Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 April 10

= April 10 =

Cuál es el mejor Museo de México para visitar?
Cuál es el mejor Museo de México para visitar? Neptunekh2 (talk) 00:56, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You already asked this on the misc. desk. Please confine a specific question to a single ref desk. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:19, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

French
quelle est la meilleure manière la plus facile à apprendre oline français? Neptunekh2 (talk) 04:16, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Look, we keep asking you to ask questions in English here. I have a passable literacy in French, and even I recognize that this is a bad machine translated question, or at best a poor attempt at translating English to French.  In the interest of doing this the right way, if you want your question answered, please ask it again in English.  -- Jayron  32  05:47, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * My failed O Level French comprehension gives "What is the the best and easiest way to learn French online?" or words to that effect... Alansplodge (talk) 16:23, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I understood that as well, it wasn't hard to translate. But if he wants to ask people the question in french, there is fr.wikipedia.org.  -- Jayron  32  17:38, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It appears to have been aptly demonstrated that the answer to his question is not Google Translate. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:47, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

It's difficult to really learn a language online, I would recommend attending a course. I see you are in the Vancouver area; I would recommend l'Alliance Française de Vancouver. I have been taking a language course there and found the instruction excellent. (Their next courses begin the week of April 18.) There also are French courses offered by UBC Continuing Studies, and other Vancouver resources listed here. As for purely online resources to learn French, first read John Walker's essay at Fourmilab.ch (some of the things there are out of date, however), the Canadian federal government's Language Portal (particularly its list of FSL links), resources listed at ToutCanadien.com, the EU Translation DG's page on Language resources and useful links for French, and the Government of France's list of resources for learning French. Mathew5000 (talk) 23:19, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

"Homeopathic" taking on a generic meaning?
Homeopathy is the most nonsensical of nonsense that may actually kill people by having them turn away from a real medicine in favor of a vial of water or a pill that has about as much of whatever substance is supposed to treat some malady as it would if you threw a handful into the ocean and then came back three weeks later and scooped up some water. I've been noticing that some companies that sell actual products, for example vitamins with a 50% daily recommended dose of the vitamin (as opposed to 0.000000000001%) have taken to labeling their products "homeopathic". Why would they do this? Do you think they just mean to say "all naturally made", or something else they imagine is wholesome sounding to the public's ear, and don't understand what homeopathic means? Bonus question: Why are people so idiotic that they believe in homeopathy?--71.183.169.177 (talk) 12:41, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


 * As an observation, what do you think "homeopathic" means? --TammyMoet (talk) 13:59, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I can't speak for the OP, but I think "homeopathic" means relating to homeopathy, which our article calls "a form of alternative medicine in which practitioners treat patients using highly diluted preparations that are believed to cause healthy people to exhibit symptoms that are similar to those exhibited by the patient. The collective weight of scientific evidence has found homeopathy to be no more effective than a placebo." But like the OP, I have also noticed medicines that are labeled "homeopathic" but that (if their labels are to be believed) actually contain mainstream pharmaceuticals at normal doses, and have wondered what they have to do with homeopathy. This might be a better question for the science ref desk than the language ref desk, though. —Angr (talk) 14:22, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


 * The term "homeopathic medicine" is often used to refer to any kind of alternative medicine. Primarily by people that don't know what they are talking about, I think. --Tango (talk) 14:26, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


 * As for the meaning of "homeopathic", my understanding is that a product must be highly diluted, by methods set out in homeopathic theory, in order to be "homeopathic".


 * Some people believe strongly in homeopathy. Some may just think the term homeopathic sounds "benevolent and reassuring".  I think the sort of products described above are marketed as "homeopathic" in an attempt to appeal to such people and lead them to think the products are superior.  My observation is that such products are ridiculously expensive.


