User talk:Ross Burgess

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Welcome!

Hello, Ross Burgess, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!  --Flockmeal 04:31, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Ionia

Do you mean that one Ionia is spelled with an omikron and the other with an omega? If that is what you mean you should say so. If that is not what you mean you should say what you do mean. Adam 11:26, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] UK railway stations - S

Hi. I've reverted your Sanderstead edit on UK railway stations - S. Links on that page should by convention be to railway station, not town, articles. best wishes --Tagishsimon (talk)

Ditto Dolwyddelan. --Tagishsimon (talk)

[edit] Polytonic template

When you encounter polytonic Greek script, in order to get rid of the font tags, use the {{polytonic}} template instead of {{IPA}}. The reason for this is explained on Template talk:Polytonic. Thanks. Etz Haim 00:20, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Apart from a minor difference in which font is preferred over which, these templates are identical. The main advantage is the semantic markup we achieve by this, as explained on Template talk:Polytonic. Etz Haim 08:03, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Republic

Hear, hear! A superb definition of republic. Thank you! Skyring 19:47, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Greek language

Thanks for fixing my "braino" (typo of the brain). Clicked the wrong heading to edit, I guess. -leigh (φθόγγος) 07:46, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] IPA Template

Thanks for correcting my edit to International Phonetic Alphabet for English. I'd wondered why there seemed to be superflous spaces after leading slashes or square brackets, but I hadn't realised that the slashes or brackets need to be inside the IPA template not outside. I've been correcting some of my own recent edits accordingly, and put a note on Template Talk:IPA. rossb 07:07, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

No problem, Ross! I did it the "wrong" way at first too and was also annoyed by the spurious spaces. I wasn't sure putting the brackets on the inside would work, but I tried it anyway, and lo and behold! the spaces were gone. --Angr 08:06, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Christian views of homosexuality

Please look at the image description, and read the article icon! --Amys 15:42, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sampa and Banda

Thanks for the wikilinks at Nafaanra language. I wanted to say that I didn't know that there was an article on Sampa but then I saw that you created it today. I'd be curious to know in what period it was a slave market. I know that Banda was on a trans-Saharan trade route in an early period; maybe the same applies to Sampa? Regards, — mark ✎ 16:27, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Oxted line

Hi Ross. When I first considered your note I thought, What can be said about a railway station beyond that it is?; and that it is there? Then I thought to look in my reference book - Railways of the Southern Region, Geoffrey Body, PSL Field Guide 1989 - and saw that obviously quite a lot can be said! Here is what can be said - taking Oxted station as an example:


Oxted station lies on the line between South Croydon and Hurst Green Junction, 20 miles from London Bridge. It is operated by the Southern railway as part of its Redhill-Tonbridge-Oxted services.

Oxted was opened as a joint LBSCR/SER station on 10 March 1884. Two tunnels are located at each end of the station: the one-mile Oxted Tunnel at the London end; and the 551 yard Limpsfield Tunnel at the country end. Before the Uckfield branch was electrified, the two sets of diesel units operating that branch and that to East Grinstead were joined here before continuing to London.

But then I had a look at what a preview might show - and see here:

  • neither Redhill nor Tonbridge have an article on the station, in spite of them both being vital links in the railway. If they don't, then what hope is there of Lingfield and Dormans, the other two stations on the East Grinstead line, ever getting one? These articles are all littered with red like this: at least if the place name is shown you know where it is!
  • Hurst Green, in my article is a junction, not a station; and my reference to East Grinstead and Uckfield are to branches and not stations

I have been doing a number of article amendments over the months since I have been attracted to Wikipedia, many of them places in Kent. So many of those completely ignore any communication aspects (I suppose I should say Transportation (ugh!)), that it would seem a little odd to have an article on a station for a place which apparently hasn't got one! If on the other hand, place articles included a railway mention, then it really wouldn't matter how far away the station was, would it? The station is only called what it is, because of the place.

