Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 January 19

= January 19 =

drag through a sleepless night
Is "drag through a sleepless night" a correct collocation? If not, is there any specific Engligh verb to collocate with "a sleepless night" to mean "pass the night with difficulty"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.221.147.216 (talk) 08:33, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Drag can be used intransitively so there's no reason why you shouldn't drag through a sleepless night. Googling the term produces several examples of someone "dragging through" the long, miserable day after  a sleepless night.  You could also suffer, endure, or toss and turn through a sleepless night, all of which imply difficulty. -  Ka renjc (talk) 11:17, 19 January 2014 (UTC)


 * It doesn't work for me, but the reason is quite subtle. As Karenjc says, Drag can be used intransitively, but for me, only if the subject is abstract, like "the night", or "time". With an animate (or agentive) subject such as a person, it is transitive and means "pulls something with difficulty".
 * So _the night dragged_ is OK. But in your phrase, even though the subject is not expressed, the night is expressed and is not the subject, so I would understand it to imply the would-be sleeper as the subject, so I would not use drag in this phrase.
 * There isn't a particular verb that comes to mind. _Endure a sleepless night_ is possible, but I would probably make it impersonal and say something like _Time dragged through the sleepless night_. --ColinFine (talk) 11:26, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I think the usual term for what one does through a sleepless night is toss and turn. Aɴɢʀ (talk) 12:10, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, that usually works for me.--Shantavira|feed me 12:28, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Tee hee
 * This is enough of an excuse for me to quote shakey;

"How can I then return in happy plight

That am debarred the benefit of rest?

When day’s oppression is not eased by night,

But day by night and night by day oppressed?

And each, though enemies to either’s reign,

Do in consent shake hands to torture me,

The one by toil, the other to complain

How far I toil, still farther off from thee.

I tell the day to please him thou art bright,

And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven.

So flatter I the swart-complexioned night,

When sparkling stars twire not, thou gild’st the even.

But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,

And night doth nightly make grief’s length seem stronger."

--Sonnet 27

It doesn't help answer the question, but it's nice.

On topic: I agree with the previous comments; whilst technically acceptable, to "drag through a sleepless night" doesn't sound very good. "The night dragged on..." is fine (perhaps "...as I tossed and turned, unable to find solace in slumber" or something. Or maybe that's getting pretentious.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.19.169 (talk) 19:13, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Coördinate
Why do some people write the word "co-ordinates" or "coordinates" as "coördinates", with the umlaut? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.19.169 (talk) 18:53, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
 * See diaeresis (diacritic). It's not technically an umlaut, though it's written the same way.  Short answer is, it's to indicate that the two o's are to be pronounced separately rather than together. --Trovatore (talk) 18:56, 19 January 2014 (UTC)


 * So in that specific word, it's "largely archaic"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.19.169 (talk) 19:05, 19 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, that seems fair, as long as you keep the word "largely". The article notes that  The New Yorker is a holdout. --Trovatore (talk) 19:39, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Alternatively, you could call it "archaic or pretentious". Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:48, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
 * TouchÉ. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.19.169 (talk) 20:20, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
 * How naïve of you all. The diaeresis still has a rôle to play in modern English.  -- Jayron  32  23:44, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
 * At any rate, omitting diacritics is a good way to ruin a façade of sophistication. —Tamfang (talk) 08:09, 20 January 2014 (UTC)


 * oxforddictionaries.com says "may also be spelled with a hyphen" which is what I was taught at school. It doesn't mention the use of a diaeresis and I can't ever remember seeing one used, even in 19th century texts where the hyphen was almost universal . The hyphen is still alive and kicking in the UK, especially by the The Co-operative Group, whose various businesses are generally known as "The Co-op" - the "The Coop" being a good place to keep hens. Alansplodge (talk) 17:08, 20 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Alansplodge -- the Harvard/MIT Cooperative Society actively embraces the pronunciation "coop" [kuːp]... -- AnonMoos (talk) 19:43, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * What strange people. Alansplodge (talk) 22:09, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Well, some Classicists probably originally disapproved of the pronunciation [zuː] for a word shortened from "Zoological garden", but such disapproval doesn't seem to have accomplished anything... AnonMoos (talk) 06:46, 21 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I'd never seen it used in that word before either; I saw it yesterday (on an unrelated forum), and my google-foo showed that it seemed to be a valid variant spelling, but I couldn't find out any more about the etymology or reasoning, which is what bought me here. The person who spelled it with the diacritic was a Dutch person - I've no idea if that has any bearing on the matter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.19.169 (talk) 19:02, 20 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Dutch uses the diaeresis more than current English does. — kwami (talk) 23:25, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Ah, there's the explanation - Bing Translator says that the Dutch for "coordinates" is coördinaten. He's just put an English ending on it. Alansplodge (talk) 11:07, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Word distinction
I have sort of a nit-picky type of question. I am hoping that some of the resident language experts at this Reference Desk can help. The question, basically, is: what is the difference in meaning between "all" and "each"? I am trying to change the name of this article: List of films with all four Academy Award acting nominations. As I was thinking about it, I pondered the difference between these two alternatives:


 * List of films nominated in all four Academy Award acting categories


 * List of films nominated in each of the four Academy Award acting categories.

