Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 October 28

= October 28 =

Arabic error?
What's happened with the Arabic name of Harun al-Rashid, as seen in the first line of his article? I've never before seen Arabic look like this on Wikipedia; it always looks like it does in the article on Al-Amin, Harun's son. Nyttend (talk) 01:22, 28 October 2011 (UTC)


 * The letters certainly look correct to me (هارون الرشيد); however, in my browser it displays in a sans-serif font in the first line of the article, but in a normal pseudo-"naskh" font at the top of the infobox... AnonMoos (talk) 01:28, 28 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Seems to be caused by use of the  template with Arab parameter. Doesn't seem like an error, just different type style. --130.216.172.3 (talk) 06:28, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Maźitakǘ from Caucasus mountains
An editor has been adding incomprehensible messages to my talk page and apparently saying that they are in a language he calls "Maźitakǘ from Caucasus mountains" -- the editor has also added Maźitakǘ and Ṍlup to List of languages by name. Does any of this ring any bells for anybody? Am I being trolled? Looie496 (talk) 01:34, 28 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't recognize the names, they would have to be obscure sub dialects. Mazitaku has no hits anywhere.  If it's made up he obviously has put a lot of effort into it--most North Causcasian languages don't have common Latin alphabet standards.  It does strike me as possible trolling but nothing phonological sticks out to me as obviously fake.  He does seem to repeat roots at a highly suspect rate though.  It's most definitely not a NWCaucasian language.  See here to compare the Chechen language which does have umlauted vowels.  But looking here  the text is dissimilar to Chechen and the Lezghian language.  I suggest you go to google translate and get the Russian, Turkish and Farsi for "I do not understand.  Please Speak English, Russian, Farsi or Turkish." and post that message to him in those languages.  The chance a literate person with internet accesss in that area wouldn't respond to one of those languages is very small. μηδείς (talk) 01:46, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * If Keç means sorry in "Mazitaku", then it has something to do with Karachay-Balkar or the extinct Cuman language. 80.122.178.68 (talk) 12:14, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Ḩ
The "Maźitakǘ" messages frequently use Ḩ and ḩ. I've never before seen these characters; in what language(s) are they used? Ḩ is a redirect to Cedilla, while my computer doesn't know what to do with ḩ: it displays it properly, but when I go to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ḩ, it treats the link as if I'd linked to ? and accordingly redirects me to Question mark. Nyttend (talk) 02:05, 28 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I have seen hooked letters like that used in Latin alphabets adapted to languages of the Soviet Union—but I can't remember exactly from which. It didn't raise any flags.  The umlauted vowels which are typical of Chechen don't go with the long and apparently agglutinative word forms.  You never know with the Causcasus unless you are an expert, but my impression is some sort of hybrid of a Turkic language morphology and North East Caucasian language phonology. μηδείς (talk) 02:40, 28 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Here is a sample of the NE Caucasian Tsez language from its article: Zewnoƛax zewčʼeyƛax bˤeƛon bocʼin zirun qayno. Sidaquł šigoħno sadaqorno boyno ħukmu: yaqułtow begira bocʼi ħonƛʼār miƛʼeł xizāz xizyo rišʷa yoł. Bˤeƛā begirno qay łˤāł xizāz, bocʼin zirun regirno ħonƛʼār miƛʼeł xizāz. Ɣudod, žedi raynosi beƛʼez reqenyoxor, ziru boqno uhi-ehƛada buq boƛāxzāzarno boqno.


 * Here is some of the text at question from Looie's talk page: Marasiḿat! Marasiḿatta sḩo larada, sḩo böttǜ laradainǜ, mak Halafḩasimatta mölökodǜ laradainǜ. Zölottafḩi maraida sḩo malüttmalütta haḿaźalú Tatamasama Poroźekka Ḩwýkkipidiyainü. Somoralara sḩo marupta, aksattamalara samado. Fḩaemaz taye mattamatta mofḩotte. Hafkafe hafkafeyadü mayadü.


