Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 June 12

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June 12

Language

I have a very dear friend moving to the Phillippines permanantly. I want to give a farewell party. How would I say hello and goodbye and good luck in their language? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.16.117.4 (talk) 05:32, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

There are over 170 languages of the Philippines, so you need to decide first which of them you want to use. +Angr 05:38, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

If you don't have a specific reason to choose another one, Tagalog is the most spoken and the most "high-prestige" and widely understood, so it's probably a good bet. According to Wiktionary, "hello" is "kamusta" or "kumusta" and "goodbye" is "paalam." No Tagalog translation is given for good luck; hopefully a speaker will wander by. If not, you could contact a Tagalog-speaking Wikipedia user directly from Category:User_tl. -Elmer Clark (talk) 07:58, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

[1] for 'good luck'. - DSachan (talk) 08:23, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

CofE Churches

Would the correct term for the saint after which a church is named eg. Saint Andrew's Church be patron saint? I'm a native speaker, I just can't think if that's appropriate. I could imagine saying a church was dedicated to someone, but firstly that sounds like that's the only person the worship, and secondly I wouldn't really really know what the noun would be for the Saint in question (dedicatee?). I normally associate patron saints with wider bodies, like towns, for example. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 13:49, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

In both the Roman Catholic Church and Church of England the correct term is patron saint and this is chosen at the original consecration of the building, when the church is dedicated to the particular saint. Mikenorton (talk) 14:20, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

French hens

Gallus is the Latin word for a chicken. Gallus is also the Latin word for a Gaul. And the French national emblem is a cockerel. Is the similarity of the two words a coincidence? Which meaning came first? 209.251.196.62 (talk) 14:27, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Etymologically it is a coincidence, but it is a deliberate play on words. We even have an article, Gallic rooster. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:13, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

See Turkey (bird)#History and naming. -- Wavelength (talk) 15:45, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

? Adam Bishop (talk) 16:21, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I could easily be wrong, but I thought the Latin word for Gaul was Gallia—the same as the modern Greek word for France. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:12, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

"Gallia" was the name of the country; "Gallus" was an individual belonging to the tribes for which the country was named. By the way, one famous example of homonymy is that in some dialects in south-western France, the descendants of the two Vulgar Latin words gallus and cattus (meaning "rooster" and "cat") came to have exactly the same pronunciation... AnonMoos (talk) 18:24, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Am I missing something? How can gaul and chat have the same pronunciation? --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 20:47, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

That's Parisian French. In Occitan they are "gal" and "gat"...so I suppose they have silent letters at the end, AnonMoos? Adam Bishop (talk) 22:04, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

It's in chapter 22 of Leonard Bloomfield's classic textbook Language, based on the work of Gilliéron (who is currently just a redlink in our article Linguistic map) and Albert Dauzat (who is not even a redlink). The reference is to forms of local dialects, which are probably not found even in regional quasi-standard languages like Occitan... AnonMoos (talk) 22:24, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

French accents in English usage

A while ago I used the word paper-mâché in another post. I must admit I had never before seen it with all the diacritical marks in the right places. The most I had seen up until now was the accent on the é. I have also noticed that people no longer put marks on the word "resume". I'm not looking for "should be" book lore. What I'd like to know is common US usage and acceptability of leaving out those marks. 71.236.26.74 (talk) 17:42, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

There is List of English words with diacritics, but I am not sure how much it conforms to what you are seeking.

-- Wavelength (talk) 19:45, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

In any case, the spelling is actually "papier-mâché". --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 20:45, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

The spelling for the French pronunciation is "papier-mâché". I grew up with the term "paper-mâché", with the term "papier-mâché" sounding pretentious and ridiculous. So, the spelling will depend on which term you mean, which will probably depend on which term is most common in your dialect. Which, of course, brings us full circle to the original question. 80.41.126.158 (talk) 21:23, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

See Burt Bacharach - Paper Mache LYRICS [sic]. -- Wavelength (talk) 22:14, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

