Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 March 20

= March 20 =

Decimal numbers in French
Hi. Taking the number "0,74" in French as an example, is it spoken as "zéro point soixante-quatorze", "zéro virgule soixante-quatorze", "zéro point sept quatre", or "zéro virgule sept quatre"? Thanks. ~ A H  1 (TCU) 02:28, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
 * If you visit http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/Vi/Virgule.html, you can find a different example under the heading "Commercial Usage: Virgule". By that pattern, your example would be "zéro virgule soixante-quatorze". -- Wavelength (talk) 03:45, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I would go with your 4th case: "zéro virgule sept quatre". --Kvasir (talk) 03:59, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
 * At http://untreaty.un.org/unts/60001_120000/14/23/00027133.pdf, "6,54" is expressed as "six virgule cinquante-quatre", but "2,73" is expressed as "deux virgule sept trois". -- Wavelength (talk) 04:09, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Your second option is used at http://www.professeurphifix.net/numer/decimaux1_solution.htm. -- Wavelength (talk) 04:14, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
 * If the decimal number is accompanied by a unit, like "1,74 m" or "1,74 euros", the unit name is spoken in place of the decimal point: "un mètre soixante-quatorze" or "un euro soixante-quatorze". I presume this is analogous to the "one foot six" that users of feet and inches might say: 1.74 m can be thought of as 1 m 74 cm.  I don't know what happens in French when there are more than two decimal places, though.  --Anonymous, 04:22 UTC, March 20/10.
 * What if the number is 0,74°C? Do I say the "degrés Celcius" before the '74' or after it? ~ A H  1 (TCU) 14:53, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
 * See Les risques de la baignades [sic] (The risks of bathing). The text beside the rodent uses the expression "au-dessus de vingt degrés Celsius" ("above 20 degrees Celsius"). -- Wavelength (talk) 15:46, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
 * [The page contains errors, which should be corrected as follows: "se rafraichissent" --> "se rafraîchissent"; "Beaucoup de personne" --> "Beaucoup de personnes"; "D'autres lieu" --> "D'autres lieux"; "peut représentée" --> "peut représenter"; "peut être du" --> "peut être dû"; "On ne doitt pas" --> "On ne doit pas"; "près des lieu" --> "près des lieux"; "des zones surveillée" --> "des zones surveillées"; "lorsquon" --> 'lorsqu'on"; "certaine personne" --> "certaines personnes"; "s'être baigné" --> "s'être baignées"; "si vous avez" --> "Si vous avez"; recoivent" --> "reçoivent"; "Les algues présentent" --> "Les algues présentes"; "se apparait" --> "apparaît"; "des difficulté" --> "des difficultés"; "les Algues Bleues" --> "Les algues bleues"; "sent mauvais" --> "sent mauvaise"; "des irritations cutanée" --> "des irritations cutanées"; "alques" --> "algues"; "Il n'y a pa que" --> "Il n'y a pas seulement"; "D'autres bactérie" --> "D'autres bactéries"; "symptomes" --> "symptômes" (two instances). -- Wavelength (talk) 16:32, 20 March 2010 (UTC)]
 * [I am correcting my error ("persones" --> "personnes"). -- Wavelength (talk) 16:59, 20 March 2010 (UTC)]
 * "[la couche…] qui sent mauvais" is correct (not "sent mauvaise") — AldoSyrt (talk) 17:54, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * See Learning French - How To Pronounce simple Formulas in French. -- Wavelength (talk) 00:36, 21 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I never say "trois virgule un quatre" for "3,14" except if the situation is analogous to one where I would spell a word.
 * I say: "3,1" --> "trois virgule un", "3,14" --> "trois virgule quatorze", "3,141" --> "3 virgule cent quarante et un", "3,141 592 7" --> "trois virgule cent quarante et un cinq cents quatre-vingt-douze sept". — AldoSyrt (talk) 17:54, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

