Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 March 3

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

March 3

What kind of fish is an o?

The book Native Tongues by Charles Berlitz says that Hawaii has a tiny fish called a humuhumunukunukuapuaa and a big fish called an o. The dictionary at http://www.trussel2.com/haw/ doesn't give any definitions for o, ō, ‘o or ‘ō that suggest a species of fish. Does anyone know the scientific name of the o, and anything about it -- besides the fact that it is big? Jeremy Jigglypuff Jones (talk) 04:52, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

The "ono" is a "large, mackerel-type fish". Could that be it ? StuRat (talk) 05:18, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Maybe one of the fish in this list? Kayau (talk · contribs) 05:19, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

The closest I can find for just the letter "ō" is "Food provisions for a journey, especially at sea; sea rations." So, I suppose a large fish might be the food provision for a sea journey. StuRat (talk) 05:22, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Pukui & Elbert's dictionary doesgloss ʻōʻō, among other things, as "a type of fish, perhaps a swordfish", which are pretty big. Maybe that's what Berlitz is thinking of. Angr (talk) 17:39, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

See Ask Us | University of Hawaii at Manoa Library (University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa).

—Wavelength (talk) 18:12, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Way of applying drug?

What is the name of applying a drug that is administered in the posterior end of the GI tract or through the urinary or reproductive tract or through the nose and ears and mouth? Sneazy (talk) 15:16, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

That would be the Congressional Method of Inner. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:45, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

What is the "Congressional Method of Inner"? Sneazy (talk) 16:54, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

It's a pun on "Congressional Medal of Honor". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:06, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Geez, that pun is so painful, it deserves the Purple Fart. StuRat (talk) 18:36, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

See Route of administration. "Transmucosal" covers all the OP's examples. Tevildo (talk) 15:52, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

A suppository is the device for delivering drugs to the "nether regions". StuRat (talk) 16:51, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but it's going to hurt if you put one where Sneazy suggests. Alansplodge (talk) 20:59, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

"Transmucosal" is fine for all but one of the examples. The external ear doesn't have mucosa. - Nunh-huh 21:07, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

That's true, but I don't know of any drugs with systemic effect that would be administered through the ear, Hamlet notwithstanding. Such a drug would be transdermal, I imagine. Tevildo (talk) 22:45, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

What tense "would" this be

So I was reading this bit on the death of River Phoenix and found the author's use (or misuse) of tense to be rather annoying. It seems almost an affectation. Below is a typical bit

"On the eve of halloween in 1993, Phoenix would join (not simply joined) his friends at Johnny Depp's club, The Viper Room, at 8852 Sunset Boulevard. It was about 1:00 am, Phoenix was in the bathroom of the club doing some drugs with several of his drug dealer friends, when one of them would offer (not simply offered) him a hit of heroin. It was pure-grade Persion (sic) brown. Almost immediately after snorting the heroin, Phoenix would begin (you get the idea) trembling and shaking violently."

It goes on and on like that, a bit of simple past tense followed by this, to me, pretentious usage of what, past pluperfect progressive conditional? That is a joke, I have no idea what that tense is. Thanks in advance! --Lyncs (talk) 22:10, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

I believe that's what's called "future in the past". --Nicknack009 (talk) 22:19, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

In form, yes, but not in function. Its function is just a simple past in the example above. I think it started out in sequences like "When John was 12 years old, he first visited New York City, where he would live from age 30 to the end of his life." There, it's "future in the past" because from the point of view of his visit at the age of 12, his living there from the age of 30 is still in the future. But even there it's possible to say, "where he lived from age 30 to the end of his life". And then certain poor writers (probably mostly journalists) got the idea that it made narratives more "vivid" somehow to put all the verbs in the "future in the past" even when they're not referring to an event that really is in the future from the POV of some past point. Whenever I encounter this construction on Wikipedia, I always edit it out and replace it with the normal past tense. Angr (talk) 22:54, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Just reading the article linked to above; it's really pernicious there. I told my browser to "Highlight all" instances of the word "would": it occurs 17 times. In all but two of them ("Still others resigned themselves to the idead that Phoenix was past the point-of-no-return and would never be the same again" and "Another of his friends decided it would be a good idea to give him a valium to calm him down") I would remove the would and replace it with a simple past if that page were a wiki. (I would also correct the spelling of "Persion".) Angr (talk) 23:01, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

i am a huge fan of the compound tenses, including future in the past. And after the third usage of it in that horrible article I had no desire to read further. But the fact that someone uses a tense poorly doesn't mitigate its proper use at WP. μηδείς (talk) 03:14, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Relax - don't fret about tenses so much, (take a valium?) otherwise you will become too tense. — Preceding sarcastic comment added by 74.60.29.141 (talk) 16:39, 4 March 2013 (UTC)