Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2006 November 17

= November 17 =

Proper Possessive Nouns
Which is more proper: " Selous' Mongoose " or " Selous's Mongoose ?" -- VGF11 00:29, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * See: Apostrophe. -THB 01:41, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, that section needs a rewrite citing some references that go the other way. Fact is, both spellings are widely used and accepted as correct.  --Anonymous, 07:10 UTC, November 17.


 * Ok. Thanks. -- VGF11 23:22, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

-i suffix for adjectives?
I have noticed that the suffix -/i/ seems to indicate adjectives in many languages (in English, such as in the word "healthy", in Hebrew, like the word "Yisraeli" "Israeli", in Arabic, like in "`iraqi" "Iraqi", possibly in other languages from Southern- and Central Asia, and appearently in Japanese). Does this indicate anything? Mo-Al 00:54, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * From etymonline.com:

adj. suffix, "full of or characterized by," from O.E. -ig, from P.Gmc. *-iga (cf. Ger. -ig), cognate with Gk. -ikos, L. -icus.
 * That's for the English origin, the Japanese and Semitic suffixes are probably unrelated, although I lack knowledge of those languages' respective etymology. 惑乱 分からん 01:13, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * It's called coincidence. --ColinFine 02:19, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * There are two types of adjectives in Japanese: -i adjectives (atsui, samui, tanoshii, omoshiroi, etc) and -na adjectives (byooki[na], suki[na], kirai[na]). The overwhelming majority are -i adjectives. But I believe it is a coincidence. --Wooty Woot? &#124; contribs 02:52, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * The 'na' adjectives are derived from Chinese nouns, whereas the 'i' adjectives are purely native, though it is still probably a coincidence, as Japanese is an Ural-Altaic language, and non of the other languages in this family show this. CCLemon 04:24, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I think the Ural-Altaic theory is highly disputed... 惑乱 分からん 14:12, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, it has been proved that the 'Japanese nation' (i.e. discounting the Ainu) came from three distinct areas of Asia: South-East (Malaysia-Indonesia-Polynesia), East-Central (Indochina-China), and North-East (Korea-Mongolia-Siberia), and using comparative historical linguistic techniques, it is possible to 'prove' links to a large number of languages in those areas, but many linguisticians prefer to put Japanese into the Ural-Altaic group because of the strong similarities in grammar between Japanese and Mongolian. --CCLemon 12:23, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * It seems to be possible, although your statement seems to be disputed in three major areas:

惑乱 分からん 14:54, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 1. There's no definite linguistic evidence Japanese is Altaic.
 * 2. There's no definite linguistic evidence the Altaic languages really is a language family.
 * 3. There's no definite linguistic evidence that the Uralic languages are connected to the Altaic languages.


 * Well, I didn't exactly say it was definite (notice the quotes around the word 'prove', plus the use of 'prefer to' and 'similarities'). Also, don't forget,in statements 1,2, and 3 above, you could just as easily put a 'not' in all three of them. Getting back to the original question, though, something I completely forgot to mention was that the 'i' ending of native adjectives in Modern Japanese comes from '-ki' in older Japanese. The 'k' just dropped out over time, so ありがたき (arigataki) -> ありがたい (arigatai). This is actually one reason why we say ありがとう (arigatou (a+u>ou in classical Japanese)), instead of the more grammatically correct (even now) form ありがたく (arigataku), as 'k' is a weak consonant in Japanese.CCLemon-安部さん万歳！ 14:25, 20 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Your 1st post in this article states as Japanese is an Ural-Altaic language as an undisputed fact, I replied that it was possible, but disputed (granted, perhaps not highly disputed, but disputed nevertheless). Anyway, I don't think it needs further discussion, now. 惑乱 分からん 19:47, 22 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I can believe that it's a coincidence, but I know there's a phenomenon whereby some sounds are more likely to have some meanings (like close vowels often being used for small things). Mo-Al 05:32, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I believe what you are looking for is Phonosemantics aka "Sound symbolism". Nohat 05:46, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

