Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 January 31

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January 31

Turkish Alphabet Keyboard Shortcuts for Mac

What are the Macintosh keyboard shortcuts for typing the following letters?: ğ, ı, and ş. - Vikramkr (talk) 00:01, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think there are any (not on an English/French keyboard, at least). They are in the Character Palette though. Adam Bishop (talk) 06:55, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

See Computing with Turkish. -- Wavelength (talk) 07:02, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Great, thanks so much Wavelength! - Vikramkr (talk) 17:00, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

You are welcome. -- Wavelength (talk) 01:35, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

"Mine was not an education of love, but of fear"

How do you understand this sentence from J.S.Mill's Autobiography? Does it mean that he learned fear instead of love, or that he went to school by force of fear not love? Thanks for comments. --Omidinist (talk) 08:12, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Well it's not clear; he could mean either, both, or neither (but how many kids go to school by force of love?). I would have expected him to illustrate what he meant with examples.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:34, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

It sounds to me as if he endured a particularly hard schooling, where implements of punishment were used daily and transgressions were punished by what we would now call torture. Such an education was commonplace two hundred years ago. --TammyMoet (talk) 08:53, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

just from that line, I'd say it means something like "I was driven to learn by fear, not by a love of learning". but that's just a guess; I'd need to read more to be sure. --Ludwigs2 10:36, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

That's how I would read it. Yet the method was apparently effective. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:38, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

usually is. most of the brightest people I know (and I know some damned bright people), are neurotic - they are bright mostly because they've put in a ton of time (over-)analyzing things that other people take for granted. if you're happy, there's just not a lot of incentive to think about things. it's the emotional equivalent of being a body-builder, I suppose, except you put an excessive amount of your resources into overcoming your mental insecurities rather than your physical insecurities.

I'll add that it's particularly true of political/social theorists (like Mill). P/S theorists have basically two experiences in life - being ignored and being despised - neither of which is conducive to to a healthy, positive emotional life. --Ludwigs2 11:16, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

"John Stuart Mill, of his own free will, on half a pint of shandy was particularly ill..." Apparently his own father was the culprit. But victims of that kind of treatment get their revenge on society. Some become sociopaths. Others write books. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:11, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

John Stuart Mill/By a mighty effort of will/Overcame his natural bonhomie/And wrote Principles of Political Economy! (by Edmund Clerihew Bentley) --TammyMoet (talk) 08:20, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

The Guinness Book of Records in 1973 claimed that Mill's IQ was 210, and that at the age of 3 he was reading fluently in Greek. I note that he was educated privately by his father, who was not a trained teacher. I believe his learning was sparked by innate ability, but that the prevailing educational ethos at the time instilled fear into him. This from our article on him: "At the age of twenty[4] he suffered a nervous breakdown. As explained in chapter V of his Autobiography, this was caused by the great physical and mental arduousness of his studies which had suppressed any feelings he might have developed normally in childhood." Certainly reading the Biography section of our article bears my assertion out. --TammyMoet (talk) 11:35, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

How would they know what Mill's IQ was when IQ tests hadn't been invented yet? That number is totally meaningless. Adam Bishop (talk) 01:18, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

IQ numbers are still meaningless even after the invention of IQ tests. +Angr 06:59, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

but unfortunately, numbers are the only thing that matter. I'll point out that JSM also seems to have had a nervous breakdown about 120 years before the concept of a nervous breakdown was invented. truly a man ahead of his time. --Ludwigs2 07:04, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Ah yes - the perils of applying modern knowledge to the past! Just because the phrase "nervous breakdown" is a modern invention, doesn't mean the condition never existed beforehand. --TammyMoet (talk) 08:22, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Don't see the point of the last few posts. You can recognize a nervous breakdown based on a historical description, but you can't measure IQ based on a historical description. As for unhappiness making people smart, this is neither proved nor possible to prove, but I must admit that it is very useful as a way to justify making your fellow-beings unhappy.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 14:39, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Shroff

I know I'm silly, asking about my own dialect, but here it is anyway: What does 'shroff' really mean? EVU defines it as the car park payment office, Merriam-Webster online dictionary and Yahoo dictionary define it as a kind of banker, and the Wikipedia article defines it as a cashier in a hospital or something. These are completely different meanings. Which one is correct? Kayau Odyssey HUCK FINN to the lighthouse BACK FROM EXAMS 11:47, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Fixed your link. --Anon, 21:30 UTC, January 31, 2010.

