Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 February 18

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February 18

Mayors of Yazd

The city of Yazd, Iran, has published a list of its mayors (1979-present) in Persian: http://yazd.ir/شهرداران-قبلی For each name on the list, what is the English language equivalent? -- M2545 (talk) 16:41, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

(Top to bottom, right to left) Eskandar Aslani, Muhammad-ALi Vahdati, Ali-Akbar Farshi, Muhammad-Hassan Khorshidnam, Hosseyn A'laii, Muhammad-Mahdi Sherafat, Ali-Akbar Aramun, Morteza Shayeq, Ali-Akbar Mirvakili. Omidinist (talk) 19:08, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you! Credit here. -- M2545 (talk) 21:45, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

• Now I'm curious, because I haven't seen Arabic given names hyphenated like that before. Are the hyphens in the original? —Tamfang (talk) 08:38, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Language in signs: Cyrillic Mongolian or Russian?

Hi, I just uploaded two photos of bilingual signs I took some time ago in Erenhot in Inner Mongolia. The one language is obviously Chinese, the other is Mongolian in the traditional Mongolian script used in Inner Mongolia, but I'm not sure about the third. I'm guessing that it is probably Mongolian in the Cyrillic alphabet, but it could of course also be Russian, since Erenhot is a border town with both Mongolian and Russian traders going there. Anyone here know enough Russian or Mongolian to tell which one it is? Thanks --Terfili (talk) 17:06, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

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  photo 1
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  photo 2

The Cyrillic text appears to be Mongolian. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:37, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

I can't help with the question, but looked at the signs out of curiosity. I observe that the word BUS in the first sign is not in the Cyrillic alphabet, but in ours: it's in English (or some other Western European language that uses the same spelling). Perhaps they are treating the English letters for BUS as an international symbol, sort of like the way stop signs in some non-English-speaking countries use the English word STOP. --76.71.6.254 (talk) 18:39, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Maybe, or it might just have been the most English they were confident about putting on the sign. Putting a bit of symbolic English on signs is pretty common in China, even if it wouldn't actually be of any help to foreigners either because it is so obvious without adding the critical info (like this sign, which tells you that it's a bus stop without giving you any clue about the destination) or because the machine translation is so bad. Often I think it's not really there for tourists, but just for added prestige. Like when you go to some small Chinese town and the local shop selling cement and metal pipes advertises so in both Chinese and (machine translated) English on the store sign. Just in case a tourist passing through needs some cement I guess...--Terfili (talk) 08:24, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

THe Cyrillic is Mongolian in both photos. The storefront one is also unintentionally funny (if you're 12) Asmrulz (talk) 21:21, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

:-D I wonder what the word actually means in Mongolian. --Terfili (talk) 08:24, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Business --My another account (talk) 08:39, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

I once read a rather bad novel set on another planet where huy means 'female'. Funny in hindsight. —Tamfang (talk) 08:47, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

As a crude heuristic, Mongolian spelling has many doubled vowel letters, Russian very few... AnonMoos (talk) 02:34, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Both photos have Chinese, Mongolian Cyrillic, and Traditional Mongolian. No Russian. —Stephen (talk) 05:27, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers! I was pretty confident that it was Mongolian, just because there were so many Mongolians from across the border in Erenhot but not many Russians, but I had no way of being sure. Thanks, --Terfili (talk) 08:24, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

...and, additionally, a plethora of Э ("hard E") letters, which is pretty rare in modern Russian. No such user (talk) 13:32, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

And the letters Ө Ү. —Tamfang (talk) 08:47, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

English usage question...

Over at WP:Reference desk/Science I write "Both cats and dogs are members of the order carnivora, but that is an evolutionary classification that does not necessarily has anything to do with current culinary requirements or preferences." For some reason, my language-feeling Necker-cubes between "has is obviously correct" and "shouldn't it be have?" Any comment and insight is welcome to de-Necker me.... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:50, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

The singular goes with the auxiliary verb to do, so does not have is the only option here unless you prefer to write has nothing to do with .... Dbfirs 19:58, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

