Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 May 30

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May 30

Possessive apostrophe at the end of sentence

I am currently reviewing "Phidippus clarus". This article includes the sentence "Like other jumping spiders, it has vision more acute than a cat's and 10 times more acute than a dragonfly's." Is the grammar used appropriately? Could it be improved? Axl ¤ [Talk] 09:56, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Looks fine to me, but could probably be rewritten to avoid the awkward apostrophes. --TammyMoet (talk) 10:15, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. My suggestion was "Like other jumping spiders, its vision is more acute than a cat and 10 times as acute as a dragonfly." However this was not accepted by the main editor. Perhaps you could you give me a suggestion please? Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:32, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

In your sentence, apostrophes are necessary ("its vision is more acute than a cat's [is], and 10 times as acute as a dragonfly's [is].") However, they _aren't_ necessary in the original sentence ("it has vision more acute than a cat [has], and 10 times more acute than a dragonfly [has]" - you can't eliminate them from your sentence in the same way (¶"its vision is more acute than a cat [is]"). I would also change "10" to "ten" (supported by WP:MOS, but not (explictly) by WP:ORDINAL), assuming it's just an approximate value. If it's not approximate, the corresponding figure for the cat should be included. Tevildo (talk) 10:46, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Here is an alternative: "Like other jumping spiders, its vision is more acute than that of a cat, and ten times more acute than that of a dragonfly." --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:33, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the proper use of the apostrophe--it just frightens those not sure of its proper use. But KageTora's solution "that of a cat" is perfectly cromulent.μηδείς (talk) 19:56, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

I vote to keep the apostrophes. That version is more concise than KageTora's. Damn, I was hoping cromulent had a more evil meaning. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:14, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the current version is just as cromulent--in fact, it embiggens us not to engage in avoision of our native Anglo-saxonisms. μηδείς (talk) 22:23, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Of the opinions above, I agree most strongly with TammyMoet's. (Is that too strained a way to make my point? ;-) ) HiLo48 (talk) 22:31, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

"Native Anglo-saxonisms", Medeis? The peoples of Britain had native languages before the Angles and the Saxons ever arrived. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 22:13, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

So your point is that we are speaking y Gymraeg with its genitive in apostrophe-ess? μηδείς (talk) 22:23, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Is that the wife of an apostrophe? :) Reminds me of Zorba the Greek: Am I not a man? And is a man not stupid? I'm a man, so I married. Wife, children, house, everything. The full catastrophe. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 23:31, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree with others who said that the sentence is fine as written. The particular rule at work here is ellipsis. The sentence as written is a perfectly acceptable shortening of the full sentence "Like other jumping spiders, it has vision more acute than a cat's [vision] and 10 times more acute than a dragonfly's [vision]." (Although for maximum parallelism try "Like other jumping spiders, its vision is more acute than a cat's and 10 times more acute than a dragonfly's.") KageTora's "that of a" rephrasing is acceptable too, although a little wordy for my taste. The big issue with your "than a cat" construction is that it's comparing the vision of the jumping spider to the cat itself (rather than the vision of a cat). -- 140.142.20.229 (talk) 23:22, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid that I don't agree that your parenthetical version has improved parallelism. It appears to compare other jumping spiders with its vision, which is problematic because its vision is not a jumping spider. --Trovatore (talk) 22:16, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Translation: Mandarin to English

Can someone please translate the Mandarin text on the following three pages, or at least provide the general sense of what is being said?

• 中山大学图书馆 - 首 页 (including the floating text at the left-hand side of the page)
• 中山大学图书馆数字资源服务系统满意度和需求调查 - nQuestion网题
• nQuestion网题 - 在线调查系统

—Wavelength (talk) 16:43, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

You do, of course, know that Google Translate will, if you're lucky, give you a "general sense" of what is being said? 86.179.112.237 (talk) 17:21, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

I can't open the first link, but judging by the title and the URL it's the website of the Sun Yat-sen University library. The second link is a service satisfaction survey for the same library, and the third link is the website hosting that survey (a general website for creating web-based surveys, similar to Qualtrics or SurveyMonkey. rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:44, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much.—Wavelength (talk) 18:42, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Online reference desks

The following web page has a list of 20 links.

• Multilinguale Auskunft - Partnerbibliotheken der Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin

I have ascertained the following information.

• The sixth link is to a reference desk in French, with options in English and Spanish.
• The seventh link is to a reference desk in Vietnamese, with an option in English.
• The ninth link is to a reference desk in Finnish, with options in English and Swedish.
• The tenth link is to a reference desk in English. The website is in Slovenia.
• The 14th link is to a reference desk in Hungarian.
• The 19th link is to a page which reports a 404 error. The main page (web address to the first virgule) is redirected to a Chinese web page which is not a reference desk and which does not link to a reference desk. (See #Translation: Mandarin to English.)

