Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 January 17

= January 17 =

Capitalization
Is this sentence right?

He asked, "which school club are you joining?"

punctuation
Is this the right punctuation on a letter?

Dear Sir or Madam:

Yours Truly;

Joe Doe

I learned to ice-skate, I studied art, and I made wonderful new friends.

Reid44 00:44, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

He argued for public education and women's rights indeed he urged equality for all people.


 * One of the rules here is that you do your own homework. If you need help with a specific part or concept of your homework, feel free to ask, but please don't post entire homework questions and expect us to give you the answers. Thanks!--Grace 02:07, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Study the various articles linked from punctuation, ans you will soon know more about the subject than your teacher.--Shantavira 09:13, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Online dictionary using IPA
I find it irritating that Dictionary.com uses a weird, non-standard phonetic notation. Why do they not use the IPA? Does anyone know of (A) an online dictionary other than Wiktionary that does use IPA or (B) a guide to Dictionary.com's phonetic alphabet? Thanks. Bhumiya (said/done) 02:10, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi, I tried visiting dictionary.com's page for hot.
 * If you click on "Show IPA Pronunciation" the notation will change to IPA.
 * If you click on "Pronunciation Key" a pop-up will show you how to read "Spelled Pronunciation".
 * --Kjoonlee 03:26, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I just noticed that dictionary.com's database uses several dictionaries. I think all of them present pronunciation keys. I'm not sure if all of them are covered, but there's a comparison chart at Wikipedia. Pronunciation respelling for English. --Kjoonlee 03:31, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Dictionary.com does offer IPA for words in its own dictionary. Underneath the definition, click on "IPA pronunciation." -- Mwalcoff 04:08, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Hell, to find that, a person would have to have eyes or something. Thanks. Bhumiya (said/done) 06:29, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

In general, U.S. English dictionaries have usually not used IPA transcriptions, because to do so in any strict or accurate way, one would have to choose one particular dialect to transcribe (thereby implicitly invidiously declaring all other dialects less standard by comparison). Therefore these dictionaries have used "diasystemic" symbols which can be used to cover both rhotic and non-rhotic dialects, for example. The transcription [j]="y" is also a huge practical stumbling block to the use of IPA... AnonMoos 14:13, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Also, few Americans are familiar with IPA symbols, and IPA symbols are not intuitive for English speakers who are not well versed in other languages, so they would merely confuse and annoy most American readers. Marco polo 18:55, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Which is something of a vicious circle. Why aren't Americans more familiar with the IPA? Because American dictionaries don't use it. Why don't American dictionaries use it? Because Americans aren't familiar with it. (I think similar reasoning is behind why America has never gone metric.) It never ceases to amaze me how severely American publishers underestimate their readers' ability to learn. So instead of one single system that all publishers use, we have each publisher using their own idiosyncratic system. If you grew up using the AHD, you can't read the phonetic transcriptions used in Merriam-Webster. If you grew up using Merriam-Webster, you can't read the phonetic transcriptions used in Random House. And so on. —Angr 09:07, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The Oxford English Dictionary online does use IPA, but unless your college or company subscribes, it's not cheap.--Prosfilaes 13:03, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

