Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 July 12

= July 12 =

Another Latin translation please
hi - I'm writing about two fictional political groups from ancient times; the Minisculists and the Variationists - would anyone care to translate the terms to Latin for me? Thanks Adambrowne666 (talk) 01:42, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * If you're content with ad-hoc neologisms, then you can simply replace the "-s" ending with an "-ae" ending (considering that those words are formed from Latin stems in the first place). AnonMoos (talk) 02:02, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks, AnonMoos - so would that be Minisculae and Variationae?Adambrowne666 (talk) 08:48, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
 * No, Minisculistae and Variationistae. —Angr 09:36, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Not to be confused with the Menisculae, who were a team of classical Roman footballers troubled with wonky knees. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 22:25, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, I'll be sure to make that distinction, thanks, Cookatoo. Thanks, Angr, and sorry, AnonMoos - I wasn't paying enough attention to your instructions. Still, I think I'm not satisfied yet; I posed the wrong question. In my story, there are two groups of atomists in classical times: those who think all atomies in the cosmos are submicroscopically small; and those who think that, just because every atom we know of is infinitesmal, that doesn't mean they all are - maybe there are some the size of poodles, or moons... Does anyone want to have a stab at making up names for those two groups, just for fun? Thanks again Adambrowne666 (talk) 22:58, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I dimly recall reading about some (Indian?) philosophical school which seems to argue that solar systems may be atoms in some "macro universe" and galaxies could be complex molecules, even living organisms, in this reality, one level up. Maybe some RD:staffer knows the name for this relativistic approach and could suggest a name for the adherents of poodle sized atoms?
 * Unfortunately I can not find any reference via a quick Google search. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 23:29, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, maybe I should have been asking for a Greek translation

 * Seeing that the Later Ionians etc were so prominent among atomists, if I'm not overstaying my welcome here, maybe I should revise my original question and ask this: I'm writing about two fictional factions from ancient Greece - the Minisculists and the Variationists - two groups of atomists, the former believing that all atoms are tiny, the latter that there might somewhere be atoms of macroscopic size. Can anyone help me by translating the two terms to Greek (with Latin lettering)? Thanks very much Adambrowne666 (talk) 17:16, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry - should say, too, that the Indian thing sounds v interesting Cookatoo - will look into that as well, thanks.Adambrowne666 (talk) 04:45, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

"Afterletters"
Hi, I´m sorry for disturbing, but I´d have an question: Once I saw in en wiki an article about the letters that are written behind somebody´s name that refers to membership of the person in a certain community - e.g. OFM beyond the name for franciscans, FRCPsych. or F.R.C.P; maybe even PhD. as well. I can not in any way find out the denotation (name of the article). It was mayby something like "afterletters, postletters, postgram"...?? Could somebody of you help me, please? Thank you very much! --JanicekJiri (talk) 02:46, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Try post-nominal letters. And you never have to apologise for asking a question.  That's what we're here for.  --  JackofOz (talk) 02:51, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much, this is exactly what I was looking for, I guess. How did you found it? Best regards, --JanicekJiri (talk) 12:00, 14 July 2008 (UTC)


 * It's just one of those odd bits of information I've known for what seems like forever, JanicekJiri. We "experts" are renowned for having our heads full of stuff, and spend our entire lives just waiting for someone to come along and ask the right question.  But if I didn't already know, I'd have first looked under something like academic degree, title, or abbreviation - all of which, curiously, failed to reveal the information.  I'd then have googled "letters after name" - and hey, bingo, the very first hit was Wikipedia's article Post-nominal letters.  --  JackofOz (talk) 12:47, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Chinese versus Japanese writing
Have reformed Japanese kanji diverged enough from Chinese logographs that a person who can't read either can tell which is which? Neon Merlin  16:27, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Not really.  bibliomaniac 1  5  17:30, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't understand exactly what you want to ask, but I think some changes can be obvious; just look at shinjitai for examples. However, Chinese letters have undergone changes of their own: please see simplified Chinese character. --Kjoonlee 17:59, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * In general no. Especially not if they're Han unified. But there are stylistic differences. Notice in the Han unification article examples, that the Japanese characters all lack serifs, even though many of them (otherwise) are identical to their Chinese counterparts. - Estoy Aquí (t • c • e) 22:07, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Serif or not is just a stylistic thing, like what serif is in English. Neither language dictate whether there should be serif or not, and it's purely up to the font whether to have serif or not. It's probably because you don't have a serif-font for Japanese or sans-serif font for Chinese that you see such a difference.
 * Generally Kanji is sort of in-between between Simplified and Traditional Chinese. So if you can tell the difference between Simplified and Traditional you might be able to tell kanji from Chinese proper, but otherwise not really. --antilivedT 01:26, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Traditional Chinese and Old-style Japanese characters can be considered the same, and both were simplified separately, at different times (Not long gaps, however, less than a lifespan apart). Some were simplified the same way, some were not, but in general they are recognizable. There are some differences among Traditional Chinese and pre-simplification Japanese though, as they developed in isolation of each other for a long time, and simplifications tend to occur slowly in all languages over time. The differences in those cases are very few, very far between, and in general minute, some even only different in stroke order. An example of divergent characters would be sakura, which is different in all three sets, and kuru (to come) which is the same in both simplified sets, but different in the traditional sets (Though that one might be hard to find info on). Sorry for not giving character examples, every time I try, the IME crashes trying to convert hiragana to kanji, I probably need to reboot.200.42.217.61 (talk) 21:34, 13 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi. Compare, for example, the word qi, according to the article:
 * Chinese
 * Traditional Chinese: 氣
 * Simplified Chinese: 气
 * Japanese
 * Kyūjitai: 氣
 * Shinjitai: 気
 * Thanks. ~ A H  1 (TCU) 21:52, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Farsi translation, please
What does احمد باطبی mean? GreekHeroine (talk) 17:53, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Ahmad Batebi? Fribbler (talk) 18:08, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

