Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 July 10

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July 10

can jungle also mean rainforest?

Can 'jungle' also mean rainforest, besides for its usual meaning of "wild undergrowth"?

(there cannot be a jungle within a rainforest, according to wikipedia, because the trees of a rainforest by definition block all light from reaching the forest floor, and prevent anything from growing there)

(according to the dictionary on microsoft works it could, but i am not sure if its accurate)

Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.81.199.45 (talk) 01:54, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

They are synonyms in my US English usage. This may be a case where the technical definition is at odds with the common one. Another case is a "desert". The technical definition (lack of rainfall), allows Antarctica to be called a desert. If the common usages came first, then it doesn't seem appropriate for scientists to declare their own definition and tell everyone else that the way they were using it all along is wrong. Instead, they should call it "vegetative growth zone, stage 4", or some such thing.StuRat (talk) 02:10, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

My Australian perspective is much like StuRat's, at least if the word tropical is placed in front. Doesn't work so well with temperate rainforests. HiLo48 (talk) 02:12, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't think they are synonyms: a rainforest is a forest that grows in an extremely wet environment, a jungle is dense vegetation at ground level growing in an extremely wet environment. Jungle tends to form particularly around waterways, where trees cannot grow to block the light. It may also form after a fire or on steep slopes, or in swampy areas. Looie496 (talk) 04:33, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

The forests of the Pacific Northwest are often referred to as a rainforest, and they are obviously not a tropical jungle. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:16, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Looie496 has it right so far as modern usage, jungle is land overgrown with tangled vegetation per OED. Supposedly jungle at the edge of the forest discouraged early explorers who thought the dense growth extended beyond the water's edge. The term is not used with any rigorous scientific meaning. Ironically, the word comes from Sanskrit jangala where it had the earlier sense dry land lacking trees, with the later sense of uncultivated wasteland. μηδείς (talk) 19:39, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

How did space become masculine?

I think "space" as used in English evolved from a French word. But on a video on youtube or I heard a German say (approximately)

Jeder braucht seinen eigenen Space.

pronouncing it just as in English. It was crystal-clear from the context that it did not mean "space" in the sense of physics or geometry, but rather just what it would mean in present-day somewhat informal English. The masculine nature of this word is not in any way present in English. But Germans somehow do this when they borrow words from English. Somehow a gender assigned to it gets universally agreed on. How does that happen? Michael Hardy (talk) 04:06, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Since English doesn't have grammatical gender, English loanwords in German are assigned a gender, usually in accordance with some native German (near-)synonym. In this case, Space is presumably masculine because Raum and Platz are both masculine. There are exceptions, though, such as Team, which is neuter even though its nearest synonym Mannschaft is feminine. English words with the suffix -ing (gerunds) are all neuter in German: das Styling, das Timing, das Meeting. Angr (talk) 05:32, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

This is the typical mechanism, which I think also applies to languages that do have grammatical gender. My example is French le tour (as in, say, Tour de France), which is die Tour in German, probably from die Rundreise.

In many cases, the agreement is not universal, though: while die E-mail (compare die Post) is the most common form, das E-mail also exists. Das Blog is more common than der Blog, but both are widely used. Everybody disagrees about what gender Nutella has, and in fact all three are used (there are regional variations). —Kusma (t·c) 05:52, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I had a German flatmate once who referred to my aloe vera plant as er (masculine pronoun), and I asked him why: it's die Blume, die Pflanze, and die Aloe, so why not sie (feminine pronoun). He thought for a moment and said "It's der Kaktus". And I said, "But aloes aren't cacti, they're in the lily family, and it's also die Lilie"! (I see from our article that aloes are no longer assigned to the lily family, but I didn't know that at the time.) Angr (talk) 06:01, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

These apparently arbitrary assignments of gender are often quite mystifying. Why they do it is one thing, but who actually makes these decisions is quite another question. Take the Russian word for coffee - romanized as kofe (sorry, my system is not supporting Cyrillic script lately). Now, Russian nouns ending in -e or -o are virtually universally neuter. But for some odd reason, kofe is masculine. Who made that decision, and why, that's what I'd like to know. It regularly trips up native speakers, who instinctively supply neuter adjectives rather than the technically correct masculine. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 06:48, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

