Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 September 24

= September 24 =

Adaptation of the Ancient place names into Turkish
I wondered why the name of Kayseri has a diphthong, as I known in Byzantine Greek by the 11th century αι already became ε. Though I've found in the Wikipedian article that it came through Arabic Kaisariyah. Nevertheless, whether in the 7th century the diphthong αι was still in Greek? I thought that it became a monophthong long before this date. Another question: why "z" was added in İznik? I perfectly know that all the Turkic languages usually avoid sonorants in the beginning of words, but why not simply İnik? So, finally, is there any general research on Turkification of the Ancient place names into Turkish?--Luboslov Yezykin (talk) 00:25, 24 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Iznik comes from a reanalysis of the Greek preposition eis, meaning "into". So just as Istanbul comes from εἰς τὴν Πόλιν (eis tēn Polin) "into the City", Iznik means "into Νίκαια" (Nikaia). μηδείς (talk) 00:37, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's obvious! I've totally forgotten about Istanbul! Though why have the Turks adapted it with "into the"? Didn't they hear from the Greeks the bare names of the cities or with other prepositions? E.g. "I came from Nicaea" or "Ø Nicaea is a great city" etc.--Luboslov Yezykin (talk) 02:10, 24 September 2012 (UTC)


 * That sort of thing is typical in loanwords, such as Western languages borrowing Arabic words with the al- article appended, such as alcohol;, English speakers talking about "the El Niño", The Zulu language reanalyzing initial consonants in borrowed words as noun class markers, so that the English spoon is analyzed as the root -punu maked with the isi- noun class prefix. Since the izi- prefix marks the plural of the isi- class, the plural of spoon in Zulu becomes izipunu.


 * For the specific case of the Is/z- prefix, Turkish doesn't use prepositions. So the very common answer to "Where are you going?" which would have a destination with a dative (I believe) case ending in the Turkish language would be answered with a prepositional phrase in Greek, but not be understood that way in a language that lacked prepositions.  Note also that eis is a proclitic in Greek, so it did not bear its own stress, and would seem like part of the following word. http://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/lessons/greek-accentuation.asp?pg=9 μηδείς (talk) 02:50, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * That's right, Turkish uses the dative case for the concepts of "to/towards/into something", in contrast to the general Indo-European pattern, where the accusative case is employed for that purpose, usually along with a preposition. --Theurgist (talk) 16:08, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I wonder how it looked in real life. I imagine that once upon a time a Turkish merchant came to Nicaea and asked (in broken Greek) a local the name of the city: "Vot iz neym ov dis siti?". "This city is Nicaea", replied the local. Then after trading he returned to his native city and told his fellow merchants in the bazaar that there is a rich city in the west called Nicaea. So why did he hear from the Greeks not Nicaea (Nikea) but Innicaea (Iznikea)? --Luboslov Yezykin (talk) 03:59, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Because in natural speech one much more often hears "I am going to the city" as a destination than "the city is beautiful", or "on fire". A verbatim google for "to the city" gets 9,450,000,000 hits. That's Nine Billion+ μηδείς (talk) 04:13, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Another example akin to Istanbul or Iznik, but in the other direction Alexandria is transliterated into Arabic as "al-Iskandariyyah"; that is the "Al" from the Greek name of the city is re-appropriated as the "al-" definite article, something similar happened with Iskanderun which used to be "Alexandretta", but the "Al" was dropped from the name, as though it were an optional article. -- Jayron  32  04:10, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I have never bought the traditional etymology of İstanbul as being εἰς τὴν Πόλιν. That stinks of folk etymology, and fails to explain why the name isn't İstinbul, or does someone want to claim Doric Greek was still being spoken in Constantinople in the 11th century? I'm convinced the -stan- of İstanbul is the -stan- of Con stan tinople, with a prothetic i added to make the consonant cluster pronounceable, same as the Turks did with İzmir < Smyrna and Isparta < Sparta (and coincidentally the same as Vulgar Latin did with all sC- clusters, hence Spanish escuela < schola etc.) Angr (talk) 06:57, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree. This happens in Hungarian, too. The word for 'table' is 'asztal' (from Russian or other Slavic 'stol') and the word for 'school' is 'iskola'. It's common in many languages to add a supporting vowel for unfamiliar consonant clusters from loan words. French even added the supporting vowel, and then dropped the troublesome consonant in 'école'. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:10, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Finnish, on the other hand, simply dropped consonants it couldn't be bothered with, which is why it calls Stockholm Tukholma and France Ranska. Angr (talk) 16:15, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * So I suppose you believe equally strongly that con- > i- and -tin- > 0 are perfectly natural developments requiring no special pleading to explain? μηδείς (talk) 16:59, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * No, I said where the i- came from. The con- and -tin- presumably wore away in the way syllables in long words are always prone to do. Angr (talk) 18:15, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * If I may add to the prothetic vowel theory - I distinctly remember that IStanbul was historically called Stamboul, which is perhaps the original contraction of (Con)stan(tino)pol(is). Ratzd&#39;mishukribo (talk) 05:25, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The plausibility of the -tan- as a form of the article in eis tin polin is confirmed by parallel cases such as eis tin Ko > İstanköy, where the etymology is beyond any doubt. I'm not sure what the current views on the explanation of the [a] is, but to the best of my knowledge the eis tin polin etymology has been the firmly held communis opinio in all research since the late 19th century. The alternative derivation from Konstantinupolis was considered back then and is considered obsolete. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:00, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * There's also the question of when in the last millennium eta started being pronounced as ita. μηδείς (talk) 18:20, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh, that one would be early enough, during antiquity, at least in the mainstream varieties. Some eastern, Asia Minor varieties might have lagged back in some of these things though, judging by what is known from their fragmentary modern remnants. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:31, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Can anyone recommend any good books, popular or technical, on the development of Greek through time from Mycenaean to Demotic? Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 20:23, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I often use Geoffrey Horrocks, Greek: A history of the language and its speakers. It's not very strong on the earliest (Mycenean/archaic) phases, but quite nice on the development of post-classical Koine and medieval Greek. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:31, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * That's fine, I'm actually much more up on Mycaenaean than I am on modern developments. Open to other sources. μηδείς (talk) 20:48, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

