Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 March 20

= March 20 =

Translation from Hebrew, please
Hi. Please will someone help with a precise translation of these instructions for making Wassabi. I think I've got the gist, but want to be sure.

לערבב אבקת ווסאבי עם מעת מים לקבלת מחית אחידה ויציבה.

Many thanks --Dweller (talk) 01:06, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * "[One should] mix the wasabi powder with a little water until a homogeneous and smooth paste is formed." Enjoy! СПУТНИК CCC  P 02:15, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Ah, that's great, thanks. I can see how it means "homogenous"; should have guessed that one, but I had no idea on "smooth" or "paste". --Dweller (talk) 07:32, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Compliments to User: СПУТНИК CCCP on the translation (as in other contexts the two adjectives would be rendered otherwise). I would only suggest an edit from the culinary regard, particularly for those unfamiliar with properly made wasabi, to assure satisfactory results: "To the desired amount of wasabi powder, add small amounts of water gradually while mixing to a smooth, thick paste. -- Deborahjay (talk) 09:21, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

"The Govs Must Be Horny"
It's a new segment on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. What's the pun? --zenohockey (talk) 03:05, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * The Gods Must Be Crazy, perhaps? Carom (talk) 03:07, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah. That works. Thanks. --zenohockey (talk) 03:10, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Japanese pronunciation of Chinese names
My friend is Chinese and his first name is 明海. If he were to go to Japan on business would his name sound too feminine? Can the kanji be read as a male name? --124.254.77.148 (talk) 04:03, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know if it would look feminine, but he might be able to avoid it sounding feminine. (That's assuming he finds it's a problem.) It's very common for Chinese names to be pronounced as an approximation their Chinese values rather than as Sino-Japanese, in your friend's case as minhai rather than meikai. Minhai isn't a sound combination you'd normally encounter in Japanese. On a business card, he could add furigana to his name to clarify the pronunciation if he found meikai too feminine. — kwami (talk) 05:29, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Czech declensions
Are Czech declensions referred to by number (a la Latin), name or simply by standard exemplars? Donald Hosek (talk) 04:59, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The article you linked to, as well as its Czech counterpart, use only standard exemplars (such as "the pán paradigm"). The Czech article mentions declension numbers, but only when talking about Latin declensions. &mdash; Kpalion(talk) 11:23, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The answer is yes -- Czechs generally refer to cases as 1, 2, 3, etc. rather than nominative, accusative, locative, etc. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 03:08, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I thought Donald was asking about declension paradigms (groups of nouns that are declensed in the same fashion), rather than cases. &mdash; Kpalion(talk) 12:40, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, I was asking about the paradigms, rather than cases. The book that I have incidentally, uses numbers rather than names for cases. Donald Hosek (talk) 01:29, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

None satisfy vs. None satisfies
Intuitively I'd say the latter is correct, but I'd like a double check... thanks! 213.140.22.65 (talk) 07:58, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Syntactically, "none" is singular. If you think of it as "no one", then it's clear - "no one (of these things) satisfies the conditions".  It's not the same as pointing to a group of things and saying that the entire group fails to satisfy; rather, it's looking at each member of the group separately, and saying "A does not satisfy; B does not satisfy; C does not satisfy ...... and Z does not satisfy".  But that's a bit laborious to spell out.  So to shorten it, we could say "No single one satisfies", or shorter yet, "None satisfies".  But grammatically, it can be either singular or plural, and grammar is not necessarily related to syntax or even to logic, but more to actual usage, euphony and peer pressure.  It helps to know your target audience.  Some would raise their eyebrows at "none satisfy"; others would have the same reaction to "none satisfies".  --  JackofOz (talk) 08:12, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * a further response. None is not equivalent to no one even though it's historically derived from it. The insistence that none is grammatically singular is a (misinformed) prescriptive rule that is now (thankfully) becoming outdated. Thus, none of the students has arrived yet (prescriptive) vs. none of the students have arrived yet (normal). The prescriptive singulars are probably in the minority in actual usage.


 * For most people none can be either grammatically singular or plural depending upon the semantics (this is what is called notional agreement). So, we have


 * None of the rice has been eaten (singular none because rice is singular, noncount)
 * None of the mice have been eaten (plural none because mice is plural, count)


 * Note that this parallels other indefinites like some:


 * Some of the rice has been eaten (singular some because rice is singular, noncount)
 * Some of the mice have been eaten (plural some because mice is plural, count)


 * Whether you want to follow the prescriptive rule and create something like None of the mice has been eaten depends on your opinions of prescriptivism.


