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May 6

Translation

hi, I just wrote an artice in English and I know that the same article exsists in Hungarian and Swedish, but I can't find the link to. Usually they are on the left side, but not this time. I want to be able to change the language of the article by one click. Can you please help me to do that? thanks

You have to put links to them at the bottom, in the form [[hu:Article name]] or [[sv:Article name]], where hu and sv are the ISO 639-1 codes for Hungarian and Swedish. I'd do it for you but you didn't mention which article. =P —Keenan Pepper 02:10, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Translation

Hi, it's me again, I just tried like you said, and it seems to work. btw the article is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soltvadkert it's about my hometown. thanks again

No problem. I noticed you also added links to German and Japanese, where the article doesn't exist yet. This can't really hurt anything, but it's kinda useless and it might give people false hope that there actually is an article in their preferred language. —Keenan Pepper 02:58, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Question on the English Language

A riddle is going around on email saying that there are 3 words in the English language that end in "gry". Two are "angry" and "hungry". What is the 3rd? The only clue given is "wiki", but I am completely confused by your site. I am assuming that the clue means to use this site. It says: "There are three words in the English language that end in "gry". ONE is angry and the other is hungry. EveryONE knows what the third ONE means and what it stands for. EveryONE uses them everyday; and, if you listened very carefully, I've given you the third word. What is it? _______gry?" The email claims if I send the riddle to 5 people that the answer will automatically appear on my screen. I know that won't happen. But if you could point me in the correct direction, or if you can get the answer, I would truly appreciate it.-----Judy Thomason

See gry - Nunh-huh 02:51, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

And please don't forward it. Most people have heard it before. Is there a name for this type of "please forward" spam? I haven't been able to find an article about it. --Shantavira 09:17, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Chain e-mail -lethe ^{talk +} 09:21, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Vowel Quadrilateral

I'm writing the linguistics page of the Chaozhou language and would like to add a vowel quadrilateral like in the french phonology page, i tried to decipher the codes on the edits page, and tried replacing some vowels with the ones i want but i still can't do it. Can anyone tell me how i can make one? i'm quoting the French one here:

	Front		Central		Back
Close	i • y    • u e • ø    • o ə ɛ • œ    • ɔ a •  ɑ •
Close-mid
Mid
Open-mid
Open

The vowels to the left of the dot • are unrounded; those to the right are rounded. See Vowel roundedness.

Merci! Shingrila 03:47, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

I never figured it out either, which is why I just used drawings for the vowel charts at Ulster Irish, Connacht Irish, Munster Irish, and California English. Drawings also let you be much more precise about the relative positions of the vowels. Angr (talk • contribs) 09:01, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi. I was the one who made the French table, so I can tell you how I did it, but it might also be easier to just make a graphic as Angr said. I took the full vowel chart from Vowels, then went to the sandbox to play around with it. The top section defines the headings at the top (front, central, back), and the bottom section defines the side (close, open, etc.). Then each of the middle sections is for one of the rows. You will have to go in and delete all the vowels that do not appear in the language. All you have to change is the part inside the IPA tags. I put   in their place, although I don't know if that's strictly necessary. I don't know if that was at all clear, but you might also consider just making a picture. Lesgles (talk) 00:32, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Lesgles and Angr, but i still don't quite get it :<, could you demonstrate it by making one with only the cardinal vowels?

the vowels i need for Chaozhou are [a], [i], [e], [o], [ɤ]/[ɯ]/[ə], [u], and their nasalised counterparts. Shingrila 06:18, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

All right, I was bored so I tried this. You might be able to modify it to make it better:

	Front		Central		Back
Close	i •  ɯ • u e • ø ə ɤ • o a
Mid
Open

– Lesgles (talk) 21:13, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Blocked on Hungarian Wikipedia

Hi, I was writing acticles in English about Hungarian towns. Then I went and added a link on the Hungarian sites so people will see that the article is also available in English. But for some reason I have been blocked from the Hungarian Wikipedia. Please help me! Thanks,

Eddie

This kind of questions probably belong on the help desk, but have you tried contacting the admin who's blocked you? - ulayiti (talk) 17:08, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

If you're the same guy who asked before about Soltvadkert I think your block log says: "blokkolva 1 nap lejárattal (generating invalid iw links en masse)". So it's only a one-day block. I guess you'll need to be a bit more careful to check that you're links are correct. (And perhaps get a username, the admins are probably more forgiving then.) --BluePlatypus 19:44, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Haha, maybe I spoke too soon when I said links to nonexistant articles couldn't do any harm. =P —Keenan Pepper 04:05, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

May 7

language

how to write a letter given my apologise?

Pardon? —Keenan Pepper 03:07, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

This is one way to do it.

You start with stating in the most sincere and regretful tone exactly what you're apologizing for. You then go on to describe how this matter affected you and others involved in your hearts and lives. Then you write the lessons you learned from the situation and how they will help you to do better in the future. Then you offer any assistance that may help to alleviate any suffering that was in some way caused by your actions. You close by talking about some of the wonderful qualities this person has and how they have positively affected your life. You might want to open with that also. Hmmm... I think that's everything. But this is for a personal letter, if it's a professional memo the guidelines change quite a bit. -LambaJan 18:41, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Just one thing I'd add to that: it's important to accept responsibility for what you've done--to say "this was my fault" in one way or another. Many people (especially politicians, it seems) try to get away with "non-apology apologies," that is, issuing a statement that on its surface seems to be an apology, but on more careful review is not one, often because it lacks acceptance of responsibility for the unfortunate incident. Cynthia McKinney has been widely criticized for her "apology" regarding the recent incident with the U.S. Capitol Police, as it did not include any acceptance of responsibility for the incident on her part. Chuck 20:48, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Turkish help

Could someone please translate this for me?

