User talk:Noetica

I'll reply to your message here; if I post at your talkpage, I'll watch for a reply there.

Note: I no longer edit or discuss at [[WP:MOS]] or [[WP:MOSNUM]].

This user is a Reference desk regular.

Archive 1: everything before July 2007

Archive 2: July to November 2007

Archive 3: December 2007 to December 2008

Recent edits to Apostrophe

I just wanted to say I like your recent edits, they really improved the flow. And it's interesting that a pair of sticklers for English grammar like us both speak French. Not a contradiction, though - I firmly believe that people don't fully understand their own language until they learn a foreign language. Anyway, félicitations, beau travail! Awien (talk) 02:04, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Merci bien, Awien. Je fais ce que je puis, mais il y a toujours quelque chose de nouveau qu'il faut mettre en place. I agree about learning other languages. I'm always at it, and whatever I learn helps to enrich my understanding of English – and so much more, of course.

You are welcome here. Come again!

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 12:19, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

new WP:RDREG userbox

This user is a Reference desk regular.

The box to the right is the newly created userbox for all RefDesk regulars. Since you are an RD regular, you are receiving this notice to remind you to put this box on your userpage! (but when you do, don't include the |no. Just say {{WP:RD regulars/box}} ) This adds you to Category:RD regulars, which is a must. So please, add it. Don't worry, no more spam after this - just check WP:RDREG for updates, news, etc. flaming lawye r^c 21:26, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Newish Year Greetings.

A Happy New Year to you too, Noetica! I have been in holiday mode for the past couple of weeks, and was quite delighted to find your message when I finally crawled out of hibernation. May your path also be illuminated. Gwinva (talk) 22:54, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks!

See the search box, below? Copy the code for it to anywhere you like (as I did), and modify it as you will. Makes searching easy.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 11:49, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! A very handy device. Gwinva (talk) 23:31, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Alphabetization (given names, surnames, domestic name order, thorn)

I would like to alphabetize the entries in each of the subsections of Esperantist#Lists of famous Esperantists, but I am unsure of whether to decide the order according to given names or surnames. Also, Kálmán Kalocsay is in Hungarian name order Kalocsay Kálmán. Also, Þórbergur Þórðarson begins with the letter thorn. I am unsure of how to alphabetize those two Esperantists' names. I consulted the following pages but did not find an answer to any of my questions.

What do you advise me to do, and which page(s) (if any) has/have the answers?
-- Wavelength (talk) 00:49, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You have raised good questions, Wavelength. I find these matters hardly addressed at all in WP's guidelines, even though there is a great deal of attention paid to lists of various sorts, and we even have featured lists (like featured article). That omission needs to be addressed systematically.

The best article for alphabetical order is Collation. See the whole, but especially the section Collation#Alphabetical_order, where some of your specific concerns are dealt with. I have also checked New Hart's Rules, and after some reflection I would answer your questions, and some other possible ones, specifically like this (bearing in mind that your list keeps the conventional English order of elements within each name):

Order by surname, regardless of where the surname occurs among the elements of a name.
Use the conventional English adaptation in the order of elements, which sometimes matches the original language's order (Mao Zedong) and sometimes alters it (Béla Bartók).
Use the most common standard English transliteration or variant where foreign characters occur. (I have just now made redirects from Thorbergur Thortharson and Thortharson to Þórbergur Þórðarson, by the way. And I advise a move to Thorbergur Thortharson.)
Generally ignore de, von, van and the like in determining alphabetical order, unless they are fixed to the name without spaces (as in Degas, Vanderbilt, d'Alembert, l'Anglais) or are conventionally treated as an essential part of the surname (as in McDonnell, O'Connor). French le and la, often capitalised in French names, are considered in alphabetising (so Delacroix precedes La Croix). When a prefix is naturalised in English (as in De Quincey, inconsistently spelt with de or De at our article; and Walter de la Mare, name of an English poet), alphabetisation should begin at that prefix.
Treat Mc as if it were spelt Mac.
Use other conventions that might be laid out at Collation.
Allow for conventional exceptions (such as Charles de Gaulle, alphabetised on de; mentioned specifically at CMOS).