 * Now your example, none satisfies vs. none satisfy the preferred usaged (in a non-prescriptive context) would depend on what none agrees with semantically, which you, of course, didnt mention.


 * A final note on this involves a proximity principle. When a prepositional phrase modifying the head noun none contains a plural noun (as in the examples none of the mice, none of the students), there is a strong preference to have plural agreement on the verb. This is because the plural noun (here mice, students) is in close proximity to the verb. When there is no PP modifier with a plural noun as complement, the preference for plural agreement is not as strong. So, here none satisfies is probably more acceptable even when having a plural interpretation given in the context. Note that the proximity principle affects other nouns like kind, nobody:


 * This kind is ridiculous (singular agreement)
 * These kind of rules are ridiculous (plural agreement, proximity principle)


 * Nobody was following the rules (singular agreement)
 * Nobody, not even the students, were following the rules (plural agreement, proximity principle)


 * Prescriptivists also dont like the proximity principle. But lots of folks are affected by it when speaking. – ishwar  (speak)  14:14, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * My further note on JackofOz's comments. Grammar and logic are differ things so there's no reason to think one would based on the other. Usually the term grammar refers to either syntax or morphology in linguistics (although sometimes it is used in a wider sense being equivalent to language or linguistic system). So, grammar is "necessarily related to syntax" (pace JackofOz). But, of course, what was meant here is that meaning can influence grammatical number so grammatical number is not a completely autonomous category and the number of a given word is not necessarily in a one-to-one relation with that word. – ishwar  (speak)  14:28, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I like everything you say, ishwar, except for the example "These kind of rules are ridiculous". Since you were talking about agreement, how does "these" agree with "kind"?  Wouldn't it be either "these kinds of rules are" or "this kind of rule is"?  Maybe a typo?  Or maybe not, because "these kind" is commonly heard colloquially; however I would abhor it in writing.  --  JackofOz (talk) 22:44, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * hi. No, it's not a typo. You can have these kind of PLURALNOUN in normal English (as well as these kinds of PLURALNOUN and these kinds of SINGULARNOUN). If you abhor this construction, you are influenced by prescriptive grammarians. Which is fine. But, you find it in spoken and written English (including even "good" written English, like Shakespeare). You can find discussions of sort, type, kind agreement issues in good grammatical descriptions of English (like R. Quirk et al.'s big book). If you want some background on the prescriptive history and British vs. American, you can take a look at Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage scanned on google books (look under the kind entry). this kind of rule is, these kinds of rules are, and these kind of rules are are all perfectly grammatical in my own English.


 * it's a bit weird, right? These words dont behave like most nouns. So, maybe they arent. Maybe they should be analyzed as determiners. Some words like number, amount are sometimes analyzed as post-determiner quantifiers when they occur with of before an adjective modified noun, like half the number of ridiculous rules which can analyzed as rules being the head noun, half a pre-determiner, the a central determiner, number of a post-determiner (the of being some kind of partitive connector), ridiculous an adjective. Analyzing number of as a post-determiner is argued for because it seems to function similarly to post-determiners like many as in all the many ridiculous rules. I cant remember ever seeing kind, sort, type called post-determiners, but it would make sense if they were because (as we've seen above) that English has funny agreement phenomena involving quantifiers that occur in a determiner position (i.e., pre-, central, or post-). Anyway, consult one of the big grammars for detailed discussions of this stuff. – ishwar  (speak)  05:39, 21 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Maybe I have been influenced by prescriptivists to a large degree, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. And I don't generally accept that, just because "Shakespeare" used a particular construction, that necessarily makes it ok for us to copy him.  Despite the approval of grammarians, I'll still be choosing not to write "these kind of ...", because to me it jars badly; it sounds inelegant, even ugly, and it's not in keeping with my preferred style.  Thanks for the references.  --  JackofOz (talk) 07:30, 21 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, Shakespeare does say some things that are ungrammatical in my English (I cant remember what at the moment). But, my points in mentioning this were were (1) these type(s) of constructions have been in English for hundreds of years, (2) they are attested in works of several well-respected writers. As for acceptance, it depends on what grammarian. Traditional grammarians in American typically condemn these kind of while British grammarians are on fence a bit, according to usage books. It's possible that it is ungrammatical in your dialect, we all have slightly different individual grammars in our minds. Generally, most prescriptive rules only apply to written language as it's just too hard to consciously parse sentences while one speaks. – ishwar  (speak)  15:28, 21 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I don't know if *these kind works for me either, and I am not a prescriptivist. Maybe it's more of an ideolect like you mentioned, or maybe I am affected by years of prescriptivist conditioning without being aware. Either way I'd fail it on a test (meaning I'd certainly consider it ungrammatical). — Zerida  ☥   18:43, 22 March 2008 (UTC)


