Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 January 17

= January 17 =

Possible error on Seine
"The name "Seine" comes from the Sanish Sequana..."

Should "Sanish" be "Spanish"? I'd change it myself, but I'm not a linguistics expert so I'm not even sure if it is a typo or if it's just something obscure that I've never heard of. --75.15.161.185 (talk) 03:13, 17 January 2011 (UTC)


 * No, it was vandalized a couple of weeks ago, it should be Latin. (The river is also not 776486 km long...I've changed it back.) Adam Bishop (talk) 03:19, 17 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Last June someone vandalised the page, by inserting something like a signature, once styled as "Harkiran" and once as "нαяκιяαи". That had been staying on the page until just now, but I removed it and it's no longer there. --Theurgist (talk) 14:00, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I wonder if anyone is keeping of track the longest intervals between vandalism and its reversion on Wikipedia. I've seen some cases where deletion vandalism (like deletion of a whole paragraph or section) has gone unreverted for years, because it's not as obvious to the casual reader as addition or modification vandalism. Pais (talk) 14:28, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The much maligned (on beans/gaming the system grounds) List of hoaxes on Wikipedia, I think may go some way to answering that question. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 18:09, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Latin declension of "nomen"
Is the Latin word "nomen" typically undeclined in post-classical Latin? Psalms 149:3 in the Vulgate, for example, is "Laudent nomen eius in choro", but I would have expected accusative case "nominem". The "Christus factus est" text likewise says, "Propter quod et Deus exaltavit illum, et dedit illi nomen quod est super omne nomen," which seems confusedly ungrammatical in using "nomen" twice where other cases would be classically grammatical. Are these cases of actual language change or just sloppy grammar by the authors of the texts (who may not have spoken Latin natively)? 76.204.127.175 (talk) 04:06, 17 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Nomen is neuter, so the accusative and nominative forms are identical, in classical and pre- and post-classical Latin, as far as I know. Wiktionary's entry confirms this.--el Aprel (facta-facienda) 04:18, 17 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Yeah, it's definitely classical. (A quick look through Cicero's In Verrem turns up lots of examples, such as "in tuas tabulas ullum nomen referres".) Only masculine and feminine third declensions ending in "-o" have "-inem" in the accusative (homo, nemo, consuetudo...and Cicero too although that's not quite the same). Adam Bishop (talk) 05:08, 17 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Incidentally, the Vulgate was the work of St Jerome at a time when translating into Latin was making it accessible: he can be expected to know how to decline 'nomen' ;) 86.164.67.42 (talk) 22:28, 17 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Some famous lines including clearly declined forms of the word are "non nobis, non nobis, Domine, sed nomini tuo da gloriam" and "in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti". Marnanel (talk) 22:33, 17 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Those expressions are discussed in the articles "Non nobis" and "Trinitarian formula". Some other expressions are De Dubiis Nominibus, eo nomine, In Nomine, In nomine Domini, Liber sine nomine, (list of Roman nomina,) Missa Sine nomine, Missa Sine nomine (Josquin), nomen, nomen dubium, nomen illegitimum, nomen nudum, nomen mysticum, nomen nescio, nomen novum, nomen oblitum, Nomina Anatomica, Nomina Anatomica Veterinaria, nomina sacra, Nomina Sunt Odiosa, Nomina Villarum, sine nomine, and sub nomine.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 01:19, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Mathematics and software for linguists
What software + maths could be/is useful for linguists? Which options are often obligatory in university degrees? Quest09 (talk) 13:04, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * It really depends what kind of linguistics you're doing. (Random examples: A phonetician might get a lot of use out of Matlab and Praat, whereas a discourse analyst might have little use for those and spend more time with Transcriber; a corpus linguist or a phonologist or syntactician working with corpus data might have little use for any of those but might live on NLTK or Perl.) r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 15:07, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * A good knowledge of probability and statistics would be very useful for computational linguistics and for conducting practical experiments in e.g. experimental phonetics and psycholinguistics. Knowledge of the physics of acoustics and familiarity with audio editing/processing software would also be useful in phonetics.  But for large areas of linguistics, you don't need any math or any software skills more advanced than knowing how to get the funny symbols to show up in your word processor.  --Colapeninsula (talk) 15:21, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * One more example: for semantics, I would recommend a course on mathematical logic (especially the lambda calculus), which lies at the intersection of linguistics, math, and computer science. But I agree that it depends on your specialization. Lesgles (talk) 16:47, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipolicy concerning use of the gender-neutral "singular they"
I have always been taught that the gender-neutral use of the "singular they" is a modern construction that is politically correct but grammatically incorrect. As I tend to be much more interested in being accurate than politic, I usually use the term "one" or simply structure my sentences to avoid the pronoun entirely. If I am forced into it I tend to use the "generic/universal he." Recently, however, I have seen the gender-neutral "singular they" applied to transgender and transsexual people and I am not sure how this should be dealt with. My gut feeling would be to use the pronoun corresponding with the gender that the person uses to self-identify (if the use of the pronoun cannot be avoided). So a transsexual person born with male anatomy but self-identifying as a female would be referred to as "she." While I am willing to see the definition of gender tweaked, I am not happy to see the rules of grammar broken. Of course I am also not in charge of Wikipedia...

