Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 March 10

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[edit] March 10

[edit] English-Arabic Translation

I need my name translated to Arabic for a project at school, i used google and got ريتشارد but i have a funny feeling that its wrong, thnxVagery (talk) 12:10, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, forgot to tell you my name is RichardVagery (talk) 13:36, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

First off, it's transliterating, not "translating" as such. ريتشارد isn't bad, except that the letter alif in the last syllable would probably mislead an Arabic speaker about the vowel quality and stress of the second syllable. I would prefer ريتشرد without alif, but Google turns up a lot more hits for ريتشارد , so maybe that's a quasi-standard transliteration... AnonMoos (talk) 14:43, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
P.S. The Arabic language itself doesn't have a single letter to transliterate the English "ch" affricate sound, but Persian does, so that in the Persian form of the Arabic alphabet, the spelling could be ریچرد / ریچارد -- AnonMoos (talk)
I would prefer ريتشرد without alif, True, though foreign names and loanwords usually use a more phonetic spelling, so alif and ya' end up being used like vowels. ريتشارد is by far the most common transliteration I've seen. — Zerida ☥ 02:27, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
What does Arabic Wikipedia do for various famous Richards? —Angr If you've written a quality article... 16:24, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
See: [1]

--Goon Noot (talk) 22:08, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Question: What is the correct pronunciation of "kilometre"?

What is the correct pronounciation of "kilometre": "ki-loh-mee-tre" or "ki-lo-ma-ta"? 58.168.209.250 (talk) 02:07, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Dear anonymous questioner, may I ask you to give a title that alerts us to the nature of your question? After all, every section could be called "Question", couldn't it? I have adjusted it; I hope you don't mind.
It is not clear what the two pronunciations that you have in mind are. The word has four syllables. Many people stress it consistently with other -metre words, on the first syllable: CENTimetre, MILLimetre, KILometre. But many stress on the second syllable instead: kiLOmetre. Here in Australia, at least, this was debated extensively when we switched to the metric system, decades ago. Both pronunciations remain acceptable, and are recorded in major dictionaries.
–⊥¡ɐɔıʇǝoNoetica!T– 02:28, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Calling them "klicks" gets 'round the problem, though that usage is more common when discussing distance than speed. (It can also be spelled "klics", especially if you are a Robert Heinlein fan.) Thus "the border is 40 klicks from here", but not "the speed limit is 55 klicks per hour". The second-syllable stress is more common in my part of Canada, though I hear both and have likely used both myself. ៛ Bielle (talk) 03:11, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
For speed, I've heard "the speed limit is 55 klicks". — kwami (talk) 03:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Ah, here we go. It's Ozzie: "You can't roll a smoke with one hand and scratch your ear with the other, at 90 clicks." — kwami (talk) 03:36, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

In junior high school (here in Australia) I was taught that the standard international pronunciation was "KIlometre", stress on the "Ki" (consistent with Kilogram, Kilolitre, Kilopascals etc), but that the common pronunciation was kiLOmetre, stress on the LOm. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 03:36, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

The correct pronunciation depends on location. I'm not sure what "ki-loh-mee-tre" or "ki-lo-ma-ta" would sound like exactly, but using the IPA the two most common pronunciations I've seen are /kɪˈlɒmɪtər/ and /ˈkɪləˌmitər/. My dictionary says that the second one is the more American pronunciation. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 05:09, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