Is there any (subtle) difference between those two words ("all" and "each"), in this context? Is one "more correct" or more preferable? Or are they both saying the same exact thing? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 23:18, 19 January 2014 (UTC)


 * No difference that I can detect. I don't particularly like the phrasing of either though. Films don't get nominated in these categories, actors do. In this respect, the original title is better. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:21, 20 January 2014 (UTC)


 * With the first title, I would expect to see a list of films such that every film on the list was nominated in all four categories. With the second title, I would expect to see all the films nominated for best actor, all the films nominated for best actress, etc.  It's similar to the difference between "I threw a party for all of my friends" (one party, everyone invited) and "I threw a party for each of my friends" (many parties).  The title of the article should use "all".  --Amble (talk) 04:05, 20 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks to both of you. Excellent input.  I hadn't quite thought of this in the way you both mentioned.  It is indeed correct that the actor gets nominated, not the film.  That being the case, should the present title stay?  Or is there some better phrasing?  Something about the current title doesn't quite seem right to me.  Any suggestions?  Thanks.   Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:54, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * List of films with actors nominated for all four Acadamy Award categories? Or leave it as it is, just in the interests of keeping it reasonably short. Sometimes it's necessary to pay the price of perfect grammar in a snappy title. Otherwise it'll be something like, "List of films whose actors have been nominated in all of the four Acadamy Award categories for acting", which seems to long to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.19.169 (talk) 19:11, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The idea "List of films whose actors have been..." also suggests to me that there's some single individual appearing in the film who has been nominated in all four categories. --Amble (talk) 19:24, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * That would seem to require a sex-change midway through the filming... [[Image:SFriendly.gif|20px]] AnonMoos (talk) 19:35, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Nah, these days, 'actors' is broadly accepted as meaning both sexes. Oh, never mind, I see what you mean; I didn't notice the smiley
 * Yeah, that occurred to me, too; also it kinda sounds like it means films with actors in who had been nominated *at some point* but not *necessarily* for that specific film. So to avoid that, you end up with something even more long-winded; "List of films which have actors that received nominations for that film in all of the four Acadamy Award categories for acting"...eek. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.24.157 (talk) 20:00, 20 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I tried to imagine having to explain myself as a lawyer fronting the High Court, where there can be no possibility of ambiguous language. I reminded myself that the actor gets the award if they win, but the award is for a performance.  The shortest formula I came up with was "List of films containing at least one nominated performance in each of the 4 Academy Award acting categories".  I'd prefer to let sleeping dogs lie, really.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:49, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks to all for the above feedback. It was very helpful. I think I will leave the article title alone, as JackofOz recommended. Maybe the current title is not perfect, but the alternatives seem worse. Thanks again. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:38, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

In absolute terms, one could argue that in the first sentence the word 'all' is redundant because 'four' is enough to say that there are four categories (i.e. 'all categories' and 'four categories' are the same thing in so far as the sentence is saying that there are 4 Academcy Award Actor Categories). The advantage of the second sentence is that it stresses that each film is nominated in every one of those 4 categories. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.155.149.210 (talk) 20:35, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Japanese help: Are these addresses the same? What is the Japanese text here?
I'm checking these addresses for Jetstar Japan: Does the Japanese address refer to the same place as the English one?
 * 千葉県成田市古込字朝日台92番地
 * Narita Operation Centre 3F, Narita International Airport Terminal 2, Narita, Chiba, 282-0004

Also the Japanese address of JALways was 〒282-8610 千葉県成田市成田国際空港内　日本航空成田オペレーションセンター3階 - while the English is "Narita Operation Center 3F, Narita International Airport, Narita, Chiba,Japan 282-8610" Is the "Narita Operation Centre" the same building for Jetstar Japan?

Also: http://www.jpschool.ro/HPtitle.jpg I recognize ブカレスト日本人学校 in the center and I recognize most of the left-pane: 在ルーマニア日本国大使館 But what are the two characters after "大使館"? What do they mean? WhisperToMe (talk) 23:52, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The two characters are 付属/attached (to). Oda Mari (talk) 09:30, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the info on the school! I added the info to Japanese School of Bucharest WhisperToMe (talk) 14:27, 20 January 2014 (UTC)