Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 August 6

= August 6 =

Double adjectives following "a pair of"
A pair of Japanese and United States computer whizzes claim to have calculated pi to five trillion decimal places …

That says to me that both these people had dual nationality or dual citizenship. However, the rest of the story makes clear that one was from Japan, the other from the USA, and there is no mention of dual anything.

Are there any exceptions to the rule (I assume there is such a rule) that whatever adjectives follow “a pair of” apply equally to both members of the pair?

Is there an easier way to rephrase the sentence than “A pair of computer whizzes, one from Japan, the other from the United States, claim to have …”? -- (Jack of Oz =) 202.142.129.66 (talk) 00:49, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * It's very bad wording, but people make that kind of mistake all the time. You could say "A Japanese and an American computer whiz claim...", but it doesn't sound quite right. (I would never use "United States" as an adjective, either. As much as I hate it, the correct adjective form is "American".) --Tango (talk) 02:25, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * If you like the "pair", you could say, "A pair of computer whizzes, one Japanese and one American, claim to have ..." and then maybe wonder what the point would be considering that each decimal place is only 1/10th the magnitude of the previous one. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:36, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * If you were talking about a couple (as in two partners in a romantic relationship), I think you could say "a Japanese-American couple", but somehow "a Japanese-American pair of computer whizzes" doesn't seem to work, perhaps because it's less of a unified entitiy than couple?---Sluzzelin talk  11:28, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * "A Japanese-American couple, Yuki Yamaguchi and Sarah Finkelstein, ..." would leave one in no doubt they were one of each nationality, and which one had which. But "A British-Australian couple, Mary Smith and Brian Jones .. " could easily mean they were both born British, got together in the UK, and moved as a couple to Australia; when the truth may be that Mary was British, and she met her Australian partner Brian while both were holidaying in Majorca.  So, it depends.  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   22:02, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * "Japanese-American" would usually mean an American citizen of Japanese descent (analogous to African-American). --Tango (talk) 22:06, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Usage of "American"

 * Oh, Bugs, if you think the five trillionth decimal in pi is a pointless thing to know, then I'm sorry to say you just haven't got what it takes to be a pure mathematician. Tango, side issue, but what's the objection to "American", apart from any possible confusion with other parts of the Americas (which isn't really a confusion at all since nobody ever refers to Canadians or Mexicans or Uruguayans using the contintental sense of "American")?  The country is, after all, the United States of America, not the United States of Anywhere Else.  --  202.142.129.66 (talk) 02:45, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * "American", by itself, refers to the USA. Regarding pi, I wonder if they found a "Hi There" message in the middle of it, as postulated in the book that was made into a movie called First Contact or something like that (a Jodie Foster movie). ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:50, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * That is the objection. "American" ought to mean anyone form the continents of America rather than from one country. (BTW, calculating pi to lots of decimal places has nothing to do with pure maths, it's just a way of showing off how good your computer is.) --Tango (talk) 02:54, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Then what business did the founding fathers have in using the word "America" in the name of the country? Whatever, but they did so use it.  Hence "American".   "USian" etc just don't wash.  --  202.142.129.66 (talk) 03:03, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Bugs, don't be sidetracked by sillinesses of the 4th kind. Focus on the number itself in all its glory, and be enrichulated.  --  202.142.129.66 (talk) 02:59, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * 202.142 has a point. Off the top of my head I would say there isn't another country on the continent (nor anywhere else in the world) with "America" in its name. Rimush (talk) 08:04, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * There might not be at the moment. But if e.g. Myanmar suddenly decided to rename themselves the United Republic of Asia, would you then accept that the term Asian then would only apply to persons from there? Hardly. 88.131.68.194 (talk) 09:48, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Nobody is saying that "American" only refers to people and things from the USA. Of course it can have wider meanings than this.  But the USA is the only country whose demonym is "American".  As well, context is everything.  If a random person says "I am an American", then unless there is some context that indicates to the contrary, that is taken to mean by 100% of people that he is a citizen or national of the USA, not of anywhere else in the world in general, and not of anywhere else in the Americas in particular.  This has never been a problem, so it amazes me that of recent times some people have tried to make a problem out of it.  Words mean what they do mean, not what someone thinks they should mean.  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   09:59, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * You're right. I've heard many Europeans refer to the USA as "America". It's common usage. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:27, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * And not just Europeans. See Coming to America, America, America, The Americanization of Emily, The American President, and numerous other native uses.  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   10:44, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't know, but I wonder if the USA was the first nation in the western hemisphere to gain independence from its European counterpart? If so, it would have made sense to glom onto the "America" part. What else would they call it? Washingtonia? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:51, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * How are people from the United Arab Emirates usually referred to? The article lists "Emirati" but also "Arab" as demonyms. This sort of corresponds with either "Statesian" (or something like that) and "American", doesn't it? ---Sluzzelin  talk  11:08, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