If I'm interpreting the question correctly, you're asking which stress is correct - KILoMEtre or kiLOMetre. Both asre quite common, with the second one perhaps more so in the US (if the media is anything to go by). If you want to be pedantic about it, the first stress pattern is more correct, since Kilo- is a prefix to metre. If the base word was "Ometer", then saying "Kil-Ometer" would make sense, but since the base is metre the split should be before that "Kilo-Metre". And that requires the first stress pattern. Grutness...wha? 06:03, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, even if you're pedantic, it could be either kilómeter or kílométer. The Latin is metrum, from Greek μέτρον, both with a short vowel. When the penultimate syllable of Latinate words contains a short vowel followed by tr, either it or the preceding syllable is commonly stressed. However, I've never heard anyone say kílométer, only kílometer. That does not follow literary stress rules at all. I'd guess this due to analogy with other metric terms like kílogram, which does follow normal stress rules. So your choice is a literary pronunciation, kilómeter, or the leveled-out form kílometer. — kwami (talk) 06:35, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Well now, Kwami:
As you are no doubt aware, the position of the accent in the Greek itself is irrelevant (just so others will understand this). As an aside, we note that the modern Greek word for kilometre is χιλιόμετρον, with a stress on the third last syllable. And of course you are quite right: the Latin borrowing from Greek μέτρον preserves its short vowel ε, as e. You are also right that the "stress" is indeterminate with a short vowel on the penultimate followed by -tr- and the like. This gives freedom for that syllable to be "stressed", or the one before it – in verse, note. But kilometre is a modern compound, so there is not much value in the foregoing considerations. We build on the element metre, with its "false quantity": a "long" /ee/ sound instead of an etymologically correct short /e/. What to do with such an element? It is a case of ignotus per ignotius. One good clue is to see what stress-preserving modern Romance languages do, since they very often track "authentic" Latin pronunciations accurately, for what bearing that may have on our preference in English. Italian has chilometro stressed on the third last syllable, and Spanish agrees, with kilómetro. French is weakly stressed, and can give no guidance.
So there you are. Respect what you can of Latin practice, reconstructed or otherwise; or respect consistency with other -metre words in English. Hence the interminable disputes. OED records both pronunciations.
–⊥¡ɐɔıʇǝoNoetica!T– 07:02, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Good point, but isn't the length of the English vowel dependent on its environment, not the length of the Latin vowel? I mean, metrical has a short e, so we're not analysing it as a long vowel in metre because of the Latin. (Also, French has no lexical stress, not weak stress.) — kwami (talk) 07:16, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Sure the English vowel is dependent on its environment to some extent (and on the Latin source to some extent also, in many cases: especially where a learnèd practice is overlaid on a colloquial practice); and yes, that e changes depending on whether it occurs in metre, metrical, or whatever. But with kilometre, the environment can't determine anything much about that e, can it? Not until we settle on independent grounds where the stress will go! It's all rather circular.
As for French, weak shmeak lexical shmexical: you can determine nothing useful for the present purposes from its pronunciations.
–⊥¡ɐɔıʇǝoNoetica!T– 07:26, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Grutness -- your principle of retaining the stress of basic stems more or less unaltered in compound forms simply doesn't work in polysyllabic words borrowed into English from Greek and Latin; there's PHOtograph vs. phoTOGraphy etc. The pronunciation of kilometer which you consider to be "less correct" is almost exactly parallel to the universally-accepted pronunciation of "thermometer". AnonMoos (talk) 07:37, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

But for Grutness & Noetica's point, you do get things like "Spéed-o-meter" vs. "speedómeter". When both elements are morphemes, then you get this conflict between stress as a compound and stress as a unitary word. I think that might be what's going on with the metric terms.
And Noetica, as for French stress, I've seen your contributions here. I don't expect you to ever get anything wrong! — kwami (talk) 07:57, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Wrong, shmong... O, sorry. Thank you, kwami. I must say I am impressed with your competence in these matters. I just bluff – but don't tell anyone that.
Of course, English stress patterns are changing SO much. Weirdly. Sentence stress patterns, I mean. We should talk about that some time. No one seems to notice it!
But that's another conversation.
–⊥¡ɐɔıʇǝoNoetica!T– 09:57, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
I would like to warn against using Latin prosody tips in Romance languages for terms that have a greek etymology. Most rules of this kind could fail, especially the ones on stress, since Greek and Latin differ in this aspect. Any word with the suffix -logía in Spanish is an instance of this. Pallida  Mors 15:56, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Ah, Pallida. Yes, one does have to be circumspect about these things. Greek and Latin certainly do differ with regard to stress; and there has always been ambivalence among thoughtful moderns (except thoughtful modern Greeks, it seems) about how to stress Greek.
Nevertheless, where a word is taken from Greek into Latin in the very early centuries and thence into Romance, the canons of Latin pronunciation are pretty well followed in Romance stressings, aren't they? Whether they are or not, the Romance pronunciations are often the best available precedents for English stressings, when we look for a way to settle uncertainties. That said, kilometre remains poised on a knife-edge for the reasons given above.
I will continue to use the Italian pronunciation of Ulisse against those who unaccountably stress Ulysses on the first syllable!
–⊥¡ɐɔıʇǝoNoetica!T– 20:43, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
If only we could get the same people to say OO-ranos rather than you-RAIN-us (or even your-ANUS). Some pronunciations are absolutely in-EX-plickabull - such as this one itself. My mouth just can't handle it and I go off the rails; I prefer in-ex-PLICK-abull. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:00, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Well, if you're going to follow English literary stress rules, which are based on Latin even for Greek roots, it would have to be Úranus, since the a is short. (But it would be yoo-, not oo-, unless you're trying to make it sound Latin.)
I do wonder how we got pre-antepenultimate stress in words like inéxplicable. Noetica, do you think it might once have been inéxplicáble, following the Latin stress assignment, and that the second stress was later dropped, as stress often is from suffixes? — kwami (talk) 21:24, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
What an éxquisite question.  :) -- JackofOz (talk) 21:31, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

