Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 September 16

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Language desk
< September 15 << Aug | September | Oct >> September 17 >
Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.


Contents

[edit] September 16

[edit] New page in Arabic

What does this page say? A.Z. 00:00, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

We have a really lousy machine translation here: [1], though I suspect the original article isn't written very well either. The Evil Spartan 00:13, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Best Word Selection

Consider these three phrases: last ; latest ; most recent. Which of these is linguistically best to use (for correct grammar, context, meaning, etc.) in the sentence below? Are there any subtle distinctions / differences in meaning between these words or do they all pretty much mean the exact same thing? What, if any, are the distinctions? I am not attempting to communicate "last" as in "final" (example: Z is the last letter of the alphabet -- or -- The Birds is the last film directed by Hitchcock). Rather, I am trying to communicate "the last time that this has ever happened in the past although, of course, it may again happen in the future."

  • John F. Kennedy was the last Catholic to be elected President.
  • John F. Kennedy was the latest Catholic to be elected President.
  • John F. Kennedy was the most recent Catholic to be elected President.

OR

  • June of 1987 was the last time that I visited Hawaii.
  • June of 1987 was the latest time that I visited Hawaii.
  • June of 1987 was the most recent time that I visited Hawaii.

Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro 00:05, 16 September 2007 (UTC))

My take -
  • John F. Kennedy was the last Catholic to be elected President. - To me this implies finality, no more Catholics will be elected president.
  • John F. Kennedy was the latest Catholic to be elected President. - Suggests frequency, lots of Catholics are elected, Kennedy was the latest.
  • John F. Kennedy was the most recent Catholic to be elected President - suggests what you are trying to say.
Hope this makes sense! DuncanHill 00:09, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
The word last is ambiguous because it could either mean most recent or the final... Why ever use it, then? A.Z. 00:11, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
My take: go with recent. Last is ambiguous, and latest sounds awkward. The Evil Spartan 00:23, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
latest implies a regular series; most recent can be too formal for some contexts. If I say "my last trip overseas was in 1991" I do not expect anyone to infer that I'll never go again, unless I've said something else to support such an inference (like "I hate flying"). —Tamfang 00:56, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
For me, the order of the phrases seems to make a difference. "June of 1987 was the last time that I visited Hawaii" sounds final. "The last time I visited Hawaii was June of 1987" does not. I can't see any grammatical reason they should be different, though, so maybe it is a question of emphasis. I think that if someone were speaking the phrase, it would be easy to tell what they meant; if they put the emphasis on "last" then we would take it to be a final statement. The way I speak and the way I am used to hearing people speak, "last" would be emphasized in the first sentence I wrote, and "Hawaii" in the second. - Eron Talk 01:03, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
JFK is a bad example because he's the only Catholic president ever elected, and that happened 47 years ago. There may not be another in the lifetime of anyone alive now; or ever. So it seems that "last", "latest" and "most recent", while not inaccurate per se, are all to some degree misleading in his case. They all imply that there have been others - or at least one other - at some earlier time. If you were talking about (say) an Episcopalian president, of which there have been a few, "latest" and "most recent" say much the same thing. "Last" might still be ambiguous, though, depending on the construction of the sentence. -- JackofOz 01:16, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Indeed; I would say "John F. Kennedy was the first, and to date only, Catholic to be elected President." As for the Hawaii statement, "last" is the only one that doesn't sound stilted. You can use context make it clear that you don't mean last as in final-ever; "The last time I visited Hawaii was in 1987, but I'd love to go again some day". FiggyBee 06:11, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
On JFK, I like FiggyBee's suggestion best. All three of the sentences you began with have problems, though no one seems to have pointed out that "the most recent Catholic to be elected President" clearly implies there had been one or more others before Kennedy. On the Hawaiian puzzle, you can escape the ambiguities by turning it around thus - "I last visited Hawaii in June of 1987". Xn4 02:19, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Italics

I have been seeing inconsistent use when referring to the Palme d'Or Award given at the Cannes Film Festival. Is the term properly italicized or not italicized ... and for what reason? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro 01:43, 16 September 2007 (UTC))

  • This film did not win the Palme d'Or at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. ----- OR ----- This film did not win the Palme d'Or at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.
It's normal to use italics in English for titles of works of literature and art (poems, books, films, paintings, etc.) and also for foreign words and expressions which have not been fully domesticated (such as Monsieur), but not for proper names. We don't normally use italics for the titles of awards - Nobel Prize, Academy Award, etc. - which are more like proper names than like titles. I'd say the form without italics is generally better, and in a list of awards received by a person or a film it would have the virtue of consistency. In other contexts (perhaps where other expressions in French had been put into italics) you might find it would look odd to leave Palme d'Or as the odd man out, and the boot might be on the other foot. Xn4 02:37, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mi'kmaq and Acadian French toponymy

The name Acadie is said to have come from the element [kadi] found in many Acadian places: Tracadie, Choubenacadie.

