Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 July 8

= July 8 =

Arabic help
File:Daira.jpg has three items on a white background: text at the top, text in the middle, and something at the bottom. Is it a stylised Arabic letter, or is it a non-letter shape that's potentially copyrightable? The image is up for deletion, and the answer to my question may determine whether or not it's deleted. Nyttend (talk) 00:37, 8 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Looks like a non-letter stylized shape...although I should note that the text is Urdu, not Arabic. I don't think that matters though (unless it's a stylized chōṭī hē for some reason). Adam Bishop (talk) 03:02, 8 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Looks much more like a version of the Zen unclosed circle symbol, or an abstract depiction of a fetus, than anything that could be an Arabic letter... AnonMoos (talk) 06:57, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Sanction
How did the word sanction collect such contradictory meanings - permission to do something, and a punishment for doing something? -- 03:28, 8 July 2014 User:HiLo48


 * Try using Google, HiLo48. "Sanction etymology" will give you the answer and I am sure even you have heard of google. μηδείς (talk) 03:34, 8 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Drop the attitude, Medeis, please for goodness sake. IBE (talk) 16:38, 8 July 2014 (UTC)


 * No, I still think HiLo's using google would do him more good than my not having an apparent attitude. μηδείς (talk) 20:09, 9 July 2014 (UTC)


 * You have been warned about your attitude by so many people, over such a long time, as for example here. It is unique to you. The constant complaints about your behaviour should have shown you this. IBE (talk) 05:18, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I move we ban trade with Medeis in all items, materials, equipment, goods and technology which could contribute to his or her enrichment-related, reprocessing or heavy water-related activities, or to the development of nuclear weapon delivery systems. Better safe than sorry. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:29, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
 * When and where were those topic bans rescinded? Was it conditionally on the problem behavior not continuing?  Because if so... -Elmer Clark (talk) 22:50, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't recall a topic ban, only a warning. Perhaps it was a near thing. The warning seemed to work very well, and since then I have stopped keeping a file of diffs by troublemakers, showing trust and respect. This patience has been challenged a few times, but not broken. I generally believe we should be slow to anger, but implacable once a limit is reached. This one was pretty close to going in the diff file, for use on a future occasion. I am hoping it will not prove necessary. IBE (talk) 15:44, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Maybe I'm misreading that link, but it sounds like Medeis and Baseball Bugs were indefinitely topic-banned from the reference desk. (To his credit, by the way, Baseball Bugs gave very good answers to this question.) -Elmer Clark (talk) 08:23, 12 July 2014 (UTC)


 * EO may help. It's from the same root as "saint", and has to do with decreeing or ordaining. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:48, 8 July 2014 (UTC)


 * For general reference, 'sanction' is a good example of a contranym. Some of them emerge from fairly obvious polysemy, e.g. the verb "dust" can mean to add or remove dust. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:09, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
 * A sanction is a decree about what some entity may or may not do. The word appears to be contradictory due to the tendency of English speakers to shorten things. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:39, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Then how did it acquire its third meaning -- that of an officially approved contract assassination (as in The Eiger Sanction)? 24.5.122.13 (talk) 21:56, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
 * "Sanction" means "official approval" full stop. So an officially approved assassination would be a sanctioned assassination.  -- Jayron  32  22:04, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Yep. That works for all the nuanced meanings of "sanction". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:20, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
 * That definition would have to be stretched a bit to fit the discussion that led me to bring this here. It was some soccer people desperately trying to explain the offside rule. (Some even claiming it was simple.) The rule includes the sanctions for breaking the rule, i.e. the penalties or punishments. And the trouble with what I just write there in the language of soccer is that even "penalty" has its own unique meaning. HiLo48 (talk) 08:17, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
 * "Sanction" in this context refers to the decision-making process of the referee penalising a foul, not to the consequences of breaking the rule. In effect the ref has made an order for a particular law of the game to be enacted. Hack (talk) 08:57, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Disaster
What's the difference (if any) between a disaster and a catastrophe? 24.5.122.13 (talk) 21:57, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Etymologically, 'disaster' means 'bad star', 'bad omen', while 'catastrophe' means 'overturning'. But in practice they have pretty much interchangeable meanings. I guess if I was pushed to it, I'd say that (a) 'catastrophe' is probably even stronger than 'disaster', but there's not much to choose between them, and; (b) that J R R Tolkien coined the term 'eucatastrophe' for an event which overturns a bad state of affairs in favour of the side of good, but that aside, 'catastrophe' has pretty universally negative connotations, just like 'disaster'. AlexTiefling (talk) 22:03, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
 * So in other words, the only real difference is the number of dead bodies? 24.5.122.13 (talk) 22:39, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Not necessarily. An airplane crash is often called a disaster, while its underlying cause (if mechanical) can be described as a catastrophic failure. There's a subtle difference. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:47, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I think I hear it, now that you mention it. "Disaster" has a sense of evil/doom/misfortune, while "catastrophe" is more objectively about systems breaking down. "Catastrophic medical event" makes it clear that a person's entire body is (or was) in jeopardy. "Disastrous medical event" would imply this person's death was fate being tragic, and that's a bit smug. People die all the time. When they die all at one time, there's a sort of social bonding mentality among survivors (and TV fans) that makes either word acceptable, I think. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:09, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Though Merriam-Webster disagrees with me, calling a catastrophe "a terrible disaster", and using the words "tragic" and "misfortune". InedibleHulk (talk) 23:15, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
 * When I lived in Germany, I noted that the newspapers (or, at least, the Süddeutsche Zeitung) had a strict hierarchy of nouns (Unfall > Unglück > Katastrophe) for such events, which seemed to be tied to the number of fatalities. I don't know if this was in any way official, though. Tevildo (talk) 22:52, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
 * According to EO, the broadening of "catastrophe" to equate to "disaster" is relatively recent. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:23, 8 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Different syllables. Depending on the rhythm of the speaker, one will have more punch (or "impact"). That's important if you're trying to emotionally convey the scene, as a news reporter, mayor or humanitarian spokeswoman should.


 * Also works well for poets, if there are any working poets left. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:41, 8 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Of course there are. The world only continues to turn courtesy of poetic impetus, which is technically known as centripoetal force.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  07:16, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
 * One should be punished for such an offense... -- Jayron  32  15:17, 9 July 2014 (UTC)


 * In case anyone is interested, there is a very specialized meaning for 'catastrophe' in mathematics, see catastrophe theory. Also in engineering, we have catastrophic failure. These uses also support my personal connotation: disasters are events that have direct impacts on human property and life, e.g. natural disaster (the article doesn't say this explicitly, but we call a storm a natural disaster when it destroys a town, but we don't call a storm in Antarctica a disaster unless it hit a boat or a research station). Catastrophe can then be used in a more mechanical/physical/mathematical contexts, without any reference to body counts or property damage. This is similar to what Bugs and Hulk are getting at above, just adding links for the curious. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:39, 9 July 2014 (UTC)


 * In the London Insurance Market, Lloyd's of London issues codes for those events which they consider to be catastrophes or "cats", losses that will have a major impact on the market. According to the Lloyd's website, only four events have achieved this status so far in 2014, including the Malaysian Airlines disappearance. Another is an outbreak of fungal meningitis in Massachusetts, which is going to cost somebody a few bob. Alansplodge (talk) 19:37, 9 July 2014 (UTC)