Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 August 28

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.

August 28

Super ultra hyper

How did it come about that hyper- (from Greek) is stronger than super- (from Latin)? They both kind of mean the same thing in the original languages. Hyper- is usually stronger than ultra- right? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:00, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Stack Exchange has an informative thread on this question. ---Sluzzelin talk 00:06, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

• Latin was simply more common among the general population in the West until recently, while most people didn't learn Greek unless they were specializing in a subject that required it at University. So super was good, but hyper was super. μηδείς (talk) 04:43, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Technical difference

Whats the difference in meaning between 'buggery' and 'sodomy' ?--86.187.165.85 (talk) 00:00, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

See: buggery and sodomy, which should adequately answer your question. 2606:A000:4C0C:E200:1821:CD59:E35A:CB68 (talk) 00:05, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

And let's not forget the worst of the lot, "Gomorrahy". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:08, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

There is no such word as Gomorrahy. So what do you mean?--86.187.166.85 (talk) 16:28, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Bugs was making a joke; hence the small type. See Sodom and Gomorrah. Deor (talk) 16:34, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

So why does Wiktionnary give a definition for it? See [1] Contact Basemetal here 16:36, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Evidently Bugs thought he was kidding. But he might have been wrong. Btw is gomorrahy supposed to rhyme with gonorrhea? Contact Basemetal here 16:42, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

I was merely subtly referencing a question George Carlin once asked. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:23, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Who is George Carlin may I ask?--86.187.166.181 (talk) 23:46, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

George Carlin. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:22, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Wow. What's a good Aussie expression for Sic transit gloria mundi? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:05, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Ask Goldie Hawn. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 12:07, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

An interesting illustration of cultural non-globalism. As a 60-y-o Brit I had read passing references to Carlin as being some sort of media figure, but have never seen him and did not know before now that he was a comedian. Evidently 86.187.166.181 was in a similar position. Perhaps his material was USA-centric and did not export well. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.219.83.36 (talk) 14:30, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Never heard of him either. Strange. Alansplodge (talk) 20:00, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Had never heard of him until the internet dawned for me, post-October 2001. Don Rickles, now there was a funny man known to NZ TV audiences. Akld guy (talk) 20:36, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Much of Carlin's work can be found on youtube. If you can find any of his early-to-mid 70's stuff (before the "angry old hippie" persona took over in the 1990s on) it is some of the best work he's done. Any of his first 4-5 HBO specials are required watching, and his routines on the "Seven dirty words", "Stuff" and "Football vs. Baseball" are considered classics of the genre. --Jayron32 14:28, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

traditional Chinese greeting

(This is about body language, not verbal language, sorry if I'm posting this in the wrong forum.)

I note we have entries for greetings like fist bump, eskimo kissing, etc. but not one for one of the most common greetings in Chinese culture, 抱拳 (bàoquán). How would we translate this? Under Greeting I found an explanation: A Chinese greeting features the right fist placed in the palm of the left hand and both shaken back and forth two or three times; it may be accompanied by a head nod or bow. The gesture may be used on meeting and parting, and when offering thanks or apologies. I feel though that baoquan deserves a whole article given its prominence in Chinese culture. But what would we call it in English? I would like to start a stub, but I have never done it before. I'm a regular contributor and admin at Wiktionary, but very rarely edit at Wikipedia. Tooironic (talk) 08:12, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

New Method Chinese (by Jenwei Kuo, Judy Chen, Lihua Zhang) calls the same gesture (I think) Zuòyī 作揖. I couldn't find any westernised word for it. This online dictionary has "ZUÒYĪ 作揖 to bow with hands held in front". Alansplodge (talk) 09:47, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Zuoyi is used in different situations and includes a bow, whereas baoquan doesn't. Tooironic (talk) 12:01, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Okay, that makes sense. Perhaps we could have a Traditional Chinese greetings article, that explains the differences. Alansplodge (talk) 11:27, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

I've never created a page on Wikipedia before. What's the best way to go about it? Tooironic (talk) 04:21, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

