Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 June 22

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June 22

“I have refused 12 girls, 9 has refused me” In this phrase shouldn’t we use “9 have refused me”?

“I have refused 12 girls, 9 has refused me” In this phrase shouldn’t we use “9 have refused me” because in this context we are talking about 9 girls. What is the correct sentence according to grammar? Please answer me with reference if available. Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.240.73.64 (talk) 02:44, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes. When in doubt, fill in the words that have been omitted and go by that: "I have refused twelve girls and nine girls have refused me." Subject-verb agreement μηδείς (talk) 03:11, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

What if the missing word were "the" as in "I have refused 12 girls, the nine has refused me", making "nine" a collective noun referring to a specific group (in US usage)? (just being facetious, of course) --William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 03:24, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

(ec) Can you think of any parallel construction to that? Would you say, for example, "The 12 has found him not guilty"? I can't think of any obvious example like that. Perhaps the opposite, where Brits might say, "The BBC have interviewed him."

Of course House MD fans would understand, "I have slept with 12 girls but 13 has refused me."μηδείς (talk) 03:37, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

But in that case, I believe, '13' doesn't represent '13 girls', but rather 'girl no. 13'. So although the number is higher than 1, it represents a single individual. V85 (talk) 08:05, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

This entire line of discussion reminds me of seven women that were on my mind. Specifically the four that want to own me, two that want to stone me, and one says she's a friend of mine... --Jayron32 03:34, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Jayron! Take it easy! --Trovatore (talk) 08:27, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Hehe. μηδείς (talk) 20:01, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Moon mentioned by Iran space agency page in Persian

I am verifying this disputed claim that the Iranian Space Agency has a program for human space flight to the moon. The agency has this page in Persian which blogger Parviz Tarikhi linked to here paraphrasing part of Hamid Fazeli's speech as "based on the I. R. President’s order a human should be sent to space by 2021 and in this connection the studies and programs for sending human to space and Moon had been started.". My question for Persian readers is whether that is a reasonable loose translation of the seventh paragraph from ISA where Google translate appears to find the moon mentioned? I do not wish to rely on a blogger nor on Google translate, but I have zero knowledge of the language. The first paragraph also appears to mention the moon and is:

سرپرست سازمان فضايي ايران با اعلام آغاز مطالعات طراحي لباس فضانوردي و اعزام انسان به كره ماه از پرتاب فضانورد ايراني به ارتفاع زير 200 كيلومتر طي پنج سال اول اجراي پروژه اعزام انسان به فضا و مكانيابي احداث شهرك فضايي ايران خبر داد.

and the seventh paragraph is:

سرپرست سازمان فضايي ايران با اشاره به اين كه ماهواره ملي اميد سوار بر مركب سفير ايراني با حداقل آزمايشات زير سيستمي به فضا پرتاب شد تصريح كرد: در اين راستا با تلاش و كوشش پژوهشگران و دانشمندان فضايي و با عنايت الهي اين مسير را بسيار سريع طي كردهايم و مطالعات برنامههاي تدوين شده در خصوص اعزام انسان به فضا و كره ماه كه آغاز شده و پرتاب ماهوارهها به مدار ژئو در شوراي عالي فضايي كه هفته آينده برگزار ميشود مطرح ميشود.

I am not looking for an exact translation, only for a better idea what Hamid Fazeli was saying in relation to the moon. -84user (talk) 08:55, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Translation is correct. There is a mention of sending man to the Moon. Omidinist (talk) 03:52, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Translation does not say this. You are incorrect. The Scythian 11:14, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

It would be helpful, Scythian, if you could provide us with a translation, to get us beyond "yes it does / no it does not". THanks. --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:31, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Then what is this, the Scythian? (اعزام انسان به فضا و كره ماه) = (sending man to space and the Moon) Omidinist (talk) 17:59, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Quick question about peacock terms

I'm asking here rather than at WT:WTW for a quicker response. Anyway, for example, there's an article saying "Blah Blah is a popular comic book series written by John Doe". In this particular case, can using the world "popular" be considered a peacock term? Thanks. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 09:06, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

I would say that it is a peacock term, but that in some cases the popularity of a thing is so widely known that it would not need justifying. But if there is any likelihood that somebody might contest (particularly if it is very popular in one country but little known elsewhere) it should be avoided unless it is referenced. --ColinFine (talk) 09:26, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

(EC) Yes. I remember a publication from many years back: every suicide or acciental death on which it published a story had a headline along the lines of "popular xxx dies". There are objective proxies for a measurement of popularity, such as sales/readership figures and longevity. Popular is acceptable if it is referenced to a reliable source. --Tagishsimon (talk) 09:29, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

