Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 May 15

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[edit] May 15

[edit] Articles

Why doesn't anyone ever call the articles ("a", "an", and "the") conjunctions? That's basically what they are, considering they never end a sentence. Interactive Fiction Expert/Talk to me 06:18, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

A conjunction is not defined as a word that does not end a sentence. Several kinds of words have that property. Such words include articles. Read Article (grammar) and Grammatical conjunction, and see how articles and conjunctions are quite different sorts of beasts.
–⊥¡ɐɔıʇǝoNoetica!T– 06:57, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Missing articles

Why are articles usually left out before titles, for example in this sentence: "John Doe, producer of that movie"? Interactive Fiction Expert/Talk to me 06:18, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Probably because they are often felt as redundant, and there is no ambiguity from the loss of the article. Sometimes it may be a hedging move, because one is not sure which article would be appropriate. Consider:
  1. Colin Dunkworth, professor of forensic psychiatry at Harvard,...
  2. Colin Dunkworth, a professor of forensic psychiatry at Harvard,...
  3. Colin Dunkworth, the professor of forensic psychiatry at Harvard,...
With 2 or 3, you had better know whether there are one or several professors of forensic psychiatry at Harvard; with 1, you're safe.
–⊥¡ɐɔıʇǝoNoetica!T– 07:22, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
It's a well-established aspect of how articles are used in English. For example, "Mary, mother of God", rather than "Mary, the mother of God". Or, "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring". Don't know why only Christian examples are coming to my mind right now! Itsmejudith (talk) 08:46, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm more worried about how Jesus would be 'the joy of a man's desire'.--ChokinBako (talk) 15:52, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
He's not, he's the "Joy of Man's Desiring", which is different. Though when my father worked as a church organist, a mother-of-the-bride once asked him to play "Jessie Joyce, Man's Desire" at her daughter's wedding. —Angr 19:18, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Small words

Why are small words (such as "and", "the", and "for") usually not capitalised in titles of media such as movies and games? Interactive Fiction Expert/Talk to me 06:18, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Such words are typically not capitalised in all sorts of titles, not just the cases you mention. It's just how English and other European languages have evolved. In older English, important nouns (not just proper nouns, or names) and other important words were often capitalised in ordinary text. But current English has dropped those capitals in ordinary text, except for proper nouns (France, Freud), adjectives derived from them (French, Freudian), and the first word of a sentence. And it has gone the other way for headings and titles, capitalising all the salient words; such a different convention is useful, to mark the difference in context and function. German retains capitals for all nouns in ordinary text. French and some other European languages capitalise in ordinary text much as English does, except that they do not capitalise adjectives from proper nouns (France, français; Freud, freudien). Every language settles on a regular set of conventions that works well for it, though usually there remain some uncertainties (see WP:CAPS), especially in English.
–⊥¡ɐɔıʇǝoNoetica!T– 07:14, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Translate

Could someone translate this, I don't know what language it is in. ne ne atarashii ko ga hitsuyou Thank you Pikecatcher (talk) 12:03, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

It's Japanese and from an Avril Lavigne song, which makes me suspect you're trolling. It means something like "hey, hey, [you] need a new girlfriend". -- BenRG (talk) 13:38, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Please don't bite the newcomers. --Kjoonlee 01:59, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
You haven't been watching things lately, have you? ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 04:39, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
No, I haven't. But shouldn't we assume good faith anyway? --Kjoonlee 13:27, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I should've. Sorry to the original questioner if you were just innocently caught up in this silliness. -- BenRG (talk) 15:27, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
And I'm sorry as well for being terse. Happy editing! --Kjoonlee 01:09, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Drinks all round then ?--Artjo (talk) 10:42, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Text of historical plaque, :de:en:

On the Wannsee Conference talk page, I've posted the German text of a memorial plaque mounted on the wall of the building where the conference was held. Would appreciate its translation into English. -- Thank you, Deborahjay (talk) 12:31, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

