Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 September 21

= September 21 =

Elementary language Homework
How do you know if a sentance is a run-on?? Haley —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.42.112.29 (talk) 00:33, 21 September 2007 (UTC)


 * There's a small bit of info in our Run-on sentence article, and better information in the linked sources at the bottom of the article. -- LarryMac  | Talk  00:40, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

IPA TTS
I have searched the internet and failed to find a (free) speech synthesizer that accepts IPA input, even though IPA input is included as part of the SSML standard. Maybe I'm searching in the wrong place, or overlooking something? Does anyone know of an IPA or X-SAMPA text-to-speech engine? --π! 03:46, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Audio pronunciation
Webster and American Heritage offer pronunciation of words in English. Are there any other dictionary sites that offer this feature in English or other languages?

Thanks.

67.170.241.199 04:29, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Wiktionary does for some of its entries. -- Crazy Legs  KC  06:38, 21 September 2007 (UTC)


 * dict.leo.org does for German, although I think they might be computer generated. -Elmer Clark 20:19, 21 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Are the German pronunciations reliable?  67.170.241.199 04:18, 22 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Then there's Oddcast, which says entire sentences for you in the language of your choice: . StuRat 06:14, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

to sport
Is the use of the verb to sport (as in wearing) limited to people or can it be used for objects too? As in: "These rivers sport great densities of trouts." Thank you. 81.240.119.157 10:03, 21 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't think so, using "sport" as a verb is basically a more positive way of saying "wear". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.208.110.207 (talk) 10:36, 21 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree. I wonder whether someone somewhere along the line didn't hear "sport" for "support": rivers support fish. --Milkbreath 11:03, 21 September 2007 (UTC)


 * May I add the pedantic points that the plural of "trout" is "trout", and that the usual intensifier with "densities" is "high", so that "These rivers support high densities of trout." would be a better English sentence. SaundersW 11:15, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Great! thank you very much 81.240.119.157 11:33, 21 September 2007 (UTC)


 * However, you could say something like "During the summer, the Central Coast sports hundreds of roadside fruit stands, selling locally-grown and organic produce." (At least I would.) Perhaps there's a bit of personification going on here; I'm not sure. Tesseran 19:40, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Let yourself be tempted by ...
Does "Let yourself be tempted by ..." to start a sentence sound ok or is there a better equivalent? Thank you 81.240.119.157 10:39, 21 September 2007 (UTC)


 * You haven't provided any context; it "sounds like" advertising copywriting, if that's the effect you're aiming to produce. -- Deborahjay 11:05, 21 September 2007 (UTC)


 * There is nothing wrong with that sequence of words. They are good, plain English and an unremarkable beginning for a sentence. We can't tell whether there is a better unless we know the context. What is the rest of the sentence, what is the setting (magazine article, poem, personal letter, police report, etc.), and what is the general subject? --Milkbreath 11:13, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes sorry, it is a promotional website for angling spots. the complete sentence reads: "Let yourself be tempted by an exceptional fishing day on high quality angling spots." 81.240.119.157 11:38, 21 September 2007 (UTC)


 * The short answer is "Let yourself be tempted by ..." is fine—pretty good, actually. A longer answer would mention that the rest of the sentence sort of fails to sing in the same key as your opening. I guess I'd expect to be tempted by the spot rather than the day, for one thing, and "high-quality" (note the hyphen) is too pedestrian to be tempting. But that's me all over. I'm a fussy reader. --Milkbreath 13:00, 21 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Give in to the temptation of a full day's angling at one of the finest spots around, all while luxuriating in a personal flotation device made of rich Corinthian leather. :) --Sean 16:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Allow yourself to be ravished by our 30-pound bass while exploring our deep holes fringed by lush growth. OK, enough. Our friend will think we're poking fun. --Milkbreath 20:43, 21 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Milkbreath, singing in a different key later in the sentence is not necessarily a failure. It could be a form of literary modulation, an art that all the great composers indulged in constantly. :) -- JackofOz 02:18, 25 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Hey, 81, the exceptional fishing day sounds just the thing to me! What fish are we talking? Xn4  02:29, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Grammar and nationalities
I came to this as I browsed Finno-Soviet Treaty of 1948. Is there some grammar rule that this article should be Finno-Soviet Treaty? I know Finno- is used instead of Finnish- (although many still would use Finnish-Soviet treaty), but why Finno- comes first? I've started an article on Soviet-Finnish Non-Aggression Treaty, as the others are entitled Soviet-Polish, Soviet-French and so on. Is it wrong then? I figure there are a lot of articles with problems like this in the title. --Pudeo⺮ 13:16, 21 September 2007 (UTC)