Beyaz atlı sımdı gectı buradan
Surarısı can elınden vurulmus
Cıksın daglar taslargayrı aradan
Beyaz atın suvarısı yorulmus

Ellerı elıme deymez olaydı
Gozlerı gozumu gormez olaydı
Bu gonul o gonlu sevmez olaydı
Beyaz atlı sımdı gectı buradan

Thanks! deeptrivia (talk) 01:39, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Cem Karaca lyrics; his article could sure use improvement! --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 15:24, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that's right! Still waiting for translation though. deeptrivia (talk) 16:14, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Try asking one of the people listed at Wikipedia:Translators available#Turkish-to-English. Angr (t • c) 17:18, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Red-eye effect in photography

Does anybody know the technical term for the "red-eye" effect in photography? I thought that it began with "hemo-", but I might be totally wrong. Please, please, please, if anybody knows, I'd greatly appreciate it. (I doubt that I'll be able to sleep until I find out!)

Not sure what you mean by technical. "Red-eye effect" seems to be the principal term, as far as I can tell—at least, I can't find any other. It needn't be long and Latin-derived to be "technical". —Zero Gravitas 05:37, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I've been trying to find words that start with hemo-, which means "blood" in Greek. Maybe hemophthalmia, "an effusion of blood into the eyeball" [1]? Could be confused with the red-eye effect. :) Lesgles (talk) 05:47, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Language

I have two questions:

Where is the Brahmi language mainly used today? What does the message mean and what does it say behind the picture of Anne Frank?

as usual, readings of the Brahmi and of the Anne Frank articles are highly recommended. Cheers.--K.C. Tang 06:52, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Have you been to my userpage or something? deeptrivia (talk) 03:25, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

sprunge

A Frenchie is translating an article into French, as is baffled by a word, sprunge. The sentence whence it comes is: James VI/I traced his origin to Fergus, saying, in his own words, that he was a "Monarch sprunge of Ferguse race". I told the budding translator to just ignore this quote, as nobody's going to miss it. I had a quick search through online dictionaries and a massive uni-owned one, with no reference to the word. However, I felt generous, and tried to sniff out a reference, and a few websites hinted it is a Middle English word, maybe related to the word sprog (the British definition). Anyone who knows more about Middle English, can they give a hand? Was my advice of "ignore things you can't translate" apt? Blimey, I do feel generous today. --Wonderfool 11:49, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I think this is just "sprung" with an e on the end, as was done in "olde englishe". James is saying he was from the line of Fergus. I guess it would be "un monarque jailli de la ligne de Fergus" in French. Hope this helps... СПУТНИК^{ССС Р} 11:59, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Just in case it isn't obvious, sprung comes from spring. Spring, sprang, sprung. Like sing, sang, sung, via ablaut. --KJ 23:41, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

"A Frenchie"? Ignore article content? ... Ardric47 05:22, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Aunt/Uncle and Niece/Nephew

Does anyone know if there's a gender neutral tem for aunt/uncle and niece/nephew. I can't find one anywhere but it seems odd if there isn't since every other relative word I can think of, has one. Anyone know? - ^Red_Hot 17:41, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

The only thing I can think of would be a compound term: 'parent's sibling' and 'sibling's child'. It's a little clumsy, but unless you invent a new term and it catches on, you're stuck with things like this. English is not a perfectly gender neutral language. -LambaJan 18:24, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

A friend of mine who was studying anthropology told me once the term "nibling" had some informal currency among cultural anthropologists as a gender-neutral term for "niece or nephew". Angr (talk • contribs) 20:43, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I occasionally use 'niefling' among my family. Comes from somewhere. Skittle 22:13, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

"parent's sibling" and "sibling's child" cover only half the story. There are also "parent's sibling's spouse" and "spouse's sibling's child". JackofOz 03:35, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for those answers. I just find it strange that those two (aunt/uncle and niece/nephew) are the only ones, except of course for cousin which is neutral by nature. - ^Red_Hot 12:19, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

What is this Russian Text?

Киа дефиа легиа фервор'
Ве! Ла либер', чу суперос тиујн главојн?
Или кун швит' спит', ескит' кај терор'
Венос, форпренос, чу тенос ниан хавојн?
Јам тамбурас ла хиспан'!
Јам Поркул' импетас,
Ли аванце де лонтан'
Ал Берген' импетас.

Берг'-оп-Зом',
Кун реном',
Спиту ал хиспано.
Ниа хом', ниа дом'
Савај кун елано!
--Quentin Smith 18:14, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

It's in Cyrillic, but it isn't actually Russian. This is an identical text in Roman script, which is apparently an Esperanto translation of the Dutch song Het beleg van Bergen op Zoom (The Siege of Bergen op Zoom), referring to an event of the War of the Austrian Succession. This looks like the original text. —Zero Gravitas 18:24, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Not Russian cyrillic either given the "Ј"s. Probably Serbian cyrillic. --BluePlatypus 20:32, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Serbian has those ubiquitous DJ and TJ mergers, which I don't see in this text. But maybe it's just a transliteration from some other language. -lethe ^{talk +} 20:50, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Zero Gravitas already said what language it is: it's Esperanto, written in Cyrillic for some reason. Angr (talk • contribs) 21:10, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

J is a pretty common letter in Esperanto. Probably the program or person that transliterated the text didn't know to write a Cyrillic й. PeepP 09:14, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

So you mean they'd lack knowlege about a common, easily transcribable letter, yet still know something more obscure like that the Esperanto letter "ĉ" is equivalent to "ч"? Doesn't seem probable to me when "Ј" is a perfectly good letter of the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet. It is also the one that'd correspond to the Esperanto "j". --BluePlatypus 11:13, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I think it's probably not language specific. Cyrillic J is a convenient transliteration of Roman J, and it's not a translation, so it need not conform to a local variety of Cyrillic. For example, when we transliterate Hindi from Devanagari to Latin, we often write ã with a tilde for nasal a = आँ, but that doesn't really mean we're using the Portuguese Latin alphabet. We transliterate the voiceless postalveolar fricative ब as š with a hacek, but that doesn't really mean we're using the Czech Latin alphabet. It just means that when transliterating, we need to find symbols which represent the source language well. As long as it's not a translation, there isn't really a need to conform to the orthography of any target language. I think the same thing applies here: when transliterating from Esperanto to Cyrillic, we just take whichever letters fit well with Esperanto, and don't worry about which local national varieties of Cyrillic they come from. So I think the presence of Js doesn't justify the assumption that the transliterater preferred Serbian to Russian. -lethe ^{talk +} 11:22, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

That doesn't work, because "j" is the same letter as "й". They have the same sound, and both versions work just as well as a translitteration of Esperanto "J". But "J" for "je" is a local variant, it's only used in Serbian and Macedonian and most cyrillic alphabets use "й" instead. There's no point in only translitterating all the letters but one and keeping a foreign letter like "j", unless you don't consider that to be a foreign letter. --BluePlatypus 10:39, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

From Dutch language

Could someone kindly explain the cultural references in this quotation? It comes from Dutch language

"There have been many definitions of hell, but for the English the best definition is that it is the place where the Germans are the police, the Swedish are the comedians, the Italians are the defense force, Frenchmen dig the roads, the Belgians are the pop singers, the Spanish run the railways, the Turks cook the food, the Irish are the waiters, the Greeks run the government, and the common language is Dutch."

