Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 June 26

= June 26 =

Translate to Hawaiian
Help me translate "Fast is now beautiful", the slogan of Internet Explorer 9, to Hawaiian. 125.235.104.170 (talk) 13:25, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * No guarantees, but this site translates the words this way:
 * Fast = awiwi, wikiwiki [but we knew that]
 * Is = [not listed]
 * Now = i keia manawa
 * Beautiful = nani, u'i, maika'i
 * This site has some details on how to express "to be", which it says does not have an exact equivalent in Hawaiian. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:22, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, it may not be as straightforward in Hawaiian as it is in English to use an adjective as the subject of a sentence. You may have to settle for the translation of "Speed is now beautiful" or something like that. —Angr (talk) 05:49, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Good resource for learning the Queen's English (RP) accent?
Anyone know where or how (other than going to London and being with high society), I can learn the RP accent effectively? My girlfriend would like me to do so (Israeli women are just as impressed by it as American women apparently). :p Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 15:16, 26 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Or whatever style of presumably English accent she was talking about when she said I "must learn a British accent". Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 15:30, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Overall, being British, I'd suggest whatever form of Radio 4 you can get hold of. Whilst the Queen's RP is, well, unique, learning the formal tones of Radio 4 will give the impression of an educated, formal elite. Plus, it's a more practical suggestion than finding tapes of the monarchy! Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 15:32, 26 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I'll take a look at that. :p I wonder if she is looking for that estuary style? She'll probably want the fanciest one of course. :p Anymore suggestions? Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 15:40, 26 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, Radio 4 will be a good place to hear RP, though you'll hear other accents too. You'll find that Lizzie's accent has changed quite a bit over the years, so she doesn't speak "the Queen's English" herself any more - I think her modern accent is probably closer to the norm, if not quite 'estuary'. You could also listen to broadcasts of our esteemed Parliament - though I'd not recommend it if you want to learn how to talk sense... AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:51, 26 June 2011 (UTC)


 * If I watch Parliament's questioning of the PM, I will most likely laugh my ass off (not intended to be offensive, but they are quite funny) if my previous viewings are any indication. Whichever makes me sound like the hoity-toity fancy Brit that would suit an Israeli girl. :p
 * Also, I either didn't know or had forgotten you were British. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 17:17, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yup, typical Anglo-Scottish Brit mongrel - though with some Irish and a bit of Low Countries thrown in (I may be part Walloon, or - Horrors! - French, though we haven't had much luck tracking that side of the family down) My accent tends to vary between near-RP and "sarf Lund'n", depending on context. Actually, you might do better to listen to the House of Lords (or what now remains of it) for RP, and for more polite debate. The House of Commons has quite a range of accents though, including quite a few old Etonians (e.g. a significant chunk of the Cabinet). Or see if you can track down anything by Boris Johnson the mayor of London - another old Etonian, with a nice line in upper-class bumbling chat - think of a cross between Hugh Grant and an overgrown puppy. An ideal accent for giving the impression that you have inherited a great deal of money, if not necessarily much in the way of brains (though there are claims that Boris isn't as daft as he makes out to be). AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:52, 26 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I have heard it said that Sir Trevor Macdonald learned to speak the Queen's English, and acquired his rich tones, by listening to broadcasts on BBC World Service. I agree that listening to BBC Radio 4 is probably a good way to hear the accent, but to change your speech you will need either access to a voice coach, or a tape recorder so you can tape yourself and play back the results. --TammyMoet (talk) 18:08, 26 June 2011 (UTC)


 * The BBC is not the standardbearer for "proper" English that it used to be. There are a lot of clearly Scottish voices (and other regional UK varieties) on the World Service these days. Roger (talk) 18:16, 26 June 2011 (UTC)


 * To hear some of the classic BBC and RP speech, you can visit the BBC's audio archives, for example, this one on the outbreak of World War II (including Neville Chamberlain's announcement that war had been declared and The King's Speech, as well as some of the BBC's own announcers, such as Stuart Hibberd, and topical interviews with ordinary people in different regions): http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/ww2outbreak/ —— Shakescene (talk) 02:32, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Chinese reading help
Hi! I would like to have the text of the Chinese characters in http://www.99ranch.com/images/top_image_new.jpg