And what about the Greek diphthongs in the 7th century? Why not Keseri? --Luboslov Yezykin (talk) 13:13, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Dunno, but I suppose that placename would not have been borrowed directly from Greek to Turkish, but probably through Persian or some other intermediate language. Persian had apparently borrowed the title of "Caesar" in the form "Kaysar" (قیصر). Can't say when that was, but it may well have been a lot earlier than the time the Turks took over central Anatolia, and either Greek or Latin might well still have had a diphthong at that time. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:39, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * It seemed, Lyuboslov, you answered the question yourself in the first post, that the Arabs already knew it as Kaysariyah. That doesn't strike me as problematic. μηδείς (talk) 02:09, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I thought myself that it was through Aramaic (less probably through Armenian or Persian) and the city was known to the Arabs (Nabateans?) before the Islamic conquest. I hoped that somebody knew exactly about it.--Luboslov Yezykin (talk) 04:08, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Sanskrit question
J. Robert Oppenheimer famously quoted a line from the Bhagavad Gita, "Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds."

The line itself is usually translated as "I am time, destroyer of all things" by most translators, but I'm not interested in that.

I've been poking around with the relevant section of the Gita. I don't speak or read Sanskrit or any similar language. Am I correct in inferring that the second line from the top here is equivalent to the transliterated line that reads ''kalo smi ... pravrddho" which is equivalent to the line that Oppenheimer was referencing? --Mr.98 (talk) 01:51, 24 September 2012 (UTC)


 * It certainly looks like it from that link. Kāla has multiple meanings is Sanskrit, and it is likely a deliberate play on words, very common in Sanskrit literature, and completely lost in translation.--Shantavira|feed me 07:39, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

been/bin homophony and Alan Partridge
In the US, "been" invariably rhymes with "bin", whereas in the UK it rhymes with "bean". I always thought that the "bin" pronunciation was a conspicuous and idiosyncratic Americanism not used by anyone in the UK, except perhaps by speakers of a highly divergent regional dialect. However, in this clip, Alan Partridge very clearly uses the "bin" pronunciation. I know that Steve Coogan comes from the north of England, but his character is from Norfolk. So what's going on? Is "bin" a northern pronunciation that Coogan used unconsciously, or a Norfolk pronunciation that he was using in character, or something else? L ANTZY T ALK 05:31, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I would say it is used extensively throughout the UK, and in most dialects (with the exception of RP). We even have a joke in English - a rubbish collector walks into a Chinese restaurant and says "Where's yer bin?" and the waiter says, "I bin Hong Kong on holiday." It's very common pronunciation all over the UK. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 05:47, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid I can't help but add the rest of this (rather racist) joke, with apologies; Bin man: "No, I mean where's your wheelie bin?" Restaurateur: "I wheelie bin Hong Kong - you no berieve me?" Alansplodge (talk) 12:55, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * But when these Britons say "bin", is this just a reduced, lazy-mouthed pronunciation of "bean" that they use when talking quickly, or is it the way they would carefully enunciate the word in isolation? L ANTZY T ALK 06:04, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * British food is not known for being wonderful, but we certainly don't have 'bins on toast'. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 18:19, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * We always say bin in fast speech or even use a schwa. Except when it's emphasised. "I've bin thinking about that a lot" but "Where've you been?". Itsmejudith (talk) 06:29, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * After some consideration, I'm fairly certain that I say "bean" most of the time, even with my dodgy London accent. Alansplodge (talk) 16:37, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * To be honest, I, as a scouser, also pronounce it /bi:n/ in most cases. This may be because my accent has changed a bit from dealing with non-native speakers like yourself, Alan :) KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 18:24, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * It strikes me as possible than /bi:n/ is an affected spelling pronunciation. μηδείς (talk) 06:56, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I think that would be very hard to prove. Alansplodge (talk) 12:56, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

