Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 February 5

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February 5

hydroponics, hydroculture, huh?

I heard someone use the term 'hydroponics' on a TV show, and then I googled it. Part of our article there mentioned hydroculture, another word I didn't know, so I googled that. Okay, well when I googled "define hydroculture" I got presented:

- "hydroculture"
- noun
- - another term for hydroponics.

So it's like, oh, okay. It must be a redirect on our article too. But it's not!!! We have a separate hydroponics and a separate hydroculture article. Why? I'm more confused than ever. What is the relationship between these things? Why doesn't 'hydroculture' just redirect, why is it a separate article? I don't quite follow the distinction. 212.96.61.236 (talk) 00:10, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Hydroponics uses pumps. Hydroculture just sucks. InedibleHulk (talk) 10:38, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Our Passive hydroponics article disagrees with that definition. Rmhermen (talk) 14:08, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

With all of its fancy sources. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:33, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, thanks for clearing that up guys :) Seriously how does Wikipedia end up with two articles on the same subject without being merged or something. 212.96.61.236 (talk) 18:15, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

@212.96.61.236: See my response below. It might be possible to merge/redirect, but I suspect there is a distinction to be made. Even if it were a wrong/bad distinction, the reason we got here is because Wikipedia is created by volunteers. WP:BOLD, WP:SOFIXIT, etc. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:21, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Read the first sentence of hydroponics carefully --"Hydroponics is a subset of hydroculture and is a method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions, in water, without soil." Now read the first sentence of hydroculture carefully "Hydroculture is the growing of plants in a soilless medium" (emphasis mine in both cases)- Now, I'm not going to say that's the only definition, or the best distinction, but the way our articles are written, all hydroponic growing methods are also hydrocultural methods, but (according to hydroponics) there are some hydrocultural methods that are not considered hydroponic. Some people might say growing in perlite and water is hydroculture but not hydroponic. Note also this sentence "Gericke originally defined hydroponics as crop growth in mineral nutrient solutions. Hydroponics is a subset of soilless culture. Many types of soilless culture do not use the mineral nutrient solutions required for hydroponics." So perhaps Gericke would say that my prayer plant growing in water only is hydroculture but not hydroponics, because I didn't add any additional minerals/nutrients.

In most situations, these terms are near synonyms. Some people like to make distinctions. Unless you are attending a hydroculture convention or writing a paper on the topic, you can probably just use whichever term you prefer. I'm not going to weigh in on this issue, because you'll find a zillion different definitions in a zillion different books. The Gericke guy seems to be an originator of the term, so you could look up and use his specific definition too. Perhaps the hydroculture should be a redirect, but I don't think it's a real problem at present. The distinctions are clarified if you read carefully. You could raise the issue at the talk page but I suspect someone's put a little thought into this, and several someones will be willing to push to keep them separate. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:19, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

To push his law and order agenda

From our article Ronald Ryan, linked from the main page yesterday:

[...] was an attempt by then Victorian Premier Henry Bolte, to push his law and order agenda.

So, who Bolte ordered an agenda from? The question is rhetorical, of course: I know that "law and order" was supposed to be a compound adjective, but the end result was a garden path sentence, quite easily misinterpreted. Now, the question: how would this be best fixed? Is it better to insert hyphens into the longish phrase: to push his law-and-order agenda, or to put it in quotes: to push his "law and order" agenda, or rephrase completely: to push his agenda of/for law and order? (And, in the same vein, should it read "then-Victorian"?) No such user (talk) 08:37, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

The correct solution is to hyphenate "law-and-order" but not to insert a hyphen between "then" and "Victorian". "Law-and-order" is a compound modifier, which according to most style rules should be hyphenated. "Then" and "Victorian" do not form a compound. If they were a compound they would jointly modify "Premier". In fact, it is conceivable that you could refer to the "then-Victorian Premier ...", but that would imply that the same premier was later not Victorian when, say, he became the premier of New South Wales. This is probably not the meaning of "then Victorian". Instead, both modifiers independently modify "Premier". The best test for whether modifiers form a compound is whether the phrase would still make sense and each modifier would still have the same meaning if you dropped one of them. You can say "an attempt by Victorian Premier..." or "an attempt by then Premier..." and still make sense, so there is no compound. On the other hand, you would not make sense if you said "to push his and order agenda", and if you said "to push his law and agenda", "law" would no longer be a modifier, significantly changing its meaning. Marco polo (talk) 14:25, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

That sort of construction is so common that I was delighted when it briefly appeared that India might get a former Italian prime minister. —Tamfang (talk) 09:07, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

The term "law and order" is common enough to be read as a single entity, so I had no trouble with that part. I do, though, have an issue with the single comma, and suspect there should be another after Premier. Bazza (talk) 15:06, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I wasn't paying attention to the comma. The comma is out of place and should be deleted. "Henry Bolte" does not need to be set off by commas, nor are infinitive phrases set off by commas in English. Marco polo (talk) 17:06, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

It is true, as Bazza says, that "law and order" is a common fixed phrase and probably won't usually cause problems here, but it should still be hyphenated. What happens if someone's screen size is such that "law" winds up at the end of a line? In that case, it is likely to cause a problem for the reader. Maybe just for half a second, but given that the fix is to use better punctuation, we should do it.