--HappyCamper 21:13, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Cultural references -You mean stereotypes? They seem pretty obvious. But in short Germans are fascists, Swedes are boring, Italians are cowards, French are lazy, Belgians have no culture (Ever heard Plastic Bertrand? ;)), Spanish railroads are never on time, Turkish food (i.e.: kebab) is bad, Irish are rude, Greeks are corrupt and Dutch is an ugly language. --BluePlatypus 21:26, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I heard a slightly different version of the joke. It's about the difference between heaven and hell: In heaven, the British are the police, the Germans are the scholars, the French are the chefs, the Swiss are the bankers, and the Italians are the lovers. But in hell, the Germans are the police, the French are the scholars, the British are the chefs, the Italians are the bankers, and the Swiss are the lovers. Angr (talk • contribs) 22:35, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

airplane pronounciation

hi, why do we say airplane but say (certainly in UK english)"aeroplane". is this what it used to be called? it seems weird when we pronouce airport phonetically... (even more weird is the french who say aéroport but then bail and call an airplane "un avion"). any suggestions?

Because "aeroplane" is the British word for a heavier than air flying machine. To me, "airplane" is very much an Americanism. --Arwel (talk) 00:25, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Not quite right. The general term for a machine capable of flight is an "aircraft". An "aeroplane" is a powered heavier-than-air flying vehicle with fixed wings. So a helicopter is an aircraft but not an aeroplane. A 747 is both. But yes, "airplane" is an Americanism for "aeroplane". JackofOz 07:18, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

umlauts

hi, what are umlauts (german) called in english and french? (i.e. citroën) thanks

Diaeresis. -lethe ^{talk +} 22:22, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

To be more specific, it's called an umlaut when it changes the quality of a single vowel, and a dieresis when it marks one vowel as being separate from another. —Keenan Pepper 23:21, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Usually, in my experience, the symbol is called an dieresis even when being used for umlaut.--Prosfilaes 23:31, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Not so in typography, according to umlaut (diacritic). --KJ 23:46, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Not so in heavy metal, either. -LambaJan 23:38, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

In my experience, the symbol is usually called an umlaut even when being used for dieresis. Angr (talk • contribs) 23:53, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

In French it's called tréma. The distinction between diaeresis and umlaut (diacritic) might not be strong in French. Both of them link to fr:Tréma. --KJ 00:05, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I can't think of a french word where the tréma changes a single vowel. Tréma comes from the same greek word meaning dot or hole, like in monotreme, those beasts having only one. First dotcoms, I think. --DLL 19:13, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

May 8

French Translation of Chimera

Does anyone know the French word for chimera? Thanks. --Think Fast 00:54, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

The article links to the French Wikipedia article: fr:Chimère. --KJ 01:03, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Sorry I didn't see that when I looked at the article. --Think Fast 02:41, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Croatian

I have been looking to learn the Croatian language for a long time now (ever since I heard what it sounded like on ER). I would really appreciate any help in finding what would be the best way to do this (save going to Croatia or taking a college course). I am looking to be able to buy some sort of Audio disk package and/or book combination. If anyone knows of anything, that would be great. Chuck^(척뉴넘) 06:05, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Many people said "Teach Yourself Serbian" by David Norris and Vladislava Ribnikar is good. They also have "Teach Yourself Croatian", which should differ from Serbian only in dialect and script used, so I'd imagine the course is as good. Mind you, I'm a native speaker and didn't actually use it, but people recommended it. You might also consider renting some of Višnjić's movies while you are studying the language. :) Serbo-Croatian is not particularly hard, most Americans I know got the pronunciation right after a while (or at least, very close to right), but 7 cases singular and plural combined with genders do make it a bit of a nightmare sometimes. You might also consider hooking up with a person from Bosnia/Croatia/Serbia (it's essentially the same language) and asking for help. --dcabrilo 07:22, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

This could also get you started. --Shibo77 09:06, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks very much...I'm probably gonna buy "Teach Yourself Croatian". Chuck^(척뉴넘) 11:45, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Refer me to translator. (Old Norwegian)

I have very old letters written in Norwegian from 1895 to about 1924. I am having a hard time finding someone to translate them for me. I understand the language has changed since then and I am wondering if that is why everyone I give them to can not translate them. If you could refer me to someone I would be grateful. Thanks. Beverly Bowman

You could try asking directly at the talk page of any of the people listed at Wikipedia:Translators available#Norwegian-to-English. (You might want to check their contributions first and make sure they're still around. You could also click "E-mail this user" to send them an e-mail.) But don't call it "Old Norwegian"; most people understand that to mean Norwegian before about the mid-14th century. What you have is simply old-fashioned Modern Norwegian! :-) Angr (t • c) 17:08, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Norwegian from circa 1900 should not be difficult at all to anyone who speaks Norwegian. Even to someone who speaks Swedish it should be comprehensible. -From what I understand, a lot of Swedes read Ibsen in high school, in the original 19th century Norwegian. (Similarily, most English don't have problems reading Mark Twain either) If they're short, I might be willing to help out. Try my talk page. (Although I find that for documents from that era, reading the handwriting is often a lot harder than any archaic the language) --BluePlatypus 08:43, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I will check it out.