 * Obviously not the same language, but a real feat if it's made up. The Fḩ in words like Fḩaemaz looks like a possible diagnostic feature.μηδείς (talk) 02:53, 28 October 2011 (UTC)


 * The Ḩ article was created by User:에멜무지로 who has been indef blocked for creating vandalistic redirects. I wonder if this current situation is related or not.  -- Jayron  32  02:56, 28 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I am very surprised (or not at all surprised) that this user was indefinitely blocked. There is not a single warning on his talk page, and no evidence his edits were not in good faith.  μηδείς (talk) 05:44, 28 October 2011 (UTC)


 * There were many warnings on his talk page. Just not on the most recent version of it.  -- Jayron  32  12:54, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Nyttend, FYI, ḩ is just the lower case of Ḩ. On my computer, both links lead to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ḩ which in turn redirects to cedilla. I've seen that letter as a possible transliteration for Arabic ح, for example the Estonian Wikipedia uses it for that purpose, as in et:Ḩizb Allāh. --Theurgist (talk) 10:31, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * My opinion: text looks like transliterated (see ISO 9). The inverse transliteration yields the text in Cyrillic. Some words are capitalized in mid-sentence. The word Ḩwýkkipidiyainü should be googleable, but it is not. A prankster. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 15:12, 28 October 2011 (UTC)


 * "Ḩ" may appear when some Caucasian or Arabic languages are transliterated into Latin. A better question is, are there any languages where you can find even two, let alone three, of "Ḩ", "ḿ" (M acute), and "ǘ" (u with diaeresis and acute)? As far as I can tell, there aren't. --Itinerant1 (talk) 03:40, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Looking for deverbal "reversible" adjectives that can take "-able"
I'm looking for a word like "unlockable"--i.e., a word that's part of a 4-word set like {lock, unlock, lockable, unlockable}, where all those words are real words. (So, for instance, something like wash/washable would not work, since there's not unwash/unwashable; likewise wrap/unwrap aren't good since there's not wrappable/unwrappable.) I've already thought of undo, untie, unlock, unload, and unscrew (although I am a bit skeptical about "screwable/unscrewable"); I just need one more.

I'm not sure exactly what it's for--a friend of mine is teaching a class and asked me to help come up with some. I assume she probably wants to illustrate the ambiguity in these compounds (i.e. un-lockable vs. unlock-able).

Thanks, r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 03:29, 28 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Do, doable, undo, undoable. --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  05:08, 28 October 2011 (UTC) I see you've already thought of that one, sorry.  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  05:11, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * screwable and unscrewable are okay to me. Here are some other examples I can think of break, unbreak, breakable and unbreakable/ like, unlike, likeable, unlikeable/ cover, uncover, coverable, uncoverable/ load, unload, loadable, unloadable/ train, untrain, trainable, untrainable/ teach, unteach, teachable, unteachable  Meerkatakreem (talk) 07:06, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * How does one unbreak, unlike, untrain or unteach smb/smth, Meerkatakreem? --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  07:36, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * hhhhhmm remembering Toni Braxton’s song, can’t we say Unbreak my heart? :) Sample sentence of unlike and untrain is here []. The word unteach is also used here [].-Meerkatakreem (talk) 09:35, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Unfriend works, thanks to facebook.μηδείς (talk) 10:19, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Clean, unclean, cleanable, uncleanable.
 * Elect, unelect, electable, unelectable.
 * Imagine, unimagine, imaginable, unimaginable.
 * Mute, unmute, mutable, unmutable.
 * Pot, unpot, potable, unpotable.
 * Cape, uncape, capable, uncapable.
 * , un, able, unable.
 * Bear, unbear, bearable, unbearable.
 * Ring, unring, ringable, unringable. (OK, those last two aren't in dictionaries.)
 * I hope that was helpable. Card Zero  (talk) 11:23, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Unclean isn't a verb, and potable doesn't derive from pot (that would be pottable). Angr (talk) 11:32, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Bah! I'll do some sensible ones to make up for this... furl, knit, fold, bend, reason (yes, unreason can be a verb), say, suit, wedge, work. Card Zero  (talk) 11:38, 28 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Hm... for some, the "un-" adjective isn't actually the reverse of the plain adjective (e.g. workable/unworkable, the un- adjective means "not workable", not "able to be *unworked"; likewise for likeable/unlikeable); sorry I didn't specify that in mmy first message.
 * But regardless, I think this is enough to work with. Thanks for the suggestions, everyone! r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 15:21, 28 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, perusing :wikt:Category:English_verbs&pagefrom=um could be a good start. There, one can readily find unbind, uncheck, undefine, unerase, unmask, which look like plausible candidates to be ableable [sic] No such user (talk) 15:58, 28 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Nobody has pointed out explicitly that while "un-" is freely productive on adjectives, it is much more restricted on verbs, or was until the last few years. Before the burgeoning of new coinages for computer use, and apart from a very few archaic forms like "unsay", "un-" with a verb was restricted to verbs of wrapping, closing and fastening. (Benjamin Lee Whorf used this as an example of what he called "cryptotypes"). This means that apart from recent computer terms, all the solutions to your problem will be words of this type.

