Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 January 14

= January 14 =

Arm/flag signaling
where can i find information on arm/flag signaling?


 * Do you mean Flag semaphore? AnonMoos 02:10, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

American slang
I would like to understand what exactly mean the expression "first crack at this guy" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.90.39.185 (talk) 00:19, 14 January 2007 (UTC).


 * "Crack" in this context means "attempt" or "chance." -- Mwalcoff 00:56, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * There's an idiom of "taking a crack at something", which I don't find an immediate explanation of. I took at a crack at googling it- some dictionary somewhere probably explains where this idiom came from.  The dictionary I found has this to say about the various meanings of "crack".  Friday (talk) 01:10, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I think in films, it generally means first shot at beating someone up. But, like Mwalcoff said, it just means first chance at this guy. --Wirbelwind ヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 01:41, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Note that in American colloquial use, the word "guy" can mean anything. Where a European speaker, when lecturing, would say: "How do we prove this theorem? Each vertex in this graph here ...", an American speaker might say something like: "How do we prove this guy? Each guy in this guy here ...". --Lambiam Talk  09:22, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It can? That sounds really strange to me, and I'm American (I've only rarely heard that kind of usage of "guy"--maybe a few times in my life). It could be more of a personal or regional thing, maybe? Or just that the particular people I happen to know don't speak like that? --Miskwito 21:23, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, I might say "How do we prove this guy?", but after that I wouldn't keep repeating guy. :)  User:Zoe|(talk) 23:14, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, maybe not this close together all in the same sentence, but within the scope of a few minutes "guy" or "guys" may come to refer, variously, to a theorem, a graph, the vertices of a graph, the edges of a graph, ... Not everyone has this bad habit, and I notice the use particularly in the context of the communication of scientific ideas, where ironically clarity is even more important than usual. To me, "our first crack at this guy" might mean "our first attempt to prove or disprove this conjecture", or "our first attempt to decrypt this encoded message", etcetera. --Lambiam Talk  16:42, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I've only heard a handful of people use guy to describe something not human, and I think most of them spoke Spanish. Maybe some other languages like Spanish use personification to describe objects? I'm not that knowledgeable in romantic languages. --Wirbelwind ヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 01:03, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Need help identifying parts of speech
I am trying to better learn the 8 parts of speech. Can somebody tell me what part of speech the capitalized words are in these 3 sentences? Thanks.

Jami needs HELP with the shop project.


 * Noun

The baby seems unusually QUIET today.


 * Adjective

Please wait OUTSIDE for me.


 * Adverb


 * Marco polo 01:36, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Outside is also a preposition. --Richardrj talkemail 07:12, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The word outside in English can function as a noun, adjective, preposition or adverb, depending on how it is used. In the given sentence, it is definitely used as an adverb. Likewise, help can be a verb, but in the given sentence it is used as a noun. If we decide to HELP Jami with the shop project, it functions as a verb. --Lambiam Talk  09:32, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Those 3 were the only ones I was not sure about. Can you tell me if the rest of my answers are corrrect? They are in brackets after the sentence. Thanks again! Noah When will YOU leave for the airport? (pronoun) You look TIRED today. (adverb) SEND me the report tomorrow. (verb) Did you get good grades ON your report card? (preposition) We spent the WEEKEND in New York. (noun) The POLICE will patrol during the fair. (noun) EITHER Kerry OR Stan will give the speech at the assembly. (conjunction) Classes were dimissed EARLY because of the snowy weather. (adverb) Matt QUICKLY stapled his moework packet. (adverb) I ordered a hoagi WITHOUT onions. (preposition) OH, I wish I'd not done that! (interjection) Kelly bought a bag OF Doritos at the consession stand. (preposition) I wanted a good grade on this test, SO I studied for two hours. (conjunction) We planned the family REUNION for Saturday. (noun) Brian wore his FOOTBALL jersey to the game. (adjective) ARE you goig to the dance on Friday? (verb) Don't FORGET to buy your ticket. (verb) What book are you reading NOW? (adverb) John invited HIS grandparents to the band concert. (pronoun) I am VERY sorry to hear the news. (adverb) The award-winning poem was written BY Drew. (preposition) WOW! Wasn't that an easy test? (interjection)


