Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 January 31

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January 31

Looking for a word, again

Hey, me again. I need a word to go in this blank: "Do not allow any personal fondness you might _______ for this practice to cloud your better judgement". The word in the blank means something like 'keep' or 'indulge', or even 'entertain'. It kind of implies a private patronage. It's on this tip of my tongue but I can't quite put my finger on it. What is the word I'm looking for? 24.92.70.160 (talk) 00:57, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Harbor? Deor (talk) 01:12, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Embrace? Foster? Sustain? Maintain? Espouse? Arakunem^Talk 01:32, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Hold, feel. rʨanaɢ (talk) 07:20, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I was going to say "retain." Kingsfold (Quack quack!) 17:18, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, you have our permission to go right ahead and say it.  :) Actually, I think simplest is best: "have". -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 20:31, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I, too, immediately thought "have". Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:41, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Hen ba ix xia jao o ho ho ho

There's a Polish pop band who are now making a career in China and had some of their songs translated into Chinese. According to Polish web sources, one of these songs' Chinese title is Hen ba ix xia jao o ho ho ho. Is it possible to determine how to write it correctly in Chinese script? The original Polish title means roughly "Polka Dotted Panties", so I would expect it's something similar in Chinese. The "o ho ho ho" might not mean anything, kinda like "la la la", I guess. Here's the band performing the song on Youtube; they begin in Polish, but switch to Chinese for the chorus. I don't know whether their Chinese pronunciation is any good though. Thanks in advance. And don't worry, I'm not going to have a tattoo. — Kpalion^(talk) 02:59, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think I heard any Mandarin in there. And "Hen ba ix xia jao o ho ho ho" is not Hanyu Pinyin (ix and jao are not possible syllables of Hanyu Pinyin). rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:27, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the band members themselves say "hen ba ix xia jao o ho ho ho" is something meaningless and instantly made up to audibly resemble spoken Chinese: "Majteczki w kropeczki" po chińsku? Proszę bardzo... „Hen ba ix xia jao o ho ho ho". --Theurgist (talk) 04:33, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

They must mean it is made up to visually resemble romanised Chinese when written. I don't think any of the varieties of (Han) Chinese has anything that sounds like "ix". And "O ho ho ho" would probably be read as a jolly Santa Claus laugh. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 13:14, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Is ho even a possible syllable of Hanyu Pinyin for Mandarin? I'd think it would have to be either he or hou. Pais (talk) 13:29, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Nope. "ix", "jao" and "ho" are not valid syllables in Hanyu Pinyin for Mandarin. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 08:37, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, ho isn't a valid syllable of Hanyu Pinyin, but is common in, at least, some Cantonese romanizations. (For example, there are lots of HK and Macau people whose last name is "Ho", from 何 (hé) in Hanyu Pinyin.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 19:21, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

yuen dian neiku (or yuen dian kuzi) would be Chinese for "polka dot panties" - which is a phrase you'd probably never ever hear in Chinese. I do not see how the phrase above could be translated as anything to do with pokadots or panties. -- kainaw™ 19:14, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Okay, so I understand that it's either entirely made up or seriously misspelled. Thank a lot to all. — Kpalion^(talk) 20:48, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Spenneberg Surname

I have searched the web trying to find out what my surname Spenneberg means. Strange i can't find anything. Can someone help? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.130.224.115 (talk) 04:03, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Spenne seems to be a Norse term for fibula, which may be anything from a hairclip to a buckle. Berg means hill or mountain. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 05:15, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

So it is Mr Bucklemount :-) --Lgriot (talk) 09:41, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Possibly "Spider-town"? 173.11.0.145 (talk) 22:26, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

There's a "Schulze-Spenneberg" in Germany. Your ancestors probably came from there.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Schulze-Spenneberg,+Steinfurt,+Germany&aq=0&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=19.33322,39.418945&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Schulze-Spenneberg+Steinfurt,+North+Rhine-Westphalia,+Germany&z=15

Rojomoke (talk) 15:06, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

What does this mean?

In an article about Diako I StumbledUpon today, I found the phrase, "[t]he most famous person to come from this area is Gabe, and she can go live." Does anyone know what this last part means? Or am I correct to assume it is vandalism (the page has a history of vandalism)? --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 12:04, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it was vandalism. It started out as this, which was changed to this a few minutes later, went unnoticed for 4 months, was changed to this, and went unnoticed for another three months until you noticed it. I've removed it now. Pais (talk) 12:25, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Cheers. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 12:28, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

The only reference is a dead link. Astronaut (talk) 18:39, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Correctly presenting a bracketed phrase

From Sarah Palin lede:

She served as governor from December 2006 until she resigned in July 2009. She cited a series of dismissed ethics complaints — which she described as "frivolous" — and a desire to not become a lame duck governor as reasons for her resignation.