I also agree with Marco Polo that "then-Victorian" would be bad (at what point did he stop being Victorian?) but that part of the sentence is so problematic that I think it should be reworded entirely. I would go with something like [...] was an attempt by Henry Bolte, then Premier of Victoria, to push his law-and-order agenda. --Trovatore (talk) 18:01, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Trovatore's word order is an improvement, and his punctuation is impeccable, but the original word order was not incorrect. Marco polo (talk) 18:22, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

True. Still another solution would be to simply delete "then", as it's obvious we're talking about the time when he was premier. You wouldn't say that the abolition of slavery in the US was an achievement of "then president Lincoln". This sort of "then" is really only needed if there might be confusion with a time when Bolte was not premier. --65.94.50.4 (talk) 22:44, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

The difficulty with that analogy is that ex-presidents are still called "President <name>". Australian ex-heads of government are not called "Prime Minister Smith" or "Premier Brown". We don't even officially use that "title surname" form for incumbents, although it has a presence in less formal writing. If we're talking about what the various premiers think of a certain federal government proposal, we might say "Premier Andrews agreed but Premier Baird was strongly critical". If we're introducing a premier into a discussion, we'd probably make clear whether the person is the incumbent or not. For the OP's example, I think I'd write:

[...] was an attempt by the then Premier of Victoria, Henry Bolte, to push his law-and-order agenda.

If he were the incumbent at the time of writing, I'd just drop the word "then". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:01, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Strongest word for evil in the English

I'm wondering what is the strongest term for evil in the English tongue. In this case it would be an adjective one could apply to Daeysh's use of mentally disabled children as suicide bombers and prostitution, torture, crucifixion, and burying alive of others. I realise this might be an opinion based question given the example. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 16 Shevat 5775 19:07, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

"Misguided" is a bit weak. "Repugnant" is pretty nasty. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:36, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

You might take a look at the "Adj." section here. Malignant, malevolent, inhuman, and diabolical seem pretty strong to me, but there are others. Deor (talk) 19:50, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

"Vile"? SaundersW (talk) 19:52, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure you can get any more profound than evil. Marco polo (talk) 20:06, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Alas, it seems that just like with the word, "love", there's no adequate word in English when you really want to go deep. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 16 Shevat 5775 20:19, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

If a large number of people agreed on the strength of the same word then it would probably be overused and quickly lose its strength. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:54, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Iniquitous, unholy, pernicious, perdition, are all terms often used for ultimate evil. --Jayron32 20:52, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

They all seem to lack the appropriate sort of hatred, disgust, and negative emotion appropriate though. Sorry, all, don't mean to poo-poo your efforts, though repugnant has some feeling to it. A friend gave me a Classic Arabic word, khawarej, "Muslims who seem incredibly devout, but who actually cherry-pick from the various rules of the faith, consider themselves the only true Muslims (with rest destined for hell), and for whom killing is as easy as drinking water." So I guess monstrous, vile, morally repugnant khawarej (don't know if that's the plural form and Arabic plurals are incredibly difficult), but there's no one English word to use. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 16 Shevat 5775 21:16, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Too many of the examples offered here are multi-syllabic and don't carry a lot of force with the general public. "Monstrous" is good. "Diabolical" would likely get a blank look. "Evil", everyone understands. Although the ultimate insult to these so-called Islamists could be "Godless". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:57, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I was thinking along those lines actually. A lot of times words with a Latin origin can be a bit weakIt's similar to how Churchill used only words of Germanic origin (which tend to be shorter) in his we shall fight them on the beaches speech (or was it just the final part?) save for the last word, surrender. Maybe godless khawarej then. Cheers! Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 16 Shevat 5775 22:15, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't think there's a single strongest word in all contexts, but "wicked" is pretty strong. --Trovatore (talk) 22:16, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Too much of a cliché. "You wicked old witch!" and so on. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:07, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Also flipped around and neutered by teenagers in '90s cereal commercials. Taste that wicked crunch, dude! These marshmallows are sick! InedibleHulk (talk) 23:34, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Certainly, but when used non-ironically, I think it is one of the most powerful words in the language. It has a Biblical severity. --Trovatore (talk) 00:06, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

That's also been hijacked, by Wicked Pictures. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:17, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I said, when used non-ironically. I don't think Wicked Pictures is literally claiming to be evil. Even if they were, I don't think most people have even heard of them.

