Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 May 29

= May 29 =

Mini-text standards
I was thinking about these, recently, and made a "Hierarchy of Minitext Standards" list.


 * 1 emoticon ( :D )
 * four word film review (4 words)
 * Six-Word Memoirs (6 words)
 * twitter (140 characters)
 * txt msg limit (160 characters)
 * haiku ( ~ 3 lines (5-7-5 syllables or 2-3-2 beats rec.))
 * minisaga (50 words, +15 for title)
 * drabble (100 words)
 * flash fiction ( ~ 300–1000 words)

etc...

Plus, related short writing forms?
 * "headline–>subhead–>lede" in News style writing.
 * Sayings, proverbs, adages, idioms, aphorims, etc tend to be very short (1 sentence or less).
 * elevator pitch ( ~ 20–120 seconds of speech. ~ 4 sentences.)
 * our own Wikidata:Help:Description ("2-12 words") and MOS:DABENTRY ("use sentence fragments").

Questions: Is there a collective term for these? Somewhere that they are already listed, or could/should be listed, on Wikipedia? (And do you have any items to add to the list? or references for further reading?) Much thanks. –Quiddity (talk) 00:10, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * The broadest concept which already exists which could contain all of these ideas is perhaps semiotics, but that's a VERY broad concept. More specifically, philosopher and semiotician Marshall McLuhan studied this broad idea, though I don't know that it had a name, when he famously formulated the idea that The medium is the message, which is to say that more than the thought being conveyed, but the actual manner in which the thought is conveyed also has meaning, so for example, a tweet itself carries meaning that is different from, say, a blog, even though conceptually one can express the same general idea in a 140 character tweet as in a longer blog, but the very nature of the specific medium itself adds its own meaning to the idea being conveyed.  I don't if there is any word that conveys this concept, but I think if you're looking for understanding the big ideas here, you could do worse than to start with McLuhan.  -- Jayron  32  01:14, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * These links may be helpful.
 * Microcontent: How to Write Headlines, Page Titles, and Subject Lines
 * character limit - Search results - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 * maximum length - Search results - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 * —Wavelength (talk) 01:30, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * In computer science the term "microtext" is often used -- however it also has a variety of alternate meanings outside of computer science, such as the use of microscopic fonts. Looie496 (talk) 01:33, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * In newspapers (and here), I believe they call the intro to a story the "lede". This unusual spelling is to distinguish it from others meanings of "lead".  See also hed. StuRat (talk) 16:45, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I've corrected my example above to use "subhead->lede" (instead of "leader->intro"). Thanks, –Quiddity (talk) 23:00, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks to all responders.

(FYI, I was prompted to finally post this, out of my scratchpad, by the various discussions at Concise Wikipedia, which keep circling back to "we need a variety of lengths of summary, for each topic". I was hoping to discover a "name" for the various existing short forms.)

Would this list perhaps belong in a subsection of Constrained writing? I suspect the spectre of WP:OR will forbid it, for the moment, but... Further RSs or suggestions or assistance would be appreciated. –Quiddity (talk) 23:00, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * These pages might be helpful.
 * Letter Count / Character Count
 * Twitter Now Reducing Some Tweets To 117 Characters
 * Why does Twitter have a 140-character limit?
 * Twitter Lifts 140 Character Limit
 * Microblogging
 * Category:Microblogging
 * Constrained writing (Yes, the list might belong in a subsection of this article. I thought of the list being put there before I noticed your mention of the same idea.)
 * —Wavelength (talk) 23:06, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Sadly, none of those sources use the word "Constrain" at all, which is why "haiku, tanka, and senryu" were removed from the article (according to the talkpage). "Length" appears to be something that the academics have not recognized as being a part of the purview of "Constrained" writing(?). I'm still looking, but... :/ –Quiddity (talk) 01:14, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Doubling Down
Phrase used most recently in American politics describing one's reaction in regard to a motivating event. The meaning of the phrase varies with the event but, generally, references a person's willingness to extend their commitment to a controversial stance even further, rather than retreating from the original stance taken. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wmmaine (talk • contribs) 15:01, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * What's your question? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:03, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * If you're asking about the origin of the expression, I believe it's a metaphor drawn from the card game of blackjack—see Blackjack. See also the Wiktionary entry. Deor (talk) 15:06, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * So your analysis of the meaning is correct, they are both increasing their risk, and potential reward, when they "double down". StuRat (talk) 16:38, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Greek Spelling
I'm trying to spell "Pans Mayhem Hunting Club" in greek letters. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.79.132.178 (talk • contribs) 23:47, May 29, 2013‎


 * Παν'ς Μαυηεμ Ηυντινγ Κλυβ will work if all you want is approximate letters that are close to the English ones. But in real Greek you would use a double gamma γγ (gg) to indicate the "ng" sound, ou for the short "u" of hunting, and an apostrophe for the aitches, rather than the eta (Ηη) which I used. μηδείς (talk) 23:55, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Greek spelling is mostly phonemic and specific to the Greek language; there isn't a one-to-one correspondence between Latin and Greek letters. Because of this, there are a few questions you would need to answer first: (1) Ancient Greek or Modern Greek? (2) Do you just a transcription (which be read like the English words, but with a strong Greek accent) or a translation? (3) If you want a translation, is it indeed "Pan's Mayhem", with an apostrophe, as Medeis suggested? Lesgles (talk) 02:37, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * The Greek apostrophe mainly indicates the elision of a word-final vowel before another word beginning with a vowel (at least in ancient Greek)... AnonMoos (talk) 02:55, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Using χ for h is standard (look up John William Waterhouse in Greek to see this), μπ for b, νγκ for ng (look up Vitus Bering in Greek to see these). If I was making a straight transliteration of just what you wrote I would write:  Πανς Μέιχεμ Χάντινγκ Κλαμπ.  If I was making some literature in Greek, like a website, or other advertisement for the Greek market, I would do a semi-translation like Πάνoς Μέιχεμ Όμιλος Κυνηγιού, but that's just a guess, and I would get a native speaker to look at that.  u definitely has no steady transliteration, sometimes u gets ου (as in Dublin), sometimes ε (as in Robert Burns), sometimes α (as in club), sometimes ιου (as in David Hume). -- Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 08:39, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Here's my attempt at a full translation into modern Greek: "Κυνηγετικός Σύλλογος «Αντάρα του Πάνα»" (also not a native speaker, though). Lesgles (talk) 22:57, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * It's curious whether there's a faux-Greek font for the Latin alphabet. μηδείς (talk) 22:56, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Depending on what you mean by faux-Greek, Symbol might qualify. -Elmer Clark (talk) 10:56, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
 * That's actually real if minimal Greek. I meant a font that looks like Greek but corresponds to the Latin alphabet, having a c, h, q, and distinct u/v/y/(w) which modern standard Greek does not. μηδείς (talk) 16:36, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
 * There's the Herakles font, though not sure how authentically Greek-looking you'd consider it to be... AnonMoos (talk) 11:34, 3 June 2013 (UTC)