Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 July 13

=July 13=

Two left feet
Is there a corresponding idiom in German that I can use? As in, 'everyone was dancing but I have two left feet' --iamajpeg 00:10, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * My dictionary says you can use the exact same idiom in German: Ich habe zwei linke Füße. I've never heard anyone actually say this in German, though. —Angr 06:26, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I've heard it, though not as often as in English, and definitely not as often as: "Ich habe zwei linke Hände" for "I'm clumsy, unskilful with my hands, all thumbs and cack-handed" It seems possible to me - beware, this is entirely unreferenced - that "zwei linke Füße" crept up with the help of more recent anglo-exposition. The only "literary" reference I can come up with is Farin Urlaub, who used it in Ich gehöre nicht dazu: "Denn ich hab' zwei linke Füße, Tanzen ist für mich tabu" ("For I have two left feet, dancing is taboo for me.") I might have even heard the phrase in English first, thanks to "two left feet, but oh so neat". But I may be dead wrong, and its usage may be far older then what I found. ---Sluzzelin  talk  15:19, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! After looking through Google I went for two left hands --iamajpeg 17:10, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Germans usually dance with their hands? Nil Einne 19:03, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, they make use of their hands while dancing. Haven't you ever seen that traditional Bavarian dance where they smack each other upside the head? —Angr 15:21, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Letters of the alphabet
What letter is in all 66 languages?


 * Which 66 languages?  There are far more than 66 languages used on Earth.  --  JackofOz 02:29, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Would I be correct in guessing that the a (ah) sound is common to all languages? Sandman30s 11:15, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, what do you mean by "the ah sound"? Looking at IPA sounds that you might be referring to (and just clicking around randomly), Persian has only /ɒ/, Hopi has only /ɑ/, and Nahuatl has only /a/. So right there, it's impossible for every language to have any one of these sounds. (I think there's almost certainly some language without any sound at all like /a/, I just don't know it.) Tesseran 07:21, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * How about this: would he be correct in guessing that all languages have one or more open vowels? I suspect he would, and in guessing that all languages have one or more close vowels too. —Angr 07:43, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Yanesha' language (aka Amuesha) uses only /e a o/, i.e. low and mid vowels but no high vowels. I also remember seeing a description of some protolanguage reconstructed as using only two vowels, neither of them high; but it's best not to take such things too literally.  &mdash;Tamfang 18:20, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The article indicates that /e/ and /o/ also have high realizations, so it's a purely academic question whether the underlying phoneme is high or mid. Proto-Indo-European is sometimes alleged to have had only /e/ and /o/ (not even /a/!), but (1) that ignores the good evidence that PIE did have /a/ (though it was rare), and (2) that assumes that /i/ and /u/ are just syllabic allophones of /j/ and /w/. —Angr 07:05, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The heading is "letters of the alphabet", so I think the questioner is interested in letters (ie. shapes), not sounds. (The same letter in different alphabets doesn't necessarily represent the same or even a similar sound.)  This is not a simple question, as a glance at the "Characters" set in the editing box shows.  For example, there are at least 10 different diacritical forms of the letters A, E, I and O, and 15 forms of U.  Are these all considered different letters?  I think the answer depends on which language you're talking about - some count diacritical forms as variants of the base letter, but others regard them as entirely distinct - and no language uses all of them, just their own sub-set.  And that's just the vowels.  Alphabets derived from the Latin gives a table showing 30 alphabets and their use of each of the 26 letters.  All of these 30 use the letters A, E, G, H, I, L, M, N, O, P, R, S and T.  Then there's a list of 18 further languages that use "at least all the 26 letters".  English is mentioned both in the table and the list, so the total is 30 + 18 - 1 = 47.  Looking at the languages that use the Cyrillic alphabet, the 20 of which our article gives details all seem to use A, E, H, M, O, P and T (so we can eliminate G, I, L, N, R and S).  The Greek alphabet also uses these same 7 letters.  That seems to make at least 68 alphabets that use A, E, H, M, O, P and T (whatever the sounds are).  So the question seems to be based on a false premise.  However I've been focussing on upper case letters, and when we look at lower-case letters and italicised letters, the story gets ever more complex.  Then there's the issue of whether some languages should be excluded because some consider them to be merely dialects of other languages, even where there are differences between the 2 alphabets.  It's all too hard really.  --  JackofOz 06:02, 16 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Hawaiian also has A, E, H, M, O, and P, but not T. Korean hangul has letters that look like E, H, O, and T, but not A, M, or P.  --Reuben 15:42, 16 July 2007 (UTC)


 * True. So that makes at least 70 languages that all use E, H and O.  --  JackofOz 01:28, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Trainer?
which is correct trainor or trainer??


 * Trainer. A quick visit to Wiktionary would have made that evident.  The Jade Knight 03:20, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Even simpler, google does it too.