You can read through Wikipedia:Your first article, or do what I did - find a similar article and copy the format. Have a look at some of the articles in Category:Hand gestures for a start. To get started, just click on the redlink above, or type the name of the title you want into the search bar, and it will ask you if you want to create a page. If you get stuck, the people at Wikipedia:Help desk and Wikipedia:Teahouse are REALLY helpful. But be bold, as long as you can find references for what you want to say (Google is your friend for that). Alansplodge (talk) 10:35, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Other examples, which I didn't see listed in the category Alan linked (although they may be in parent or child categories), are Añjali Mudrā, Thai greeting (the Thai wai), Sampeah (the Khmer equivalent), Sembah (the Indonesian equivalent), Namaste, etc. They need work and many may be overlapping to the point of being redundant, but they may be helpful in getting you started.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 23:32, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

questions quoting statements

I can’t decide how to write this sentence. My suggestions are:

1. Would you think, ‘I sure am glad that I got a shorter and easier version of this?’

2. Would you think, ‘I sure am glad that I got a shorter and easier version of this,’?

3. Would you think, ‘I sure am glad that I got a shorter and easier version of this.’

Which one is the best, if any? --Romanophile (talk) 10:41, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

If the question mark is supposed to refer to the "Would you think" part, then it's none of the above. It would be,

Would you think, ‘I sure am glad that I got a shorter and easier version of this’?

If the question mark is supposed to be attached to the part inside the quotes, it shouldn't be, because the part inside the quotes is not a question. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:17, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Would you think: ('etc')? --86.187.166.181 (talk) 23:49, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Individuals always have their personal preferences, but in terms of a referenced answer to the question, Romanophile might like to consult the appropriate style guide for your language and part of the world. For example, in my country, journalists following The Canadian Press style follow this rule: "Periods and commas always go inside closing quote marks; colons and semicolons outside. The question mark and exclamation go inside the quote marks when they apply to the quoted matter only; outside when the apply to the entire sentence." American and British usage differs. For Wikipedia, there is the Wikipedia:Manual of Style, which has its own section on this issue. 184.147.125.97 (talk) 21:13, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Side issue about consistency of approach

I've always been stumped by how Americans can be so logical about the above issue, but abandon logic when it comes to the inclusion inside quotes of commas that form part of the overall sentence but do not play any part in the quoted text itself. For example:

• He said "I enjoyed reading the novel," but he made no comment about the movie.

The rest of the world would write:

• He said "I enjoyed reading the novel", but he made no comment about the movie.

Can someone explain that to me? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:02, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

I would use the 2nd version, but, as you know, I follow my own rules when it comes to grammar, doing whatever makes sense to me. StuRat (talk) 00:24, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I am keenly aware of that. Thanks. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:35, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Typographical elegance? Logic can drive you mad. In fact from a logical point of view you ought to write: He said "I enjoyed reading the novel.", but he made no comment about the movie. Or how about: He asked "Did you enjoy the novel?", but he never mentioned the movie. Do you write: "He said: "Hello, my name is George."."? This is what "logic" would require though. Contact Basemetal here 00:58, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Omitting punctuation at the end of a quote seems fine, since a quotation is an excerpt, after all. I suppose one could argue you need to add "..." to show something has been omitted, but that would be silly. I only feel it necessary to add the ellipsis if something was omitted from the middle of a quotation. Note that I wouldn't omit a question mark or exclamation mark in a quotation, since that's critical to understanding the meaning. As for adding punctuation to a quote, that just seems wrong, to me. StuRat (talk) 13:41, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Which of my examples are you saying add punctuation to a quote? Contact Basemetal here 15:18, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

None of your examples, but rather Jack's example at the start of this subsection, where he claimed that Americans would add a comma within the quotation marks that did not occur in the original quote. StuRat (talk) 00:41, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't see why the novel," is more elegant than the novel", . They are both awkards. But de gustibus et coloribus non disputandum. --Lgriot (talk) 12:19, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

@JackofOz: I think it comes from a forgotten typographical tradition. My version that the quotation marks had to be followed or preceded by a thin space

• He said, " I enjoyed reading the novel ", and then added, " but I don't like the movie ". (It is wider here with a standard space, but you got the idea.)

In such a case the comma after the quotes "hangs" in the open space, when it shouldn't. Whereas typed like this:

• He said, " I enjoyed reading the novel," and then added, " but I don't like the movie."

The comma "ties" to the preceding word. See recommendations here (the first column at the bottom) or here.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 01:17, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Americans want the comma and full stop to be placed inside the quote marks for typographical elegance, but remember that this tradition came well before we had computers. Type looks different on the printed page as opposed to a computer screen, and American typeset text always used curly quotes (“x,” not "x"). In those days, kerning was accomplished by hand (or rather, hot lead slugs). You should compare [“novel,”] and [“novel”,] on a professionally set and printed page. When you do, [“novel,”] looks professional, while [“novel”,] looks amateurish.