Name Pronuciation

How would the name Matejczyk be pronounced? Thanks, --Chapuisat 17:54, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

From the page Polish phonology, it seems it would be pronounced something like "ma-TAY-chick", IPA: [maˈtɛi̯ʧɨk]. But I'd wait for a Polish speaker to be sure. Lesgles (talk) 18:07, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. --19:52, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

is there a word for the phenomenon when the month, day and year are all the same?

Such as this year, it's June 6, 2006 (or 06/06/06; or previously 05/05/05, 04/04/04 etc.). I have googled using various "key" words and have come up empty-handed, except for what someone else described as "triple date". Any ideas?

Apocalypse!!! Aaaahhhhh!!! :) --Think Fast 23:16, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Orchestra

Me and some friends are trying to figure out how many words we can make out of the word orchestra. I've gotten a lot of words but I need help finding the nine letter words. Some of my friends said they have two nine letter words. I can't find them to save my life. I heard that the other two were proper nouns. But I don't know if thats fact or not so, thanks in advance. -- Jesusfreak 22:17, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

There's "carthorse" for one. —Zero Gravitas 22:28, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank You so much. If anyone can find anymore let me know. -- Jesusfreak 22:50, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Chest Roar? or did you want single words? Philc _T^E_C^I 22:57, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Try this. -Elmer Clark 23:18, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I need single words. Thank you. -- Jesusfreak 00:40, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

The only other word suggested by Anagram Genius, which is pretty thorough, is Carothers, which is a proper noun. Perhaps your friends were looking there. --Shantavira 07:36, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Has there ever been an orchestra conducted by someone named Carothers? That would be a wonderful thing to have at one's fingertips for a rainy day. JackofOz 13:11, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Or a carthorse named Carothers? Or a carthorse named Carothers who conducted an orchestra! Angr (t • c) 14:21, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, waddaya know, there really has been a conductor named Carothers, although it looks like she acquired the Carothers name after she finished conducting. In 1986, Rosalyn Harbst was a conductor for the Louisville Youth Orchestra, and she now runs a legal practice under the name Rosalyn Carothers [2]. I wonder if she knows what anagrammatic secrets her new name holds. Maybe we should tell her ... JackofOz 07:34, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you all so much. I won't hold you back though. If you find more let me know. I found out that it can't be a proper noun. Once again, thank you! -- Jesusfreak 19:37, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

May 9

Subject/ed to fine?

Glad that I found this forum. On the door of trash chute in my apartment building, following warning is posted: "Persons keeping trash on floor will be subject to fine." This sentence can also be worded as "Persons keeping trash on floor will be subjected to fine." What is exact difference between these two, if any? Thanks. AshishG^talk 01:12, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Are you sure the first one wasn't subject to a fine? or fines? The way it's written sounds to me that if you keep your trash on the floor, you're going to be forced to fine somebody else, which is quite silly.  freshgavinΓΛĿЌ  06:34, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

The grammatical construction is archaic but not wrong, just like you can say "the prisoners were subjected to torture" -- though I'm going to guess Ashish's dorm is somewhere in the U.K. To answer his question, "subject to" implies a more passive condition in which it will become necessary to pay a fine..."subjected to" is slightly more harsh and makes the fine sound menacing. - Draeco 07:02, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I was only referring to the fine in the first sentence; I don't find anything wrong with being "subjected to fine". I meant to imply the difference is that in the first statement, fine should be a noun (at least as I, a Canadian, understand it), and in the second statement it is a verb.
Subject in the first is an adjective (ty gravitas!) so you could compare the first (if a fine was used) to the phrase "be known to a friend", whereas with fine as a verb in the second sentence, you could compare it with the phrase "be asked to perform". I believe you though, that it's probably not wrong, just the fact that if it actually is an archaeic grammar form, it directly contradicts modern grammar.  freshgavinΓΛĿЌ  07:20, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

The first "subject" is an adjective, actually. —Zero Gravitas 15:16, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

That makes more sense, thanks!  freshgavinΓΛĿЌ  07:12, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Common Second Languages taught in the UK

Would it be correct to say that French is the most common second language taught in British schools similar to that in American schools, Spanish is the most frequent taught second language?Chile 02:16, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

• Apparently French is in fact the most common second language taught in British schools. See this page. --Metropolitan90 03:38, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Is there a verb that means 'to move peristaltically'?

Thanks Adambrowne666 03:41, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

From googling it looks like "peristalse" is a verb. "As a result [of degeneration of nerves] the colon cannot peristalse, or push stool through."[3] "People with irritable bowel syndrome have altered bowel motility; i.e., in particular their small bowel does not peristalse or contract normally."[4] --Cam 03:59, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

"peristalse" is nonstandard, it's not a form that dictionaries have really picked up. I do know some words for this, but my mom used to yell at me if I used them. --iMb~Meow 04:07, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks very much - so sounds like 'peristalse' is a back formation from peristalsis - probably only a matter of time before it does get into the dictionaries, but I still wonder if there is an appropriate word there already ...? Adambrowne666 04:45, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

comprise?

Example sentences: "The system comprises several elements." Or, "The system is comprised of several elements." Any thoughts as to which is preferred? --Richardrj 09:43, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Comprises (or 'is composed of'). Some people will tell you that 'is comprised of' has now entered the realm of the acceptable, but they're ignorant, illiterate apes. Henry^Flower

In patents (at least in the U.S.) "comprising" and "composed of" are not synonyms. "A system comprising A, B, and C" may have additional elements beyond A, B, and C, while "a system composed of A, B, and C" has nothing else beyond the stated elements (or, sometimes, has no additional elements that materially affect the invention). See [5] for more than you ever wanted to know. I don't think the distinction carries over to ordinary language, however. But all the same, "a system comprised of A, B, and C" is generally not used. Chuck 12:20, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I say "is comprised of" and I 1) can read and 2) am not covered in hair, in addition to 3) I can walk upright. --Think Fast 23:13, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Also you apparently don't understand hyperbole. =P —Keenan Pepper 04:52, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

And 4) you're wrong.

But does this mean that you don't understand sarcasm? :) --Think Fast 23:57, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Touché. —Keenan Pepper 01:12, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

And I don't understand French. Joe 22:01, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Or idiomatic English phrases used independently of their foreign language meaning. Skittle 14:21, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it's just because, in my brief foray into recreational fencing, I never had much occasion to use the term; instead, I frequently yelled, "Stop hitting me with the foil; I concede". Joe 22:56, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Imaginary town, one word?

