Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 August 22

= August 22 =

Japanese translation
Could somebody check Toyo Engineering Corporation? I merged Toyo Engineering into it, but the Japanese writing was from the latter article, so I suspect it doesn't include the word "Corporation". Clarityfiend (talk) 00:34, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The word is needed. See their official page. Oda Mari (talk) 05:51, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Arigato. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:54, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Is there a name for this syntax problem?
From the symphonic black metal article, "The genre is known for its symphonic and orchestral elements and is centralized in Europe." It seems to me this sentence is grammatically incorrect. I'm not looking for how to correct it (that's easily done), I just want to know why it's awkward and if there is a name for the error. For example, it's saying the genre "is" centralized, as if it were a physical, concrete object. Also, it seems to be two ideas stuck together to form a single awkward sentence. –  Ker αun oςc op ia◁ galaxies  00:52, 22 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't see anything wrong with the sentence. If you're objecting to an abstract entity being said to be "centralised" (although I can't see what's wrong with that), that's a semantic issue, not a syntactic one.  Marnanel (talk) 00:57, 22 August 2010 (UTC)


 * The issue of two ideas being stuck together is related to syllepsis, although perhaps not quite the same (it's not as bad as something like this). The issue of "centralized" is, as Marnanel says, semantic, and has to do with the verb's subcategorization requirements (i.e., in your idiolect, perhaps "centralized" can only take a noun that has a feature of being physical). r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 01:17, 22 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Lovely example you linked. I've always liked "John likes history, algebra, and blondes," but the linked example bends it much further (and the cited example bends it a bit less). - Jmabel | Talk 01:36, 22 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Okay, ignore the centralized bit. It's the syllepsis that was bothering me, and I agree it's a light version of it. But your link was hilarious, and it led me to zeugma, which contains examples of the types of sentences I've seen written on many a message board. I always knew there was a name for these things (in English, there's a name for everything). The original sentence I posted still bothers me, even if it may technically have nothing wrong with it. Thanks for the replies! –  Ker αun oςc op ia◁ galaxies  02:13, 22 August 2010 (UTC)


 * It is not really anything as artful as syllepsis, merely a non sequitur, two clauses describing the genre that do not have a close connection unwisely placed in the same sentence. It is akin to writing "Metal is a music genre. Guitars are a form of musical instrument.", there is nothing is wrong with either sentence but placed together without a logical progression will begin to make a text unreadable. The word "centralized" is just adding to the confusion as it suggests deliberate planning in locating the genre there, while a better word might be "centred" which simply recognises where the genre is common.  meltBanana  14:47, 22 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Uh-huh. The sentence is in the English passive voice, deliberately not specifying a subject to do the knowing or the centering (or centralizing). I wonder if it's possible to rephrase it in the active voice? This isn't necessarily a good idea, but how would it be done? It could be split into two sentences with two subjects, the first being "Music fans know it for its symphonic..." and the second being "The genre has Europe as its center". (Center of popularity?) 213.122.23.141 (talk) 17:29, 22 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually you're right that "centralized" is bad, but for the wrong reason. "Centralized" implies that somebody actively moved the center there, which is probably not the case.  The word should simply be "centered". Looie496 (talk) 03:09, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Icelandic /g+j/, /k+j/ across morpheme boundaries
In Icelandic orthography, the combinations 'gj' and 'kj' represent voiceless palatal plosives (aspirated if word-initial 'kj', unaspirated otherwise); I just corrected the table in the linked article which had 'g' being pronounced as a velar plosive in front of 'j'. I added in 'gj' and 'kj' as separate rows in the table. Now my question is, is there ever a situation where the combinations 'gj' and 'kj' represent instead, such as across morpheme boundaries? Or is an underlying phonemic sequence always realized as ? Or perhaps such combinations don't occur across morpheme boundaries in Icelandic? --Iceager (talk) 14:09, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Languistic Map
I have two questions about this map: :
 * What do the two little light green points in Lazio represent?
 * Why is Pantelleria light purple? Shouldn't it be dark purple (Sicilian)? --151.51.6.65 (talk) 19:22, 22 August 2010 (UTC)


 * For Lazio, the dots do seem to represent the Venetian language still to be found in pockets of the Pontine Marshes. See Agro Pontino on Italian WP, for example. As for Pantelleria, I don't know why it isn't marked dark purple. Italian WP's article on dialetto pantesco classifies the island's dialect as a variant of the Sicilian language (as does that article and its first map). ---Sluzzelin talk  19:52, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Saving Fingering from the English Language
The English language doesn't seem to have any remotely appealing terms for the sexual act of fingering. I'm looking for something a little more suave. Do any other languages have more flattering terms—without comical connotations? We can also creative get here—I'm just tired of English's linguistic bankruptcy concerning the act. E.g. if "fingering" doesn't have a literal translation, how might it sound to turn that noun into a verb in—say—French or Italian? I want to hear some music.

(Thanks for considering a kind of bizarre question.)