As an aside, I'd like to ask the OP how "seen" is pronounced? Where I am in the UK, 'sid' is a regularly used substitute (for both seen and saw). "Have you sid Brian?" " Not today, I sid him yesterday though." - X201 (talk) 13:16, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * "Sid" is an abbreviation of "see'd" (used in place of seen or saw). "Sin" (abbreviated pronunciation of "seen") is also used in some dialects.    D b f i r s   16:27, 24 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I disagree with the first half of the OP's first sentence. I speak US English, and I pronounce been to rhyme with ben if I'm speaking at slow or medium speed, and only rhyme it with bin at high speed. I'm pretty sure this is typical for the US. Duoduoduo (talk) 14:34, 24 September 2012 (UTC)


 * John Wells, in his Longman Pronunciation Dictionary lists /biːn/ (bean) and /bɪn/ (bin) for British English and only /bɪn/ for American English and writes, "Some BrE speakers have biːn as strong form, bɪn as weak form. — Preference poll, BrE (for strong form): biːn 92%, bɪn 8%." I (an American) also have both /bɪn/ and /bɛn/, though. Lesgles (talk) 14:48, 24 September 2012 (UTC)


 * To my surprise, my Am Eng dictionary Random House Webster's College Dictionary only gives /bɪn/. Wiktionary is inconsistent about it: for the Gen Amer pronunciation, both stressed and unstressed, it only gives /bɪn/, but under "homophones" for a US accent it gives both "bin" and "Ben".
 * Is it possible that /bɛn/ is regional in the US? Duoduoduo (talk) 15:05, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes. I associate it (very unscientifically) with Appalachian speech.  /bɪn/ is far more common in my hearing. -- Elphion (talk) 15:13, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I used only /bɛn/ for most of my childhood and young adult years (and I'm not from Appalachia) until I saw that dictionaries gave only /bɪn/ either preferentially or exclusively, and now make a conscious effort to pronounce it that way. Similarly, I've pronounced since /sɛns/ for most of my life, unless I remember not to. Angr (talk) 16:09, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * See pin-pen merger for some background on those two vowels. -- Jayron  32  16:12, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, though for me at least, it's only these two words where they get mixed up. Pin and pen themselves I distinguish in the usual way. Angr (talk) 16:32, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Interesting, I don't have the pin-pen merger but I do have /bɛn/ ("Where have you ben?") and /sɛns/ in free variation. I remember when learning to spell being surprised been wasn't spelled "bin". μηδείς (talk) 18:14, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I speak a kind of western General American (definitely not Appalachian), and I don't have pen-pin merger except in the names of the letters M and N ([ɪm] and [ɪn]), but I pronounce "been" as [bɛn] (however "since" as [sɪn(t)s])... AnonMoos (talk) 02:28, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