The underlying Romance Language word "cafe" appears to be masculine, which could be the reason. One theory (which does not necessarily hold) is that things that are "naturally occurring" could be feminine (made by "Mother Nature") and things that are "artificial" could be masculine ("man-made"). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:22, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

That theory doesn't account for languages like German, Russian, Modern Greek, Classical Greek, Latin, etc., in which all three Indo-European genders are present. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:44, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

In Czech, the Sun (slunce) is neuter and the Moon (měsíc) is masculine. I thought practically everyone speaking gendered languages would have agreed that the Sun is masculine and the Moon feminine. Gender is just arbitrary, especially when comparing the same words in different languages. Though, I seem to remember French usually just takes all loanwords as masculine. - filelakeshoe 22:34, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

In German, Sonne (sun) is feminine and Mond (moon) is masculine. Michael Hardy (talk) 01:33, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

In French, sun is masculine (le soleil) while moon is feminine (la lune). --Jayron32 05:21, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

OH, please, those are arbitrary innovations. Everyone knows that neither Quenya nor Sindarin, nor Pre-Proto-Indo-European nor Eurasiatic distinguishes grammatical gender for the Sun or the Moon or anything else. μηδείς (talk) 05:36, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

The only thing I know about Quenya is that Barack Obama was born there. Michael Hardy (talk) 07:00, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, Barack Obama was indeed born in Quenya. But his son wasn't, otherwise he wouldn't be residing in the White House right now. --Theurgist (talk) 22:17, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, I am convinced that Sarah Palin gave birth to Osama bin Laden in Honolulu, but I think that's getting off topic. Michael Hardy (talk) 01:14, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

x by y by z

When you say 'x by y by z' for measurement, which would height be? --Analphil (talk) 06:30, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Usually, but not necessarily, the height. Convention has length, breadth, height, in that order, but it is not always followed. Dbfirs 06:41, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Height = z, which is what I think Dbfirs meant to say rather than height = height. Cartesian coordinate system might help if there is any further confusion, although I don't see it mentioning anywhere the convention that, by default, the x-axis is aligned left-right and the y-axis is aligned front-back.  Card Zero  (talk) 09:07, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Oops, sorry, yes, that's what I meant to write. Dbfirs 19:41, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I have to say I don't necessarily agree. I picked an item from my Argos catalogue, and it listed them height, width, depth. I think that sounds normal for a piece of furniture. In this case, depth (or 'length') was significantly smaller than the other two dimensions, if that makes a difference. (On a technicality, it did say which was which.) Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 15:58, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Furniture like a chest of drawers, yes. Furniture like a table, no. Tables are usually measured length, width, height. - This is actually consistent. The primary dimensions are usually listed first. For a chest, most people are interested in height mostly (because it varies so much), width secondarily, and depth third. For a table, the surface dimensions (length by width) are of primary importance, and the height is somewhat secondary (because they are relatively consistent). Something like a chair might be specified in either order, depending on the whims of the measurer. Usually the different orders don't matter all that munch in practice, because, as you mention, most people will specify what each measurement refers to, usually with something like l×w×h (length, width, height) or h×w×d (height, width, depth). As a final note, if you have something boxed, the shipping company will likely list its dimensions in descending order, regardless of what each corresponds to for the object inside. -- 174.31.204.164 (talk) 17:10, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Length being the longest dimension which isn't height, and width being the other one?  Card Zero  (talk) 17:25, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Not necessarily. For wood beams, which have no fixed orientation, the length is the longest dimension, and I'm not sure if they bother to name the other dimensions at all. For objects which do have a fixed orientation, like a TV set, height is assigned as the top-to-bottom distance, width as the side-to-side distance, and depth (or maybe thickness), in this case, the front-to-back distance. For most modern TVs, I would expect the width to be the biggest dimension, followed by height and then depth. StuRat (talk) 18:42, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Further to my earlier comment, this chest-of-drawers is listed H/W/D; this dining table H/L/W and this barbecue H/W/D. Dbfirs said 'L/W/H' was standard; so in the least we can say that noting which is which would be necessarily to avoid confusion. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 19:19, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, what I thought was a convention that was usually followed seems not to apply to furniture. For parcels it doesn't matter since you just turn them round so that the length is the largest measurement, but I'll have to be careful if I buy furniture, and TVs are another exception to my "rule" Dbfirs 19:41, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Masscre is not supposed to be capitalized?

