Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 October 19

= October 19 =

bareback in spanish
how do u say bareback in spanish?CholgatalK! 02:59, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

According to this, it's a pelo (I don't get it- hair?) 68.231.151.161 03:21, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

maybe al pelo meaning on the hair barehaired instead of bareback...hmmmCholgatalK! 04:20, 19 October 2007 (UTC)


 * This site also gives the expression as cabalgar o montar a pelo - to ride bareback , rather than al pelo. It makes sense as you are sitting on the hair or fur of the horse! SaundersW 12:30, 19 October 2007 (UTC)


 * It may depend on whether you're talking about riding a horse without a saddle, or anal sex without a condom. --  JackofOz 04:30, 19 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I think that people use the word bareback internationally for having anal sex without a condom. The Wikipedia in Spanish has an article called bareback. A.Z. 04:37, 19 October 2007 (UTC)


 * That's the first time I heard of it. I'm neither a native English-speaker nor Spanish, and I tend to use the phrase bareback for riding a horse without a saddle, not that I come across horses all that much in my daily life. - Mgm|(talk) 08:29, 19 October 2007 (UTC)


 * That's the first time I heard about the other meaning. I'm also neither a native English-speaker nor Spanish. A.Z. 23:22, 19 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Actually, they don't have the article, despite there being a link to it from the local article barebacking. A.Z. 04:39, 19 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Spanish Wikipedia used to have the article, but it was deleted over a year ago. The reason was: Wikipedia is not an English-Spanish dictionary. 11 voters agreed, 7 disagreed. ---Sluzzelin talk  05:37, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Oops, sorry, the result of the 11:7 discussion was to 'keep. It was deleted for the first time in Feb 2007, and has been re-created and re-deleted three times since then (once for autopromotion, once for being a definition of an English word, and once (three days ago) for consisting of "Se trata de realizar sexo anal sin preservativo". ---Sluzzelin talk  09:29, 19 October 2007 (UTC)


 * For those interested in the second meaning, wordreference has a forum discussing colloquialisms in Puerto Rican, Argentinan and other varieties of Spanish. ---Sluzzelin talk  12:59, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

poetry rules
I first noticed this when teaching English as a Second Language in Italy, and have never yet been able to find a satisfactory explanation, so I hope someone can point me in the right direction -

In conventional English poetry, all the lines begin with a capital letter, even if the words continue on from the previous line, and do not therefore begin a fresh sentence.

Too many examples to mention, but see:

I WANDER'D lonely as a cloud/That floats on high o'er vales and hills,/When all at once I saw a crowd,/A host, of golden daffodils;/Beside the lake, beneath the trees,/Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

I had assumed this convention was set in stone, and had never questioned it, but the Italians do not do this (again, one single example from many):

Akab il cavallo/battuto anche oggi/proprio sul traguardo, quando/primo al sole d’Asti chiara/sfidava la città curiosa e pur/leggermente scabra di balocchi/furfanti, nell’ultimo giorno/di fiera: "Al... ber... to!"

And when they asked me why English poets capitalise, I could not answer.

Montims 14:48, 19 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Nor is it a hard-and-fast rule that they do. There certainly is the convention, which, one would expect, in older poetry is set in stone. On the other hand, moderately modern poetry may diverge. An example from the 1960s:
 * Snowfall on frond and the exposed root Old truths concealed, a recent landscape softened, hypocrisies made tangible, gold reminder of your skin shadowed by whiteness Harry Guest, From My Hotel to Yours Whole Seas Away (Penguin Modern Poets:16). (There is no full stop after root in the first verse.)


 * Italian (and other) students might even be more surprised to read e. e. cummings.


 * Conventions vary from poet to poet, from age to age, from language do language (in Dutch, for example, usage varies extensively). It may be difficult to account for such variations satisfactorily. It is what people do, which hardly explains much, I'm afraid. Bessel Dekker 16:44, 19 October 2007 (UTC)


 * "The Italians do not do this" is false. Italian poetry traditionally has capitalized the first letter of every verse. Look at any older Italian poetry, e.g. here.  The expectation to do so was set in stone in both Italian and English from the dawn of printing until relatively recently, say around Eugenio Montale.  Wareh 01:09, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I like questions
What words (or phrases) can be used to describe "somebody who really likes being asked/answering question"? (Perjoratives are welcome too)87.102.7.57 16:21, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * anorak might be very pejorative (answers questions which have not been asked in the first place)
 * source of information
 * living encyclopedia
 * instructor, mentor, adviser. Bessel Dekker 16:55, 19 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Font/wellspring of wisdom/knowledge (usually sarcastic, I think)
 * Sexual intellectual (f---ing know-it-all)
 * Walking textbook/encyclopedia
 * Alex Trebek --Milkbreath 17:14, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Wow. 'sexual intellectual' certainly is an insult, I love 'walking/living encyclopedia" excellent . any more will be appreciated.87.102.7.57 17:48, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * oracle (who, however, in ancient times at least, might be less than forthcoming unless drugged first)
 * repository of learning (who, even worse, might be less than forthcoming at the best of times). Bessel Dekker 17:55, 19 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Speaking of know-it-alls, see Internet Oracle :) Corvus cornix 18:29, 19 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia Reference Desk Editor. -- LarryMac  | Talk  20:40, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Pedant. - Eron Talk 08:35, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Excellent - is there a "....-phile" form?87.102.17.46 12:36, 20 October 2007 (UTC)