In this building the infamous Wannsee Conference took place in January 1942.
Dedicated to the memory of our Jewish fellow men and women who perished at the hands of the National Socialist dictatorship. (Or ... at the hands of National Socialist tyranny.)
"Of our Jewish fellow men and women" is a rather clunky attempt at the sense of "der [...] jüdischen Mitmenschen" - "Mitmensch" might reasonably be translated as "fellow man" but there are obvious gender issues with the English term that do not exist in the German and the English term is less flexible and wide-ranging than the German. I imagine someone else will come up with a neater fix. Valiantis (talk) 13:54, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Would fellow human beings work for Mitmenschen? Also, note that the word dedicated (gewidmet in German) seems to be implied, but does not occur directly in the text you posted on the talk page. In order to reflect this you could perhaps also omit it in the translation ("To the memory of our Jewish fellow human beings ...") ---Sluzzelin talk 15:01, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
On a side note, my dictionary also gives tyranny, dictatorship (and despotism too) for Gewaltherrschaft, but the literal translation is rule of violence. To me, the word has a stronger (well, more violent) meaning than the Latin and Greek word borrowings referring to absolute power and illegitimacy, but not to violence. Just out of curiosity, is there an word ending in -cracy or -archy that means "rule of violence"? ---Sluzzelin talk
Areocracy, assuming Ares as a word means what he personified? Adam Bishop (talk) 22:04, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
I've seen 'brutocracy' (and it gets a few ghits) but it can't be called standard. Algebraist 22:33, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree that rule of violence would be a more literal translation of Gewaltherrschaft but it's not an especially idiomatic translation. Also of course, Gewalt has connotations of force or authority or (entirely legitimate) power (e.g. in Staatsgewalt - authority of the state - or Gewaltenteilung - separation of powers) that violence does not have. I'd suggest the Gewaltherrschaft is one in which the Gewalt of the state is not kept in check by the legal framework you get in a Rechtsstaat but becomes dominant. I think tyranny matches this idea fairly closely.
I inserted the implied gewidmet/"dedicated" as a bare "to the memory of" didn't strike me as very idiomatic, but it now strikes me that "In memory of" would be a normal English idiom. However, I'm not sure that has exactly the same meaning. I'm not convinced it's possible to translate plural Mitmenschen in a non-clumsy way except by a long paraphrase. Mensch by itself can be problematic. Though I toyed with "fellow human beings", to me it didn't sound like something a human being would say in this context :) I also considered "our Jewish neighbours" but although "neighbour" might be understood as meaning "fellow man" in certain contexts (Love thy neighbour) used here it sounded too much like "the people next door". The sense of the phrase is "those people who were people just like we are and who were also Jews". I suspect if someone were writing the plaque in English from scratch they would just write "dedicated to the memory of the Jewish men, women and children who..." or otherwise phrase the entire dedication differently. Valiantis (talk) 02:09, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, "literal translation" was maybe not even the best way of putting it. What I meant is that, despite the more abstract and administratives meaning of "Gewalt" you provided, the word is colored red when I hear it, and when I hear Gewaltherrschaft I always also hear violence. That may be a personal interpretation, but German does also have the words "Tyrannei", "Diktatur", and "Despotie" as well as "Despotismus". To me, with "tyranny", "dictatorship", and "despotism" something got lost in translation. The disappearance of connotations is often inevitable, yet fun to point out. Emotionally, maybe Lisa4edit's inclusion of the word terror comes a bit closer. I think it is appropriate to consider the emotional impact too, when translating the text on a memorial plaque. ---Sluzzelin talk 10:06, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Starting over in consideration of comments above, I'd suggest following options:
This house was the site of the infamous Wansee conference in January 1942.
Dedicated to the memory of our fellow Jewish citizens ...
/ ... who fell victim to the National-Socialist rule of terror.
/ ... who fell victim to the terror of the Nazi regime.
/ ... Jewish victims of the holocaust.
The last phrase is what is often found in English texts for that long German expression. The German is more comprehensive, but I think the differences are mostly philosophical. Lisa4edit (talk) 04:26, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

The OP elucidates: I appreciate the thoughtful considerations raised above. This text is taken from an archival documentation series of Holocaust/WWII-era memorial monuments photographed by the late Miriam Novitch in her treks through the lands of German-occupied Europe during the postwar decades. The original texts are visible in the photos. The translations are intended to adhere to what Lisa4edit, above, has called the "philosophical" aspect, and to give a fairly faithful rendition of the spirit of the source text, reflecting the mindset of its writers. -- Thanks, Deborahjay (talk) 08:27, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] German?

Is the word "Glau" is Summer Glau's name from German decent? Emac1 (talk) 13:04, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Looks like a German spelling to me, and according to our article, Summer Glau, she's of German descent. SSAE (talk) 13:31, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
If the name remained unchanged since Summer's ancestors immigrated to the United States, the name could possibly originate from the quarter Glau in Trebbin, Germany, or it could be derived from the Gothic word glaggwo. In Old High German glau meant keen-sighted or perspicacious. (Albert Heintze, Die Deutschen Familiennamen — geschichtlich, geographisch, sprachlich, Adamant Media Corporation, ISBN 1421224070). German Wikipedia even mentions the word glauäugig in its article on Paralogie. I had never encountered this word before, but it seems to be playing with the common adjective blauäugig, which literally means blue-eyed, but figuratively means naïve and thus somewhat the opposite of keen-sighted. ---Sluzzelin talk 14:50, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
There is also the town of Glauchau in Saxony. --Richardrj talk email 15:40, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I believe the word also translates to "troll". -- Captain Disdain (talk) 15:38, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
That seems unduly harsh, Captain. -- JackofOz (talk) 15:49, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Considering the current influx of Summer Glau questions (like this one, this one, and this one) that are following the recent torrent of frivolous April Lavigne questions, I actually don't think it is. Especially as the account has been created today and the original poster's other posts discuss Avril Lavigne and the image on his user page is probably Lavigne. (Or perhaps it's Glau. Who knows?) So, no, I don't think it's unduly harsh. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 16:04, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't see any reason to pick out the questioner as a troll rather than a newbie who thinks this is a good place to ask questions about their favorite celebrities. To stay sort of on-topic here: perhaps this means you have a different interpretation of "troll" than I do. If you think the questions are too frivolous or too numerous to deserve an answer, then I suggest you don't answer. Of course, if someone kept asking questions about a subject when it was clear that most people felt that way or if they weren't really interested in it, that would probably qualify as Wikipedia:vandalism. --Anonymous, 16:30 UTC, May 15, 2008.
The point isn't really that the questions are frivolous (they are, but that's almost besides the point) but that I don't believe the people (or the person) asking them are genuinely interested in the answer. You may wish to check out Wikipedia talk:Reference desk#April Trolls in May, to which -- completely coincidentally, I'm sure! -- the original poster of this question has also contributed. I've got no problem with assuming good faith, but when a pattern becomes this obvious, I'm not going to pretend it doesn't exist. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 16:36, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
My eyes aren't blue, yet I appear to have been the blauäugig one in this thread. I don't always scan all desks or even one entire page, but sometimes focus on the most recent couple of questions, as I did now. It is okay to point out a recurring pattern, as the Captain did, but I don't care whether I've been had. I saw no disruption and learned something new. ---Sluzzelin talk 16:58, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
See User talk:JackofOz#Harsh? for a related discussion. -- JackofOz (talk) 17:22, 15 May 2008 (UTC)