Lots of words have multiple meanings, so they are probably all correct. Context is everything.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 14:46, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

See also wikt:shroff. If you can expand that entry, it'd be great.—msh210℠ 16:16, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

A money-handling office(r) is not completely different from another money-handling office(r). —Tamfang (talk) 05:22, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

grammar content

is the phrase "I could care less" grammatically incorrect? lyn kithcartLennyaa (talk) 13:41, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

It is grammatically correct. Interestingly enough, it happens to be semantically equivalent to "I couldn't care less". 124.214.131.55 (talk)

This comes up regularly on here (and elsewhere). See this archive search. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 13:53, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Note that there is a difference between grammar and semantics. The classic example of the distinction is "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" which is grammatically sound, but semantic nonsense. The complaint about "I could care less" is not that it is grammatically wrong, but that its literal meaning is opposite of what the speaker intend to convey. It's "wrong" in that sense, but the phenomenon of a phrase as a whole having a meaning different from the literal interpretation of the parts is so common in English and other languages that there is a word for it: "idiom". -- 174.21.224.109 (talk) 18:25, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Just be careful where you use this idiom. It's an idiom in the United States (and possibly Canada and Puerto Rico). In the rest of the anglosphere, however, it seems to be saying "I do care somewhat", and that's how it would be interpreted, until the mismatch between the words and the speaker's body language might cause the hearer to seek clarification. I cannot for the life of me imagine how this ever became an idiom, but what do I know. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:05, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

This odd expression has been around for a long time. I recall a colleague in the 60s griping that it should be, "I couldn't care less", because that's what the message is. And how often have you heard someone say, "Not to mention..." and then go right ahead and [mention it! ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:36, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Using "not to mention" that way is fine, as that's what it means. What it really means is "X is very Y, and [that's without even considering] Z! (if you consider Z, then it's even clearer)." The bracketed part is the "not to mention". rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 22:58, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

It's a bit like "Not to worry". It makes no sense if you try to interpret it literally, as we never say 'not to' to mean 'do not' in any other context. It's only ever used in reported indirect speech "I told her not to use negative commands, but would she listen? No, not her". -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 23:21, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Or, in a meeting, where Fred is asked "Is there anything you wanted to add, Fred?", and he says "No, not really", then proceeds to talk for half an hour. -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 22:35, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

We have an article on paralipsis! Marnanel (talk) 23:27, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

The phrase is sarcastic, but abbreviated: it's full meaning would be something like "I could care less, I suppose, but I don't." the last phrase is implied. --Ludwigs2 06:55, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

No, that doesn't make sense, Ludwigs2. The meaning is "It is not possible for me to care any less than I do; on the scale of caring, from zero to 100%, I'm already at zero, and I can't get any lower". Your version is that it is possible for them to care less than they do, but they are choosing not to lower their level of care - which means they do care somewhat - which is what the phrase literally means - but that is the precise opposite of its actual meaning. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 07:08, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Jack... are you really subjecting sarcasm to rational analysis? and does that mean you'll be subjecting this comment to rational meta-analysis? and do you think I could care less if you did? I could care less, yes, but I don't care to, so I won't. And I quote: "Logic is a little bird singing in a tree. Logic is a bunch or pretty flowers, that smell bad...". --Ludwigs2 07:32, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. You see, I don't agree that it's used sarcastically, so, yes, I will be responding. Maybe the first time anyone ever said "I could care less", they meant it in a sarcastic way. Maybe. But for the most part, when people use it these days, they use it purely because it's become the idiom, and they say it without thinking "This is me being sarcastic". Naturally, I have never used this expression and I never will, so I'm hardly an expert in its use. But this is my very strong sense, from having had it said to me by countless numbers of Americans (typically the cinematic variety, but also the other variety). However, if it were meant to be understood in a sarcastic way, wouldn't the long version be something like, "I could care less, I suppose, but I really couldn't be bothered tweaking my care factor from microscopically small down to absolutely nothing, so I think I'll just leave it as it as and you run along now and go play in the traffic, there's a good boy"? -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 08:07, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

well, sarcasm is rarely that wordy. we've strayed outside reliable sources on this topic, but if you ask me (and I probably do qualify as some kind of an expert on the topic) language can't really be analyzed logically, except in cases where people are specifically trying to use logic productively. most language is analogical - based on a loose, misconnected set of relationships and associations that have no factual basis. we can say things like "Damn, Jessica Alba is a babe", but how we get from a literal translation of that phrase - "I will be consigned to hell if Jessica Alba is not less than 1 year old" - to the conventional meaning - "wow, Jessica Alba is really attractive" - is a convoluted and poorly understood process. In this case I think you're right that it's just become idiom; a stronger way of saying "I don't care". but I think the derivation of that sense can only be found in in the more overtly sarcastic phrase I mentioned above. it's like the phrase "Oh Really?", which was probably originally used (and still is sometimes used) as the introduction to a scathing critique, but has nowadays come to incorporate the idea of a critique in itself, so that you only need to say "Oh Really?" to get across the idea that you completely and utterly disagree. --Ludwigs2 08:38, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Angel hierarchy words

