Wikipedia:Reference desk archive/Language/2006 August 4

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[edit] Although

Does a comma come after although.e.g.

Although, some have thought it was nine feet tall.

No, it doesn't. Note, however, that removing the comma makes this a sentence fragment, meaning something more has to be added to make it a sentence (e.g. "Although some have thought it was nine feet tall, modern scholarship has shown that..."). If you don't want to add any more detail, replace "Although" with "However" and keep the comma. Ziggurat 00:13, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Although it's nonstandard, "although" is sometimes used instead of "however" in conversational English:
"Although... some have thought it was nine feet tall. " --π! 00:28, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
True; from the content, I presumed you were asking about academic written English (i.e. fairly formal). Ziggurat 00:32, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Also, is Caeser, Augustus, or Emperor captiized when refering to a person, not in a name title.

Caesar and Augustus both have a good case for being proper names, which means you would capitalise them. Emperor, no, because it's a description (i.e. "the emperor" not "the Emperor"). Ziggurat 00:13, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

What about here?

He is later considered to be the first Roman Emperor.

In 37 Caligula (37-41) succeeded Tiberius as Emperor.


Also, is this the correct way of using the semicolon, colon, and the word although:

He recalled Demetrius from Greece; although, he was winning success after success there, and moved against Lysimachus.

Nope. A quick punctuation switcheroo will make this correct: "He recalled Demetrius from Greece, although he was winning success after success there, and moved against Lysimachus." The middle clause is a parenthetical statement, so it should either go between commas, between brackets, or between dashes. Ziggurat 00:19, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Book Review

Hello, I have an assignment from school to write the book review on novella "the ballad of sad cafe". Could you please assist me in it as i have no idea in writing the book review. Please help me

You’ve got the title, that’s an excellent first step. Next I recommend finding out who the author is. Once you’ve done that, obtaining a copy of the book is in order, which can be done by taking the author’s name and the book’s title to your local library and asking for a copy. After getting the book, it’s usually best to read it. After having read it, write something about it that sums up what the book was about and then says what you liked or didn’t like about it. Then edit what you’ve written for good copy, and then print it out and turn it in with your name on it. That’s what I’d do, anyway. — Jéioosh 03:15, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Aaaahh, the undefeated style of communication through sarcasm and irony... As is stated on top of page:
Do your own homework. If you need help with a specific part or concept of your homework,
feel free to ask, but please do not post entire homework questions and expect us to give you 
the answers.
惑乱 分からん 07:06, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Actually, you haven't even got the title. It's "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe". Writing it correctly will help you get more hits, and more marks. If you want to know what a book review looks like, look on a bookselling website like Amazon or, better still, in the review section of a good newspaper.--Shantavira 07:07, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Being a person who enjoys writing but hates reading sloppily-written, old books given out by teachers who are nostalgicly stuck in the past...I suggest Sparknotes, or you could be really lazy and just rent the DVD from Hollywood Video.
A good book review should contain an articulate, brief but complete synopsis of the story, and some supported (by the text) comments, criticisms, and possibly compliments about the piece. A great book review will also contain some information about the author, some analysis of the text, possibly a comparison/contrast to similar or contemporary works or authors, and scintillating prose. Try checking out book reviews at salon.com or the NY Times to read some excellent book reviews. You can't go wrong by starting out with 'The Ballad of Sad Cafe is a novella written by X and published in Y. It is the story of ___. Its protagonist, ___, is reminiscent of Z's ____, which is unsurprising since X was a protegee of Zs when s/he studied under her/him at ___. TBoSC was X's # published work and showed her/his (immaturity/maturity) as a writer.' BTW I made all that stuff up so don't bother searching for her/his mentor or what university s/he went to, it's just a suggestion. :-)--Anchoress 02:50, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Initial Stress in Czech and Hungarian