It is, of course, an older usage. In my estimation, that's part of what gives it its force. --Trovatore (talk) 03:31, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

It had force in olden times, but it has become trivialized. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:44, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

They're claiming to be sort of evil, but the aim is on simple debauchery, not malice. Doesn't turn it around like the cereal ads did, just waters it down. Like "awesome". Still basically means the same thing, but our awe bar has been lowered. But yeah, it still works in some contexts. Good for sermons because a preacher can tell a wide congregation to mend their wicked ways without greatly insulting anyone in particular. For focused and targeted vilification, it's a little weak. InedibleHulk (talk) 17:38, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, but I think you're wrong. It's extraordinarily strong. You just have to drop some signifiers that make it clear the sense you're using it in. Some Old Testament smiting or New Testament damnation, or even a surah from the Quran, will probably do it. But I'm not sure they're necessary in this case — just the context of the comment should make it clear. --Trovatore (talk) 21:02, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

That's the thing with words. One can seem strong to you, and not to me, depending how we've gotten used to hearing it. We're both right. I think we're both also damned righteous dudes, but I mean those three words weakly. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:08, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

As evidenced by Ron Weasley. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 17 Shevat 5775 18:52, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps "foul"? Good solid Saxon, with no colloquial usage in the opposite sense (that I know of). There's also "depraved", although that might have inappropriate sexual connotations. Tevildo (talk) 23:55, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

When you're trying to paint someone as evil, connotations are always appropriate. If there's one thing people love/hate more than murder, it's perverted murder. Perverted religious murder's even better/worse. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:13, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Slime bucket? Bus stop (talk) 00:06, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

That reminds me of something I once heard a comedian/activist say about a certain element of thugs: "sick, slimy degenerates". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:10, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, scum's nasty. "Scrum" even more so, but that doesn't mean what I think it does. According to Wayne's World, nothing's worse than mung. Hasn't caught on like I thought it would. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:15, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

"Scrum" and "scrimmage" both derive from "skirmish".[1][2] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:12, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Scum is a very good term in this case, but something also evoking the idea of animals as it's quite offensive in Arab culture (one of the reasons the cage aspect of the murder of the pilot caused so much rage (that and the prohibition on burning of people in any way)). Mung sounds too much like ming and along with the Ming dynasty, that makes me thinking of minging like when some society at LSE were talking about minging trollopy crumpets on treadmills on some pamphlets of theirs in what can only be called a wanton display of British slang. I think the feminist society got them shut down. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 17 Shevat 5775 18:52, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

There was a clam named Ming, once. True bottom-feeding scumsucking hermaphrodite, that guy. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:51, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

'Abhorrent' as an adjective. 'Enormity' as a noun also once filled this role, but is quickly becoming a synonym for 'large', bizarrely enough. GoldenRing (talk) 00:54, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

That makes sense for enormity as another word for horrible in Italian is tremendo which is the same as tremendous, but with a different meaning. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 17 Shevat 5775 18:52, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

• First, English has a strong distinction in its basic (non-polysyllabic, borrowed) vocabulary between evil and bad (See MP, above.). A lot of languages don't, such as French mal/mauvais and Spanish mal/malo. Second, the proper way to research this is with an on-line search. It is extremely easy to google "evil synonym" and then, if another word seems better, to search for synonyms for it as well. Third, as BBB mentions, the issue is subject to cliche. I'd suggest "unspeakable evil", but it's been used before, and it's a contradiction in terms, given one is speaking it. I think the King of Jordan said it well when he apparently quoted Eastwood to the House Armed Services Committee: "Any man I see out there, I’m gonna kill him. Any son of a bitch takes a shot at me, I’m not only going to kill him, I’m going to kill his wife and all his friends and burn his damn house down." μηδείς (talk) 01:07, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

• • No offence, but I'm not seeing the relevance of your first point to the discussion as only English words have been mentioned, I'm a native English-speaker, and the only non-English word mentioned is not from a Romance language and has very specific meaning. Another point which no one here would have any way of knowing is that I'm pretty familiar with French, Italian, and German, and concepts that exist only in their language groups. Again, though, that would have to be a for future reference kind of thing. The second point I disagree with as it's better to have the opinions of people from diverse backgrounds rather than just go on your own as they'll look at a problem from different angles, some of which the head researcher maybe never would have thought about. It's bit like cross-disciplinary research. Plus everyone seems to be having fun and that's always a good thing. Third point is unfortunately true as many strong words become buzzwords and have their teeth removed as a result. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 17 Shevat 5775 18:52, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I'd go with "satanic" "Kardashian-like" is going too far though. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:05, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