I don't know if I'm baaarking up the wrong tree here, but I have been reading the pages on angelic hierarchies and I've noticed that the majority of angelic choirs have a Hebrew-derived name with the plural suffix -im. Cherubim, Seraphim, and some of the others which have other names also have these words (Erelim, Ophanim). Now I like this but I don't know the first thing about transliterating stuff in and out of Hebrew because I don't understand if I'm doing it right. If it's possible I'd like to see if I can have a translation of this nature for the choirs of Virtues, Archangels and Principalities, and Watchers/Grigori. If you can do it I'll love you forever!! :D Lady BlahDeBlah (talk) 17:51, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

(Made angelic hierarchies into a redirect to the correct page.) Marnanel (talk) 18:03, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I may be wrong, but I believe the -im suffix is just the Hebrew form of pluralization: 1 cherub, 2 cherubim. --Ludwigs2 18:26, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

P.s. the other terms (Virtues, Principalities, etc.) maybe additions of the Roman tradition, not hebrew loan-words, and so may not follow the same pluralization scheme. --Ludwigs2 18:28, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, like "Elohim". Literalists justify that plural form, with God seemingly "talking to Himself" in Genesis, as referring to the Trinity. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:01, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Trinity in the Hebrew Bible? They would excommunicate Moses, were it so :) --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:56, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

The Christian view is that the Old and New Testaments are a continuum, and hence the Trinity was also there from the beginning, whether the O.T. writers realized it or not. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:32, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

The hierarchy of angels, as noted in the article, appears to be based on cherry-picking Biblical references and constructing something of it, and filling in a few gaps here and there to make a complete picture. Such a hierarchy was probably needed by earlier versions of Christianity, who wanted to imagine the earthly church hierarchy as being an extension of the heavenly hierarchy, and who in any case could not conceptualize God Himself as being omnipresent, but that He needed "helpers", like angels and saints. A reformed view would be that God does not need separate entities like angels, and that what appear to be angels are merely manifestations of God in a form that humans can comprehend. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:46, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Marnanel!! As to the other terms, the page appears to indicate the terms for the other choirs to be Latin/Greek derivatives, but I don't know if the words will translate. Lady BlahDeBlah (talk) 18:32, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

translate into what? --Ludwigs2 21:44, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Virtues, Archangels, Watchers/Grigori and Principalities... Lady BlahDeBlah (talk) 22:28, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

errr... ok, let's try expanding: translate what into what? translate Principalities into what? translate what into principalities? full sentences usually help in explanations of this type. --Ludwigs2 04:20, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Read the first post? The words, which are the choirs without a Hebrew-derived name, translated into said language in such a way that the -im pluralisation will work. I don't know any Hebrew and while I've found translation sites I've come here instead because I do not want to get it wrong. Lady BlahDeBlah (talk) 09:17, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

so you want to translate (presumably) Roman Catholic terms like Principalities into Hebrew? Don't do it, there's no sourcing for it. Jewish tradition has a different conception of heaven that doesn't include Catholic frills. trying to translate back would be OR at best; a bit like wondering what what citizens of the Roman empire would have called the internet. --Ludwigs2 09:24, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Are you saying it can't be done or that you won't do it? This is not for religious purposes or for anything else that exists anywhere in any form other than in my own head. It has nothing to do with anything; I am using the words for a different purpose altogether. If it can give me a vague word that I can pluralise that will vaguely have the gist of the term then that's fine. I just need a tidier naming scheme with the same pluralisation. Lady BlahDeBlah (talk) 11:17, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

¶ In Chapter 6 of Saint Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, his famous passage about putting on the whole armour of God, he writes (I presume in koiné Greek, rather than Hebrew):

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. [—verse 12 in the King James Authorised Version of 1611]

