User talk:Mahagaja/Archive 39

Weak suppletion

Angr, why don't you have a look at Weak suppletion and my comments on the talk page. --Doric Loon (talk) 09:43, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Your Parable

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Angr#A_parable

I should likely have either asked permission or warned you before I put a link to your user page on User talk:Jimbo Wales. Under "7 Promotional Photos of current musical groups" there were questions being asked that I thought could be as well answered by your parable as by anything anyone else could write. However, I may thus have drawn unwanted attention to it. If so, I apologise. If you would like me to remove the reference, I will do so. ៛ Bielle (talk) 00:19, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

That's okay. The parable isn't much use if no one reads it! —Angr 05:11, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Angr, THANK YOU. This is brilliant. It does deserve a much much wider audience.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:18, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Now you have your audience! (clapping from the sidelines) ៛ Bielle (talk) 20:22, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. This is the first time I've seen it. Spot on. Antandrus (talk) 00:05, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Except that it is possible to have a 100% vegan meal by the standards of that parable. What of someone who claims worms harmed in growing food and invisibly small mites that exist everywhere must also be 100% not harmed or eaten? What is the point of being vegan? If health, then killing worms is not an issue. If not killing animals, then it is. Why do we want free content? So people can take it, use it and we can grow the free culture movement and thus provide a balance for other forces and processes in society. Even a fully copy-left image is not totally free as there are personality rights that can not be ignored. And fair use is not just about images. There is also fair use for quotes and trademark use. Intellectual property can not be cleanly dealt with; any choice we make will have some degree of compromise. There are forms of veganism that are extreme. There are forms of free-content advocacy that are extreme. The most extreme thing is to demand everyone else be as extreme as oneself. It is important that our non-copy-left images be properly marked. In your parable that would mean that every dish was marked with its ingredients. Wikipedia is so marked. So the parable version would have thousands of contributors of dishes with a constant process of trying to accurately mark them with their ingredients and someone at that feast who wanted to be sure would have to check how much due diligence on this was done for each dish he wanted to eat from. If you want to eat what some else has prepared, you need to know their reputation to know whether to trust their representations of it. WAS 4.250 (talk) 17:29, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Nicely done. It does a great job of conveying your view, and given that I've got a number of very sincere vegetarians in my family, it gives me more sympathy for that view. And I think the analogy works further.

Some vegetarians I know are mainly pragmatic; they don't like animal suffering, and so avoid causing it. Or they do it for health reasons. Or they think it's more ecologically sound, and want to do their part. Others are idealist or religious vegetarians, and so the consumption of meat is anathema, perhaps blasphemy, no matter the degree, the situation, or the consequences.

Personally, I'm a pragmatist here. I think the choice of a free content license is very useful in fulfilling the vision of the project, and my personal goals in contributing. But I respect the people who are here for other reasons. Hopefully your parable will aid in building more of that mutual respect.

Thanks for taking the time to post it! -- William Pietri (talk) 21:41, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Well done, Angr! I translated your essay into Norwegian and put it on my no.wikipedia user page ;-) --Kjetil r (talk) 11:28, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Opinion

I need a opinion regarding an edit made by Sindhian (talk · contribs) in the article Durga Vahini. Could you please advise me what should I do if this edit recurs? Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 17:20, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Removing 7/8 of an article's content, almost all of it sourced, is definitely considered vandalism. Revert at will; this doesn't count as a content dispute (if it did, both side would be subject to the WP:3RR). —Angr 17:23, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Nice!

		All Around Amazing Barnstar
		For the parable on your userpage. It captures my feelings exactly. Please turn it into an essay! Kelly hi! 19:36, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Happy Birthday

Just a happy Birthday message to you, Mahagaja/Archive 39, from the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Have a great day!

America69 (talk) 00:48, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I,SJP, wish you, Mahagaja/Archive 39, a happy birthday:-) Have a great day!

Sign of the cross

"Popular culture references" does not equal "Trivia", so please quit removing the section.

