Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 October 1

= October 1 =

Malaprops?
Anyone got a good Malaprop and or an image to go with it? Just out of curiosity, the ones on that page are kind of bland, so I thought I'd ask here.  Y amakiri TC 09-30-2007•22:13:38


 * They had several by Archie Bunker, but not my favs: "Those Catholic priests are always sprinkling incest all over everyone" (incense), "Edith is going through mental-pause, so needs to see the groinocologist" (menopause,  gynecologist). StuRat 01:23, 1 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't have a picture, but I know of "casting nasturtiums" (aspersions), "delusions of effluence" (affluence - courtesy of Australian TV's Kath and Kim). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Steewi (talk • contribs) 02:00, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Russian for "Jew" vs. "Hebrew"
How to transliterate these two terms, in their noun (sing. & pl.) and adjective forms? I need to refer to them for a discussion about nomenclature of Communist vs. Zionist political parties with Jewish membership in early 20th C Russia. My understanding -- and please correct me if I'm mistaken -- is that in Russian, the word yevrei is the preferred, neutral term to indicate a Jew as the more direct equivalent, zhid, has a pejorative connotation. Also, is there a Russian equivalent for the Hebrew word Zion, or would it be used as a foreign term, as-is? -- Thanks, Deborahjay 00:35, 1 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Just to clarify your question, do you want a transliteration (and if so, of which Russian words), or a translation of the English words? --  JackofOz 02:07, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
 * The noun and adjective form for "Hebrew" (= yevrei?) and "Jew" (= zhid?) -- sing./pl. and I suppose the forms for the most useful cases, e.g. nominative and whatever in/direct object, possessive, etc. are called (if such exist? as I've never studied Russian, though it surfaces in my workplace and environment often enough). Thanks! -- Deborahjay 06:02, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
 * For origins and meaning of еврей (BGN/PCGN: yevrey), acc.: еврея pl: евреи vs. жид (zhid), acc: жида, pl. жиды, see here. The respective adjectives are еврейский (yevreyskiy) and жидовский (zhidovskiy). Re Zion, see ru:Сионизм. Duja ► 12:44, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
 * There is no distinction between "Hebrew" and "Jewish" in Russian. Zhid is strictly pejorative nowadays, just like "Nigger" in English, so you would be ill advised to use it in any context. The Russian transliteration of Zion is Сион (Sion). --Ghirla-трёп- 11:02, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Hmmm... no distinction, including between someone or something identified Jewish by ethnicity vs. an adherent of the Jewish religion? -- Deborahjay 12:51, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Looking for a solution
Dustin Hoffman later told Neeson that he (Neeson) did a better job in his audition than Hoffman himself did.

Is there a less clumsy way to rewrite this (and retain the meaning)? One of the problems is "he (Neeson)", which uses both a pronoun referring to Neeson and Neeson's name (which prima facie seems to obviate the need for a pronoun). The immediate question is, why use 2 references to the same person when 1 should suffice? But if we replace it with just "Neeson", it reads "Dustin Hoffman later told Neeson that Neeson did a better job ...", which doesn't sound ok at all. I'm also not entirely happy with "... than Hoffman himself did". But if it were "... than he himself did", it's ambiguous; and if it were just "... than he did", it's worse. And I certainly don't want to write "... than he (Hoffman) did". Any ideas? -- JackofOz 05:08, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Try "Dustin Hoffman later told Neeson that the latter did a better job in his audition than Hoffman himself did . had done''" -- Deborahjay 06:05, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Dustin Hoffman later complimented Neeson for outperforming him in the auditions. Clarityfiend 08:25, 1 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Now that one I like. Thanks, Clarityfiend.  --  JackofOz 13:02, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
 * The meta-advice in CF's response is that there often isn't a decent way of rephrasing an awkward phrase to be less awkward, and you have to just completely change your angle of attack. --Sean 17:54, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
 * You're welcome. I had to amputate, but the patient survived. Clarityfiend 02:06, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Hyphenation of units
WP:MoS (WP:HYPHEN) says that hyphens are used to "link related terms in compound adjectives and adverbs:". It then goes on to say "Many compound adjectives that are hyphenated when used attributively (before the noun they qualify—a light-blue handbag), are not hyphenated when used predicatively (after the noun—the handbag was light blue)." Finally, it notes that "Values and units used as compound adjectives are hyphenated only where the unit is fully spelled out."

