Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 April 21

= April 21 =

Tom cruise translation?
Could somebody translate/interpret what tom cruise is actually SAYING about scientology in his 9-minute-rant into something that actually explains something about scientology?

66.189.73.3 (talk) 01:24, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Can anyone do that with anything about Scientology? Probably not. Adam Bishop (talk) 07:37, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


 * If we explained it we would probably be in copyright violation. -- Q Chris (talk) 12:59, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * If I recall correctly, Cruise was saying that scientologists have a duty to help others since they're better people. If this description sounds glib, this is because I'm a suppressive person.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  17:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * That's not a terribly neutral way of putting it ;-) I'm not going to risk watching it (in case I die of pneumonia etc.), but if anyone has a transcript I can have a go at translating the jargon. It is an internal video, so is spoken entirely in Scientology jargon, but it all means stuff and is translatable - David Gerard (talk) 07:22, 23 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I've watched it and it's in perfectly normal English to me. He just basically says he feels he has a duty to help people. Whether he will or not and whether he is just in it for the money or not is not said, but that is the basic crux of it all. The reason everyone thinks he's gone totally mad, is because (besides joining a well-known cult) he does the interview in the 'actor' style, and is just laughing at random moments and playing a character, but everyone is supposed to believe that it is himself that he is playing. Simple PR. Most of what he says, though, sound like a person who can't explain himself properly without a pre-written script. I have worked as an interpreter at press-conferences for a number of actors and actresses (Nicole Kidman for one), and, to be honest, without a script, they have nothing to say.ChokinBako (talk) 11:08, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * So actors are not very intelligent? I'm not surprised. I've noticed that people like that become succesful by being ruthlessly selfish and shamelessly syncophantic to those with power over them. They havnt got the computing power to figure out ethics. 80.0.99.135 (talk) 15:29, 23 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I think that contains at least three rather absurd gross over-generalisations, but we're not supposed to debate here so I'll say no more. --  JackofOz (talk) 22:53, 23 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Countering 80.0: I shall simply drop Jensen Ackles into the conversation as being a lovely person, by all accounts, then drift slowly away in a dream. 79.66.99.37 (talk) 02:09, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

How cold is it in Germany?
When the temperature drops to less than zero in English, most of us will say, "It's minus ten." (Mathematical purists will argue for "It's negative ten" because negative is a unary operator, whilst minus is binary, but that's not part of the question, and I wanted to head it off early.) The next most common usage is probably "It's ten below zero", and colloquially often reduced even further, even on the evening news, to just "It's ten below."

I need to understand those little differences in German. When the thermometer reads -10°, what are the correct phrases, both formally and informally? Many thanks, --Danh 63.226.145.214 (talk) 01:38, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Formal phrasing is "10 Grad unter Null" or "minus 10 Grad"; in informal usage, "minus 10 Grad" is much more common. This is sometimes shortened to "minus 10", but only if it's clear from the context what the phrase is referring to. -- Ferkelparade &pi; 07:29, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Top 10 most spoken?
What is the top 10 most spoken languages in the world?
 * List of languages by number of native speakers and . - Akamad (talk) 10:42, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Depending on what the questioner meant List of languages by total number of speakers might be more relevant. It differs from List of languages by number of native speakers as some languages have a lot more non-native speakers than others, for example English is spoken as a second language by many people worldwide and Hindi is spoken as a second language by many people in India. -- Q Chris (talk) 07:19, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

synonym for "startup"
startup as in a new company
 * fledgling company? Sandman30s (talk) 14:30, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Doesn't seem to be one in one word; I like the antonym for dot-com startups, dot-gone. So to invent a synonym for these, how about dot-come. Julia Rossi (talk) 08:46, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Name of a shape
I'm asking this here not at maths as I am seeking the name commonly used rather the maths name fo a shape. EG Diamond not Rhombus. The shape I want a name for is the shape made as an arc of a circle (under 180 degrees) with its reflection. A bit like the current Doctor Who logo. -- SGBailey (talk) 13:52, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * In America, we might call it a football shape. I was curious about the technical name for it, so I looked it up and I guess it is a kind of Lens (geometry). Recury (talk) 14:14, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Under some circumstances is is also called a mandorla, Italian for almond. SaundersW (talk) 15:43, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