Another factor: the British often used what we call "French spaces" (adding a word space before colons, semicolons, question marks, and exclamation marks, and around quotation marks, so : “ novel ”). French spaces were never used in American typography. Also, the British way of hyphenating words at the end of a line, being based on etymology (e.g., geo-graph-y, know-ledge) has a jolting effect on reading texts when there are a lot of end-of-line hyphens, so the British try to avoid hyphenation at end of line. American hyphenation, being based on spoken syllables (e.g., geog-ra-phy, knowl-edge}, allows for very smooth reading even when there are many hyphens. The effect of this was that British texts, to avoid hyphens, relied on a very wide range of word space width as well as widely variable letter spacing ( l i k e    t h i s ). Since Americans could hyphenate freely, we rarely had to fiddle with letter spacing, and our word spaces were constrained to a narrow width. Therefore, the British eye was accustomed to lots of space appearing in your lines of text, while American eyes were sensitive to all that space and offended by it. —Stephen (talk) 14:14, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

• Well don't presume to speak for me, User:Stephen G. Brown. I'm a Merickan and I use logical, not traditional inside/outism, even vough I were taught ve old tradition. Unless I get paid overwise. μηδείς (talk) 18:57, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

I haven’t any idea what you are saying, μηδείς. The use of logical is new to me. I owned a typography company from 1970 to 2007, and what I said reflects my training and experience during those years and before. The internet and computer have brought about massive changes to the industry, especially from 1995 on, so it may well be different now. —Stephen (talk) 19:10, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

"Logical" in this case means using the quotation marks inside the period where the item being quoted is not the end of the sentence. For example: she said "tumetos". (The context being there was a long sentence, of which tumetos was just one malapropism.) A normal quote with an internal punctuation would be, "John told the minister, 'Shut the fuck up!'"

In the first case, the marks indicate [sic], in the second case, the phrase is a complete logical phrase. My usage follows WP usage in my normal correspondence, so I would refer you to WP policy.

My basical point is, I don't follow what I was taught in the 70's in a Mericka when it don't make sense, and I'm not bein' paid otherwise. I do a lot of paid editting, almost all of which me da azco. μηδείς (talk) 20:56, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

• @ User:Stephen G. Brown: Thanks for your detailed reply. I take issue with only one statement: [“novel,”] looks professional, while [“novel”,] looks amateurish.. I have the diametrically opposite position, as [“novel,”] looks as if the writer has given little or no thought to the proper placement of the comma. I suspect where one is on the professional/amateurish spectrum is a function of what one is used to seeing. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:53, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Yes, that was the point of the following paragraph. —Stephen (talk) 20:50, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
  • @JackofOz: The notion of professionalism is not that subjunctive there. The rule "commas and full stops inside" have come from a tradition among professional typesetters, so anyone who violated it did obviously not know the trade. In the past (that is, in the pre-digital era) authors usually did not typeset their texts and had little influence on such small matters as the relative order of punctuation, everything was done and decided by typesetters. And typesetters on both sides of the Pond preferred aesthetics over logic. Until some time at the beginning of the 20th century when the typesetters in Britain chose logic over aesthetics. And I believe Fowlers' The King's English had had something to do with it. And not only in Britain, but in America too, as it may be seen in this very interesting discussion I've recently found by accident.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 05:57, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

• Jack, what?! The comma is within the quotation because it substitutes for the sentence-final stop; this is usual in British as well as American printing. —Tamfang (talk) 09:15, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
  • If it's true that this is usual in American printing, it is something new (since the internet became widely used). I was a typographer for years before I retired in 2007, and the American practice was that a period or comma was always to be placed inside the quotation marks (“novel,” “novel.”). The internet, computers, and personal printers that began pop up everywhere in the 1990s brought a lot of changes to the printing and typesetting industries, but if commas today can sometimes be left outside of the quote marks in formal American printing, it’s a new one on me. —Stephen (talk) 20:50, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
    • @Stephen G. Brown: For some American publishers the transition happened long before today, see the above-mentioned discussion from 1950.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 05:57, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

• @Stephen G. Brown: Are you replying to me or to Jack? —Tamfang (talk) 07:35, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

• I was replying to μηδείς. It seems several more recent comments have been interposed, and my comment is now orphaned. No matter, it was not important to begin with. —Stephen (talk) 08:38, 3 September 2016 (UTC)