 * If anyone's interested, Mark Liberman blogged about this construction with deleted of, like these type situations instead of these type of situations and this type situation instead of this type of situation. Speakers who do this probably have analyzed kind/type/sort as a determiner (cf. the deleted of occurring with pre-determiner quantifiers: all of the situations => all the situations). Blog link: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001049.html – ishwar  (speak)  00:18, 23 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Hmmm, more and more interesting. I wonder if what he's hearing though is not "kinda" or "typa", which I *do* say as well. Speakers may be prone to writing this as if they were omitting of. I googled for kinda situation and kinda situations, and got plenty more results. — Zerida  ☥   01:15, 23 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I dont think so. I can say this type situation and this typa situation. typa is just reduced type of, same as kinda = kind of. What's weird is that I can say these type of situations but these type situations is not as "good" as this type situation. I might be able to say these type situations but it feels a bit awkward. And I also fit within Liberman's noticing in that *this kind situation and *these kind situations are definitely ungrammatical (as well as this sort situation, these sort situations) while this kind of situation and these kind of situations are definitely grammatical. type is apparently more grammaticalized than sort and kind. – ishwar  (speak)  04:22, 25 March 2008 (UTC)


 * None is inherently of indeterminate number. Both sngular and plural work. Peter Grey (talk) 23:12, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Meitei Mayek script
http://tabish.freeshell.org/eeyek/history.html describes Meitei Mayek script as having "18 alphabets":

"According to the very few Puyas that survived, such as, Wakoklon Thilel Salai Singkak, Wakoklol Thilel Salai Amailon, Meetei Mayek comprised of 18 alphabets."

The problem is that the link is in ==External links==. So then that means the link should be accurate. So, DOES Meitei Mayek have 18 alphabets? Or is it just one abugida?68.148.164.166 (talk) 12:14, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know anything about this language, but I get suspicious of that statement immediately because the grammar is so very broken. They might even mean 'letters' for as far as I trust their command of English--although a language with 18 alphabets would be pretty awesome. --Masamage ♫ 20:18, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * It seems fairly common for people from the Subcontinent to translate "letter" (akshara) as "alphabet", and if you check the Omniglot site, you'll see they do list just 18 akshara for the basic script. — kwami (talk) 10:41, 19 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I did, but who knows who is right.68.148.164.166 (talk) 09:53, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Serbian is one case of a language with 2 alphabets - Roman and Cyrillic. I must confess I struggle with the concept of a language that has more than two alphabets, let alone 18.  Would this mean, for example, that in certain contexts they'd use one, but in other contexts use a different one.  But why would they do this?  Or speakers from one area use one alphabet, but speakers from different areas use different ones.  That's more understandable.  I know of languages where certain forms of address are reserved for an emperor, e.g. Japanese.   But surely the written forms of these specially-reserved words would still be written in the same "alphabet" (not that Japanese has an alphabet as such) as the rest of the words in the language.  --  JackofOz (talk) 22:32, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * It seems odd to me that in one breath you say you struggle with the concept of a language that has more than two alphabets and in the next you mention Japanese, which uses three writing systems simultaneously (not alphabets, to be sure, but still three writing systems). —Angr If you've written a quality article... 22:42, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * That simply displays my abject ignorance of Japanese, for which I crave your indulgence. But then, I do like to display my ignorance from time to time - it gives one a certain je ne sais quoi.  :)  --  JackofOz (talk) 01:04, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
 * In my struggle to conceptualise how people using former Serbo-Croat manage to read it in two different alphabets, since there is an almost complete one-to-one correspondence in transliterating (reference can be found if you really want it), the best I can manage is to regard the two alphabets as extreme types of different font. In English an Italic font can have different letter forms from a Roman font, but we manage to recognise both as the same letter without conscious effort. Thus a language with 18 alphabets, as long as they had a one-to-one correspondence, could be regarded as having a wide range of fonts. SaundersW (talk) 10:37, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd classify Japanese as having four writing systems, actually, because they use English-style letters and numbers so ubiquitously that understanding them is necessary for total fluency. So that's hiragana, katakana, kanji, and romaji. --Masamage ♫ 21:16, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

mexican currency
what is the currency used in Mexico?


