Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 April 20

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[edit] April 20

[edit] Arabic article titles

Anyone here know Arabic? I'm trying to link back to any material the Arabic Wikipedia (or is that the Saudi Wikipedia?) might have on Plague of Emmaus. I think this is the Arab Wikipedia page for Emmaus. This is definitely their plague article (nice pic of Yersinia pestis). Oh, someone's put a resolved tag on this section. I'll toddle off to WP:RD instead. (That Arabic font actually seems to be telling my keyboard it is a right-to-left script, as my delete and backspace key functions have swapped round! Try it yourself.) Carcharoth 05:16, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

That's the Arabic Wikipedia, the Plague of Emmaus is discussed on the Emmaus article itself, the (Arabic) Emmaus article seems to be a copyvio, and finally, Arabic is a right-to-left script, but delete and backspace serve the same purpose, albeit in reverse.--Kirby♥time 05:44, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

P.S. I have closed your small tag for you.--Kirby♥time 05:44, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What is a word for one who wants to be pititied

What's the word for someone who desires attention and seeks it by being miserable? --JDitto 06:05, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

A person with Munchausen syndrome ? StuRat 06:08, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Or perhaps martyr syndrome. Sorry, no article at this time. ~ hydnjo talk 06:18, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
There is an article at Martyr complex. --Ptcamn 06:27, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Oops! Of course there is, how doubtful of me. :-( ~ hydnjo talk 07:34, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the speedy quick replies! But...is it actually serious enough to be called a syndrome? --JDitto 06:24, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

A syndrome is "a group of signs and symptoms that occur together and characterize a particular abnormality or condition". Seriousness isn't a part of the characterization. ~ hydnjo talk 06:33, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

There is also the "victim complex", which is characterised by an "oh, poor me" attitude toward life and events, but I don't know if it is a psychiatric state or even a personality disorder in any formal sense. Bielle 21:43, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nous / Naus

I understand the word nous is an informal British term meaning "common sense" (intelligence applied in a practical fashion). Can you give me a typical usage of this or how it migh be used in a sentence? Is it used often or is it Old school? Word origination. --Doug talk 11:56, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

-- (Sorry, this is meant to be a reply! dur - RA) An example culled from memory, from a TV interview with a male-to-female transsexual: "I suppose having the operation and the hormone treatment didn't affect your business nous?" I'd say it's used occasionally, with a mildly colloquial feel (appropriate in magazine feature writing, say). It doesn't suggest any particular class or age feel to me - I wouldn't be surprised to hear royalty use it, nor the bloke who's failing to mend my roof at this very moment.

That is interesting because, as an American, I have never heard the word spoken and frankly don't know how to pronounce it. I've seen it in writing, I know that it is in fact a classical Greek word, and I would have thought that it was only used in very learned writing, maybe occasionally spoken by Oxford or Cambridge dons. Marco polo 12:27, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
I've heard it several times in soccer coverage, so it can't be that high-falutin' anymore ("tactical nous" appears to have become a cliche). They usually pronounce it like "nooz" or "noos", if I recall. Recury 13:19, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Writing from Britain, I can confirm that the word is in quite common use, without any particular feeling of 'class' attached to it. As already stated, it is an Ancient Greek word meaning 'mind', and is pronounced like 'noose' when reading Greek (at least, that was the way I was brought up to read it in Greek). In English, though, it is invariably pronounced to rhyme with 'house'. Maid Marion 14:26, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
... and is sometimes written "nouse" - see this semi-reliable source, which has both spellings, and Nouse, the University of York student newspaper. Gandalf61 15:54, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
It is common more in Northern British than in Southern British, and I can verify that it is always pronounced 'NOW-ss', to rhyme with 'house'.ScouseMouse - スカウサーUK! 16:52, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
The OED has "nous: colloq. or slang. Intelligence, common sense, gumption. (Common from 19th cent.)" and includes the following contemporary illustrations: 1973 Times 22 Feb. 25/1 "If we had had a bit of nous we’d have probably discovered this earlier." 1975 Daily Tel. 29 Jan. 17 "The City, extraordinary as it may sound, has very limited political nous."--Shantavira 17:11, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! --Doug talk 20:30, 20 April 2007 (UTC)