So:

Karen Attwood
Étienne d'Angers
Annette Davidson
Charles de Gaulle
Walter John de la Mare
Thomas De Quincey
Ernő Dohnányi
Antoine de Gascogne
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
Yves La Roche
Jean de La Rochelle
Jean Le Maingre
Jean-Marie Le Pen
Craig McCulloch
Avril MacIntyre
Mao Zedong
John Mountford
Thor Rasmussen
Thorbergur Thortharson

I hope that helps. If you want more, let me know.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 02:47, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much for your answers. I suppose that I am ready to do the alphabetization now, with the edit summary containing a permanent link to this talk page, and with the text "section 4". (I consider it to be likely that some editor in the future will see the new orderings, and will change some of them to more "correct" orderings.) I would like to introduce at WT:MOS essentially the same message that I have here (my first message in this section), possibly with a link to this discussion. However, I want to respect your wishes not to participate at WP:MOS or WT:MOS. Also, I am unsure about what might constitute participation by proxy, and what your thoughts are about that. Therefore, I am awaiting your comments on those matters before I proceed with the alphabetization, or with a possible discussion at WT:MOS.

-- Wavelength (talk) 17:31, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's all fine, Wavelength. If you want to link this discussion at WT:MOS go right ahead. Or you could put the text of it in a navbox and paste it directly onto the page there:

Something like that. I think navboxes should be used a lot more. They certainly can keep things orderly. Don't hesitate to come back here for more technical discussion as needed. I have a few resources to consult, and the topic interests me.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 20:26, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've refined and corrected things a little in my post above.–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 22:53, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have done the alphabetization of Esperantist#Lists of famous Esperantists. Ba Jin (listed at Esperantist#Writers) is a pseudonym, which I alphabetized at Ba. Pope John Paul II (listed at Esperantist#Others) is a titled name, which I alphabetized at John. This reminds me of Cardinal, which is used as a middle name/title. It also reminds me of Esquire, which is mentioned last in a name (or maybe I should say "mentioned after a name").

Some telephone directories have all Mc and Mac (and maybe M' ) names in a section between the L section and the M section. Also, Mackenzie (with a lowercase k) could be analyzed as being in the M section, rather than in the section for Mc and Mac. Several Mac names have two forms which differ only as to the capitalization of the next letter.

In my previous work on Wikipedia, I have listed items in ASCII-code order, with numerals before letters. If numerals are ordered as the words they represent, then there is ambiguity with 1492, which could be read as "one thousand four hundred ninety-two" or as "fourteen (hundred) nineteen-two", and likewise with 2009. See User:Wavelength/Articles started, sections 2 to 7.

Recently, when I added M.C. Mehta v. Union of India (Oleum Gas Leak Case) to List of environmental lawsuits, I left the order as I had arranged it before, but I noticed another problem: the new entry differed from another one (M. C. Mehta v. Kamal Nath) in the spacing of the initials. Perhaps one is right and one is wrong, according to a guideline somewhere on Wikipedia.

(All of this is giving me images of crazy quilting.)

-- Wavelength (talk) 07:38, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I can understand your experiencing the crazy-quilting effect. I have edited the lists on the page myself. I do urge a move of Þórbergur Þórðarson to Thorbergur Thortharson; and even without that move, Thorbergur Thortharson would be much better for standard English usage, as in these lists. Such an adaptation is quite normal. We don't refer to Thor Heyerdahl as "Þór", or whatever the original form would be! I have also fixed some punctuation, capitalisation, and the like. The Esperanto word Internacio is best translated as International (SOED, "international": [B. n'] 3 (I-.) Any of various socialist organizations founded for the worldwide promotion of socialism or Communism; spec. = First International, Second International, Third International, Fourth International below. Also, a member of any of these organizations. L19.).

One entry was an error, due to confusion with an almost exact namesake. I removed it (see edit summaries). There are articles for several Russians with that same surname, as opposed to first given name and also surname; and while there is a disambiguation page there is not, so far, a DAB tag at the top of every affected page.

