Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 May 27

Language desk
< May 26	<< Apr | May | Jun >>	May 28 >

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

May 27

a "safe" conviction

Quoted in the Wikinews article: ""We do not know whether Davis was guilty or not, but his conviction cannot be said to be safe," Hughes concluded." What does the word safe mean in this context? Is this a general legalese term or only a British English one? Rmhermen (talk) 18:11, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I have heard it in Australian legal discussion too, and since our law is very derivative of British law, that's no surprise. HiLo48 (talk) 18:59, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

This terminology does not seem to be used in U.S. law. The corresponding U.S. term seems to be valid. In British terms, a "safe" conviction is one based on true, acceptable, and adequate evidence. Any conviction for which the evidence is judged not to meet those criteria can be judged "unsafe". Marco polo (talk) 19:02, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

It's not necessarily about the evidence. A safe conviction is one that has little or no chance of being overturned on appeal. Appeals can be allowed for a range of reasons, including inadequate evidence, or new evidence, or the jury not being instructed properly, or various other things. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 19:53, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I lack expertise on this, so I was relying on the second definition from the top of unsafe here and assuming that, in this case, safe is the antonym of unsafe. Marco polo (talk) 21:22, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

"Safe" in this context isn't being used in a particular legal sense - the judge was explaining the role of the Court of Appeal in criminal cases. The appeal court doesn't decide whether the prisoner is innocent or guilty - that's the function of the trial court. Their decision is based on whether the _conviction_ - the verdict reached by the trial court - is safe. It may be unsafe for various reasons, including (as in Davis's case) procedural irregularity, even though it's virtually certain (as in Davis's case) that the prisoner actually committed the crime. He didn't get a fair trial, therefore the verdict was _unsafe_, even though it was probably _accurate_. Tevildo (talk) 10:22, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Which explanation sounds like a particularly legal sense and a particularly British one! Rmhermen (talk) 13:08, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

I'll take that as a compliment. :) Considered _purely_ from a legal perspective, "safe" means "not liable to be overturned by the Court of Appeal", which isn't particularly informative. But it was chosen by the legislature as a neutral word, as opposed to "unfair" or "wrong" or "unjust" or "invalid" or something similar, to make it clear (to a lawyer, at least) that the court (a) wasn't restricted to the _purely_ legal aspects of the case, so that it didn't have to overturn convictions on technicalities, and could hear appeals if new facts came to light even if the procedure followed by the trial court was impeccable, and (b) didn't have to re-try the accused and determine if he was guilty for themselves, but just assess the way in which the trial court dealt with the case. Tevildo (talk) 20:39, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Need help with Arabic reference

I have a source I think might tell me a little history about the establishment of the Royal Hospital in Baghdad, for an article about the Garden of Ridván, Baghdad, which went up on DYK recently. I've tried Google Translate and the PDF copies over all wrong (boxes, etc), so that won't work. Can anyone who can read the PDF tell me if it mentions dates or other major details for the establishment of the Royal Hospital and further hospitals on the site, and, if so, what are they? Many thanks. --dragfyre_ʞןɐʇc 18:56, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Identifying mystery language, Part 2 (Ewe?)

This is a continuation of an earlier question I asked about a song written in a "mystery language" that a friend asked me to help identify; due to a delay, the previous question slipped off into obscurity. Here's a rough phonetic transcription of the lyrics of the song:

Miva, miva, novia miva, miva; Miva oteka plemi. (x2)

Elabena Baha'u'llah, chosia evado; Miva oteka plemi. (x2)

Here's the audio of the song:

Based on the word "elabena", which means "because" in Ewe, I looked up an Ewe vocabulary, and pieced together a possible meaning out of the sounds:

Mí va, mí va, nɔvi á mí va, mí va; mí va (wo ɖeka?) kplé mí.

We come, we come, siblings, we come, we come; we come, they are one with us.

