Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2018 June 29

Language desk
< June 28	<< May | June | Jul >>	June 30 >

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.

June 29

Each sauce / all sauces

I haven’t started eating my dinner yet because I’m dismayed. This place has two “main” or default sauces, but they have five in total. I asked for some of each. I received five ramekins containing a total of two sauces. Was the lady correct, grammar-wise, in giving me some of each of the main sauces? I realize now it would have been totally unambiguous if I had said “all.” Temerarius (talk) 01:26, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

It is odd that two sauces would be presented in five separate containers if "some of each" was not understood as meaning five sauces. Are you sure that three of them aren't variations of the other two? —2606:A000:1126:20CE:0:98F2:CFF6:1782 (talk) 01:50, 29 June 2018 (UTC) ... Grammatically (more accurately semantically), "some of each" requires context; in this case, which sauces were being discussed immediately prior (two or five). "All" would imply all five, since "both" would imply only two. (still me, new IP=107.15.157.44 (talk) 10:17, 30 June 2018 (UTC))

Usally a writer would use a/an ....tone for a nwespaper

. . — Preceding unsigned comment added by 182.180.48.13 (talk) 06:00, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Homework? -- Q Chris (talk) 07:02, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

The usual rule is "does the word start with a vowel". "Tone" does not, so "a tone". There are some words that are ambiguous, in particular "hotel" where you would write "a hotel" but might speak it differently choosing between "Ay Hotel" "Uh Hotel" "An Otel" (Ay to rhyme with Say) - it all depends upon your pronunciation. Acronyms can also be ambiguous "Ay Led"/"Uh Led" but "An Ell Eee Dee". If the question means something other than that, then I've answered the wrong thing - I felt it a little unclear. Usally > Usually, nwespaper -> newspaper. -- SGBailey (talk) 08:05, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

It seems pretty clear to me. The OP wants a possible word to go in the ellipsis. That's why it says "a/an", because the next word might begin with either a vowel or a consonant. The answer, by the way, is "informal". --Viennese Waltz 14:27, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

The article News style may be relevant. Deor (talk) 14:39, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

An opportunity to improve the Coat of arms of Riga with this source.

Some sources helpful for the article :
[1]
and
[2], [3], [4], with the reference
can be used for the expansion of the Coat of arms of Riga article, but unfortunately, the sources are in Russian, can someone help me translating the sources? The source contains a significant amount of reference to verify. If someone interested, ping me at the talk page of the article.
Thank you.--Jeromi Mikhael (talk) 17:31, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Plural of Manx

I have two Manx cats. Would I collectively call them "the Manx"? (Similar to deer) Or would it be something else? The Manxes? Manxs? Manxi? †dismas†|^(talk) 19:46, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

"The Manx cats". DuncanHill (talk) 20:15, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Manxes is a perfectly fine regular plural. The zero plural forms are normally used only for animals one intends to hunt [5], which ones hopes is not the case here. Henry^Flower 20:17, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Sheep? HiLo48 (talk) 23:22, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

"Eat" works, but cows, pigs, and chickens cause problems with that (but not cattle, swine, or poultry). Ian.thomson (talk) 06:43, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

I was being slightly facetious; kill in general would have been a better choice of word. (But cows etc. aren't a problem; I haven't proposed that all animals that are hunted or killed have zero plurals, just that the zero plurals tend to be restricted to those cases.) Henry^Flower 08:29, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

According to EO, "Manx" is a way of saying "Mannish".[6] So logically the plural could be Mannishes, hence Manxes. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:43, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Are you joking? If not, try this: "Englishman" is a way of saying "English". So logically [What has logic got to do with it?] the plural could be "Englishes" [No it can't], hence [Why "hence"?] "Englishmans" [No, wrong]. Lips McGee (talk) 06:40, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

The plural of "man" is "men", not "mans". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:37, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

The string "the Manx are" can be a fragment of a variety of structures. And my search bubble will be different from yours. But FWIW, when I search for "the Manx are" (in quotation marks), I get thousands of hits, and the first page of hits brings a number of pages in which it's clear that "the Manx" means Manx cats and which don't sound in any way as if English is not a native language for the writer. Call them what you will, but referring to them as "the Manx" would not be odd. -- Lips McGee (talk) 07:43, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

That would also work for Manx people as well as Manx cats. Our article starts with "The Manx..." and gives the Manx language translation of ny Manninee, which you could also use on the offchance that you might meet a Manx speaker - there are 1,800 of them. Alansplodge (talk) 07:51, 30 June 2018 (UTC)