Thank you WhisperToMe (talk) 17:09, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * 大華超級市場 and 大華與您共創未來. Oda Mari (talk) 18:28, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for getting the characters! Now regarding "大華與您共創未來" I need some help on how the phrase is read. The ambiguous characters are "大" (dà or dài), "華" (Huá or Huà), "與" (yú, yǔ, or yù), and "创" (chuāng or chuàng) WhisperToMe (talk) 18:46, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Dà Huá yǔ nín gòngchuàng wèilái r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 19:03, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you! So would a good translation be "Giving for your shared future"? WhisperToMe (talk) 20:51, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it's more along the lines of "Dahua [supermarket] is creating the future together with you". r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 20:58, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * That makes sense ("Dahua" is 99 Ranch Market) - Thank you all so much :) WhisperToMe (talk) 04:05, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Grammar structure
Dear Sir, I am very delighted to join you on wikipedia. It is really an endlless world of knoledge. I do appreciate and feel very lucky to be among you. please allow me to ask you a question concerning grammar use.

Is it correct to say : "What kind of feeling don't you like to express ?
 * " what kind of attitude do you like to show ?
 * "What kind of attitude you like to show ?

looking forward to hearing from you soon. my best regards to all. Krim 1962 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Krim1962 (talk • contribs)


 * "what kind of attitude do you like to show?" is correct grammatically, but it does not mean anything. Looie496 (talk) 19:23, 26 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't say that. A context can be found (or devised) to fit it.  That and the first sentence are correct, but the last one is lacking the word "do".  --   Jack of Oz  [your turn]  19:25, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * "Feelings" would be better than "feeling" in the first sentence, and "What kind of feelings do you not like expressing?" (or "... do you have difficulty in expressing?") might be more natural. I agree with Looie496 that the second and third aren't really specific enough to answer - "attitude" covers far too wide a range of views, beliefs, opinions, and emotions for anyone to give a reasonable answer to the question.  Tevildo (talk) 20:22, 26 June 2011 (UTC)


 * ec: From a non-native English speaker: The fragment "... kind of ..." seems superfluous to me.  Of course, the specific tone of spoken English in Krim´s culture must apply.  The wording of the question implies that any brief and concise / precise question may be considered impolite and rude in her / his local usage of English.  --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 20:24, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

transitive uses of "dissemble"
Today's featured article is about Peter Falk and quotes a Variety columnist thus:
 * ''"The joy of all this is watching Columbo dissemble [sic?] the fiendishly clever cover stories of the loathsome rats who consider themselves his better."

I added the [sic?], with the question mark because I don't actually know whether it was in the original source, which I don't have. My guess is it probably was, and the columnist thought dissemble was another way of writing (or at least near in meaning to) disassemble, but another possibility is that it was incorrectly transcribed.

Anyway this led me to look up the Wiktionary entry, wikt:dissemble, which has a couple of transitive meanings for what I normally think of as an intransitive verb. They strike me as a little strange or off, especially meaning 2, which I quote:
 * 2. (transitive) To deliberately ignore something; to pretend not to notice.

Now, that would be fine as an intransitive verb: Bob heard his wife calling, but he dissembled, pretending not to hear.  But transitively? *Bob dissembled his wife's voice? To me that just doesn't work.

Does anyone think this meaning is in fact correct? Or have I misinterpreted the entry somehow? --Trovatore (talk) 21:58, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * This meaning is listed as "obsolete" at dictionary.com, with no examples of usage, and similarly at thefreedictionary.com, where the definition is cited to Collins. It's not listed in Merriam-Webster.  I think it's safe to say that it's not a valid usage in contemporary English, and that "disassemble" is the word that should have been used. Tevildo (talk) 22:22, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I think you're still talking about the Columbo thing, right? That's not what I was asking.  I was asking about meaning 2 in the wiktionary entry, which can't be replaced with disassemble. --Trovatore (talk) 22:23, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, sorry for not making that clear. I _have_ found an example of the "ignore" usage, from John Gill's commentary (c. 1755) on Deuteronomy 22:3 - "'thou mayest not hide thyself': from seeing it and taking care of it, in order to restore it to the right owner; or dissemble a sight of it, and pretend he never saw it, and so entirely neglect it."  So it was comprehensible to a well-educated audience 250 years ago. Tevildo (talk) 22:41, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Ok, I followed your first link, and I guess you are talking about meaning 2 from wiktionary.
 * I wonder if someone should take this up at wiktionary? I don't really know what their procedures are. --Trovatore (talk) 22:29, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it just needs to be marked "obsolete", but I don't know how to go about doing that either. Tevildo (talk) 22:49, 26 June 2011 (UTC)