Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 December 12

= December 12 =

Plural of zero
What is the plural of "zero"? Is it zeroes, zeros, or zero's? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 02:50, 12 December 2010 (UTC))


 * "Zeros" and "zeroes" are both acceptable, but not "zero's". Marnanel (talk) 02:53, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I prefer zeroes myself. Zeros looks like it should rhyme with BIOS or possibly CMOS.  But my spell-checker disagrees for some strange reason. --Trovatore (talk) 03:06, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * "zero's" is another example of the dreaded greengrocers' apostrophe. "Zeroes" seems to keep my British English spellchecker happy, but it accepts "zeros" too, so that doesn't help much. I'd go with the 'e', per "tomatoes", "potatoes" etc. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:16, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * On the other hand I think 0's is fine. Very hard to interpret 0s.  This is an example of a legitimate pluralizing apostrophe, along the line of mind your p's and q's or The Oakland A's. --Trovatore (talk) 03:19, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The apostrophe is only used for plurals of words that are not normally pluralized, or would look odd with just a simple 's' tacked on the end. Lexicografía (talk) 03:49, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * In case I wasn't clear, 0's is an example of a legitimate pluralizing apostrophe, not zero's. --Trovatore (talk) 05:42, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Referring to an actual dictionary (Merriam Webster Collegiate) we find "plural: zeros also zeroes", indicating "zeros" is preferred. This is an American dictionary; your kilometerage may differ. - Nunh-huh 03:33, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Zero's acceptable, just not as a plural. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)}}
 * In British English only zeroes is given by the OED, though The Guardian seems to use both zeroes and zeros, with slightly more Google hits for zeros.  --Antiquary (talk) 11:56, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * ...remembering that The Guardian is strongly Americanised, and tends to include more American spellings, words and phrases than most other UK papers. 86.161.208.185 (talk) 15:33, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Good point, but the same can't be said of The Times, except in so far as we're all tending to move slowly towards American usage. Their style guide favours zeros. --Antiquary (talk) 15:50, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Chambers 20th Century Dictionary has only zeros for the plural. DuncanHill (talk) 16:01, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Hm, OED, while only giving zeroes as a plural does have citations in which zeros is used. DuncanHill (talk) 16:08, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

How to pronounce...
..."amartolon onton emon Chiristoz uper emon apethanen" transliterated from Greek. Thanks Wikipedians! schyler (talk) 04:36, 12 December 2010 (UTC)...edit: 04:48, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It'll be kinda hard without the original Greek, unless you just want an English approximation... 24.92.70.160 (talk) 15:10, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * (To 24.92:) "ἁμαρτωλῶν ὄντων ἡμῶν Χριστὸς ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἀπέθανεν". It's part of Romans 5:8. Marnanel (talk) 19:23, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * If it's from Romans then it'd take Koine pronunciation (which is different from Attic Greek, which is what is usually meant by "ancient Greek"). In International Phonetic Alphabet:


 * hamarto'lon 'ɔnton he'mon χris'tɔs hy'pɛr he'mon a'pɛθanɛn


 * In pseudo-English style pronunciation:


 * hah-mar-toh-LOAN AWN-tone hay-MOAN chriss-TAWS hü-PEHR hay-MOAN ah-PEH-thah-nen


 * ...where "ch" and "ü" are said as in German. (Some of the word-initial aitch sounds weren't represented in the transliteration because of the way that sound is written in Greek. As a result sometimes transliterations just ignore it, which is lazy in my opinion, but *shrug*.) Cevlakohn (talk) 05:18, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Shouldn't it be [hamarto'lon], then?—Emil J. 15:31, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Akh, yes. Bloody hell, I didn't see that. Cevlakohn (talk) 22:27, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * You can see the Greek text transliterated at http://www.multilingualbible.com/romans/5-8.htm (in the second half of the center column) and you can hear it read (possibly in Attic Greek) at http://foreignlanguageexpertise.com/museum1.html. The word-initial aitch sounds are explained in the article Rough breathing.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 18:59, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks All! schyler (talk) 12:41, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

'Inside of'
"This user knows what a darkroom is and has processed photographs inside of one": from. As a Brit, I'd never write 'inside of' in this context, but I've seen this in US English often enough. Is it accepted usage that side of the pond? AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:04, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * It sounds clumsy to me; I would probably just say "in." This usage of "inside of" is similar to, but I think not as common as, the usage of "off of" to mean "off": "The book fell off of the shelf." —Bkell (talk) 19:15, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * There's a false belief that obfuscating ones language makes it sound "better" or "more intelligent". Most style guides tend to disagree with this.  It is usually recommended that one's writing should be concise and clear as much as possible.  We find this sort of "pseudoformalizing" language when we find people who use words like "utilize" for "use", or "medication" for "medicine", or other such substitutions.  If a shorter, more direct word or phrase conveys the exact same meaning, use the more consise language whenever possible.  There are times when clarification is needed, but often the tendency is to overelaborate. -- Jayron  32  06:05, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend
 * Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read --Groucho
 * --Trovatore (talk) 06:11, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Now THAT is funny. Kittybrewster  &#9742;  10:47, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I can imagine myself using inside of rather than in for emphasis/contrast. —Tamfang (talk) 09:02, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Variety-speak
I finally figured out what "s.a." probably means (sex appeal) in Variety's review of Gilda. Since other readers will likely be just as confused by the quote in the article, any suggestions on what to do? I can't add [sex appeal] to it, as that would be WP:OR. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:24, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd be tempted (well, with Rita Hayworth around, who wouldn't?) to add [sex appeal?], with a '?'. From the context it certainly makes sense, and I'm sure I've seen the abbreviation elsewhere. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:35, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * You could cite abbreviations.com:
 * Wiki Dao &#9775;  (talk)  23:40, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Wiki Dao &#9775;  (talk)  23:40, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * There's actually an official Variety glossary at http://www.variety.com/static-pages/slanguage-dictionary/, but "s.a." doesn't seem to be listed (though the paper does claim to have invented the term "sex appeal")... AnonMoos (talk) 04:39, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The Oxford English Dictionary has "S.A. n. (also s.a.) sex appeal", first citation from the American Mercury, 1926. So clarifying s.a. to sex appeal isn't OR, it's just helping people who don't have access to a proper dictionary. DuncanHill (talk) 13:07, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Even though I'm 95% certain it means va-va-va-va-voom, that remaining 5% means it's still a guess -> OR. I think AndyTheGrump's suggestion is the best solution. Thanks, everyone. Clarityfiend (talk) 19:12, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Hah. It got reverted as OR. I've started a discussion on the talk page. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:10, 13 December 2010 (UTC)