Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 November 1

= November 1 =

French Michel
Pronounced like Michelle, Michael, or is it more of a personal preference? If yes, which is more common? Thanks,  Grsz  11   →Review!  00:26, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * It's like Michelle. As far as I know, the names are completely homophonous in French. —Angr 00:58, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I think that traditionally, Michelle would have an optional trisyllabic extension in certain forms of poetry and singing (with final quasi-schwa vowel), while Michel wouldn't, but that may not be too relevant anymore. AnonMoos (talk) 02:22, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, as noted, in French the two sound identical. In French many final consonants sounds are "dropped" from the pronounciation, such as s, z, t, and x.  In words or names with masculine or feminine versions, the feminine version pronounces this letter, while the masculine doesn't.  This is accomplished in written form usally by and adding an e.  Thus we have "boulanger" /boo-LANZHE-eh/ (male baker) and "boulangère" /boo-LANZHE-air/ (female baker) or "étudiant" /ih-TOO-dee-ahn/ (male student) and "étudiante" /ih-TOO-dee-aunt/ (female student).  If, however, the masculine form has a pronounced consonant at the end (l is typically pronounced as a terminal consonant in French) then there is no pronounciation difference between the masculine and feminine forms, thus Michel and Michelle are pronounced exactly the same. --Jayron32. talk . contribs  02:51, 1 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Michelle is a rare, old-fashioned name in France, though not Quebec. Don't know if the homophony with Michel influences this. There are unisex names in French, e.g. Dominique, Camille. jnestorius(talk) 03:04, 1 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Interesting, because in the U.S., you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a Michelle. If I am in a room with more than about 20 random females within 10 years of my age (say 20-40 or so) I'd be surprised NOT to have atleast one Michelle in the crowd... --Jayron32. talk . contribs  03:51, 1 November 2008 (UTC)


 * And how often does it happen that you are in a room with 20 or more random females within 10 years of your age? .................Never mind!!  I don't want to know.  CBHA (talk) 16:24, 2 November 2008 (UTC)


 * And then there is also "Michèle" as another version of the female form. It is prnounced the same way as the other two versions. ៛ Bielle (talk) 04:00, 1 November 2008 (UTC)


 * It also works in reverse, Jayron. Names like Hubert are virtually unheard of in anglophone countries these days, but they're relatively common in France.   --  JackofOz (talk) 04:05, 1 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Just for completeness, and to bring it back to the original question, how would the French pronounce that? I doubt it would be like the Anglophone equivalent /Hue-burt/ (sorry, I'm no good at IPA.) -- 128.104.112.72 (talk) 20:11, 1 November 2008 (UTC)


 * H is always essentially silent in French; the U-sound is one that does not exist in English, but is sort of like "ew" as in "few"; B is B; the ending sounds like "air" as in Stephen Colbert's name (although the R is not made the way we do it); and to the extent that there's any stress it's always on the last syllable. So Ew-BAIR would give you the idea. --Anonymous, 02:27 UTC, November 2, 2008.


 * Back to the original question, the name is also not pronounced exactly like the English pronounciation of Michelle. In French, the letter "i" is usually pronounced like the english "ee", though of shorter duration.  So Michel is prounced more like /MEE-shell/ and not like /mish-ELL/ as you would pronounce Michelle in English (and in french, the female version is also pronounced /MEE-shell/).  --Jayron32. talk . contribs  04:28, 1 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Word stress is always on the final syllable in French, so if anything, it is /mee-SHELL/. This also applies to all the other examples above, such as /boo-lanzhe-AIR/. — Emil J. 16:45, 3 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Word stress is always on the final syllable in French,...? This is debatable. See Stress (linguistics), for example (in which I would fix some details!):
 * "French words are sometimes said to be stressed on the final syllable, but actually French has no word stress at all. Rather, it has a prosody whereby the final or next-to-final syllable of a string of words is stressed. This string may be equivalent to a clause or a phrase. However, when a word is said alone, it receives the full prosody and therefore the stress as well."
 * French words may sound to speakers of other European languages as if they are stressed on the final syllable. This is because of an audible difference from the early word stress typical of English, Czech, Hungarian, etc. French dictionaries do not mark stress; and for a different reason, nor do dictionaries of Hungarian, in which stress is always on the first syllable. Nor do Spanish dictionaries, in which the spelling reliably predicts the stress, as opposed to English and Italian dictionaries, in which the position of the stress must often be shown explicitly.
 * – ⊥¡ɐɔıʇǝo N  oetica! T– 22:02, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Ancient Greek translation?
In an online version of The Bacchae, I found these lines:

πᾶν κρεῖσσον ὥστε μὴ ᾽γγελᾶν βάκχας ἐμοί. ἐλθόντ᾽ ἐς οἴκους. . . ἃν δοκῇ βουλεύσομαι.