 * Also, labelling products that are NOT highly diluted as "homeopathic" may be an attempt to counter the well-known criticism that homeopathic products are far too dilute to have any effect at all. Wanderer57 (talk) 15:11, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I believe there are formulations that contain macroscopic doses of some nutrients generally considered harmless, along with homeopathic doses of toxins, and are called homeopathic because of the homeopathic part. Looie496 (talk) 17:24, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


 * The reason I asked what the OP meant by "homeopathy" is that the word itself means "like cures like". The principle is to use minute doses of something which creates an effect which looks like a symptom in order to cure that symptom. I felt we needed to establish exactly what is meant by a word and its usage before we could give a meaningful answer to the OP. I think Tango is on to something here with his comment. --TammyMoet (talk) 17:36, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


 * And the OP here used an example of an insignificant amount of something that would be genuinely helpful, in the right quantities, which is angel dusting, not homeopathy. StuRat (talk) 17:57, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Which is why I asked. --TammyMoet (talk) 18:17, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


 * As I've said here before, it's not the dilution that makes something "homeopathic", but rather the succussion or shaking that the dilution undergoes, which is said to imprint the memory of the toxic substance on the water. (This is my understanding: I have to say I am not a trained homeopath, but someone who is a complementary therapist from a different persuasion.) There are preparations available in the UK which do not rely on this dilution/succussion principle, but which fall under the "homeopathic" umbrella, such as arnica cream or Preparation H (which is said to give some relief to hay fever sufferers), which is a tissue salt. It may well be that avaricious pharmaceutical companies wish to cash in on something which appears to be very popular, and so are calling their products "homeopathic" when they should more properly be called "herbalist" or "aromatherapeutic" or something similar. As to why people believe in homeopathy, may I suggest it's because they have tried allopathic medicine and found that homeopathy actually works for them? OK so it may be the placebo effect writ large, but someone would have to fund a clinical trial of that - and pharmaceutical companies won't bother funding something that may give results which put their entire reason for being and making money at risk! --TammyMoet (talk) 18:41, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


 * And why don't homeopathic companies fund such studies ? Could it be that they know the results won't help their cause ? StuRat (talk) 21:20, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Could it be because they know nobody will believe them? I was looking through the records of an organic gardening organisation today, and found that they indeed funded some research into a particular homeopathic remedy in the 1990s, which showed that the remedy had some beneficial effect on the condition. However, I couldn't find whether this study was published in a medical journal, or if they'd only done a small-scale piece of research to satisfy their own curiosity. (I suspect the latter) --TammyMoet (talk) 11:53, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Homeopathy has been studied in clinical trials. Trick or Treatment by Singh and Ernst mentions several meta-analyses of these studies, including Linde 1997 (in The Lancet, vol 350); Linde 1999 (Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 52); Shang 2005 (Lancet, 366); and Ernst 2002 (Br J Clin Pharmacol, 54). Lfh (talk) 14:37, 11 April 2011 (UTC)


 * They fund Alternative Studies, in which the science is extremely dilute. —Tamfang (talk) 00:25, 11 April 2011 (UTC)


 * what!! is Preparation H homoeopathic? -- Q Chris (talk) 14:27, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Ooops! My bad - meant Combination H. I was aware that I could get the two confused as a friend of mine did some time ago. (sigh) --TammyMoet (talk) 17:26, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

My guess is that this happens because in some countries regulations make it much cheeper to produce the same stuff as a homeopathic remedy than as regular medicine. For regular medicine you must prove that it is effective and (sufficiently) harmless. Even a proof that it's completely harmless would not be enough if you don't also prove it's effective. With homeopathy, on the other hand, there is a presumption that due to the (usually) extreme dilutions it's automatically harmless, and since homeopathy uses an extremely wide range of substances, many of which are sold only in a dozen or less units per year, even relatively moderate registration fees can make many of them economically unfeasible to produce. An efficacy test would not be feasible even if homeopathy were on occasion effective beyond placebo (you would have to test some substances on more patients than there are expected patients per year), and on these and related grounds they get an exemption. In the US there has been at least one documented case of a company that tried to get something registered as homeopathic although it wasn't, but the homeopaths prevented this. To completely prevent the worst abuses, many jurisdictions that have such exemptions for homeopathy make them valid only for sufficiently diluted substances. Hans Adler 21:59, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