Is there a one word for 'imaginary town' or fictitious town'? The Indian writer R.K. Narayan describes an imaginary town called Malgudy in his novel Malgudy Days. Is there a one word for such a town?

Utopia--El aprendelenguas 12:32, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Nope. --Richardrj 13:04, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Would 'Ruritania' be appropriate to describe a fictional town?

Nope. --Chuck^(척뉴넘) 15:05, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

If it is for a novel, Phantasmaborough, Phantasmeville, Civitafantasma, Fantasmagorod ... I like also this one : Dreamgulch. --DLL 18:52, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

"Nowhere"--Teutoberg 00:06, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Or Erewhon — Gareth Hughes 16:08, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Again, no. Fictional countries, or proper nouns of any description, are not what he was asking for. Henry^Flower 16:31, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm thinking something like mythopolis... —Keenan Pepper 23:33, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

There's a Wikia that uses the term "conworld". Sounds like some sort of technobabble World's Fair. Ashibaka tock 22:56, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Translating...

Hello! My name is Vitor and i'm a profound admirer of the WikiPedia website and its concept. I've learned so much from this community, and i'm so grateful that i would be so happy to participate and help as much as i can! I haven't edited any article yet (but i haven't known Wikipedia that long), and 've been thinking so much of how to help... I've noticed that the website is translated in various languages, but not all articles! And so i would to help and translate as many articles as i can (all if possible!) to my language (portuguese)! But i've looked around and i haven't found any option to translate. And simply editing shouldn't work, because i would only be changing to portuguese an english article... I really hope i get the chance to help improve this amazing site! I await your answer! Thank you so much, best regards. --vitinhov 16:06, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, first of all, do you have an account at the Portuguese-language Wikipedia yet? If not, sign up for one there! That's the place to put your translations into Portuguese. Once you're done, be sure to add interwiki links to both the English and the Portuguese articles connecting them to each other. Portuguese Wikipedia has a category Artigos em tradução for articles that are still very short in Portuguese that need to be expanded by translating them out of English or another language. If you're also willing to translate from Portuguese into English, then add your name to the list at Wikipedia:Translators available#Portuguese-to-English, and keep an eye on Wikipedia:Translation into English#Portuguese-to-English for articles that someone has asked to be translated from Portuguese into English. Boa sorte! Angr (t • c) 16:35, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

It's not actually a mere "translation" but a separate Portuguese Wikipedia, to which you can add and edit articles like you can here. (Your user account won't carry over, though, so you'll need to create another one there if you don't want to be anonymous) —Zero Gravitas 16:26, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

May 10

How do I reference Wikipedia?

Hi there, i have used your website extensivly for a major university assignment, and i have searched all over the website but cant seem to find information so i can place this website in my reefrence list. Could you please help me to refrence Wikipedia in APA STYLE? thankyou so much for your time

Use the 'Cite this article' link on the left toolbar. Chuck^(척뉴넘) 02:56, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

The best place to look is Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia. Let us know if you need more help! Isopropyl 02:57, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia, or click "cite this article" in the toolbox on the left. No one person can be held responsible for writing an article, depending on what style you are using (APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, etc..) you just put the article name or Wikipedia: The free encyclopedia. -- Mac Davis] ⌇☢ ญƛ. 04:52, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Don't. Wikipedia is not a suitable reference for a major university assignment. Henry^Flower 12:12, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to second that. Wikipedia is on its way to becoming something of plague in university writing, and most professors I work with believe it's significantly less reliable than it probably is. - user:rasd

Yeah, perhaps you could use the actual references from the article you are using...that is likely to be more accepted by your professor. Chuck^(척뉴넘) 14:16, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I suppose it depends on the topic for your project. If you're writing an article relating to the internet, public perceptions of a certain topic, or another issue where you would be taking a step back and examining Wikipedia itself as a medium, then go for it. However, I certainly would not use Wikipedia as a substitute for other types of sources. Citing from any sort of encyclopedia (online or off) for university projects is generally bad practice, and your time would be much better spent searching through journal articles or other primary sources. If you have a competent professor and this is indeed a major university project, you will get smacked for using an encyclopedia as a source instead of relying on primary sources. (And yes, I know we're no longer really answering your question.) ;) DavidGC 12:33, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[off-topic]] (or perhaps meta-topical): Hi guys, I thought to fix the misspelling in this discussion title, mainly for making it reachable when archived. Would that have undesired side-effects? --Gennaro Prota ^(talk) 15:01, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

That question recurs periodically. --DLL 20:09, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

RE The birthplace of proverbs in different languages

I am wondering if the proverbs on the list of "*Country* proverbs" were "born" in *country*? Eg, was all the proverbs on this page http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Finnish_proverbs "born", ie minted, in Finland?

No, they're not. Some of them probably are, of course. But in general, no. People tend to borrow proverbs as they borrow words. So Finnish has a lot of proverbs from Swedish and Swedish from German. For instance, Hungarian, Finnish and Swedish both have the expression "to get the basket" (to be rejected). In all cases its from German. Sometimes they get corrupted in fun ways too. Swedish: "Ont krut förgås inte lätt" ("evil gunpowder is hard to kill") is somewhat nonsensical, but means "bad things are hard to get rid of". The German original was "Weeds are hard to kill" (which makes more sense), where "unkraut" (weed) was reinterpeted as "ont krut". --BluePlatypus 20:04, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Couldn't it be that proverbs have several "birthplaces" because they're based on common sense? Take "a bird in the hand is better than ten in the bush" as an example; My guess is that every culture has "given birth" to a proverb with the same basic meaning but in different words. But why, if you are correct when saying that Finland borrowed most of those proverbs and they are merely translated to Finnish on that list, are there only 20 or so of them listed? I think almost every proverb, native or not to Finland, are known and have a finnish equivalent there. If the case is that the author only wrote some proverbs, the most common if you want, adding page with proverbs native to specific countrys maybe is a welcome future project.