 * Well done; looks good. Wolfgangus 16:12, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * They look correct except that "football jersey" one. I'd consider "football jersey" as a whole to be a compound noun; "football" in this case is one of the two nouns. In just the same way, "science fiction" is a noun, yet both "science" and "fiction" are nouns. Laïka  16:17, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I think in "You look TIRED" the word tired is used as an adjective, just as in "Are you TIRED today? You sure look tired." You can't replace tired here by in a tired way. Compare further "The dog looks NORMAL" (adjective) with "The dog walks NORMALLY" (adverb). (Linguistic exposition: look is a copula here (see List of English copulae) and tired is a subject complement, in this case a predicative adjective.) In "ARE you going to the dance on Friday?" I'd be more specific and classify this as an auxiliary verb (but I don't know whether you have been taught to consider this a separate lexical category). Not all grammarians agree on how to classify a modifying noun like football in footbal jersey. It is a noun, but it functions like an adjective here. A cop out some have adopted is to call this an "adjectival noun". Check if there is an instance of a compound noun (a noun modifying a second noun) in the examples you have been given, and how the first noun is classified there. --Lambiam Talk  20:43, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * HIS grandparents - possessive adjective, not adverb--Raggiante 16:16, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Jai Mata Di?
Greetings!

I was wondering what the word "di" stands for in the popular Hindu exclamation "Jai Mata Di". I understand "Jai" stands for "victory", "mata" means "Mother" Devi, but does the "Di" have any extra sigificance? "Victory to the Goddess" seems to be the rough translation, but I'm curious about the meaning of each word, knowing how religious phrases can have multiple explanations within Hinduism. Would you recommend me crossposting the question to the religions section as well?

Blessings, --Snowgrouse 09:26, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Mata would just be the ordinary word for "mother", and Di is probably some form of a word for divinity. I'm not sure that it's Sanskrit, because "to the mother goddess" (dative singular inflected form) would appear to be something more like matre devyai in Sanksrit (judging by the grammars I have here). AnonMoos 18:24, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I saw several suggestions to the effect that this is Punjabi. I also saw several instances of "Jai Mata di", where "di" was written with a lower case letter. If that was not sloppy spelling, it suggests a less exalted meaning than "divinity". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lambiam (talk • contribs) 21:10, 14 January 2007 (UTC).
 * Since devanagari doesn't have majuscules, the transliterations don't always use them either. Especially since in some transliteration schemes the capital D and T are used to represent the retroflex sounds as opposed to the dental d and t. So it's not necessarily anything to do with not denoting a deity. - Taxman Talk 18:13, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I've seen it referred to as a Hindi phrase, if that's of any help.--Snowgrouse 21:33, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I would confidently assert that it must be "Punjabi influenced Hindi". The "dI" is the Punjabi counterpart of the hindi "kI". I have seen several examples of use of "dI" in Hindi, to bring out some Panjabi connection. One possibility is that the concerned temple is located in Panjab. --Vineet Chaitanya


 * In Hindi दी (di) is also the feminine past participle (or simple past perfective) for देना (dena), to give. So if the phrase is Hindi and not from Sanskrit it's possible it literally means [the] Mother (deity) gave victory (to us). But that doesn't make as much sense when the phrase is translated as "victory to the Mother Deity" (which I've also seen as the translation), but it could work. I think दी di could also be the impolite (or intimate as when referring to deities) imperative form of dena, which would give the intended meaning victory to the Mother deity. But the impolite imperatives are used so rarely, I can't think if I've heard that usage anywhere, so I'm not sure that's correct. Grammar rules would call for the impolite (tu) imperative to be the verb stem दे de, but since the polite imperative is irregular with दीजिये dijiye, the tu imperative could also be. So, just a couple plausible stabs in the dark. I couldn't find anything definitive. Vineet's point is also certainly plausible. - Taxman Talk 18:13, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * In that case the sentence would be "जय माता ने दी" --Vineet Chaitanya —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.141.96.146 (talk) 04:40, 19 January 2007 (UTC).

