sido un éxito para la política de seguridad colectiva, y principalmente para Francia.

The Nyon Conference has been a success for the politics/policy of collective security, and mainly to/for France.

Ya en tiempo oportuno, adelantándonos a los acontecimientos, hicimos observar a nuestros lectores que cuando se hiciera sentir de modo más efectivo la iniciativa francesa en la política que hasta el presente se ha dirigido desde Londres, Italia y Alemania encontrarían más dificultades para el desarrollo de su abominable y sangriento chantaje.

In appropriate/opportune time, anticipating events, we do look/observe to our readers that when the French initiative is made to feel more effective in the politics/policy which until the present/so far has been directed from London, Italy and Germany they will find more difficulties for the development of their abominable and bloody blackmail.

←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:33, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

In a suitable time, before the events, we pointed for our readers that, when French initiative could be felt in politics/the policy more effectively than what, up until now, has been directed from London, then Italy and Germany would find more difficulties in the development of their abominable and bloody blackmail.

--Error (talk) 23:26, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Disc or Disk ..?

Why is various storage devices for computers that obviously uses a "disc" spelled as "disk" like in hard disk drive ..? Electron9 (talk) 07:17, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Because the spelling with the k is equally correct, and in fact, more correct in the USA, the country that dominates the IT industry. HiLo48 (talk) 07:21, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

In Great Britain "disc" is the most correct spelling? Electron9 (talk) 07:42, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I think so. (I'm Australian. We're flexible with that word.) I recall huge debates 30 years ago with a recently arrived English colleague who insisted the Americans had it all wrong. HiLo48 (talk) 07:48, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, certain words that have different en-US and en-GB spellings in general usage retain their American spellings in an IT context. Disk is one; program is another. Even in British English, you don't write about "computer programmes". Angr (talk) 08:35, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Note that Disk (mathematics) also prefers the "k". One thing about "disk" is that "diskette" follows logically. If you say "disc", you might have to spell it "disquette". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:56, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Also note that the word origin is the Latin discus, which in turn originates from the Greek diskos.[1] I may be wrong, but I think the letter K is not used in Latin except where borrowed from elsewhere. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:58, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I thought the British convention is to use disk and program for anything computer-related (for the reasons stated by HiLo48 and Angr), and disc and programme for everything else. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 09:44, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's the usual convention in the UK. Dbfirs 10:32, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I have seen "disk" being used for floppy disks and "disc" being used for Compact Discs. At least one magazine said that the advent of CDs will mean that games will "come on discs instead of disks". JIP | Talk 11:41, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I've seen at least one U.S. style guide (I can't remember which, unfortunately) recommend that disk be used for magnetic media and disc be used for optical media. Deor (talk) 12:54, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Our Disc page would indicate that WP pretty closely follows that magnetic/optical disk/disc distinction. HiLo's original answer may reasonably explain how disk came to dominate in terms of floppy and hard disks, especially when a large part of the early development was mainly happening in the US. But then how did the Americans get rolled when optical discs came around? Maybe this simply fell out of the old Laserdisc branding, presumably a Japanese push, but still why "c"; wouldn't you think that the Japanese's translation into English would pander to their largest likely market, i.e., the US? And why is it that American's like their "k"s anyway (another word that springs to mind is skeptic/sceptic ("k" in the US, "c" in GB, Aus, etc)? Would an American pronounce disc and disk differently? --jjron (talk) 15:41, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, it's simply not the case that we in the United States prefer disk over disc in all cases. The makers of Frisbees, for instance, call them flying discs; and if memory serves, the usages of "disk jockey" and "disc jockey" used to be pretty much evenly split. We do seem to choose one spelling over the other in many specific situations, but how each usage came about may be too complex to unravel. Deor (talk) 16:07, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

The old CD logo which originated in the early 1980s or so says "Compact Disc". Regarding "sceptic", the c-before-e makes it look like it should be a homophone of "septic". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:04, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

