Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 May 29

= May 29 =

Math word complaints
Shouldn't binomial and polynomial be binominal and polynominal, in line with the word nominal? (In fact multinominal, to keep it all Latin? Or polyonymon?) And the degrees of expressions go: linear, quadratic, cubic, quartic, quintic. Quadratic is degree two. Quartic is degree four. Etymologically, aren't they the same word, quadr- being from quatuor, four? What should quadratics really be called instead - binics, maybe? I know there's no chance of changing terminology to suit me, but if you can confirm that it's all messed up I might at least feel a bit better. 81.131.42.72 (talk) 00:41, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Sometimes the subsequent expressions in a series benefit from regularity as an afterthought. Some other series are the following.
 * (thousand,) million, billion, trillion, quadrillion, quintillion, and so forth
 * (singleton,) twin, triplet, quadruplet, quintuplet, and so forth
 * whole, half, third, fourth or quarter, fifth, sixth, seventh, and so forth
 * first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and so forth
 * ... trigon or triangle, quadrilateral, pentagon, hexagon, heptagon, and so forth
 * -- Wavelength (talk) 01:16, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Ha, yes - and a pentangle is a different kind of thing again. Thanks. Does "binic" sound a coherent kind of made-up word, coherent with quartic and quintic, I mean? Have I made it up right? 81.131.42.72 (talk) 01:29, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I am not able to make a judgement about the correctness or incorrectness of *binic. The word bīnī means in twos, by twos, two by two, two each and bis means two times, twice.  See Latin Number Names, which shows that even the Romans did not use a perfectly symmetrical system. -- Wavelength (talk) 01:47, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * So it could also be *bisic, I think you're hinting? Good info. 81.131.42.72 (talk) 01:51, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Also, there is the following series.
 * solo, duet, trio, quarter, quintet, sextet, septet, and so forth.
 * Also, the systematic element names deliberately use combining forms derived from Latin for 0, 1, 4, and 7, and combining forms derived from Greek for 5, 6, and 9. The form b(i) is probably from Latin, and the forms tr(i) and oct appear to be able to be derived from either Latin or Greek.
 * By the way, the Latin word for four (quattuor) has two ts. -- Wavelength (talk) 01:30, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * (ec) As you suggest, another common wrong word is "hexadecimal", which tangles Greek and Latin roots. Either "sexadecimal" or "hexadenary" would be better, but there are more important things to worry about. 01:34, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * The Latin word for sixteen is sēdecim (or sexdecim), so English *sedecimal or *sexdecimal might be more consistent with the Latin. Also, please note that the word sexagesimal is related to the number 60.  The hypothetical word *hexadenary is also partly from Greek and partly from Latin.  The hypothetical word *hexadecadic is entirely from Greek.  If you are especially adventuresome, you might wish to read about quaternions, octonions, and sedenions, keeping handy that external link which I provided. -- Wavelength (talk) 02:03, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Apparently the word used by mathematicians such as Leibnitz, Euler and Newton, back when writing in Latin was the done thing, was "polynomium". Why did they opt for a Greek prefix? ( I didn't know we had a Latin Wikipedia!) 81.131.23.148 (talk) 03:20, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia has an article about hybrid words. The language Esperanto is more regular than most languages.  You might wish to see Mathwords and Online Etymology Dictionary. -- Wavelength (talk) 04:40, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not being all prescriptionist and obsessing over regularity (and etymonline is awesome, I was using it a lot over the last hour or two). It just struck me as peculiar that people writing entire mathematical treatises in Latin would coin new words by mixing in some Greek when there was no need to. I assumed such hybrids were born out of necessity or ignorance. I guess Medieval Latin was still something of a living language among academics, maybe mixing it up ad hoc with Greek was normal? 81.131.23.148 (talk) 05:02, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I think that goes back to the Romans...all the good mathematicians were Greek. Adam Bishop (talk) 18:57, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I wonder if sometimes we didn't substitute Greek hex- for Latin sex- due to word taboo ("sexadecimal"? heaven forbid!), the same way the Japanese substitute native yon- '4' for Chinese si-. — kwami (talk) 00:08, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Number prefix, note 6, says something about that. -- Wavelength (talk) 00:32, 30 May 2010 (UTC)


 * SI prefixes include femto- and atto-, from two Danish words meaning 15 and 18 respectively. -- Wavelength (talk) 03:28, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Bengali help
Hi! I found http://web.archive.org/web/20060930072857/http://www.detroit.k12.mi.us/dressCode_Bengali.pdf - I want to get the Bengali name of Detroit Public Schools for its Commons category - But this document does not let me copy the text from it, and I don't know where to find a good automatic translator for this. What is the Bengali name for the school district as seen in this document? WhisperToMe (talk) 01:35, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * The first three words in Bengali comprise the Bengali text for Detroit Public School. AiyyashNalayak (talk) 18:49, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I understand the first two are ডেট্রয়েট পাবলিক - but how do I type the third word? WhisperToMe (talk) 23:56, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, I'm not really good at this. The closest I can direct you is the Devnagari Page where the symbol स्क appears, as the Devanagri equivalent of the first character of the Bangla word you are looking for, without the diacritic. AiyyashNalayak (talk) 20:43, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your help :) WhisperToMe (talk) 13:01, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