I infer that you might be Catholic and think the references sacrilegious and may be removing the section for that reason. I hope that isn't the case, as that would violate NPOV. (For what it may be worth, I was raised Catholic and do not see them as such.) -- Davidkevin (talk) 09:46, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

No, I'm not Catholic. But "Popular culture references" does equal "Trivia" when the entire contents of the section are trivial, as in this case. It has nothing to do with being sacrilegious, and everything to do with being encyclopedic. —Angr 16:54, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Gaelic

Hi. I saw you reverted out my addition to the Gaelic article (really dab page as you pointed out) with an external link to a dictionary. I take your point about the dab page bit. I wasn't sure so you've convinced me. Thanks and Bests. --- (Bob) Wikiklrsc (talk) 23:47, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Admin intervention needed

Hi Angr, would you or some other admin please intervene in the debate at Talk:List of European regions with alternative names#Revert explanation? Thanks. Pasquale (talk) 14:24, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Image:Cherwillgrace.jpg

In your opinion, is expanding the section on cher to include commentary on will & grace worth the trouble to save the image? If not, I'll just leave it out. The Bookkeeper (of the Occult) 09:21, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Not in my opinion, no. —Angr 09:24, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

University of Berlin

Hello Angr! Since you were involved in this before, I am wondering about your thoughts on this mess of redirects and disambiguation pages: University of Berlin (redirects to List of Universities in Berlin); List of universities in Berlin (redirects to List of universities, colleges, and research institutions in Berlin); Berlin University (redirects to Humboldt University of Berlin). My inclination is to have "University of Berlin" and "Berlin University" redirect to "Humboldt University of Berlin", as that is most commonly known as the "University of Berlin" (check the "What links here" for each). "List of ..." would still be mentioned in a hatnote at the top of HUoB. Olessi (talk) 17:23, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree that University of Berlin should redirect to Humboldt University of Berlin. I also think that List of Universities in Berlin should redirect to List of universities, colleges, and research institutions in Berlin as we really don't need two separate lists. —Angr 20:12, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback; I updated the redirects. Olessi (talk) 21:03, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Alexei [sic] Fyodorov

I appreciate your take on this, which resembles my own on a more objective day. The problem arose when vetting our chosen keyword spelling, styled as usual per Yad Vashem. My wannabe polyglot streak and rudimentary level of Cyrillic motivated me to raise the query on a forum of my more-knowledgeable peers. As I write, read, and infosearch primarily (though not exclusively) in English, I do well to go with your explanation on this one, likewise in not challenging the page title here. (Besides, I'm content to write "Joseph Trumpeldor"—much to the indignant consternation of my boss...) -- Oh, and also I really like that cool <tt> HTML tag; can hardly wait to start using it :-) Thanks! Deborahjay (talk) 10:32, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Nice one

		The Original Barnstar
		Nice catch on britic ;) MinYinChao (talk) 10:10, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I hear that you live in Germany

Due to the fact that I've been told that you live in Germany, I was hoping that you could respond to my question on the miscellaneous reference desk. Thank you for your time, Dismas|^(talk) 08:02, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

If you have the time

Long arguments going on over Maltese language, your knowledge would be appreciated if you have the time. JdeJ (talk) 11:06, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Hello

Hi Angr, just wanted to say thank you for your contributions to the Language ref desk. Whenever I read your comments I learn something new and intriguing! Your knowledge of language astounds me... She'sGotSpies (talk) 16:50, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! —Angr 17:50, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Pescetarian

Thanks for cleaning that up for me. I was just trying to stop a fight over one word. It's a tricky business and now I know why some wikipedia articles are so long and drawn out and lose there audiance half way down. Thanks again. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wienchs (talk • contribs) 08:37, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

No problem! Don't forget to sign your name on talk pages with the four tildes (~~~~), though! —Angr 08:41, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

DRV of an IfD

I'm advising all participants in the IfD discussion for the Image Indiana Jones and the Cross of Coronado.jpg that a subsequent DRV was filed here. Your participation is welcome. Dreadstar † 01:40, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity

Why Not necessarily, no? regarding your recent undo. What prevents a hypothetical English dialect (I'm not an expert in these) which admits *Me like him to be defined as having a quirky subject? You might say that all known English dialects admit alternative constructions, and that might be correct (but do we know - there are hundreds or thousands of them, not all investigated and some still in the pidgin or creole state?) for all I know. But why is this not an example? Are you saying that this hypothetical dialect would have to admit the given example and nothing else? That's a fairly strict definition and one which seems to be designed to avoid exceptions at all costs. All the best Io (talk) 18:54, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

• If I encountered a dialect of English where "Me like him" was grammatical, my first assumption would be that the dialect in question uses "me" as the nominative case - that's not a quirky subject. If most verbs used "I" as the nominative case, but only "like" (or only a handful of verbs, including "like") used "me" as the subject, then I'd start thinking about quirky case. Especially if the "Me" could also govern an anaphor like "myself", since only subjects can do that. At any rate, I don't think it's helpful to start speculating in the article about what quirky subjects might sound like in English if we had them. —Angr 19:02, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

