Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 September 16

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September 16

corporomental

Looking for a better Spanish speaker than me to look at corporomental- would you say that 'psychosomatic' is a valid translation for the quotes given? Just trying to get more eyes on it. Thanks. Nadando (talk) 03:03, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I made a change to the IPA, but being otherwise unfamiliar with the word, I'll leave it to someone else to debate the meaning.--El aprendelenguas (talk) 03:35, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

In the 2005 example, surely corporomental is not an adverb? Bessel Dekker (talk) 03:56, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

That's a very fine point, Bessel. Though both readings (adjective/adverb) are possible, I am almost sure that the intented meaning makes corporomental an adverb.
Regarding translation, I guess phsycho-mental would be a better choice. I'm told that phsycosomatic was also used to mean acts pertaining both mind and body; However, the first connotation of the word is, nowadays, a process under which mind affects the body (or viceversa). Pallida  Mors 15:58, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Sow and Sew

A first time question from me. "My father was in the fields sowing corn and my mother was sitting sewing a button on my shirt. They were both ???" How do we spell sewing/sowing in this case? 203.202.43.54 (talk) 04:51, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

We don't. They're distinct words, with distinct meanings, and cannot be combined any more than "harvesting" and "knitting" can be. You need to say something like "They were both busy" or "they were both working". Gwinva (talk) 04:55, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Gwinva. If at least you were talking about phrases like "a clever knight" + "a night full of moon light" and asking how do you spell "both k/nights were bright", it would make sense, but with sow / sew it just doesn't. --Lgriot (talk) 05:54, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I suspect you're thinking of the word homophone. -- JackofOz (talk) 07:51, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

More than that, I am thinking of sentences that include homophones, that can be spoken and that sort-of make sense in a funny way, but cannot be written. --Lgriot (talk) 09:12, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

And a homophone is not a gay chat line.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:54, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Such remark, just because it is Jack and me chatting!!! (just kidding, no offense taken):-) --Lgriot (talk) 14:52, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. Well, I see the problem now. Some linguist must have encountered this issue before now and given this a name. Problem is, a lecture on the topic could include some examples, but by definition a written thesis could not. What a conundrum! -- JackofOz (talk) 11:53, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I am actually laughing aloud: always fun to read Jack the wizard. --Lgriot (talk) 14:56, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Now all of you get back to work before I turn you into toads.  :) -- JackofOz (talk) 21:19, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I seem to remember that Douglas Hofstadter discussed in one of his Scientific American columns a while back how to write "There are three words pronounced [tu] in English" (i.e. to, two, and too) in conventional orthography... AnonMoos (talk) 15:13, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking you'd have to use IPA or some other recognisable set of characters that describe the sound of the unspellable word. Which could be an issue in itself. The sound of sewing/sowing probably doesn't vary much between the different varieties of English, but there must be some homophone pairs that sound quite different when spoken by an Englishman as compared with a Jamaican, say. So the writer would have to take their audience into account - which they should always do in any case - but in this case they might have to make some explicit assumptions; alternatively, provide different sets of symbols for the unspellable word, for different audiences. Then there's the issue of who's going to be left out, and action they might take in the World Language Court. This just gets worse by the minute. Who came up with this problem anyway? I've a good mind to have a word to the King. (Why isn't there a World Language Court, by the way? It would create a lot of employment.)  :) -- JackofOz (talk) 21:19, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Why cannot it be written?:
They were both s*wing.
As a bonus, wicked minds would find a third option while reading it... :-P. 147.91.173.31 (talk) 13:49, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, it can be written that way (you just did). And it's a nice creative solution; probably the optimal one. But does that fall into the definition of "spelling"? Our article allows letters and diacritics. Things like hyphens and apostrophes are accepted as diacritics in this context, but I see no mention of asterisks. Which raises the question: if "s*wing" is not an example of spelling, what is it an example of? -- JackofOz (talk) 07:43, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

You might enjoy reading zeugma, which is so-so related. --Sean 12:54, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

In Latin, "serēbat" means "he/she was sowing" and "he/she was sewing",

and "serẽbant" means "they were sowing" and "they were sewing".

-- Wavelength (talk) 17:25, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Wellll... sero, serere, serui, sertum really means "join, connect", not "sew", but sewing is a specific kind of joining/connecting. —Angr 18:04, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Here is a dictionary entry by Collins.

se′r/ō -ere -tum vt. sew, join, wreathe; (fig.) compose, devise, engage in.

It does not mention a third principal part (first-person singular perfect indicative active).