My English edition of The Bacchae has "[Wait; I myself] shall consider my decision," but I have a feeling that that only accounts for ἃν δοκῇ βουλεύσομαι. Can anyone tell me how the ancient Greek works grammatically—what the words mean and how they fit together? Thanks, I'd really appreciate it. —anon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.23.85.198 (talk) 00:45, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * The T. A. Buckley translation has "Anything is better [πᾶν κρεῖσσον] than to be mocked by the Bacchae [ὥστε μὴ ᾽γγελᾶν βάκχας ἐμοί (᾽γγελᾶν is a form of ἁναγελάω, 'to laugh loud')]. We two will go into the house [ἐλθόντ᾽ ἐς οἴκους] … and I will consider what seems best [ἃν δοκῇ βουλεύσομαι]." Does that make it clearer? If you need further help with parsing it, let us know. Deor (talk) 01:24, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * That's perfect. Thanks. —anon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.23.85.198 (talk) 01:28, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Template:Consonants
I have moved the huuuuuuuge table for the Template:Consonants to Template:CSS IPA consonant chart. It has been wikified and I hope that it will be more easy to maintain than a messy table. -- &#9993; Hello World! 06:17, 1 November 2008 (UTC)


 * What's your question? :P —Tamfang (talk) 07:49, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Nope. Sorry. Just a notice. -- &#9993; Hello World! 07:54, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * This is the language reference desk. Perhaps you were looking for Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Phonetics. —Angr 10:24, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Capitalisation of noun
"I can't really help set one up in Amsterdam since I'm never there and have no affiliation with the university there" - should 'universtiy' begin with a capital U because I'm talking about a specific university? Seans Potato Business 12:19, 1 November 2008 (UTC)


 * No. You would only capitalize the word if it stood for the full proper noun itself, i.e. if you could replace it with "Amsterdam University" without any change of meaning.--Shantavira|feed me 13:29, 1 November 2008 (UTC)


 * It'd be lowercase in present English style. In older English style, especially formal English, you would've capitalized it, but that's been out of fashion for a century or so. In fact such shortened forms used to be treated as if they were the original noun typographically (even if they grammatically didn't fit in place of the original noun), even going so far as to italicize them if the original noun would've been italicized, as in, "a paper appearing in last month's edition of this Journal said that...". A modern author would instead simply say "of this journal". --Delirium (talk) 04:20, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

essay
can i have a conclusion for my essay on the topic solar energy??

a little urgent please......................... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Varsha 95 (talk • contribs) 17:02, 1 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Isn't the idea behind an essay that you write it yourself? Have you read our article on solar energy? There are lots of ideas there.--Shantavira|feed me 18:17, 1 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Wittiness and clever comments are usually best for openings, but if you're stuck, they can be okay for conclusions. Use what someone said about the sun (quotes can easily be found online) and compare it to what you learned about how solar energy is used.


 * But, if you must...*Sigh* Okay, here goes.


 * "The preceding information I looked up on my own. I couldn't think of anything clever to write, though, so I looked on Wikipedia. But, don't worry, (teacher's name) I didn't use any sources from there. I only had complete strangers write conclusions and picked the one I liked best. This will dock me points, I'm sure, but 90% of something is better than nothing, right?"


 * I'd use the quote idea if I were you; just Google "sun" and "quotes".Somebody or his brother (talk) 22:54, 1 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Wow, I've seen people wanting us to do their homework, but seriously, this takes the cake! --Jayron32. talk . contribs  02:57, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
 * That is yes, unless you were around the desks at the same time as the Physics Guy. Urngh. Except this one demands mentalism. Still, one star for your optimism and chutzpah Varsha95. Julia Rossi (talk) 08:34, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Using the word "superlative"
Is it wrong to use the word "superlative" in the sense of the word "favorite"? Like, instead of saying "My favorite ice cream is vanilla", say instead "Vanilla ice cream is a personal superlative of mine". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.16.88.147 (talk) 18:56, 1 November 2008 (UTC)


 * No, you can't use it like that. Check out Wiktionary's article for more information.--el Aprel (facta-facienda) 20:15, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * It would be superlatively wrong. Clarityfiend (talk) 11:42, 2 November 2008 (UTC)


 * It seems you can use it like that. The wiktionary article supports your icecream, 69.16.88.147. with this: "superlative: Exceptionally good; of the highest quality; superb." Instead of using superior, absolutely, best or other mundane term, you've bumped it creatively into the top bracket by using "superlative". Julia Rossi (talk) 22:28, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Uuuh? ...is a personal superb of mine? a personal superior? Clarityfiend (talk) 23:26, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Not exactly, but don't worry about it. Btw, Wiktionary seems to accept the word as both adjective and noun. So does the popup dictionary: "2. (usu. superlatives) an exaggerated or hyperbolical expression of praise : the critics ran out of superlatives to describe him. 3. something or someone embodying excellence." Something new to me,  Julia Rossi (talk) 00:01, 3 November 2008 (UTC)