i.e.
Is it improper to remove the periods from the abbreviation "i.e."? I've seen this both ways and I have always thought that "i.e." is more correct than "ie". Dismas|(talk) 03:50, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * There's probably no right or wrong answer to this.  Wikipedia seems to prefer the "i.e." version.   Personally, I prefer the "ie." version, for the same reason that I write "etc." and not "et c.".  I see "ie." and "etc." as single abbreviations, deserving of one period each, even though they were both derived from 2 separate words ("id" and "est"; "et" and "cetera"). JackofOz 03:57, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Right. I personally prefer i.e., c.f., and q.v., but I use NB, etc., and pp. --Kjoonlee 04:18, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * See also abbreviation. "i.e." is the correct form as letters have been removed from the ends of the two words id est. --Shantavira 09:25, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Cf., on the other hand, is an abbreviation of a single word (confer), and should be written with the period at the end only. I don't accept the suggestion that "ie." is equivalent to "etc."  The crucial difference is that, in the latter, et is a complete word (not just an initial), which I maintain is the entire explanation for why it lacks a mark of suspension after it.  Wareh 14:51, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The para Shantavira refers to does not seem to support his claim that any one form is "the correct form". Indeed, it refers to "much disagreement and many exceptions".  Styles vary from century to century, from country to country, and from place to place within a country.  I think the only hard-and-fast rule is to be consistent within the same text.  Don't write "ie." in one place but "i.e." later on; or vice-versa.
 * Re "etc": if we are to treat "et" as a complete word, we should give it its due and not concatenate it with "c". The fact that it is so concatenated means that "etc" is regarded as a single unit, not as 2 separate words.  I also see "ie" as a single unit.  Others don't, which is their right.
 * I also think there's a lot to be said about the visual appearance of text. Subject to no loss of meaning, minimisation of periods maximises readability, which is surely what writing is all about.
 * I hereby amend my opening sentence to "There is definitely no right or wrong answer to this". :)  JackofOz 02:24, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: Spaces typically are ignored in abbreviations/shortenings/contractions/whatever. For example, in the contractions don't and can't, do and can are actually full words which would normally be followed by a space (but aren't in the contraction). The et in etc. obviously respects a similar rule &mdash; the only difference is that letters in the second word (cetera) are omitted from the end rather than from the beginning. ~ 69.41.32.12
 * Counter-example: shouldnt've. This is a shortening of "should not have".  Both "not" and "have" have dropped at least one letter.  Yet there's only one apostrophe for the whole word - because it is now regarded as a single entity, no longer the sum of its parts.  JackofOz 03:07, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
 * That counter-example exists only because of the awkwardness of repeated apostrophes in shouldn't've. Wareh 17:17, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
 * So you agree it is a counter-example. However I think we're drifting here.  You seem to be arguing your position is the only correct one.  I've already acknowledged that it's fine to use "i.e." if done consistently.  But "ie." is also correct if done consistently.  JackofOz 00:19, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
 * To 69.41.32.12 - what's this about "in the contractions don't and can't, do and can are actually full words ... ". If that were true, then "can't" would be counted as 2 words.  However it is counted as 1 word in all contexts I know of.  Just because it's formed from 2 other words, doesn't alter the fact that it ends up as a third word that is neither of its sources.  JackofOz 00:19, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
 * My claim was simply that "etc." is not a good parallel example for "ie." The colloquial "shouldnt've" doesn't seem a remarkably close to "ie." either (English may rebel at multiple apostrophes in a word, but it clearly has nothing against multiple periods in an abbreviation).  I won't deny having an opinion, but I've tried to stick to the more objective issue of what's parallel to what.  If there is a widely accepted real parallel to "ie.", I'm curious enough to want to know about it.  The fact is, your opinion & mine might fly for emails and blogs, but the real arbiter for written language is what is printed in edited books.  My guess is, "i.e." predominates, with "ie" as an occasional alternative and "ie." rarely if ever printed on purpose.  Of course "ie." can be used in a consistent system, but if it's not in books, then the system would seem to be informal or eccentric by definition. Wareh 21:30, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I seem to have some support here, so this hardly seems either informal or eccentric. Perhaps outdated; but not as outdated as "i.e.", imo, in this age where reduction of periods seems to be the trend.  According to this, "Many British publications have gradually done away with the use of periods in abbreviations completely".  I think that's going too far - "ie" without a period is masquerading as a word when it is no such thing.   The only thing that tells the reader it's an abbreviation is the period.  It definitely needs one period, and the only place for a single period is after "e".  I see no case for laboring the reader with more than one period.  Once you've told them this is an abbreviation, why tell them again.  It's not as if the text is a lesson in Latin.  But then, eccentric and perverse being that I am, I have a different view when it comes to postnominal letters.  I hate "G.C.M.G." etc, much preferring "GCMG", with no periods.  What's clear from our Abbreviation article is that there is simply no "right" or "wrong" way to approach periods in abbreviations (as I said at the outset).  NB. I've just realised that I wrote "etc" without a period, and putting one in before a comma would look silly.  So scrap my argument about "etc" - it was never central to my preference for "ie.", as it turns out.  :--)   JackofOz 01:50, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Before I say anything else, I should say I hope you well understand that my implacable skepticism is offered in the friendliest possible spirit! I've really tried to stay away from opinions about right and wrong.  I'm afraid the support I prefer&mdash;something in a book&mdash;is still missing.  I've just picked at random three volumes of the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica from my bookshelf and browsed in each one until encountering this abbreviation.  S.v. "Aquitaine" we have, "Wasconia, i.e. Gascony."  S.v. "Silly" (which this is becoming) we have "'silly-how,' i.e. 'lucky cap.'"  S.v. "Hellespont" we have "Hellespont (i.e. 'Sea of Helle')."  Accordingly, I've corrected the article List of abbreviations in use in 1911 to which you point.  (I'm well aware that there is a trend of total hostility to these periods, which is why I said "ie" could be found in some edited books, as parallel to FBI etc., but rarely "ie." on purpose.)  Wareh 12:54, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Chinese translation
Could someone please give me the most obvious translation in chinese for the english 'respect'. As I am unfamiliar with chinese characters, a relatively large font here will also help me to see and be able to use the translation. Thanks if you can help. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.84.41.211 (talk) 09:22, 17 January 2007 (UTC).