Language and languages were not designed for strictly rational collation such as alphabetising. We do the best we can, in an imperfect universe. I think we have it sorted out well enough this time. The larger matter of making WP guidelines to deal adequately with alphabetising is separate and more problematic.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 00:56, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Noetic

Just letting you know you are very close to WP:3RR on the Noetic Consciousness article. LoveMonkey (talk) 04:46, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

O, thank you so much! It is obvious that I have no idea what I'm doing, right? For your convenience I reproduce my last addition at Talk:Noetic_Consciousness:

LM, not only are you refusing to step back and look at weighty new evidence when it comes your way, you have accused me of bad faith in an edit summary when I offer it! You have restored faulty spelling that you introduced (it does not occur in the source you cite), even though I corrected and explained that error above. Invited to consider what more authoritative sources might have to say on the matter, including the monumental 20-volume OED, your reflex is to restore your lesser sources, sloppily and incompetently misquoting them, and with some of the poorest wiki-markup I have seen in a long while. This article is a complete mess, and probably a good candidate for deletion. If you cannot recognise the hand of someone who knows how to fix things and who has volunteered to patch what can be patched in this barbed-wire canoe of an article, I'll let you have your petty way. For now.

Have a nice wikilife. :)

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 04:58, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

French grammar book

Hello Noetica, thanks for your help on the Reference Desk. I have a followup question: what would you recommend for a French grammar book? I have a Petit Robert, and Angr pointed me to the Dubois/Mitterand/Dauzat Dictionnaire d'Etymologie, which is very useful. But the only grammar book I have is from an undergraduate French class, and it is not as useful as I would like. Also, are there any good French composition books? I have an excellent one for Latin but I would also like to improve my French writing skills. Adam Bishop (talk) 18:24, 17 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Adam. Welcome to my quiet corner of WP. I haven't got any recent French grammar in my collection, and I don't immediately know what to recommend; but see below.

I have several full-size dictionaries, some much bigger than the usual single-volume bricks. I use Petit Robert a lot, but I hardly touch the hard copy. The CDROM (on my hard-drive, in fact) is incredibly useful; the searching is fine, apart from a certain fickleness that means you have to start from scratch more often than you should. I also have OED and SOED on my hard-drive, and I use these three a lot for cross-language research. I also have TLFi, which I hope you are familiar with online. It's about the best for truly serious historical and literary inquiry, but a bit unwieldy for casual use. Being obsessive about such things, I also have TLFi on my hard-drive, and the huge Diccionario de la lengua española (Real Academia Española), the Spanish equivalent. In hardcopy I have specialist dictionaries as well, including the wonderful Greimas dictionaries of Ancien Français and Moyen Français, and a big modern Larousse etymological thing, and so on. I have a large number of other languages covered, including all the Romance languages (yes, BIG dictionaries and grammars of Italian, Portuguese, Occitan, and Catalan).

As for grammars, I wish I had the current Grevisse; but I make do with the seventh edition, 1961. It's fine for my purposes, and I can supplement it with other things, or by online research, or by consulting a specialist (which I find I rarely need to do). I do a lot with early 15th-century French, and literature from then till about 1930, especially the French romantic and symbolist poets. I translate them, I mean: when I have the inclination and energy. You can explore the contents of Grevisse at Amazon. But that price! $US225 is a bit steep even for a fanatic like me; and I'd have to pay postage to Australia. It's a bit cheaper at French Amazon. I'd buy from there, as I have before.

Other grammars I have: an old Grammaire Larousse (pretty good, readable); Ferrar's A French Reference Grammar (old, handy, quick to peruse); a bunch of strange specific guides to slang and the like, a thesaurus, etc.; and The Big Blue Book of French Verbs, McGrawHill. I have about six in that series. They're all much better than they sound, and have full reliable information, and copious well-chosen examples. And they're cheap! The Latin one (whose colour is for some reason gold) is superb.

I recommend that blue verb book to you; and also, get your hands on an old Grevisse if you can. Beyond that, there is a huge range on offer around the place. If you are contemplating anything in particular, point to it for me at Amazon and I'll give you my opinion, if you like.

Come back any time. And I'll see you at the RefDesk.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 11:51, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Noetica. I have access to the OED too, through my university's library website. I've seen TLFi but I must need to change my fonts or something, because accented characters don't work there for me. I have the Greimas Old French dictionary and a couple of Old French grammars (in French, by De Lage, and English, by Einhorn). I will check out some of your suggestions, thanks! (Ha, what a strange coincidence, I was just responding to this as you wrote to notify me of it!) Adam Bishop (talk) 21:50, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Links to archived discussions of the Manual of Style

For your convenience, here are links to five discussions which I started because my corrections were challenged. They are listed in the order in which I started them. I understand from your past comments that you would be particularly interested in referring to the second and fourth.

-- Wavelength (talk) 18:08, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Wavelength. Handy for future reference. Don't hesitate to call on me for support, if such corrections are challenged again.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 21:39, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]