 * That is the adjectival use of the word, and it can't be converted to a noun that way. It is possible to use superlative as a noun, though - e.g. Guinness World Records are published by a company called Guinness Superlatives; and we have articles containing Superlatives - see Academy Award for Best Actress, where each individual record is called a superlative.  But I've never heard it used as a noun in reference to a personal favourite, in the way you're suggesting.  --  JackofOz (talk) 00:00, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Does it need a precedent or is this creative license? Just wondering it through, Julia Rossi (talk) 00:05, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * The sentence would make sense if the OP went around saying things like "Bogart was 'vanilla ice cream' in Casablanca", but substituting the word for "favorite" would require either creative license or being the President of the United States. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:37, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, Julia, as I wandered through your reply I saw the until-now-unheard-of expression "wondering it through", so clearly, one can use words any way one pleases in poetic and other contexts. The question is, do they necessarily make any sense?  Superlative has connotations of record-breaking, best (or better than), top notch, absolutely first class or indeed in a class of its own, the first to achieve some significant milestone, etc.  Favourite does not have any of these connotations, because just because X is a favourite of mine does not mean I'm necessarily claiming it's the best of its type.  Even people who use loose expressions such as "He's a great/wonderful/fantastic/the best actor" when they really mean "I really like his acting", recognise that there's no accounting for tastes.  --  JackofOz (talk) 00:53, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I guess I didn't see the op's statement as extreme (thinking of an article where an actress decided not to use fantastic, amazing etc for ordinary things like cushions when she turned 30 !? anyway) but comparative and a personal opinion. It's interesting to explore what seems unofficial yet makes sense. I've learned that (maybe) superlative is a superlative of its own degree (good/better/best). Appreciate your patience, ;) Julia Rossi (talk) 02:24, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Perhaps Bogart was "vanilla ice creamiest"? Still laughing @ the "accurate" inaccuracies of the great Bushismo. How does he do it? A speech-writer? Julia Rossi (talk) 02:27, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I am ice cream and I come in several varieties, of which vanilla ice cream is a personal superlative of mine. That's how I would understand your sentence. &mdash; Kpalion(talk) 18:43, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Requesting Translation from antique to modern English.
Following are two quotations from the Book of Mormon. They are included in the Wikipedia article Book of Mormon (Mormon's record) as "important teachings."

Can someone please provide a paraphrase or a summary of this in modern English?


 * Yea, behold, I write unto all the ends of the earth; yea, unto you, twelve tribes of Israel, who shall be judged according to your works by the twelve whom Jesus chose to be his disciples in the land of Jerusalem. And I write also unto the remnant of this people,... that ye may know that ye must all stand before the judgment–seat of Christ, yea, every soul who belongs to the whole human family of Adam; and ye must stand to be judged of your works, whether they be good or evil; And also that ye may believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, which ye shall have among you; and also that the Jews, the covenant people of the Lord, shall have other witness besides him whom they saw and heard, that Jesus, whom they slew, was the very Christ and the very God. And I would that I could persuade all ye ends of the earth to repent and prepare to stand before the judgment–seat of Christ. (Mormon 3:18 - 22)


 * Now these things are ... to be hid up unto the Lord that they may come forth in his own due time. And this is the commandment which I have received; and behold, they shall come forth according to the commandment of the Lord, when he shall see fit, in his wisdom. And behold, they shall go unto the unbelieving of the Jews; and for this intent shall they go—that they may be persuaded that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God; that the Father may bring about, through his most Beloved, his great and eternal purpose, in restoring the Jews, or all the house of Israel, to the land of their inheritance, which the Lord their God hath given them, unto the fulfilling of his covenant; (Mormon 5:12 - 14)

I tried to follow this text but got bogged down at "And also that ye may believe". CBHA (talk) 21:12, 1 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Ah, I dunno. Murky pseudo-Jacobean stuff it is. Try this, which I whipped up in haste, with a little glossing and interpretation along the way:
 * Look, I'm writing this for everyone everywhere – for you twelve tribes of Israel who will be judged by the twelve disciples Jesus chose in the land of Jerusalem. Yes, for those of you who remain from the tribes, so that you will all know: you will be judged at the seat of Christ, along with every other human from the family of Adam. You must stand and be judged, for your good and evil deeds. I write so that you will believe the gospel of Jesus Christ when it comes to you; and so that the Jews, with whom the Lord entered into a contract, will have evidence (beyond the man himself when they see and hear him) that Jesus whom they murdered was indeed both their God and their Christ – the anointed Messiah they had been waiting for. I urge you and the whole world to repent, and be ready for Christ's judgement.


 * "These things are to be kept secret until God in his own good time comes and lets them be known, as I am instructed. They will be revealed at God's command when he in his wisdom sees fit: to those Jews who do not believe, to persuade them that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. This is so that the Father may achieve, through his most Beloved, his great and eternal purpose, and restore the Jews – indeed, all of the house of Israel – to the land of their inheritance, which the Lord their God has given them, and so fulfil his contract with them."
 * – ⊥¡ɐɔıʇǝo N  oetica! T– 22:31, 1 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Behold and harken to my words of wisdom:
 * Hast thou studied this learned, but not compiled by the late obscurantist angel Moroni, article?  --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 22:42, 1 November 2008 (UTC)


 * ? . 79.66.37.142 (talk) 16:53, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Often articles that are difficult to read are much in need of editing. CBHA (talk) 20:36, 2 November 2008 (UTC)