Czech and Hungarian are unrelated but have the common feature that every word (or nearly every word) is stressed on the first syllable. Do any other languages with significant numbers of speakers have this feature? JackofOz 03:34, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Finnish, and I think Latvian. What I notice is that these four languages vowel length is phonemic. --Chris S. 03:46, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
The Goidelic languages (except Munster Irish) and the Sorbian languages too, although they don't meet the criterion of having significant numbers of speakers. Latin has evidence of having had word-initial stress in its prehistory, although by the classical period that Latin stress rule had shifted stress rightward. User:Angr 07:49, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Estonian (a neighbour of Latvian and a relative of Finnish and Hungarian). Slovak is like Czech, too. Can't think of any more. --194.145.161.227 14:27, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Icelandic Stefán Ingi 14:51, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
It's not only in European languages, either: initial stress is found in many Australian languages, like Pintupi, Badimaya, Diyari, Pitta-Pitta, Wangkumara, as well as New Guinean languages like Ono and Selepet, the Austronesian language Dehu, and Native American languages like Cahuilla and Auca, though these probably don't significant numbers of speakers. User:Angr 19:38, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
English tends to shift leftward too. Remember that many one-syllable English words started off as having two syllables, the second one gradually having been lost because all the stress was on the first. Jameswilson 23:31, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I would understand from Lee Hollander's Poetic Edda (an English translation of a collection of Old Norse texts), page 324, that Old Norse worked this way, and I studied Old English with the assumption that it was that way, although I can't substantiate it.

Thanks folks. There's no mention of this in the Icelandic article, so maybe someone who knows what they're talking about should do so. JackofOz 01:37, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] the pronunciation of a specific word in Mandarin Chinese

Hello, I've done searches to find the answer to this question, but it seems to be too specific:

Mandarin Chinese has a character “这”（zhe4). The meaning of this word is like the English "this". Native Chinese speakers pronounce this word in one of two ways, either like the English word "jay" or like the first sound in the English word "judge". Today, Chinese young people simply choose one of the two pronounciations and stick with it, or use them interchangeably. However, my Chinese teacher in America said that there are, or used to be, rules for when you use the first pronunciation, and when you use the second. He is an older gentleman, so he still follows these rules himself. However, I can't remember what he said these rules are.

So, with that background out of the way, my question: What are the rules for the pronunciation of this word? Do they still exist today?

I know that this question is random and specific, but any help you can give me would be appreciated. Even my young Chinese teachers in China didn't know that these rules exist, so I don't really know where else to go.

Thank you in advance.--Danaman5 07:05, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I think there are a few characters that has (or used to have) different readings depending on context, but that it is/was very rare in modern Mandarin Chinese. 惑乱 分からん 07:08, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
In this dicussion there was some suggestion that zhai is a contraction of zhe yi, and so is used before measure words. But universal agreement was not reached. ;) HenryFlower 08:29, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Henry is right. "zhei" (in pinyin) is the contraction of "zhe yi" (這一 "this one").--K.C. Tang 08:59, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
My experience is that people who use the "zhei" pronunciation do so almost always before a measure word, but not everyone uses it. "zhe ben shu" seems just as correct to me as "zhei ben shu", but "zhe shi yi ben shu" sounds right to me while *"zhei shi yi ben shu" definitely sounds wrong. But I don't speak Chinese very well, so my judgments are suspect. --Diderot 09:26, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
  • "zhei shi yi ben shu" would mean "this one is a book"... even someone who doesn't speak Chinese would guess that it's wrong...--K.C. Tang 01:28, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Punctuation

"There is no official language in Eritrea, rather it has three working languages, Tigrinya, Arabic, and English, and Italian is still sometimes spoken as a commercial language."