So why is the British spelling "sceptic", then? You make it sound like the American spelling is right and the British one wrong. --Viennese Waltz 09:13, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Re the optical version of the word having a c, again delving back into memories of 1970s IT stuff in Australia, almost everything we saw was Anerican, except the first optical disks. I remember one of the first I saw had a David Attenborough nature doco on it, and was clearly British. (And I believe he's STILL doing it!) HiLo48 (talk) 22:22, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Re Baseball: "sceptic", the c-before-e makes it look like it should be a homophone of "septic"; do you mean that you'd regard the first "c" as silent in "sceptic"? I don't get it. Oh, and BTW I referenced Laserdiscs as they predated CDs (although obviously far less common), however I assume the use of disc on CDs simply followed on from that earlier usage. --jjron (talk) 11:18, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

C before E is typically pronounced like an S. The word "scent", for example. (Or "silent", if you want to look at it that way. The words "scent", "sent" and "cent" are homophones.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:52, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but when you say it's "typically" pronounced that way, you're ignoring the fact that in this case it's pronounced differently. I'm merely pointing out that saying "the c-before-e makes it look like it should be a homophone of 'septic'" is a very US-centric position. --Viennese Waltz 13:05, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Are there any other British English words (besides "Celt") which have a hard-C before an E? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:35, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Well the only one I can think of is ceilidh, which is actually a Gaelic word of course. But that's not the point. When you say "the c-before-e makes it look like it should be a homophone of 'septic'", you're ignoring the fact that to British English eyes it doesn't look like that at all, because we know it's pronounced with a hard C. If you'd said "makes it look to an American...", I wouldn't be complaining. --Viennese Waltz 13:46, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Following the normal English rules, "sceptic" would be a homophone of "septic". Apparently this one is an exception within British English. I just wonder why the Brits used C in that word when K would be unambiguous to any English speaker. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:05, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what "normal rules" those are; I can't actually think of any other English words starting with "sce", except for regular variations of "sceptic". There's science, which starts with "sci", and it's true that in some contexts i after c tends to be treated similarly to e after c. --Trovatore (talk) 01:45, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

There's scent and scene(ry). HiLo48 (talk) 02:05, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

There is even one which shares the first five letters with "sceptic" but doesn't pronounce the "c": "sceptre"/"scepter". On the other hand, the "c" gets pronounced in "scedastic". ---Sluzzelin talk 02:15, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

(I've never pronounced the "c" in "scedastic". In fact, I've never pronounced "scedastic" at all.) HiLo48 (talk) 02:26, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Lo and behold, this oddity is exactly like "disc" vs. "disk". As noted in EO (which, by the way regards "sceptic" as an "also" to "skeptic"),[2] the Latin is scepticus and its Greek root is skeptikos. Given this, I supposed the Brits could feel free to spell it "discette" instead of "diskette". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:11, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

According to my French/English dictionary, the French sceptique is pronounced "septic". Imagine that. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:16, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

I think that American and British English spelling differences covers this topic nicely. Specifically, the #Different spellings for different meanings section has an entry on "disc" vs "disk". -- Erik Siers (talk) 20:13, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

This whole conversation is making me go in circles. Interchangeable|talk to me 23:42, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Find the best pronouns from the option according to the question.

1. Choose the series of pronouns that best complete the following sentence?

Don’t ------think Larry should call ----- wife if ----- is going to be late for dinner?

a) you, his, he b) we, your, his c) he, his, he d) you, his, himself — Preceding unsigned comment added by Abid rahman39 (talk • contribs) 19:02, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

There seem to be two possible answers, A and B, with A being the obvious one ("Don't we think..." is a bit of an unusual way to say "Don't you agree that.."). C is wrong because you would say "Doesn't he", not "Don't he", and D is incorrect because "if himself is going to be late" is wrong. It would need to be "if he is going to be late for dinner". (Note that I would have told you to do your own homework, if there was only one correct answer.) StuRat (talk) 19:09, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

A is better than B. B may be technically correct, or at least acceptable, but if only one answer is best, then that best answer is A. --Jayron32 19:12, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

How is B ever correct? if his is going to be late for dinner?

