Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 December 4

= December 4 =

What is the difference between "choice" and "selection", or are they synonyms?

 * Anti-gay activists say "homosexuality is a choice".
 * Pro-gay activists say "homosexuality is not a choice".
 * A biologist may say that in sexual selection, the peahen may choose the best-looking peacock as a mate.
 * A website-hosting advert may say "Choose a template" or "Select a template" interchangeably.

In any case, are the words "choice" and "selection" the same or treated differently? What connotations lie behind the terminologies? SuperSuperSmarty (talk) 13:41, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * The difference is not clear-cut, but "choice" tends to have more connotations of an intelligent (usually human) agent making a conscious decision about something that affects them in some way. "selection" tends to feel more mechanical or dispassionate. 81.159.107.98 (talk) 15:02, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * So, if a choice is making a conscious decision about something that affects the chooser in some way, then are you suggesting the following?


 * Choice - making a conscious decision about something that affects the chooser in some way
 * ______ - making an unconscious decision about something that affects the chooser in some way
 * ______ - making a conscious decision about something that does not affect the chooser in some way
 * ______ - making an unconscious decision about something that does not affect the chooser in some way
 * Selection - a mechanical or dispassionate choice (how is this different from "unconscious"?)

Also, if "choice" is a conscious decision, then an unconscious decision would mean making one in one's sleep?

SuperSuperSmarty (talk) 16:00, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * "conscious decision" does not highlight a contrast with "unconscious decision". At least, I didn't intend it that way. 109.151.57.10 (talk) 22:34, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * To me, "choice" connotes a discrete set of alternatives, while "selection" can be made from a continuous domain. For example, in a program like PhotoShop there are tools to let you select arbitrary parts of an image, but it would feel unnatural to say that they let you choose arbitrary parts of the image. Looie496 (talk) 16:44, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

It helps if you examine their etymons to see the difference in connotation.

Select has the connotations of 'apart'. Strictly, it would mean something like "to pick out", from its etymons se- ("apart") and legere ("gather, select"). It does not imply anything about the reasons (if there is one) for doing so, merely that you separate one from a group [of choices].

Choice has the connotations of 'free will' and 'preference'. In contrast to select, it originated from Germanic for "to taste", implying that you favor one choice over another for a reason (originally, of course, the one that tasted good).

But this is not always so clear cut of course, as their meanings overlap. They are synonyms, but they are not absolute synonyms. Compare with other words like 'amble' and 'walk'; 'eat', 'devour', 'wolf down', 'dine' and 'consume'; 'view', 'look', 'gaze', 'stare', and 'see'; 'poo', 'shit', 'excreta', 'poop', 'stool', and 'excrement'; 'firm', 'stubborn', 'resolute' and 'pigheaded'. They are all synonyms of each other, but some are used more in some contexts than another, have other meanings, or have different connotations.

Absolute synonyms are actually believed to be non-existent in natural languages, as no two words will ever have absolutely the same meanings. Also see this paper for a more technical description of synonyms.--  Obsidi ♠ n   Soul   17:59, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * A conversation might go: "Do I get a choice?" "Yes, all right, I'll let you choose." "Thanks, now I'll make my selection.". And something - was it an airline? -used to be advertised "We never forget you have a choice". "We never forget you have a selection" wouldn't work at all. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:21, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Both choice and selection have several meanings. Some of them overlap, but not all, so these two words are not always interchangeable. Going back to SuperSuperSmarty's examples, in "homosexuality is a choice", it's the meaning no. 3, so you can't substitute it with "selection". Choice or selection of a template is the meaning no. 1, interchangeable. "Sexual selection" is, of course, the meaning no. 7. — Kpalion(talk) 20:20, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Deciphering Chinese characters
Hello, please take a look at:

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/7038/starfullsize.jpg

I hope you can read it OK; I can't find a bigger picture. I recognise 星, star. Then I'm guessing the thing that looks a bit like a plus sign is the product logo, and not supposed to mean anything in Chinese, but I'm not sure. I can't seem to find the last character. Can anyone help decipher this? 81.159.107.98 (talk) 14:45, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * For any Chinese speakers who come along, there's a clearer rendering at the very top of the manufacturer's home page (after you shut down the overlying ads). Presumably it's the "Pai" in "Xing Pai", but I don't know Chinese and so can't help with the meaning. Deor (talk) 15:03, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * 星牌, xīng pái. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 15:14, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * 星牌=Star Brand.--刻意(Kèyì) 17:52, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Otium
Can I get Ennius' Iphigenia (241-248) translated from Latin and placed next to the Latin as a second column for direct line-for-line comparison. Thanks.--Doug Coldwell talk 15:04, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * There is a fairly literal line-by-line translation in Mario Erasmo's Roman Tragedy here. --Antiquary (talk) 17:22, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks.--Doug Coldwell talk 17:55, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Whats the rest of this ditty?
The working class can lick my arse, I ve got the foremans job at last....--92.29.199.115 (talk) 17:36, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Various parodies of the The Red Flag are listed here, including a number of alternative continuations of the one you've started. Mikenorton (talk) 17:52, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Italian question
I saw something like this written by an Italian Donald Duck artist as a greeting to Finnish Aku Ankka readers:

