Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 March 25

= March 25 =

Roger Brown
Any Norwegians here? It seems odd that the protagonist of Headhunters (film) has an English name; how odd is it to a Norwegian? —Tamfang (talk) 08:12, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * There are 380 persons living in Norway with "Brown" as their surname (see http://www.ssb.no/navn/). It would be a regarded as a foreign name, and pronounced as it is in English. "Roger" is not an unusual given name in Norway, 9017 men have "Roger" as their first given name, and 7440 men have "Roger" as their only given name. It is pronounced "RAW-ger" where "ger" is the sound that you get if you replace the "t" in "get" with an "r" (rolled or uvular). When you see a name written as "Roger Brown" in Norwegian, you will be in doubt whether the first name is to be pronounced in Norwegian or English. I haven't seen the film, and don't know how the first name of Nesbø's character is to be pronounced. --NorwegianBluetalk 13:01, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Inconsistently, I think: with hard /g/ by one character, soft by another. —Tamfang (talk) 20:24, 25 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I recall that the book reveals (although I don't think this appears in the film) that Brown has an English father. This review agrees with me. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 13:07, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I also vaguely remember that his father was driver for an embassy - presumably the British embassy. Roger Brown prefers to describe his father as 'a diplomat'. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 13:09, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Translation from French to English
How to translate and e.mail letter from French to English? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.78.121.142 (talk) 11:39, 25 March 2014 (UTC)


 * http://translate.google.com/ will usually give you the gist. Star Lord -   星王 (talk) 13:11, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

in as varied ways as...
"She is able to cook fish in as varied ways as flowers can be arranged." Could you tell me if the above sentence showing comparison is grammatical? Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.128.179.233 (talk) 12:08, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * "...in as many and varied ways as flowers can be arranged." Or "many different", or just "many" on its own would do as well. "Varied" on its own is not correct. --Viennese Waltz 12:32, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Why is not not grammatically correct? (Idiomatically, it has the benefit of avoiding cliche.) --jpgordon:==( o ) 17:23, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * You might have to ask Chomsky. I'm not aware of an articulated rule against it, yet I doubt I've ever heard "as _____ noun as" with an adjective rather than a quantifier (many, much, few) before the noun.  On another hand, "in ways as varied as" is normal. —Tamfang (talk) 20:10, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes I have: "I'm as good a man as you are, and as good a man as lives in this county." Is that better than "as varied ways" because it's singular?? "We're as good men as those damn barbarians" feels, shall we say, unliterary. —Tamfang (talk) 03:16, 30 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Substitute "varied" with its synonym "different", and what do we have? It seems to be comparing one set of differences with another, a la "This is more different than that". That is not at all the purpose of the sentence; it is supposed to be about how many different ways fish can be cooked or how many ways flowers can be arranged, not whether any of those ways are more or less different than any others.  Hence the word "many" is required.  One could argue that the words "varied" or "different" are redundant in any case: "She is able to cook fish in many varied ways" tells us no more than "She is able to cook fish in many ways".  If the ways weren't different or varied from each other, they wouldn't be counted more than once.  Side comment: I laugh (in contempt) at modern-day journalists who tell us "The fire brigade had an extraordinarily busy day today, as there were 20 separate house fires to attend to".  As distinct from 20 identical house fires, perhaps? --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:44, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Presumably, for the small example, as distinct from 20 house fires resulting from a single fire which spread to 20 houses. MChesterMC (talk) 09:33, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Twenty house fires united in solidarity! My favorite journalistic redundancy is "earlier this year/month/week/today" as if you could be reporting something that happened later. —Tamfang (talk) 17:17, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The news and newspapers actually does, fairly annoyingly often, report on things that are currently happening or will happen in future. For example, when a speech or briefing had been released detailing exactly what a politician will be saying this afternoon, to allow easy reporting. 86.157.148.65 (talk) 20:29, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Or stuff like "So-and-so will this afternoon announce that the end of the world as we know it will occur next Tuesday". Then, when this afternoon rolls around, it's "BREAKING NEWS: NEWS FLASH! End of World Shock!: So-and-so has announced that the end of the world as we know it will occur next Tuesday".  They must think their listeners have the memory capacities of ectoplasm.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  22:40, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Do newspapers often have occasion to report a future event in the past tense, e.g. "...[Name], who resigned as [Officer] later this year" (this "earlier" stuff occurs mostly in clarifying subclauses like that); or vice versa, "[Noun] will [verb] earlier this week"? —Tamfang (talk) 03:31, 30 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I disagree with Jack. The word varied describes differences within a set; its alleged synonym different refers to an external standard, from which the noun in question differs.  New question:
 * Is This group is more varied than that group wrong?
 * Is it better or worse than These doshes are more varied than those gostaks?
 * How about Your [calico] cat's coat is more varied than my [black] cat's?
 * —Tamfang (talk) 03:31, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Russian eyes needed please
Hi, I spotted these edits at List of Masha and the Bear episodes, a Russian animated children's series. Now, superficially, additions like, "as she bounced on the bed when he rides bicycle And the Bear has left Masha in the forest. and Masha being scared of ghosts But he is finding Masha on...his house! before" would seem like total gibberish, but I suspect someone is trying very hard to translate Russian to English. However, the the mechanical translation of the Russian page makes more sense than the translations on the page. Anyhow, can any Russian speakers spare a little bit to help tidy up this article? Much obliged. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 16:37, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

declension of names
In languages where personal names have declension, do surnames occur in the plural? Yesterday I brought home a book by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, whose surname has the form of an ordinary adjective, and wondered whether in Russian they are брати Стругацкие (‘the brothers Strugatskie’) with the plural ending. —Tamfang (talk) 20:07, 25 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, for Russian (I can't speak for other languages), but the plural of брат is братья, not брати. See also The Brothers Karamazov, in Russian Братья Карамазовы (Brat'ya Karamazovy).  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:28, 25 March 2014 (UTC)


 * FWIW, in Serbo-Croatian noun phrases attributive+(proper) noun, declension of the second part (including pluralization) is optional. With surnames, it generally went out of fashion, but the novel is indeed called sr:Braća Karamazovi, maybe due to influence of the original, however we only have sr:braća Grim or sr:braća Rajt (plural is technically grammatical but highly unusual). No such user (talk) 21:53, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

D'oh, the very article to which I linked answers my question in the positive. —Tamfang (talk) 20:33, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I am kind of confused. One needn't go outside English to find examples like The Smiths. μηδείς (talk) 03:08, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
 * True, but one wouldn't use the plural in English for "Alan & Bob Smith" (whoever they are), or for "the Smith twins" where the surname is being used adjectivally.     D b f i r s   08:14, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Which, by the way, is why I prefer "two Bobs Smith" over "two Bob Smiths". —Tamfang (talk) 17:10, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
 * You no doubt refer to The Two Mrs. Carrolls as The Two Mesdames Carroll. :)  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  19:16, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I might, should I have occasion to. —Tamfang (talk) 06:46, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

older candidates
Can "older candidates" refer to those in their twenties? For example, "Some older candidates attended the college entrance exam this year." Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.128.169.18 (talk) 22:50, 25 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, as "older" is a relative term. Older candidates for a pre-school program might have attained the grand old age of 4. StuRat (talk) 23:52, 25 March 2014 (UTC)