Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2006 December 13

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December 13

Book Review

I would like to have someone to explain the steps on how to do a book review. Thanks.

The second External Link at the article Book review is a nice guide. -THB 00:28, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

IPA Starter

For someone who is a mature native English speaker who never took much interest (or found the need to) in pronunciation guides, what's the best way to start understanding what all those symbols mean? I've read the IPA article and I've seen lists and lists of how to pronounce each symbol, but they all seem very daunting and not 'user friendly', the reason I've avoided it in the 1st place. Is there a beginners guide, an IPA 101? Vespine

The minimum amount of IPA you need to know would probably be the set of symbols used to describe one language, such as English. I would start with IPA chart for English and Pronunciation respelling for English, which compares IPA with the system used in dictionaries you may be familiar with. Nohat 02:03, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Try these websites for a start:

• http://www.phonetics.ucla.edu/course/chapter1/chapter1.html
• http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/#

There's no need to memorize lots of them. If you bookmark the ucla chart, you can just reference it when you need to. Many have similar values to the corresponding English letters, and it's pretty obvious when they don't. Nevertheless, you might want to learn a few of the more prominent ones: like ʃ,ʒ,ʋ,ɘ,ɛ,ɑ,θ, to name about half the "common funny looking ones for English". If you remember just two or three a day, you'll have all you need in a week. I still don't know them all, and I've been in this business for years. Thing is, I don't know the ones I don't need to know. I can always look at and listen to that nifty ucla list! Thank god for Peter Ladefoged mnewmanqc 03:33, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. You only need to know a few for English, and you can always look them up when unsure. For example, searching for ɛ will lead you to ɛ which leads to open-mid front unrounded vowel, which links to an audio sample, . --Kjoonlee 04:42, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Synonym

Hi, What's another (preferably simpler) word for slating? It's usage is here:

The law defined the children of slaves as a type of indentured servant, while slating them for eventual freedom

Thanks.NinaEliza 04:30, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Listing? Marking? Scheduling? JackofOz 04:54, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Excellent, thank you:)NinaEliza 04:56, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I guess it's important to note that the verb slate usually has the sense of schedule in American English, but the sense of criticize in British English. Nohat 04:59, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I used schedule, so that worked out. Thanks for the clarification.NinaEliza 06:55, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Unidentified Soup

In Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story, in the red-carpet scene at the beginning, Tricia Takanawa mentions some kind of soup while humping David Bowie's leg. In the commentary (beginning of scene 14), Alex Borstein says it's some unpleasant-tasting (possibly Asian) soup, the name of which sounds vaguely like 'fish-mao' or 'fish-bao', something like that. Anybody have any idea what it is? Black Carrot 06:02, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

According to the subtitles, it's "fish bowel soup", which sounds vile. Proto::► 11:41, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Please help define Hindi/Sanskrit word

I read a word in, I believe, "Hinduism for Dummies" or "An Idiot's Guide to Hinduism"...the word is "Akriti".

The definition had to do with "love without origin". I loved what I read and would like to know if this is a real word and have an accurate definintion. I have not been able to find an occurrencew of this word anywhere else.

"Akriti" has become very symbolic for me and I would like to be using it accurately. I have a great deal of interest in and respect for Sanskrit and stumbled on "akriti" in my research of that language.

Please advise in any way possible.

I appreciate your help.

Cathy

<email address removed to protect poster from spammers>

On pages 27 and 28 of this document, "akriti" is defined to mean something like "inner form" or "essence" in Sanskrit. According to this source, the word does not refer (directly) to a kind of love. I myself, however, have no knowledge of Sanskrit and can't assess the accuracy of this source. Marco polo 16:32, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

The Cologne Digital Sanskrit Lexicon agrees: AkRti (IAST ākṛti) means "a constituent part... form, figure, shape, appearance, aspect... a well-formed shape... kind, species... specimen..." —Keenan Pepper 19:39, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Cappelers dictionary (on the same project) agrees, and adds a definition of beauty, which is probably similar to the well-formed shape definition in the Monier Williams definition which the Cologne lexicon gives. Just if you're interested the word would be spelled आकृति and you can read our article Sanskrit that shows there is some variation on the pronunciation of the "r" sound. That character is ऋ and shows up as the small half loop form when connected to a consonant. So while, the dictionary definition doesn't really match the religious one you've given, but that doesn't mean it's wrong exactly, just an additional interpretation perhaps. - Taxman ^Talk 00:19, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Where is the Stremnaya Road, and what does "stremnaya" mean?