The basic reality is that there is no convenient English-language single-word true adjective corresponding to Spanish estadounidense, and as long as no such word exists in English, then some other word will have to be pulled in to fill the linguistic gap (currently "American" is used as the gap-filler). Frank Lloyd Wright advocated for the word "Usonian" to fill the gap, but it never really caught on... AnonMoos (talk) 17:04, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, no formal English-language single-word true adjective. Over here in Ukland, we generally use "Yank" as an adjective and noun in casual conversation, unless there are any citizens of the USA actually present :-) . 87.81.230.195 (talk) 20:50, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Being called a "Yank" by a Brit is a badge of honor. :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:54, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * We've called ourselves "Yank" on occasion, as with Yank, The Army Weekly and "I'm a Cranky Old Yank in a Clanky Old Tank on the Streets of Yokohama with my Honolulu Mama Doin' Those Beat-o, Beat-o Flat-On-My-Seat-o, Hirohito Blues", but as a general-purpose "demonym" it's somewhat lacking... AnonMoos (talk) 23:00, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Soytenly! I'm also thinking of this patriotic American song that goes "Over there / over there / send the word / send the word / over there / that the Yanks are coming / the Yanks are coming / the drums rum-tumming everywhere ... and we won't come back till it's over / over there." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:30, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * "Yank" is fine as a noun and as a predicate adjective, but it's a little awkward as a prenominal adjective, or if you try to use it in the comparative and superlative degree... AnonMoos (talk) 21:57, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * What's this? "American" a gap-filler? and a temporary one at that?  What a load of rubbish, if I may speak bluntly.  It is the permanent demonym of the United States of America, and has been since the inception of that country.  It is as cemented in as it is possible for any word to be.  It is not ever going to be supplanted by any other word, unless they change the name of the country to something that doesn't include the word "America".  And is that likely to happen?  Well, we don't do crystal ball gazing here, but NO.  Get over it, get lives, and move on.  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   21:51, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I said nothing about "temporary". However, if there had been a convenient English-language single-word true adjective handy in the 1770s, then "American" probably never would have come into use in that meaning in the first place... AnonMoos (talk) 21:57, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh, but that's like saying we call those things we sit on "chairs" because there was no better word available. Isn't it?  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   22:10, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The United Mexican States is Mexico, the Federal Republic of Germany is Germany but the United States of America has no name. I don't think it works like that. Rmhermen (talk) 22:20, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Y'all are missing a key point. There is no other place that is also Mexico.  There is no other place that is also Germany.  There are many other places that are also in The Americas.  Please try to address that in further responses.
 * DaHorsesMouth (talk) 22:45, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, but how often are things outside the USA described as "American"? Well, let's see.  There's the Organization of American States.  And there are the adjectives for North, Central, Latin and South America, and the Americas in general.  Probably a few other uses.  But BY FAR the primary use of "American" is in reference to the USA.  That is its default meaning, because you need a special context for it mean something else.  That's in English.  What other languages, particularly Spanish, might choose to do is their own affair.  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   03:24, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, exactly. I always say the English word American and the Spanish word americano are false friends. They look and sound similar but have different meanings: the English word American corresponds in meaning to Spanish estadounidense, and the Spanish word americano corresponds to English phrases like New-World or Western-Hemisphere (with hyphens because they're being used attributively) or of the Americas. And anyone who doesn't believe that is invited to ask an English-speaking Canadian if he's an American and see what he says. +Angr 09:11, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
 * What does German amerikanisch mean? The German-speaking people use the attributive US-amerikanisch to strictly refer to something or someone of or from the United States. --Theurgist (talk) 09:22, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, when I tell Germans Ich bin Amerikaner, they know I mean I'm specifically from the U.S., not from just anywhere between Alert and Ushuaia. +Angr 09:43, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Those other "American" contexts are where that handy coinage of mine, 'novomundane', would come into its own, if only someone would bloody well actually use it. The 'Organization of Novomundane States' does have a nice ring.  But why stop there?  To end the ceaseless confusion, they could rename North (etc) America as North (etc) Novomundania.  :)    --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   21:34, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

