Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 April 13

= April 13 =

An Alternative to Synoptic?
Do you have a better term than "Synoptic" to label a binder housing a collection of journals? Seafiddler (talk) 02:08, 13 April 2008 (UTC)


 * That would depend on why you're using the term 'synoptic'. kwami (talk) 09:27, 13 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The journals were accounting journals, each having its own name, e.g. Cash Receipts Journal. All the journals for a given year were housed in the one binder which had a hard cover.  That binder was named "Synoptic" for want of a better term.  (It is not a term used in accounting.)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Seafiddler (talk • contribs) 10:45, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Collection? Collation?hotclaws 07:07, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

interpreter's training (e.g. ba program or a certificate) that doesn't have a bachelor's degree prerequisite
Is there any kind of training to become an interpreter that isn't a master's program. for example, a course one can take, or a bachelor's-level program, or maybe somehow a master's you can test into instead of having a b.a., though I don't know how that would work.

thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.122.53.15 (talk) 02:13, 13 April 2008 (UTC)


 * This might help you start your search, it looks like there are several options, training colleges, certificates and the rest. Julia Rossi (talk) 10:21, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Order of English adjectives
Hi, can someone help me with the order of English adjectives? The adjective article only has a short section on this.

The ggakdugi article says:
 * Gul ggakdugi is a variety of ggakdugi that is flavored with whole raw oysters.

Should that be "whole raw oysters" or "raw whole oysters"? Does it matter? Any other suggestions? Thank you in advance. --Kjoonlee 08:57, 13 April 2008 (UTC)


 * It's fine the way it is. If you were to say "raw whole oysters", I'd think that "whole oysters" were a specific product, which happens to be raw, rather than "whole" simply being an adj. As it is, they are "raw oysters" which happen to be whole. —kwami (talk) 09:05, 13 April 2008 (UTC)


 * It's fine the way it is, but I think the other way would be ok too. They are indeed "raw oysters" which happen to be whole, but they are also "whole oysters" which happen to be raw.  --  JackofOz (talk) 09:18, 13 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Later thoughts. In this case it makes no difference because nothing has been done to the oysters, and there is no intrinsic order in which a number of hypothetical things haven't been done.  But if they had been cooked and halved, the order would matter.  If you'd cooked them and then cut them in half, you'd say "halved cooked oysters", but if you cut them in half first and then cooked them, you'd say "cooked halved oysters".  (Hmm, that reminds me, it's dinner time.  Damn, no oysters in the pantry.)  --  JackofOz (talk) 09:24, 13 April 2008 (UTC)


 * One final thing. The only time the order of non-events matters is in cases like the Millennium Bug, Comet Kohoutek, and the presidency of Gerald Ford.  Those non-events definitely happened in a particular order.  :)  --  JackofOz (talk) 09:39, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Hm, thank you for your responses. So there's no fixed order for this case (as in "big bad wolf")? --Kjoonlee 09:28, 13 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Not in this case, imo. But big bad wolf seems to obey a different rule.  It's not about actions having been done to the wolf, but about its personal characteristics.  There must be a good reason (other than familiarity) why "big bad wolf" sounds a whole lot better than "bad big wolf".   Blowed if I know what it is.  --  JackofOz (talk) 09:39, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Tiny young boy, big old-fashioned car, big fancy earrings, little old lady...
 * This leads me to believe size does matter. ;) --Kjoonlee 09:51, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
 * This page recommends: opinion > size > age > shape > colour > origin > material > purpose. (An ugly, small, old, tubular, brown, English, polyester sleeping bag). How do we categorize raw and whole? ---Sluzzelin talk  10:12, 13 April 2008 (UTC) Oh and here we have : opinion > size > age > colour > nationality > type and the example "BIG (size), BAD (type) WOLF". (In the first list of order, I would have said "bad" is an opinion and hence bad big wolf :S) ---Sluzzelin  talk  10:21, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
 * It's as if the brain and the mouth decide well ahead of speech that saying it one way flows more easily than the other way. Holraw oysters works better than raw holoysters if you want to try saying it quickly. Bigbad wolf instead of badbig... the tongue-teeth-lip sequence seems to want an efficient way through. A speech therapist would have the theory of it. Julia Rossi (talk) 10:15, 13 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm only guessing, but perhaps very common adjectives, such as size and good/bad, are first because they're more productive (you can use them with just about any word), whereas more 'personal' adjectives are more tightly bound semantically and therefore closer to the noun. Or perhaps it always was that whichever quality you were emphasizing came first. But whatever started the order, it's become merely conventional, and is extended to new situations because of set phrases we all know, such as "big bad wolf". That order is flexible, but if you change it you imply that for some reason the default order is not appropriate. If you were to say "bad big wolf", I would think you were emphasizing "bad" for some reason, and I'd read it aloud with appropriate prosody: "bad big wolf". But Jack's event order is of course also important. kwami (talk) 17:40, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) From a letter to W. H. Auden by J. R. R. Tolkien: I first tried to write a story when I was about seven. It was about a dragon. I remember nothing about it except a philological fact. My mother said nothing about the dragon, but pointed out that one could not say 'a green great dragon', but had to say 'a great green dragon'. I wondered why, and still do. The fact that I remember this is possibly significant, as I do not think I ever tried to write a story again for many years and was taken up with language. There's an interesting paper on the subject, titled "A Game-Theoretic Account of Adjective Ordering Restrictions," here (PDF document). Deor (talk) 01:32, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

night and day
Normally one uses hours, minutes and seconds to define time of day. If one uses day and night to define time of day is time of day called something else? 71.100.160.37 (talk) 12:55, 13 April 2008 (UTC)


