User talk:Corinne/Archive 4

Castle Combe
I was trying to change


 * The Times'

near the beginning of the article on Castle Combe to italics. I tried it two ways, once by highlighting it and clicking the "I" for italics, and the other by entering two single quotation marks on either side of it to put it into italics, and neither way worked. It mistook the final three single quotation marks (one for possessive, two for italics) and changed the entire first line to bold. Of course it had to be undone. A fellow editor has since put it into italics, but now it doesn't have the mark of possession, the single quotation mark after the "s". How does one put a word with a final, possessive "s apostrophe" into italics?CorinneSD (talk) 20:05, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I think it may involve curly brackets. Rothorpe (talk) 20:22, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
 * An editor has just added the possessive apostrophe as a third single quotation mark after Times. I thought I had done that before, but maybe it had already been messed up by the time I did it.CorinneSD (talk) 20:37, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I have fixed it by using for the possessive the character ′ which is not the same as ' and therefore does not interfere with the other markup. You can find ′ if you select "Wiki markup" from the drop-down menu under the edit window. I expect there are other ways, but that one works. JohnCD(talk) 20:40, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, I didn't realize there were two single apostophes. Thank you for telling me that.  However, I don't know what you mean by the drop-down menu under the edit window.  I see a few punctuation marks after "Insert", but they are not "drop-down"; they're always there.  Is that what you mean? The only drop-down menus I have below the edit window give a selection of standard edit summaries.CorinneSD (talk) 20:54, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
 * In my rush to learn more, I forgot to thank you for making the correction in the article and for responding to my question. Thank you!CorinneSD (talk) 21:09, 15 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I got the curly bit right, then. Rothorpe (talk) 20:45, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, the possessive apostrophe appears to be slightly at an angle, but not exactly curly. Is that what you meant by "curly"?CorinneSD(talk) 20:54, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes. Looks a bit curly here. Rothorpe (talk) 21:00, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
 * O.K., but where is it to be found?CorinneSD (talk) 21:09, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
 * ៛ - is that it? I found it in 'Insert Symbols'. Rothorpe(talk) 21:28, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
 * No, that's a comma, or something. I'm a bit under the weather today...Rothorpe (talk) 21:29, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

About the drop-down menu - sorry, that is a "gadget" I have had switched on for so long I forgot it was not standard. If you click "Preferences" at the top of the screen and then "Gadgets", at the bottom of the "Editing" section is an item "CharInsert, adds a toolbar under the edit window for quickly inserting wiki markup and special characters". If you check that box, you gain a drop-down menu which lets you insert all sorts of special characters, from Wiki markup (which is what I mainly use it for) to Cyrillic, Hebrew and mathematics. The sloping ′ is available under "Insert" or "Wiki markup".JohnCD (talk) 21:36, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I thought there would be a better way to do it, without using a non-standard character, and there is: type  for the possessive apostrophe. I have changed the article, and also added another "s" to make The Times&apos;s, since "The Times" is singular. For confirmation that this is correct, see The Times, which actually uses yet another method  to achieve the required effect.JohnCD (talk) 22:11, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you for all this information. I don't know how I'm going to remember it all.  I have already added "WikEd" (by checking a box in the "Edit" portion of "Gadgets").  I hope the addition of the one you mentioned will not be a problem. I'm going to try it.  Did you say the single mark next to "Insert" is the possessive apostrophe, or is it just a regular apostrophe?  Or should I not use that at all for the possessive apostrophe?CorinneSD (talk) 22:23, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Don't thank me - I am learning, too! The slightly sloping ′ is a special character of some kind, not particularly a "possessive apostrophe", and best avoided. I only used it as a bodge, because I had not yet discovered  as a way to add a regular apostrophe without triggering wiki-markup effects. The place where most of these complications is explained is Help:Wiki markup. JohnCD (talk) 22:46, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Quinoa
In the section "Harvesting and handling" in the article onQuinoa, I want to enter a conversion template that will convert "tons per hectare" (shown now as "t/ha"), with or without abbreviation, to "tons per acre" (with or without abbreviation). I wasn't able to find how to do this inWP:CONVERT. Do you know how to do this? Can you help me with this? If you can, can you show me where in WP:CONVERT I can see how to do it (if it's there)?CorinneSD (talk) 00:04, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Check Template:Convert - note the vertical scroll bar on the right of the this boxed section - Convert does a lot of units, but I cannot see these ones. It will have to added manually, I think  Ron h jones  (Talk) 00:19, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I found "hectare" but no conversion template to convert hectares to acres. I also found "acre", but also no conversion template.  I see a column toward the right headed "Conversion factor/m2" -- is that square meters?  Does that mean there are 10,000 square meters to a hectare?  There is another figure starting with a "4" for "acre".  I'm not a math person, but I think I can use those to create an equation to convert the figures in the Quinoa article from hectares to acres. I think one of the figures was 3 tons per hectare. Should I also convert British tonne to American short ton, also? It's a little complicated.CorinneSD (talk) 00:42, 16 December 2013 (UTC)