 * [QUOTE] For regular medicine you must prove that it is effective and (sufficiently) harmless.{/QUOTE] It would be nice if that were true, but it is far from it. In the first place, outside testing does not need to be done on new meds.  They can be and are tested by the same people that plan to sell them.  As a result they can, and consistently do, throw out any tests that show poor or negative results.  Or they may publish results that show a med effective without mentioning that placebo was just as effective.  Hypnotics for example have shown to give a scant 15 minutes of additional sleep - but just look at the side effects!  Are you willing to risk the side effects for 15 minutes of sleep?  Another example of a big money-maker is antidepressants.  Many studies show that they are no more effective than placebo and without the dangerous side effects.  From my research antidepressants are appropriate only for severe depression, where it does seem to have some benefit.  Or take an OTC med, cough syrup - totally worthless and even dangerous for children.  You should read this from the editor in chief of the BMJ, and then read all the followup:  http://www.bmj.com/content/339/bmj.b5351.full


 * I don't use homeopathic medicine, but I think twice before I use any medicine. Gandydancer (talk) 18:58, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

'Neither' at the end of a sentence
First off, I did search, found nothing really helpful. Secondly, I am a native (American) English speaker. I'm trying to say "I can't connect with my laptop or phone neither", but that doesn't seem correct to me. Should it be, "I can't connect with my laptop or phone either"? Bluefist  talk 17:58, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


 * "I can't connect with neither" is basically "hick" English and doesn't work because it's a double-negative. "I can't connect with either" or "I can connect with neither" would be valid. You would probably use the first one since it telegraphs the situation better. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:04, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Sulu: "I shall save you, fair maiden !" (Meaning white virgin.)


 * Uhura: "Sorry, neither." :-) StuRat (talk) 18:10, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Sulu: "Alrighty then, I'll save that cute guy in the red shirt instead!" ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:13, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


 * You could also change the location of the (n)either: "I can connect with neither my laptop nor my phone" or "I can't connect with either my laptop or my phone" (Effectively what Bugs said, but with the two items explicitly listed.) The "... or my phone, either" construct (note the comma) sounds a tad informal to me, although vastly preferred to "... or my phone, neither". I think that "I can't connect with my laptop, nor with my phone" would also work, falling on the formality scale somewhere between the (n)either/(n)or and the ", either" constructs. I'd also recommend you repeat the "my", as while simple "and" and "or" constructs can sit "below" an adjective/possessive pronoun, the (n)either/(n)or seems to me to be a "higher level" grammatical construct, and doesn't really distribute the qualifiers to the second clause. (To get the "my" to apply to both clauses you'd have to do something like *"I can't connect with my either laptop or phone", which just doesn't work.) -- 174.21.244.142 (talk) 19:34, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

In Irish "english" what does it mean to "lay down ones shawl"?
In Irish "english" what does it mean to "lay down ones shawl"? Does dropping ones shawl mean the same thing?69.205.17.198 (talk) 18:35, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I've never heard the expression before, but if I had to guess I would say it was a reference to Brigit of Kildare, an Irish saint who supposedly lay down her cloak (or shawl) and it grew to cover an enormous area after she was told she could have only the land her cloak would cover. Thus, it would mean to lay claim to something. Of course, I could make a better guess if you gave some context in which you've heard the expression... (Google just finds the lyrics of a song by Daniel O'Donnell, in which it could mean nothing more than "take your shawl off and stay a while so I can tell you this story".) --Tango (talk) 18:55, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


 * What's the point of saying Irish "english"? It's Irish English. 80.58.205.34 (talk) 12:31, 12 April 2011 (UTC)