Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 February 10

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

February 10

Parallel structure

"...have found that abstinence from drinking does not correlate as strongly with good health as does good health."

Shouldn't does be moved to the end of the sentence? Thanks. Imagine Reason (talk) 04:26, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

No. It can stay where it is just fine. It's a style thing. It can go at the end if you want. (I think. I'm assuming there's a good reason for the truistic pointlessness of the statement. It's hard to advise on style when the sense is in doubt.) This placement of the echoed verb in as...as is usual when its subject is a rather long phrase, for example, "The outcome was as unexpected as was the reaction of the great mass of the party faithful." It is easy to see that "was" at the end there would come too late. The upshot is that the inversion is permitted. --Milkbreath (talk) 05:31, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the clear explanation. Imagine Reason (talk) 22:25, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

The original sentence is: "Recent surveys indicate that, contrary to popular belief, total abstinence from drinking does not correlate as strongly with good health as does moderate drinking."  --Lambiam 10:04, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Sigh. That's exactly it. Imagine Reason (talk) 22:25, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

кокусах

What does the Russian word "кокусах" mean? Lantzy ^talk 05:23, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

It is the plural of кокус, which is simply the transliteration into Cyrillic of the American word caucus.  --Lambiam 09:57, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually the locative plural. --ColinFine (talk) 14:27, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

No wonder it wasn't in my Russian-English dictionary. Lantzy ^talk 00:13, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, caucus is a word in the English language, amongst others. America doesn't have exclusive rights to its use.  :) -- JackofOz (talk) 00:20, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Is it also used in Australia? Lantzy ^talk 03:31, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

It is specifically used within the Australian Labor Party – the party currently in government federally, and in all states and territories.

– Noetica^♬♩ Talk 03:55, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. Lantzy ^talk 04:31, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

It's all there in the article. -- JackofOz (talk) 07:49, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

How Large is English Vocabulary on Wikipedia?

Oxford English Dictionary has 171,000 words according to Wikipedia’s Vocabulary article. How many words are there on English Wikipedia? Thanks Dhammapal (talk) 09:52, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Just to clarify the above, the OED has 301,100 main entries, and a total of 616,500 word-forms. The text has about 25,000,000 words. The English Wikipedia "as of February 4, 2008 had over 2,210,000 articles consisting of over 961,000,000 words". Note, however, that Wikipedia is not a dictionary, so I don't see the purpose of the comparison.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 18:38, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I believe the OP is asking about unique words on Wikipedia. Of course, a lot of those would be specialized or technical, or names. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:42, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Estimating word count of personal vocabulary

Does anyone know of a test I can take? 66.91.224.203 (talk) 10:51, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

yeah, pick the first word you don't know and you'll learn the order of the size of your vocabulary.

 the   I    too   similar   incarnadine     haruspex
 1    10    100    1000       10,000        100,000

Note: Completely unscientific, made up by me on the spot. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.122.117.186 (talk) 11:13, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

• Nice try, but it does not work. This test might lead most people to believe that their word range is somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000 (assuming they have leafed through their Shakespeare) — but where exactly? And the, supposing you have never heard of incarnadine, but are familiar with numbers 9,999 and 10,0001, what would your conclusion be?
• The question should be put in more precise terms. We all have four types of vocabulary: both spoken and written, and either active (we use the word) or passive (we understand it). So which of your personal vocabularies would you like to count? Active written would seem to pose the least problems: scan all texts you have written over the last 40 years (or 4, if you're less ambitious), put them in a database, order them according to the alphabet, eliminate doubles and count.
• Which is not to deny that the test devised by 79.122.117.186 could be refined, using a frequency list. Bessel Dekker (talk) 15:06, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Another problem with 79.122's scale is there's no way of gauging the vocabulary of those of us who know the word "haruspex" but not the word "incarnadine". —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 15:09, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Select a dictionary. By random sampling, calculate the average number of words per page. Generate a list of random numbers in the range [first page with contents]...[last page with contents]. Generate a second list (same size) of random numbers in the range 1...[Average number of words per page]. Then have a friend look up a page number from the first list, and a word number (counting from the top of the page) from the second list, and ask you either for a word from its definition/translation (to measure your active vocabulary), or a definition from a word (to measure your passive vocabulary). Multiply the percentage of correct answers with the number of words in the dictionary. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 20:32, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Or try here. can't vouch for its accuracy, but it will give you a numerical result. Choose the advanced option.