To get back to the original question, both "kilómeter" and "kílomèter" are acceptable stress patterns for the word. The first has the force of history behind it, the second the force of analogy with other forms (only "céntimèter", never *"centímeter"). If we were to follow the example of the two meanings of "micrometer", then the unit of measurement would have to be "kílomèter" (like "mícromèter", which is one thousandth of a millimeter), while "kilómeter" would have to be a measuring device (as a "micrómeter" is). Fortunately, language is not bound by such restrictive logic. —Angr If you've written a quality article... 21:48, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Use miles, can't muck about with that.--Artjo (talk) 12:59, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
Can't muck with that. 130.88.140.109 (talk) 12:25, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Hi. I personally am more likely to pronounce it kil-LOM-met-ter. Besides, pronouncing it like KIL-lo-mee-ter sounds much like "kill a metre". Also, I've seen 50 km/h and 60 km/h signs, but 55 km/h is probably very rare if it even exists (at least where I live [Canada]). Even when pronouncing it as LOM, people here tend to say -ter, not -ta. That reminds me of a book telling me to pronounce Cepheus "see-fierce". That's easy if you're British, but I know how it would be pronounced so I got the pronounciation. I once saw on TV: A-sses the window. It's A-SESS the window, you've put the wrong emPHAsis on the wrong syLLAble. In fact, when you put the emphasis on the LOM, it even sounds mostly fine if you said KLOM-met-ter. However, with kilogram we pronounce it KIL-o-gram, and with kilopascals it's KIL-o-pass-gals. We here spell a lot of thing with "re" rather than "er". The ones we use with "re" include metre and centre. Hope this helps. Thanks. ~AH1(TCU) 01:57, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] On Classical Yi

I says:

Classic Yi is one of several such non-Chinese logographic scripts used by Tibeto-Burman languages of southwestern China, others being Naxi and Lisu.

Are they refering to the Fraser alphabet instead, regarding [2]? If not, is there like a whole list of all the Lisu logographs?Asrghasrhiojadrhr (talk) 07:58, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

No, Fraser is not logographic. Neither, for that matter, is Naxi. I don't know what the old Lisu script may have been. — kwami (talk) 08:48, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] English: plural of "curriculum"?

what is the correctterm in the following sentence .

Community colleges are practical.They design curriculum that meets the needs of today's world.

a) curriculi that meet
b) curricula that meet
c) curriculums that meets
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.104.168.216 (talk) 10:05, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Well both Wiktionary and Wikipedia insist that curricula is the plural, though I seem to recall that the Latin root precludes this. Perhaps a Latin scholar can confirm or deny this? Google gives more than a million hits for each of curriculums and curricula, and very few for curriculi. Take your choice! dbfirs 10:31, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
(later) Yes, the Latin plural is curriculi but presumably, that doesn't carry over into English in this case? Why not avoid the controversy by noting that the word already includes a plural (courses) in its meaning, and simply say: "They design a curriculum that meets the needs ... dbfirs 10:40, 10 March 2008 (UTC)"?
No no! Curriculi is not good Latin, and not good English. It's never right, as a plural form. The Latin plural is always curricula (and curriculi is a singular form, meaning of the curriculum). The English plural is traditionally the same: curricula; or sometimes these days curriculums. Usage varies.
In Latin, curriculum is a second declension neuter noun, like zillions of others that have found their way into English. They are like Greek neuter nouns ending in -on, like phenomenon and criterion. The original and traditional plural of these always ends in -a.
–⊥¡ɐɔıʇǝoNoetica!T– 10:58, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
You tell 'em, Noetica. Use curricula and you may confuse the average joe, use curriculums and you annoy the scholar, but use curriculi and you piss everyone off, because it's just plain wrong. —Keenan Pepper 21:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the above. "Curriculi" is simply a mistake. Either "curricula" or "curriculums" is acceptable in edited writing. A search of GoogleBooks reveals that "curriculums" gets a tolerable number of hits, but significantly less than "curricula". "Curriculi" gets a small number, including some that are actually the Latin genitive singular, and some that seem to just be making fun of people who say it. —Angr If you've written a quality article... 21:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Perhaps not a direct answer to your question ... but maybe it sounds better to say ... Community colleges are practical. Their curriculum is designed to meet the needs of today's world. Just a thought. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:11, 10 March 2008 (UTC))
  • But that implies that all community colleges share a single curriculum, which I doubt is true. Daniel (‽) 21:35, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
The OED attests curriculums back to 1850, and that without being interested in the form of the plural. — kwami (talk) 21:59, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
What I want to know is the proper plural of mongoose : mongeese? polygoose? — kwami (talk) 22:04, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
I'd use either, except that if this is a homework question (or similar), and the options provided here are properly copied, the answer is going to be (b) because (c) also has "meets" instead of "meet". (regarding the curriculum, not the polygeeses) — maestrosync talk — 03:41, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Is this for real or a programmer's joke.