A good answer, but not completely satisfying. I was actually thinking about a phrase often heard in American TV, using your example verb, where the protagonist is pointing at something, and saying Me, like. Here me is clearly an accusative since we have the alternative I like that. (Whether like is an infinitive or indicative may be a subject for debate.) As for anaphors, I'm sure you have heard something along the lines of Me, myself, am of the opinion that .... So I don't agree. It so happens that at least American TV exports examples of the kind above to all corners of the world, and in no case that I remember is the me-construction the only one accepted in any given situation. But that may admittedly be TV- and literary distortion. For instance, I haven't the foggiest clue about how "ebonics" is supposed to work, having learnt, mostly, HM's English. Cheers Io (talk) 19:25, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I think what you're probably hearing is "Me likee", pseudo-pidgin English. People who say that aren't following a grammatical rule that says the subject has to be in the accusative, they're imitating broken English. In "Me, myself, am of the opinion", "myself" isn't being used reflexively (I should have been more specific about that). I think there's some debate on the talk page as to whether "methinks" counts as a quirky subject; I'd say it isn't one if I am correct in thinking that people for whom "methinks" is/was an active part of their vocabulary cannot/could not grammatically say *"Methinks about myself". It's important to remember that quirky case does not refer to any instance of an apparent subject taking a case other than the canonical nominative case; it refers to the phenomenon of a subset of verbs being lexically specified to take subjects that are in an oblique case. I wouldn't even consider German "Mir ist kalt" to be an instance of quirky case, partly since "sein" in German does take nominative subjects and partly because there's no independent evidence that "mir" is a subject. —Angr 19:38, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

In view of your (perhaps the, I'm not an expert, what I've learnt largely comes from Wikipedia and sundry readings) definition there's not much to add, except for the German example. Mir has to be the subject, since that is the referent and there is no way of substituting anything else without altering the sentence altogether (i.e. you can't insert es or the like).

In, Me, myself ..., myself is being used reflexively, if by that you mean referring to the subject (me in this case), so I may be confused about that point. Perhaps just my misunderstanding. Cheers Io (talk) 20:03, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

PS: If quirky subject really does mean a set of verbs "designed" to take a subject in an oblique case and nothing else, then Icelandic is indeed an example, and that has, incidentally, lead to a great deal of confusion amongst part of the population about precisely which case to use, ranging from using the wrong oblique case (e.g., *mér langar (dative) instead of the correct mig langar (accusative), meaning I want to) all the way to making quirky cases, where they don't belong (e.g. *mér hlakkar til (dative) instead of ég hlakka til (nominative), meaning I look forward to). Quirky cases may not be an altogether stable phenomenon. Cheers Io (talk) 20:25, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

In "me, myself", "myself" is being used emphatically; it could just as easily be an object ("John said he loves me, myself"). Reflexive means the object is the same person as the subject (I see myself in the mirror; I hurt myself, etc.). Icelandic definitely has quirky case and may be the only living language that does. —Angr 20:30, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Emphatic or interjection. The thought had occurred to me. That myself refers backwards (to use some plain language this once) to me seems perfectly reasonable to me being brought up with an inflected native language. Me, myself has an exact translation in Icelandic, ég, ég sjálfur, (admittedly in the nominative in this case) and here either part could very well be left out (but neither part could ever be an object by virtue of the nominative) but ég sjálfur is a reference to ég, albeit perhaps for emphasis or other stylistic reasons. Other labels may be as logical, but do nothing for the theory per se. Cheers

Forgot to sign, sorry. Io (talk) 20:43, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

What Icelandic does have, though, that neither English nor German has, is a reflexive possessive pronoun sín used only to refer back to the subject. As I understand it, sín is used also when the subject is in a quirky case, and is good evidence that the subject really is a subject, and not the object of an impersonal verb. —Angr 21:14, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

The pronoun goes sig-sér-sín (acc., dat., gen., the nominative does not exist) and is inflected alike for both numbers and all genders. It can, at least in many respects be considered to correspond to himself, herself etc. It is (obviously) called the reflexive pronoun (possessive left out) in Icelandic and German has an equivalent in sich, which is however not declined (that is the accusative and dative are alike, and for the genitive one uses the corresponding personal pronoun (e.g. seiner) or the habitual pronoun(-ending) + t + preposition, e.g. seinetwegen, meinetwillen etc). In any case it refers to something one does to oneself and has given rise to an entire verb class, the so called middle voice which I'm inclined to call a class instead of a voice as it does not have the characteristics of a voice and in many, maybe most, instances, alters the meaning so drastically that the connection is more or less lost.