I have searched the archives here and have come up with little more than inconclusive arguments over the grammaticality of the "singular they." So rather than asking which is more grammatically correct - a point on which opinions seem to vary - my question concerns the wikipolicy on this point. I am interested in finding out whether any Wikipedia policy or guidelines cover the use of the "singular they," and if so what Wikipedia's stance is. Thanks -Thibbs (talk) 14:23, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * You've read singular they and you still refer to it as a "modern construction"??? --ColinFine (talk) 23:34, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I said that that's what I'd been taught, not that that was the truth of the matter. Please examine the corrections I made to the article that was the original reason for this post (lined below). I think you'll agree that the uses of the "singular they" employed in that article do not match the historical (generic) uses covered in the "singular they" article, but rather they are a form of specific "singular they" that I doubt even the Gender-neutral language movement would embrace... -Thibbs (talk) 14:30, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Gender-neutral language says, "There is no Wikipedia consensus either for or against the singular they (“Each politician is responsible for their constituency”). Although it is widely used in informal writing and speech, its grammatical validity is disputed." Personally, I have no objection to it when it doesn't refer to any specific individual, as in the "each politician" sentence, but using it to refer to a transsexual/transgender person seems downright offensive to me. "Mary told me they were going home now and were going to phone their mother, but I might see them later at the party tonight" is not only insulting (where each "they/their/them" refers to Mary alone), but really difficult to understand. Pais (talk) 14:35, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree, that's daft. You should refer to people using the identity they prefer to use. I try to avoid singular they by using "he or she", "his or her". "S/he" informally, for example on talk pages, but not in article mainspace. I don't mind when I see it because it is becoming the norm. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:41, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * As an aside, it was recommended in the style guide of one of the universites for which I taught that this construction be used in preference to gender-specific ones. At this point I can't remember which university it was (and I don't think the guides are online). --TammyMoet (talk) 15:06, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * It's not entirely modern - see the article. Rmhermen (talk) 16:51, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I saw the article - and then I linked it here. I'm not interested in discussing usage but rather policy/guideline. -Thibbs (talk) 17:44, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the help so far. Gender-neutral language is probably the closest to a perfect answer for me. I notice that it is an essay and not policy/guideline, but I also see it's linked from the MoS so I think that's probably good enough. If anyone has any further policy/guideline-related insights then please feel free to add more. Otherwise thanks for all the help. -Thibbs (talk) 17:44, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * "They" is not "politically correct", it's just much less clumsy than saying "he or she" all the time. While it may make grammarians cringe, it works, and it's here to stay. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:33, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The OP did not ask for "Bug's opinion", but for the wikipolicy. --Lgriot (talk) 18:22, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The OP's first sentence begins with a mostly-false premise. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:03, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
 * It is because the issue is debatable that I didn't want to get into it. I gave my own preferred usage to explain why I was asking the question in the first place but if you'll notice I specifically and repeatedly asked for only the wikipolicy on the matter. I respect your opinion that my premise is false but if you would like to debate the issue, please contact me directly on my talk page instead of arguing political correctness in a wikipolicy thread. Thanks -Thibbs (talk) 14:06, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
 * You're asking about wikipolicy at the language ref desk, and hence you're courting responses that have to do with language. For policy questions, you probably should have asked at the help desk. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:17, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
 * * Sigh* I had assumed that those at the language desk would be more familiar with the policy guiding language-usage than the general help desk. I had also assumed that my repeated pleas to only discuss wikipolicy would not fall on deaf ears an would perhaps stay those who wanted to turn the thread into a political talking-piece. I suppose my assumptions regarding the topic of discussion have been incorrect. -Thibbs (talk) 14:25, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
 * That was not necessarily an unreasonable assumption. But if you scan through the topics on this page, they tend to be about language in general, not about wiki policies. For questions that are specifically about wikipedia and its policies, you're liable to get better results by starting at the help desk. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:36, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