English grammatical question
I recently received a grade for a midterm essay. I was docked a few points (well... only one, really) for grammatical errors that I feel might be challengable. For instance:
 * What I wrote: "The scenario states for the sake of argument that the exact opposite occurs, and the criminal element in fact returns to this neighborhood.
 * Corrected version: "The scenario states, for the sake of argument, that the exact opposite occurs, and the criminal element, in fact, returns to this neighborhood."

Are the corrections my professor made particularly critical? Can the added commas be omitted, still making the sentence grammatically correct?--WaltCip (talk) 17:41, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmm. When I went to school, I learned long lists of rules for commata in German, but I was essentially told to apply commata in English "wherever you would take a breath when speaking". By that rule, yours is a bit breathless, but not actually wrong. However, your professor's version does read slightly better. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:53, 28 October 2011 (UTC)


 * It could also be argued that "for the sake of argument" and "in fact" are parenthetical, i.e. they could be safely excluded without altering the essential meaning of the sentence. Therefore, they must be marked as parenthetical by the use of surrounding commas (or parentheses).  --  Jack of Oz   [your turn]  21:15, 28 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I prefer it with them but it looks fine without, too; to me it's a stylistic difference and I wouldn't consider the former "incorrect".
 * (That being said, in a classroom setting what the professor wants is what is correct. It wouldn't be appropriate to ask your professor for more points based on the advice on some random nobodies on Wikipedia.) r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 23:41, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Jack of Oz is technically right, but I'm not sure that in this day and age such phrases must be marked using parenthetical commas. I would have accepted WaltCip's version as correct, though perhaps the phrases are a bit long. To avoid using too many parenthetical commas, dashes or parentheses can sometimes be used instead: like this: "The scenario states – for the sake of argument – that the exact opposite occurs, and the criminal element, in fact, returns to this neighborhood." — Cheers, Jack Lee  –talk– 05:29, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
 * My "they must be marked as parenthetical" followed upon "It could be argued that" and was meant to be seen in that light, i.e. not considered mandatory these days, but traditional grammar still has its place for those inclined to partake of its joys. Your dashful solution is just as good, btw, but it is still marking the phrase as parenthetical, which is the main issue here.  The way to do it is less important.  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  09:23, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I was using the dashes parenthetically in the example. My point was simply that one can relieve the tedium of too many commas with a sprinkling of paired dashes or parentheses (in the sense of round brackets). But I note that it seems fairly common nowadays to see parenthetical phrases embedded in sentences without separating punctuation. — Cheers, Jack Lee  –talk– 14:28, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, I know, I know, Jack. Don't get me started. Restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses are hardly ever distinguished anymore either. A very sad development, imho. --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  21:24, 29 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Hmmm - I'd be inclined to say that 'in fact' was redundant. If the 'exact opposite' has occurred, the facts are self evident. But yes, if in doubt, say it out aloud, and if you have run out of breath halfway through your sentence, you probably need another comma or two - or some other appropriate form of punctuation (not that I'm any sort of expert...) AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:50, 29 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Walt, in this day and age, people like to think grammar rules that they didn't make up are ridiculous and unnecessary. Or - In this day and age, people like to think grammar rules, which they didn't make up, are ridiculous and unnecessary.  