What is precisely wrong with this sentence and what would be the best way to fix it? --Merhawie 16:47, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with it. I personally don't like "rather" in that context, and the parenthetical clause might be clarified by rendering it: "There is no official language in Eritrea, which has three working languages – Tigrinya, Arabic, and English – and Italian is still sometimes spoken as a commercial language."--Shantavira 17:24, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
For my part, I would greatly prefer a semicolon after "Eritrea" and a comma after "rather." But maybe that's just me. :-) --Tkynerd 18:08, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

If the word "rather" is retained, then the first comma should become a semicolon. I would recast the sentence into two as follows: "Eritrea has no official language, but it has three working languages: Tigrinya, Arabic, and English. A fourth language, Italian, is sometimes used commercially." --Mathew5000 18:10, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

It's wrong. 'Rather' is not a coordinating conjunction, so as mentioned it would need a semicolon (or maybe a colon?) before it. HenryFlower 18:21, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

It's also a run-on sentence. Put a period after "Eritrea," and change "rather" to "Instead."--Teutoberg 20:12, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Not quite. A run-on sentence doesn't have any punctuation; rather, this is a comma splice. HenryFlower 20:22, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much everyone for your input! This was a tremendous help! --Merhawie 20:52, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Petrarch's De viris illustribus

How can I get an English version of this or get it translated from Latin to English? Is there a software program that would automatically translate this from Latin to English? In lieu of that, how could I get a list of at least the names of each on this Petrarch list? Is there common names on his list of names as Jerome, Boccacio, or Suetonius whom have same? Is there a web site of an English version of Petrarch's? Or a list of scholars that might have it in English? Whom are key scholars knowledgable about Petrarch? --Doug Coldwell 19:42, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there is an English translation out there, either ebook or treebook and a machine translation would be probably unreadable. Although influential each life is just a short rehash of history available elsewhere: mainly from Livy. Dunno about names in common with Boccacio but it has none in common with Suetonius as he wrote of the Roman Emperors while most of Petrarch deals with the Roman Republic or before and Jerome wrote of Christian writers. Here is a list of lives: Romulus, Numa Pompilius, Tullus Hostilius, Ancus Marcius, Lucius Junius Brutus, Horatius Cocles, Cincinnatus, Marcus Furius Camillus, Titus Manlius Torquatus (347 BC), Marcus Valerius Corvus, Publius Decius Mus (312 BC), Lucius Papirius Cursor, Curius Dentatus, Gaius Fabricius Luscinus, Alexander III of Macedon, Pyrrhus of Epirus, Hannibal of Carthage, Fabius Maximus, Marcus Claudius Marcellus, Gaius Claudius Nero, Marcus Livius Salinator, Scipio Africanus, Cato the Elder, Scipio Aemilianus Africanus. MeltBanana 22:23, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

This is very helpful. Then I understand this is the complete list of names on Petrarch's De Viris Illustribus!? So my understanding is that then he just describes these individuals with a brief description or history of each!? Are you a scholar quite familiar with Petrarch? Do you know of others very familiar with Petrarch? Have you ever come across where Petrarch wrote in a "pen name" or wrote in any type of a "code"? Are you at all familar with Jerome's list of "Christian writers" or know who is familiar with these? You have been very helpful and it helps me a lot in my research I am doing on Petrarch. --Doug Coldwell 23:57, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] periodical definition

I would like to know if there is a term for a publication that is released 3 times a year. I'm familiar with, weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.

There is no common term. The best option seems to be "quadrimonthly". [1] [2] --Mathew5000 22:36, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
'Triannual' is less ugly. HenryFlower 23:58, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
'Quamestrial'? (warning: I made that up :) ) DirkvdM 06:55, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
'Triannual' is correct. Its counterpart is 'triennial' = "once every three years". This corresponds to 'biannual' and 'biennial', which are in any standard dictionary. Charvex 06:10, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Editing Questions

Should Emperor be capatalized.

He is later considered to be the first Roman Emperor.

In 37 Caligula (37-41) succeeded Tiberius as Emperor.

What about kingdom.

The gold of Babylon represents that the great Kingdom did not need much.

The Crusaders exiled the Greek Orthodox Patriarch from the city, and a Latin hierarchy was established in the Kingdom under a Latin Patriarch.

Also, does 1960's have an apostophe.


No, no, and no. Neither emperor or kingdom are capitalized and 1960s does not have an apostrophe. --Yarnalgo 22:19, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
That would be "Neither emperor nor kingdom is capitalized".  :--) JackofOz 13:47, 8 August 2006 (UTC)