 * 尊敬


 * This is in the sense of respect for someone's wishes. My dictionary says it's also good for respect as in esteem, but I'm not really sure. --Diderot 11:22, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Slightly unrelated, but in Korean, 존경(尊敬)하다 means to look up to someone, and 존경(尊敬) means the sense of looking up to someone. If you want to say that you respect someone's opinions in Korean, you have to say 존중(尊重)하다. That kind of respect is called 존중(尊重). I wonder if the same distinction exists in Chinese. --Kjoonlee 15:48, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Could you please give a transcription into Roman alphabet/IPA? 惑乱 分からん 22:42, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It's roughly jongyeong for 존경 and roughly jonjung  for 존중. 125.189.164.34 12:50, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Pinyin: zūnjìng; IPA with Chao tones for the Chinese equivalent of Received Pronunciation would be something like: /tswən55tɕɪŋ51/.  The textbooks say you're supposed to pronounce it /tsun55tɕiŋ51/, but no Chinese person I've ever met actually pronounces [u] or [i] that way in a closed syllable unless they're affecting "correct" speech. About two-thirds of Mandarin speakers make no distinction between [tɕ] and [ts], so you'll hear it as /tswən55tsɪŋ51/ as well.  If you're trying to fake it in English, you can get away with saying "tswan-JING", emphasis on the second syllable.


 * As an aside, this is why I don't use IPA much. Purely phonological representations give a far better picture of the language, since:
 * a) you're not going to pronounce it very well anyway unless you know enough Chinese to deal with the Pinyin
 * b) hardly anybody outside linguistics knows IPA
 * c) hardly anybody in linguistics knows Chao tone notation
 * d) the question most people want answers to is how should I pronounce it, since I don't know squat about the Chinese language
 * Using Pinyin tells people who know some Chinese how to say it, while using ersatz English spellings tells the non-Chinese speaker how to say it when he or she just doesn't want to sound like a schmuck. --Diderot 10:04, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Ersatz English isn't appropriate for Chinese, though, since it doesn't show either tones or phonemes that make words differ in meaning... 惑乱 分からん 00:58, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Telling people who know no Chinese how to pronounce the tones will not lead to them pronouncing them correctly either. Pinyin is an adequate tool for phonologically representing modern standard Mandarin, and it is studied by practically everyone who has ever studied Chinese, including increasingly people in China.  Ersatz English is the best one is going to do to answer the question of pronouncing something adequately in a language you know nothing about.  --Diderot 11:52, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