They've called us "the great satan", so calling them "satanic" smacks of "I know you are but what am I?" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:44, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Satanic also brings to mind the church of satan or whatever it's called. Kardashian I'd rather not hear at any point of the day (going avoid WP:BLP violations. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 17 Shevat 5775 18:52, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Double plus ungood ? StuRat (talk) 06:30, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Literary references are always good provided that they don't make the target laugh in this case (though most IS people tend to be rather ignorant in general)! Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 17 Shevat 5775 18:52, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I'd have thought "vile". --TammyMoet (talk) 10:12, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Abhorrent? Abominable? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.172.108.24 (talk) 13:05, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Abhorrent is too academic, and abominable is associated with mythical man-apes of the Himalayas. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:47, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

They were pretty damn scary till that one showed up. InedibleHulk (talk) 17:43, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Vile works, and I'm surprised Bugs didn't link that unless I've misunderstood his name all these years. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 17 Shevat 5775 18:52, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Link what? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:16, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Hugging him and squeezing him and calling him George.

Looniness knows no bounds. Neither does copying South Park. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:20, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

You lost me at the bakery. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:23, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

See here. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:26, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

That looks vaguely familiar. I wonder if "George" is a racial reference? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:29, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

The behavior of the A. Snowman is an allusion to the character Lennie in Of Mice and Men (whose buddy is named George), BB. Just to show that WHAAOE, see Of Mice and Men in popular culture#In cartoons and animation. Deor (talk) 23:26, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Maybe they're intentionally (and presciently) beating around the Bush? Also, see here if you've also missed that cartoon. Not sure what language it's in. Universal, maybe. But not in a Woody Woodpecker sense. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:33, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Peripheral evidence suggests that Cartman is dubbed in French, though if so it's too ‘street’ for me. —Tamfang (talk) 21:31, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

There's an English version on YouTube, but it was cellphoned off a TV screen. Deplorable conditions. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:08, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

While we're somewhat on the topic, here's Donald Duck sticking it to Hitler. One of the times, anyway. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:37, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps "heinous". -Modocc (talk) 18:18, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

• What's really necessary here is a consideration of a language's core vocabulary. Language learning (concept acquisition) is hierarchical. In English, good and bad are part of the core vocabulary and evil is the next abstraction for negative morality levels of learnt after bad (leaving naughty and softer words out for now.). It's a word illiterates use. It's a native Germanic word like fuck and shit, and unlike vile and heinous. The dyads good and bad versus good and evil are a bit of a confusion, since we don't normally say, "This is an evil hammer" or "He is a bad murderer." In any case, English has no basic word for badness worse than evil. μηδείς (talk) 21:47, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Lesser evils such as the antics of TinyToon's Elmyra Duff like here requires a more nuanced perspective regarding what is labeled evil or sinful (like adultery). In this case, with Daesh, heinous fits well because it usually means very evil [3]. -Modocc (talk) 22:23, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Assuming you are indenting under me, you seem to be missing my point. A child first learns good versus bad. They then learn good versus evil, which is a more abstract distinction. Then they learn words like heinous and atrocious which are even more abstract than evil. Bad and evil are basic English vocabulary words, learned first, native Germanic, and known even by the illiterate. Things like heinous (which I have heard people rhyme with minus) depend on higher education. No baby is going to understand heinous unless he first understands "bad" and then "evil". The OP seems to have rejected learned, multi-syllabic, literary, Latinate borrowings like vicious and atrocious. He is left with bad and evil. μηδείς (talk) 00:29, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

All this talk of cartoons has me thinking the strongest word to describe evil against evil might be "haha". If you're trying to inspire a flock of sheep to trample something, it might be best to paint the target as a weak, pathetic fool rather than Shao Kahn. Otherwise, they might reasonably get scared.

In the world of theatrical combat, the "monster heel" is generally the one the "cowardly heel" brings as a the hired goon to absolutely wreck the babyface. These are scary, near-invincible bastards, who typically only lose because of their cowardly employers' buffoonery, then turn toward the light. The only way the hero can stop the wave of merciless goon attacks is by cutting off the cowardly head of the snake. Which is way easier than dealing with monsters. The hard part is getting that slippery snake in the ring.

Applied to ISIS, that's doubly hard because their snake is more like The Black Scorpion. But no scorpion is no match for no sheep! InedibleHulk (talk) 23:32, 7 February 2015 (UTC)