Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2018 May 24

= May 24 =

Singular or plural verb in "Shingles" article?
I just saw this sentence in the Wikipedia article Shingles: There is a number of shingles vaccines which reduce the risk of developing shingles or developing severe shingles if the disease occurs. Should the verb be "there is a number" ... or ... "there are a number"? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:03, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Maybe an WP:ENGVAR issue? I never change "is" to "are" or visa-versa because within 4 seconds, someone from across an ocean insults me and tells me I'm subhuman before reverting me.  It's not worth the trouble, really.  -- Jayron 32 03:06, 24 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I am not really concerned about editing the article.  I really just want to know the correct grammatical form.  For United States English.  Thanks.  Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:09, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * "a number of" means "more than one". That doesn't mean the Brits agree, though. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:16, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Nor well educated Australians. HiLo48 (talk) 06:20, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * They is a number of well eddycated Aussies. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 07:33, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Fair dinkum mate, do try to get the spelling right. HiLo48 (talk) 10:51, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I spelled exactly as I intended to. :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:32, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * For U.S. English, the antecedent of the pronoun is used to conjugate the verb. Since the antecedent of "there" is "a number of shingles vaccines", a plural term, then use "are".  This is also explicitly covered in the article on the concept of Synesis (also called "notional agreement") which states explicitly "a number of is plural", citing the AMA Manual of Style, which is a pre-eminent American usage style guide.  -- Jayron 32 03:19, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I'd point out that, if we wanted to use "is" on the grounds that "number" is singular, then "number" rather than "vaccines" should also be the subject of the the rest of the sentence. So you could have something like there is a number of vaccines for shingles, which is either prime or composite.  But if the vaccines are the subject of the subordinate clause, then it can only be because "a number of" is being reanalyzed as a quantifier, in which case the grammatical number of "number" is not really relevant. --Trovatore (talk) 03:28, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Personally I would go with that, so I would say "There is a number on my front door", but "There are a number of houses in the street", or "The number of houses in the street is less than a hundred". Finally I expect that a number of fellow British posters are going to disagree with me (not "is going to disagree")! -- Q Chris (talk) 10:31, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I would maybe go with "a number of fellow British posters will disagree with me", avoiding the problem completely. HiLo48 (talk) 10:50, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

In US English, "is" in that sentence definitely sounds ungrammatical to my coffee-drinking ears. Unless someone from the tea-drinking side of the ocean says it sounds ok to them, I'd go ahead and change it. 173.228.123.166 (talk)


 * Why not say "there are several vaccines ..." and avoid an argument?  Dbfirs  06:20, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * is correct. The best solution is to recast the sentence to avoid ENGVAR problems, if possible. <b style="color:#070">Cullen</b><sup style="color:#707">328  Let's discuss it  06:26, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * It's not an ENGVAR problem, it's someone's misconception of the grammar of "a number of". However, "several" is just as good and is shorter. --76.69.47.55 (talk) 08:43, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Someone's misconception? You're insulting a huge number of English speakers there. HiLo48 (talk) 09:01, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Per HiLo48, De gustibus non est disputandum, different is not wrong, and we should look to reliable and well-respected style guides for what they recommend to use. There is not only one way to speak.  -- Jayron <b style="color:#090">32</b> 11:15, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The usual recommendation, even here in the UK, is to use the singular for "the number of ..." and the plural for "a number of ...." (treating the latter as a determiner rather than the subject). However, I found "Despite sharply rising fees, a record number of students is going to independent schools ..." by John Clare in The Daily Telegraph of April 24th 2004.   <i style="color: blue;">D</i><i style="color: #0cf;">b</i><i style="color: #4fc;">f</i><i style="color: #6f6;">i</i><i style="color: #4e4;">r</i><i style="color: #4a4">s</i>  15:32, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, all! Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 16:11, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Allgemeine Geschichte in Einzeldarstellungen
de:Allgemeine Geschichte in Einzeldarstellungen was a German historical encyclopedia of sorts. Can someone translate the title? Google gives "General history in single representations" but this seems too literal. Thanks. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 05:44, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * General history in monographs. Шурбур (talk) 07:01, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks! 173.228.123.166 (talk) 08:03, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Confirm, see the first sections of the article in DeepL Translator. -- Hans Haase (有问题吗) 17:19, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Einwohner (de)
Etymologically, what is an de:Einwohner? Is it connected to de:eins, maybe indicating that the Einwohner holds a unique position (e.g. owns something that nobody else owns)? Google Translate tells me:"In historical times, initially only male adults were considered inhabitants. In the familiar meaning of today, the use of inhabitants in villages in southwest Saxony began as early as 1700 through the flowing transition from inhabitants ; ancient terms for a resident [presumably the German original uses a feminine inflection here] were Infrau or Innfrau."So apparently the word's roots don't strictly mean "someone who lives in a place". Nyttend backup (talk) 12:27, 24 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Is there any concrete reason to reject the hypothesis that ein is the preposition meaning "in", as in most German words with an ein prefix (with a few exceptions, such as Einhorn "unicorn)? AnonMoos (talk) 12:46, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Concrete reason is that I didn't know about that word :-) But what is a "wohner"?  Neither de:wiktionary:wohner nor de:wiktionary:Wohner exists, and ditto for English Wiktionary.  Does it correspond to Latin habitāre, since incola seems to be similar to the Latin-derived English inhabitant?  Nyttend backup (talk) 13:30, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

According to Hermann Paul (Deutsches Wörterbuch), it is a calque from Latin incola, first introduced in Luther's Bible, so "ein" should mean "in". Шурбур (talk) 13:00, 24 May 2018 (UTC)


 * The online Duden says for origin "mittelhochdeutsch inwoner". DuncanHill (talk) 13:38, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * And "wohnen" is a verb, meaning to dwell or reside. So an einwohner is an in-dweller. DuncanHill (talk) 13:43, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Which is exactly how you could translate incola literally. Wiktionary, too, sees it (i.e. originally inwoner) as a calque of incola. ---Sluzzelin talk  16:24, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

It seemed to me like einkaufen (shopping), whose stem is kaufen (buying). Something that one does for ones' self, maybe. (Note: I'm not anywhere near fluent in German but can read and speak a little bit). 173.228.123.166 (talk) 14:08, 24 May 2018 (UTC)


 * →Population. "The population of the X City is n". In German: "X hat n Einwohner". Same word is used for a person named P living in X, who is a resident of X. In German: P ist Einwohner von X. -- Hans Haase (有问题吗) 17:14, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * See ein- or ein- for the preposition "ein-" appearing in "Einwohner" and in "einkaufen". --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 23:06, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Budrio / Heunburg
Looking at the German Wikipedia, it seems that the relatively small town of Budrio has a quite strange German exonym: Heunburg. This is quite strange, considering that very few towns in Emilia-Romagna, even bigger and more famous, have a German "translation". What do you think is the origin of that name? Thanks. --188.153.79.197 (talk) 21:15, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Seems to have been inserted by a vandalizing IP. Abductive  (reasoning) 22:10, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Buttrio in Udine bore that name. Шурбур (talk) 10:47, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Please report matters concerning the German Wikipedia there: de:WP:Fragen zur Wikipedia or de:WP:Auskunft. It is acceptable if you write in English. Meanwhile, I have removed the identification (it was inserted in 2006 (!) without source). --Wrongfilter (talk) 12:20, 25 May 2018 (UTC)