See also fr:Wikipédia:Prise de décision/États-unien. Visite fortuitement prolongée (talk) 15:17, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

By the way, the common Spanish use of norteamericano for estadounidense is also technically inaccurate, and potentially insulting to the inhabitants of Canada, Greenland, and St. Pierre and Miquelon -- AnonMoos (talk) 11:45, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


 * "American" by itself refers to the USA. The Spanish americano means "American", latinoamericano means "Latin American, norteamericano means "North American" (or sometimes "American"), sudamericano means "South American", estadounidense means a citizen of or pertaining to the USA, and is really more like "United Statesian" or the Frank Lloyd Wrightism "USonian" as noted earlier. Maybe it shouldn't be this way, but it is. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:26, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, but using norteamericano in Spanish to refer to an inhabitant of the U.S.A. is theoretically just as insulting to Canadians, Greenlanders, and St.-Pierre-and-Miquelonites as using "American" in English to refer to an inhabitant of the U.S.A. is theoretically insulting to inhabitants of the Americas outside the U.S.A... AnonMoos (talk) 16:27, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * "Theoretically insulting"? I don't know about the Spanish part, but as for the "American" thing: How about we wait for someone to claim they've actually been insulted by this, and then take whatever action might be appropriate (which would be none), before spending any of our precious worry time over it.  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   20:58, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Does anyone here know whether if you told a Spaniard or an Argentinian or a Mexican, "Soy norteamericano", they would understand it to mean that you're from the U.S. or that you're from the U.S. or Canada? --Atemperman (talk) 17:37, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Bringing a language back from extinction
What is the longest period of time in which a language went extinct and was revived later on? It seems Cornish was revived 150 years after it went extinct. Also is it possible to speak Gaulish the extinct language of the Celtic gauls of France, today, I'm not sure if it's a written language or not.--Queen Elizabeth II&#39;s Little Spy (talk) 07:55, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify, by 'revived', do you mean that the language once again began to be spoken as an everyday means of communication, and taught to children as their 'mother tongue', rather than being intelligible to and potentially useable in conversation by just a few expert archeologists and historical linguists, like Sumerian? Also, by 'extinct', do you mean that it became totally disused in spoken form, rather than being preserved only as a liturgical language for a period before being reintroduced as a living language, like classical and Modern Hebrew? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.81.230.195 (talk) 13:26, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Oops! Sorry for not signing. I usually do, honest! 87.81.230.195 (talk) 20:47, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * 87.81 brings up a good point with the relative nature of "revived." The following doesn't directly answer the original question but I think shows why it's not all that easy to answer.
 * Linguist Geoff Pullum wrote on The Language Log in 2005 about efforts to revive Cornish. While the following is his (educated) opinion, I think it's a relevant one:
 * Let me remind you what is necessary for a language to be living: there must be little kids who speak the language with each other because it is their only language or else their favorite. Little kids who would speak it even if they were told not to. It is not enough that a community of grownups (squabbling or not) has learned it from books and reads to each other each Tuesday night in someone's living room...
 * Ask around the village and find the age of the youngest people using a language every day for all their normal conversational interaction. If the answer is a number larger than 5, the language is probably dying. If the answer is a number larger than 10, it is very probably doomed. If the answer is a number larger than 20, you can kiss it goodbye right now.
 * Pullum refers to a colleague who believes that "traditional Gaeltacht [Irish_language|Irish]" (Gaeilge) will be dead before the middle of the century. Jim McCloskey's thoughts are more nuanced than I can summarize here.  He makes a case for second-language use while making clear that "what is ‘maintained’ or ‘revived’ in this process, is very different indeed from the language which was the original focus of revivalist efforts."   --- OtherDave (talk) 13:52, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * That's an interesting article, thanks for the link. (One interesting thing about it is that as recently as 2004, Jim McCloskey still hadn't figured out how to put an acute accent over a vowel on his computer and was still using the vowel + slash kludge people were using in the early 1990s when only ASCII was available.) +Angr 22:38, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Esperanto was brought to life as a language which had never existed.—Wavelength (talk) 16:26, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