To conclude this first part of the thread, I just wanted to mention that I have corrected the issue I was originally speaking about and I invite other editors to review my work. The original article can be viewed here, and the version I have newly edited can be viewed here. I also brought the issue up on the article's talk page here. Essentially I removed most uses of the term "they" or "their" based on the fact that these uses were unclear and imprecise in violation of the MoS guidelines. I have tried hard to avoid the loss of any information from the article but I'd be happy to have some oversight. -Thibbs (talk) 14:25, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

self-definition: no article
The above got me thinking about a term. I use the phrase "self-definition" when explaining to people that saying "he" about a transsexual that refers to herself in the feminine is offensive to her. I mean that I try explain that it is not for the speaker to define her as feminine or masculine, but it is for the person herself (they sometimes reply that nature decides if someone is male or female, and then I have to explain that any language, and therefore the use of he or she, is a product of a specific society and cannot be considered "natural", but that is not my point). However, we don't have an article on the concept of self-definition. Is there a generally accepted term ?--Lgriot (talk) 17:54, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Gender identity? Pais (talk) 17:58, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The OP uses the term "self-identify", which I've often heard before. Not sure what the noun form would be: presumably "self-identification", but I don't think I've ever heard it used. By the way, I don't think your argument about language being a product of a society holds water, because it implies that nothing which can be described is natural (or at least that we can't know what is). You'd be better off arguing that the distinction is (usually) natural but not meaningful, and that the natural state has no special status as a morally correct state. 81.131.68.227 (talk) 18:10, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * (EC) No, Pais, self-definition is broader than that. It is the idea that "Thou shall not define someone else, they shall be doing that themselves" kind of thing. It works for ethnicity as well. You shouldn't decide if someone is "black" or "of mixed ethnicity", it is for them to define themselves, because there isn't a good way to formally define it. So we use self-definition instead, which has the advantage to be considerate. --Lgriot (talk) 18:13, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Self-identitification redirects to Identity, which is too wide, I am afraid. Also inside the article, it is used in a different meaning. To user with IP 81.131: for the language being a social construct comment, I'd say "fair enough", I guess what I mean is that some language may not have the he/she distinction, so one cannot say that using he or she is universal, and certainly not imposed to us by nature. But you are right, you could define he and she formally, and then use these formal concepts to decribe the world according to these definitions. It may be formally correct to do so, but not necessarily socially useful or clever. --Lgriot (talk) 18:23, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I am now half-way through the list of basic self topics, and haven't found the right article yet. I think my neurons which recognize the word "self" are getting tired. Edit: how about identity negotiation. "More often than not, the identity negotiation process seems to favor self-verification, which means that people tend to develop expectancies that are congruent with the self-views of target persons." I think that's what we're talking about, although as ever with psychology, I can't quite be sure. It's not phrased as advice ("thou shalt.."), either. 81.131.68.227 (talk) 19:02, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * "...explaining to people that saying 'he' about a transsexual that refers to herself in the feminine is offensive to her." The OP is perhaps guilty of the very thing they're complaining about: Presuming to speak for someone else and to define them. This can be called "the political correctness trap". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:31, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I would qualify that as another unhelpful intervention from Bugs....--Lgriot (talk) 18:21, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * And that would qualify as another unhelpful personal attack. Way to go. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:05, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
 * No, I see what Bugs is saying - a better (but long-winded) version would be "... is likely to be offensive to her, in the absence of information to the contrary". The transsexual might just not care. It's only a kind of etiquette guideline. 213.122.44.13 (talk) 19:37, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The best policy would be to ask, rather than making any assumptions. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:01, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
 * It is unhelpful, because that is not the question. The question is "what is the generally accepted phrase for the concept described, if any?". Not "What is bugs' opinion on whether this concept is P.C.?"--Lgriot (talk) 09:34, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
 * My comment is more helpful than yours, because mine raises a new question, while yours is merely an attempt to stifle thought. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:50, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Please try to avoid highjacking other's questions for your own purposes. If you want to ask a new question to the ref-deskers, please create your own section, so that the people really interested in providing me with some help with my question can answer here. --Lgriot (talk) 13:40, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
 * When someone asks a question here, they're trying to learn something. If part of their question is based on a false premise, we have a responsibility to point that out. In fact, you said somewhat the same thing that I did, in your first response, except it was less clear. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:52, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, but the question "what's this called?" isn't based on the premise "this is the right thing to do". Down that road lie such horrors as the gratuitous correction of punctuation errors. (Having said that, Lgriot started it by including beside-the-point stuff in his question.) 81.131.12.91 (talk) 02:13, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * (outdent) - That negative assumption is clearly a personal attack, Bugs. Wouldn't it have been better to ask whether Lgriot was trying to stifle thought? Either way, I think the sniping that is now going on in this thread is counterproductive to reaching an answer to Lgriot's original question. As for that question, I am not sure what the official term would be, but I know that in Law they use a related expression which is "to hold oneself out to the world as." That's a pretty cumbersome way to say it, but it comes up in family law when discussing marriage (same-sex or even more commonly, Common-law marriage). -Thibbs (talk) 14:07, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
 * He was telling me to shut up, and that qualifies as an attempt at stifling thought. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:15, 19 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for that phrase, Thibbs. I have just been thinking that this concept is widely used, at least in the US, in census and other related population studies. I think that government forms for government employees, census studies, etc. sometimes ask people to define themselve at least on 2 aspects (please correct me if I am wrong here): religion and ethnicity. So it is quite common and must have a name. There are 2 types of questions you may sometimes be asked to answer on a government form, one type where they ask you some things that are easily verifiable (are you married, what is you income etc.) and another type where you are asked to define yourself, like what is your religion and what ethnic group do belong to. You could say someone is lying when he says he is protestant (because he is not doing what other protestants do or whatever), but in reality, there is no point, if he wants to define himself as prostestant, then he is counted as protestant. --Lgriot (talk) 15:47, 19 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Lgriot—you are referring to attributes of the person. The general term is attributes I think. Is that the sort of terminology you are looking for? Bus stop (talk) 16:12, 19 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Are we talking about speaking in the transexual's presence? If the transexual wishes to be referred to as 'he' or 'she' we should follow their wishes. If we are speaking about them but not in their presence I don't think it makes that much of a difference, unless our choice of words is likely to get back to them. Is there a term for the decision-making process involved at arriving at which term to use? I think politeness would be very applicable. But the speaker's feelings have to be taken into consideration too, especially when the transexual is not in earshot. That comfort level might relate to topics such as homophobia. But if I'm not understanding the question, I'm willing to listen to elucidation. Bus stop (talk) 16:08, 19 January 2011 (UTC)


