Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 December 26

= December 26 =

Microsoft Visio: Pronunciation?
How do speakers whose mother language is English pronounce "visio"? Please write in IPA based on the Received Pronunciation or General American, but not on Latin. ―  韓斌 / Yes0song  ( 談笑  筆跡   다지모 ) 13:14, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I've never heard it pronounced, but my General American native-speaker instinct says . —Angr If you've written a quality article... 13:33, 26 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I have heard it pronounced, but I don't do IPA, so all I can say is that it rhymes with "dizzy oh". -- LarryMac  | Talk  17:47, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Correct. The Steewi (talk) 02:10, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

backed with (...) up vs. backed up with
Are both sentences correct and sound natural for you?


 * This is usually backed up with a warning not to contact the local police or FBI, or the "hitman" will be forced to go through with the plan.

Mr.K. (talk) 13:17, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * This is usually backed with a warning not to contact the local police or FBI up, or the "hitman" will be forced to go through with the plan.


 * The second does not sound natural, and can be considered wrong. Some phrasal verbs allow to have the object between the verb and the proposition, and it may even be obligatory when the object is simple, as in The criminals may back this up with.... You can, however, only do that with the object, not with a dependent clause. --Lambiam 13:30, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

"Vague"
The French New Wave is known as "La Nouvelle Vague." What is the literal translation of the word "vague" and what is its relation to the English word vague.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 19:47, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * French vague means a kind of wave. It's used in expressions where English uses "wave", such as vague de chaleur (heat wave) and faire des vagues (make waves). "La nouvelle vague" is a fixed expression meaning the new generation of the avant-garde, according to le Petit Larousse. --Milkbreath (talk) 20:39, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * (after e.c.) The French noun vague does mean wave in the sense of a sudden occurence or increase. Examples: vague de chaleur for heat wave, vague de crimes for crime wave. For wave in the sense of a physical oscillation (example radio wave) or one of a series of ridges moving across the surface of a liquid (example ocean wave) onde is the better choice in French. According to etymonline, vague was first used in 1548, coming from Middle French vague which is derived from Latin vagus for "wandering, rambling, vacillating, vague". ---Sluzzelin talk  20:46, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Larousse shows three words spelled "vague". The first, with the etymology above, is basically cognate with the English adjective. The second, from the Latin vacuus, seems to occur chiefly in the expression terrain vague, "vacant lot". The third is our vague, and it is from Old Scandanavian where it must have meant something like "wave" since Larousse gives no definition in the etymology. --Milkbreath (talk) 21:10, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Funny, my Oxford dictionary has vague having the same meaning in English when it's an adjective. As a feminine noun it means "wave" and as a masculine noun there isn't a direct translation but it offers such phrases as il regardait dans le vague ('he was staring into space') and il se complaisait dans le vague de ses rêveries ('he was happy in his dreamworld').  Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  21:32, 26 December 2007 (UTC)