I think that what I am saying is that we shouldn't get too bogged down in trying to provide an article on every small detail. I would prefer to see this article being a comprehensive one, covering the line and its two branches and dealing within the article with the individual stations, calling them by name and thus bringing in the raison d'etre of the station. But then I am a railway buff and always think in those terms Peter Shearan 19:30, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation of Métis

Hi, Ross,

Saw your question about the pronunciation of Métis at Talk:Métis people (Canada). What problem do you see with the second pronunciation? In Canada francophones use a lot of short vowels. If it's just that the transcription was wrong, then mea culpa. Or maybe I've misunderstood second. John FitzGerald 03:25, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Incidentally, that pronunciation was introduced as the pronunciation in the varieties of French Métis actually speak. Someone removed the note about that, though.

Thanks for the note, Ross. It still might be worthwhile to add a note about the second pronunciation being the one used in the varieties of French Métis speak. For some reason European French is considered the standard (we don't do that in English, eh?). John FitzGerald 21:21, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] LB&SCR

I assume your have read Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Commas. However I will support your change if some American pedant tries to reverse things. -- RHaworth 08:57, 2005 Mar 6 (UTC)

[edit] Need Help

The article vanavsos is up for deletion. Can you please help in this regard. Second, I am having difficulty with Wikinfo:Classical definition of republic and am having trouble on Talk:Republic because they won't allow an external link. It was deleted off of Wikipedia, and I believe it needs to come back on. A serious mistake in deleting this article. Thanks for your time.WHEELER 18:26, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] ß

Oops -- take a look under Kra (letter). Jpatokal 10:34, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Viet phono

Hi. I have deleted the old HCMC consonant chart & replaced it the a new one (motivated by yr comment): Vietnamese_phonology#Ho_Chi_Minh_City. Peace. — ishwar  (SPEAK) 22:23, 2005 Mar 22 (UTC)

[edit] Polytonic Greek

I saw you had put polytonic Greek into the article on arete. Unfortunately, this makes the wiki-code difficult to read (though it makes the article more precise). Is there any way to spell things out with &alpha AND put the diacritical marks in? WhiteC 01:35, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I agree the reader is more important. Is there an easy way to type it in without looking up unicodes manually? What sorts of references are there for this? WhiteC 13:04, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Yes, it is perfectly OK to use {{polytonic|α}} etc. However, there are two problems: 1) there are no named entities for characters with diacritics (e.g. alpha with an acute accent); 2) if you type Greek directly into the edit box using a Greek mapping for your keyboard (on Windows, you can set this up from Control Panel/Keyboard/Input Locales), it gets translated into the numerical entities. I suppose someone should write a robot to clean things like that up until the Wikimedia software can be improved.... --Macrakis 05:57, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks - just people like User:Angr irritate me - like World Book, Encarta, Britannica et al Wikipedia will eventually come to be used as a source for school projects and reports so it should be friendly and accessible to less educated people as Jim and Adam advocated and i agreed. PMA 10:22, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hebrew alphabet

Just a quick note to say thanks for cleaning up the table and catching the substitution errors ** <-> || at Hebrew alphabet. Is the table better than the bullet point list, do you think? -- ALoan (Talk) 20:11, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Aleph (letter) etc

Thanks for your work on the Semitic alphabet entries. I was wondering why you included two font variants for the Hebrew letters. The differences are not large and don't cover the (huge) range of variation if you include cursive forms, etc. I think one variant (choose a font -- or better a list of fonts) should be enough. Also, I have begun to add the Arabic versions of the Semitic letters (see vav). The names and phonetic values are very close; the graphic forms often interestingly different.... --Macrakis 05:50, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Modern Greek

Hey Ross! i wanna say i appreciate your great work in Modern Greek! Thanks! :) Project2501a 10:57, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Greeks

This was a simultaneous editing conflict; my (somewhat fancier) fix of Graeco was being done while you fixed it. Please look at the section on Greek identity and see if it needs anything. Septentrionalis 17:03, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Yog(h)urt

As I haven't visited the UK for 10 years, do all of the yoghurt products in the UK now use the "yogurt" spelling on their labels, or is it just a small number of them? Also, do you think the spelling of the yoghurt article should be changed? – AxSkov (T) 14:20, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Transliteration of Greek

Hi! I see you've been working on the Greek alphabet a lot. I started a discussion about transliteration of modern Greek on Talk:Greece, and copied and expanded your transliteration chart to Transliteration of Greek into English. My goal is a standard transliteration for modern Greek geographic and personal names in Wikipedia. Do you have any suggestions? Markussep 00:10, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] On the Greek language