—— Shakescene (talk) 12:10, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Sooo...will someone help me with this or is everyone going to keep making unrelated comments? Lady BlahDeBlah (talk) 16:21, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Contra Ludwig2, some of these notions and names seem to derive from the apocryphal Book of Enoch, which according to our article may have been composed (partially or fully) in, or translated into, Hebrew (though nothing of this version is now known), and which is now extant in full only in Ge'ez or translations from that version, so there may be valid but now lost Hebrew precedents. I suspect that only relatively advanced scholars of classical Hebrew (and Ge'ez?) would be able to take a valid shot at translations (as opposed to meaningless transliterations) of this sort. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 09:25, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay, so they may have once existed. As far as I'm aware Hebrew is not a dead language so some vague form of transliteration should be possible. THIS IS NOT RELIGION-RELATED I am using it for creative research!!! I do not want to attempt it myself because I know I'll get it wrong regardless. Attempt it!! Gaaah!! Lady BlahDeBlah (talk) 22:31, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps Deborahjay could help you with this, if you ask her nicely. She's a professional English-Hebrew translator. — Kpalion^(talk) 12:16, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Uh-oh, Hunh, Hmmm, etc

What are these words, which express feeling but carry little or no denotative meaning, called? I would think they are very primitive in the history of languages. They seem to be almost like grunts. Are they the same across languages, or some languages? --Halcatalyst (talk) 22:16, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Interjections and discourse particles. They're not the same across languages (for example, French speakers don't say "um...", they say "eu...". Chinese speakers don't say "uh-oh", they say other things like ai-ou.) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 22:24, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Just as an aside, there are a couple of psych theories that suggest that language is almost entirely an elaboration of verbal gestures, i.e. the combination of an affect-only sound with a physical gesture (young children universally go through this stage as part of language acquisition, where they point and make a nonsense syllable, and parents interpret their intent). these kinds of indicative sounds would be viewed as developmental leftovers that come to the fore in situations where more sophisticated language fails. --Ludwigs2 06:50, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Um, ah, and so on can also serve as "sounds or words that are spoken to fill up gaps in utterances" -- check out Filler (linguistics). These are not emotion-laden words, but they serve to say "I haven't finished speaking yet." Many a non-native speaker, and many an inattentive native speaker too, has mistaken a "hmm" for an "um" or vice versa. BrainyBabe (talk) 23:34, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Latin: "Odisse mortalis"

On Iced Earth's album The Crucible of Man, the songs "In Sacred Flames" and "Divide and Devour" include the Latin line "odisse mortalis". Since odisse is a perfect active infinitive "to have hated", and mortalis is a genitive neutral singular adjective "of the mortal", am I correct in translating "odisse mortalis" as "to have hated that which is of the mortal" (assuming it was meant to be heard as a phrase rather than as two separate words)? NeonMerlin 23:15, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

"Mortalis" can also be nominative "mortal". "Odisse" is a defective verb that has no present forms, so the perfect forms are used for the present, and "odisse" means "to hate". Still, I'm not sure what it should mean; maybe it's taken from a longer phrase. Adam Bishop (talk) 01:16, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Mortalis is clearly accusative plural, as often in Classical Latin.Maid Marion (talk) 08:21, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah maybe, if it came from a poem. "Hate mortal (things/people)" would make sense, anyway. Adam Bishop (talk) 13:27, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

So it could mean "to hate mortals", but if it's part of an accusative and infinitive clause it could also mean "that mortals hate". Without more context, it's impossible to know. +Angr 14:18, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I've just looked up the lyrics of 'In Sacred Flames', stepping well outside my normal comfort zone, and I think the message to the OP should be that there is no meaning to this phrase at all. For one thing, the two words are separated by a comma, suggesting that they are not to be taken together as a phrase. And for another, the entire lyrics appear to be an almost random collection of Latin words, mainly in a Dies Irae tone of voice, but in any case conveying absolutely no sense whatever to this reader. Apart from its rather darker tone of voice, it reminds me of the nonsense Latin that is used to fill space in a document when trying to illustrate a font or a layout. Somebody remind me of the term for this please. Maid Marion (talk) 14:56, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, ignore last remark, I've just found it: lorem ipsum. Maid Marion (talk) 14:58, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

@Maid Marion - how do you make 'mortalis' accusative plural? I've never met any accusative plurals in '-is'. --ColinFine (talk) 00:25, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

It's a poetic form. Virgil uses it all the time. Adam Bishop (talk) 01:21, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

It's very common in Classical Latin, and not confined to verse. The 'i' is long. Maid Marion (talk) 08:37, 3 February 2010 (UTC)