Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 March 31

= March 31 =

British English?
Is "Hepititus" 'British' spelling?174.3.113.245 (talk) 02:55, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * No. Gross misspellings are the stateless persons of the lexicon.  --  202.142.129.66 (talk) 03:09, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Ha! This warrants further analogy: clichés are stock characters...  --  the Great   Gavini  07:33, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * In particular, this looks like an example of the fallacy that all Latin-based nouns ending in -s end in -us. The -itis ending, which in modern medical English indicates an inflammation of the named organ (in this case, the liver) is especially prone to this. There is, to the best of my knowledge, no common dialect variation providing any exception. AlexTiefling (talk) 07:40, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * -itis is originally Greek though, no? I wouldn't call it "Latin-based". --  the Great   Gavini  07:49, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Greek is originally Proto-Indo-European language, though, no? :p Inclusion into "English" is via (:p) Latin (by way of French [AKA bad Latin]).  The direct influence Greek had on Latin is surely less significant (to modern "English") than the direct influence Latin had on English.  OR: most Greek influence on English is via Latin, no? ¦ Reisio (talk) 11:48, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't quite follow what you've written: if you're saying there is no real ultimate etymological origin (except possibly PIE) since languages are derived from others, then yes, I suppose you're right. But I meant that the sense is original to Greek, being derived from -ītis, feminine form of adjectival suffix -ītēs, then borrowed in Latin with that sense, thence to English  .  That Latin has had more influence on English than Greek is utterly irrelevant - it is original to Greek in its sense, I meant.  --  the Great   Gavini  13:33, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not from Latin at all anyway, it's a modern medical term taken directly from Greek roots. Some Greek influence on English is through Latin, but not all of it. (Also, French is not "bad Latin") Adam Bishop (talk) 14:07, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * No, but it does have vulgar origins... *giggle* -- the Great   Gavini  16:04, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * @The Great Gavini: The word's Greek; the mistake is based on popular perceptions of Latin. AlexTiefling (talk) 10:41, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The correct spelling, in British or American English, is hepatitis. Marco polo (talk) 18:10, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Translation from Guadeloupe Creole to English
Hi language experts, I photographed this sign in a small village in Guadeloupe today. I think it says something like "Take care. Children are playing." It is written in Guadeloupe Creole (I presume), a dialect of Antillean Creole. I would like to add a more precise English translation to the File page though, so any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance, --Slaunger (talk) 02:58, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * It's certainly something like that: ti (=petit) moun must be "little people" or "children", ka joué la (=qui jouent ici/là) "who are playing", ni probably = il y a "there are". The first bit looks like "lift your feet" (levez, pieds) but "take care" sounds much more euphonic.  Is your sign near a road or something? --  the Great   Gavini  07:44, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you. Yes, the sign is placed by the side of a small road in a residential area, and there are families with kids in the houses nearby, and they usually play on the road, especially in the evening, where they, e.g., make word games using chalk-like stones found by the side of the road. So it seems like it is mostly the first line, which is not entirely translated yet. --Slaunger (talk) 10:52, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * So the first line probably means. "Lift your foot" (from the gas pedal)? --Slaunger (talk) 10:54, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Lever le pied is a standard French phrase which means "to slow down". — AldoSyrt (talk) 16:35, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't know if it's connected, but there's a character called Ti Moune (a young girl) in the musical Once On This Island, which is set in the French Antilles. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 11:57, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Ti Moune is standard creole for child. A standard translation of the sign is "Slow down. Children are playing here" --Xuxl (talk) 14:26, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I also asked at the French wikipedia, and there the answer is the same . Thank you for your help. --Slaunger (talk) 19:48, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

French
How do I say "x to the nth power" (xn) in French? --70.129.184.122 (talk) 03:20, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * x (à la) puissance n, i think —Tamfang (talk) 05:43, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Related: "squared" is  x au carré. Not sure if there's a way of saying "cubed" without using (à la) puissance. --  the Great   Gavini  08:04, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * In French we can say  x (à la) puissance trois or  x (au) cube  or if there is no ambiguity  x trois. — AldoSyrt (talk) 16:45, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * See fr:Exposant (mathématiques). -- Wavelength (talk) 16:12, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Usage of definite article with noun
British English.

I am reasonably confident that it is correct to write;

Thirty members of 1st battalion went up the hill.

as opposed to;

Thirty members of the 1st battalion went up the hill.

...but I don't know which rule of grammar explains it. I shall be grateful if anyone could elucidate.  Chzz  ►  04:36, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't know what the term is in layman grammar, but in theoretical syntax I assume this is explained by saying that some proper names are treated as full determiner phrases (e.g., "30 members of [NATO]") and some as noun phrases which still need a determiner (article) added (e.g., "30 members of the [UN]"). In American English we don't say your first sentence above, which suggests to me that in American English "1st batallion" is treated as a noun phrase, whereas in British English maybe it's treated as a proper noun and full determiner phrase. (If you wrote out "1st", in your sentence would it be "First Batallion" or "first batallion"? That would also suggest that it's being treated as a proper noun.) r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 04:41, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm British and both sentences look correct to me. -- Q Chris (talk) 08:04, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Looks like our old friend American and British English differences again. Nanonic (talk) 08:17, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Usually when I read texts written in British English I feel like "the" is missing from a lot of phrases. Rimush (talk) 08:24, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Trouble at mill . BrainyBabe (talk) 09:33, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Me too, Rimush. It's enough to put one in hospital. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.183.136.131 (talk) 23:00, 3 April 2010 (UTC)