It's always poor style in an article lead. If the comic book wasn't popular, then we wouldn't have an article on it. As in "Charles Darwin was a notable scientist". True, sourceable, but not good article style. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:11, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

What is the argument in favor of using the word popular? "Blah Blah is a comic book series written by John Doe". What is wrong with the sentence without the word popular? Bus stop (talk) 13:07, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Not so: "Determining notability does not necessarily depend on things like fame, importance, or popularity" (WP:N). --Colapeninsula (talk) 13:32, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Popular doesn't necessarily mean widely liked. It can mean 'of the people' (i.e., laymen) as opposed to critical, professional, academic or technical. As in, "I am not looking for a textbook, just a popular introduction to the subject." μηδείς (talk) 19:59, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

If it really is that popular, people will have bought many copies of it, so you might be able to say it's a best-selling comic. (With a source). That seems more appropriate for an article lead. V85 (talk) 20:55, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Things are generally far more likely to be well-selling than best-selling per se (and far more likely still to be poorly-selling than well-selling, but that's beside the point). Most authors can only dream of producing books that sell reasonably well, let alone become best-sellers. But we seem to have got this far in the evolution of the English language without such terms as "well-selling", "well-seller". Shame, really.-- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 21:38, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Shortest Words

I was thinking the other day about the longest words in the English language (now some new chemical compound, no doubt), and then the shortest ones (I, a, etc.). That got me thinking: are there any words in the English language, or created in some work of fiction, that are zero letters long? I am aware of Metamicrofiction, a story mentioned in a single pdf file that is no words or letter long, but am more interested in individual words. Thanks, Sazea (talk) 17:27, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Depends on how you define a "letter". This is probably not what you were looking for, but you could say that & is "zero letters long" as it only consists of one symbol and no letters. (Granted, originally it consisted of the two letters e & t, but I'd argue that nobody who doesn't have an extreme interest in scripts and their developments thinks of it that way any more.) V85 (talk) 17:59, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

As a side note, I think of & as e and t because that's how I write it. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 18:05, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

You could say the empty categories are zero letters long, as are deleted words like the relative pronoun in "The Man ___ I Love". Angr (talk) 18:13, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

! --- OtherDave (talk) 18:32, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Being curious, I read that page on empty categories - and came away completely bewildered. It is 100% jargon. Can anyone give an example of an empty category in a sentence? Would love to know what they are. 184.147.116.134 (talk) 21:29, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

They're difficult to explain without jargon, as they're a product of certain syntactic theories and not everyone believes in them. But some examples are the trace of "who" in the sentence "Who do you want ___ to win?" (the presence of the trace can be inferred from the fact that want to in that sentence cannot be contracted to wanna, as it can in "I want to win" where there is no trace). Another example is found in "It's easy ___ to understand" where the blank is the unexpressed subject of the verb understand.

I'm not sure how to represent it, but the glottal stop has to count here - not a letter as such but, to a Cockney, carries such a lot of meaning. --TammyMoet (talk) 18:52, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Is there a word that consists only of the glottal stop? V85 (talk) 20:52, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

No, that would be a cough. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:07, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

I know people whose coughs are not mere words but whole novellas. They're cousins of those who make their "ah"s and "um"s an art form. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 22:19, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

The glottal stop replaces words or phrases in certain dialects. For example, in South Yorkshire it replaces "the", and is usually represented by "t'" as in the phrase "Put t'wood in t'ole". If you listen to a native from South Yorkshire the t is not spoken as a t but as a stop before the following word. It's more commonly recognised in the Cockney dialect. --TammyMoet (talk) 08:13, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

... we had to lick t'road clean .... -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 02:12, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

If you mean are there words with no characters of any kind, that's a ridiculous question, because there could only be one, and it would be indistinguishable from no word at all. I'm going to assume that's not what you're asking. If you mean are there words that are spelled with symbols other than letters, I can think of a few. In comic strips intended for publication in newspapers, profanity is often represented with a string of punctuation marks such as #@%&*!. If a word, such as a name, is to be hidden from the reader, it may be represented by a string of dashes or asterisks. Sometimes people use one or more question marks or exclamation points to convey confusion or frustration, respectively. Finally, some comic strips represent frustrated grumbling with a small scribble in the speech balloon. None of these has a defined pronunciation, though.Jerk182 (talk) 23:06, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Actually, that's what I was asking. I was wondering if there was a zero length word used in some sort of creative fiction or the like. It could possibly be indicated by a double space in a line, or even not being writable in the first place. That all said, the responses here have been rather interesting and informative, as well as thought provoking (for me at least). I suppose in addition to the examples above, computer programming deals with the idea of zero length character strings all the time (which do not equate with words, but are similar). Another thought: would the !? neologism on its own be considered as a sentence with no words, or would the punctuation have a separate definition? I'm guessing it isn't a zero length word in this case. Thanks again, Sazea (talk) 04:04, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Fnord? Adam Bishop (talk) 06:03, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Beep (sound). Bo Jacoby (talk) 08:03, 23 June 2012 (UTC).

