Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 July 11

= July 11 =

appointment for?
I know that appointment with is natural. (appointment only in sense of pre-arranged meeting) Do you use appointment for? Do you say "the minister gave an appointment for the war widow"? --Rdbchauhan (talk) 04:09, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I would say "the minister arranged an appointment for the war widow". It could also be used thusly: "I made an appointment for a checkup." Clarityfiend (talk) 04:54, 11 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Or both: I made an appointment with my doctor for a checkup. --  JackofOz (talk) 05:37, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
 * or even "The senator had an appointment with the President for discussions on Johnson's appointment to Secretary of State." 71.236.26.74 (talk) 11:36, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Chinese translation
The page http://alessio.guglielmi.name/index.html advises people against using telephones, then says something in Chinese. What does it say? Thanks. 208.70.31.206 (talk) 07:50, 11 July 2009 (UTC)


 * The translation is there on the page. I don't use the phone and you should do the same. Oda Mari (talk) 09:58, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

"Fewer carbon emissions" or "less carbon emission"?
As in the phrase "Electric cars cause less carbon emission". But I believe that In English, one generally speaks of 'carbon emissions', in plural. So I'm inclined to say 'fewer carbon emissions'. But isn't 'fewer' reserved for discrete quantities, such as tables or cars? If it is a continuous quantity, such as an amount of milk or a distance, it should be 'less', right? But then it has to be singlar, in other words 'less carbon emission'. But somehow that doesn't feel right. Please de-confuse me. :) DirkvdM (talk) 12:43, 11 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Both might be acceptable, but I've heard "carbon emissions" more than I've heard "carbon emission" which seems to imply that people envision discrete emissions. Similarly, although water is continuous, it may be broken up into units of cups.  Perhaps the trip to the store, and then the trip back home count as two different emissions.  To be technically accurate, "less carbon emission" would be what's desirable in reducing CO2 buildup.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  17:44, 11 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I think this is a case where we must not attempt to reason from logic, but must observe what people say. What they say is "carbon emissions", plural, and they use it as a mass noun, so it has to be "less carbon emissions".  (The mass noun article does not admit that a word can be plural when it's being used as a mass noun, but it can, although these uses tend to be disputed.  One example is graffiti, as mentioned in that article.)


 * If I heard "fewer carbon emissions", I'd either think that the speaker was confused or else that the meaning was that the number of different carbon-containing compounds being emitted was smaller. --Anonymous, 20:16 UTC, expanded 20:18, July 11, 2009, formatting fixed later.


 * It is a phrase that really annoys me, but it does have 6,380 google hits, compared to 1,630 for "less carbon emission". The most popular is "less carbon emissions" with 14,900. There is a really annoying Lexus advert on UK TV at the moment that says "fewer carbon emissions", and though I know what it means I do think "go on then, which compounds doesn't it produce". -- Q Chris (talk) 20:50, 11 July 2009 (UTC)


 * "Fewer carbon emissions" sounds like an understandable hypercorrection. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 03:39, 12 July 2009 (UTC)


 * All the versions using "less" and "fewer" sound wrong to me, with "less carbon emission" being the least bad. But I think you can avoid the problem by using "lower carbon emissions". AndrewWTaylor (talk) 11:44, 12 July 2009 (UTC)


 * It should really be "reduce" or "lower" (verb) carbon emissions, or a "smaller" volume of carbon emissions. "An emission" is an event - one instance of emission. The "less" and "fewer" imply the measurement of a quantity (uncountable and countable) of carbon emissions respectively. However, the intended meaning of the sentence refers not to the number of instances of emissions, but rather to the volume of emission. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 13:08, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

(Unindenting) No, it isn't an event. It's a waste product that is emitted. --Anonymous, 21:24 UTC, July 12, 2009.


 * The waste product is not countable. An emission as a countable noun is an event of emission. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:56, 12 July 2009 (UTC)


 * "An" emission could have that meaning, but that's not what anyone's interested in. They're interested in the total amount of stuff emitted.  Which is why "fewer emissions" is wrong.  --Anonymous, 05:10 UTC, July 13, 2009.


 * Yes, that's what I meant with that 'fewer' is for discrete quantities. But if one goes for 'less', then it must be singular, so 'less carbon emission'. I suppose that's gramatically correct. But it's not the common terminology. I think I'll go for "Electric cars reduce carbon emissions". that avoids the problem. But it doesn't resolve the linguistic issue. In computer terminology, it's a workaround, but not a solution.
 * PalaceGuard, can't one speak of 'the emission of carbon' as in 'the act of emitting'? When people use electric cars, they emit less carbon, so that causes less carbon emission. Right? My gut says no, but my brain says yes, and being a logical purist, I tend to follow my brain. :) DirkvdM (talk) 14:00, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Anonymous (I wish people would stop doing that), DirkvdM -- that's what I meant. The intended meaning here is not referring to discrete acts of emission, it's talking about amount emitted - so the noun emission should not be countable, and so "less emission", or "reduced emission" should be used, not "fewer". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 03:26, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
 * That's what the usage should be, but it's not what it is. "Less emissions", plural, is what people actually say, mostly.  --Anon, 10:50 UTC, July 14, 2009.
 * Right. It's more correct in meaning than "fewer emissions" at least. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 04:48, 15 July 2009 (UTC)