 * British English speaker with a family military background reporting for duty. I opine that either version could be more correct, depending on context: the ambiguity is increased by the (correct) use of "1st" rather than "First" or "first", and "battalion" having been written with a lower-case 'b'. Specialist (British Army) usage has here complicated the underlying grammar.
 * If the actions of several battalions was being described, and "first" referred to, say, a sequence of events or a previously specified physical array, then "Thirty members of the first battalion went up the hill" would be grammatically correct, and "Thirty members of first battalion went up the hill" would be wrong, as would (on stylistic grounds) " . . .the 1st battalion . . .".
 * But here Chzz is referring to a particular battalion, whose name is written in full "The 1st Battalion of the Welsh Guards", not "The First Battalion . . . ." (where the regiment of The Welsh Guards could, and formerly did, also have 2nd and 3rd Battalions). However, British Army parlance generally omits the 'the' and refers to "1st Battalion, the Welsh Guards" or sometimes "the 1st Battalion, Welsh Guards" in full, more shortly "the 1st Welsh Guards" or (in writing) "1 Welsh Guards" and just "1st Battalion" where the Regiment is already understood. In this case, "Thirty members of the 1st Battalion went up the hill" (note capital 'B') would be acceptable (particularly from a civilian), but "Thirty members of 1st Battalion went up the hill." would be more usual. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 09:40, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Grammatical rules, English, British, soldiers, for the use of. 213.122.13.116 (talk) 00:11, 1 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Many thanks for the responses. 231.122, perhaps if you have a moment you could check over William Windsor (goat) to see the full context, and possibly correct my capitalization.  Chzz  ►  11:13, 1 April 2010 (UTC)


 * That's a beautiful article (or perhaps just a beautiful goat). I see "the" is used inconsistently, but it seems to help with prose flow, being omitted in brisker phrases. Is it harmful for a goat to eat cigarettes? 213.122.49.139 (talk) 23:55, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Many thanks! It is hopefully approaching good article status. I don't know if it is harmful; I believe goats will eat just about anything, given the opportunity. As to the harm, opinions vary; several sites say that it is a bad idea. YouTube has several videos of them eating 'em.

Apparently, the favourite meal of Spiggoty—a goat in the marine battalion—was lit cigarettes, which "he devoured greedily".  Chzz  ►  17:40, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Column-row order
Is there any multidisciplinary standard order of columns and rows when reporting data from a table? For example, in would I call item B "2-1" or "1-2"? Thank you. --198.103.172.9 (talk) 17:39, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Usually the columns are labelled with letters and the rows with numbers *, so your "B" would be B1 . ¦ Reisio (talk) 18:30, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * But that's not what the questioner asked. I would call B "1-2", in keeping with the general order of reading English (across then down). But I would avoid relying on this assumption if possible. --ColinFine (talk) 18:56, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't know of any standard. If you can't relabel as 198 suggests to remove the ambiguity, I would either refer to "row 1, column 2" or declare your own standard (if it will be used many times in a document, say). 198.161.238.18 (talk) 21:52, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Matrix (mathematics) says: "The entry that lies in the i-th row and the j-th column of a matrix is typically referred to as the i,j, (i,j), or (i,j)th entry of the matrix." -- Wavelength (talk) 21:59, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * So it's row first. Backwards from what seems logical. No wonder I hated matrices. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:44, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Seems logical to me, for the reason I gave. But I do have to think about it. --ColinFine (talk) 23:31, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
 * "Reading across then down" would suggest (row 1, column 1) (row 1, column 2) etc. as with Excel, except Excel wisely uses letters for the columns so there's no ambiguity. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:15, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
 * And it appears I contradicted myself. If you think of the rows as "records", certainly you would process them a record at a time. So you're right. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:17, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
 * That makes sense. I can't change the numbers because they have meaning, and I will report which number is which, but I didn't want it to look backwards.  I'll go with the math standard.  Thank you. --198.103.172.9 (talk) 14:44, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Fissioning / Fissionable linguistically correct?
I've been reading up on various topics related to nuclear fission, and keep coming across "fissioning" to describe the process as it happens, and "fissionable" to describe something capable of undergoing fission. I'm no linguist by any stretch, but this seems wrong when I compare to other words of similar structure. E.g. "compression" describes the process, but the object is "compressing" not "compressioning", and so on. Comments? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.191.211.43 (talk) 18:23, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * There are no rules about the form of verbs (back-)formed from other parts of speech in English: there are common patterns, but no more than that.
 * "Compressing" is not formed from "compression" but from the extant verb "compress". There is no English verb '*fiss' (at least the OED doesn't record that one has ever been used), so "*fissing" was not available ready-made. While I can't think of any other verbs ending in "-ssion", there are plenty that are pronounced as they would be if they had that ending (eg "ration", "fashion", "cushion"), so "fission" was perhaps more obvious or attractive than "*fiss". --ColinFine (talk) 19:02, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * According to my Webster's, the root noun is fissus, from which the word "fissure" comes; or fissio, from which "fission" comes. The verb is findere, which doesn't appear to have an English cognate. Hence the inventiveness from "fission". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:16, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * You can add "transition" (triple ugh!) to that list of verbs, Colin. --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   19:23, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Or commission. Marco polo (talk) 20:25, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * "Commission" comes from "commit", although "commissioning" has a somewhat different nuance. Likewise with "transition", from "transit". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:38, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * "Fissile" appears to be a synonym for "fissionable" in this context... It's slightly more elegant, and has an parallel to "mission/missile". (Although I'm not familiar with "missile" ever being used as an adjective.)  caknuck °  needs to be running more often  22:08, 31 March 2010 (UTC)