Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 March 10

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March 10

Grammar exam

Fill in the blank...   

example is.. You're or Your

       never going to bed so late again. 

FILL IN THE BLANK WITH THE CORRECT WORD (there will be a space where the word you choose will go)

asking..... answer is you're?

1) never going to bed so late again. a)You're b)Your

asking....answer is their

2) house is the nicest on the block. a)They're b)Their

asking....answer is its

3)The horse is wearing blue halter today. a)it's b)its

asking....answer is were and their

4)Those clients responsible for the return of vehicles back to the service department. a)was a)their b)were b)they're

asking....answer is Have you

5) ever seen a falling star? a)Did you b)Have you c)Do you Have you

Do you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deanmorecroft (talk • contribs) 04:02, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

These are very basic English questions. Rather than us just telling you the answers, it would be better if you thought them through and tried to provide a rationale. Then we can elaborate if you make an error. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:30, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

The answers that you have given above are correct. Next time (as others have said), try to answer all of them yourself, then ask us about particular points that you do not understand. Also, it helps if you sign your posts by putting ~~~~ at the end of your questions. Lesgles (talk) 16:08, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Are the sentences below complete sentences or incomplete sentences?

write COMPLETE OR INCOMPLETE for the following ... question 1, 2, and 3

1)A hysterectomy incision.

2)The patient was started on solid food on the second day after surgery.

answer is incomplete

3)Ultrasound during this pregnancy.

See Common Errors in English Usage. -- Wavelength (talk) 06:25, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Is this a fragment, a run on or a correct sentence?

asks...........

I have listed three sentences below and need to know if number one is a fragment, run on or complete setence, if number two is a fragment, run on or complete setence and if number three is either a fragment, run on or complete setence

1) Surgery yesterday.

a)fragment b)run on c)complete

2) Her pain was evident on examination, the medication did not help her pain management.

a)fragment b)run on c)correct

3) Her pupils were reactive to light.

a)fragment b)run on c)correct — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deanmorecroft (talk • contribs) 04:37, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Again, you're trying to get us to do your studying for you. Tell us what YOU think are the right answers, and why. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:47, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

See Common Errors in English Usage. -- Wavelength (talk) 06:26, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Homework no. StuRat (talk) 09:07, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Risk Ratification

What does the term "risk ratification" mean? The two different words "risk and ratification" how are they used together in different ways. aniketnik 09:12, 10 March 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aniketnik (talk • contribs)

Do you mean risk stratification? That one gets a lot more Google hits. ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 16:18, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Arabic: Deaborn Public Schools

Does this document contain the official Arabic name for "Dearborn Public Schools"? http://dearbornschools.org/downloads/doc_view/104-oral-language-development-in-arabic

http://dearbornschools.org/downloads/doc_download/307-legal-notices-2010-arabic might contain it too

If not, I'll try to find more district documents and see if I can find it in them

Thanks, WhisperToMe (talk) 09:59, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, there are two possibilities, the first one has "مدارس ديربورن الرسمية", which is more like "Dearborn official schools" (so, public as opposed to private, I guess), and the second has "مدارس ديربورن العامة", which is maybe more literally "public schools" (although, actually, Dearborn is spelled out in English there). The first one gets only 10 hits on Google but the second has 450. Adam Bishop (talk) 10:21, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

I'll take the second option. Thank you very much! WhisperToMe (talk) 20:43, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

(Japanese) A food ingredient

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qnwfrpziykk

From the movie All About My Dog (2005) at 3:30. The story is about an ill-fated TV commercial that everyone wants to Wikify it ...

What is the third ingredient? I know the first two are Japanese beef and tuna. -- Toytoy (talk) 17:14, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

You mean にしん? My dictionary says "Pacific herring (Clupea pallasii)." -- BenRG (talk) 23:56, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Bilanz?

I came across the German word Bilanzverantwortlicher at my job recently, and thought it was a misspelling of Balanzverantwortlicher, but because my German is only fairly good, not at a native-like level, I was wary of correcting it, especially because it's a technical term. Having looked at the German Wiktionary, it appears that Bilanz is indeed correct. But why does German spell it Bilanz when most other Indo-European languages spell it with an a vowel, like the English word "balance"? JIP | Talk 19:18, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

According to Kluge's etymological dictionary, it comes from Latin bilanx. So the real question is, why don't the other languages spell it "bilance"? -- Ferkelparade π 19:24, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

French has both versions, balance and bilan. The latter was adopted from Italian along with the rise of banking in the 15th century or so. balance existed in French before that and seems to have been taken directly from vulgar Latin, french style. So, both versions come from the same Latin word, but along different routes. --Wrongfilter (talk) 20:17, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

This dictionary suggests the a instead of i in French may have been due to a contamination with the verb baller "to dangle, swing". bilan is mostly "balance sheet", and hence "assessment", while balance is the primary counterpart of "balance" in the other languages (most of which have apparently borrowed it directly or indirectly from French). Italian has the original i in bilancia "scales", bilancio "(financial) balance". It's strange, however, that Spanish also has a in balanza and balance, as does Portuguese in balança and balanço; the DRAE doesn't mention borrowing from French, and bailar doesn't look like a likely source of contamination either. And another mystery ... unsolved! --91.148.159.4 (talk) 21:49, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Oddly enough, Spanish does have the word balance, which it borrowed from French [1], but balanza comes straight from Vulgar Latin [2], as 91.148 mentioned (I included the link a second time; I couldn't get the one in 91.148's post to work). A quick check to Google Translate shows Balanţa/balansa appear in Romanian, too; Catalan: balança. Are there any Romance languages besides Italian and the French alternate that retain the high vowel [i]?--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 03:47, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Romanian uses bilanţ for the accounting balance. Balans would be balance in the sense of equilibrium, a balansa is "to balance", while balanţă would be the weighing scale. 80.123.210.172 (talk) 11:18, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Weird, weirder, weirdest. I suppose bilanţ can be understood as a loan from German or, perhaps, from the Italian accounting terminology like French bilan. balans is almost certainly from French. But there still remains balanţă, which, like Spanish balanza, seems to be the least likely to be a loan. These a versions seem to be old everywhere, except for Italian. I don't get it. --91.148.159.4 (talk) 18:45, 11 March 2011 (UTC)