There isn't really a critical mass of surviving long connected texts in Gaulish Celtic, so if you were to try to make it be a full usable language, a lot of speculative filling in of gaps would necessarily be involved. The only language which has been fully resurrected from being the childhood language or birth tongue of nobody to being a well-established language with full recognition from at least one government in the world (i.e. not just the hobby project of a few individuals) is Hebrew. Cornish definitely does not qualify -- its enthusiasts can't even agree which of three competing spelling systems to use...

Wavelength -- There are a few people who grew up speaking Esperanto (since that was the only language which their mother and father had in common), but there are no real Esperanto monolinguals, and interestingly such childhood native speakers of Esperanto generally end up using a form of the language which is rather divergent from Esperanto as approved by Zamenhoff, so it's hard to say that Esperanto is actually a living language, in any meaningful sense of the term.

In any case, in censuses of India, there are always a few people who claim to be native Sanskrit speakers... AnonMoos (talk) 16:48, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Do you have a source regarding the non-standard use of Esperanto by "native" speakers? Not that I doubt you—I'd just like to read more about it. WP's Esperanto and Native Esperanto speakers say nothing of it.--el Aprel (facta-facienda) 03:17, 7 August 2010 (UTC)


 * My source was oral folklore among academic linguists, that native Esperanto speakers "creolize" the language to some degree, and that such departures are often looked down upon by those who learned Esperanto as adults -- whereas if Esperanto were a true living language, they would set the direction of future language change (as happened in the early 20th century when early native modern Hebrew speakers departed in some details from classical Biblical/Mishnaic Hebrew). AnonMoos (talk)
 * See Native Esperanto speakers. Nyttend (talk) 00:55, 8 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Wouldn't the revival of the Hebrew language be the best example of this? John M Baker (talk) 17:34, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * It was already mentioned several times above... AnonMoos (talk) 09:53, 7 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, the revival of the Hebrew language, in its literary form with the Haskalah, and especially as a spoken language, through Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, is really interesting. It may be an example for the speakers of endangered languages. --Keguligh (talk) 23:35, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Just to go back to the original question; the last people who could speak Cornish died towards the end of the 19th Century, at about the time that the revival began. This page refers to them as "semi-speakers". The initial aim of the revival was to give access to the Cornish literary canon, hence the strange mix of early and middle strands of the language in the "Unified Cornish" system. It would be like learning English which was a mix of Chaucer, Mallory, Shakespeare and the King James Bible. Alansplodge (talk) 17:45, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Unified Cornish? I smell a bad unicorn pun... -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 18:20, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Etymology of Yugoslavia
What is the etymology of Yugoslavia? The article does not say?Ritta Margot Clantagenet (talk) 08:56, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Hmm, if not, it should. Yug-, yugo- and similar terms are commonly found in Slavic languages, meaning "south, southerly".  Yugoslavia was the land of the south Slavs.  The tennis player Mikhail Youzhny might otherwise be called Michael South.  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   09:01, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * See Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. I agree it should be moved/copied to the "main" article. No such user (talk) 09:02, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks a bundle! So fast!Ritta Margot Clantagenet (talk) 09:03, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

There is also a list of country name etymologies. (And a list of etymologies of country subdivision names.) --84.46.3.47 (talk) 03:31, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Japanese
http://www.gamefreak.co.jp/blog/dir/