 * it's difficult to predict how these are formed. Strictly speaking, it could even be Fenno-, but Finno- seems to be more current, compare Finno-Ugric. Similarly difficult cases are Hiberno- for "Irish" (only rarely Iro-), Franco- (or even Gallo-) for "French", Hispano- (or even Ibero-) for Spanish, and of course Anglo- for English. If a nation goes in -ia (in Latin), you can mostly predict substitution with -o: Albano-, Austro-, Armeno-, Russo-, Germano-, Helveto-, Polono- (but Sardo- for Sardinia). You cannot coin these: if the Hypheno-adjective doesn't exist, you have to use the full adjective, thus Georgian-Russian, not *Georgo- or *Kartvelo-. dab (𒁳) 13:38, 21 September 2007 (UTC)


 * (after edit conflict) As for the word order, some nationalities produce such an ending, but most don't. The one (if there is one) that has an -o ending always seems to go first, firstly because it's a particle (?) that converts the other adjective into a compound adjective, but also I imagine for reasons of euphony.  For example, we used to be terribly worried about Sino-Soviet relations, but never about Sovieto-Chinese relations or even Russo-Chinese ones.  (Muses: But what if there were a treaty between Spain and Finland?  I guess it could be either the Finno-Spanish Treaty or the Hispano-Finnish Treaty.  We'd probably squib it these days and just call it the Spain-Finland Treaty.)  --  JackofOz 13:45, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I certainly wouldn't want to eat Americo-French SpaghettiOs. —Angr 14:46, 21 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I once had a teacher who usually referred to an event of 1905 as "the Japanese Russo War". &mdash;Tamfang 19:28, 21 September 2007 (UTC)


 * So do you suggest moving Soviet-Finnish Non-Aggression Pact to Finno-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact? What about Polish-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact? Polono-Soviet? Well, I see, most of these words are obsolete English as it's not even easy to understand what word they are referring to. In Finnish language the solution is that the longer word always comes second. Same with person with two first names, they are "Tarja Kaarina" (although of course some persons are named differently, but sounds weird..). So when Finland (Suomi) is a shorter word than Soviet Union (Neuvostoliitto), Finland comes first in both situations: "Finland's and Soviet Union's pact" and "Finnish-Soviet pact" --Pudeo⺮ 19:31, 21 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I did a search on Google books. (e.g. "Finno Soviet relations" got 35 hits):
 * {| class="wikitable"