Élabéná Baha'u'llah, (tsó síá Eʋeawo?); mí va (wo ɖeka?) kplé mí.

Because of Baha'u'llah, all the Ewe people come; we come, they are one with us.

Since my friend and the ones who taught her the song are active in Baha'i choirs, we strongly believe it's a Baha'i religious song, which means "Baha'u'llah" is correctly used as a proper name. I'm not an expert in Ewe by any means, so the rest of this (ad hoc and totally uninformed) translation might be completely off. It does sound vaguely like some of the African Baha'i folk songs I've heard. Still, I'd like to know if anyone out there can confirm whether what I've come up with makes some sense. To those out there who are familiar with Ewe or Gbe languages, what do you think? Does the translation I've given have a snowball's chance in hell of being correct? --dragfyre_ʞןɐʇc 19:26, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Your best bet might be to contact a Baha'i organization in one of the countries where Ewe is spoken. --Cam (talk) 11:29, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Suspicious usages

The word "suspicious" can be used in 2 related but different ways. When an event is suspicious, it's negative; but when people are suspicious of that event, it's positive. An example:

• Police are investigating a suspicious house fire at 9 Elm Grove that left a family homeless.

'Suspicious' here has a negative connotation, that this is not just some accident but some untoward human intervention is believed to be at play.

• Police are suspicious about the house fire at 9 Elm Grove that left a family homeless.

'Suspicious' here is more positive. The police are not just taking the fire at face value but are getting to the bottom of what really happened. They're doing their job, which is a good thing, even if the fire itself is not.

I'm looking for some other good examples of words that can be used in the same or similar contexts, in different ways, and be at different places on the positive-negative scale depending on how they're used. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 20:32, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Cynical comes to mind. "He was cynical about the Isotopes' chance of reaching the playoffs" (simply pessimistic, perhaps by disposition), vs "The congressman proposed an amendment to the must-pass bill in a cynical attempt to curry favor with his constituency" (showing contempt for integrity through one's actions). --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 00:42, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Whoops: missed the "similar context" requirement. Strike my first example, and replace it with: "He was cynical enough about the process to know that the bill had a slim chance of passing as written, this close to an election." --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 00:53, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I'll bite. "The kid was sorry and made an attempt to fix it." and "The kid made a sorry attempt to fix it." "I was in the driving rain." and "I was driving in the rain." "His wife was mad and told him not to do that again." and "His mad wife told him not to do that again." Falconus^{p t c} 04:25, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Two that come immediately to mind are "repute" and "plausible". "The reputed Picasso is being examined by a reputable expert." "Mr Smith is a plausible speaker, but Mr Jones, although his presentation was less polished, has the only plausible solution to the problem." Tevildo (talk) 10:34, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

"She was dubious her softball pitching record would help her land a contract extension"/"She held the dubious record of most batters hit in a single season" --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 16:54, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

It might interest you to know that I started a blog to list words you can never use, for a very similar (but not quite the same) reason. But I decided people wouldn't "get" it, and so I abandoned the project. However, I do quietly have a list of words - and constructions, grammar, punctuation, etc, and contexts that I can never use, despite the fact that they are very clear, which you would probably be interested in if I got around to recording it. "Dubious" is, actually, on that list. So is "plausible" and "arguable". And top word on that list? Hopefully. If you Google how to use "hopefully" correctly, you will note that the top hit can't bring itself to do use hopefully at all! Literally is another such word. Relax, I didn't just use the word at all. 188.157.175.85 (talk) 18:01, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

