Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2006 July 18

Area between lanes
What is the name for those areas that run along between lanes in a (city) road, with gardens and often flowerbeds and trees? Thanks. --RiseRover|talk 09:25, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The term I've heard is median strip, but the article is at central reservation. User:Angr 10:51, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Cool, thank you.--RiseRover|talk 11:18, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It's often called the meridian in my town.--Anchoress 11:39, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * In Portland, Oregon, it's called a park.--Shantavira 12:41, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
 * And in New Orleans, Louisiana, it's called a neutral ground. (That redirects to a main article that has information about where the term neutral ground came from.) --Tkynerd 13:38, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * So is that where they put the Indians in the central US? DirkvdM 15:09, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It's also called median strip over here, but many Aussies either out of ignorance or apathy (I neither know nor care which) call it a "medium strip". Shades of naked crystal ball gazers.  JackofOz 23:24, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Canadian use is "median", at least amongst my fellow transportation engineers. But a survey shows regional variations throughout the US. --ByeByeBaby 02:32, 19 July 2006 (UTC)


 * A strip of land paralleling a thoroughfare, either dividing it or along each side, and either paved or landscaped, but not intended for traffic is a boulevard. The word is today much more commonly used for roads featuring such things, in an exact parallel with the word avenue, which originally was a line of trees - though fewer Avenues retain their trees than Boulevards their dividers. Here in Toronto, anywhere there is a paved area bordering a road or sidewalk on which parking is allowed, it is common to see signage referring to "Boulevard Parking", and if you find a spot that's ambiguously neither road nor sidewalk but that's just big enough for your car, you'll find the summons bears the charge "illegal parking on boulevard". -Sharkford 17:06, 19 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Where I grew up (Orange County), we referred to it as an "island." 28 July 2006 11:12 AM PST

roman numeral conversions
could anyone help me out with changing a date 19th july 2003 to roman numerals. i have made it out to be X IX VII MMIII, just not 100% sure if this is correct. thanks
 * Take out the space between X and IX and you've got it. --Richardrj 12:45, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * If you really want to use the true Roman calendar, then it would be ante diem XIV Kalendas Augustas 2756 ab urbe condita! ... AnonMoos 13:21, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
 * except that 2756 would be written MMDCCLVI :) Grutness...wha?  03:29, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Square Meal
Is a square meal one that has four sides? --Zemylat 11:36, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * It means a nutritious meal rather than just a snack. So yes, it might well have four sides, in which case it would be doubly square. And if it included toast.... Or could it be a meal that is just not very hip?--Shantavira 12:39, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Could be food for geometricians. DirkvdM 15:15, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Or for nudniks.--Anchoress 23:47, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Probably should add a disclaimer about not giving dietry advice. Don't let a protractor govern your lifestyle. Probably has more to do with square meaning stocky, strong, stout, sturdy, solid often applied to the body and from there to the fuel. Oh no salad for tea. MeltBanana  15:46, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Or square as in containing all four food groups.--Anchoress 23:47, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * See this article from Michael Quinion. Bhumiya (said/done) 03:54, 19 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Man, I love that guy.--Anchoress 04:03, 19 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Me too. I've learned so much from him over the years.  JackofOz 23:20, 19 July 2006 (UTC)


 * While that article contains the origin of the original meaning, the more modern meaning is "a healthy meal containing all four food groups (dairy, grains, meat, and fruit/veggies)". Since we no longer use those four food groups in the modern nutritional field, however, that phrase may revert to its original meaning, fade into obscurity, or may continue with the modern meaning, we'll just have to wait and see. StuRat 23:58, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Accented characters in Windows XP with US keyboard?
On a Macintosh there are easy keyboard shortcuts for the common western European accented characters, for example alt-c for ç or alt-i preceding a letter to put a circumflex on it. Is there any way to make my Dell notebook (running Windows XP) use those same shortcuts? It's too difficult to remember something like alt-0231. --Mathew5000 17:06, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I think the easiest thing to do is to install the keyboard layouts you need and switch as necessary. Once you've installed more than one layout (you do this somewhere in the Control Panel or whatever they decided to call it in XP; can't remember specifically where), there should be a little icon in the system tray that lets you click or right-click to switch keyboard layouts. I don't know of a good way to do this with keyboard shortcuts in any version of Windows. --Tkynerd 21:25, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't know how to do it in Windows, but I can tell you how to do it in individual MSOffice programs if that's what you're running. Drop me a line on my talk page or email me if you're interested. It's my username @telus.net.--Anchoress 23:49, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, this facility is usually built into the various applications you'll be running. These settings will probably override anything you've set up in Windows anyway. Look in the application help file for keyboard shortcuts. I have so many shortcuts that I never use a mouse when word processing. They are much quicker.--Shantavira 08:14, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Easier on your wrists too, Shantavira. :-) --Anchoress 06:23, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Mathew5000, how did you make out? Did you get any info on Firefox?--Anchoress 06:23, 22 July 2006 (UTC)