The Semitic-language suffix is called the "Nisba" in Arabic grammatical terminology, and the "Gentilic" in traditional Christian Bible exegesis. In many forms of the Semitic suffix, it contains a "y" consonant, but never a "k" consonant. AnonMoos 12:44, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Lack of undeletability
If something is impossible to undelete, is it unundeletable or nonundeletable? Neon   Merlin   01:29, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * It would be irrecoverable. If you must use "undelete", non-undeletable is certainly better than unundeletable because you could say it with a straight face. -THB 01:40, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Why does it have to be either/or? If you use either of those words, people will understand you (provided they are familiar with the concept of 'undelete', and don't lose count of syllables in the first). End of story. --ColinFine 02:21, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Or just use "unrecoverable"! --Wooty Woot? &#124; contribs 02:49, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Or just "not undeletable." :) --Kjoonlee 03:43, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * It's deleted, full stop. ;) But seriously, I agree with the people that say unrecoverable. Undelete is specific to a particular process. Vespine 04:01, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * But why do you think the original question is not about this particular process? You can undelete a deleted file by dragging it from the Trash bin to the desktop or another folder. Warning: This does not work for write-only files; once deleted, a write-only file is . However, you can still recover the file by using the DiskSpy facility. Question: can   be replaced by a single word, and if so, which is the best choice? As the context shows, "unrecoverable" will not do here. --Lambiam Talk  07:04, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Unundeletable won't do, either, as it's equivalent to "deletable", which is a different thing entirely. It seems to be a choice between "non-undeletable" or "not undeletable".  JackofOz 07:23, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Please see litotes and then try to justify this absurd claim. --ColinFine 18:21, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * If "deletable" is really the process, it would be better to say, "Once the file has been deleted, it cannot be undeleted." -THB 11:27, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * This is representative of several answers that amount to 'neither, find another way of saying it'. Why? The OP wants to use one word. Agreed that in some circumstances these forms might be a bit confusing, but that's to do with how clear the speaker wants to be, not with whether some word or other is 'correct' (whatever that may mean). --ColinFine 18:21, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * If you are referring to my answer(s), I never used the term "correct" or "incorrect". I used the term "better". It is usually true in English (and all other languages with which I am familiar) that one word is "better" than another at expressing a particular idea in a particular situation. -THB 18:48, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * True, you did say 'better', not 'correct', and my anti-pedant filter jumped in. Sorry. But you didn't say 'better in a a particular situation', you said 'better'. --ColinFine 17:28, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
 * And, against all odds, a miracle happened. I say that because it was something that was as good as done – signed, sealed, delivered and unundoable – and right after I prayed like crazy about it, it was magically undone. It is clear that the author of these lines did not mean doable for the word I made bold for emphasis. The author meant: "that cannot be undone". I see nothing wrong with this. "To undo" is a transitive verb, giving rise in a regular way to the adjective "undoable", and there is a productive prefix "un-" to negate the "-ability" of such adjectives: ungoogleable, unshaggable, unbombable, unundeletable, and so on. --Lambiam Talk  00:42, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
 * The problem with unundeletable is that it is a repulsive neologism with better alternatives available. Google gives ONE instance of its use. -THB 05:31, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Could it be that you are already repulsed by the neologicality of the verb to undelete? Otherwise I cannot explain this high level of repulsivity. --Lambiam Talk  07:29, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
 * It's the "unun". -THB 21:34, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Even without a doubled "un-", "undeletable" is by itself quite problematic. Some may understand it as a synonym of "recoverable", others "indelible". --71.244.101.6 03:39, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

"Unun" is the name of a band. -THB 19:35, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