"Hello, who is it?"
Is that a rare example of the acceptable use of "it" as a gender-neutral pronoun applied to humans? 213.122.22.138 (talk) 15:27, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

no, not at all. Viz: "it's the cable people". it here is like there, "who's there"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.153.237.214 (talk) 16:57, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I think it's not that simple. The answer to "who is it?" would be "It is me" (not "there is me"), so I would say that "who is it?" is not the same as "who is there?". In my opinion the "it" might indeed be a gender neutral pronoun. Kreachure (talk) 18:00, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Or should that be it is me? ;) --Tango (talk) 18:21, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, in that exact context, "who are you?" would make more sense (but is not idiomatic). I agree that it is being used as a gender neutral pronoun, but I don't know why we use the 3rd person. --Tango (talk) 18:21, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Maybe because "It am I" would sound really stupid, even if ultra-pedantically "correct". --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   03:58, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Not "It is I"? Bielle (talk) 04:06, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
 * (said with faux annoyance) You really must get your levels of pedanticism sorted out, Bielle. "It is I" is pedantically correct.  "It am I" is, as I said, ultra-pedantically correct, to the point that it's slipped over the edge and has fallen into the Abyss of Error.  :)  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   04:18, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
 * "What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?" ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:45, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
 * "It is I, Leclerc... " Monsieur_Roger_LeClerc --TammyMoet (talk) 09:02, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Jack, I think the reason for that is that the subject and 'predicate nominative' in a sentence like this are not equally important. The focus is on the "it", that is, the person on the other end of the line. That is to say, when you say "it's me" or "it's just the landlord", you're not making a comment about 'me' or about the landlord, you're making a comment about the person on the other end of the line, and pointing out that that person happens to be one and the same as 'me', the landlord, etc. That's why the verb agrees with "it" rather than "I". This is the same as when you say, for example, "the president of the company is me!" (Not "the president of the company am me". Notice that, in this case, you can say "The president of a company am I", in a slightly singsong way, but the meaning is quite different.) r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 21:49, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh yes, that was a common form in Victorian times, G&S etc ("A jolly merry gay rover am I, la la la"). But interestingly, the form "The president of the company is I" is prescriptively correct but rarely heard, while the form "The president of the company is me" is prescriptively wrong but far more widely found and thus descriptively correct.  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   07:13, 22 March 2010 (UTC)


 * "It" is not the same as "there", no, but I don't think it is a pronoun. It cannot pluralise: you can say "Who are they?" but it corresponds to "Who is that?" not "Who is it?". Similarly "They are our neighbours" is pragmatically different from "It's our neighbours" --ColinFine (talk) 10:37, 21 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I thought that the 'it' in "Who is it?" was a prop it/dummy it/empty it (name varies based on who you ask) like the "it" in "Is it raining?" -- 174.21.243.94 (talk) 21:37, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Nope, it's not.
 * It pretty much refers to "the person on the other end of the line/the other side of the door". r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 21:44, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

How do you pronounce Zdzislaw Beksinski?
Please only answer if you really know. Vranak (talk) 16:41, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I would say . If you can't read the IPA, here's an explanation. The first syllable consists of a "z"-sound and then "JISS". Then there's the syllable "waff", where the "a" resembles the vowel sound in the English word car, but is much shorter and without an "r"-sound after it. The family name begins with "beck", which would rhyme with "deck". Then there's "SHIN", where the "n"-sound is pronounced like the "ny"-combination in the word canyon or like the letter ñ in Spanish. And there's a syllable that sounds like the English word ski, but the vowel sound is a bit shorter. So here's an approximate representation: ZJISS-waff beck-SHIÑ-ski (the syllables in caps are stressed). I hope that helps. Please note that I'm not a native speaker of Polish. --Магьосник (talk) 19:28, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
 * As a native Polish speaker, I confirm that both the IPA and the approximation provided by Магьосник are correct. — Kpalion(talk) 19:32, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I've tried sounding out Beksinski and I am arriving at either b'SHIN-ski or b'SIN-ski. Are they both wrong? Vranak (talk) 19:36, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes - as Магьосник said, it's "beck" rather than "b'". -- the Great   Gavini  20:20, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Well I simply can't pronounce his name properly. I am calling him Jee-slav B'shin-ski from now on. It seems is name is as impenetrable as his works! Vranak (talk) 21:02, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You can lead a horse to water... Alansplodge (talk) 23:13, 20 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Maybe you're remembering Zbigniew Brzezinski and somehow conflating them, Vranak. --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   03:55, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I added the IPA to the Zdzisław Beksiński article. — Kpalion(talk) 20:45, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Dash versus semi-colon
Hello! I know people have asked before about using semi-colons in writing, so I understand it's not an easy subject to tackle. What I want to ask, though, is about the dash (excuse me, the em dash) as compared with the semi-colon. Is there a practical difference between the two in writing? Evidently, I refer only to the cases when there is a single of either in a sentence. A prime example of this would be the following sentence:

"'And so my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.'"