– Noetica^♬♩ Talk 00:59, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

This method isn't totally scientific either, and it won't give you a precise number, but it will give you some kind of rating of your vocabulary knowledge, it claims to be for a good cause, and you will probably enjoy it: http://www.freerice.com/ I'm not affiliated with this website, but I've spent more than my share of time there. --Diacritic (talk) 22:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

where is Wikipeida's French version reference desk?

I know the Italian version is called "oracolo" on the italian wikipedia (but works the same as the refrerence desk here). Where is the french version?...

Interwiki links take you to fr:Wikipédia:Oracle. Adam Bishop (talk) 13:19, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

How come we don't get a fancy name like that!--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 15:12, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

thank you for the useful link. Where is the interwiki page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.51.122.22 (talk) 22:31, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

If you go to the main Wikipedia:Reference desk page, there's a list of interwiki links in the left margin, just as on article pages. Deor (talk) 12:45, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Education: reading and writing difficulties

Ref. Word-chain tests

Stanine. What does this word mean. Is the spelling correct?

Grateful for assistance.

Charles Miller <e-mail address removed> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.177.127.32 (talk) 13:13, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

See Stanine. Deor (talk) 14:49, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

how do you say "hello" and "goodbye" in Russian?

I need to say "hello" and "goodbye" in Russian, in a screenplay. I can only find it on the internet in the Cyrillic alphabet! Furthermore, I would like to find a site that tells an English speaker how to say and pronounce Russian words. Thank you!Bifurcationpoint (talk) 14:30, 10 February 2008 (UTC)bifurcationpoint

Hello is "Zdravstvuite." Pronouncing hello in Russian is especially rough for English speakers because the penultimate vowel (Ы) (the diphthong уй) has no equivalent in our language; some websites suggest ZzDRAST-vet-yah. Goodbye is "Do svidaniya," which is pronounced close to how I've spelled it, with the emphasis on the "a".--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 14:40, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

If you can play .ogg files, here's a recording of someone saying hello in Russian.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 14:54, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

"Zdrastvuite" is здравствуйте in Cyrillic; the penultimate vowel is not ы. Another, less formal, possibility for "hello" in Russian is привет privet (stress on the second syllable, pri-VYET), which is easier for English speakers to pronounce. Wiktionary has translations of "hello" and "goodbye" into dozens of languages, see wikt:hello and wikt:goodbye. —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 15:00, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction. Russian spelling was never my forte; I just know the vowel sounds funny. Do we have a recording of "goodbye" somewhere? I couldn't find one.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 15:04, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Just to clarify Fat Man's post above: there's only one "a" in свидания, but there are two in its English transliteration svidaniya and the stress is on the first one. The "o" in "do" is also pronounced as an unstressed "a" - see schwa. Also, that website that says the pronunciation of "здравствуйте" is ZzDRAST-vet-yah doesn't seem to reflect the way most Russian speakers would say it. It's closer to zDRAST-vwit-yeh. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:02, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Is HARM related to HARAM?

Are these two words related? I'm sure that you language experts will be able to tell off the top of your heads, but could you also give me some clues on where to look for the answers to this sort of question? Thanks, --Czmtzc (talk) 16:42, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean the English word "harm" and the Arabic/Turkish word "haram" ("forbidden"), from which we get the English harem? In that case, no, they are of course unrelated. Adam Bishop (talk) 16:57, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

