Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 April 18

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April 18

lonely person

I'm looking for a noun that has equivalent meaning of "a lonely person". Thanks!65.128.159.201 (talk) 01:39, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

"Loner" ? Although this implies self-isolation. "Introvert" ? Or maybe you could use the phrase "the lonely", or "the secluded", "the neglected", "the rejected", "the isolated" ? StuRat (talk) 05:49, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

lone wolf? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.240.243.100 (talk) 06:35, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Wallflower? —Tamfang (talk) 06:46, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

The word "cipher" was used in "Cipher in the Snow", but that includes the implication of unimportance, along with words like "nobody". StuRat (talk) 06:51, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't think there is a noun in common use. There are various words meaning someone who lives alone (hermit, shutaway), or who hates human company (misanthrope), or who is shy (wallflower), or shunned by other people (outcast, reject), or who is mentally detached and ungregarious (introvert, loner, brooder, "solitary" as a noun). But you can be lonely without being any of those things, and be alone without being lonely. (There are also, as StuRat says, metaphors people sometimes use like "island" and "cipher", but "lonely person" isn't a standard meaning of these words.) --Colapeninsula (talk) 09:12, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

You could use an allusion to a fictional character, for example by saying "She's such an Eleanor Rigby" or the like. Angr (talk) 14:57, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I like the word hikikomori, but it's not commonly understood. - filelakeshoe 15:00, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

loner, outcast, eremite, recluse, outsider, single, bachelor, old maid, eccentric, free agent, sleeping beauty, Rapunzel, etc. --80.99.254.208 (talk) 19:48, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Collective name for kangaroos

There's a discussion underway at Talk:Kangaroo#Edit Request: group nouns about what to call a group of kangaroos. Every Australian, and no doubt many non-Australians would be familiar with the term mob for that purpose. It's definitely the common term. The article also claims court and troop are used. I've never heard them in 60+ years of speaking Australian English. Maybe non-Australians use them. Do they? HiLo48 (talk) 07:59, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

The OED gives "mob" in Aus and NZ "A flock, herd, or drove of animals", with a cite from 1846 referring to kangaroos. It has for troop "A herd, flock, swarm; esp. a group of apes or monkeys", but no mention of kangaroos or Australian English; and nothing relevant for "court". Collins gives "mob" as an Australian word for sheep or cattle but doesn't mention kangaroo.[1]. A lot of collective nouns are fanciful and scarcely used outside lists, so you have to rely on dictionaries (or corpus studies), not books that claim to have lists of esoteric terms. Checking the Macquarie Dictionary would be useful (it's not free online and I don't have access), but the OED supports "mob" and not "troop" or "court". Doing the primitive form of corpus linguistics that is a google search, on ".au" pages, "mob of kangaroos" is overwhelmingly the most common. The guiding principle for Wikipedia should always be: do you have a reliable source? --Colapeninsula (talk) 09:29, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

A court of kangaroos seems an obvious play on kangaroo court and not a real collective noun. --Xuxl (talk) 12:02, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

An Exaltation of Larks or, The Venereal Game by the venerable James Lipton gives "a troop of kangaroos", without any commentary (Penguin Books, 1977, p. 48). This is in Part II of the book, which has the general introduction "These terms are authentic and authoritative. They were used, they were correct, and they are useful, correct - and available - today".

That said, though, I can't say I've ever heard an Australian refer to them as a "troop". But An Exaltation of Larks is used as a reliable source in various WP articles, so I can't quite see how it can be reliable for some things but unreliable for others. Who gets to decide which subjects are in which camp? I've never heard anyone refer to a bunch of crows as a "murder" either (outside of special namings and in books like Lipton's), but that is mentioned in the crow article, at least as a "colorful and poetic name". -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 20:10, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

here you go, Jack. --LarryMac | Talk 20:20, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

And never forget it's "a wunch of bankers". Richard Avery (talk) 07:33, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Very good. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:16, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I propose a "pocketful" of roos. StuRat (talk) 02:25, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Sculpture at the wall of temples

There is a term for sculptures (carvings) at the wall of temples, but I can't remember the term. Can anybody guess it? --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 11:03, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Can you be more specific? Gargoyles perhaps? What kind of temples? Inside or outside? You might want to browse through architectural sculpture.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 11:16, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Old temples made of stone. The carvings are at the outside wall of the temple. Take for example these carvings. Or these carvings. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 11:23, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Relief — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.240.243.100 (talk) 11:27, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, that was the term! Thank you! --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 11:30, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

By the way, reliefs are not restricted to the walls of temples but can appear elsewhere as well. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 12:34, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I thought they were just on temple walls, too. What a relief! :) KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 13:24, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

On a classical Romano-Greek temple, there was often a strip of relief carvings that ran all the way around the top under the eaves of the roof. This is called a frieze. The most famous example is the Parthenon Frieze. Alansplodge (talk) 13:49, 18 April 2012 (UTC)