Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 March 31

= March 31 =

Name of Japanese house style
What is the name for the style of Japanese houses where the walls are made of paper and the doors are sliding panels? What it the best Anglisized rendering of that name?

SteveBaker (talk) 02:15, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
 * It is 和室, washitsu, literally "Japanese-style room". The paper walls are called shoji, or in English, er, paper walls. 72.128.82.131 (talk) 04:27, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Not exactly. 和室 refers to a single room (or multiple rooms) set up in Japanese style within a house or apartment, and not to the whole house (which would include the exterior walls, roof, garden, etc.). There may be a generic architectural term (as opposed to the many specific terms for specific styles within that genre) for the traditional Japanese style of housing, and I would settle for 和式の家 ('washiki no ie' - 'Japanese-style house'), but in older Japan, I am pretty sure it just would have been called 'house' by most people, as there would not have been a distinction.  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  07:56, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
 * The thread at http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110425182611AAJOtLP may also be of interest. 86.160.217.209 (talk) 11:47, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

πολύκερων
I looked for the causes of the word πολύκερων [ἔνθ’ ἐσπεσὼν ἔκειρε πολύκερων φόνον] and found it's sg.m.acc (persus). does is? Why in wikidictory it's wrote as gen?. And if it's not acc what is the verb\ptcp needs gen? thank you.--82.81.24.161 (talk) 14:23, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
 * It is accusative singular (either masculine or feminine). It's not in Wiktionary at all; the word you linked to is ἔρως, which is a different word with a different declension. Angr (talk) 17:34, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
 * sorry but it's shouldnt look like ἔρως? cause they both has gen ωτος:
 * πολύ-κερως, ωτος, ὁ, ἡ,
 * ἔρως, ωτος, ὁ,

or i wrong? like which word it's should look like? --82.81.24.161 (talk) 19:04, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
 * It is the same as ἔρως. ἔρων also occurs for acc. sg. of ἔρως, along with ἔρωτα. Alternative forms. -- Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 20:09, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

List of uncommon words?
I am looking for uncommon words to use in my (fiction) writing. Words like dilapidated, aestival, mabsoot, etc. Is there a website or a page on Wikipedia with a list of them? --24.145.65.56 (talk) 19:15, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
 * There's a few words here.  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  19:23, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't think  delapidated dilapidated is that uncommon. — SMUconlaw (talk) 19:53, 31 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Unless you're looking for really obscure words, Thesaurus.com will help you to find alternatives. For less mainstream words, try Luciferous Logolepsy "Dragging obscure words into the light of day". Alansplodge (talk) 20:15, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the Logolepsy site, it is great. And SMUconlaw, "dilapidated" is the proper spelling of the word. --24.145.65.56 (talk) 21:04, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Whoops. I knew that. — SMUconlaw (talk) 21:30, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Can you please form a longer sentence consisting of uncommon words? --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 22:18, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. Now go check a vocabulary-builder out of the library. μηδείς (talk) 22:59, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
 * "An entablature of salamanders performed a myoclonic can-can". (Alan Moore, 1981-ish).  Tevildo (talk) 00:02, 1 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Check out Edelweiss. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:30, 1 April 2013 (UTC)


 * My all-time favourite book for uncommon words is "Mrs Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure and Preposterous Words". It's full of gems such as:
 * perissotomist: a knife-happy surgeon
 * redargution: refutation
 * saprostomous: having bad breath
 * transfeminate: change from woman to man
 * deboswellize: to deprecate in a biography. --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  01:10, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
 * "The scribe deboswellized the saprostomous perissotomist after his redargution of having transfeminated." If anyone wrote a full novel like this, it would be a wonderful vocabulary builder (even for the author, I suspect), but it would take ages to read.  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  08:25, 1 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Did I ever mention my favourite definition? It's one that Nicolas Slonimsky came up with:
 * Sesquipedelian macropolysyllabification is defined as: Quaquaversal lucubration about pervicacious torosity and diverticular prosiliency in diatonic formication and chromatic papulation, engendering carotic carmination and decubital nyctalopia, causing borborygmic susurration, teratological urticulation, macroptic dysmimia, bregmatic obstipation, crassamental quisquiliousness, hircinous olophonia and unflexanimous luxation, often produce volmerine cacumination and mitotic ramuliferousness leading to operculate onagerosity and testaceous favillousness, as well as faucal obsonation, paralellepipedal psellismus, pigritudinous mysophia, cimicidal conspurcation, mollitious deglutition and cephalotripsical stultitiousness, resulting despite hesychastic omphaloskepsis, in epenetic opisthography, boustrophedonic malacology, lampadodromic evagination, chartulary cadastration, merognostic heautotimerousness, favaginous moliminosity, fatiscent operosity, temulencious libration and otological oscininity, aggravated by tardigrade inturgescence, nucamentacious oliguria, emunctory sternutation, veneficial pediculation, fremescent dyskinesia, hispidinous cynanthropy, torminal opitulation, crapulous vellication, hippuric rhinodynia, dyspneic nimiety and favillous erethism, and culminating in opisthographic inconcinnity, scotophiliac lipothymia, banausic rhinorrhea, dehiscent fasciculation, oncological vomiturition, nevoid paludality, exomphalic invultuation, mysophiliac excrementatiousness, flagitious dysphoria, lipogrammatic bradygraphy, orectic aprosexia, parataxic parorexia, lucubicidal notation, permutational paronomasia, rhonchial fremitus, specular subsaltation, crapulous crepitation, ithyphallic acervation, procephalic dyscrasia, volitional volitation, piscine dermatology, proleptic pistology, verrucous alopecia, hendecaphonic combinatoriality, microaerophilic pandiculation and quasihemidemisemibreviate illation. --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  11:43, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
 * A couple of questions - should "opisthographic" go to Mirror writing, and should "onagerous" go to Onager? And I'm surprised we don't have an article on scotophilia... Tevildo (talk) 19:08, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
 * It was in wiktionary but was deleted only 2 weeks ago. Richard Avery (talk) 07:32, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
 * You did not mention that to us, no. Interestingly, of the 30 hits that Google gives for this phrase, your 'Favourites' page is the top hit. This possibly means you have the proud honour of being the most prolific disseminator of this phrase. You must be great at staff parties. :)  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  11:58, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
 * What does "at" mean? :)  --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  13:38, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Too short for you, is it? :)  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  14:20, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
 * "...often produce..."? Surely ".....often produces....." or ".....producing......" ? doktorb wordsdeeds 13:54, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
 * "...producing..." definitely. Well spotted!  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  16:09, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I disagree. I typed that out laboriously a few years ago, and I've now gone back and checked my source and confirmed it's "often produce". (The immediate source is "Webster's New World Dictionary of Music" (Slonimsky, edited posthumously by Richard Kassel; 1998), p. 481; but I had seen it previously in the 8th edition Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, which Slonimsky wrote alone, and while he was still alive). There's at least some ambiguity whether the subject is "Quaquaversal lucubration" or more things, so I think we must respect the writer's choice of words (and this particular writer was always exceedingly particular about his choice of words).  But hey, this was obviously one of them joke things he was famous for, so let's not get all bitter, twisted and emotional about it.  --  Jack of Oz   [Talk]  21:32, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
 * How can a definition of a word/phrase begin with a subject (different from the word being defined) and main verb then an object? That is not a definition. It is a sentence. Should this not be an encyclopaedia entry, rather than a definition?  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  22:00, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
 * It was an encyclopedia/dictionary entry, as I cited above. (It was I who chose to call it a definition.  Do with me as you will, but please be gentle.)  --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  22:24, 2 April 2013 (UTC)