This is the current sentence stream. The 'em' dashes look out of place and miss-used. Is it because they should be used without spaces,

She served as governor from December 2006 until she resigned in July 2009. She cited a series of dismissed ethics complaints—which she described as "frivolous"—and a desire to not become a lame duck governor as reasons for her resignation.

Or, would parentheses work better?

She served as governor from December 2006 until she resigned in July 2009. She cited a series of dismissed ethics complaints (which she described as "frivolous") and a desire to not become a lame duck governor as reasons for her resignation.

Or, is there a fourth (and preferred) way.Buster Seven Talk 13:10, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

How about commas: She cited a series of dismissed ethics complaints, which she described as "frivolous", and a desire.... I'd also change "described as" to "called" and "to not become" to "not to become". (I don't object to all split infinitives across the board, but that's an easily avoidable one.) Pais (talk) 13:32, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

You are correct that em dashes shouldn't be used with spaces (see WP:MOSDASH). Beyond that, they're not really necessary for such a short phrase either (they are usually used for something that requires a larger prosodic break) and this sentence would be fine with just commas. rʨanaɢ (talk) 14:49, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

See User:Tony1/How to use hyphens and dashes.—Wavelength (talk) 17:00, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

That's a user page, not a guideline page. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:41, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

It's still useful, though. It's written by a user who is very knowledgeable in these things and it's an accurate reflection of the preferred usage (at least in my dialect). And, because that user is very active in the WP:FA process and a lot of people use his userpages as a standard, many of the Good and Featured Articles on Wikipedia reflect the usages in those pages. rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:49, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

What an excellent page! I thought I knew all the answers, and discovered that I didn't! Dbfirs 10:16, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

In the "Canadian weather" example, I disagree with the answer, ironically enough for the very reasons the answer gives. I would write By midafternoon, the low pressure area had moved east into Ontario. The notes say "'Mid-' anything is usually hyphenated by convention, probably because 'mid' itself isn't a whole word, yet doesn't jam into the noun nicely the way some prefixes do." I'd say the very fact that "mid" isn't a whole word (mid vowels notwithstanding) is sufficient reason not to hyphenate. The rule I follow is never to hyphenate a bound morpheme with two exceptions: where two is would come up next to each other (e.g. anti-intellectual), or where the main word is capitalized (e.g. un-American). The notes also say "There's no such thing as a 'pressure area', which could be low or high." Again, I'd say that's the reason not to hyphenate it: "low pressure area" isn't ambiguous. It can only mean "area of low pressure", so no hyphen is necessary. Double adjectives only need to be hyphenated if the phrase would be confusing or ambiguous without the hyphen. Pais (talk) 12:06, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I see what you mean about the low pressure area, though I personally prefer the hyphenated form because it makes clear that the area can be high, but the pressure there is low. I shrink with horror, however from the neologism "midafternoon"! It does have an entry in Wiktionary, but not in the OED, so perhaps usage varies by region. Would you also write midmorning, midevening, midocean, midoff, midon (etc.) where you live? Dbfirs 17:59, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

In case you don't play cricket, "mid off" and "mid-on" are fielding positions, in that article the mid- prefix is used varyingly. Of course, the point would be moot it you didn't use the words yourself. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 21:54, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I know nothing at all about cricket and so would never write "mid-off" and "mid-on" with or without a hyphen anyway. Midmorning, midevening, and midocean all look fine to me, although I would hyphenate between mid and a numeral, e.g. mid-1990s. Pais (talk) 22:05, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it does seem to be a difference in conventions between British and American English. Tony1 was evidently following the British (and Commonwealth?) convention. To my British eyes, "midocean" looks preposterous "(my-doh-see-an)", but then, I was taught to put a hyphen in "to-day", so my personal preferences are out of date even in modern British terms where the hyphen in "to-day" died out around fifty years ago. The general tendency is for two separate words to be linked by a hyphen when they become closely associated, and for the hyphen to gradually disappear over time. Americans are just further along this road, and I've got left behind! Dbfirs 22:59, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

But there's another school of language users who just concatenate words - alot, awhile, atleast, ... - and have turned run-on sentences (or is that "runon" these days?) into a highly developed art form. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 23:36, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, excessiveconcatenation (Germanfashion) seems to be the instyle in some artforms. Dbfirs 09:01, 3 February 2011 (UTC)