Last time I heard my Inuit friend exclaim "a bird in the hand is better than ten in the bush". Does that mean sth ? --DLL 20:08, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, first, no I disagree with the idea that most languages have equivalent proverbs. I'm pretty sure there are unique proverbs out there. If not for any other reason, but because things are not perfectly translatable, different words have different connotations. You could translate the Hungarian proverb "More was lost at Mohács" as "Don't cry over spilled milk." but it would not carry the same weight as referring to that great historic tragedy of theirs. Also, the amount of usage varies a lot even among shared proverbs which are exactly the same (e.g. Biblical ones). I don't quite understand your second point: The reason there are only 20 proverbs on the list is the people editing that list have only bothered to 20 of them. I did not exactly do a survey of which ones originate in Finland or not. But to take an example: "Sour said the fox about rowan berries" is from the well-known Aesop's fable The Fox and the Grapes. In any case, it would be utterly meaningless to have a list of "native" proverbs, because there is absolutely no way of defining what "native" means any more than defining a "native word" or "native custom". These things get passed around from culture to culture, they change and are adapted. Most of the time, there is no definite origin, as with the fable for instance. Yet, the Finns say "rowan berries" where most use "grapes". So does that make it Finnish or not? (Actually, the Swedish is "rowan berries" as well). You might as well try making a list of "native English words" --BluePlatypus 22:47, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

somos nosotros

What does 'somos nosotros' mean?

My guess is "It's us" or "Here we are" or the like. Angr (t • c) 20:26, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Angr is right. I would like to add that in Spanish, if a first- or second-person pronoun is used as a predicate nominative, the copula is conjugated to agree with that pronoun, not with the subject of the sentence. For example: Las siete personas que usted ve somos nosotros. (=The seven people that you see are we.) Somos agrees with nosotros, not personas.--El aprendelenguas 01:43, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

May 11

just a sentence

the FP on the Main Page has this sentence: "They mainly eat insects and some seeds." It sounds odd to me. Just ask for you guy's opinions.--K.C. Tang 00:18, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I think so too. It sounds better like "They mainly eat insects and some types of seeds/certain varieties of seeds".  freshgavinΓΛĿЌ  00:41, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

but could we do without the "mainly"? the "eat" controls both "insects" and "seeds", and the "manily" modifies "eat", then the sentence can be seperated into "they mainly eat insects" and "they mainly eat some seeds", the latter being odd. is my understanding correct?:)--K.C. Tang 00:47, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Sounds okay, mostly a bit informal and not very well-written. "Mainly" is informal speech and "some seeds" is ambiguous - a few varieties of seeds or a small number of them? An example of more formal way of saying it could be "Their principal diet consists of insects and a few varieties of seeds". --BluePlatypus 01:10, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

yeah, that's what i want to hear! thanks.--K.C. Tang

The basic problem is that "mainly" is qualifying "eat" instead of "insects". This suggests they also do other things with insects. "Only" is another word that is often wrongly placed. --Shantavira 07:29, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I've changed the text to User:BluePlatypus's suggestion of "Their principal diet consists of insects and a few varieties of seeds". Angr (t • c) 07:41, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

thanks a lot, hope that more admin care about the language problems concerning the main page, now discussions about these problems are usually ignored.--K.C. Tang 08:16, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Shantavira's point is the major problem I see with the sentence. "They mainly eat insects and some seeds" actually means something like "Out of all the things they do, they spend most of their time eating insects and some seeds," which is probably not what the author means to say. Rewording the sentence to read "They eat mainly insects and some seeds" would solve the problem of this misplaced modifier and would convey BluePlatypus's statement, "Their principal diet consists of insects and a few varieties of seeds."DavidGC 12:25, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

"'Out of all the things they do, they spend most of their time eating insects and some seeds,' which is probably not what the author means to say." Probably not what the author means to say, but probably true nevertheless! Angr (t • c) 12:40, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Possibly! Though I'd also bet that looking for the insects and seeds ranks right up there with sleeping.  :) DavidGC 12:43, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Does the "some seeds" refer to a few varieties or to a small proportion relative to insects? Rmhermen 15:43, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Places and things named after them

Hi. I'm doing a project about Hong Kong Governors. and I wanna introduce places and things in Hong Kong which were named after them. Is there any word that explains "places and things named after somebody"? Thank you!!! Kahang 12:27, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Try eponym. JackofOz 14:03, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

German to English translation requested

I was instructed to come here to ask for tanslations; i also posted the request at Wiktionary, as suggested. I am requesting that the Geman Wikipedia article Abraham von Worms be tanslated into English as Abraham of Worms. I have pre-made links leading to the new page-to-be. I attempted a babelfish translation and found the text too difficult and too filled with specialized terms for the software to handle. I shall be posting this request elsewhere. Whoever does this work will have a great deal of my gratitutde as i will be using the page to link to many other pages in the grimoire and occultism areas. Thanks in advance. You may contact me at my talk page if you wish further details. Catherineyronwode 20:23, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Answered at User_talk:Catherineyronwode. Angr (t • c) 21:01, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Origin of the word, "textbook"

Does someone know why textbooks are so-called? Textbooks frequently have pictures in addition to text, and other books (that are not textbooks) frequently carry only text.

In this case, I believe that "text" is being used as in meaning 8 shown at Merriam-Webster. (The Wiktionary page could use some help.) --LarryMac 20:40, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd always convinced myself that it was because the books came with a pre-printed text, as opposed to blank books such as notebooks, exercise books, ledgers etc. Then there's novels with are always fictional texts.
Slumgum | yap | stalk | 20:49, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with LarryMac. The word textbook is not in opposition with, say, a picture book; rather, it describes a book that contains a (course) text. Lesgles (talk) 03:01, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Textbook does have a specialized meaning, at least in the U.S. Unfortunately, our article says nothing about the origins of the term. My guess would be that it goes back to the professor's notes for a course. Publication of such texts was especially common in the 19th century. The next step was usage for self-education, then finally by other teachers based on the reputation of the author or simply availabilty. --Halcatalyst 22:07, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

May 12

Starlight in Daden

What language is the song Starlight in Daden by Ekova? Would be awesome if I could get the lyrics. deeptrivia (talk) 03:28, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Apparently Ekova doesn't actually sing any words, she just makes vocal sounds. See http://www.rambles.net/ekova_softbreeze.html. User:Zoe|^(talk) 17:38, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Separate Alphabets for Transliteration and Loanwords

I have been given a special question for my Japanese homework. Does any other language have a separate alphabet for transliterations and loanwords, as the Japanese have Katakana?