A word please...
Is there a term for the tendency of US governmental organizations, like the FDA, OSHA, and EPA, originally set up to protect consumers/workers/citizens from businesses, instead being used to protect businesses from consumers/workers/citizens (such as by preventing lawsuits against unsavory business practices, since they are now "government approved"). StuRat (talk) 18:10, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * "Corruption" is what I would use... I don't know of any more specific though.  Sorry... -- Falconus p  t   c 18:43, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Unintended consequence ? jnestorius(talk) 19:33, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * "co-opted" as in |"co-opted regulatory agency" --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 21:11, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

The first two are rather general. I like "co-opted", although it doesn't quite catch the agency being used to do the exact opposite of it's stated purpose. Any other ideas ? StuRat (talk) 00:28, 13 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Another example is "freedom of information", which in many cases turns out to be "refusal to divulge information, except at a prohibitive price, or even sometimes at any price". --  JackofOz (talk) 01:04, 13 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Nice one Jack. I'd suggest "mission inversion". That has a nice "CIA" sound to it, as well. Retarius | Talk 11:31, 14 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, that works fairly well. Or perhaps "subversion" or even "perversion" ? StuRat (talk) 21:36, 14 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Sounds like something from Soviet Russia ;-) -- tiny plastic Grey Knight &#x2296; 10:26, 15 July 2008 (UTC)


 * In Soviet Russia, mission perverts you! Dgcopter (talk) 19:06, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I think the term is something like "regulatory capture." DOR (HK) (talk) 12:55, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Do you have an example of that usage ? StuRat (talk) 16:07, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Translation of "ta tienne" (FR)
Just wondering, is the phrase "ta tienne" just as ungrammatical and uncommon as "your yours" or is it more acceptable. I was wondering as I was translating the tracklist for Comme si de rien n'était and while I understand the gist of "ta tienne" (what is intended to be conveyed by the phrase), I wasn't sure if maybe it's just the French version of "all yours" or similar (so in the interim, I opted for a literal translation). I'm a bit more than a beginner at French, but I've never encountered this phrase before. Thanks for any help - Estoy Aquí (t • c • e) 21:56, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * At the French Wikipedia's Oracle, the counterpart of our Reference Desks, I've often seen "le tien" and "la tienne" being used for "that of yours", but I've never seen "ta tienne" or "ton tien". A Google search suggests that the latter 2 are grammatically incorrect; "le tien" and "la tienne" yield 1.4-1.5 million results, while "ta tienne" and "ton tien" give 16 800 and 56 900 results, respectively.  --Bowlhover (talk) 07:43, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The lyrics of the song emphasize that it is not good French: "Je suis ta tienne, ce n'est pas français non (...) je suis ta tienne, ce n'est pas correct non (...) oh oui, je suis ta tienne, ah ça ne se dit guère je sais..." D AVID Š ENEK 10:55, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah ok. That's what I thought, but just wasn't sure. I was sure it wasn't technically correct, but thought it might just like the many common grammatically incorrect (but generally ignored and accepted) phrases in English. Thanks. - Estoy Aquí (t • c • e) 13:52, 13 July 2008 (UTC)