From what I've noticed, you're probably the only person who's seriously interested on this topic. In my opinion the current state of the 'Greek language'-related articles is rather amateurish and unscientific, mainly for the reason that the documentation of the entire Greek language is badly summarised into few, poor articles, unlinked to each other. My idea is to expand this topic into a greater number of well-organised and well-written articles that will efficiently link to each other. For example the main article Greek language would be a short article, whose main purpose would be to provide links to each of the 5 periods of the Greek language, and eventually to the History of the Greek language. For each of its links, it should provide a brief description. On the next level, each period of the Greek language would link to its subsequent dialects. The dialect articles will be the lowest nodes of the tree (unless we later wish to expand it with their idioms), therefore this is where most of documentation will be concentrated (brief historical + analytical linguistic analysis). I would like you to help me create this skeleton, by cleaning-up the Greek language article and linking the periods of the Greek language, which in turn would link to their subsequent dialects. I will then improve or clean-up (if necessary) the linguistic dialect article-specific information. Let me know of your opinion. Miskin


My idea of a skeleton would be a tree with the article Greek Language as a root node, and the period-specific dialect articles as root nodes. We could also add on the second level a branch for proto-Greek. The history of the Greek language would be linked by most articles, so there's no reason to include it in the tree. Initially the only periods that will be divived into multiple dialects would be Classic and Modern Greek. The rest of the periods are less documented and dominated by a single dialect.

                                 Greek Language     
     ____________________________________|_________________________________________
    |                  |                 |                     |                   |

Mycenaean Greek Classic Greek Hellenistic Greek Medieval Greek Modern Greek

      |          _________|________ _______ . . .
      .         |         |        |       |
      .     Attic Ionic Doric Aeolic...
      .

Miskin 15:15, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)


Thank you. I need your support against the people who might initially try to revert out of ignorance. Since you're the only person who shows a constant interest on those articles, I also needed your permission. Don't worry about the content of the articles, I will try to provide some decent information myself, it might however take some time until I translate into English from French and Greek. Thanks again. Miskin 13:21, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hi. It was me who differentiated Mycenaean Greek from the rest of the periods of the Greek language, accidently as an anonymous user. I thought it would be more precise because most scholars regard Ancient Greek (Archaic and Classic) as the 1st stage. Mycenaean Greek is hardly documented and is generally categorised seperately, as one of the early stages of the Greek language (such as Proto-Greek). It's probably because they are both placed before the creation of the Greek alphabet, which marks the beginning of a continuous documented history of the language. There's no documented evolution between Proto-Greek, Mycenaean Greek and Ancient Greek. I think we should change it back because I've already started afew articles referring on four stages. We can always include it in italic for more information on Greek prior to the creation of the Greek alphabet see articles... as I did earlier. Cheers. Miskin 30 June 2005 17:29 (UTC)

Yes I know that I initially agreed to include it, but later I figured out why it's being differentiated. There's not a documented continuity between Mycenaean and the Archaic Greek language. Like proto-Greek, it's only recognisable as an early Greek language and not a stage on its evolution like Ancient Greek and Hellenistic Greek do. For what we know the Mycenaean language might have been a mere dialect of Greek during the Mycenaean Age and not a representative one (like Koine Greek is to Hellenistic. The most important element is the fact that it dates before the creation of the Greek alphabet. I think that every time we refer to the periods of the Greek language, it's best to mention the four stages and then provide a reference in Italic to Proto-Greek and Mycenaean, as the early Greek languages. In case you're interested to have a look, the articles I'm working on at the moment are Ancient Greek and Koine Greek. Miskin 1 July 2005 16:04 (UTC)

[edit] Titanic

Though I would post here as well as the reference desk as the question is a little old now.