"Native" English words are almost uniformly without diacritic marks. Diacritics, therefore, are found almost exclusively in loanwords from other languages. This means that native English speakers (especially US ones) are largely ignorant about diacritics. (For example, I wouldn't begin to know how to type 'é' or 'â' on my keyboard - I'm only able to insert them here because I can copy & paste from above.) The tendency, then, is to Anglicize/Americanize the "foreign" words by trimming the diacritics while retaining the pronunciation - it's not like English has a consistent spelling/pronunciation scheme that has to be followed. This has happened with words such as rôle and élite. You see these forms, but they're largely viewed as anachronistic. A lay audience probably won't care if the diacritics are missing - for most people, they're not even "diacritics", they're "accent marks". To a lay person who speaks English, 'e' and 'é' are not separate letters, they're the same letter, just with a pronunciation hint on the second. (The hint being: "pretend you're French") It's mostly the "formal" or "academic" people who will bluster that "resume" is incorrect, and the actual word is "résumé". The best bet to see which is in common usage is to look in a trusted dictionary and see if the diacritic-less form is listed. Merriam Webster online puts the main entry at "résumé", but lists "resumé" and "resume" as accepted variants. It, however, only lists "papier–mâché", without any alternatives. (The search box there doesn't seem to be able to handle diacritics, though.) -- 128.104.112.114 (talk) 23:11, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Dictionaries do lag behind common usage for quite some time. Since I was a kid he term ice cream has migrated via ice-cream to icecream, which I find more and more commonly used today. Dictionaries still insist on either two separate words or the hyphenated term. Lots of younger users find that "old fashioned". 71.236.26.74 (talk) 23:40, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I'd spell it papier-mâché but pronounce it /ˌpeɪpɚ məˈʃeɪ/ (not /papje maʃe/, which would sound affected in English). +Angr 23:14, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I only ever heard it as papier-mâché when I was at school, and hearing the Anglo-French hybrid 'paper-mâché' makes me feel like I'm scraping my teeth on a cheese grater. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 02:11, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Where at school? (I'm trying to find out if there's a difference in usage e.g. close to the Canadian border, in the north-eastern US, big cities vs, countryside etc.) 71.236.26.74 (talk) 06:39, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, Northern England. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 13:01, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree pretty much with what 128 said, which is why it surprises me that people on Wikipedia are still fighting tooth and nail for accented spellings of cafe, premiere and role. They're almost never spelled with diacritics in real world land these days. -- JackofOz (talk) 09:57, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I've never seen it spelt in an authoritative source as "paper-machier"! It's always "papier-machier" in my experience, even if you read it as "paper masher". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:58, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Any source that spells the second part as "machier" is not a source I'd ever consider authoritative. -- JackofOz (talk) 12:05, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)#Modified letters. -- Wavelength (talk) 14:21, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I sometimes fight for façade, though, because I don't like to add unique exceptions to the relations between pronunciation, etymology and spelling. —Tamfang (talk) 06:25, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

(rant coming...) Doesn't "in real world land these days" pretty much depend on which land you're talking about? I can well imagine that south of England usage of diacritics varies substantially from land- and French-locked Kansas. And since when did the masses know how to spell things properly? There are all sorts of people who don't know when to put their ' in their its and don't know when to use their and when to use there, but Wikipedia still strives to do it properly. If you go to the Manual of Style for any decent publisher, you will find diacritics properly used on the French words used in English which still deserve to have them. I agree that role has been so well subsumed into English that using a diacritic on it is ridiculous, but café is still widely recognised as a foreign word that we use, too. My rule is that if we try to pronounce it as the French do (even if we do usually do it terribly), then it gets the diacritics. By the way, the Windows operating system has this handy thing called the character map, and there you can find keyboard short-cuts for diacritics. I use some so often that I have them memorised, but even if I didn't, it really isn't difficult. In my opinion, it's all really just a matter of education, and education standards becoming diabolical isn't a good enough reason to stop doing something properly. Maedin\^talk 12:47, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Funnily enough, my auto-correct in Word 2007 gives me café but not papier-mâché (leaving me with papier-mache), and it doesn't correct resume to resumé, presumable because we have a word in English that already has that spelling. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 13:01, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Maedin the character map works well enough if you have the occasional character to type and do the typing yourself. If you pay someone by the hour to do it and use a text with lots of foreign words the price difference can be significant. I worked at one company in Europe that had various keyboards with little stickers on the keys and instructions how to change the language setting attached on a little card. The company claimed they had cut typing times for their international correspondence in half. I personally find the cut and paste method 128 mentioned faster when typing the occasional short German or Swedish texts. (and am still grumbling about those darn special characters all the time) I had expected the British version to retain diacritical marks longer than the US usage, given OR experience with spelling changes in other words. I guess with the widespread use of spellcheckers, Microsoft has become the new spelling authority in the US. (Who am I to argue with my mighty computer software :-) Thanks for your help everyone so far. Any additional comments shedding light on US usage still welcome. 71.236.26.74 (talk) 20:15, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

See http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=2008_style_manual&docid=f:chapter5.wais, sub§§ 5.3 and 5.4.