The example you are talking about is however in most cases the genitive of the relevant personal pronoun. Examples are easy enough to come by, but let this suffice for a normal subject: Ég gæti mín (I take care of myself). But in the 3, person we have hann gætir sín, (he takes care of himself - reflexive pronoun) versus hann gætir hans (he takes care of him (someone else) - personal pronoun). Here the verb governs the genitive. So, when used reflexively, the 1. and 2. persons use the personal pronouns, but the reflexive pronoun for the 3. This is getting long, but all in all the correspondence with the German sich is very close, so this particular one is nothing specifically Icelandic. All the best Io (talk) 22:01, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

The point is that this reflexive pronoun is used in Icelandic with quirky subjects, but the German reflexive pronoun is not used in sentences beginning with "ihm"/"ihr"/"ihnen", etc., showing that the Icelandic quirky subjects are really subjects, while the German "Ihm ist kalt" type of construction doesn't have an (explicit) subject. —Angr 22:12, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll think about it (and I thought about it), but I honestly couldn't come up with an example, so that point is murky (for me at least) for the time being. Cheers Io (talk) 22:14, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

PS You don't accept Ihm as the subject in ihm ist kalt, but when you think about it, kalt might have just as good a claim. After all, the sentence does have two equally important foci, kalt is what "does" something to ihm and kalt, at least, is nominative. Cheers Io (talk) 22:21, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I've racked my brains without success. If you could provide just a single example, I'd be grateful. Cheers Io (talk) 22:39, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

←"Kalt" can't be the subject because it's an adjective. What are we looking for an example of? —Angr 22:47, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Kalt is an adjective, granted, but it's news to me that adjectives can't be subjects if they stand on their own, taking the place of a noun or pronoun (and now I have to think of an example to back that up - might take a while :-). At least that was not how I was taucht classical syntax in school the olden days a couple of decades ago. Quirky subject didn't have a name as such, but the verbs involved were called impersonal. I was hoping you had an example or a reference to one of the reflexive pronoun referring to a quirky subject which I thought was the point above. I've tried really hard to think of an example, and so far I've failed. Cheers Io (talk) 23:15, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

It would certainly be news to me if adjectives could stand on their own as subjects, at least without being inflected in German. If it were *Ihm ist Kaltes, then I'd be willing to entertain the idea that "Kaltes" was the subject. An Icelandic example of a quirky subject governing sín, taken from Susann Fischer's paper listed in the sources of the article, is Honum finnst bókin sín skemmtileg ("He is amused by his (own) book"). —Angr 23:48, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, I may have jumped the gun with the adjective. You're right. If an adjective were a subject, it would (for lack of a better term) be substativized, as does happen in German (Alles Mögliche etc.)

As for Honum finnst bókin sín skemmtileg, sín is here a possessive pronoun, not the reflexive one. Personally (and I may be mistaken, as so often), I don't think there is a single instance of the reflexive pronoun referring back to a quirky subject (and keep in mind that the number of the verbs able to take a quirky subject is so limited that the list given in your run-of-the-mill grammar is close to exhaustive). Just a question: How do you actually define a subject? You accept a subject in an oblique case (with the qualifying "quirky", of course) as in mig langar(I want, that one does qualify as a quirky subject - the verb langa never takes a subject other than in the accusative) but refuse do accept ihm in ihm ist kalt as being a subject even thouch (except for the case) it can be translated word for word into English, He's cold, where he certainly is the subject.. Cheers Io (talk) 18:39, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

PS If you need convincing that sín is possessive, just substitute the plural: Honum finnast bækurnar sínar skemmtilegar. Cheers Io (talk) 18:45, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, it's the reflexive possessive pronoun. Haukur (talk) 18:55, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

A reflexive possesive pronoun is a new category to me (unless you forgot to add a smiley). This is just the third person, corresponding to mér finnst bókin mín skemmtileg (I'm amused by my book) in the 1. person. Cheers Io (talk) 18:59, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

You're right Haukur. According to the same source (Íslensk tunga) sinn "may be called" a reflexive possessive pronoun. But note the "may be". This particular point is, to me at least, just a word game. Cheers Io (talk) 20:21, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

PS Reflexivity and binding in general is an enormously complicated subject in Icelandic. There may very well be more valid opinions than there are researchers. (Whenever two Icelanders meet, they voice three opinions. :-) But as a general rule, since I really have seen quite a few instances of authors propagating each others' errors, everybody should be wary of non-native sources, and that does not just apply to Icelandic - I wonder how many errors I have seen in examples from other languages - I'll probably never know.