"Golden Gull"
What is it?Lea_DeLaria174.3.121.27 (talk) 06:36, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * In the first five pages of google I can offer you a women's clothing store in North Carolina, an entertainment award in Provincetown, Massachusetts, a song festival's award in Chile, a jewelry store that sells colored popcorn (?) in New Jersey, an award for best practices in college health, a hotel in China and a horse race in Maryland. What kind of thing do you think it might be? 213.122.26.247 (talk) 07:39, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * From the context given in the OP's question, it's the entertainment award in P-town. +Angr 07:44, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Here's the myspace of a singer/songwriter who also won it: . I noticed there is a studio of some kind in MA by the same name (art gallery? recording studio?), maybe they give out the award. (Sorry for missing the link, I mistook it for a username.) 213.122.26.247 (talk) 07:49, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It might be some gay entertainment award named after the Tom Wilson Weinberg song Lesbian Seagull recorded by Engelbert Humperdink and Red Hot Chilli Peppers.  Richard Avery (talk) 09:15, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Until I noticed they were both separate links, I had a vision of EH fronting RHCP... made me smile! --TammyMoet (talk) 10:36, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It would be no weirder than Tom Jones and The Cardigans teaming up to make a cover version of a song by Talking Heads, and that did happen! +Angr 11:42, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Chrzciciel
I'm not too bad with Polish names, but this is a bit much. Chrzciciel is Polish for Baptist. I can say it phonetically, but I'm not sure I'm getting it right. My stab so far is like kh-sh-ts-i-ts-i-el. Help, please. --  Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   12:01, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * C before i is a soft "ch", as is ci before a vowel, so it's more like kh-sh-chi-chel. In IPA, . +Angr 13:04, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Correct, and keep in mind that this word has only two vowels and two syllables: Chrzci-ciel. The second "i" only marks the palatalization of the preceding "c". And of course the initial "ch" is pronounced like in Scottish (except in some rural dialects where it may pronounced as "k"). — Kpalion(talk) 14:13, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Lovely, thanks. Not sure when I'll get a chance to practise this, but good to know anyway.  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   11:08, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Italicizing 'of,' 'the,' etc.


I often see words like 'of' and 'the' italicized in titles, designs, etc. – for example, Department of Chemistry or DEPARTMENT of MATHEMATICS (college-related examples). Is there a name and/or reason for this? (Reposted from RD/M.) Thanks, [ sd ] 17:03, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't recognise this phenomenon. Have you examples? --ColinFine (talk) 18:22, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It is just a style. The small words in italics are also not capitalised like the main words in the title. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 20:33, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Now I want to know, too! I'm a student at a College of Computer and Information Science.  Oddly, the "and" isn't italicized, despite also not appearing in the "CCIS" acronym.  It looks nice, but it feels kinda random.  A quick census of sister colleges reveals that all of them except the College of Criminal Justice share the same style.  Paul (Stansifer) 03:08, 30 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Roman capitals and lower-case italics are mixed in a title page such as Elizabethan Homilies (1683, pictured), where it's fair to say the italics are for less important words (above the coat of arms: the italicization of proper names below is something else). I can't find a better comparison or trace the development, but they are connected by way of imitation, however mistaken or however many the removes.  Wareh (talk) 20:14, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

In addition, in the Authorised King James Bible, certain words that do not appear directly in the original Hebrew and Greek are italicised as being added by Dr. Reynolds and his team, not to alter Scripture, but to preserve the idiomatic flow as it is in English. They did this so as not to be accused of trying to change words and cover it up. The Russian202.36.179.66 (talk) 02:06, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

"Tomorrow" in Cantonese
What is the Chinese character that is pronounced as /ting1/ (which makes it a homonym of 烴) in the Cantonese word for "tomorrow"? --173.49.13.158 (talk) 17:43, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Probably 聽. Tomorrow is 聽日. Oda Mari (talk) 18:32, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Are you sure it's "聽"? It certainly sounds like it, but are you sure it is it? --173.49.13.158 (talk) 19:09, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Found a dictionary. here. Oda Mari (talk) 02:27, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It turns out the Cantonese-language Wikipedia has an entry on the word, but it has no less than five theories as to what the real/original character is! --173.49.13.158 (talk) 04:01, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, 聽 is the common written character but as with many Cantonese terms, the original word has long since lost. 聽 has a number of readings: /ting1/, /ting3/ and /teng1/. 聽日 is always /ting1 yat6/. --Kvasir (talk) 20:48, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Words with no relevant grammatical function
I should know this. What's it called when a word is inserted in (usually spoken) language that has no grammatical function in that particular sentence? Some examples of what I'm talking about:


 * She's a better poker player than what he is.
 * If only you hadn't have come late, we'd be there by now.
 * He's too nice of a person to ever do that. --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   23:39, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * See Filler (linguistics). -- Wavelength (talk) 23:44, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * These are not quite fillers, as they have specific uses associated with specific structures (for example, take "too nice of a person"; you couldn't use "of" just anywhere, like you can with "like" and "um"). I'm not sure what they're called, though... r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 02:30, 30 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the quick answer, Wavelength. I'm not sure that's what I'm after.  Er, ah, um, like, y'know etc are not essential to the meaning, and nobody would argue they are.  The 'what', 'have' and 'of' in the examples above are not essential either, but they're common enough to conclude that many people think these are the correct constructions - but they're not.  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   02:32, 30 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Expletives? (Syntactic) 74.105.132.151 (talk) 03:41, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
 * No, expletives are something different, they have a very specific definition and none of Jack's examples meet it. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 03:45, 30 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Grammatical_particle? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.129.186 (talk) 08:38, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
 * No, that's not it, either. They're not inflected, but "have" in 'hadn't have come late' is inflected. --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   11:06, 30 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't know a term for these. They are simply examples of constructions that exist in two forms, one with an extra component. In these examples, the form without the extra word is more standard or more prestigious; but "I seen him" is an example the other way round. --ColinFine (talk) 11:15, 30 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Another type of example involves an extra indefinite article ("a" or "an"), which does not belong there.
 * That is an interesting kind of  a  tree. -- Wavelength (talk) 03:02, 31 May 2010 (UTC)