 * if you just need one or two occasionally, you could memorize their keypad codes. Then just use ALT+#### on the numeric keypad.  Been around since DOS.  There is also the character utility, which is useful for occasional use, and lists the keypad codes.--J Clear 02:51, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your help Anchoress. No, I never figured out an easy way to do this in Firefox. The ALT+#### is not useful to me because I can't remember the codes, and besides, my laptop doesn't have an actual keypad. The way this is handled on the Macintosh OS is so convenient and easy to remember that it's hard to believe Microsoft hasn't stolen that idea and implemented it for Windows. --Mathew5000 09:56, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Easy. Just install the French Keyboard Layout. (Control Panel, Regional and Language Options, Languages, Details, Add (select French as language and "United States-International" as keyboard layout). Once this is installed, to use accents, you'll do the following :
 * ' + vowel = á (or ó -- you get the drift)
 * " + vowel = ä
 * ~ + vowel = ã
 * ` + vowel = à
 * ^ + vowel = â
 * ' + c = ç

However, to get an apostrophe to appear on its own, (or the other aforementioned characters) you'll have to do this:
 * ' + space = '

This works with all accented languages -- not just French, of course. It works like a charm, you can type fast and none of those silly codes, clicking on a keymap or copying and pasting. I strongly recommend this option. If it sounds tough to install at the start, just bear with it -- if you use lots of accents, you'll be glad you did.-- Zantastik  talk  19:21, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much Zantastic! --Mathew5000 21:38, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * There's a diagram of the US-International keyboard layout at Image:KB US-International.svg. Also, a bit more information at the articles Dead key and Keyboard layout. --Mathew5000 02:40, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Mentalis Uber Alles
What does the phrase mentalis uber alles translate to? Taiq 18:45, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It's mixing Latin and German. Mentalis is late Latin for "mental", über alles is a German phrase meaning "above/over all".  I suppose this could be taken to mean "mind over matter"?  --Pifactorial 19:57, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Note that it is probably a reference to the German national anthem lyrics 'Deutschland ueber alles', meaning 'Germany over everything' (a bit of a lame translation). Depending on the context, that could be relevant. Or it could refer to someone who goes mental over everything. DirkvdM 06:53, 19 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Nitpicking ahead: these lyrics are part of the first stanza of the Lied der Deutschen, but not of the German national anthem (which consists only of the third stanza of the Lied der Deutschen. --Rueckk 12:27, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Mental As Anything?? Probably not.  JackofOz 23:18, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

This phrase was used as a quote in the game Psychonauts by Tim Schafer.

Common English terminology
This a general sort of question. I was wondering which particular references you would to determine usage in the english language. I dislike googling as a reference in this. I was thinking there must be alternatives that linguists would use to tell about the global usage of the language. Do any such journals or refernces books on this subject exist?-- Birgitte§β ʈ  Talk  20:40, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * People who are serious about this do corpus linguistics.  As far as I know the corpora tend to come from the UK, US, Canada and Australia, though our article does mention an Indian one. HenryFlower 20:48, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I've had the pleasure of using the Wellington Corpus (for NZ English) too. Z iggurat

Mohammed and the mountain
As a muslim I cannot find any reference to the phrase "If the mountain wont come to muhammed......" Does anyone know the rigin of the saying?
 * I'm sure I read a longer answer to this question not long ago. Here's all I could dig up quickly:  --π!  23:19, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The earliest use of the idea in English seems to be from Francis Bacon's essay on Boldness


 * Nay, you shall see a bold fellow many times do Mahomet's miracle. Mahomet made the people believe that he would call an hill to him, and from the top of it offer up his prayers, for the observers of his law. The people assembled; Mahomet called the hill to come to him, again and again; and when the hill stood still, he was never a whit abashed, but said, If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill. So these men, when they have promised great matters, and failed most shamefully, yet (if they have the perfection of boldness) they will but slight it over, and make a turn, and no more ado.


 * I don't know if there is an islamic source. The interpretation most often given, different to Bacon's, is that he was trying to stop his followers flattering and idolising him which is very similar to the story of Canute the Great. MeltBanana  02:12, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Spanish-English translation software
Is there anything better than Google Translate for converting between Spanish and English (in both directions). I've also tried Babel Fish, and I think its translations are worse, although I see in SYSTRAN that they use the same underlying engine. Is the live beta of the next generation of Google's version available anywhere for Spanish?

I'm looking for something for free, and yes, I will use it for my homework, but only to get a very rough first draft. I've seen the discussion above at .-gadfium 23:56, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Speaking specifically of Google, there's no other Google translation site other than Google Translate. I.e. no "secret live beta" as of now. --Ornil 20:59, 19 July 2006 (UTC)