Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 November 8

= November 8 =

Latin word for "month"
I'm looking for a word like "anniversary" that refers to a monthly event instead of an annual one...probably no such word English word exists - but I am happy to invent one. I guess "anni" comes from latin for "year" - so what I need is month-iversary or something. So what's the latin word for a month? SteveBaker (talk) 05:47, 8 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Mensual, maybe?--William Thweatt TalkContribs 05:58, 8 November 2013 (UTC)


 * or "mensiversary".--William Thweatt TalkContribs 06:02, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Latin month is rather easy to find: mensis. Mensiversary seems to make sense. --KnightMove (talk) 13:23, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Check out this relevant discussion from the archives. Falconus p t   c 13:43, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I should have thought to check the archives before posting. But the conclusions are clear: "mensiversary" really doesn't work because it carries other connotations, "monthly anniversary" is wrong and "monthiversary" seems kinda ugly. :-(
 * Someone on that archive mentioned sextantiversary, quadrantiversary, trientiversary and semianniversary as words for 2, 3, 4 and 6 monthly celebrations. So I suppose "dodecantiversary" (1/12th of a year) might be right - although I've probably mangled the prefix here because I'm reasoning from "dodecagon" as a 12 sided object and guessing that a dodecant is 1/12th of something.  Sorry - I took latin classes for a year when I was 12 years old and promptly forgot all of them by the time I was 13 years old!  Maybe someone can clean that up for me?  SteveBaker (talk) 14:57, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
 * "Someone" was me! Yow, I'm anonymously famous! —Tamfang (talk) 00:38, 10 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Mensiversary is perfectly cromulent; the fact some people will make the wrong inference it comes from menstruation is no different from abandonning a word like niggardly because of an ignorance of its etymology.


 * You could also form the native coinage monthtide, or, more euphoniously, moontide, on analogy to the Yiddish yahrzeit, although the latter is associated mainly with the anniversary of deaths. "We celebrate our moontide on the 24th" sounds particularly poetic. μηδείς (talk) 17:46, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I rather like the sound of that. My left brain is trying to object that it refers to a moon cycle of c. 28 days, not to a month per se (except February), but my right brain is winning so far.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  19:11, 8 November 2013 (UTC)


 * The real problem would be if your moontide lay on the 29th, 30th, or especially the 31st. Of course, then you'd just celebrate it on the last day of the month.  I did look up the term and found no common usages other than a 1940's film noir, Moontide, of no connection. μηδείς (talk) 19:22, 8 November 2013 (UTC)


 * And, of course, if you want to be paganically radical, you can celebrate your moontide every fourth Wednesday (or whatever day of the week) eschew the patriarchical solar claendar, and sneak in 13 (sometimes 14!) celebrations a year. Then you could also call it your bifortnightly mootfest. (I am sure that's what the Hobbits must call it.) μηδείς (talk) 19:30, 8 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Somewhat along the lines of Medeis, I was thinking about this... Why do the roots have to be Latin? In Old English, the word for month is apparently "Monað" or "Monaþ" and the word for mark is "mearc", so what about something like monathmearc? Or monathhring (month+circle). Maybe those don't sound like nice words, but that same strategy could probably turn up something in Old English or in a lot of other languages. Old English Dictionary. Falconus p t   c 19:36, 8 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I like that, but the problem is that march in that sense refers to a territory, specifically a territory (i.e., its border) as it is marked out. See marquess and margrave.  Based on your idea, I would suggest a monthing as a very natural modern form. μηδείς (talk) 19:42, 8 November 2013 (UTC)


 * That word "anniversary" means "the turning of a year". So "mensiversary", whether it's a real word or not, should indicate the turning of a month. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:34, 8 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Not nouns but 'monthly' or 'of the month' could serve. Monthly has taken a noun's place in publishing. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:27, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Engraving grammar
I'm having something engraved and I want to make sure I'm using correct grammar. Is it correct to say "I love you mom! (next line)-your son" or "I love you, mom! (next line)-your son". --209.203.125.162 (talk) 17:29, 8 November 2013 (UTC)