When I input the phrase "fuck off" into google translate and translate into Chinese (simplified or traditional) I get 他妈的小康 as the result. Translating that phrase back into English gives teh phrase "Transamerica well-off". Is this for real or is it some programmer's joke about America. -- Q Chris (talk) 11:55, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

There are no obvious characters about America there, which would be 米 (in Sino-Japanese) or 美 (in Sino-Korean). I think it's due to multiple bugs. --Kjoonlee 12:40, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
他妈的 means his mother's, and found in phrases such as 'RTFM'. But it is pronounced tāmāde, which has the T of trans and the M of ’Merica. (America is adapted as an M-initial word in Chinese and Sino-Xenic.) I wonder if it might have been used as a phonetic for a company name or something. I also found a blog where s.o. said that 尋找他媽的故事 (something about "the story of finding his mother" - sorry, I don't read Chinese) is a "very bad" translation of the movie Transamerica. — kwami (talk) 21:57, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

...so, why would "fuck" translate to 他媽的 translate to "Transamerica"? --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 00:14, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Because (unless this is a practical joke) dictionaries are seldom symmetrical, as few of the words are actually equivalent. Now 他媽 literally means 'his mother', and 的 is the possessive. "His mother's" isn't something you would normally look up in a dictionary, because it isn't a single word, so anyone writing a dictionary would expect that you want some other meaning instead that is a word. But if you go in the other direction, 他媽的 may be the closest Chinese has to 'fucking'. — kwami (talk) 00:54, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
他妈的 (often written as TMD) is used in Chinese in many of the contexts that fuck is used in English (for example, when you stub your toe). That's the match up in the dictionary - fuck = 他妈的. If it's not a deliberate joke, it's a bizarre bug. Steewi (talk) 01:16, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
"Fuck" translates well into "他妈的"; "小康" could translate as "moderately well-off" - modest propserity in terms of a society. So I can see how "fuck off" could lead to that, as in "fuck off" --> "fuck well off" --> 他妈的小康.
"Fuck off" could probably translate better as "他妈的滚", or literally, "his mother's, roll away". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:51, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Software(s): what is the correct plural?

In formal academic writing, what is the plural form of the word "software"? Is it "softwares"? As well, should the word "webhost" be "web host" instead? Acceptable (talk) 19:50, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

For number one, "software" is a collective noun which means its plural is "software" despite what one sees all the time on various papers. Not sure about number two although I think both are acceptable (don't quote me on that). x42bn6 Talk Mess 20:26, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
I can imagine situations where one might need to distinguish between software A and software B, and then perhaps say that "neither of those softwares does what software C does". -- JackofOz (talk) 20:38, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
We need to distinguish count nouns, mass nouns, and collective nouns:
  • Count nouns are for whatever that can be counted and numbered:
two dogs, many planets
  • Mass nouns are for whatever cannot be counted, but can (usually) be measured continuously:
much more water, some wheat, three tonnes of wheat
But not two waters, many wheats. Sure, nouns that look like mass nouns sometimes do have plurals, and sometimes numbers can be applied to them:
He took the waters at Lourdes, Two wheats were especially resistant.
The first is an interesting anomaly. The second has wheat meaning variety of wheat, and wheat is not a mass noun in such a use.
  • Collective nouns are those like tribe and busload:
The tribe was [or were] preparing for the ceremony, A busload of tourists is [or are] arriving.
Software usually behaves much more like a standard mass noun than either a count noun or a collective noun, I'd say.
–⊥¡ɐɔıʇǝoNoetica!T– 21:02, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree, software is always a mass noun in formal writing. You never say *a software, but a piece of software. Therefore there is no plural. (It doesn't have to make sense: consider a piece of furniture.) —Keenan Pepper 21:29, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Same would apply to all "wares", I think. Hardware. Ironware. Earthenware. Underware. (Oh, wait.) --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 00:12, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
Getting back to "web host", it's a new word, and it hasn't settled down yet. The "host" part is very much alive and resists being joined to "web"; we can "host" a "web site" (770 Mghits) and be its "web host". The verb form muddies the issue, and keeps this one from going the way of "website" (946 Mghits) so quickly. If we can let Google be the arbiter of anything at all, it must be a word like this one:
"webhost" 3.4 Mghits
"web host" 8.24 Mghits
"webhosting" 42.6 Mghits
"web hosting" 123 Mghits
The preference for the two-word form is strong. --Milkbreath (talk) 01:39, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
Hi. "Softwares" is Engrish. So is "funs". That's part of the reason why so many non-English speakers find English much difficult [sic] so difficult. Hope this helps. Thanks. ~AH1(TCU) 01:38, 13 March 2008 (UTC)