 * In monastic life (which is basically geared towards daytime activities) the day was divided into seven offices, each spanning 3 hours between the times of prayer. There is an article on these canonical hours.  These originated in an age when reliable clocks did not exist and time was measured by sunrise, sunset and the churchbells.  Measuring time was a hunch by the bellringer, so to say. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 16:48, 13 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Is there something in Quasimodo translating as "half-measure", then? (Or is it, "as if" to measure?)  Julia Rossi (talk) 22:10, 13 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Talk:Quasimodo suggests it's "taken from the name of ths Sunday after Easter - Low Sunday, or "Quasimodo" Sunday. The words come from the beginning of the introit to Mass on that day, in Latin: "Quasi modo geniti infantes...", which literally means "Like just-born infants...." (generally translated slightly more poetically as something like "Like newborn babes..."). "Quasi modo" means "Like just" or "Like recently," in the Latin, but it isn't meant to be translated in this way; he was just named after the day on which he was found" - Low Sunday. I don't know if this is verified in the novel, but it sounds plausible.  --  JackofOz (talk) 23:39, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

dialoguer - to dialogue
In French I came across the word "dialoguer," a verb meaning "to dialogue." This seems like the sort of thing we do in English nowadays - using a noun as a verb, sometimes quite recklessly and without looking for a natural verb that already exists. In elections, candidates now "preference" each other, for example (or, perhaps more acceptably, we might "breakfast" or "lunch" with friends). In the French case, is "dialoguer" a recent addition to the language, and is it the sort of thing that purists criticise? 203.221.127.95 (talk) 17:58, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The French Academy has strict control over what words come into French. If they have no objections to dialoguer, then it's nothing the purists should object to.  If the Academy does object, that doesn't mean the homme on the street won't use it anyway.   Corvus cornix  talk  20:24, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Corvus, although I was aware of this. It doesn't quite answer the question, because it is still possible for purists to resent the decisions of the Academy (though I don't know if they ever do in practice). I'd also like to know if the word is a new arrival in French, still wrapped in its swaddling-clothes, and being lovingly held by everyone, especially politicians and the like. 203.221.127.95 (talk) 21:26, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The accademy is composed of some of the worst purists, so I think you are pretty safe following them. "Dialoguer" has been widely in use at least since I can speak French (late 70s), but perhaps even earlier, sorry don't have a reference book at hand. It is definitely not very new. --Lgriot (talk) 08:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

You may want to see the history of the words dialoguer and dialogue at the CNRTL website. Korg (talk) 20:50, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for those answers. It's now clear. Korg's link tells it straight: since the 18th century, at the very least. Surprising, I must say, because it looks for all the world like a lazy way to say something like "avoir un dialogue" (or whaterver). cheers, 203.221.127.124 (talk) 23:03, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Pronunciation of are at the beginning of sentences.
Are has 2 pronunciations: ahr; unstressed er or \'är\ and \ə r \.

1. My specific question concerns how the majority of native speakers of American English pronounce are in the following question

In other words, is the vowel in are reduced?

2. I personally think it never is if are is at the beginning of a statement. I need a strong confirmation.--71.103.77.163 (talk) 23:44, 13 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I am a native speaker of an amalgam of American English variants (close to but not quite General American), and I tried this out on my partner (who speaks with a strongly regional Boston accent) by simply asking him the question at an appropriate moment and then asking him if there was anything odd about my pronunciation. I suspected and he confirmed that in this case the unstressed variant (ər, or, in his case, ɚ) would normally be used.  The stressed variant would be used only for emphasis. For example, if someone had announced that he was going to sleep but the questioner didn't believe it, she might challenge that person by asking the question with the stressed variant ("Are you going to sleep?")  Marco polo (talk) 01:32, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Consider another question

Would it be correct to me to extrapolate that the usual pronunciation of am here would be \ə m \ as opposed to \'am\? --71.103.77.163 (talk) 02:11, 14 April 2008 (UTC)


 * There is no one American accent, and the extremes are quite different from each other. You've got your Appalachian and you've got your Brooklyn and your Wisconsin and a hundred others. I'm Philadelphia area, a degenerate Colonial accent in my opinion, and my answers to your questions depend on how careful I am being and what I mean. "Are" in your example is usually pronounced exactly like the letter name "r" with full value on the vowel, considering the rhoticity (I don't know the lingo for this, I guess you can tell). If I'm speaking rapidly and sloppily, the whole word almost disappears into a whisp of a growl. The other one is harder to think about. I think it is usually \ə m \, but it can actually become "em" like the letter, with a plain short "e". Fast and sloppy it becomes like the "m" in "Mpondo", "My driving...". --Milkbreath (talk) 03:06, 14 April 2008 (UTC)


 * User marcoPolo's response to my question concerning how the "majority of native speakers of American English" pronounce are was \ə r \. User:Milkbreath states that in the "Philadelphia area," are is  \'är\ in the particular question above.  I am resolving to go with \ə r \ especially in light of the fact that even User:Milkbreath is not adhering to a pattern in its pronunciation of are and am at the beginning of questions.--71.103.77.163 (talk) 03:25, 14 April 2008 (UTC)