Thanks -- Slayton

Please do your own homework, but you're welcome to use Wikipedia to research your answer. I'd start at Writing system and then follow relevant links from there. Angr (t • c) 07:18, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

If you do find an answer, though, please post it here - I'm really interested now. --Hughcharlesparker 10:38, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Back in the 1930s, Albright said that ancient Egyptian effectively had a syllabary to indicate both vowels and consonants when transcribing foreign-language names (while the ordinary writing for native Egyptian words indicated consonants only). I'm not sure whether any extra symbols were used (more probably only augmented interpretations of symbols already used in writing Egyptian, I would guess). AnonMoos 13:26, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

You may want to slap your Japanese teacher on your wrist for over-simplifying and increasing the ignorance of Japanese students across the world. Katakana isn't a separate alphabet for loanwords, it's a separate alphabet that is used for loanwords along with a handful of other things. It was originally used pretty much the same way hiragana is, and apparently in some areas of Japan the roles were reversed. A Japanese word (or a Sino-Japanese compound) spelled out in katakana is used similar to italics in English. If you say "katakana is a separate alphabet for transliterations and loanwords" it sounds like you're implying it was made for that purpose, which it wasn't. Sorry, I have a tendancy to snap at teachers who give chūtō-hampa (half-assed) explanations.  freshgavinΓΛĿЌ  17:57, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Catchy phrase too catchy

I'm writing a scientific article, but I keep using the term "come and go" quite often. Does anyone know an alternative (preferably a more scientific-sounding) term to replace this? --JD

"Talking of Michelangelo"? In all seriousness, could you give us some context? Perhaps a sentence you are trying to use it in?

Oh, sorry anonymous user. Here's the context: "A person with this disease has relapses of symptoms that come and go throughout their lifetime." --JD

How about "recur periodically"? - user:rasd

Thank you thank you sooooo much! Oops, that wasn't it putting it very scientifically. Oh well, at least it effectively gets the message across. Anyways, before I continue to talk to myself, I would like to thank you for assisting me. Have a great day! --JD

"Recur periodically" seems to be a tautology. Generally, I think "recur" is sufficient. But in this particular sentence, JD has used the word "relapse" as well. I'm not sure that "relapse of symptoms" is quite right - doesn't a person relapse into the condition, not relapse into the symptoms? So I'm not sure whether you're saying the condition continues forever but the symptoms come and go; or the condition itself comes and goes. In any case, we know there is a recurrence of symptoms so that concept does not need to be restated. How about either:

• A person with this disease has relapses throughout their lifetime, or
• A person with this disease has symptoms that recur throughout their lifetime. JackofOz 07:33, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I think you could relapse into symptoms. In fact, with chronic diseases like Lyme Disease or HIV, you don't really relapse into the disease, but rather the symptoms, such as the condition of AIDS. "Her AIDS relapsed" or "She relapsed into AMaybe I'm not really getting what the difference between a "condition" and the condition of having symptoms is. Maybe it's more correct in saying the disease relapsed: "His HIV relapsed, and he once more had full blown AIDS." Anyhow, in its broader sense of "return to" (i.e. he relapsed into silence), I think you could relapse into symptoms. On the other hand, I'm really tired, and upon rereading what I wrote, nothing makes sense. :-)

Also, I generally agree with you about "recur periodically." However, in a stricter sense of "periodically," "recur periodically" would imply a regularity of recurrence that "recur" doesn't denote. — vijay 08:36, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with your agreement, vijay, but not necessarily with your analysis of "periodically". I think that means I three-quarters agree with you, or something. "Periodically" can mean "from time to time" or "regularly". If the reader thinks it means "from time to time", all they've got is an unnecessarily repetitive superfluous tautology (he he). Not an untrue statement, but not good writing either. It's likely the smarter ones will assume this could not have been intentionally written with this meaning in mind, and they'll revise their interpretation to "regularly". But then they've been misled because JD said the symptoms come and go but nothing about that happening on a regular basis. Either way, adding "periodically" lessens the perfection of "recur". That may well have been the very point you were making, vijay. If so, please forgive me for taking my time in processing it. :--) JackofOz 13:38, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• Because of my background, I can only speak with reference to psychological conditions, as IANAMD. However, in psychology, conditions relapse, while symptoms recur, as JackofOz has indicated. The logic is as follows:

Let's say you are seeing a patient suffering from a type of schizophrenia, and his symptoms have previously included auditory hallucinations. If after a few years of absence, the hallucinations suddenly reappear, we would say he has had a recurrence of symptoms, because they have reappeared. However, we would say his condition has relapsed, because the condition has returned to its former, more severe state (which included the hallucinations).

The symptom itself has not relapsed, because this would literally mean that the symptom has changed back to its earlier state. The symptom itself has not really changed -- it is either present or not, just as you either have a headache or you don't (severity of hallucination, or headache, is irrelevant to this differentiation). It's therefore the condition that has changed, since the condition includes the presence or absense of the symptom. Therefore...

• "Recurring symptoms."
• "Relapsed condition." DavidGC 08:46, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Borriscos

A friend of mine has recently taken over running a fotolog page called borriscos. It's for interesting patterns made with light. We've been unable to find out what borriscos means - dictionaries haven't been of use. We think it may be a slang form of a portugese word, but neither of us speak the language. Can anyone help? --Hughcharlesparker 10:45, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Fountain?

Hi. I would like to know what does "fountain of the art" mean; I am french and the meaning is not obvious to me. Does it mean something like source of inspiration? or somehing else. By the way, the original sentence is there. So, if somebody can translate this phrase, or at least give some synonyms, he/she is welcome. Thank you very much.