-- Wavelength (talk) 20:22, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

The Oxford Latin Dictionary gives the third principle part in parentheses, whatever that's supposed to mean. "Sew" is not among its translations. —Angr 06:30, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I think the most common solution to the "unwritable sentence" issue would be to use a spelling that represents the sound of the word, and put it in quotation marks. "My father was in the fields sowing corn and my mother was sitting sewing a button on my shirt. They were both 'sowing'. I saw a female sheep in the barn and then you went in as well. There were two of 'yoo' in there." If the reader might be puzzled, the writer might include the actual spelling or spellings in parentheses. "They were both 'sowing' (sewing). Two of 'yoo' (you, ewe)." --Anonymous, 18:41 UTC, September 18, 2008.

Is it right?

Is this sentence ok? They've organized a meeting which we've discussed about advantages of life on the village on. Can you please correct it? Thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Atacamadesert12 (talk • contribs) 15:10, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I usually "discuss things" (not about things, I talk about things, but just "discuss things") and I do that "in" a meeting, not "on" a meeting. So I would correct the above into "They've organized a meeting in which we've discussed the advantages of life in the village".--Lgriot (talk) 15:27, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

One other thing that struck me as odd ... in my mind, to say "they've organized a meeting" implies that it hasn't happened yet, but have just organized it to happen at a future time; otherwise, it would be "they had a meeting". So I would say "They've organized a meeting in which we'll discuss the advantages of life in the village." Dgcopter (talk) 17:12, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

It's not clear to me what the sentence means. Did you discuss a meeting and then organize it, or did they organize a meeting in order to discuss. Also did you mean "advantages of life in the village"? And was the last "on" meant to indicate that a date would follow?

In the first case you want this to be: "They've organized a meeting, which we've discussed, about advantges of life in the village. It's on [1st January]."

In the second you might want: "They've organized a meeting in order to discuss the advantages of life in the village. It's on [1st January]."

DJ Clayworth (talk) 18:02, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Help me identify my vacation photos

Can anyone tell me what language (if any) these are written in, and what they mean? (In the stained-glass window case I'm talking about the Hebrew(?) writing inside the sun.)

• 
  Taken in the Church in the Field, Low Ham, England.
• 
  Taken in Oxford.

There are more pictures at the Humanities, Miscellaneous and Science desks. Thanks, BenRG (talk) 17:42, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I can't read the writing, but writing in old English churches is almost always in Latin (if it's not English). DJ Clayworth (talk) 17:56, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

The Hebrew in the star says "Jehovah" (i.e., the consonants are YHWH and the vowels are those of Adonai). The writing in the alleyway is in Devanagari; I don't know if it's Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi, Nepali, or what, but it says balle balle. —Angr 18:07, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

We have an article Balle Balle, oddly enough, which says that it's "very commonly used in many Punjabi songs to depict a feeling of happiness." Thanks. I'm amazed at how many languages you seem to know. -- BenRG (talk) 20:10, 16 September 2008 (UTC) (I'm kicking myself for not thinking of the Tetragrammaton, by the way.)

(The header gave me a chuckle. I had a mental image of someone who couldn't remember where they'd been on their vacation, and it reminded me of what Jeffrey Bernard wrote in a letter to the editor of the New Statesman: "Sir, I have been commissioned by Michael Joseph to write an autobiography and I would be grateful to any of your readers who could tell me what I was doing between 1960 and 1974".  :) -- JackofOz (talk) 20:52, 16 September 2008 (UTC))

Are you certain that photo was taken in Oxford? Richard Avery (talk) 07:51, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it was somewhere between South Park and Magdalen Bridge. If it helps, I was in front of the "Is there anybody out there? Looking for new worlds" exhibit four minutes and 27 seconds earlier, and in front of this sign 13 minutes and 5 seconds later. -- BenRG (talk) 13:02, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Capitalisation in Titles

When writing titles in which all words begin with a capital letter, some letters escape capitalisation (such as 'the', 'of', 'and' etc). How am I to determine whether any given word deserves this special treatment? Why do these exceptions even occur? ----Seans Potato Business 17:42, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

AFAIK, the usual rule is that the articles (the, a, an) and prepositions of four or fewer letters are lower-cased. I assume the reason is because these words are not stressed in pronunciation and capitalizing them would give them too much emphasis. —Angr 18:09, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Add coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, ...) to the words usually lowercased. Deor (talk) 19:08, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

With the prepositions, it is the number of letters per se, or is it the number of syllables? Is "through", for example, capitalised? "How to Get Rich through Wikipedia" vs. "How to Get Rich Through Wikipedia"? -- JackofOz (talk) 20:44, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

There's a bit of relevant guidance on the wikiproject for musical albums, see here. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 20:48, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

