Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 April 6

= April 6 =

History of netiquette conventions
How did certain conventions of modern netiquette come about? Like why does italics mean a particular word is pronounced with a stress? OR WHY DOES ALL CAPS USUALLY MEAN SHOUTING? excuse me, but why does small letters mean a whisper? --TeleComNasSprVen (talk &bull; contribs) 10:14, 6 April 2014 (UTC)


 * In old style Usenet, e-mail lists (LISTSERVs), and dial-up BBSs, italics and font-size variations were generally not an option. The convention against indiscriminate use of ALL CAPS presumably came about because some people posted messages entirely in capital-letters throughout, which made them somewhat difficult to read.  In a few cases, such uniform all-caps messages were due to the use of obsolete technology or obscure computing systems with character sets that were not fully ASCII-compatible, but such possible explanations were already starting to wear a little thin by about 1993... AnonMoos (talk) 13:45, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
 * The WWW became widespread in 1994/95, and before that, Usenet newsgroups (discussion forums) and BBS were popular with the limited number of Net users. Each active newsgroup would usually have a FAQ written by its moderator(s) or regular users, and netiquette was usually included. If you joined a newsgroup and broke the netiquette rules, you would be told by the regular users to read the FAQ, and users could be blocked by moderators for consistently breaking the netiquette rules established for that group. I guess that's how it became standardized. As for the historic origins of conventions like italics, etc., some of it predates the Net, some of it, like emoticons, just suited the new communications medium. OttawaAC (talk) 01:55, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I thought it originally had something to do with comic books printing dialogue in ALL CAPS. Though sometimes ALL CAPS can be used effectively without conveying the appearance of shouting, e.g. on advertisement billboards and the like. TeleComNasSprVen (talk &bull; contribs) 20:00, 6 April 2014 (UTC)


 * In regular typesetting of physically printed material, all-caps can be very effective for "display text" (i.e. relatively brief captions or headlines which seek to attract attention), not so good for lengthy "book text"... AnonMoos (talk) 20:45, 6 April 2014 (UTC)


 * The use of italics to indicate emphasis is of long standing in typesetting, although our article doesn't indicate its origin. You see italics quite overused in material printed in the 1700's for emphasis of all sorts. I'd guess its use restricted just to indicate verbal emphasis developed after this era. It is certainly in use by the 1940's and must predate that by a good amount.  I wonder if Lewis Carroll used it. μηδείς (talk) 15:53, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, the following can be found in an 1897 edition (for example) "That you won't!" thought Alice", and "It was such a thunderstorm, you can't think!". I can't see enough pages to be sure that he didn't use italics for other non-spoken & non-thought emphasis, but I haven't found any.    D b f i r s   20:37, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Excellent! Thanks, User:Dbfirs.  I suspected with all the shouting that goes on in Alice there might be some italicising. μηδείς (talk) 21:35, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * All caps for SHOUTING predates the widespread use of the internet by some time. The convention was sufficiently common by 1989 for John Irving to use it in A Prayer for Owen Meany, published in 1989.  The title character shouted everything he spoke; he was incapable of speaking in anything other than a shout.  Irving rendered his speech in ALL CAPS to represent this.  I am unaware that Irving was particularly concerned with the conventions of the nascent internet world at that time.  It is likely such a convention existed in literature prior to his use of it.  -- Jayron  32  01:07, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Not sure "Internet culture" would be too accurate for 1989. At that time, the majority of end-users didn't technically use the Internet (IP protocol) to check their e-mail or read Usenet, though server computers were often connected to each other through the Internet... AnonMoos (talk) 08:52, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
 * That was sort of the point. The convention of using ALL CAPS for shouting dialogue predated the meaningful "internet" by some time.  -- Jayron  32  16:13, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
 * In fanzines printed by mimeograph, underlining was undesirable because it created a long cut in the stencil which invited tearing; I guess that's why all-caps was often used instead for emphasis and for book titles (in my limited experience). I'd bet that culture had a significant early influence on Net culture. —Tamfang (talk) 07:25, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Hindi (?) -> English translation
Hello, I got as a gift these two [ keyrings] with hindi word on it. I would be very thankful to anyone that can translate it. Thank you very much in advance — Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.151.208.187 (talk) 11:54, 6 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I believe the top word is शुभ ( "auspicious" or "lucky") and the bottom word is लाभ (, "profit" or "increase"). The two words are often seen together as a blessing or on talismans and such.--William Thweatt TalkContribs 19:00, 6 April 2014 (UTC)


 * /subʰ/ not /ʃubʰ/? —Tamfang (talk) 07:34, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much for your quick and detailed answer ! Have a good day. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.151.208.187 (talk) 10:11, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * You are very welcome. And, btw, Tamfang is correct, it is /ʃubʰ/, not /subʰ/.....darn my lisp!!!--William Thweatt TalkContribs 23:16, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Correct wording
I just used this sentence in another Reference Desk posting: "Will the seller know that it is me specifically who is watching his item?". On second glance, it seemed that the correct wording should be: "Will the seller know that it is I specifically who am watching his item?". But, that also seems awkward. What is the correct way to word this sentence, if I want to keep its structure? That is, I don't want to rearrange the wording. So, in other words, which pronoun is correct, "me" or "I"? Which verb is correct, "is" or "am"? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 16:33, 6 April 2014 (UTC)


 * They're both correct. The first wording is more colloquial, the second sounds pedantic. Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:57, 6 April 2014 (UTC)


 * But, how (or perhaps why) is it that the first can be correct? I am confused.   Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 22:33, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
 * It's correct because in colloquial English, we use disjunctive pronouns as predicative complements (just as in French, cf. c'est moi, not *c'est je) and we consider who a third-person pronoun and use third-person verb forms after it accordingly. Angr (talk) 18:46, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Is there a term for that sort of mismatch between pronoun (1st person in this case) and verb (3rd person, I suppose)?
 * Another example that comes to mind is from "Clancy of the Overflow": Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, And we don't know where he are (which sounds authentically like C19th country talk, but also rhymes with the preceding line ...written with a thumbnail dipped in tar). --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:19, 6 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Joseph A. Spadaro -- you can read in Otto Jespersen's big "Modern English Grammar" how finite subordinate clauses with relative subject pronoun rarely take non-3rd-person verbs in modern English, even if the relative pronoun refers back to something in the 1st or 2nd person in the main clause. As the question is posed (non-3rd-person in main clause referred to by relative pronoun which has the role of subject in the subordinate clause), there simply might not be any answer which is both logically and stylistically satisfactory ("All grammars leak" as Sapir said). AnonMoos (talk) 20:38, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Trying to find TLS article
I'm trying to obtain a copy of an article in the Times Literary Supplement archives, but I do not have access to their database. The article is How the Light Came In by Jonathan Israel, published on June 21, 2013. It was a review article for the book THE ENLIGHTENMENT And why it still matters by Anthony Pagden.

Can anyone help me track down a copy of this article or direct me to the right place on-wiki to ask those that would have access to the TLS database? Silver seren C 23:29, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Try The Resource Exchange at WP:REX They are specifically designed to help people access references they know exist, but cannot directly access themselves. -- Jayron  32  01:02, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks, i'll try that. Silver  seren C 01:07, 7 April 2014 (UTC)