The difference the OP is puzzled about concerns restrictive and non-restrictive modifiers - but as the grammar police lost funding many years ago, I suppose once outside of your classroom, you can do what you please and not worry about being jailed or fined.  Pity.  Textorus (talk) 05:58, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I didn't say the rules were "ridiculous". :-) — Cheers, Jack Lee  –talk– 07:00, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Nobody thinks 99% of the grammar rules they didn't make up are ridiculous and unnecessary, because they aren't consciously aware of them. Not even the most flagrant antiprescriptivist violates rules of English grammar like "the subject precedes the verb and the object follows the verb" or "You must not extract a wh-word out of a conjoined phrase" (which would result in sentences like *Who did you see John and?) or "You must aspirate voiceless stops at the beginning of a word and at the beginning of a stressed syllable". Even three- and four-year-olds, whose mastery of English is a bit wobbly, don't violate these grammatical rules. Angr (talk) 09:50, 29 October 2011 (UTC)


 * No offense intended, Jack; I was just thinking in general terms with my tongue-in-cheek statement. I realize that texting has made the rules of punctuation, spelling, and grammar utterly obsolete, and soon they will all be considered ridiculous relics of a vanished time, like fountain pens and buggy whips, except for a dwindling few antiquarians like me.  Textorus (talk) 09:54, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Walt, please don't confuse grammar with orthography. Whether to put commas in or not is a question of orthography, not grammar. If you are native speaker of English, you will never get the grammar of (your dialect of) English wrong, although your grammar (as well as your orthography) may deviate from that of the written standard. Angr (talk) 10:05, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
 * If what you're saying is true, then I did not confuse grammar with orthography. My professor, however, did.--WaltCip (talk) 19:44, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
 * No, your professor is correct about the written standard that Angr refers to, which is a more defined and regulated thing than anyone's spoken English grammar. Textorus (talk) 13:59, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

"Doesn't" vs. "does not"
This edit to Utopia: The Creation of a Nation had the edit summary of "Tone" and changed all of "doesn't use fuel" to "does not use fuel". Now bear in mind I am not a native English speaker. Is there really such a big difference between "doesn't" and "does not"? From what I have learned in school, they are pretty much interchangeable. What is the situation really like among native English speakers? J I P &#124; Talk 20:09, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * They are interchangeable, but in more formal situations many people avoid contractions, which I'm guessing led to the "tone" description. I remember in school and college where papers wouldn't be allowed to use contractions, and many or most news articles will avoid them. Generally, contractions are fine in conversation or things like this discussion but not in more formal situations. Alexius  Horatius  20:16, 28 October 2011 (UTC)