Robert Ballard in his book The Discovery of the Titanic says that there are too many variables but it may have reached 25-30mph and depending how quickly it reached that speed it may have taken as little as six minutes to travel the 12,460 feet. MeltBanana 4 July 2005 22:54 (UTC)

[edit] Nelson

Thanks for your reply re Lord Nelson. I knew he had only one eye and simply presumed that he wore an eyepatch. PedanticallySpeaking 15:13, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hebrew alphabet

Some nice work on orthography and especially phonetics; sputnikcccp has been doing some work on a more standardised form. It probably needs a little more work, but he should have moved them to the pages by now. See it at User:Sputnikcccp/Hebrew_Alphabet. --jnothman talk 23:04, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:WikiProject Hebrew languages

Although it's been fairly inactive, I thought you might want to join this project. --jnothman talk 02:19, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:WikiProject Hebrew languages

Although it's been fairly inactive, I thought you might want to join this project. --jnothman talk 02:19, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation

Hi Ross, thanks for your note about IPA vs SAMPA. I didn't know there was a move to phase out SAMPA. It's not that I've got anything against IPA at all, in fact for my own purposes I'd much rather have it than anything else, but I feel SAMPA is more practical for web pages where nothing fancy is needed, just a simple broad transcription. I'm still having trouble getting IPA to display on my browser (not to mention that of other people's computers I might use) and I'm sure most people glancing at an entry will just give up when they see a string of non-appearing characters. I myself am too lazy to make much effort in that department -- when I see an entry that could do with some phonetics, I simply can't be bothered to go to the lengths of adding "proper" IPA phonetics, when SAMPA seems so much easier. Not a commendable attitude perhaps, but life is short. SAMPA is so delightfully straightforward and low-tech, unlike these exotic characters that cause such problems going from one platform to another. Also I'm very aware that even people with some background in languages are woefully ignorant of IPA. OK, that's a problem for SAMPA too, and of course you're right that not many people will be familiar with SAMPA and not with IPA, but it does look slightly less like double-Dutch to the uninitiated. I do sometimes attempt some kind of re-spelling ("Mickey Mouse phonetics") but of course they are often hopelessly ambiguous -- though I often feel that to give everyone a vague idea how something is pronounced is better than to give 2% of readers a precise idea. If there has to be a choice, that is -- surely there should be room for both, or all three: fuh-NET-iks, f@"nEtiks and (here goes) fəˈɛtɪks. No, I thought it was going to work but it didn't. Or did it? Not at this end. BTW, could you explain how to use the template you metioned? Flapdragon 16:35, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Aha! Thanks for your help. Flapdragon 18:24, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Ancient Greek pronunciation - NPOV issue

Hello Ross, I want to warn you that User:Thrax is falsifying the page Ancient Greek pronunciation with unscientific non-NPOV statements that the pronunciation of Classical Greek was the same as that of Modern Greek. I am sure that, some day, he will do the same with the page Modern Greek. I urge you to participate in the debate: Talk:Ancient Greek pronunciation and voice your opinion. Maybe there some other users who are intereste in this. Andreas 19:24, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for participating. There is a particular point where I would like to know your opinion. User:Thrax tries to convince Wikipedia readers that Greek linguists as a whole share his opinion that the mediae were fricatives already in archaic times etc. What we would need is reference to Greek sources regarding the classical pronounciation of classical Attic Greek, in particular the consonants. Apart from scolarly works in Greek, this would also include contributions of Greek linguists in international scientific journals and at international conferences that cover the subject of classical Greek phonology. Andreas 20:26, 12 November 2005 (UTC) Andreas 20:43, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
Ross, Thrax continues his campaign on Ancient Greek pronunciation, following the strategy of the creationists: claiming that the Modern Greek pronunciation is an 'alternate theory'. But he has not been able to show any evidence that anyone but Caragounis subscribes to it. And he does not respond to rational argumentation.... What a waste of time! --Macrakis 21:47, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for alerting me that there is a mediatin going on for Ancient Greek phonology. This is too early: we are still missing important evidence. I would like to consult the following sources:

Ανδριώτης Ν., Ιστορική γραμματική της αρχαίας ελληνικής. Μέρος Α': Φωνητική (πανεπιστημιακές παραδόσεις), Θεσσαλονίκη 1969

Συμεωνίδης Χ., Ιστορική γραμματική της αρχαίας Ελληνικής. Μέρος Α': Φωνητική (πανεπιστημιακές παραδόσεις), Εκδοτικός Οίκος Αφών Κυριακίδη, Θεσσαλονίκη 1989.