"You're supposed to lock the front gate when you leave!"/"You're supposed to have locked the front gate when you left?" --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 23:36, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for all the suggestions, good poeple. I particularly like a couple of them. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 20:13, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Addressing the original question, it is not a valid distinction in meaning, but is just bad usage. Suspicious should only be used of conscious entities. A house fire can be suspect. For it to be suspicious would mean that it had a mind and suspected the owner of deserving to lose his home, or the like. μηδείς (talk) 03:15, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that. So, by "conscious entities", do you really mean "humans"? I'm not sure we're able to say that cats, dogs, elephants or worms exhibit suspicion. Curiosity, caution, tentativity, instinct - yes. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 20:13, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I said conscious because that is the relevant property of humans which allows them to be suspicious. Fires would be able to be suspicious too--if they were spohisticated-enough conscious entities. I have no problem assigning consciousness to higher animals, and would describe a dog which has been abused and is hesitant around strangers to be suspicious. You might want to read Animals in Translation if that interests you. μηδείς (talk) 20:23, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Chinese language help

Regarding the sentences:

• Second page of http://www.asc.gov.tw/downfile/SQ006_CHT.pdf: "本報告一式兩份，分別以中文及英文繕寫，以英文版為" - I believe this says that English is the version that has precedence over the Chinese version, correct?
• Third page of http://www.asc.gov.tw/downfile/CI611_CHT_vol1.pdf says "本報告一式兩份，分別以中文及英文繕寫，以中文版為主" - And then this says the Chinese version has precedence over the English, right?

WhisperToMe (talk) 22:55, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

You are missing one or a few characters in the first quote, and possibly one or two in the second as well. Could you re-copy? (Accessing the internet from behind the Great Firewall atm so cannot access Taiwanese government websites.) --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:25, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I was missing one character. The first sentence is exactly "本報告一式兩份，分別以中文及英文繕寫，以英文版為準"

The second is "本報告一式兩份，分別以中文及英文繕寫，以中文版為主"

If you can't access the ASC website, I have archives at

SQ006: http://www.webcitation.org/5z1P2dYwQ

CI611 Volume 1: http://www.webcitation.org/5z1PhDcqE

WhisperToMe (talk) 16:18, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Your original translation looks right to me; "there are two transcriptions of this report, the English/Chinese version is the official one", something like that, I guess. rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:01, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

The two say different things literally. The first quote says "this report has two versions (identical in form), written in Chinese and English respectively; the English version is official", while the second one says "... the Chinese version is the principal one." But it seems like the intended meaning is the same - that the named version prevails in the case of inconsistency. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 00:52, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Objective test versus subjective test

Wikipedia doesn't appear to have articles on my definitions of these two topics:

A) Objective test = One in which all observers will reach the same conclusion.

B) Subjective test = One in which different observes will reach different conclusions.

Using chemistry examples, an objective test might be to measure the mass of a sample, using a digital scale. A subjective test might be whether the sample tastes "bitter". Wikipedia's article on the first title seems to be similar, but focusing exclusively on psychological tests. Wikipedia lacks an article on the second title. There are also articles on objectivity and subjectivity, but they seem to focus on philosophy, not science. My questions:

1) Do we have articles on the scientific usage of these terms ?

2) If I were to create them, how should I deal with the existing article at objective test ? Rename it to objective test (psychology) ? Make the new article objective test (science) ? Create a disambiguation page ? StuRat (talk) 23:29, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

This isn't trouble-free ground, you know, epistemologically. The digital scale can be wrong. Somebody might come up with reason to suspect that it was wrong (perhaps it was affected by radiation from the sample?), and then not all observers are reaching the same conclusion. Meanwhile, we read the scale using eyes, and taste the sample using tongues. There is no particular reason to say that one organ is more objective than the other. Everything is interpreted. This isn't what you asked, though. Sorry for not helping. Does "subjective test" come in for much use in scientific papers, I'd like to know?  Card Zero  (talk) 04:30, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Quantitative research and Qualitative research are probably the articles you're looking for - perhaps some redirects could usefully be created. Tevildo (talk) 10:43, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, if you create a separate article on Objective tests in general then move the current article to the redlink you suggested and create a hatnote to it. But make sure you've got several good dictionary of science refs or the like before you do so. μηδείς (talk) 20:00, 30 May 2011 (UTC)