 * Mexican peso... AnonMoos (talk) 15:17, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Our article Mexico - no wonder you could not find it - has this and stacks of other useful information. The currency used in the state of New Mexico is the USD. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 21:03, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * ...as is the currency used in Mexico, Missouri, I suppose. But I think it's safe to assume he was asking about the country... -Elmer Clark (talk) 23:07, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Any silent letters in Latin?
Are there any silent letters or letter combinations that are silent in Latin? A coworker seems to think that some words ending in "s" are pronounced with a silent s. --70.167.58.6 (talk) 22:06, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Never heard of any silent "s" (which is a lot more typical of French than Latin), but final "m" was often realized only as nasalization of the preceding vowel, and in certain cases short vowels in open penult syllables of words stressed on the antepenult were probably often elided in colloquial speech (fabula -> fabla, etc.). In general, Latin spelling seems to have usually been reasonably phonetic, within the limits imposed by the nature of the Latin alphabet.  AnonMoos (talk) 23:02, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The only thing I can think of is the -ae ending, which is the diphthong /aj/, so the e was not pronounced as it was in other circumstances in Latin. Adam Bishop (talk) 01:09, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
 * But that's not really a silent letter as much as it is a digraph. At some point in Latin's history, I believe there were silent "h"s.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  03:30, 21 March 2008 (UTC)


 *  Another example of elision is insula >> isula >> île - the letters were dropped rather than becoming silent. In English, the letter s was first re-added to the Old French loanword ile, and in the 17th century also added to iland, apparently by false etymology with ile/isle, and possibly with the intention of making island "look" more Latin despite its Germanic origins.  The pronunciation remained the same however, and this s is silent in English, because the old ways prevailed in speech, not because of Latin pronunciation. . ---Sluzzelin  talk  04:53, 21 March 2008 (UTC)


 * So something like "Deux Ex Machina" would not have any letters that aren't pronounced? --70.167.58.6 (talk) 15:16, 21 March 2008 (UTC)


 * It would be "Deus ex Machina", but would not have any non-pronounced letters, no. D  aniel  (‽) 15:21, 21 March 2008 (UTC)


 * The "h" in Machina would not be pronounced though, would it? -- Falconus p t   c 15:51, 21 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, surely it would in that macina and machina would not be pronounced the same? I thought the 'ch' would be pronounced compariably to in loch or bach, but perhaps someone will quash that... Skittle (talk) 17:41, 21 March 2008 (UTC)


 * As I understand it, most speakers would have pronounced "macina" and "machina" identically. However, the learned pronunciation of "machina" would be with an aspirated k sound, as in Ancient Greek (not as in loch or Bach!) Macnas (talk) 18:57, 21 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, that's not a silent letter either, that's a digraph like my "ae" example. It was the Latin spelling of the Greek chi (well...in that phrase, at least). An example of a silent H is the word "harena", which became "arena". Perhaps we can also mention the -vi- of some past tense verbs, which was sometimes dropped ("amavisse" could be written "amasse"), but I think that is just poetic syncope, not silent letters. Adam Bishop (talk) 05:49, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
 * (indent) Can't help but noting that modern Romance languages derive related verbal forms from schemes with the ellision (amasse) rather than from the original forms (amavisse). Hence, I guess the drop might give a clue of a real phonetic change happening. I don't know if that would imply a silent vi though. Pallida  Mors  05:38, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Moran Cho/Margaret Cho in Korean and romanized korean
For the article Margaret Cho how do you write:


 * (1)Margaret Cho, and also (2)Moran Cho in Korean

both in Korean script and also in the romanized form and in IPA

(1) Korean... (2) Korean... (1) romanized... (2) romanized... (1) IPA... (2) IPA...

Thanks.NewAtThis (talk) 22:12, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * The article itself gives 조모란 for Moran Cho (or rather Cho Moran/Jo Moran) in Korean. —Angr If you've written a quality article... 22:44, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * A transcription of "Margaret" into Hangul would be irrelevant for that article, as far as I can see... AnonMoos (talk) 23:10, 20 March 2008 (UTC)