Merriam Webster definition:
  1. /'nüs also 'naus/ : MIND, REASON: as a : an intelligent purposive principle of the world b : the divine reason regarded in Neoplatonism as the first emanation of God
  2. /'naus/ chiefly British : COMMON SENSE, ALERTNESS
I guess sense #1 is rare everywhere, whereas sense #2 is common in Britain but even less common than #1 in the U.S. I don't know whether British philosophers still use the Greek/U.S. pronunciation for sense #1. For British usage examples (sense #2), see 50 out of 56 matches from the British National Corpus, although half of these are false positives from French nous "we". jnestorius(talk) 20:40, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
It's quite common in Australia, where it's always pronounced "NOW-ss". JackofOz 00:55, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Is there any background history on the word NAUS as it pertains to the Merriam Webster definition of "b" above:

the divine reason regarded in Neoplatonism as the first emanation of God

--Doug talk 22:07, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

The medieval philosopher Bernard Silvestris called divine providence "nous" (or "noys") in his Cosmographia, if that helps. Adam Bishop 07:10, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
For some background on Neoplatonic Nous, see Lloyd Gerson's SEP article on Plotinus (Nous is discussed under the name "Intellect" in the section "The Three Fundamental Principles of Plotinus' Metaphysics"). Also discussed under "The Intelligence" in this article. If you have subscription access to the Routledge Encyc. of Philosophy, see also here. (Plotinus is the fountainhead of Neoplatonism, which is why I'm referring to expositions of his ideas.) Wareh 11:45, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! --Doug talk 23:50, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Eidos

Is it correct that the word eidos is the same as Platonic Ideas Theory of forms? Would this then have the same basic meaning as American usage of idea? Word origination or history. --Doug talk 12:26, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

The Greek word eidos means 'form, shape'. It's seen in English in, for example, kaleidoscope ('pretty-shape-viewer'). It's also an element in words ending in -oid; eg, rhombo-eidos becomes rhomboid, shaped like a rhombus. It's different from Greek idea, which is the word I presume you are thinking of in connection with Plato, though I think they are from the same root. Maid Marion 15:33, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! --Doug talk 20:30, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

To clarify, since you may have misunderstood my information on the Greek word idea above. This Greek word does not mean "idea" in any ordinary sense of the English word (other than the extremely rare reference to the Platonic "Ideas"). Therefore, when eidos (in one of its uses) refers to the Platonic Forms, this by itself guarantees that it does not mean "idea" in any ordinary non-philosophical usage (including "American usage"). Now I'm going to confuse things by pointing out something that is 99% likely to be irrelevant to anything. Greek eidos was (according to the lexicon, which see for the word's various meanings) used in the sense "specific notion, meaning, idea" by Aeneas Tacticus. But this is not in any way the basic, normal, or common sense of the word. Wareh 11:52, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! --Doug talk 23:49, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] German Translation please!

I'm writing answers for my GCSE oral, and need this question translation:
"Was hast du vor, nächstes Jahr zu machen?" (in reference to school)
All I can work out is What do you have to do before next year, but that would presumably need to be "Was muss du ehe nächstes Jahr tun" or similar. Any help welcome! Mit herzlichem Dank in Voraus! MHDIV ɪŋglɪʃnɜː(r)d(Suggestion?|wanna chat?) 20:17, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

The verb in Was hast du vor is vorhaben, which means "to plan, to intend, to have in mind". And why are you writing answers for an oral exam??? —Angr 21:05, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Firstly, thank you very much! you're a life saver! Secondly, as a section of the exam there are about 50 questions which one can prepare, and memorise answers to, or just memorise what they mean. So in the actual exam you have to answer without any notes, so having written answers you can (theoretically) remember to include some complex structures etc., which invariably are lost in spontanious mündlichen Prüfunge, well as this level anyway. MHDIV ɪŋglɪʃnɜː(r)d(Suggestion?|wanna chat?) 21:19, 20 April 2007 (UTC)