In the list of 20 links, is there any other link to a reference desk or to a web page which has a link to a reference desk?
—Wavelength (talk) 19:33, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

The third link is to a web page which has a (drop-down-menu-hidden) link to a reference desk in Spanish.

• BCLM Servicios en linea. Pregunta al bibliotecario

—Wavelength (talk) 22:51, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

What does this Chinese say?

Hi. I already know some Chinese from studying it at uni, but I cant read the script My friend asked me to translate the text in this image, and I think I could if it were transcribed into print/"block" Chinese, I would like to give it a go to test my Chinese so if someone could please transcribe this that would be much appreciated. (I will be back to ask someone to check my translation ;) thx PS IF YOU need my Email it is(email deleted) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.128.95.0 (talk) 20:07, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

The image can be found at this blog. The page is about the upcoming Chinese New Year and Chinese calligraphy. It seems to me the letters on the bottom of the fourth line from right are 生死仰, but being a poor reader of cursive script (East Asia), I am not sure. You can ask the blogger to transcribe the writing. Oda Mari (talk) 08:20, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

怒髮衝冠，憑欄處、潚潚雨歇；抬望眼、仰天長嘯，壯懷激烈。 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.22.126.206 (talk) 11:22, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

This is the Ci All are red in the River by General Yue Fei, Song Dynasty. Possible one of the most well known ci.--刻意(Kèyì) 11:26, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

It was him playing

Here's a sentence I came across @ The Pianist (2002 film):

• In order for Brody's playing to look like it was at the level of Władysław Szpilman's, he spent many months prior to and during the filming practicing so that his keystrokes on the piano would convince viewers that it was him playing.

Now, that sounds quite natural, to me at least. Some might prefer the final 4 words to be "it was he who was playing", and I might have chosen that version myself if I'd written it, but I see no justification for changing it. Other than a different construction altogether, those two versions seem to be the only valid options. We could not have "it was him who was playing", or, except pedantically, "it was he playing".

Am I right about this? That the case of the pronoun can validly change depending on the precise construction, even though both are governed by the verb "was"? -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 23:43, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

That reminds me of a discussion about sentences like "It's me".

And it reminds me of the pronom tonique in French. -- Irene1949 (talk) 00:11, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I actually think that putting a pronoun (any pronoun) in that position creates some ambiguity. Was Brody trying to convince viewers that Brody was playing or that Szpilman was playing? (I suppose that the writer meant Brody, but it's not entirely clear.) I would sidestep the question of pronoun choice and eliminate the ambiguity by replacing the pronoun with the appropriate surname. Marco polo (talk) 00:21, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Pedantry would insist that only "he" is correct - see subject complement. However, "it was he playing" or "the player was he" do sound very unnatural, and might be considered incorrect for that reason. What's wrong with "convince viewers that he was playing", incidentally? Tevildo (talk) 00:31, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Nothing, except that would fall into one of those "different construction[s] altogether" I referred to. I was limiting this to "it was <...> playing". -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 01:43, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Excuse my possibly sinking in well over my head, but is this not a gerund? Or would that require it to say his playing? Also, last time I looked at the subject complement article, it said that it was he playing was only correct based on outdated attempts to apply Latin grammar to English, which would suggest it isn't pedantically correct, to me. You can simply out-pedant anyone who 'corrects' you based on their outdated notions of grammar :P 86.164.164.27 (talk) 12:55, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, "his playing" would be the correct gerund construction. (I have to link this here). But the answer to Jack's original question will depend on our definition of "validly". If "valid" means "what English speakers actually say", "it was him" is valid. If it means "what prescriptive grammarians would prescribe", it isn't. Tevildo (talk) 21:14, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm. It might meet the technical definition of a gerund, but "it was his playing" seems to answer the question "Whose playing was that - Szpilman's or his (Brody's)?" (A. "It was his playing"), whereas there isn't even a question being asked here. The idea is that viewers would be so convinced from the outset that Brody was doing the playing that they would never question it. Except maybe from the angle that they'd never heard of Brody being such a fantastic pianist and how come he didn't make his career in music rather than in acting.

Although I started off by saying the sentence as it stands reads quite well and doesn't need any tinkering, I'm considering changing the ending to "would convince viewers that Brody himself was playing". That touches on the normal distinction between an actor and his subject, which is that he is pretending to be and have the same skills as the subject, but we all know there's a smoke and mirrors game going on. Here, Brody was attempting to blur the lines, to the point that viewers would actually believe he plays as well as Szpilman did. They'd be thinking it's not a recording of Szpilman's performance we're hearing here, it's Brody himself playing. That's the whole point of the sentence, and I think it merits the reflexive construction. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 21:58, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

And thank you for the opportunity to think this through. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 12:11, 1 June 2011 (UTC)