To summarise for the OP. No, it is not regional, either North of England or East Anglia, but typical of casual speech in most or all British English varieties. By the way, Alan Partridge doesn't have a Norfolk accent but something more like Estuary English. John Wells is saying the same as my previous post. "I've bin listening tə this very carefully" vs "But where the hell have you beeeen all this time?" Alan, try reading aloud very quickly and carelessly and I think at least some of your beans will turn to bins. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:50, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Maybe some, but still not convinced. "Pussy cat, pussy cat where have you bin? I've bin up to London to visit the..." Doesn't work does it? Alansplodge (talk) 01:31, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * No, it doesn't, good example. The first one is what John Wells calls strong. The second one would count as weak in prose speech, but this is verse. If we're singing, it counts as a beat, so although it would be shorter than the first one (2 beats), there is a limit to how much it can be shortened. In speech though, because English is stress-timed, we could make it very short indeed. "I b'n up to London", stressing up and Lon. In fact, we could even leave it out and reply "Up to London". Itsmejudith (talk) 07:10, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Money bins, one hopes. That's if they're those magic beans we read about in Jack and the Binstalk.  :)  --  ♬ Jack of Oz  ♬ [your turn]  20:19, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid the might be has bins and might have bins. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:39, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * And coulda bins. --  ♬ Jack of Oz  ♬ [your turn]  21:46, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * And Ich bin, ein Berliner: The box holding the jelly donuts. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:38, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for all the replies. It's somehow pleasing to learn that it's not the cut-and-dry NA/UK shibboleth that I imagined it was. L ANTZY T ALK 23:51, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Simplified Chinese help
Can someone please get the original abstract for http://en.cnki.com.cn/Article_en/CJFDTOTAL-WGJY200801006.htm and translate it to English better than the translation provided? I am particularly interested in the phrase translated as "the new unjust phenomenon". Thanks. &mdash;Cup co  06:30, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Here is the Chinese language entry for the same article on that website: http://www.cnki.com.cn/Article/CJFDTotal-WGJY200801006.htm
 * Here is the Chinese language abstract:
 * 【摘要】：在美国,教育权属于各州,联邦不能干预地方教育改革. 然而,各州小班化教育改革,不仅没能很好地提高学生学业成绩,而且造成了新的不公平现象. 为了保障教育效率与教育公平的平衡,联邦政府于1999年开展了一场轰轰烈烈的小班化教育改革,其中的经验与教训,对于深化我国的小班化教育实践、拓展我国的小班化教育研究具有借鉴意义.
 * My translation:
 * [Abstract]: In the United States, the education power belongs to the states, [and] the federal [government] cannot interfere in local education reform. However, not only has class size reducation education reforms in the states, not done very well to lift students' academic results, but has created new phenomena of unfairness [/inequity?]. To safeguard the balance between educational efficiency and educational unfairness, the federal government began in 1999 a round of fiery [as of a revolution] class size reduction education reform, the experience and lessons of which, has referential significance for deepening the practice of reduced class size education in this country, and expanding the study of reduced class size education in this country.
 * Note: the original Chinese language abstract has some grammatical errors such as superfluous commas, I have more or less preserved them here so that the translation is more faithful to the original. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 15:35, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you. That answers my question very well. &mdash;<font color="#0c0">Cup <font color="#630">co  18:26, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

to smell = ?
Hello learned linguists ! I’m trying to pick up the cultural references of the Simpson episode Bart Stops to Smell the Roosevelts for WP fr, & I wonder what that caption exactly means ? Is here "smell" the equivalent of our french slang verb "kiffer" (from the moroccan كيف, meaning now in France "to like", "to love") and could the title  mean "Bart is suddenly deeply fond of the Roosevelts" ? Or is it an allusion to a young hound snooping around, & suddenly stopping and sniffing at an unknown scent ? Thanks a lot beforehand for your answer. T.y.Arapaima (talk) 10:23, 24 September 2012 (UTC)


 * It's a pun on "Stopping to smell the roses", which is an English expression meaning "Taking the time to enjoy life". However, as Bart doesn't seem to particularly take time to enjoy life in this episode, it seems like a rather forced pun.  StuRat (talk) 10:25, 24 September 2012 (UTC)


 * See the Wiktionary entry for stop and smell the roses. Dismas |(talk) 15:57, 24 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks a lot ! It appears in France everybody pronounces "Rousevelt", so the link with "roses" is not obvious...I credited you both : cf note N° 1, in the french version. T.y. Arapaima (talk) 08:26, 25 September 2012 (UTC)


 * You're quite welcome. I noticed you missed the closing quotation mark, so I added it to the French Wikipedia article. StuRat (talk) 09:28, 25 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Arapaima, you mention that in France everybody pronounces it "Rousevelt". You might be interested to know that in America a minority of people pronounce it that way too. Duoduoduo (talk) 14:43, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Rhyme with orange
Is it too much of a stretch to say that syringe rhymes with orange?165.212.189.187 (talk) 14:46, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * This is a matter of opinion, but I would say that the two words do not rhyme. Same goes for lozenge as well. --Viennese Waltz 14:49, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * But The Blorenge does. Ghmyrtle (talk) 14:54, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * My understanding is that to rhyme, two words must have the same primary-stressed syllable and must be identical in pronunciation from the vowel of the primary-stressed syllable all the way to the end. Syringe and orange are stressed on different syllables. Duoduoduo (talk) 14:56, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree, though in humorous rhymes spoken aloud you often hear words mispronounced to "make" them rhyme. -- Q Chris (talk) 15:01, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