My question would be, could the dash in a sentence such as this be replaced by a semi-colon? (For the record, you can easily find this quote with either.) Thanks in advance, Kreachure (talk) 17:54, 20 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, a semi-colon could be used there. A dash is often used when transcribing (or scripting) spoken language to indicate a pause, whatever the meaning of it. A semi-colon is actually part of English grammar. A dash can be used pretty much anywhere (and, in formal writing, probably shouldn't be used much at all) since there aren't many rules for it. A semi-colon can only be used in specific situations - the key thing is that the text on each side must be a valid sentence. (My fingers typed the dash in that sentence with no real thought from me! I use dashes a lot... That dash should really be a semi-colon, but I'll be honest and leave it in.) --Tango (talk) 18:29, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd actually prefer to see a colon in this instance. Colons (in UK English anyway) tend to be used to separate two clauses giving the opposite idea, which is happening here.--TammyMoet (talk) 20:39, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
 * A colon would be quite wrong in that sentence. The colon signals to the reader that the part of the sentence after the colon proves and explains the part before. That is not the case here at all.  --Richardrj talkemail 20:48, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree. I don't know where TammyMoet gets the idea that colons are used to join opposing clauses: "but" is used for that. (That is what colons are for, although I wouldn't have used one there normally. I'm just making a point!) --Tango (talk) 09:12, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, wherever TammyMoet got the idea, I've got it too. I'm very surprised not to find any guides that mention this, as I'm sure it's one of the uses I saw described years ago. I would expect to see a colon in "Man proposes: God disposes". Actually, in the Biblical verse which may be the source of that proverb, the KJV has "A man's heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps." Proverbs 16:9, which is arguably an instance of just what TammyMoet and I are suggesting. And Tango's rejoinder is hardly to the point: "but" may be used for an opposition, but particularly in rhetoric may be omitted, as in the quotation which started this thread. --ColinFine (talk) 11:11, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The colon article actually mentions both its use for explication and apposition, although it barely mentions its use in lists as that article is actually using it. The two quotes above are appositions which are just seem to be in the form of oppositions but how how opposite these parts actually are is debatable. As to the use of em dashes—thought I should try to be ontopic—, they are supposed to be for parenthetical statements, so to use only one is akin to leaving off a curved bracket at the end of a line (you really should should not do that. ERROR: Unmatched '(' But parenthetical statements are often affixed at the end of lines so the dropping of the final dash is more common than its retention. I would say that "ask what you can do for your country" is far from parenthetical and is actually key to the entire speech—indeed the entire Kennedy administration—and therefore the dash is inappropriate (although the Oxford Guide to English Usage (1993) says a single dash can stand for a colon informally). I just wish to add the usual disclaimer: I use punctuation in the most haphazard ways myself and I don't really mind how other people use theirs, also I believe usage is ever in flux and perhaps more so now than ever so don't let it worry you too much As there'll always be some fuss-budget to tell you that you're wrong).  meltBanana  19:11, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Crazy transliterations at Contraction_(grammar)
I was looking at the transliterations at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraction_(grammar)#Chinese and I find it hard to believe, for example, "不之" (buzhi), as I, who speak some Chinese, would pronounce it, would be transliterated as "pǝ tǝ", even in ancient Chinese. Can someone who knows more about wiki and Chinese than me take a look at that? THanks -- Nick
 * Classical Chinese was pronounced a lot differently than modern Chinese languages, especially Mandarin, are. I wouldn't be surprised for the transliterations to look quite foreign, seeing as how Classical Chinese is essentially a different language. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 20:50, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The transcriptions are Sergei Starostin's reconstructions. IMHO, these aren't the most widely accepted reconstructions, but they're not appalling. The reconstructed transcriptions show the basis of the contractions, which aren't as obvious from their modern pronunciations (in other dialects as well as Mandarin). Steewi (talk) 01:59, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Perhaps there should be a note in the main text explaining this. --ColinFine (talk) 11:14, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
 * There are already footnotes, I think those should be sufficient already. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 12:44, 21 March 2010 (UTC)