I believe the neologism you referred to is the interrobang. I think that could be a stand-in for a word as well as any pronunciation mark. If you want an example of an unpronounceable symbol, there's always Prince_(musician) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jerk182 (talk • contribs) 02:34, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

By spelling, a, I, and O (and e and even u if they are used as the name of a vowel or a shape) are the shortest words in English. Phonetically, however, in their citation forms, they are the same length as ew, ow, oh, and oy, etc., and they are longer than words with short vowels ending in voiceless stops such as at, up, and ick. μηδείς (talk) 03:13, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

The musical notes A through G, and even extending to H in Germany/Austria, are never spelled out. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 05:35, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't think anyone has mentioned Zero-marking in English. Without using jargon: there are things you want to say in English that require you not to use a word. A foreign learner may well insert a word, because, in mentally translating from their language, the concept seems to require one. Think of the difference between "I like books" and "I like the books". The absence of the word "the" is mandatory in the first sentence in order to convey the intended meaning, of the general liking of books in the abstract sense. BrainyBabe (talk) 20:28, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Denis Leary (or some other standup) told of a snobby restaurant called [grunt], spelled "nothing, with a circumflex." —Tamfang (talk) 04:37, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Yiddish

I saw a documentary on Hasidic Judaism (ultra-orthodox Judaism) recently. One of the things that were discussed in that documentary was access to the Internet and a group of Hasidic Jews attempting to create a 'kosher Internet' (i.e. an Internet that would comply with the rules of ultra-orthodox Judaism). This was presented as a parallel to other modern gadgets which had 'kosher' alternatives, such as mobile phones, and kosher computers. (The one presented in the documentary didn't have access to the Internet, it only allowed the user to receive e-mail, and it couldn't play media files.)

In one of the scenes, one of the people working on creating the 'kosher Internet' said that the ultra-orthodox are already online, and opened an online forum where users were discussing matters pertaining to Judaism, in Yiddish. Apparently, the fact that they were using Yiddish was a clear marker to the people in the office, that whoever was writing and discussing these things were ulta-orthodox. Is Yiddish really a marker of ultra-orthodox identity? Does speaking Yiddish mark one as being an ultra-orthodox Jew to others and do the ultra-orthodox themselves emphasise speaking Yiddish instead of, say, Hebrew? V85 (talk) 18:12, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

According to Yiddish language#Religious communities, "The major exception to the decline of spoken Yiddish can be found in Haredi communities all over the world. In some of the more closely knit such communities Yiddish is spoken as a home and schooling language, especially in Hasidic, Litvish or Yeshivish communities..." so it wouldn't surprise me at all if using Yiddish online could be taken as a sign of being Haredi or Hasidic. Not with 100% certainty of course, but probably far, far greater than chance. (Go to Yiddish Wikipedia sometime and click on "recent changes" on a weekday and again on a Saturday to see how rarely Yiddish speakers are online on Shabbes!) Angr (talk) 18:21, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Traditionally some religious Jews were opposed to "defiling the holy language" by using Hebrew in non-religious contexts, which is part of the reason why many "ultra-orthodox" (not only Hasidic) continue to use Yiddish in daily life in Israel. In general, there was not much left of Yiddish-speaking communities in Europe after WW2, while use of Yiddish has diminished in non-European countries due to assimilation of immigrants and their descendants, so those under 50 who speak Yiddish are likely to belong to groups which are determined to keep to Yiddish, i.e. predominantly religious groups... AnonMoos (talk) 05:32, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Although see this British newspaper article "Yiddish is no joke'" about renewed interest in Yiddish in the wider Jewish community; "Beyond the very religious, Yiddish has been undergoing a marked revival, especially among young people, for more than 20 years... The main driver of this revival is the fact that, as Jewish populations become more diverse and Jewish identity less connected to religion and more to ethnicity, Jews are increasingly looking for alternative ways to be Jewish." Alansplodge (talk) 17:26, 23 June 2012 (UTC)