This is not a common English phrase. It looks like it was just one translator's choice of words. Google it and you will find the words don't turn up anywhere else. "The Fountain" just means single source of a great amount.--Teutoberg 16:47, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

It appears to mean that Ireland considers Scotland a land where art forms relating to the harp "blossomed" or spread out in some sort of nice, fanciful way. I don't really like the translation, fountain isn't really used in that sense, it's more common used like the example you gave; a source.  freshgavinΓΛĿЌ  17:48, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Devoiced nasals

I was just making an IPA chart for the consonants of the She language and was looking for the little circle for devoicing. I can find both [ŋ] and [°], but how do i combine them?

What you have found may be this. Try the combining character ring above (not sure whether that's the English name): ŋ̊ – Wikipeditor 17:13, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

an vs. a preceeding "h" words

Please to excuse if this has been brought up recently, but could someone please explain the situation with using a/an before words starting H? Highly, for an example, would it be an highly or a highly? Is there a correct form, or is it stylistic? Is it widely considered overly pretentious? Is it a regional thing? Thanks very much. Jahiliyyah 20:59, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

It depends on whether the 'h' is aspirated. If it is not, 'an' is indicated. Thus, 'an honor,' but 'a high honor.' --Halcatalyst 21:13, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Words that begin with a stressed syllable and the sound /h/ are preceded by a, as in "a highly respected person" or "a house". Word that begin with the letter h but start with a vowel sound are preceded by an, as in "an honest person" or "an hour". Difficulty arises in the case of words that start with the sound /h/ but begin with an unstressed syllable, like "historic": some people write and say "a historic" while other people write and say "an historic". In this case, both forms are considered acceptable, though I think "an historic" is less common in the U.S. than in Britain. (A separate issue is words that begin with the /h/ sound in some dialects but not in others, especially herb, which is pronounced with the /h/ sound in Britain but has no /h/ sound in America. As a result, Brits correctly write "a herb" and Americans correctly write "an herb".) Angr (t • c) 21:16, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

In the US, "an historic" would be considered "putting on airs". User:Zoe|^(talk) 22:17, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

What's the term for this?

I have one of those "definitions without a term" questions. What is the term for that phenomenon where a specific development or discovery seems to have arrived at by two or more completely unrelated people almost simultaneously? Ok, that definition was a bit clumsy, so I'll use an example: Sir Isaac Newton is commonly credited with the development of calculus, yet from what I understand, at least one other person, who had no contact with and had no knowledge of Newton's work, had developed calculus at almost exactly the same time, only to be beat out by Newton by an extremely short period of time. I always thought that the term was zeitgeist, but looking at its definition, although it seems to be vaguely related to the concept, zeitgeist just doesn't seem to be the term I'm looking for. Is there a more precise term, or was I right all along in assuming that zeitgeist was the term I'm looking for? Loomis51 22:48, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

"Zeitgeist" would be, for example, the 1960s hippie movement in the US. Newton and Leibniz would be called "coincidence". Ashibaka tock 22:52, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

The Forteans have the concept of "Steam Engine Time": http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=Steam%20engine%20time

You might find the article on Synchronicity interesting. Black Carrot 00:01, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Alternative Past Participles

Most verbs have only one past participle. For example, the only past participle for the verb to walk is walked. Similarly, the only past participle for the verb to run is ran. However there happen to be a few verbs with two (or possibly more) past participles.

For example:

• to hang - hanged and hung
• to burn - burned and burnt
• to sing - sang and sung

Why do a rare few verbs in the English language have alternate past participles when only one is necessary? Am I missing something? Just to prove my point, verbs somewhat synonimous to the above get by with only one past participle.

• for to dangle there is only dangled
• for to sear there is only seared
• for to chant there is only chanted

Is this perhaps just an accident of the English language or is there more to it?

For to sing, only one is in fact a past participle (sung). Sang is the simple past, and forms like He had sang are nonstandard/wrong (depending on whether you're prescriptivist or descriptivist...). Burned/burnt is just U.S. vs. UK English, and I wouldn't even call them different words. For hang, hung is the main form and hanged is a special case only used for people. —Zero Gravitas 00:31, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Do you know other Germanic langauges? you'd understand the situation if you did...--K.C. Tang 00:55, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Ablaut doesn't account for extra forms on a single verb, though, just the strong/weak difference, which didn't really seem to be what the question was about. —Zero Gravitas 01:07, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

my wild guess is that there was only "hung" but no "hanged" 500 years ago... the "-ed" forms of some strong verbs were later additions... they are easy to form... you say "dwarfs" or "dwarves"? as to the co-existence of "hanged" and "hung", i guess this is a case of "semantic differentiation" (is it the right term?)...--K.C. Tang 01:26, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Because technically hanged refers only to the act from which death results, one may say that an individual was hung (i.e., suspended) until hanged (i.e., dead, having been strung up). One may suggest that the former (hung) is unnecessary, inasmuch as the latter (hanged) encompasses the action of the former, but I suppose my locution might be used where one wishes to emphasize the pre-death act of hanging; certainly if the hanging were unsuccessful (e.g, because, as in sundry Westerns, a noble lawman showed up to cut down an individual out from under whom the trap door had dropped), one might say that the indiviudal who nearly died was hung but not hanged. Joe 02:14, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Does anybody outside of the United States use "snuck" as the past tense of "sneak"? User:Zoe|^(talk) 01:58, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, we do in Australia, but only colloquially, not formally. JackofOz 02:01, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

To clarify for the original questioner there used to be many more strong verbs (basically those where you change the vowel to form the past participle) but the weak verb ending "-ed" has gradually replaced a lot of them. But its a slow process over centuries and sometimes the old form never disappears entirely so there are two participles for a (long) while. All the other Germanic languages have this strong verb/weak verb division too. Jameswilson 03:22, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

yes, we're in a transitional state, 300 years later we may have no more "burnt" and "hung", who knows?--K.C. Tang 03:40, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

This questioner may be interested in Newspeak. schyler 03:47, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

May 13

Greek color terms

could someone familiar with greek write an article for that? it is a controversial and most intriguing subject... I'm a bit surprised that there's no article for that yet...Cheers--K.C. Tang 04:06, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm confused as to the topic. Are you referring to Greek words for purple, orange, etc.? Or are you referring to terms used to denote race by Greek-speaking people? DavidGC 05:42, 13 May 2006 (UTC)