 * (ec) No, sorry, Bus stop, the transsexual example was a bad example, I am looking for a concept that would be more generic, that can apply to at least religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity. In all these areas, many people believe that it is hard to give others a label, and that it is easier to let them label themselves, if they want to. (But I acknowledge, not all people agree with this, for example Nazi people believe they can define who is a Jew. I beleive only the person in question can tell me if he/she considers himself/herself a Jew).--Lgriot (talk) 16:25, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
 * It seems indeed that attribute of an individual is used in census vocabulary. But it applies to objectivily verifiable features of a person as well (one attribute I have seen with a quick googling is the number of rooms in their house for example). Maybe it doesn't exist as a set phrase, and sociologists just use a long sentence each time to explain that their ethnic / religious / whatever classification is based on answers from the persons themselves, not from their (possibly) narrow view of the population they are studying. Thanks for your help everyone. --Lgriot (talk) 16:31, 19 January 2011 (UTC)


 * In my opinion the term that covers "religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity" is attributes. Another term that comes to mind is dimensions—these are "dimensions" of a person's identity. Bus stop (talk) 16:48, 19 January 2011 (UTC)


 * That is a very good phrase, we are getting close. Bus stop, in your vocabulary, when you are discussing these identity issues, would attributes of a person and dimension of a person's identity exclude something like their age? (I am asking about age as an example because one does not usually use what I call self-definition for it, you use an objective measure instead, like a calendar). --Lgriot (talk) 16:56, 19 January 2011 (UTC)


 * It depends. If you are speaking of one individual, in my opinion age would be an attribute. But since it (age) varies among members of a constituent group, I don't think age can be considered an attribute in the same league with race, gender, nationality, religious identity, sexual orientation. These are really just my own opinions. I tend to agree with you that age would be different tan the other attributes. Bus stop (talk) 21:17, 19 January 2011 (UTC)