I cannot get hold of these publications because I Iive in Montreal and they are not in the McGill library. Somebody living in Greece should be able to get these sources. My opinion is that the mediation should be put on hold (why the rush?) until we definitely know what Greek linguists teaching at the major Greek universities have to say. This is the reason why the discussion has dried up. Andreas 00:28, 20 November 2005 (UTC)


Hello Ross, perhaps you might be interested to know that I have posed a question in Talk:List of Greek words with English derivatives

Also, a late answer: 10:35, 16 September 2005 Ross Burgess (→Α - Deleted "angelical" (is there such a word?)

Apparently there is an entry "angelical" in Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition, by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. [1]

thanks, --Odysses 13:08, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] digraphs in Greek

I'm glad you caught my sloppy statement about digraphs in Greek. I guess it didn't seem bizarre to me because I was thinking of Ancient Greek when I wrote it (don't know any Modern). Your correction highlights the fact that it's not alphabets or languages that have digraphs, but the combination of a language and an alphabet and a transcription system. Which I guess is what one calls a written language. So it's probably not sufficient to say e.g. Cyrillic doesn't have digraphs. Anyway, I was out on a limb when I wrote that whole paragraph, so thanks for fixing it up. -lethe talk 02:48, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Isthmian explanation

Thank you at last. Long have I speculated that it was because of the isthmus that is the SE of England. Cutler 01:26, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Image Tagging Image:Dolwyddelan castle.jpg

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[edit] Greek in Aramaic of Jesus (moved from User page)

Ross, the additions you are making to the Aramaic of Jesus article may not be in line with the manual of style, and some of the "corrections" to the Greek you're making aren't what are generally accepted by Greek scholars (and in many cases are minority readings). I have already brought this to the attention of Gareth Huges, one of the local moderators, but for now I ask you to put a hold on further revisions. --[[User:The_Thadman|Steve Caruso] 23:54, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Just noted your comment on this. I imagine you're referring mainly to the readings that show ει rather than ι. These are as given in my new testament(British and Foreign Bible Society, Second Edition, 1958) and my "Pocket Lexicon of the New Testament" (Oxford, 1916) - but I'd be interested to see evidence to the contrary. By the way - I note you added your comments to my user page rather than the related talk page, whic would have been more usual, and would have alerted me to your comments more quickly! --rossb 00:10, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
Ross, I apologize for posting this on your main User page. I thought I was in the User_talk namespace (an embarassing mistake)! Peace, --Steve Caruso 01:35, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
Does the Pocket Lexicon indicate which manuscripts, or manuscript traditions, read "ει"? I cannot seem to find it in any of my sources (all of which simply read a lone iota). --Steve Caruso 01:40, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
Scratch that. I just found it in Tischendorf's Eighth Edition GNT which is based off of the Westcott-Hort compilation, however my copy of Westcott-Hort's work reads "ι". --Steve Caruso 01:44, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Manual of pronunciation

In the Wikipedia manual of style for pronunciation guide, it states that IPA characters should not be linked. After I began to de-link IPA characters in a few phonology pages, various people who disagree with this convention have begun a discussion (in the talk page). I noticed that you were the first to put it in there and I think it would be helpful if you could contribute to the discussion since you, as far as I can tell, were the one who came up with it. AEuSoes1 23:24, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Greek alphabet

We seem to have a new username Atarnaris (though it may be a reincarnation of Xpo FERENS or Deucalionite) pushing the non-Phoenician story (Dispilio, etc.) on this page. You might want to watch it.... --Macrakis 22:44, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikisource in Ancient Greek

There is an ongoing initiative to create a Wikisurce in Ancient Greek. Please provide your comments at meta:Requests_for_new_languages/Ancient#Ancient_Greek_Wikisource.  Andreas   (T) 13:25, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unicoding SKolt Sámi

Thanks for unicoding the Skolt name in the Sami Parliament article; it helps a lot. If you wouldn't mind taking on the task, would you be willing to do the same for all articles pertaining to Skolt Sámi? The great majority of them are quite ugly looking due to being full of boxes on most screens. Thanks! -Yupik 12:02, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dante's Italian

Hi Ross, I came across your question at the wiki ref desk on Dante's Italian, when I was myself trying to work out if the Divine Comedy would be easier to read for an Italian than Shakespeare would be for me. I thought you might be interested in the following link: http://wordsmith.org/chat/hollanders.html It confirms that Dante would be much easier than Shakespeare, although it says nothing about the specific differences between his Italian and today's. Cheers The Mad Echidna 00:28, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

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