To the Wikipedia Volunteer Reference Staff:

A previous attempt to post this question failed. Hopefully, this will succeed.

I received an email from an in-law from South America that had an email attachment (*.ppt file) of what was purported to be the Stremnaya Road in Bolivia. This seemed an odd name for a road in South America, as it appears to be Russian. I have little knowledge of the Russian language, but know some Spanish, which it definitely has no association with. The pictures of the road are enough to make anyone with fear of heights cringe. Unfortunately, there was no link in the email I received of this Powerpoint presentation, but there are some blogs on the Internet regarding it. There seems to be wide disagreement on where the road is located. Some think it is in China, which would make more sense from its name. Others declare they have traveled it, and it is, in fact, in Bolivia. What would clinch where it is really located is a closeup of the license plates of the many trucks that travel it.

I did a Google search on "Stremnaya Road". The top hits are currently for web sites are claiming that the picture distributed under that name is in fact of the Guoliang Tunnel road in China. I know nothing about it myself. --Anonymous, December 13, 23:27 (UTC).

Later, I found my Russian-English dictionary. It's only a pocket dictionary, so the absence of a word doesn't mean anything, but these are the words that might be transliterated as starting with stre- (they all could also be rendered with strye-): strela, arrow; strelka, arrow, pointer, hand; strelba, shooting; stremitelny, impetuous; stremitsya, to aspire; stremitlenie, aspiration; stremya, stirrup. Just thought I'd mention it. --Anonymous, December 19, 06:12 (UTC).

Where is the Stremnaya Road? Is it in Bolivia? What does "stremnaya" mean?

To the Wikipedia Volunteer Reference Staff:

A previous attempt to post this question failed. Hopefully, this will succeed.

I received an email from an in-law from South America that had an email attachment (*.ppt file) of what was purported to be the Stremnaya Road in Bolivia. This seemed an odd name for a road in South America, as it appears to be Russian. I have little knowledge of the Russian language, but know some Spanish, which it definitely has no association with. The pictures of the road are enough to make anyone with fear of heights cringe. Unfortunately, there was no link in the email I received of this Powerpoint presentation, but there are some blogs on the Internet regarding it.

There seems to be wide disagreement on where the road is located. Some think it is in China, which would make more sense from its name. Others declare they have traveled it, and it is, in fact, in Bolivia. What would clinch where it is really located is a closeup of the license plates of the many trucks that travel it, and/or some of the people.

I did try to find reference to this in Wikipedia, but the feedback was nil.

I also tried to login under "a_ruminor", but was unsuccessful, so I created a new account using "Al Ruminor". The "A Ruminor" username was stated to be too close to the one I attempted to login under. I believe I posted something about a year ago under "a_ruminor" or "A Ruminor" concerning a Colombian airliner crash which took place around 1997, so at one time I did have an account. Please delete the other account if you can authorize that.

If you wish to contact me, my email is [removed for protection against spambots] I could reply with an attachment of the *.ppt file in response. Please do not provide my email address on Wikipedia and keep it private for this purpose alone.

Thanks for any help.

Best regards, Al Ruminor 23:31, 13 December 2006 (UTC) Aldous Ruminor

Well you should keep checking back with those blogs. This one was updated since you first posted, and it identifies the pics as The Guiliang Tunnel, check the last few entries of the blog for other links besides the one I posted. Is that sufficient? Anchoress 03:26, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Here's another good link: Mistery (sic) solved and another: results of google search on the dictionary definition of Stremnaya Anchoress 03:31, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, "stremnaya" is not exactly a Russian word. It may be a non-native's attempt at Russian. Or it may be something like Bulgarian (?? sounds suspiciously like Bolivia). The Russian female adjective for "steep, precipitous" is "stremninnaya". But why is a Russian, faux-Russian or Bulgarian word used for a road in China? JackofOz 00:30, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

To fill in more gaps, we have an article on the Yungas Road, the Bolivian "Road of Death" and "World's Most Dangerous Road", which looks nothing like the Chinese one pictured. But it's a very well known steep, dangerous, mountainous road, and I'd guess that Bolivia got attached to the road as being a location of a well-known dangerous road. --ByeByeBaby 05:56, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

"stremnaya" is actually a Russian slang and it can be translated as "dangerous", "frightening" or possibly "strange" depending on the context.-- 71.202.148.40 07:56, 18 January 2007 (UTC)