What is the meaning of "cadie" in the Mi'kmaq language, if any?--Sonjaaa 06:02, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, the article on Tracadie says that the Mi'kmaq word is akatiek and that it means "place." --Reuben 17:03, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Grammar 2

Whew, i thought to myself. Uh oh, i'm in deep trouble. My heart thumped hard, what am i going to do?

In the following sentances do i need to put speech marks for whew, uh oh and what am i going to do when i am not actually speaking but thinking.

It depends on the style you're aiming for. If you're going for very casual, first-person narration, then quotation marks would not be required. Otherwise, it should be something like;
"Whew", I thought to myself, "uh-oh, I'm in deep trouble". My heart thumped hard. "What am I going to do?"
Although I'd be inclined to minimise the direct quotation, since it's in first person anyway;
"Whew", I thought to myself. I was in deep trouble. My heart thumped hard; what was I going to do?
Also, note that Americans put the ending comma or period inside the quotation marks (except, increasingly, in technical documents), while Brits like myself put it outside. FiggyBee 09:34, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Some authors use italics for indicating unvoiced thought:
Whew, I thought to myself, uh oh; I'm in deep trouble. My heart thumped hard. What am I going to do?
See for example Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 June 22#Technical Term for Italicized Thougts in Literature.  --Lambiam 10:05, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
So far as I can tell from reading American and British books, putting the period or comma inside the quotation-marks is always the rule if a complete utterance is quoted. The difference FiggyBee cites applies, I think, to quotation of fragments: "She called you 'a weasel', but I don't believe it." —Tamfang 16:45, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Just wondering; how could a complete utterance end with a comma? -- JackofOz 22:04, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
"Warm, sunny, not a cloud in the sky, looks like a good day for chopping off a few more heads", said Robespierre. Xn4 01:46, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
Which confirms my suspicions. The comma is outside the quotes, not inside as suggested by Tamfang. -- JackofOz 01:51, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't know what point you're trying to make, Xn4, but I've never seen that in an English book – unless it was published by amateurs. —Tamfang 03:56, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
By convention, a final period is replaced with a comma when the quotation is embedded in a sentence. But – thanks – my condition was indeed too restrictive.
"As you must know," said Henry, "it's hard to state rules in a form that accounts for all cases." "Still, Henry," Irene began, but I didn't hear the rest of what she said because of the train going by; though she may have used the word "pataphysical". —Tamfang 03:56, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
In the "Still, Henry" case, I'd write "Still, Henry, ..." Irene began, but I didn't hear etc. Since she went on to say something else, just writing "Still, Henry," suggests she stopped speaking at "Henry". The ellipsis removes this false impression. I realise that the rest of the sentence makes it clear that she didn't finish there, but in terms of form, I doubt you'd end the quote with the comma. -- JackofOz 04:23, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
Does "Still, Henry," Irene began, "I don't like it one bit." bother you similarly? The ellipsis makes me think that Irene trailed off, which is not the case. Tesseran 01:12, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
A dash would be better imho. —Tamfang 03:31, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
A better way to put the rule I fumblingly attempted to state: punctuation goes within if it was (or ought to be) in the original. Again, a final period is replaced with a comma (still within the quotation marks) if the quotation is non-final within a frame sentence. —Tamfang 03:59, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] If you wish / If you wish so

Which sounds better to a native speaker (preferably from North America): If you wish, other conditions can be agreed upon or If you wish so, other conditions can be agreed upon? TIA. —Daniel Šebesta {chat | contribs} 17:08, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

The first option is more ususal. --Reuben 17:19, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Reuben, except that I would spell it usual. —Angr 18:03, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you both, Reuben and Angr. —Daniel Šebesta {chat | contribs} 18:23, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