''"A che cosa salvare?" direte voi! "Salve, salve!" dico io!''

With the help of my Latin and French skills and Google Translate, I have found out that it means something like ''[...] you say! "Hello, hello!" I say!''. But is this correct, and what does the first part mean? J I P &#124; Talk 19:32, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Out of context it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Could be something like
 * "But what should I save?" you'll say
 * Not really grammatical, because salvare takes a direct object, so the first A is out of place. --Trovatore (talk) 19:38, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't remember the verb of the first sentence exactly, but it was something beginning with salv-. I'm fairly sure the question part started with A che cosa. All the context I have is a single picture, which the artist drew of himself, with the text in a speech bubble. J I P  &#124; Talk 19:51, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you still have the picture available? If the verb was salvare, it would make sense as a pun (something like "But what should I salvage?", you'll ask - "Salvage!/Hello!", I say), but as Trovatore said, the "a" is ungrammatical. Is it possible the first sentence was "Ma che cosa salvare"? -- Ferkelparade &pi; 20:02, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * (ec) Well, it could be a sort of pun. Salve is a greeting, but it could also be heard as a command, "save!", addressed to someone the speaker would say lei rather than tu to (that is, formal address).  Seems a little forced. --Trovatore (talk) 20:04, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * No, the third person imperative of salvare would be salvi. ― A. di M.​  20:10, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Whoops, of course. Where'd that come from?  --Trovatore (talk) 20:16, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, for some reason Disney comics use the old-fashioned voi (2nd plural person, hence salvate) rather than the modern lei as a formal address, or at least they did until about a decade ago – don't ask me why. ― A. di M.​  20:21, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Might it have been salutare ‘to greet’? (Salutare is supposed to be transitive too, but using it with an indirect object instead for some reason doesn't sound as wrong as salvare.) On the other hand, I can't imagine a context when someone would say such a thing as “‘What to greet?’, you will say.” ― A. di M.​  20:08, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

It could make grammatical sense if it's a response to an answer like: "Vuoi ripensare a cosa salvare?" (Do you want to rethink what to save?). Thus "A cosa salvare?" means "What to save?". It's worth noting that "salve" could mean "hello" (formal), "safe/saved" (female plural adjective) or "blank ammunitions".--151.41.139.7 (talk) 20:13, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

It might be that I remember the verb wrong. It could also be:

''"A che cosa servire?" direte voi! "Serve, serve!" dico io!"'' J I P  &#124; Talk 08:51, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Serve, serve would be even weirder... ‘It serves, it serves’ (i.e. ‘it's needed’ or ‘it's useful’)? ‘[Female] servants, [female] servants’? ― A. di M.​  10:54, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

And I immediately think of, "I don't know why you say goodbye, I say hello; hello hello!" --jpgordon:==( o ) 16:27, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Short Telugu Indian translation
What does this say?: "ఓటమి ఎరగనివాడు బోది ధర్ముడు." I imagine that it probably isn't positive since it was posted on Bodhidharma, where a lot of people have disagreed with the NPOV stance on the historical records mentioning him. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 20:35, 4 December 2011 (UTC)


 * The first word means either "failure/defeat" or "fear", the second word is translated by Google Translate (probably incorrectly) as "incognizant", and the remaining symbols spell "Bodhidharma" with suffix '-du' (డు). What this all means, I have no clue. Telugu grammar informs me that the standard word order in Telugu is subject-object-verb, which would make "incognizant" the object and "bodhidharma" the verb, but that makes no sense. --Itinerant1 (talk) 11:15, 5 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I got the same, but now looking at it, could it be 'Bodhidarma never knew defeat (or fear)', assuming that the word order is non-standard of course. Mikenorton (talk) 15:16, 5 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I know absolutely nothing about the language, but in the light of the above posts I wonder if might not be a complete sentence? Roger (talk) 17:07, 9 December 2011 (UTC)