 * There's also lenticular, although it's not exactly an everyday word. —Steve Summit (talk) 22:28, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Almond-shaped is common in English, though not for something as narrow as the Dr Who logo. kwami (talk) 23:07, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I will repost this in the mathematics desk, as there is probably a mathematical name also. -- Q Chris (talk) 13:02, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * (copied from mathematics desk by Q Chris (talk) 14:20, 22 April 2008 (UTC)): Lens is the mathematical name for this shape. If you are looking for a more impressive name, you could call it a vesica piscis, as long as the arcs are specifically arcs of a circle. Gandalf61 (talk) 13:31, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Mnemonic versus Acronym?
Is there a difference at all between the two?
 * Yes, a mnemonic is a memory aid consisting of a series of phrases typically used for short lists (e.g." Never Eat Shredded Wheat" for the four cardinal directions), while an acronym is a shortened name using initial letters. (e.g. NATO for North Atlantic Treaty Organisation). Arguably the mnemonic is like a "backronym", a long version of a name invented after the original word to suggest some provenance. -- Flyguy649 talk 14:51, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * A mnemonic can also consist of a word or phrase consisting of initials or symbols such as HHeLiBeBCNOFNe NaMgAlSiPSClAKCa, Pronounced "heli beb canofni namgal sips clacka" which is a mnemonic for the first 20 elements in the periodic table. The mnemonics for the lines and spaces in the treble stave are "Every Good Boy Deserves Favour" for the lines, and the word FACE for the spaces. In short, a mnemonic is anything which helps memory. SaundersW (talk) 21:19, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't think there's any requirement that the list being helped should be short — keeping the longer ones straight is a lot harder for me. The best mnemonics are also clever, to a degree; and to be useful, they have to be easier to remember than what they're helping you to remember — by this definition, Never Eat Shredded Wheat isn't terribly useful unless that particular sequence of direction names is important.
 * My favorites are "Knights Play Chess On Funny Green Squares" and "Bad Boys Rape Our Young Girls But Violet Gives Willingly", helping me with things I couldn't possibly remember, even when I was younger and smarter! -- Danh 63.226.145.214 (talk) 21:40, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * We used "Bill Bloggs Ran Out Yelling 'Gor Blimey Violet, Get Weaving'" which is handily able to be versed in polite company. 84.71.96.69 (talk) 23:59, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Mnemonics don't have to be about lists at all. If I see people misspell Niagara, I like to point out that it has three A's, the same as Canada. And how about this mnemonic for two similarly named cave formations?

S T A L A C T I T E E              I               L               I               N               G               D               N               U               O               R     S T A L A G M I T E

--Anonymous, in Canada somewhere between the ground and the ceiling, 22:00 UTC, April 21, 2008.


