Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 December 15

= December 15 =

It was carried out root canal treatment on one of the UK’s largest gorillas. English?
Look at the headline of this article: "It was carried out root canal treatment on one of the UK’s largest gorillas". I'm puzzled someone called Betty Palmer working for a American (?) newspaper or website called the "Albany Daily Star Gazette" (that's Albany, California?) could write something like that. And that's not the only case: "Fur of Animals died in Road Kills turn to Fashion", written by Ray Courtney. And within the text you find the following title: "Petite Mort Furs believes it is best way for have fur". Almost all of their titles are that way: for more fun check out their website. Do they outsource their headlines to China? What's going on? Contact Basemetal   here  11:06, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I think it's a bad pun, whose lack of punctuation obfuscates its meaning and humor. It should read: "It was 'carried' out: root canal treatment on one of UK's largest gorillas".  Carried being a pun on dental caries.  -- Jayron 32 11:34, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Very clever pun, Jayron, but I tend to doubt it. If one goes to the site's "About US" page, it will appear that the outfit behind the publication is "California Turkish Times" and that the publication is targeted at a "large elite audience of Turkish Americans, Turkish-Armenians, Persians, Azeris, Ozbeks, Turkmens, Uygurs, Caucaus Turks, Meskhetian Turks, Tatars, Karakalpaks, Kirgiz, Kazak Turks and exchange/international Turkish students". It's also clear that the gorilla article was picked up off of some newswire (no American reporter would give the gorilla's weight as "28 stone"), or it may in fact be a copyvio. (The first part of the article corresponds to this and the second part to this.) "Betty Palmer" may not even be a real person. I think the most parsimonious assumption is that the headlines there are written by a Turkish American with an imperfect grasp of the English language. Deor (talk) 12:05, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually, I hadn't checked out the site. Looking closer and doing some research, I think at best it's a fake news site.  Despite the official looking masthead, I can find no record of any newspaper-of-record with that name; the website itself has only existed since October, 2015:, and of the various places called Albany, I can find none with said newspaper listed.  Smells like bullshit. -- Jayron 32 12:20, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Even if this were all legitimate (and I doubt that), headlines are nearly always written by someone other than the person who wrote the article. StevenJ81 (talk) 16:15, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * The publication, which also has a Facebook page Albany Daily Star Gazette seems to be administered by Ilker Turhan in Kadikoy, Turkey, but it is perhaps connected with the Turkish Cultural Center Albany (TCCA) which "is devoted to promoting peace and understanding among people from diverse cultural backgrounds in New York’s Capital Region".   D b f i r s   18:31, 15 December 2015 (UTC)


 * "Betty Palmer" sounds like one of the 5 daughters of Mrs Palmer to me. (Funny, I just connected that my own mother is one of 5 daughters ...) --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:25, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * So is mine, Jack. KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( もしもし！ ) 10:38, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
 * If you won't get a room, would the two o'yiz at least get a glove? μηδείς (talk) 03:56, 19 December 2015 (UTC)


 * If they do that in the park, they might get fingered by a police informant. StuRat (talk) 07:51, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

West Indie
What fish is being called a "West Indie" in the song Hard, Hard Times? I don't understand. 68.0.247.51 (talk) 21:12, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
 * See here: "a grade or 'cull' of dried and salted cod-fish shipped to the West Indies." To judge by the illustrative quotations (which include the passage from "Hard, Hard Times"), it was definitely not a good grade of fish. Deor (talk) 21:58, 15 December 2015 (UTC)