In the context of current FAC Brabham BT19 (a car), we've got a lot of talk about the capacity of engines. Am I interpreting the MoS correctly in thinking that the following usages are right:
 * a 3-litre engine. (hyphenated)
 * but


 * The FIA doubled the engine capacity from 1.5 litres to 3 litres. (not hyphenated)

And why does litres go to being a plural in the second case? Cheers. 4u1e 10:47, 1 October 2007 (UTC)


 * In the first case, 3-litre is an adjective like three-day week, seven-year itch, one-man band, hundred-year war, 3.5-ton weight, and so on. In the second they are quantities by themselves. Both of your usages are correct. SaundersW 11:14, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. And "double the engine capacity from 1.5-litres to 3-litres" would be wrong? 4u1e 11:30, 1 October 2007 (UTC)


 * In "3.5-litre engine", "3.5-litre" is essentially a two-word adjective. The adjective is two words. In the previous two sentences the hyphen in "two-word" appeared and disappeared, and "word" went from singular to plural. We hyphenate to spare the reader the trouble of parsing as he reads and to nip ambiguity in the bud (a light blue handbag may well not weigh much, but that's not what we're trying to say). We use the singular for the adjectival form because it is an adjective; we don't do inflection with adjectives in English so much (blond man vs. blonde woman; that's about it). In "The FIA doubled the engine capacity from 1.5 litres to 3 litres", "litres" is a noun, and the number is an adjective, which arrangement is is the norm in English and presents the reader with no difficulties. You could say "The engine went from a 1.5-litre to a 3-litre", meaning "X-litre [engine]", but that would be clumsy, however grammatical it is. --Milkbreath 12:16, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Blimey. Now there's a complete explanation! Many thanks to both of you - It continuously amazes me that I can be a native speaker of English, keen reader, not infrequent writer in work and informal contexts, have fairly strong and consistent views on what is 'right' and 'wrong' in terms of writing...and still have no dratted idea of how the mechanics of the language actually work! Cheers. 4u1e 12:20, 1 October 2007 (UTC)


 * As Clive Hamer has said: "Language must be the only area where changes are generated by people who don't know the rules in the first place, chiefly some uninformed journalists". Over-hyphenation is a creeping sore on the noble English language.  Hyphens are appearing more and more in in the print media in places where they have no business being, so it's no wonder reasonably experienced users of the language are becoming confused.   --  JackofOz 13:00, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I suspect that, in the UK at least, it also has something to do with the way language is learned. I don't remember ever doing anything more complicated than basic definitions of verb, adverb, noun etc at school - and I did English (literature at least) to A-level (i.e. 18 years old). I actually know far more about the whys and wherefores of French, even though I only formally learned it between 11 and 16, because of the way we approached it. Anyway, I'm well off topic now ;-) 4u1e 13:51, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
 * The new edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary has removed 16000 hyphens. According to that page, the editor said "People are not confident about using hyphens anymore, they're not really sure what they are for." Although as he's British, I'm guessing he said "any more", not "anymore" (but definitely not "any-more"). jnestorius(talk) 20:04, 2 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Imo, that's going far too far towards the opposite extreme. We now regularly see the non-word "non" turning up, hyphenlessly separated from the word that follows it.  "Anymore" is an adverb and is quite correct in that sentence.  "Any more" is an adjectival expression and would be found in sentences like "Do we have any more questions?".  --  JackofOz 21:57, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
 * As a nonword, "non" should be attached directly to what follows without a hyphen or a space, unless what follows is capitalized (non-European). That's how American dictionaries do it consistently; British dictionaries are less consistent, often having a hyphen in other cases as well, especially if the following word starts with an N (so an American dictionary will give nonneutral but a British one probably non-neutral). —Angr 10:02, 3 October 2007 (UTC)


 * That 16,000 hyphens gone out of 600,000 entries entries. Not sure how many hyphens they've kept, mind. See also American and British English spelling differences‎.  JackofOz, your take on anymore has long been the norm in the US, but not so in the UK.  However, for ever ("for all time") is now seldom distinguished from forever ("constantly"). jnestorius(talk) 11:34, 3 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the headsup. :)  --   JackofOz 23:46, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Korean transliteration tool
Does anyone know of any online tool (i.e., not a program to download) to transliterate Korean text in hangul to the Latin alphabet? A Google search for "Korean transliteration tool" reveals Hong's Hangul Conversion Tools, but this is capable only of transliterating short texts, and I would like to do longer texts. --Rannovania 14:25, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Tomorrow I'll Wake up and Scald Myself with Tea
This is the English title of a Czech film from 1977. The Czech title is Zítra vstanu a oparím se cajem. What's the literal translation? Jooler 20:56, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
 * As far as I can understand Czech, the English title is the literal translation. &mdash; Kpalion(talk) 22:27, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Concise language then. Jooler 23:16, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Zítra = tomorrow, vstanu = [I will] get up (first person singular, future tense), a = and, opařím = [I will] scald (first person singular, future tense), se = oneself, čajem = [with] tea (instrumental case). Yes, I think you could say that any inflecting language is more concise than English. Inflection means you don't need auxilliary verbs like "will", you don't need so many prepositions like "with" and you can often drop pronouns like "I". &mdash; Kpalion(talk) 08:04, 2 October 2007 (UTC)


 * So a really literal translation would be "Tomorrow, rise and scald self tea-wise" ? Gandalf61 10:28, 2 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Gandalf, not really, since "I will" is included in the form of the verb. You could use this analogy: "remake" means "make again". The sense of "again" is incorporated in the prefix "re-". Again, "longer" means "more long": the comparative sense is conveyed by the suffix "-er". In this case, a single word has to be translated by three words. The meaning of three English words is packed into a single Czech word.SaundersW 11:36, 2 October 2007 (UTC)