And to Angr (angr being Old Icelandic for regret, remorse or damage, I'm curious which one you are :-): Sorry to use your page like this. It just seemed convenient, and you are interested in linguistics, so I hope you'll bear with me this once. Cheers Io (talk) 20:35, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Another PS: In the article you referred to, neither of the examples 1b nor 1c are examples of a quirky subject, since both are just passive forms of normal verbs. In 1b there is no explicit subject, in 1c the subject is hestarnir. Always beware of authors dealing with many languages at once. You're likely to see the same errors copied from one article to the next. Cheers Io (talk) 18:59, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

PPS Well, I'll be damned. I found examples of sig referring to a quirky subject, provided by Eiríkur Rögnvaldsson, no less, whom I once heard deliver one of the most illogical lectures I've heard so far. But one of them is from Íslendinga saga and goes:

En er hann sá bréf þetta virðist honum það bréf vera fjörráð við sig. (Íslensk tunga, vol. III, p. 612.)

You learn as long as you live. (Icelandic proverb :-) Cheers Io (talk) 19:23, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

40 years of Angr

I was completely off the grid on the big day, but now I've got enough Net to say:
Happy Birthday, and welcome to the 5th decade!
Best from Rwanda,
Malangali (talk) 20:21, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, and same to you! —Angr 20:23, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Carlson twins redux

The summary of the issue you made (User:Angr/Carlson) is, in my opinion, spot on. Is there any better chance of including a photo more representational of the Carlson twins' work now, under a claim of fair use? Could Image:OUTmagazineCarlsonTwins.jpg be used under a rationale of discussing their appearances in LGBT magazines, as exemplifying the twins' role in homoerotic photography and their use in advertising to the gay community? I figured I'd propose it to you, first, considering your general stance on fair use I love the parable, even though we don't completely agree on the subject. Although, you did put me in the mood for some vegan fried chicken.  :-) --SSBohio 21:02, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, User:Angr/Carlson was written a long time ago. I don't think I'd support the use of the image discussed there today, or the use of Image:OUTmagazineCarlsonTwins.jpg either. —Angr 21:11, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm disappointed to hear it, but grateful for your quick response. I think there's a place for fair use in en.wikipedia, used judiciously. There are times when only the copyrighted thing itself can do the job. If we adopt a blanket prohibition on fair-use images, I think we'd be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. What is your current thinking on the use of images in the Carlson twins article? --SSBohio 16:19, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

The image that's there is free, so it's okay. —Angr 18:24, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

A couple of things: First, the image in the article is stated as: "The copyright is held by Lane Carlson." {{withpermission}} ≠ free. Second, I was more interested in your take on the use of fair use images in the article to illustrate the twins' work in homoerotic photography and marketing to gay men. I have yet to see a freely-licensed image that conveys their claim to notability. The current photo shows them as buff male models -- not a unique characteristic -- and, as such, to my mind is not a replacement for a photo that shows them in the circumstances for which they gained their fame. I understand and respect your view on fair use in general, which is why I came to you for a different perspective on this issue. Given that fair use is still part of this project, what would constitute fair use on this article? --SSBohio 02:28, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

The image is not being used "with permission", it's been licensed under the GFDL and CC-BY-SA. Releasing work under a free license like those two does not mean that copyright has been completely given up though, so it's still accurate to say that Lane Carlson holds the copyright. My opinion on the use of nonfree images in the article is not what it was two years ago (indeed, I've been meaning to delete User:Angr/Carlson for some time now and just never got around to it). Whatever we need to say we can say in words, and if images are hosted legitimately at other websites we can link to them. —Angr 06:11, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

List of names in English with counterintuitive pronunciations is being considered for deletion

Since you've contributed quite a bit to the list, you may be interested in joining the discussion. Thanks. Afasmit (talk) 02:56, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

The quirky subject article

I've given an answer to your last modification on the article's talk page. Feel free to modify to your heart's content. I won't meddle. Cheerio and thanks for an enjoyable talk. I hope we have more. Io (talk) 20:07, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Done

Aye aye sir! Removed the picture from my signature. I didn't even know they weren't allowed. Guess I shopuld have been more careful. ^_^ La Alquimista 14:25, 29 July 2008 (UTC)