-- Wavelength (talk) 01:46, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Liquor

Why do US states and Canadian provinces use the term "liquor license" to refer to alcohol permits? According to every source that I've seen, "liquor" refers only to distilled alcoholic beverages, not to alcoholic beverages in general. --Lazar Taxon (talk) 19:37, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

There is also such a thing as a "beer license" or a "beer and wine license" in many jurisdictions, which allow the licensee to serve beer or wine but not hard liquor. Typically, I think a "liquor license" allows the licensee to sell beer and wine as well as hard liquor, so "liquor license" is the more inclusive term. Marco polo (talk) 20:30, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Alcohol would also more likely be understood to mean something like rubbing alcohol. "Alcoholic beverage license" is probably too much of a mouth full. You also have to consider the fact that the term "liquor license" has been in use for a long time and tastes in language use change. The term beverage was rarely used when I grew up, actually I've only heard it more frequently since about the eighties and started using it myself more frequently from the 90s onward.71.236.26.74 (talk) 21:19, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

In Canada, or at least in Ontario, you can also get beer at the liquor store, but you can't get liquor at the beer store. With a "liquor license" I would actually expect to get only beer, and perhaps something like hard lemonade or coolers. Adam Bishop (talk) 22:00, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

The logic escapes me a bit on that one. If you can get both beer and hard liquor at a liquor store, why would you not expect to be able to sell both hard liquor and beer with a liquor license? 71.236.26.74 (talk) 22:52, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Probably because beer and liquor stores here are government-run, and therefore inherently illogical :) And it's not that you can't sell liquor with a liquor license, I just meant that I associate "liquor license" with "beer". Adam Bishop (talk) 14:02, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the Beer Store is an Ontario-only copmpany that is owned by the major breweries and licensed by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) to sell beer and beer-derived coolers (yuck!). Back to the OP's question as to why the term "Liquor License" is used rather than "Alcohol Permit", I have no idea, although I suspect it's historical in nature. It is codified, as the Ontario Liquor License Act (1990) defines Liquor as "spirits, wine and beer or any combination thereof and includes any alcohol in a form appropriate for human consumption as a beverage, alone or in combination with any other matter" [2]. -- Flyguy649 ^talk 15:05, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Names

I was not sure where to ask this question ... but here seems as good a place as any. I have always been curious as to why the names of Wikipedia articles about people are, for example, "Abraham Lincoln" ... as opposed to "Lincoln, Abraham". Of course, all printed media (e.g., encyclopedias) would list Abraham Lincoln under the "L" section and not the "A" section. And I am curious why Wikipedia, as an encyclopedia, diverges from this convention. Does anyone know? That is, is there any real / actual reason? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 22:57, 12 June 2009 (UTC))

The only reason I can think of for the 'surname, forename' convention is to make it easier to find entries which are sorted alphabetically by surname. Since this isn't a concern online, there's no reason for Wikipedia article titles not to obey the usual conventions of English. Algebraist 23:01, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

That sounds like an argument for doing it the way Joseph was suggesting. Did you mean "... there's no reason for Wikipedia article titles not to obey the usual conventions of English"? -- JackofOz (talk) 23:08, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

No, he means there's no reason for Wikipedia articles not to write "Abraham Lincoln" since Wikipedia isn't arranged in such a way that you have to look under either "A" or "L" for the article on Abraham Lincoln. You just type it into the search box. Notice how articles about people are alphabetized by last name in categories, since in categories you do have to browse through an alphabetical list to find what you're looking for, but in article space you don't. Nevertheless, the Russian Wikipedia does use the last-name-first convention for its articles, e.g. ru:Линкольн, Авраам. +Angr 23:11, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

It is rather strange then that Japanese Wikipedia has family name last (eg: ja:エイブラハム・リンカーン = Abraham Lincoln) even though the convention in Japan is for people to put their family name first (but maybe that article is an exception of sorts). Astronaut (talk) 09:33, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Japanese practice seems to be to preserve the native order (even though the Japanese seem to prefer to have their names turned around in English). —Tamfang (talk) 06:28, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people) says the following.

General Wikipedia Naming Conventions start from easy principles: the name of an article should be "the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things". This boils down to the two central ideas in Wikipedia article naming:

1. The name that is most generally recognisable
2. The name that is unambiguous with the name of other articles

-- Wavelength (talk) 23:38, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia conventions like these are built up over years of discussion between decent, intelligent people who collectively put centuries of brain-work into the discussion. Sometimes the results are silly. Ian Spackman (talk) 12:46, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

But not in this case. Algebraist 12:47, 13 June 2009 (UTC)