Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 March 14

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March 14

The top of the hill was swept off

I doubt the appropriateness of "sweep" in the following sentence, but I can't think of a better verb. "According to locals, the top of the hill was swept off accidentally by an immortal with a flick of his sleeve." I need your help. Thanks a lot. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.202.187.153 (talk) 00:52, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Swept is just fine, but I would use the past perfect here: "the top of the hill had been swept off" rather than "was". The word "swept" is just fine in this context. --Jayron32 00:55, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

You're assuming that this is in the context of a fictional character's arrival in the vicinity? —Tamfang (talk) 03:54, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

"Swept away" would probably work better. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:20, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

That would invite pointless jokes, if only in the reader's mind. —Tamfang (talk) 03:54, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Too late: Will this wind be so mighty as to lay low the mountains of the arrrrrrrth? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 09:22, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

"What's that you say, Sooty, you've lost E. L. Wisty?" Martinevans123 (talk) 09:29, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry to be slow, but I don't see the joke with "swept away". What is it? 86.169.36.54 (talk) 12:35, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

To be swept away can mean to fall in love or otherwise lose one's emotional footing. —Tamfang (talk) 18:08, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

German Translation Needed

I went to Germany and bought a drink called 'Gesalzengemälztparfümiertetrinken'. What does this mean? Thank you. --Bnā We must Eashgf (talk) 13:40, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Um, it sounds like some kind of "salty malty drink". Perhaps a bit like a savory Horlicks!? Planning a new Unusual German Beverage article? Martinevans123 (talk) 14:46, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

This is probably the same person as the users Ashetuger and Ashplkoop, who posted concocted German portmanteau words here in this question and this one respectively. - Karenjc (talk) 14:54, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Shucks, and I thought they were just thirsty. They deserve a drink like that one! Martinevans123 (talk) 15:11, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Plurals of Abbreviated Words

[Moved from Science Desk!]

If the plural of 'department' is 'departments', then what is the plural of 'dept.'? 'Dept.s'? Obviously not (though my spellchecker seems to think it's OK). 'Dept.'s'? Maybe, but that looks strange, especially in the possessive plural where it would become 'dept.'s... KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:19, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

If I was writing and had to use the plural, I would spell out the entire word. Most plural abbreviations just look funky. You may get better responses at the Language desk, but I would use 'depts.' and 'depts.' ' for possessive plural. Justin15w (talk) 16:22, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! And sorry, I thought I was on the Language Desk.... my mistake. I will move it there. For any more answers, everyone, please answer here. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 17:28, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

The British English abbreviation is usually 'dept', which would give you a plural of 'depts'. Bazza (talk) 17:36, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Kage, when you think about it, depts is just as much an abbreviation as dept. Full stops, if they're used with abbreviations at all, go at the end, never internally. Just because depts contains dept, doesn't mean that the full stop remains where it originally was, after t. It gets moved to the end, where it always belongs. That's if you use them at all. (You may be getting confused with apostrophes, which are used with some abbreviations but not others, and they almost always occur internally. As for why we write dept and not dep't, search me. If we did write dep't. or dep't, we'd also write dep'ts. or dep'ts.) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:17, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Apparently dep't is sometimes used - a Google search gives lots of examples - though I don't remember ever noticing it. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 08:26, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

I've seen that before, now I come to think of it. I'd hate to see the singular possessive, though.... "the dept's' budget...". Yuck! KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:30, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

That is the singular and plural possessive combined (neat trick), but of dept, not of dep't. The singular possessive of dep't would be dep't's. The plural would be dep'ts'. Both still yuck, though. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:32, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

I didn't want my eyes to start bubbling then melting into an icky goo streaming down my cheeks onto my new shirt at the sight of such an abomination, so I deliberately spelt it wrong. Just joking, thanks for the correction. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 01:37, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

In the 19th century (especially in handwriting, rather than printed documents), they sometimes used superscripts for such a purpose: dept^s or dep^ts. Sometimes a superscript "s" could be directly above a period indicating abbreviation... AnonMoos (talk) 16:12, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Also, sometimes the superscript consonants were underlined. AnonMoos (talk) 07:03, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

That superscript above a full-stop or hyphen phenomenon I have seen in modern Japanese documents. E.g. 'No.5' becomes №5 .KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 13:22, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Units of measurement all have a recognized abbreviation. This abbreviation should never be given a suffix "s", even if a number greater than one is relevant. For example, one pound is abbreviated 1 lb and two pounds are abbreviated 2 lb. Similarly, multiple kilograms should be abbreviated kg; multiple metres should be abbreviated m; and so on. However, sadly, some authors add an "s" to indicate a number greater than one. This is particularly inappropriate in the case of pounds because the abbreviation lb is based on the latin librum or libra - in latin there is never an "s" to indicate plurality. Dolphin (t) 06:23, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

There are special cases where the letter (or final letter) is repeated: p. (page) --> pp. (pages); op. (opus) --> opp. (opuses); maybe some others. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:35, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Term for a noun that is both singular and plural

Is there a name or term for words like "fish" that have both the singular and plural meaning? Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 July 20#Moose is a nice discussion of them, but I don't see an actual label for this situation. DMacks (talk) 17:42, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't know that this has a special word; Wikipedia discusses the concept at English_plural#Nouns_with_identical_singular_and_plural, but I don't know that there is a special name for this class of plurals. --Jayron32 18:03, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

• There are various different reason this might happen, simple irregular plurals, like fish/fish and sheep/sheep, or mass nouns versus count nouns, like oats. And plurale tantum, like scissors. μηδείς (talk) 18:19, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

• See transnumeric. — kwami (talk) 20:22, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

See also zero morpheme. —Tamfang (talk) 08:05, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

I believe that the plural of shrimp is shrimp in the US, but shrimps in the UK - what is it in Oz, Canada etc. Widneymanor (talk) 10:23, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Despite a marketing campaign targeted at Americans, Australia doesn't actually have shrimp(s). We have prawns. HiLo48 (talk) 10:48, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Shrimp and prawns are different animals (and I am UK-ish, and I say 'shrimp' for the plural). KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:33, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Kinda not really. They're both vague terms, not referring to any specific species. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 18:07, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, this is one of those cases where size matters. Shrimp, apparently, are usually the smaller ones, while prawns are the larger ones. Some people, however (myself included), use the terms the other way around. In any case, there is a distinction, it's just that nobody is really sure what the distinction actually is. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 18:48, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Ah, kind of like between John Boehner and Barack Obama. μηδείς (talk) 19:30, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

No idea. We Brits don't really follow US politics. I'd never heard of him before until you wrote that. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 20:38, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia to the rescue. Barack Obama is quite a well-known person in the US, apparently. John Boehner you obviously know. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:51, 15 March 2014 (UTC) :)

No, Jack, there clearly has been a mistake here. Not only have our American friends mangled up the spelling of our language once again, but the gentleman you refer to is our president, not theirs. Apparently. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 01:29, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Why do such brainless twats achieve fame? Why does anybody ever bother to learn stuff? Our society's priorities are completely fucked, and I hereby resign. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 02:01, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Don't worry, Jack. She is probably not so brainless. My guess is, at 1:28am when the tweet was posted, she had probably just had a night out with her mate Mary Warner. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 19:36, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

One odd one is "people", which is a singular word, plural "peoples", referring to a nation or ethnic group, and at the same time has become the de facto plural of "person", with "persons" only really being used in legalese these days. --Nicknack009 (talk) 12:35, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks all! DMacks (talk) 21:11, 17 March 2014 (UTC)