English-Latin Translation
Can anyone suggest a rough translation of the phrase "You don't know what you've got till it's gone" as used in the Joni Mitchell Song (Big Yellow Taxi). I've tried assembling sentences like "We only appreciate that which we no longer possess" but my Latin was never very strong at school and 20 years on it hasn't improved. I'm try to define a humerous motto to go on a coat of arms, so terseness will be valued. Rob Burbidge 10:33, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Quod habeas ignoras donec abitum. This is literally second-person "you" (singular), that is, someone you're addressing. If you want "impersonal" you, like "One doesn't know ...", I'd use the Latin equivalent of "We don't know ...": Quod habeamus ignoramus donec abitum. Or, more stuffy: "Man doesn't know ...": Quod habeat homo ignorat donec abitum. (Latin homo does not imply maleness.) Disclaimer: I'm not a native Latin speaker. --Lambiam Talk  10:56, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't think donec abitum is Latin. Try donec abiit. Maid Marion 14:02, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Abitum is the past participle neuter of abeo, here used as a predicate (with a zero copula) of a null subject. --Lambiam Talk  14:31, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I know - but I still don't think donec abitum is Latin! It may of course just be my ignorance, which you could dispel by pointing to a few analogous phrases in classical authors, but it just don't sound right! Could you say 'donec ventum'? Again, it just doesn't sound right - surely a classical author would say 'donec venit'? I'm not terribly good at analysing grammatical points, but these participles, with their passive form, don't seem right with intransitive verbs. I know that Vergil can say 'Itur in antiquam silvam', which implies that 'Itum est in ...' is OK, which perhaps implies that 'Abitum est in ...' is also OK. But it still don't sound right! Maid Marion 15:21, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I thought abiit and abitum est are almost interchangeable, at least in late Latin. This page from the Dutch Wiktionary, perhaps not the most authoritative source, gives abitum est as alternative to abiit. Googling for abitum est gives a few hits, one from Justinian's Pandects, the others from Mediaeval or later sources. So you may be right that in classical Latin this sounds funny. As I said, I'm not a native Latin speaker. --Lambiam Talk  18:31, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure about later Latin, Lambiam, but in classical Latin I think phrases like itur, itum est, ventum est have a sense similar to French 'on va', ie where the subject is deliberately left vague: 'there is a going (by whom, I don't care to say)'. Where the subject is specified I think it is unnatural, or perhaps plain wrong, to use this kind of phrase. One uses the active form instead. As I said, I could easily be proved wrong if someone knows the classical literature better than me and can quote some parallels; but I think I have a reasonable feel for the language, and in this case it just feels wrong. Maid Marion 18:39, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Sounds promising. Do you think there is a terser form? I'm thinking of "quot hominem, tot sentenitae" (there are as many opinions as there are people) as a model. Something along the syntactic lines of "quot [absent things], tot [loved things]". Assuming of course I understand the meaning of quot and tot. :) Rob Burbidge 11:18, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Something terser might be along the lines of 'Nihil amatum nisi perditum', literally 'Nothing loved unless lost', or donec (until) in place of nisi (unless). Amatum is not the best word, but I'm in the office with no access to reference books, so I'm a bit short of inspiration! Maid Marion 14:07, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Might be better in plural ... would that be 'nihil amata nisi perdita'? I wonder what the verb "to miss" would be in latin ('miss' in the sense of feeling a sense of loss 'missing you'). Would there be some kind of noun form of perd- such as 'perditae' or 'perditentes' = those [things] that are lost? Then we could have [we miss] [only] [those things that are lost] in three words. Sorry if that awful latin makes you wince, I'm guessing here. Rob Burbidge 16:59, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Nihil amata doesn't work - nihil is singular, amata is plural. You could say nulla amata, but it wouldn't sound very idiomatic. The singular appears much more natural to me. As for 'some kind of noun form', 'perditum' effectively is a noun meaning 'lost (thing)'. 'To miss' would be desiderare, so one could say 'nil desideratum nisi perditum', but again this doesn't sound quite the right verb to me, not sure why. Maid Marion 18:34, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * (after edit conflict) How about 'aestimare'? "Quicquid dum teneas non aestimas" = "While you have anything you do not value it". (I think 'dum' needs a subjunctive, but I'm rusty.) Could also render as 'you do not know (the value of) it', which is closer to the original. Note that 'habeo' is 'be accustomed to', not 'have' in the sense of 'possess'. --ColinFine