 * Or sound symbolism, in this case: the ct in stalactite has a higher, sharper sound, while the gm in stalagmite has a blunter, duller sound, which recalls the shapes and positions of the objects. kwami (talk) 23:04, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * If she pulls her tites down, mites are able to crawl up (or "When the tites come down, the mites go up") 84.71.96.69 (talk) 00:03, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * My mother shared a mnemonic for remembering the spelling distinction between dessert and desert... something about wanting two desserts but not two deserts. It sounded better when I was 7.
 * She wasn't the one to teach me Kids Prefer Coming Over For Great Sex. — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  01:30, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * OK, I'll bite. What do KPCOFGS and BBROYGBVGW stand for?  --  JackofOz (talk) 01:37, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The first is the categories in taxonomy (Kings Play Cards On Fat Green Stools), the second is used for remembering the colour codes on resistors (Bad Beer Rots Our Young Guts But Vodka Goes Well with Silver And Gold has the advantage of also giving you the tolerance bands). I learnt both, some time ago, from some Wiki(pedia probably) page on well-known mnemonics. Found it! Wikiquote page. And I always remembered that stalactites hold tight to the ceiling, while stalagmites might reach them. Skittle (talk) 02:23, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Huh! Never new there were so many different devices for taxa.  I'd always heard "King Philip Can Only Farm Green Spinach".
 * (And as for the resistor color code, there's a variant that's even less socially acceptable, which is too bad, because it disambiguates the first pair of B's better.) —Steve Summit (talk) 03:34, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * One of the girls in my class when I was about 10 came up with one for 'longitude' and 'latitude'. The teacher thought it was so brilliant that he made her tell the class, but none of us got it at all. I just remembered the words. I do use mnemonics a lot, though, especially since living in Japan, as they have a very interesting system for remembering numbers and relating them to words. Fascinating! ChokinBako (talk) 01:46, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * One that I learned in school more than 40 years ago was how to distinguish capitol from capital — the building has an O which is round like the rotunda or dome. — Michael J  03:53, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * "On old Olympus' towering top, a fat-assed German viewed a hop." Deor (talk) 04:05, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, there are quite a few more for these, some funnier/racier (= more effective?) than others. -- Deborahjay (talk) 16:23, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Generally, the mnemonics you make up yourself work the best. — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  06:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * A couple more from me. Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain gives the initial letters of the colours of the rainbow.  DRAPERS VAN MMT 13 - the French verbs (13 of them) that take être in the perfect tense (don't ask me to remember them now, though).  My favourite - and certainly the most useful - is possibly that when you wire a UK plug, the bLue wire goes on the left and the bRown on the right.  I've often wondered if that was intentional. --Richardrj talkemail 07:20, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * You went to a lot of trouble Richardrj - the usual mnemonic for that is "Mrs Vandetramp" (or Dr and Mrs Vandetramp if you include devenir and revenir). For Latin I made words out of the case endings to remember the 2nd and 3rd declension - ioumo, and isieme. And in Arabic, atatayatanataya helped me learn the verb prefixes when we first learned them, although it turned out to be useless since the stupid way we learned verbs left out half the forms and taught them in the wrong order. Adam Bishop (talk) 07:43, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Okay, Chokin, what's the longitude & latitude one?
 * Yeah, with the simple syllable structure of Japanese, most anyone's phone number actually means something, even if it's doggerel. I still remember a friends mother's phone number from years ago, after a single telling. kwami (talk) 07:20, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know what Chokin's classmate's mnemonic was, but I recall that the horizontal ones are like rungs on a ladder, thus "laddertude". Lame, perhaps, but as was stated above, the best mnemonic is the one that works for you.  -- LarryMac  | Talk  13:45, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * No, lame is good! If it makes you groan, and makes your friends groan, you'll remember it. kwami (talk) 21:15, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Just something to say, ignore me if you want but I always remembered BBROYGBVGW by saying Black Beetles Run Over Your Garden Before Very Good Weather. Just my two cents, bye now Adam (Manors) 15:54, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Another point about mnemonics: rude ones are more memorable.The clean mnemonic for the simple bending equation F/y = M/I = E/R is "Find your mate in the engine room". SaundersW (talk) 16:23, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * When we first learnt trigonometry, the teacher told us a mnemonic for tan=opp/adj etc that didn't really seem that memorable. Then they said "Of course, this is the version we have to use now. When we learnt it it was ...". Naturally we all remembered our functions :) Skittle (talk) 16:32, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * For us it was: ''B.B. Roy Of Great Britain had a Very Good Wife
 * <, >: As a kid, I visualized these signs as a shark's open jaw, and then was easily able to to tell them apart; after all any intelligent shark would always aim for the larger food pile. 98.212.189.170 (talk) 16:46, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Whereas when I realised the big end was always towards the biggest number I wondered why on Earth this was never pointed out. Skittle (talk) 20:29, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * No mnemonic for was taught to us either, but I remember thinking of the correct "bigger end-bigger number" and the incorrect "pointy end towards bigger number" (think arrowheads) logics. This was too confusing as an 8 (?) year old, so I developed the impeccable biological reasoning to solve the problem :) (if that makes sense to anyone but me ...) 98.212.189.170 (talk) 20:42, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I recall somebody (my little brother perhaps?) being told that it was an alligator's mouth, about to eat the larger numbers. Back in my day, we had to just memorize the damn things.  And we liked it!  -- LarryMac  | Talk  14:18, 23 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, Kwami, excellent for remembering telephone numbers. One especially memorable one was the telephone number for a recycling company in Nagoya, which was (052) 758 5300, which can be said as 'Nagoya, Gomi Zero', meaning 'No Rubbish in Nagoya.' Many Japanese companies use this technique. (0120) 117 117 (number of another company) can be said as 'ii na, ii na' meaning 'great, great'. I can't remember what the company was for, though. This shows one more thing about mnemonics. when I studied physics at school, I remembered that V=I*R, but I cannot remember for the life of me what 'I' even is, since it has become irrelevant since become a language professional. For memory techniques, though, I would recommend Tony Buzan. I learnt a lot from his books when I was a teenager studying at High School, and still use them. ChokinBako (talk) 00:08, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Further OT, but Chinese (particularly Shanghainese) does the opposite - people send messages to each other with only numbers. 520 (wu er ling) is similar enough to "wo ai ni" for people to know the meaning. Qian Nairong's "2500 Sentences of Shanghainese Dialogue" gives 6 pages of potential messages. Steewi (talk) 02:02, 23 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Th4t 1z t3xt sp34k. 1t h4pp3nz 1n 3ngl1sh 2 m8. Just 4 sh0rt w4y 0f s3end1ng 4 m3ss4ge (actually it takes longer to do it on a mobile phone than to just type normally, given that the numbers come after the letters on every key, so it's not even short). ChokinBako (talk) 10:57, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * What you've written above is actually leet. Text speak doesn't do much of the intermingling of numbers and letters.  -- LarryMac  | Talk  12:51, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Well it does, but in a different way. Gr8, ill c u by d g8 b4 t. 130.88.140.123 (talk) 14:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Y r u l8? SaundersW (talk) 15:31, 24 April 2008 (UTC)