 * The one with the comma is better, and most U.S. style guides would recommend that you capitalize "mom" as well (since it's used as a quasi-name). You might also want to capitalize "your". Deor (talk) 19:07, 8 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Agreed on capitalization advice. "Mom" = your mother, while "mom" = any mother: "Hey Mom, how many other moms will be at the strip club with you, so I know how many single dollars you'll need to take with you ?". StuRat (talk) 21:09, 8 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't see any need for an exclamation mark in this context. Unless your Mom works as a writer of Disney comic strips, in which case she'd appreciate it hugely, seeing as how virtually every single sentence ends with an exclamation mark.  Or they used to back in the day when I read such things.  But normal prose is not like this.  Words have their own power, and a statement of love from a son to his mother is powerful enough without the need for any fancy embellishments.  But it's your gig, so please do whatever suits you best.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  19:18, 8 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't think it's inappropriate to use an exclamation mark in this context ! They can be used occasionally, to give emphasis !  It's only when used repeatedly that they lose all meaning ! StuRat (talk) 21:06, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:54, 8 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't think the OP meant scarification when they said engraving, I think they meant that it will be engraved on an item of jewelry they wish to present to their mom. StuRat (talk) 21:04, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Oops, you're right. I spend so much time on the Translation requests page at Wiktionary that my brain reinterpreted the OP's "engraving" as "tattoo". My apologies, and I retract my snarky comment. Aɴɢʀ (talk) 13:55, 9 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I love you, Mom!
 * --Joe
 * (Assuming your name is Joe.) μηδείς (talk) 23:24, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

French subject repetition
So, I already asked if French can be without subjects, but I read somewhere on Wikipedia, can’t remember where exactly, that said that the subject does not need to be duplicated in formal French. So we can say « tu sais que le veux » (you know that [you] want it) instead of « tu sais que tu le veux » (you know that you want it). Does anybody know what I am talking about? --66.190.69.246 (talk) 18:58, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you are talking about, but "tu sais que le veux" is definitely incorrect. --Xuxl (talk) 19:32, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
 * It sounds fine to me, but that's probably because of the influence of my Spanish fluency on my high school French. Are you a native francophone, Xuxl? μηδείς (talk) 19:34, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I am a native French speaker. --Xuxl (talk) 16:10, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not a native francophone, but have been speaking and reading French since childhood and I agree with Xuxl. I think it doesn't work here because the second verb is in a separate relative clause. You can omit the second "tu" in "tu sais et connais ...", for example, where both verbs can be seen as part of the same clause.
 * In your example of the relative clause "que tu le veux" leaving out "tu" would make it a null subject which French doesn't permit, unlike most other Romance languages. That article only states that "for certain colloquial expressions" French "occasionally" allows "for the omission of the subject in the same way that languages such as Spanish and Russian allow using "correct" grammar". See "null subjects in non-null-subject languages". ---Sluzzelin talk  19:51, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
 * If I read somewhere that "the subject does not need to be duplicated in formal French" I would interpret that to mean that in formal French it's sufficient to say "tu sais que tu le veux" and it's not necessary to say "toi, tu sais que tu le veux" or "tu sais que tu le veux, toi". Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:50, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Czech language question
I was at a pub tonight with my father and my sister, and saw a beermat with a Czech language slogan saying: Kdo umí, umí! Now I know absolutely zero Czech. What does this mean? J I P &#124; Talk 21:32, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Who can, (that) can!--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 22:00, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Instead of giving JIP a fish, you should have told him to use google translate, Ljuboslav. And "know how" is a much better translation than "can", given we're doing the OP's homework. μηδείς (talk) 23:21, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, there is no one word in English for Slavic уметь/umět and this pun does not work there. The case when Slavics beat Germanics.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 04:55, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
 * See Kdo umí, umí - 29 September 2011 - Idioms & Phrases - Idiomy a fráze - Learn Czech.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 23:34, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Literally "He who knows how to use google uses google." μηδείς (talk) 02:56, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
 * And those who can't use Google teach Google. —Tamfang (talk) 03:13, 9 November 2013 (UTC)