Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 January 23

= January 23 =

a term for half grown sweet potatoes
Is there a term in English for thin sweet potatoes that have not reached maturity? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.249.219.129 (talk) 07:14, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * A search for- immature sweet potatoes  -gets quite a few hits from reliable sources. (Are they similar to the "immature cheese" from the Cheez-It commercials?)
 * Or, could you be thinking of an unusual variety? According to All-About-Sweet-Potatoes.com: "World-wide there are about 6,500 sweet potato varieties..." ~E:71.20.250.51 (talk) 15:27, 23 January 2014 (UTC)


 * The description evokes Jerusalem artichokes for me. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  18:40, 23 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Jerusalem artichokes are a completely different species, though. Google turns up a number of hits for "young sweet potatoes". That's probably about as close as you are going to get in English, though.  Sweet potatoes won't grow well in England and aren't really a staple crop anywhere in the Anglosphere, so English does not have a rich vocabulary for this species.  Marco polo (talk) 20:00, 23 January 2014 (UTC)


 * They don't speak English in the American South? -- Jayron  32  20:29, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * He said "not really a staple crop", not "doesn't grow at all". Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:34, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't think there are any staple crops anywhere in the Anglosphere, as far as that goes. My understanding is that a true staple is a single crop that provides the overwhelming majority of your calories, say 80% plus.  Our article doesn't seem to reflect that, but I think it's using a looser usage of the term. --Trovatore (talk) 09:43, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
 * @ Marco polo: Yes, I know, which is why I mentioned the OP's description. They're not even artichokes, but cousins of the sunflower.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:19, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * When languages have a variety of terms for a single plant to describe different stages of its growth cycle or different ways of preparing the plant as food, that plant is often historically central to the culture that speaks that language. I don't know that the plant has to have provided 80% of calories, but maybe more than 25% or so.  I doubt that sweet potatoes historically provided more than 25% for any significant English-speaking population, even in the American South. On the other hand, we have a variety of terms in English to describe cultigens such as corn (maize) or wheat because of their historic importance to the diets of English speakers.  There is a similar (or even greater) variety of terms connected with rice in many Asian languages.  There may be a variety of terms relating to sweet potatoes in the languages of Southeast Asia or equatorial Africa where it is a major food.  Marco polo (talk) 20:05, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

She walked ten li alone.
"She walked ten li alone" is literally translated from Chinese. I am not certain whether it can be understood by English-speaking people.The word "li" is a Chinese unit of length, measuring five hundred meters. Should I convert "ten li" in the above-mentioned sentence into "five kilometers" in order to make it better understood? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.249.219.129 (talk) 07:21, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * What is the context? If this is a quotation you shouldn't change it, but you can provide a parenthetical explanation (i.e., "She walked ten li [five kilometres] alone"), or add a footnote. — SMUconlaw (talk) 07:33, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I'd leave it in li also if, say, it comes from a story set in a time before the Chinese knew about kilometers, since using kilometers would then seem anachronistic. If you do want to add a parenthetical translating it into km, maybe mention miles as well, since there are many English speakers for whom "five kilometers" is just as meaningless as "ten li". Aɴɢʀ (talk) 07:50, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The use of an explanatory footnote might be useful here; see: and . (According to reference 10 in Arirang article: Ten li are equivalent to about 4 kilometers, or 2.5 miles) ~E:71.20.250.51 (talk) 15:10, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * According to our article on Chinese measurements, which inspires more confidence, the metric equivalent of a li varied over time. Generally, a better conversion would seem to be 10 li to 4.5 kilometers, or closer to 3 miles. Marco polo (talk) 19:53, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * It's fairly standard to italicize foreign words not in common use. People can infer from the context, too. Mingmingla (talk) 01:17, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Not as easily as you might expect. Compare:
 * "She walked ten li. [Only ten li, and she's bitching?  What a pussy!]"
 * "She walked ten li, alone. [In the middle of the night, with soldiers trying to kill her.  What a brave girl!]"  --Bowlhover (talk) 03:07, 24 January 2014 (UTC)