So stress the same syllable. the "ringe" and "range" are pronounced the same afaikt.165.212.189.187 (talk) 15:15, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * It is a marginal masculine rhyme, but it is not a feminine rhyme. In this context I can't resist giving a pointer to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kQBVneC30o. Looie496 (talk) 15:46, 24 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Haliborange also rhymes with orange. Just saying. :) — Cheers, Jack Lee  –talk– 15:48, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * In an interview with Ed Bradley, Eminem made lots of good-enough-for-rap rhymes for orange. The only one I remember off the top of my head is door-hinge. Angr (talk) 16:05, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * That's the Youtube clip I linked; it was actually Anderson Cooper, though. Looie496 (talk) 16:43, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh well, old dead black guy, young white gay guy, it's almost the same thing... Angr (talk) 22:08, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd say that syringe is close-but-no-cigars as a masculine rhyme for orange in US English, though it works in UK English. According to Wiktionary, in UK English the last vowel in orange is indeed /I/ as in syringe, but in US English the last vowel in orange is alternately silent (making the word just one syllable) or a schwa. Duoduoduo (talk) 16:12, 24 September 2012 (UTC)


 * See also Words that rhyme with orange.--Shantavira|feed me 20:29, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * They left out East Orange, among others. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:49, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Eminem may be late, but he is not black; and neither was Ed Bradley gay, although he did rock that earring. μηδείς (talk) 23:47, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I think your slide rule slipped a notch. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:35, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Obsolete words
Do we have an article covering the concept of an obsolete word? If so, it should be linked in the Dagger (typography) article, just after the mention of the Oxford English Dictionary. 2001:18E8:2:1020:6959:C401:2BA7:1F7E (talk) 16:46, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I see that someone redirected it to fossil word. This is incorrect: a fossil word is one that is not obsolete in one or a few settings.  The Oxford Universal Dictionary classifies words as obsolete if they've completely fallen out of use, and a sense of a word as obsolete if only other senses are used today, such as "To lift up one's voice; to cry aloud; to sing loud or on a high note" for "yelp" in cases such as "Gude fadir,..To þe we crye and ȝelpe", which is "Good father,...To thee we cry and yelp."  2001:18E8:2:1020:6959:C401:2BA7:1F7E (talk) 19:01, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * There is archaism the step before obsolete but the term itself seems absent.  meltBanana  00:08, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Chinese name for Betty Bossi?
Hi! In this article: It seems to be giving a Chinese name for Betty Bossi - But I'm not sure when the name begins and when it ends Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 18:56, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * "瑞士人迅速加入慢食队伍." Lianhe Zaobao. 27 September 2007 - Seems to discuss Betty Bossi briefly
 * Probably 贝太厨房. Oda Mari (talk) 07:47, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think that's right, though it means "Betty Kitchen". "Bossi" has not been given a transliteration in the article. — Cheers, Jack Lee  –talk– 08:39, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, the "太" part (pronounced "tai") is only tenuously a transliteration of the "-tty" part of "Betty", it is probably intended to be used in the sense of "Mrs", so that the whole thing can also read as "Mrs Bei's Kitchen", which somewhat parallels "Betty Bossi"'s reference to a (fictitious) person. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:19, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Could be either, I guess. — Cheers, Jack Lee  –talk– 10:46, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Rewriting Elizabeth II's early life
See Talk:Elizabeth_II. I wrote to several other admins and the editor himself, though neither of them responded. Spelling Style (talk) 20:54, 24 September 2012 (UTC)


 * This is not the place to recruit people to a discussion on an article talk page.
 * If you have a question for which there's a reference, we can help you. --  ♬ <font face="Papyrus">Jack of Oz  ♬ <font face="Papyrus">[your turn]  21:12, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I was wondering about the best way to rewrite her early life, and did not feel it was necessary to copy and paste the whole thing again... What do people think of what's been written? Should it stay as is or be rewritten? Spelling Style (talk) 22:28, 24 September 2012 (UTC)


 * You didn't read what I wrote. You're asking us for our opinions on a piece of writing, or our suggestions for improvement.  We're not here for that.  We're here to help people answer their questions by producing references, citations, research material etc.   That's why it's called a Reference Desk.  --  ♬ <font face="Papyrus">Jack of Oz  ♬ <font face="Papyrus">[your turn]  23:00, 24 September 2012 (UTC)


 * The OP might want to go to ::WP:RFC but not here. μηδείς (talk) 23:51, 24 September 2012 (UTC)