Unknown 'S' Symbol
Ever since grade school, I've wondered the origin/meaning of this symbol (sorry for the ASCII art, it's the best I could do):

^       / \       /   \      |  |  |      |  |  |      |  |  |      |  |__|       \  \       _\  \      |  |  |      |  |  |      |  |  |      |  |  |       \   /         V
 * It's hard doing a search for a symbol... -- MacAddct1984 14:04, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * All I can make out from the ascii art is that it's an S - the article has a list of S which might be of use to you. --Hugh Charles Parker (talk - contribs) 14:11, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Actually, you might mean:
 * ʃ - Esh (letter)
 * § - a Section sign
 * --Hugh Charles Parker (talk - contribs) 14:17, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * And if the leads provided by User:Hughcharlesparker prove inadequate, you can also try symbol search. dr.ef.tymac 14:21, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I might be wrong, but this looks a bit like the NC State symbol (the way people hand-draw it) to me. Might it be from a college or University near where you went to grade school?--Falconus 14:40, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * ... and also like the Stanford Cardinal symbol – but isn't that simply because both are based on the letter S in a common block letter font used for lettering on athletic shirts? --Lambiam Talk  15:03, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the responses. I did have a quick look at the S page, but to no avail. Maybe it doesn't mean anything, just something easy and interesting to draw on the margins of one's notebook ;) -- MacAddct1984 14:47, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you could scan/photograph/draw a specimen and post it? --TotoBaggins 21:16, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * My friend who introduced this S to me calls it the Superman S although the ascii S does not look like it. Your ascii S probably caught on because it was artistic; it was a "block letter"; the curves of the S are fused together. --Mayfare 21:35, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Have you seen the symbol used somewhere, or is it only something you saw when your friend drew it for you? --Anon, July 13, 21:37 (UTC).


 * An Australian point of view here. I've definitely seen this when I was going to primary school (which is kindergarten to year 6). I just assumed there was no meaning, but it caught on because it looks nice. - Akamad 00:14, 14 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Could it be an ampersand sometimes handwritten as a backwards 3 superimposed with a vertical line? Or, if I squint hard enough, it could be a G–clef. ~ hydnjo talk 02:24, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

From my memories of primary school (also an Aussie here), it looked a bit more like this:

^      / \      /   \     |  |  |     |  |  |     |  |  |     |  |__|      \  \ /     /_\  \     |  |  |     |  |  |     |  |  |     |  |  |      \   /        V

Where the S was joined together at the back and it looked more like a chain-link of some sort. I agree with Akamad that it probably has no meaning, just a cool looking symbol kids drew on their excersize books. --Candy-Panda 06:05, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

For what little it's worth, in Pasadena circa 1967 I was taught to draw it this way:

/ \ /   \ |  |\ | |  | \|  \  \   \  \ |\ |  | | \|  |  \   /   \ /

– starting with the six vertical strokes and joining them with the obliques. No idea what, if anything, it was meant to stand for; but at age 7 or so I found the construction clever. &mdash;Tamfang 18:10, 14 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I believe that's all it is, a way some kid found to draw a stylized "S". It might be a logo, since I know a friend who has a habit of drawing this and adding bubbly letters that spell "Smile" onto the end, but Smile doesn't sohw anything.I'd assume that it's just a schoolyard thing -- L augh! 14:28, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I've only known it as a stylised S with a special method of drawing it - two rows of three vertical lines, then two diagonals, then a broken diagonal, then the points at top and bottom. Confusing Manifestation 04:50, 16 July 2007 (UTC)


 * All of these pictures just look like an S to me. The conversation is just as confusing. Am I missing something? Capuchin 07:19, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Always made me think of Kiss or the Waffen SS, but they are not quite the same. Lanfear&#39;s Bane

if you cant beat them join them
Hi,

Can you please tell me what is the origin of the phrase: "if you cant beat them join them"

Thank you


 * Essentially, take the path of least resistance and stop hitting your head against a brick wall. If you can't win the fight against your enemies, align and assimilate with your enemies. (JosephASpadaro 21:22, 13 July 2007 (UTC))


 * The actual origin is lost in time, but this page says the first recorded instance of the phrase is from 1941, where Quentin Reynolds in 'The Wounded Don't Cry' writes "There's an old political adage which says 'If you can't lick 'em, jine 'em.'" 152.16.59.190 05:51, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Ubiquitous noun
On Slashdot today, somebody used the word "ubiquitousness," which caused at least two posters to get their knickers in a twist, insisting that the only acceptable noun would be "ubiquity." Merriam-Webster seems to be of two minds. (Interesting how neither of their definitions points to the other). Does anybody have citations for a preference of one form over the other? Thanks. -- LarryMac | Talk  17:08, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Chambers Dictionary 1983 edition has only ubiquity. The -ness suffix is highly productive in colloquial English however, and in informal language I would have no real objection to "ubiquitousness". I wouldn't ever (I hope) use it myself tho'. DuncanHill 17:12, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * It gets 78,000 ghits. Unanimousness gets 2,700, and the ghastly anonymousness gets 14,400. Apparently the adjectival form "ubiquitous" is considerably more common than the noun "ubiquity", so much so that many people are unfamiliar with the latter word and have to invent a nominative form. It's interesting. Bhumiya (said/done) 10:13, 15 July 2007 (UTC)