The same character 尊 appears in the Japanese Yojijukugo (four-character idiom) 男尊女卑 danson johi, meaning basically “male domination” (literally, “man respected, woman lowly”); the reverse is 女尊男卑 joson dampi, meaning basically “female supremacy” (literally, “woman respected, man lowly”); ... AnonMoos 00:34, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Latin translation - does anyone know what this means or if this is commonly used somewhere?
Simul doming quaestio quo cu, eum errem decore id. Corpora mediocritatem vix no. Aliquyam petentium an sit, utinam placerat te his, probatus sensibus ex sit. Ne cum nostrum fabellas legendos.

Duo ne unum postulant abhorreant, at pri viderer alienum. Pri eruditi feugait invenire ne. Veri ceteros per ne, at ius wisi convenire. Officiis legendos quo cu. Vim dicit euismod eruditi ne, ei duo lorem falli simul. Nobis congue sensibus ei sed, qui ne nullam mentitum definitionem.

Any assistance would be welcomed, many thanks, H —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.86.22.165 (talk) 12:11, 17 January 2007 (UTC).


 * Aliquyam (Aliquam?), doming (domino?) and wisi look strange. Typos? 惑乱 分からん 13:32, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * What is the origin? Is this from a manuscript? It does not make any sense. Could this be a kind of Lorem ipsum? --Lambiam Talk  13:41, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The strange "about us" for Tatonka Gourmet Meats starts with "Lorem ipsum" and has several words or word combinations in common with the text above, such as the non-Latin word cu (repeatedly) and mediocritatem vix. I see now the text above also contains the non-Latin word lorem. I think that clinches it.  --Lambiam Talk  13:50, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Except that the full text of Lorem ipsum is at Lorem ipsum, and this ain't there. —Angr 15:52, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Lipsum isn't a hard-and-fast "copy this text exactly"; rather, it's prose-like filler for evaluation better than filling a page with "asdf asdfasd asf sadf asfdasf". So whether or not it's a word-for-word copy of Wikisource, identifying it as lipsum makes perfect sense. &mdash; Lomn 16:04, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Trying to find a word...'being happy about someone else's failures'
Hi,

I am trying to find the spelling of a word. The word's definition is along the lines of 'being happy about someone else's failure' and phonetically it sounds like froin-en-shine, or something along those lines. I have heard the word before, but I cannot seem to find the correct spelling or find it in the dictionary. Please help me if you can! Thanks, and have a great day.

Robyn 24.248.60.130
 * That would be the lovely word schadenfreude. You have a nice day too! --Richardrj talkemail 15:56, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

spelling question
Hello, can you please email me at e-mail removed for security the correct spelling of the word which sounds phonetically like 'segway' meaning a smooth transition in conversation to another subjectDawn Grundy 16:26, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, we don't answer questions by e-mail. But the answer to your question is segue. —Angr 16:33, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Homework
What does background Knowledge mean?

Kinda like stuff you already know. See here. t h b 03:52, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * If we were talking about a particular topic, it would be your level of experience with that topic. For example, if somebody asked "what's your background knowledge of James Bond films", they would want to know which of the movies you've seen, if you're familiar with the recurring characters, etc. StuRat 07:04, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Mystery Quote
Hey, can anyone help me. I know there is a quote that is something like "Younger siblings try to change the world, the elder siblings run it." or maybe "Younger children try to change the world, the elder children run it." but can't find anything like it... Does anyone know the actual quote, and who said it?

Many thanks, --86.137.233.160 22:20, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I couldn't find it either. The quote sounds like a summary of Frank Sulloway's book on birth order titled Born to Rebel. If you can get a copy, you might find the answer in the book. ---Sluzzelin 11:17, 18 January 2007 (UTC)