Challenge for everyone - Use the word ontologically
...without sounding like a bloated windbag. Extra points if you manage to use ontologically speaking without sound in sufferable.

Thanks for playing.

66.91.225.188 12:11, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * After looking at my X-Rays, the Oncologist said to me, ontologically speaking, you're f--ked so I left without paying the bill, and as he called after me I feigned an otological deficiency. Really, what's he gonna do? Wolfgangus 13:23, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I decided to move on to logically speaking, in an attempt to get my point across. Well you did say in sufferable. meltBanana 16:05, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Yo dood, how ya doin? How's the missus, ontologically speaking? --Lambiam Talk  21:30, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Rest room
In Wikipedia, rest room redirects to toliet. In American English as I've learned it, rest room is the same as bathroom. But I'm watching Air Crash Investigations, and the engineer and investigator are shown walking into a room clearly labeled "Engineers Rest Room" to discuss. Is rest room not used for washroom in England, or is it just flexible enough to be used for multiple meanings?

(I'm considering changing the redirect to go to Washroom, as it doesn't seem to match toliet, but it seems the same concept is spread over several pages, with the help of various words being used in different dialects confusing the issue.)--Prosfilaes 12:54, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * No, we do not use the term "rest room" in that sense in the UK. In this area we tend to say what we mean. The toilet is found in the room called the toilet, or WC, or if a public toilet then we might use the somewhat old-fashioned term "public conveniences". A bathroom contains a bath, not necessarily a toilet. A rest room is where you might go to take a rest. -- Arwel (talk) 16:52, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * In the US, that would be a "lounge". User:Zoe|(talk) 23:16, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I also say what I mean, and I use "rest room" to mean bath/washroom - but then again, I do a lot of my thinking in there too =O). In all seriousness, perhaps it should be changed to a disambig page to cover the different colloquial meanings? VirogIt's notmy fault! 23:30, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I've seen American movies containing scenes set in a desert, where a character says "I have to go to the bathroom", which was apparently meant to convey that he wanted to defecate, not to take a bath. JackofOz 01:51, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, we use it in that context. From what I can tell, "restroom" is a slightly more formal/PC version of "bathroom" in the US interpretation - "washroom" is used on the same level as "restroom," but it's fairly rare. "Toilet" is used to refer only to the apparatus, not the room (and "water closet/WC" is nowhere to be heard). VirogIt's notmy fault! 03:00, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I think "restroom" is used in public buildings and "bathroom" in private homes. In real-estate listings, a "bathroom" without a bath is called a "half bath." "Washroom" is the Canadian word for either "restroom" or "bathroom." As Virog says, North Americans use the word "toilet" only to refer to the fixture, never to refer to the room. If you were to ask someone, "Where are the toilets?" you would come across as being very uncouth. -- Mwalcoff 04:28, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Or very ignorant. If someone asked me, "Where's the toilet?" I'd say "In the bathroom, of course, where else would it be?" —Angr 13:17, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * What if they didn't know where the bathroom was? Many people might be quite offended by your response.  Depending on which country they were from, the bathroom might be the last place they'd expect to find a toilet.  In Australia, it's most common to find the toilet in a room containing nothing but the toilet (which is why it's often called "the smallest room in the house").  The next most common place (but increasingly uncommon) place to find the toilet would be the bathroom.  JackofOz 01:12, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * In U.S. homes, the toilet is always in the "bathroom," which may mean a "half-bath" with nothing more than a toilet and sink. But you never see a toilet by itself. I was very surprised to find that in Europe, many toilets are in their own little closets, forcing users to walk across the hall afterwards to wash their hands. -- Mwalcoff 03:30, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Raziullah