 * In speech "does not" is more emphatic or imperative than "doesn't". Roger (talk) 20:22, 28 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Contractions are much more common in spoken English. As Dodger67 says, the unshortened form is often emphatic in spoken English.  However, written English is different.  Contractions have an informal tone in the written language. They are appropriate for e-mails and other informal writing. I may be old-fashioned, but I don't think contractions generally work in writing that aims for an encyclopedic style.  Marco polo (talk) 20:39, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Is this the same case as in colloquial Finnish? I would not think twice about saying "voiksä" to someone in person, but were I to put in writing, were it e-mail or a written or printed letter, I would always write it as "voitko sinä". But from what I learned in school, contractions in English were a fully grammaticised feature, and thus I learned I could use them just as well as the full forms. J I P  &#124; Talk 20:45, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * In spoken English, you can, but in written English contractions are quite colloquial and tend to be avoided in formal writing such as encyclopedia articles. For Wikipedia's rules, see WP:CONTRACTION. When I was first learning French at the age of 15, I asked whether contractions in French are also avoided in formal writing, i.e. whether it's acceptable to write Je ai écouté le oiseau. It isn't, so that was something I had to learn: contractions are obligatory in French, but optional in English (being used in some registers more than others). Angr (talk) 21:27, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I advise my law students to avoid contractions in their essays, as they often create an incongruous sense of informality. However, I have seen them being used in law journal articles, particularly those published in US journals. (I think my PhD supervisor would have a fit – she still feels it is better to write in the passive voice ("It is submitted that ...") rather than the active ("I submit that ...").) — Cheers, Jack Lee  –talk– 05:33, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Watt =Vatio
In Spanish, the unit of power, Watt, is given as the Vatio, while keeping W as the symbol.Spanish language says that "W" is only used for foreign words like "whiskey." Why wasn't "watt" given this treatment? Is "Watt" hard to pronounce in Spanish? Was there controversy when this decision was made, sometime after the 1889 standardization of the Watt as the unit of power? It seems like an unnecessary hurdle for students to learn the symbol W and unit vatio, with a different initial letter, but I suppose no worse the us learning that electrical "current" in "Amperes" is represented by "I". Edison (talk) 23:19, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Not that this necessarily helps, but the Spanish wikipedia says this spelling resulted from the Castellanización of the word, i.e. its assimilation into Castilian Spanish. My guess would be that although it was derived from James Watt (which the article states), it by itself is not a proper noun, so they were free to drop the "w" and convert it into what they thought was a good Spanish-sounding equivalent. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:34, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I have my doubts that any decision was made about the pronounciation of the word. Language generally is driven by usage and almost certainly the word was pronounced with an initial 'v' for ease and this became the norm, (as BB says). There are other examples, 'váter' (toilet) is a corruption of 'water' from 'water closet', 'Varsovia' for 'Warsaw' and 'vagón' from 'wagon'. Richard Avery (talk) 08:02, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Nah, “Varsovia” is not the right example, for “Warsaw” is originally pronounced with a “v”, even if English has butchered it. &#x2013; b_jonas 09:03, 30 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Also, Vatio is not an exception in Spanish. For example: Ampere – Amperio, Coulomb – Culombio, Curie - Curio, Farad – Faradio, Henry – Henrio, Hertz – Hercio / Hertzio, Joule – Julio, Newton - Neutonio / Neutón, Ohm – Ohmio, Volt – Voltio, Weber – Weberio. Vatio is probably just the most evident one. This kind of adaptation is also present in English: after all, volt should actually be volta. --151.41.239.148 (talk) 10:58, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Heh. We could probably have dealt with it better if Volta had been an Englishman named Bassingthwaighte-Featherstonehaugh.  Also, "amp" is much more common colloquially than "ampere" (let alone "Ampère").  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  21:15, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
 * AFAIK "amp" normally means amplifier rather than Ampère. --Belchman (talk) 12:23, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * To me, "amp" would always be the abbreviation for ampere (or Ampère if you wish to be formal), but I suppose it depends on context.   D b f i r s   18:10, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * "Amp" is both "Ampere" and "amplifier", depending on context. Most people who have changed a fuse in a plug (all mains plugs in the UK are fused) will know that there are 3 amp and 5 amp and 13 amp ones, but most of them could not tell you either what an amp was, or what it was short for. --ColinFine (talk) 01:30, 31 October 2011 (UTC)