And in between these two is If you so wish, .... The use of so suggests, however, a quite specific wish (If you so wish, we can assemble it for you) and does not go well with something so unspecific as "other conditions".  --Lambiam 20:42, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, Lambiam! You seem to be right. —Daniel Šebesta {chat | contribs} 10:46, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Long German word for "jeep"

According to my German teacher (i.e., an American teaching German), there is a word, Geländegängigermehrzweckigerpersonenkraftwagen, which means something like "all-terain, multi-purpose people car," or simply "Jeep." However, I can't find much evidence online of this fact. Googling Geländegängigermehrzweckigerpersonenkraftwagen only gives one result, and one of the search results for "long german word jeep" is a comment on a blog. Neither result is very conclusive. Can anyone here (a native German speaker, maybe?) tell me a) Whether this is a real German word, and b) Whether I'm spelling it right? — Insanity Incarnate 19:14, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

As a fluent nonnative speaker, I'd say this is three words, not one: geländegängiger mehrzweckiger Personenkraftwagen. The -er endings on the first two words show them to be inflected adjectives and therefore separate words from the noun they modify. Inflected adjectives don't form compounds with nouns. However, googled as three words, I get no hits at all. As de:Jeep shows, the usual German word for "jeep" is Jeep. Mehrzweckpersonenkraftwagen (without the -iger-) is a real compound meaning "multi-purpose passenger vehicle". —Angr 19:44, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Your questions are answered, there's little to add, except that the words "Geländewagen" or "Geländefahrzeug" (redirects to same article on German Wikipedia) are often used for off-road vehicles (where I live, it's called "der Offroader" and hated by some [2]). One more thing, non-German speakers love these agglutinative monsters, but they are rarely used in everyday speech, see also Rinderkennzeichnungs- und Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz. Even the Personenkraftwagen is normally abbreviated PKW, Pkw, or even PW, and a lot of people simply call their car "Wagen" or "Auto". ---Sluzzelin talk 20:23, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
By the way, is mehrzweckig even an adjective featured in dictionaries? Though it's meaning is clear, I don't think it is and I don't know zweckig or allzweckig either. There are all sorts of adjectives using the prefix zweck- ("zweckmässig", "zweckbedingt", "zweckverbunden", "zweckentsprechend", "zweckwidrig", "zweckentfremdend"), and for multi-purpose, you add the affix Mehrzweck- to the noun ("Mehrzweckhalle", "Mehrzweckgerät", or Angr's "Mehrzweckpersonenkraftwagen") ---Sluzzelin talk 22:48, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
The best German-English dictionary I have at home is a Cassell's (12th edition), and it doesn't have mehrzweckig. Xn4 01:57, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
The longest fake word we came up with in German class was "Geschwindigkeitbegrenzungschildfabrik" ("Geschwindigkeitbegrenzung" was in the text book!) Adam Bishop 01:09, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
Don't forget you can stick -chen' on to the end of any of those too! Sounds like a made up word by your teacher to grab your attention. Lanfear's Bane 13:59, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
The longest German word I know is 'Donaudampfschiffahrtgesellschaftskapitän', meaning 'Danubesteamshipcompanycaptain'. Btw 'Kraftwagen' doesn't mean car or vehicle but powered vehicle. Personenkraftwagen is a new word to me, but it makes sense compared to 'Lastkraftwagen', which means 'truck' ('Last' being 'cargo'). DirkvdM 18:01, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reduplicative slang

Hi, in Korean, there's an old reduplicative slang which is used for mild obfuscation. Rules:

  • Gada becomes gabadaba
    • You can see that the vowel is reduplicated for each syllable, with "b" used as a new consonant
  • Ani becomes abanibi
    • If no consonant is there, you use "b" anyway
  • Seoltang becomes Seobeoltabang
    • Syllable-final consonants do not get reduplicated, but get pushed to the reduplicated syllable

My own rules (I don't know if these are traditional or not):

  • Yeong-gye becomes yeobeong-gyebe
  • Wang becomes wabang
    • Ignore semivowels

Does something similar exist in other languages? Thank you! --Kjoonlee 22:02, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Yikes, lots more examples at language game. The slang above (or a variant) is listed as gwi-shin-mal. It looks like it's also known as dokkaebi-mal. --Kjoonlee 22:48, 16 September 2007 (UTC)