!X !Finno Soviet X !Finnish Soviet X !Soviet Finnish X
 * Non Aggression
 * 2
 * 11
 * 33
 * Treaty 1948
 * 11
 * 66
 * 79
 * Treaty
 * 21
 * 98
 * 246
 * relations
 * 35
 * 453
 * 378
 * }
 * This may be evidence to move articles in accordance with Naming conventions (common names). However, this is just how things happen to be; there is no "grammar rule" to explain why one version is preferred.  No doubt there are tendencies: euphony, short-before-long, etc.  One rule is that forms like "Finno-", "Russo-", "Sino-" etc cannot be the last element in a compound.  I suspect the more obscure Latinate names ("Hibernian" rather than "Irish") are more likely to occur in academic/scientific nomenclature than in, say, politics or journalism; but for example "Anglo-" seems to be more common than "English" ; and while "Gallo" is rarer than "French", "Franco-" is quite common.  Just words, no rules, I'm afraid.  jnestorius(talk) 19:54, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
 * 453
 * 378
 * }
 * This may be evidence to move articles in accordance with Naming conventions (common names). However, this is just how things happen to be; there is no "grammar rule" to explain why one version is preferred.  No doubt there are tendencies: euphony, short-before-long, etc.  One rule is that forms like "Finno-", "Russo-", "Sino-" etc cannot be the last element in a compound.  I suspect the more obscure Latinate names ("Hibernian" rather than "Irish") are more likely to occur in academic/scientific nomenclature than in, say, politics or journalism; but for example "Anglo-" seems to be more common than "English" ; and while "Gallo" is rarer than "French", "Franco-" is quite common.  Just words, no rules, I'm afraid.  jnestorius(talk) 19:54, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Why Italian pronounces "pizza" as "pete-zha" not "pee-sha"?
Why indeed? Why does the double-z mean you put a "t" sound before it please? 80.2.199.116 20:22, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
 * In Italian, the letter z represents both the /ts/ sound of "cats" and the /dz/ sound of "beds". The double-z means you hold the /t/ or /d/ portion of the sound somewhat (about 1.5 to 2 times) longer than normal. So the word pizza could in theory be pronounced either "peet-tsa" or "peed-dza"; in practice, the correct pronunciation is "peet-tsa". (The word mezzo, on the other hand, is "med-dzo"; you can't tell from the spelling whether a z or zz is going to have the /ts/ sound or the /dz/ sound. —Angr 20:31, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I've often thought someone should publish, say, Dante's Comedy in an edition that subtly marked Tuscan vowel qualities (those pesky e's and o's) and whether ambiguous consonants (z, s) are voiced or unvoiced (while I'm dreaming, let's throw in some syllable stresses, especially if they've changed between Dante's time & today's Italian). But I'm probably a little obsessed (I will stop and look up a vowel quality, even if it's the only doubt, and even if I have a probable etymological answer).  You'll notice that bilingual dictionaries can't be relied upon to include such information.  Wareh 21:14, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
 * It sounds like you're the wo/man for the job! --Sean 22:14, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Believe me, I'm tempted! But someone who doesn't have to look it up would be better.  Wareh 22:20, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Apart from a few really famous quotations, I don't know Dante in the original, but of course modern Italian orthography is about ten times more efficient than English... Xn4  00:03, 22 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I've always heard the word mezzo (as in mezzo-soprano) pronounced met-so not med-zo. --  JackofOz 00:45, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Then they were, presumably, not native Italian speakers. --Lambiam 07:32, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
 * That's it. If you hear twenty people say Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita, you probably won't hear one 'metso'. Xn4  14:57, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
 * In the New Haven area, the local Italain dialect pronounces it 'A-beets'. Gzuckier 17:35, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
 * That's reanalysis of a misdivided phrase ("una pizza" -> "un apizza," just like "an ewt" -> "a newt" or "for then once" -> "for the nonce" in English) + apocope, which is common in Southern Italian dialects. Wareh 17:47, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

French translation
What is the French word for general. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.200.78.142 (talk) 23:26, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
 * In most senses, général. Wareh 23:32, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
 * In English you often call a general 'General' when you're talking to him, but in French you say 'mon général'. Xn4  23:53, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Or ma générale. --Lambiam 07:47, 22 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Unless you're talking about the adjective, meaning the opposite of specific. Your post doesn't make it clear which word you're needing help about. --  —Preceding unsigned comment added by JackofOz (talk • contribs) 00:43, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Indeed, but it's interesting to note that many English words for military subjects have French origins: general, lieutenant, martial, etc. --Sean 02:10, 22 September 2007 (UTC)