Could someone translate the four most recent entries on there? I tried Google translator (which gave me a lot of gibberish), and the English version on the site is a year out of date. --138.110.206.102 (talk) 12:29, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * That's quite a lot you're asking for... I'll give you the last entry, because it's the shortest, somebody else might have more time on their hands and do the rest:
 * ''Game Freak is going on summer vacation from tomorrow.
 * ''Masuda will be in Hawaii from the 12th to the 18th for the WCS!
 * ''What country will be the first in the world?
 * ''Check out this site for more:
 * ''http://www.pokemonworldchampionships.com/2010/
 * ''Ciao!
 * Hope that starts you off. TomorrowTime (talk) 13:02, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

"oly gyenge jellem, hogy mindent elkölt, az utolsó fillérig"
If you understand that, please help answer the question at Reference_desk/Humanities. Thanks. --Dweller (talk) 15:41, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Japanese help
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ds/irbj/index.html

Click the link under Reshiram (the left one). What do the labels on the map say? --138.110.206.101 (talk) 19:41, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I only get an error message for that site. Maybe you could take a screenshot and upload it somewhere? TomorrowTime (talk) 08:57, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
 * A screenshot can be found here. There are more labels (the map is scrollable), but you get the idea.  (talk) 12:22, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

"The couple is" or "the couple are"...
...expecting their next child? Shahid •  Talk 2 me  21:04, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * My understanding is that you use "is" or "was" when referring to the couple as a whole, but "are" or "were" when referring to individual members. For example, "The couple are getting married next week", but "The couple is expecting their next child". Regardless of which verb you use, the pronoun is almost universally "their", not "its". Xenon54 (talk) 21:14, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Whoa, hang on a minute there, Xenon54. The couple is expecting their next child - ??   That doesn't sit well in my brain.  That's one case where I'd retroactively readjust the verb to agree with the the pronoun.  The couple are expecting their next child sounds much more natural, even if it's a joint expectation.  Same with cases like The couple is making their travel plans > The couple are making their travel plans, even if they're travelling together at all times.  Technical correctness has to take a back seat in such cases.  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   21:33, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * In British English, we would almost always use the plurals. American English tends to be a little more logical and use singular verbs and pronouns for singular nouns, even if they refer to multiple individuals. For example, in British English we would say "The government are doing a bad job." and in American English they would say "The government is doing a bad job.". --Tango (talk) 21:19, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * You're right. Typical usage would be "The couple is..."; not "The couple are..."; although saying it the second way would not be the end of the world. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:25, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * That's typical usage in the US. --Tango (talk) 21:43, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The US usage is what matters. --138.110.206.101 (talk) 22:33, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Do you bloody mind? This is the English speaking WP and many others apart from Merkins use it! So the exclusive US interpretation of everything is not welcome!
 * BTW, verb should always agree with subject. Therefore: 'The couple is' is correct. Couple is a singular noun.--BrianSturgeon (talk) 23:38, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree, it should, but in British English it doesn't. --Tango (talk) 23:52, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * But does it always work as a singular noun, Brian? Here are some opinions to the contrary.  Sometimes it refers to the multiple individual elements of the set, rather than the set itself.  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   07:43, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is common outside the USA for technically singular group nouns to be used to refer to the members of the group ("the members of the government ..."; "the individuals in the couple ..."). Whilst a singular subject must always take a verb in the singular, the "members of ..." usage is sufficiently common to many speakers of English that they automatically read a plural subject when they see a verb in the plural.  This may sound odd to pedants, and to those who are unfamiliar with the idiom, but it reads as perfectly natural and correct as an idiom to those who see it regularly in print.  In very formal writing, even in the UK, it would be preferable to re-cast the sentence for the benefit of pedants.    D b f i r s   08:21, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
 * "I saw a couple of people along the road. It was jogging."    D b f i r s   09:47, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The road was jogging? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:15, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * My point exactly! We expect "couple" to be plural, so we automatically say "they were jogging", at the same time avoiding confusion.    D b f i r s   08:31, 10 August 2010 (UTC)