[1]

I posted the question at this location, because I am confused who why Massacre should not be capitalized.Curb Chain (talk) 06:42, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Probably someone regards the phrase Nanking Massacre as a proper noun. Michael Hardy (talk) 06:48, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I think I agree; likewise the French Revolution, Peasants' Revolt, Indian Mutiny, Charge of the Light Brigade and Defenestration of Prague; there are probably many more you can think of. Alansplodge (talk) 21:16, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

(Although the Light Brigade and Prague have initial capitals when used outside these phrases.) Itsmejudith (talk) 14:01, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes but so does Nanking. It was the capitalisation of Charge and Defenestration that shows that the usual names of many major historical events are proper nouns. I was suggesting that Nanking Massacre should be one too (if it isn't already). Alansplodge (talk) 18:07, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

So then should the phrase be removed from Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(events)#Examples? Many examples are shown where the noun with the toponym are next to ea. other, so they have become proper nouns, and so they should be capitalized?Curb Chain (talk) 06:24, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Antonym of goldbricker

So a goldbricker is basically a lazy douche that slacks off at work and doesn't do their appointed tasks (unacceptable on an archaeological dig), but what is the opposite. A very good and hardworking friend of ours has injured herself multiple times and during her recovery from the worst (a wrist with tendonitis), has tried working many times (though stops when we catch her at it) even though it will probably make things worse and is only slightly satisfied when she is given a strenuous task that can be done using one hand (patiching, using a trowel or mini pickaxe). So what do you call someone like that? Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | Say Shalom! 14:56, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Seems a bit obvious, but surely that would be a workaholic. (I tried workahol once, but I didn't like it.)  Card Zero  (talk) 15:05, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Nah, not working all the time, but refuses to not work just because she seems to be down and out. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | Say Shalom! 16:51, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Following the links from workaholic, I found Presenteeism. She seems to fit the one definition of a presentee.  Card Zero  (talk) 17:03, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I like this quote. I have it attributed to St Vincent de Paul but can't confirm it. "It is the work of the devil, which he employs from time to time, to tempt good folk to do more than they are able, in order that they may be able to do nothing at all". Wise words. Perhaps you might quote them to your friend? --TammyMoet (talk) 16:53, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Well her arm is better now and so she can pickaxe and lift two buckets (each with about 8 kg of dirt) at a time once again. We gave her the special beaded vest for her work ethic though. (Y'all don't know about the DDMV). Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | Say Shalom! 16:58, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Isn't there even lighter work she could do, like using a tiny brush to clean the dirt off each artifact, or cataloging the objects found ? StuRat (talk) 18:35, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I can confirm the quote, which comes from a letter of St. Vincent de Paul extracted here: C'est une ruse du diable, de laquelle il se sert pour tromper les bonnes âmes, de les inciter à faire plus qu'elles ne peuvent, afin qu'elles ne puissent plus rien faire. --Antiquary (talk) 18:30, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh well done! I've been trying to tie that one down for 15 years! Mwah! --TammyMoet (talk) 09:11, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

How come?

To me, the striking difference between "Why?" and the informal "How come?" is the syntax that follows it.

Why did you do that?

How come you did that?

Why is it done that way?

How come it's done that way?

Nobody says "How come did you do that?" or "How come is it done that way?"

Is there more of interest to say about this, that can be found in the linguistics literature or elsewhere, or does the above constitute a comprehensive treatise on this particular syntactic phenomenon? Michael Hardy (talk) 19:49, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

This is just a guess, but maybe "how come" means "how did it come to be." Bus stop (talk) 19:53, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

You're right: OED Online defines it thus: "colloq. (orig. U.S.) phr.: how did (or does) it come about (that)?". So the fact that it is not a direct replacement for why may explain the difference in syntax ("How come [= How did it come about that] you did that?"; "How come [= How did it come about that] it's done that way?"). — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 19:51, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

This thread is discussing it. Bus stop (talk) 19:58, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

But that thread does not mention the syntactic issue. Michael Hardy (talk) 01:30, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't think there is much more to say on it. "How come", for some reason, doesn't pattern like other WH-phrases. I can't think of any other exceptions. --ColinFine (talk) 19:42, 11 July 2011 (UTC)