 * @CorinneSD, you have been close to the solution, as convert ha to acre and, yes, also British tonne but to American long ton (LT), preferable to short ton, by:
 * {&#123;convert|99|t/ha| LT/acre}} - 99 t/ha, or
 * {&#123;convert|99|t/ha| ST/acre}} - 99 t/ha
 * {&#123;convert|99|t/ha| tons/acre}} - 99 t/ha
 * I was wondering, did you try to use "tons/acre" and get the error message "Convert: Unknown unit" as shown above? -Wikid77 (talk) 06:31, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your reply. No, I didn't.  I guess I thought I had to convert hectares to acres separately from converting tonnes to tons.  How do we know which is the most commonly used weight unit in the U.S. for grain – long tons or short tons?  I thought I read in the chart that the short ton was the American unit, but I may be wrong.  Maybe long tons are used for certain types of goods and short tons are used for others, but I don't know.  Which do you recommend?  (And what is the "99" for, above?) Thank you, again.CorinneSD (talk) 16:33, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I just read the article on "long ton", for which you provided a link (thank you), and then the article on "short ton" which was in a link in the article on "long ton". Both articles were very informative. Basically, "tonne" is for metric tons, "ton" in England means "long ton", and "ton" in the U.S. means "short ton" (except for ship displacement). There is an interesting note that "ton" refers to metric tons for worldwide grain production figures. That sounds like it includes the U.S., but it's not completely clear. I still think I should use short tons in the conversion I was trying to set up. What do you think?CorinneSD(talk) 16:50, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Symbol
Would you mind taking a look at the most recent edits to the article on Symbol? While I had thought that paragraph might have needed some work to improve clarity, I don't think these edits are an improvement. I prefer it the way it was. What do you think?CorinneSD (talk) 22:44, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Couldn't wait. I undid the edits. I think the paragraph, which is the leading paragraph in the article, is fine the way it is (that is, the way it was before the edits).CorinneSD (talk) 23:12, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Symbol
What was wrong with my edits to "Symbol"? :)

-Duxwing — Precedingunsigned comment added by Duxwing (talk • contribs) 01:55, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I have to agree with Corinne: "generally not an improvement".Rothorpe (talk) 02:09, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

To Duxwing: Your edits are not grammatically incorrect. They are stylistically not an improvement, but rather the opposite. Let me take each edit separately:


 * You changed "Symbols take the form of words...." to "Symbols exist as words...."


 * Symbols are a human construct. They don't exist in a vacuum in the same way that the Earth exists in space, or living creatures exist on Earth. Thus, a quasi-active verb "take" in the expression "take the form of" is more appropriate.  Also, the first sentence in the paragraph tells what a symbol is – an object – and what a symbol does, generally.  The second sentence describes the form and then focuses on one of the things that symbols do, but expresses it as what people do with symbols, but in the passive voice -- "are used to".


 * You changed "Symbols...are used to convey ideas and beliefs" to "Symbols...convey ideas and beliefs". While the latter is more concise, it (a) leaves out the human connection, that people use symbols for something, and (b) "convey ideas and beliefs" is awfully similar to the verbs + nouns (including "idea,...belief") in the first sentence, so a bit redundant.


 * You changed "For example" to "For examples of a symbol consider".