To answer Jack, it's the number of letters, so someone following the style Angr described would capitalize through in your example. (Some style guides, such as the more recent editions of The Chicago Manual of Style, recommend lowercasing all prepositions ["except when they are stressed"] as a reaction against the somewhat artificial aspect of the traditional letter-counting practice—though the exception I've quoted in brackets seems to me just as artificial and even harder to interpret.) What I've found people to have the most trouble with is words that can function either as prepositions or as adverbs: They often have trouble understanding why "Puttin' On the Ritz" and The Mill on the Floss are both correctly capitalized. Deor (talk) 21:12, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Yup. Despite the correctness of "Puttin' On the Ritz", if someone wrote a song about crackers, it would be "Puttin' Cheese on the Ritz". —Angr 21:24, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Ta for the confirmation, and a good example. Which, incidentally, would be a contender for the worst song title of all time. Right up there with "God Needed an Angel in Paradise, so He Took Caruso Away". -- JackofOz (talk) 21:43, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Or that great country ballad, "You're the Reason God Made Oklahoma". Corvus cornix_talk 22:07, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

There is a list of variations at Capitalization#How to capitalize.

-- Wavelength (talk) 23:35, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

For capitalization in Wikipedia, there is Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters).

-- Wavelength (talk) 01:09, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

• The most modern style preferred especially in Europe is I think to write titles as normal sentences without capitals at all except the first word. Of course many publications still use the other/older capitalisation style. It may help you to choose the correct capitalisation in the other style if you write as if you were writing German, probably. NerdyNSK (talk) 16:24, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

This is the second paragraph of the English Wikipedia article "Capitalization".

Different language orthographies have different conventions for the use of capitalization. The systematic use of capitalized and uncapitalized words in running text is called "mixed case". Conventions for the capitalization of titles vary among languages and different style guides.

-- Wavelength (talk) 00:32, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the rule is: make the title look as bad as possible. At least, that's the rule I use when forced to adopt the cretinous affectation of title case and I seem to get it "right" every time. --89.168.154.234 (talk) 07:43, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

He is also a man used to having enormous clout.

Does this sentence sound natural? I would say "he is also a man that used to have enormous clout".217.12.16.48 (talk) 18:41, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

IMO both versions "sound" okay. To help settle the wording, I think more information is needed about what is being said. Is the main point "having clout" or is it having an attitude that was developed by "having clout"? Is it about a man who previously "had enormous clout" but no longer does? Wanderer57 (talk) 19:00, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

The two sentences mean two very different things... AnonMoos (talk) 19:01, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Consider:

• 1 He is used to have money. versus
• 2 He used to have money.

The auxiliary verb "is" makes all the difference. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:35, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

It's slightly more than that. Consider:

• 1 He is used to having money (this describes someone who currently has money), vs.
• 2 He used to have money (this describes someone who had money, but no longer has it). -- JackofOz (talk) 20:40, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm with Jack. Of course, I'd phrase one version: Also,he is accustomed to having enormous clout. (Expects to have it.) Avoids the dual readings for "used," and "he is a man" is a bit too rhetorical (or redundant) for me.

"He used to be a woman accustomed to having enormous clout," is something else entirely. --- OtherDave (talk) 22:07, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

As is "He used to be a woman with enormous clout, but now he's a man with no clout but an enormous <whatever>".  :) JackofOz (talk) 23:53, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Somebody is just asking for an enormous clout upside the head. Clarityfiend (talk) 04:28, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, on reflection, "he is used to having money" doesn't necessarily mean he currently has money. A moneyed person who's recently become impoverished might say "I don't like this state of affairs. I'm used to having money". So both versions could refer to someone who had money but no longer has it. It would all depend on the context. -- JackofOz (talk) 07:36, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Of course. My daughter used live a life of luxury, but her present husband partner cannot give her the life / maintain her in the state she is used to [living]. Bessel Dekker (talk) 15:39, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Indian caps

Here's something just out of curiosity. When I'm patrolling recent changes, I very often notice new users from India inserting text entirely written in upper case. Is there any particular reason for Indian users to do this? Like, their keyboards having upper case only? It's puzzling coz 99% of the times I see users inserting text written in all caps, they have Indian user names. Húsönd 22:51, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

A guess: the dominant script in India (besides the Roman alphabet, perhaps) is Devanagari, which does not have letter cases, so there would be no equivalent taboo against writing in all-caps. --Sean 23:17, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

That's plausible, but wouldn't people learn at school that English is not supposed to be written in all caps? Looking at the rate that this pattern occurs on Wikipedia, it almost seems like English learners in India are encouraged to write in such manner. Húsönd 23:38, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

It is more likely, as I understand, that they (the users, not Indians in general) are new to the internet and haven't picked up the niceties of netiquette yet. If someone politely points out the gaffe, they are likely to understand. The same occurs with users from English speaking countries, but are more often found on youtube comments, gaming forums and so on. Steewi (talk) 02:38, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps it's technical. I could easily see someone making a cheap keyboard for India where instead of a Shift key they have a control that produces Devanagari in one position and our alphabet in the other, but if they had lower case as well, that would need three positions -- or they do have another control for lower case, but it's harder to use. --Anonymous, 18:47 UTC, September 18, 2008.