 * eperotemaphile (loves questions) or apocrisophile (loves answers)? (Google yields nothing for either suggestion). ---Sluzzelin talk  15:36, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
 * thanks again - well if there are any more ...87.102.17.46 19:48, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Need help interpreting St. Augustine
Hi. I'm cracking my head open trying to figure out what a certain passage from St. Augustine's The Literal Meaning of Genesis means. The passage in question is Book 2, Chapter 9, "The shape of the material heaven." The passage in question is available as a Google book preview at. He appears to be discussing whether a Christian is bound by Biblical authority to take a particular view on whether the heavens are a sphere completely enclosing the earth or are rather suspended above it on one side. Augustine appears to believe that the heavens are spherical, however it seems that some were disputing this, quoting a passage from the Bible which talks about the heavens being stretched out like a skin.

The difficulty is that in paragraph 21, Augustine writes that "if [people who say that heaven is spherical] are able to establish their doctrine with proofs that cannot be denied, we must show that this statement of Scripture about the skin is not opposed to the truth of their conclusions. If it were, it would be opposed also to Sacred Scripture itself in another passage where it says that heaven is suspended like a vault. For what can be so different and contradictory as a skin stretched out flat and the curved shape of a vault? But if it is necessary, as it surely is, to interpret these two passages so that they are shown not to be contradictory but reconcilable, it is also necessary that both of these passages should not contradict the theories that may be supported by true evidence, by which heaven is said to be curved on all sides in the shape of a sphere, provided only that this is proved." That would seem to suggest that Christians interpreting the Bible can use their external, natural knowledge to throw light on the best interpretation of what the Bible is saying.

However, in paragraph 22, Augustine writes that "...the image of a skin presents a more serious difficulty: we must show that it is reconcilable not with the sphere (for that may be only a man-made theory) but with the vault of Holy Scripture." In this paragraph he seems to be saying that all that matters is that Christians' interpretation of the skin passage is consistent with the rest of the Bible, and that divine revelation through the Bible must take precedence over human reasoning, such that the spherical-heaven theory must be rejected if there is no reasonable way to interpret the Bible in a manner consistent with it. Note also that earlier he had said that "The truth is rather in what God reveals than in what groping men sumise," which is more consistent with the theme of this passage.

But it seems highly implausible that a great thinker like Augustine would have contradicted himself in the space of just two paragraphs. Could a fresh pair of eyeballs take a look at Chapter 9 and tell me if there's something I've missed? The main question on my mind is the extent to which Augustine believes that Christians' external, natural reasoning and knowledge should play in their interpretation of Scripture. Paragraph 21 seems to suggest that it should play a big part, but paragraph 22 seems to suggest that Christians may have to place their faith in a certain interpretation even if their reason tells them that the Bible, interpreted that way, cannot be right. (No, I am not worried that the sky is a flat like a vault...lol) Thanks! Schmitty120 21:41, 19 October 2007 (UTC)


 * The Humanities Desk is probably a better place to ask questions like this. —Angr 07:36, 20 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Okay, I will ask there. Sorry, I was going back and forth between this one and humanities, and picked this one. Thanks anyway. Schmitty120 23:52, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Which country of spellings?
After being a member of Wikipedia for just under a year now, I sometimes come across some spelling misconceptions due to the country I'm in (Australia). Sometimes I see the word 'color' instead of the way we spell it here, 'colour'. Even my computer spell checker doesn't want the u in colour.

I know that all the main English speaking countries sometimes have very minor rule changes when it comes to spelling words and some countries do just spell words differently. So my question is, to what country do we spell to? I can assume that it's either UK or USA we spell it to, but which countries spelling do we follow on Wikipedia?

Thankyou. Aflumpire 22:30, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

(P.S) Even thankyou is different. in the US, there is a space!


 * See Manual of Style and WP:SPELLING. In short, we stick to the variation that is most relevant to the subject (i.e. Tony Blair uses UK English, Shane Warne uses Australian), if there is no obvious national bias (i.e. United Nations or Wikipedia), we go with the variety chosen by the first major contributor to the article. Note, however, that it isn't always a non-controversial decision. Debate over whether our article should be titled Yoghurt or Yogurt has been ranging for, literally, years. Rockpock  e  t  22:40, 19 October 2007 (UTC)


 * By the way, I doubt that "thankyou" is the normal way we Aussies spell "thank you". If you're saying "Please convey my thankyous to the family", you might get away with it, but its usual spelling is "thank you".  --  JackofOz 04:25, 20 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Um...I actually put 'thank you' in an English written assignement once and I was corrected, also backed up with Australian spelling on Microsoft Word. However, this isn't the place to do it. Im willing to talk somewhere else. Aflumpire 07:19, 20 October 2007 (UTC)