I came across a random name, Raziullah. What does it mean? Thanks in advance for any help. 128.163.224.198 18:19, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, 'Razi' means 'from Ray' in Persian and 'ullah' means 'of god' in Muslim names... so, assuming that it is a Persian Muslim name, this might mean something like 'person of god from Rayy'. Just a guess. --CBD 23:53, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * A Muslim would always spell "God" (or "Allah") with a capital, because there is only one God. --Lambiam Talk  16:45, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Neither Indic alphabets (with respect to the section above) nor the Arabic alphabet have an uppercase/lowercase distinction. In any case, in an Arabic theophoric compound name like Abdullah (to take something which I know the Arabic-script spelling of, which I don't for "Raziullah"), the "u" is the nominative case vowel of `abd (the word for "slave servant"), so if you wanted to capitalize the word for God in this name, it would have to be something like AbduLlah. AnonMoos 00:04, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I was only referring to CBD's tentative explanation in English of what the name might mean. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lambiam (talk • contribs) 06:14, 16 January 2007 (UTC).
 * Strange to think that we say a capital town just because there are other towns. -- DLL .. T 17:03, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I just figured out that the person is Pakistani. So it could mean something else.  There's also a "Razaullah", so maybe it's an alternate spelling.  What would Razaullah mean, then?128.163.241.210 02:41, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * If you could give me the original Arabic-script spelling, I could try to look it up in an Arabic dictionary -- just having Latin-alphabet "Raziullah"/"Razaullah" leaves a lot of possibilities open as to what the original Arabic script might be. AnonMoos 14:19, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Spanish to English translation needed
I need a translation to English of the following reference: "Conocer" (Spanish scientific journal), Number 36, January 1986, pp 93-95. for the article on Primal Therapy. Can anyone there help with this? A reply to my talk page would be appreciated. Thanks. GrahameKing 19:38, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Sure, if you can provide a link to that article.--Siva 20:08, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Japanese question
In Letters from Iwo Jima, one of the characters (Saigo) said he used to be a baker, and listed one of his shop's specialties as ampan. Given that pan can mean bread (at least, to my untrained ears - not sure of the romanization), could the am be a bastardization of "American" and the word mean "American bread," or am I just grasping at straws here and it means some other bread product entirely? VirogIt's notmy fault! 23:26, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Anpan (あんパン) can also be written as Ampan. --Kjoonlee 00:37, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Red bean paste is called an, and anpan can be written as ampan with Hepburn romanization; if Letters from Iwo Jima is a bit old, it might be using that to transliterate Japanese writing. An m is used because the n "letter" is pronounced as m due to assimilation. --Kjoonlee 00:58, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reply. Letters is a very recent pan-Pacific film, though I don't know if that really would affect the type of romanization used. VirogIt's notmy fault! 02:57, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The abbreviation (assuming that's what you meant by "bastardization"..) for "America(n)" in Japanese is bei (米). How you get from Amerika to bei is kind of complicated. --Ptcamn 01:28, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, that is what I meant, though perhaps I should have phrased it a bit less... crudely (though I had no negative intent) =O). Now you've piqued my curiosity as to the origin of 米 - I suppose it could be phonetically similar to the Mandarin prefix for American 美 (mei), though they're not that close. VirogIt's notmy fault! 02:57, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Americans are "rice?" Maybe that's because most of us are white or brown. -- Mwalcoff 02:26, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * See ja:アメリカ合衆国 if you are able to read Japanese. According to the section, roughly:
 * "American" -(sound)-> meriken -> メリケン -(kanji)-> 米利堅 meriken -(shortened)-> 米国 beikoku
 * or,
 * "America(n?)" -> amerika -> アメリカ amerika -> 亜米利加 amerika -> 米国 beikoku.
 * Seems it has no relation to rice.
 * Btw, though not so frequent, as a prefix アメ (a me) is sometimes used, too. --marsian 07:10, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * For bei info in English, please see http://www.sljfaq.org/w/Beikoku or http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/afaq/afaq-full.html#beikoku --Kjoonlee 19:10, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I think those kanji for names often were based on the pronunciation in one particular (Chinese) dialect, when they were exported into other dialects and languages where they were pronounced differently, they often stopped making sense... 惑乱 分からん 09:03, 15 January 2007 (UTC)