 * I did think of aestimare, but the problem is that aestimatum is not like English valued. We use the English word invariably in the sense of 'highly valued', whereas the Latin word is neutral: assessed, evaluated, not necessarily highly valued. By the way, dum isn't always followed by subjunctive, and in fact would (I think) be followed by the indicative in your suggested sentence. I don't understand your comment about habeo not having the sense of possess: possess is certainly its usual meaning. Maid Marion 18:45, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Maid Marion - I think that strengthens my case for 'aestimare', because the original is 'You don't know what you've got till it's gone': it doesn't say 'value'. "Quicquid dum tenes non aestimas" then.
 * I withdraw the comment about 'habeo': I don't know where I got it from. --ColinFine 19:00, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Being very simple, you could say quod habet non aestimat. I think the use of the third person singular is appropriate here, as with tags such as quod vult valde vult.  Sam Korn (smoddy) 19:10, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * To which I'd like to add: quod mort volde mort. But aren't you overlooking the problem with aestimo mentioned above? Perhaps then: Quod habet non amat? I'm afraid though that the original idea may no longer be recognizable. This could refer to a spoiled brat who always demands the newest toys, or someone too depressed to appreciate anything at all, or just suffereing the effect of a change in taste. --Lambiam Talk  00:20, 18 November 2006 (UTC)


 * One final effort to limit the motto to three words, as suggested by the original questioner: sola perdita amata. 'Only lost [things] [are] valued.' Maid Marion 10:28, 18 November 2006 (UTC)


 * But as I said above, the original doesn't say anything about 'love' (or even 'value') - it says 'know'. --ColinFine 05:34, 19 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I only have a dim memory of the song, but it seems crystal clear that the singer's meaning is that you fail to value things until you lose them. And I'm pretty sure that that is what the original questioner is looking for (correct me if I'm wrong, but referring back to his original question - 'appreciate' - I doubt if I am). Maid Marion 11:06, 19 November 2006 (UTC)


 * se iuvare is "to delight", so sole se iuvat in perditis". I still think aestimare'' is better, and I do know the song at its context.  Sam Korn (smoddy) 23:37, 19 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I've almost lost the will to live, but here goes again. By 'sole' I presume you intend 'solum'. The third person doesn't work, it has to be the second person if you intend the sense 'one appreciates'; third person could only mean 'he, she or it appreciates', ie it refers to some person known to the author and presumably to his intended audience. I'm suspicious of the phrase se iuvare, but would like to be convinced - perhaps you can cite a use of the phrase in this meaning from a classical author? And finally, once again, aestimare means 'evaluate', so I don't see how this can be relevant here, unless it is qualified (eg magni aestimare could mean 'estimate highly'). Maid Marion 08:19, 20 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Many thanks to everyone who took part in this discussion! I think "sola perdita amata" is close enough in spirit to the original quotation, and terse enough to fit into a motto. I'm constantly impressed at the helpfulness of contributors to all aspects of wikipedia; thank you all. Rob Burbidge 09:42, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Referencing and Unnumbered Page
Ok, I have a reference that I need to cite, but I am not sure how to do it. The reference comes from a book. There is an unnumbered page at the start of the book. It is after the Title Page and the page talking about the books publication, but before the Table of Contents. The page has a definition of the subject, but nothing else. What is the proper way to cite this unnumbered page?Balloonman 20:55, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Usually the first numbered page of a book isn't page 1 but something like page 7 or 9 (or that would be page vii or ix if the front matter is numbered separately, most commonly done in hardcover books). So you can just count backwards -- if the page you want is 4 pages back from page ix, then it's page v and that's how you cite it. Include any blank pages in your count, so the odd numbers are always the right-hand pages.
 * If the book does start with page 1 and there are unnumbered pages before it, I think you need to be explicit: "unnumbered page following copyright page". However, if you're following a particular style guide for citations, it might have something to say.
 * --Anonymous, 23:25 UTC, November 17.
 * You're right, it starts on page ix... will count backwards. thanksBalloonman 23:46, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * In referencing you should use whatever style is given on the page, including any initial Roman numerals. Clio the Muse 00:00, 18 November 2006 (UTC)