 * 1) You don't need to use the plural "examples" when supplying more than one example. You only need "For example" once.  Then you can give one or more examples.
 * 2) Using the verb "consider" (in the imperative form, that is, telling or asking the reader to do something) is quite conversational in tone. It is more appropriate for an essay than an encyclopedic article.  If anything, it might be used later in an article, but it is out of place in the lead/lede, where the language (that is, the tone) should be straightforward. (Also, if you start your series of example sentences with, "consider....", then the subsequent sentences would need to say, "Also consider....", "and then there is the....", continuing the conversational tone.  You can't just follow a sentence that says, "consider..." with short, direct sentences like those that follow the first one.)


 * You changed "Personal names are symbols representing individuals." to "Personal names are symbols for individuals." While it is true that "for" is a shorter word than "representing", and is thus more concise (which is a quality of good writing), another quality of good writing is variety in choice of verbs and sentence structure. Look at the verb phrases in the five example sentences, after "For example":


 * a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP".
 * a picture of a tent might represent a campsite.
 * Numerals are symbols for numbers.
 * Personal names are symbols representing individuals.
 * A red rose symbolizes love and compassion.

You will see that each one is different. If you use "are symbols for" in the fourth one, it matches the verb phrase in the third one, thus reducing variety. Variety creates interest -- makes the text more interesting to read.


 * Finally, you deleted entirely the fifth example, and I don't know why. In Western culture, this is a well-known symbol.  At least "love"; I don't know about a red rose symbolizing "compassion", but I wouldn't remove it just because I'm not familiar with it.

Well, I hope this helps. Please don't take the revert personally. If you have any further questions or thoughts, please feel free to respond.CorinneSD (talk) 16:35, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

To Duxwing: I just saw the other edits. I'll take a few of them one by one here. I'll focus on the ones in the section "Symbols and semiotics":


 * You changed "taking into account" to "considering". Now, these two could be considered synonyms, but they have slightly different meanings.  "Taking into account" means "including in one's thinking", or "including in one's reasoning or calculations". "Considering" can mean that, but it can also mean simply "thinking about".  Just by the fact that "considering" has more than one meaning, it introduces a touch of ambiguity.  Also, "thinking about" is a bit less precise than "including in one's reasoning".


 * You changed "thus" to "therefore". Again, these two are often thought of as synonyms, and they are, but "therefore" is a stronger, and longer, word.  It draws attention to itself.  It is used when laying out a logical sequence of cause and result, a kind of argument, and it points to the result.  "Thus" does that, but in a lighter way, indicating the result just in passing, and not drawing too much attention to itself. It does not interrupt the flow of the sentence as much as "therefore" does.


 * You changed "Semioticians...not only study what a symbol implies, but also how a symbol got its meaning and how it functions to make meaning in society" to "Semioticians...study what a symbol implies and how a symbol became meaningful and how it makes meaning in society".


 * The structure of the first arrangement is:


 * Semioticians not only study A, but also B1 and B2.


 * The structure of the second (your)arrangement is:


 * Semioticians study A and B and C.

Your succession of three clauses connected by "and" does not clearly show the relationship between the clauses. That relationship is important. This sentence is a kind of summary of the three sentences that precede it. The obvious matter that semioticians would be expected to study is what symbols stand for – "what a symbol implies". This paragraph is making the point that semioticians go much further than that. They study everything that went into the development of a symbol – "how a symbol got its meaning" – and exactly what happens when people use, see, and hear, symbols – "how it functions to make meaning in society". So the sentence is set up to say that semioticians not only study the obvious, they also study two other less obvious (and perhaps more challenging) areas: not only A, but also B1 and B2.

Regarding "how it makes meaning in society" versus "how it functions to make meaning in society", the former is shorter and thus more concise, but the latter indicates a focus on how a symbol actually works, what goes on with language and the mind, drawing upon linguistics and psychology, which were just mentioned in the previous sentence.

Regarding "became meaningful" versus "got its meaning": There are two problems with "became meaningful":


 * 1) The adjective "meaningful" has a connotation that does not fit here: having a meaning (of a word, comment, or look) that is not the expected meaning but rather a hidden, suggested meaning: "a meaningful glance".


 * 2) "How a symbol got its meaning" appropriately suggests that each symbol somehow acquired a particular meaning while "how a symbol became meaningful" does not.

Again, I hope this helps. This is the way I see it, anyway. –CorinneSD (talk) 17:57, 17 December 2013 (UTC)