Meaning "his wife". Haven't you ever left words out like that: "I like my present, does Bob like his ?". StuRat (talk) 01:04, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

B still sounds really wrong to me, even though I now understand what you're saying. A is, as far as I'm concerned, the only correct choice. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 05:01, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

B sounds wrong to me, but mainly for "Don't we think ...". That is possible, but you'd need quite an odd context for it to work. Then it switches from 1st person plural (Don't we think) to 2nd person singular (Larry should call your wife), so just who the speaker is talking to is most unclear. It's rubbish English. C and D are out. So, StuRat, there is only one correct answer, and you'd have been within your rights to tell the OP to do their own homework. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 05:29, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

So you've changed your mind since your first post ? I still say, while unusual, B isn't actually wrong. StuRat (talk) 23:08, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

[3]. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 05:55, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Choose the best way of asking questions on the Wkipedia Reference Desk:

• a) your way
• b) by doing your own homework, and only if you're stuck, and you can show what efforts you've put in so far, ask here for help with the remainder of the question. But when you do ask, ask politely, don't just issue commands. We are people, not machines.

Hint: I'd be giving b) serious consideration, but it's your call. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 19:14, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Furthermore, it should be "do you not think". Very few people know that "not" goes after the pronoun. Interchangeable|talk to me 20:05, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

To what register are you referring? In any variety of English known to me, "don't you think" is completely normal and completely acceptable, while "do you not think" is somewhat formal, probably over-formal for most uses. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 22:55, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

If "very few people know" a supposed rule about the usage of a widely-spoken language, then it is ipso facto not a rule about that language. See linguistic description. --ColinFine (talk) 01:00, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

@Jack of Oz, maybe questions from tests are rude, but that's the way they are. If you mean you'd like the OP to be more tactful, well, of course, why not? Maybe tests need to treat students like people not robots, but I guess that's not gonna happen. Manytexts (talk) 10:10, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Politeness never goes astray, and if you come out of university with every degree under the sun but still don't act politely, your education has failed you. The lack of it in this case does not just reveal the OP to be the product of a rude education; it betrays that they have handpassed their test question across to us, holus bolus. The point being that people engaged in study ought not be posing their test or assignment questions here, without at least showing they've given it the good ol' college try themselves first. Someone who asks a question here in the exact form it was asked of them in the test, imperative mood and all, has not even tried to answer the question, which is supposed to be their way of demonstrating to their examiners that they understand what's been taught to them. They're defrauding their teachers, but most importantly, they're defrauding themselves, and we ought not be complicit in such things. Hence our stated policy of not doing people's homework for them. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 12:04, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I completely agree, and have felt the same way already in my school days. Even the ancient Romans said "Non scholae, sed vitae discimus". The point in going to school is not to get good grades. It's to actually learn stuff. Sooner or later people will end up in situations where they're expected to really know all this stuff. If they have spent all their school days simply copy&pasting answers from other people without even bothering to try to understand any of them, what are they going to do? Keep posting on Wikipedia, but this time asking people to do their job for them? JIP | Talk 21:48, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

In Hiberno-English, negative questions of the form "Do you not..." instead of "Don't you..." are quite colloquial, not necessarily formal at all. Angr (talk) 12:51, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

The English word for a 'given name for everyday use'

Hi,

My parents have given me three given names (which appear on my identity papers), and a different name for everyday use. This practice happens more often in The Netherlands, see Dutch names. However, how can I put this situation in written English? Is there a word in English for such an 'everyday use' name?

SietskeEN (talk) 22:10, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Nickname? Hot Stop ^UTC 23:00, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

There's not an exact English-language term. It's generally in official or semi-official documents/forms/etc referred to as "the name you are known by" or a little less formally "the name you like to be called". In other circumstances politely ask to be called whatever you like, and people will be a little confused but will usually obey. Words such as hypocorism, nickname, diminutive cover some cases but perhaps not every case. --Colapeninsula (talk) 02:57, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

The English phrase for, say, German call names, would be call name.... - Nunh-huh 03:17, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

In some English forms they have "Name you would like to be called by" WhisperToMe (talk) 08:48, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

I have often seen it put as "Preferred name". A nationally sold computer database program I use has this terminology (First name, Preferred name, Surname - the preferred name doesn't have to be an actual 'real' name), and you can then choose whether to use the first name or preferred name in the name fields when using your data. I'm sure I've seen it used elsewhere too. --jjron (talk) 11:03, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

I've used "usual name" on forms, but it's not standard. Dbfirs 11:05, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for all your suggestions! As I understand, there is no English word that entirely covers "roepnaam", but "preferred name" seems to come pretty close. I'll use that one from now on, then. SietskeEN (talk) 20:18, 29 December 2011 (UTC)