Alfonse Stompanato (talk) 20:37, 22 August 2010 (UTC)


 * digital stimulation? I suppose you could pattern it after fellatio and call it 'digitio', but that sounds sort of like a pokemon creature.  don't ask what its special attack is...  -- Ludwigs 2  22:21, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Digitio's attack is the Killer poke. Its evolved forms are Duodigitio and Tresdigitio. Rule 34, no exceptions, mind you. -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 16:55, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't understand what's not "appealing" or "flattering" about the term "fingering". It has a rather likeable internal rhyme, and I'm amused that it's appropriately dactylic.  If you're asking for music, it's even a musical term.  (Do you perhaps have other reasons to dislike the word than its alleged lack of euphony, such as some kind of prejudice against the English language in itself?) Marnanel (talk) 00:00, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
 * "They call them fingers, but I've never seen them fing. ... Oh, there they go." Deor (talk) 00:24, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Digital stimulation (or even more specifically digital-genital stimulation) is the medical term, as Ludwig has pointed out. Other possibilities off the top of my head could be internal massage, subdermal stroking, ... Steewi (talk) 01:52, 23 August 2010 (UTC)


 * The translations you can find in the article Fingering (sexual act) are as follows:

Prstění Byseddu (rhyw) Ujjazás Vingeren 手マン Palcówka (seks) Fingering (sexual act) 指交
 * The only one of those that I can read is the Chinese (zh), which basically translates to "finger intercourse", not much different than the English. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 02:14, 23 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Hey, y'all, the answer to the OP's question is embedded within the discussion, and should be obvious in this day and age. Instead of the vulgar sounding "fingering", call it the high-tech sounding "digitizing". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:49, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Except 'digitizing' is already in common use. Unless you're suggesting that it's a good idea to reduce your sexual partners to binary code via a sampling procedure (like those Japanese guys that marry anime characters - I think there's 3 or 4 of them now, right?) -- Ludwigs 2  17:26, 23 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm amused at the notion that calling an unremarkable and completely normal act what it is is somehow a problem. If the term "fingering" is vulgar, unappealing or otherwise undesirable, then surely the act itself is equally guilty.  I mean, it's not as if you're going to be describing in intimate detail your recent activities of this nature to the Queen at the next Buckingham Palace garden party - or, indeed, asking her about hers.  So, really, the question of lack of suaveness never arises.  If you ever do talk about this, I can't imagine it would be in circumstances where you'd need to find a euphemism.  When you go to the doctor about some issue and you have to refer to the space between your buttocks, do you studiously avoid saying the word "crack" because it's "unappealing"?  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   13:18, 23 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia really does have an article on everything - including the Intergluteal cleft. Mitch Ames (talk) 13:35, 23 August 2010 (UTC)


 * The Japanese (手マン, teman) means "hand-cunt." Do with that what you will, but I'd argue that "fingering" is a more appealing term.  Exploding Boy (talk) 17:00, 23 August 2010 (UTC)


 * yeah, well, cunnilingus literally means 'cunt-tongue'. Societies have a long history of making coarse things sound elegant by speaking them in some language most people in their culture don't understand.  a cheap way of improving on l'odeur de fromage, if you follow me...  That being said, I think the closest English-use term to this is probably frottage.


 * Yes, but cunnilingus is Latin, which most English speakers don't understand, whereas 手マン is modern Japanese, which most Japanese speakers do. Also, frottage is by definition non-penetrative.  Exploding Boy (talk) 18:04, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

you could try Italian kiss :) 84.153.253.222 (talk) 09:33, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

A word of Greek
My academically-inclined daughter has a t-shirt from her college that says:

"120 years of defining atapos"

Only it doesn't say 'atapos', it has 6 Greek letters. They are, more fully:

alpha (with two markings over it) tao (I'm not even sure I'm spelling that right) O (or something that looks like O) pi  (I know this one) O (again) and a letter that would look a lot like a C, except that, after the part that sweeps to the right side at the bottom, it curves downward and back under itself so that it looks a bit like an S that got put too far down vertically.

Can someone figure out what the word is from that and tell me, please? She says she's a Latin major, hasn't studied Greek...

rc (talk) 21:04, 22 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Must be άτοπος atopos: alpha with diacritic + tau + omicron + pi + omicron + sigma (final form).  --  the Great   Gavini  21:22, 22 August 2010 (UTC)


 * The adjective ἄτοπος (atopos) basically means "out of place" (α-, "not", τόπος, "place") and has various senses, ranging from "strange", "eccentric", or "extraordinary" to "unnatural" or "disgusting". You and your daughter are probably better placed than I to determine which is most applicable to her college. Deor (talk) 21:26, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
 * And the word is actually ἄτοπος with (presumably) a smooth breathing and an acute accent on the first letter ("two markings"). My dictionary agrees in the range of meanings --rossb (talk) 21:34, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

"Eccentric" and "extraordinary" certainly all fit to various extents. Thanks to all you classicists. My apologies for not having formatted the letter descriptions better, or having dug into symbols enough to enter the actual letters.