Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 September 18

= September 18 =

Chinese bronze or seal script question
A person on a Chinese history forum I frequent is trying to get a translation of characters from some type of ritual axe. I recognize some of them, but not all of them. Can anyone here recognize all of the characters? --Ghostexorcist (talk) 17:12, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

"table-doty breakfast"
What on earth is "table-doty breakfast"? It's mentioned in Sea Fog by J.S. Fletcher, and nowhere else (it's in both the Google Books version and my printed copy, which are definitely from two different editions, so it's not a typo). The character that says it speaks what is supposed to be some sort of Scottish dialect, if that helps, although his actual hometown is never revealed. Any ideas? Smurrayinchester 17:25, 18 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Probably a mispronunciation of table d'hôte. Angr (talk) 17:28, 18 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Ah, thanks. I thought it might be table service (i.e., with the staff "doting" on the customers), but that makes a lot more sense. Smurrayinchester 17:49, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Handwritten lowercase ligatures
In handwriting, how are æ and œ typically distinguished? All of my experience with them has been in typescript, except for occasional times that I've had to write them, and it's difficult to show that I'm not using the same ligatures in both words of phrases such as "œcumenical encyclopædia". I typically write my "a"s by writing a "c" and putting a line on the right side, so with ligatures I've attempted to write them like a printed "a". Nyttend (talk) 17:43, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I rarely do this in handwriting, but I usually just write the two letters of the ligature but closer together so that their adjacent sides merge. The vertical join in "æ" should be more noticable than the more curvy join in "œ".  Astronaut (talk) 18:35, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Try drawing the "æ" not with an "ɑ" type symbol, but with an actual "a" with an upper limb. Begin on the upper limb of the "a", descend and spiral clockwise inward until you get the the horizontal closure, and then cross over into the hoizontal bar of the "e", spiralling outward clockwise. That will give you a nice symmetrical curlicue, not confusable with the "œ". μηδείς (talk) 18:42, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
 * That's more or less how I write mine, and it works well. From what I've seen, it is not uncommon for native Norwegians and Danes to write the one-story lowercase A (i.e. "C-with-a-stick") but use a two-story A for lowercase Æ, though it's definitely easier to write a lowercase two-story A alone once you're used to writing lowercase Æ. dalahäst (let's talk!) 19:03, 18 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Bear in mind that the Norwegian and Danish (and Old English) letter 'æ' is not a ligature. It is an independent letter, that happens to resemble a ligature of two different letters. There is no reason at all why the part that resembles an 'a' should be written the same way as an 'a'. --ColinFine (talk) 21:03, 18 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Do you not mean, "there is no reason at all why the part that resembles an 'a' should be written the same way as an 'ɑ'"? μηδείς (talk) 21:06, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Here's an image that perfectly illustrates how to draw the letter ash or the ligature: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2Lo0ekOVpN0/TmEdqlxtt7I/AAAAAAAAAgU/F03rfuCXUmU/s1600/tench_drawing_ash.jpg μηδείς (talk) 21:15, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

In italic type, by the way, æ can often be distinguished from œ by the former's flatter top. —Tamfang (talk) 22:09, 18 September 2012 (UTC)


 * As a Norwegian who knows French, to be honest, I don't differentiate between them. In handwriting, I use a symbol similar to œ for both. The reason for this is that when I learnt to write, we were taught to write a as ɑ and, logically, æ (consisting of a and e became œ). When I learnt French, I continued using the same symbole for œ. I justify this by pointing out that Norwegian only has 'æ' and no 'œ', and French uses 'œ', and 'æ' only in some rare borrowings, so the potential for confusing them is non-existent. V85 (talk) 10:04, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Among linguists in the United States, there's a tradition that the International Phonetic Alphabet [æ] symbol is not written as a separate "a" and "e" mooshed together along one side, but rather as a single-stroke "figure-8" type shape (see my remark towards the bottom of Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 May 7). -- AnonMoos (talk) 22:23, 18 September 2012 (UTC)