Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 January 18

= January 18 =

Hard sentences make bad article
From our article Hard cases make bad law: The word hard, as used here, may refer to those whose situations arouse sympathy.[1] Is this just egregiously bad English, or am I missing something? What is this sentence even supposed to mean? If I try to parse it very carefully and apply the context, I guess the author meant to say "such cases often involve strong public opinion on the side of the accused." If I'm right, any suggestions to make it more understandable? No such user (talk) 9:50, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * The sentence to whose wording you object is context dependent within the article's lead paragraph. Try posting this matter on Talk:Hard cases make bad law. You might also wish to contact editors of that page, found in its Revision history, and direct their attention to engage their response and a suitable remedy. -- Deborahjay (talk) 10:35, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, but I think that getting an opinion on language issues is likely to be much more successful here, than on the talk page of an article that had exactly two edits in 2015. But OK, I found out that the sentence was added in this edit by (and the reference is not available online). No such user (talk) 10:59, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I would express it as "Here, hard cases refer to those involving parties whose circumstances arouse sympathy". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 13:20, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * If anyone wants to rewrite - it's based on this sentence: "Its original meaning concerned cases in which the law had a hard impact on some person whose situation aroused sympathy." (The plaintiff was lamed) For those with Google books access, the link is here: . Not sure whether public opinion was involved; that's not mentioned in the source. Novickas (talk) 14:27, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Revised. John M Baker (talk) 19:50, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Names with two patronymic affixes
How did names like McWilliams and McAdams come to have both a patronymic prefix and a patronymic suffix? --98.115.39.92 (talk) 16:31, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Isn't that usual with western Family names (and many other traditions)? If you want a matronymic prefix, you could use the Hibernian Ní.    D b f i r s   20:49, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I think the question is about why "McWilliams" has a Germanic patronym (-s) and a Gaelic one (Mc). And for that question, I dunno. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:59, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Here are a few Google hits for "McWilliams name origin". There seem to be two distinct origins, one Irish and one Scottish.    . You can do the same for McAdams. Also keep in mind that (in the words of a WP article): "Mac: for most purposes, taken to mean "son of", as in Mac Néill (son of Neil). However, literally, the "of" part does not come from the "Mac" prefix but from the patronymic that follows it. E.g., in the case of MacNéill, Mac merely means "son"; "Néill" (meaning "of Neil") is the genitive form of Niall ("Neil"). In other words "Mac" means "son" you still need a genitive form (Neill from Niall). If "Williams" is taken as equivalent to a Gaelic genitive it would seem to work the same. Contact  Basemetal   here  22:26, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

No reference, but a logical supposition... The s suffixes were already on the surnames of the original gentlemen (Williams and Adams, rather than William and Adam), before their progeny were labelled Mc...? --Dweller (talk) 12:50, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Which invites the question: what other examples are there of Mac[pre-existing surname] ? —Tamfang (talk) 04:41, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Richard Fitzwilliams is one example I've found with a quick search, and there's a "Fitzandrews Farm" in Chelmsford and a makeup artist called "Kathy Fitzmichaelson". I'm sure other similar cases exist.  Not an answer to the question, sorry. Tevildo (talk) 21:51, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
 * A better answer. There are quite a few people with on-line profiles that go by the names "McMichaelson", and "McDavidson", but nobody on whom we have an article. Tevildo (talk) 21:56, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Russian: is there any word, other than жизнь, that ends with /zn/?
HOTmag (talk) 20:23, 18 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Yes, жизнь contains the (non-productive) Russian suffix -знь, which is there in a few other words as well, such as болезнь, боязнь and неприязнь. There are also words, such as казнь and рознь, in which the -знь is part of the root. It actually is /znʲ/ rather than simply /zn/ - notice the Ь|soft sign (Ь). --Theurgist (talk) 21:13, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much, Theurgist. Btw, how do you know these are all words ending with /zn/ (or /znʲ/)? Is there an online list letting you find Russian words by their last letters? HOTmag (talk) 21:39, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * If you simply put "знь" into Google (with the quotations, or otherwise you'll get lots of unrelated stuff), you'll find some lists of -знь words (like this or this or this) containing a few other words than the aforementioned words, although most of them are derivations or compounds of the aforementioned words. --Theurgist (talk) 22:02, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * In five steps, all on WMF wikis: reverse dictionary → ru:Обратный словарь → ru:wikt:Приложение:Обратный словарь русского языка → ru:wikt:Приложение:Обратный словарь русского языка-106 → 1525. казнь болезнь жизнь рознь врознь порознь приязнь неприязнь боязнь водобоязнь светобоязнь. No such user (talk) 22:14, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * A word that does end with /zn/ (unlike жизнь) is соблазн. --Amble (talk) 08:03, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

"Paired consonants preceding another consonant often inherit softness from it." - so the -знь is probably in fact /-zʲnʲ/, and that is exactly how it's given in the Wiktionary entries of the aforementioned words: [ʐɨzʲnʲ], [nʲɪprʲɪˈjæzʲnʲ], [rozʲnʲ] and so on. --Theurgist (talk) 22:03, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Are Libana and Lubna the same person?
A few days ago, the Humanities Desk tackled a question about whether Libana and Lubna, both women poets of 10th century Cordoba, are the same person. I know there are some people here who can read Arabic. Would one of you be able to check these sources: §1413, §1589 (posted by User: הסרפד at Lubana's deletion discussion) to see if they shed any light on this question? Thanks.184.147.121.46 (talk) 22:11, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * See my most recent addition to the AfD discussion. Without reading Arabic, I can discern the date of death at the end of Lubna's entry in Ibn Bashkuwal's work; I also show that the same work, via a different route, is (probably) the source for mentions of "Labana" in 18th- and 19th-century literature. הסרפד  (call me Hasirpad) 22:18, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Oh, cool, I missed that while posting this. So if I understand it right, you *were* able to confirm that the two names refer to the same person? We could mark this resolved, unless you would like any more info that an Arabic-speaker might glean from the sources.184.147.121.46 (talk) 22:43, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Of course someone that actually reads Arabic would have more to add, but I think we have the essence of the proof already. (I should point out that credit for the identification of Lubna as Labana goes to this informal source; but with no source cited.) Since the earliest source for "Labana" (and the only one to cite an early source) cites the same section of the same medieval chronicle, with almost the same biographical details (compare Adam Bishop's point below) as that which modern historians cite for Lubna, I don't see any room for reasonable doubt. הסרפד  (call me Hasirpad) 00:51, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I can't read the one from Hathi Trust, but the Harvard link says "Lubna". But to add to what Hasirpad said, if someone was transcribing that name from a medieval Arabic text and the short vowels weren't marked, it would be easy to come up with "Libana" or "Labana" (or "Lubana", etc...only the long A at the end is actually there). Adam Bishop (talk) 23:33, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

That's excellent. Thank you Adam.184.147.121.46 (talk) 13:15, 19 January 2016 (UTC)