"... an evolutionary classification that does not necessarily has have anything to do with ...". Because it's in the third person singular negative. In positive it's: I have, you have, it has. But in negative it's: I do not have, you do not have, it does not have. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:00, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Negative has nothing to do with this, Jack, except that we more often use an auxiliary verb for the negative. Would you write "an evolutionary classification that does has to do with current culinary requirements or preferences"? Dbfirs 20:45, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Of course not. That's a positive statement anyway. And a beautiful example of a straw man. Given that, as you say, we more often use an auxiliary verb for the negative, the negative has rather a lot to do with it, I'd say. My point was that, in positive statements it's the principal verb that is declined (have/has), but in negative statements it's the auxiliary verb that's declined (do/does) and the principal verb is unchanged (have). -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:26, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Now you are getting closer to the principle, but I'd still say that the negative has not much to do with it, other than the loose statistical connection with use of the auxiliary. Stephan was asking for the principle, not tenuous associations. Dbfirs 21:42, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks both, that is very helpful! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:13, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

The principle is that a verb governed by an auxiliary (other that have and be, which have special functions) is always in the base (or infinitive) form. Not the plural, or the singular, or the present, or the past: the base form. And it makes no difference why the auxiliary is being used, whether negative, potential, conditional or whatever. --ColinFine (talk) 13:09, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

@Stephan Schulz: May I ask you a somewhat personal question? Sometimes I'm just being curious of how the brain of a speaker works. Your English seems to be pretty good, however, what made you believe, in that particular context, that the form has is the right one?--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 18:09, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Well, I'm a computer scientist, so I think everything should be logical. In the original, "classification" is singular, so I would say "the classification has certain features" - and I don't see why negation should change that. On then other hand, while I learned English in school. a lot of my proficiency comes from reading, and it read funnily ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:25, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Negation doesn't change that, but use of the auxiliary verb does (as explained by Colin more clearly than by me). Dbfirs 10:18, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

@Stephan Schulz: Didn't does ring the bell? Does and has at the same time? Or rather why did you ignore/forget about does? Is it because in German hat nicht? But why didn't you, then, write has not? Really if there is a dilemma, it's rather about "has not or does not have?".--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 18:54, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

"Have" is correct. "Does not have" rather than "does not has". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:20, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Where I'm from it's "don't got no," regardless of person or number. Much simpler than having to remember all this "has/have" stuff. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 22:01, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Well, as a non-native speaker with a strong Wernher von Braun type accent, it's a bit risky to use overly colloquial speech. If I start speaking red-neck, they might think I'm a hick. Already, much of my English language sarcasm falls flat because people think I made an unintentional language error and politely ignore it. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:20, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

The more sophisticated folks would say "ain't got no." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:27, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

As in "I Ain't Got Nobody". Deor (talk) 22:37, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Yep. That could be Alcor's theme song. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:43, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

I assumed you first wrote "has nothing to do", started to change it to "does not have anything to do", but missed part of it. I see such errors quite often. —Tamfang (talk) 08:52, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Name for non-face cards in a deck

Is there a name, other than "non-face cards" for those cards in a standard deck? e.g. the ace through 10. †dismas†|^(talk) 20:16, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Pip cards. See Playing card and Pip (counting)#Playing cards. Akld guy (talk) 20:23, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

In my experience reading books about bridge, that term is not used, but "spot cards" (or "spots" for short) is. At least in a bridge context this usage excludes aces, which are high in bridge. Although the articles cited by Akld do not deign to mention the term, it will be found in the Wikipedia Glossary of card game terms and the Glossary of contract bridge terms, and is used in the bridge-related articles Signal (bridge), Rule of 11, Card reading (bridge), Suit combination, and Vacant Places, among others. --76.71.6.254 (talk) 23:13, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

You're wrong. The term is specifically mentioned in the second reference I provided. Did you even read it fully? Akld guy (talk) 23:47, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

76.71 is not wrong, you simply misunderstood. They're saying that "spot cards" and "spots" are not mentioned in those articles. ---Sluzzelin talk 23:50, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Ah yes, I see his phrasing was ambiguous, because he used "that term" and "the term". He meant that I hadn't mentioned spot cards. Akld guy (talk) 01:59, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant that the articles you linked don't mention "spot cards", even though in my experience it is the usual term. And in fact I didn't read them; I didn't need to, because I just searched each page for the word "spot". --76.71.6.254 (talk) 03:57, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

David Parlett's glossary of card-playing terms has the entry "numerals: Number cards, as opposed to courts. Also called pip cards, spot cards, spotters, etc." I get the impression (from googling) that "pip cards" is frequently used in books on tarot cards. ---Sluzzelin talk 23:42, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, all. †dismas†|^(talk) 03:36, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Resolved