That was exactly my meaning. Although I was thinking more of Haram as in the opposite of Halal, which of course still means forbidden. --Czmtzc (talk) 17:11, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, still, English and Arabic are not related at all. "Harm" is a plain old Germanic word cognate in Old Norse, Old High German, etc (and possibly Sanskrit, according to the OED, so it may be a plain old Indo-European word). "Haram" actually does not even have the same "H" sound, it is a different letter in Arabic. Adam Bishop (talk) 17:40, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Arabic Haram (actually two related but separate words حرم and حرام) has a pharyngeal consonant sound (not an ordinary plain "h" sound) at its beginning, and is derived from an abstract triconsonantal root H-R-M whose most basic meanings are "sacred" and "forbidden" -- whereas English "harm" is derived from an Indo-European stem whose earliest known pronunciation was something like kormo- (with subsequent change of "k" to "h" due to Grimm's Law). AnonMoos (talk) 17:51, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Translation from German to English

I would be grateful if a user could please translate the following lines into English. Thank you: Zur Zeit der Heirat Dr. Herzl’s bestand in Reichenau kein Standesamt, sondern nur ein katholisches Pfarramt, bei dem aber nur Eheschliessungen von katholischen Christen aufgezeichnet wurden. Bei Andersglaubigen wurden diese. Aufzeichnungen immer am Sitz ihrer Religionsgemeinschaft des Wohnortes vorgenommen. Ich habe daher eine Heiratsurkunde der Israelitischen Kultusgemeinde Wien beschafft. Darous geht hervor, dass Dr. Herzl Julianna Naschauer am 25 Juni 1889 im Tempel zu Wien geehelicht hat. In Reichenau selbst befinden sich keinerlei Aufzeichnungen, dass Dr. Herzl in Reichenau geheiratet hatte. Es muss daher wohl der 25 Juni 1889 als richtiges Heiratdatum angenommen werden.Simonschaim (talk) 19:26, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

At the time of Dr. Herzl's wedding, there was no civil registry office in Reichenau, only a Catholic rectory where only the marriages of Catholics were registered. For the followers of different religions, these registrations were always carried out at the seat of the religious community of their town of residence. I therefore got a a marriage certificate from the Jewish community in Vienna. Because of According to this, Dr. Herzl married Julianna Naschauer on June 25, 1889 in the temple in Vienna. In Reichenau itself there are no records whatsoever that Dr. Herzl married in Reichenau. Therefore June 25, 1889 must be accepted as the correct marriage date. -Elmer Clark (talk) 20:20, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd change "Because of this" to "According to this" (i.e. according to the marriage certificate from the Jewish community in Vienna). —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 21:46, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Whoops, yeah, that makes a little more sense. -Elmer Clark (talk) 02:25, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. Simonschaim (talk) 13:49, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Grammar: use of commas

"The principal has sought approval for her plan, and has not met with opposition."

1. Doesn't the part after the comma require a subject?

Not unless a different subject is intended. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:36, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

2. Isn't it unclear whether the sentence is saying that her plan is not opposed by anyone or that she has not met with an/the opposition?

Not really. If the latter were the case, the/an opposition wouldn't be referred as just "opposition", but as "the/an opposition". -- JackofOz (talk) 22:36, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Imagine Reason (talk) 22:31, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

The comma shouldn't be there. A comma in that position signals an independent clause: "The principal has sought approval for her plan, and she has not met with opposition." So, you could say that the part after the comma requires a subject, as long as a comma is there. --Milkbreath (talk) 23:00, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

That's what I thought. An error in a test prep book then (no name revealed; I don't like most of these companies). Imagine Reason (talk) 23:33, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree with Milkbreath: I have no problem with a comma there, with or without a repeated subject. --ColinFine (talk) 23:43, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Why doesn't the independent clause rule apply? Imagine Reason (talk) 23:57, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

One more question: "The composers were united based on an ideal of..." Sounds very awkward - wouldn't you prefer "...united by their ideal of..."? Imagine Reason (talk) 23:33, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree. 'Based on' is very often unclear as a subordinating conjunction (it's fine introducing a complement). --ColinFine (talk) 23:43, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

The comma in the phrase quoted above is certainly incorrect. I am a professional editor. Everywhere I have worked, the comma would violate the style guidelines, which are based on such references as The Chicago Manual of Style. The basic rule involved is that a comma should separate neither the subject from the verb nor two phrases linked by a coordinating conjunction. Marco polo (talk) 00:06, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

The comma in the phrase quoted above is certainly incorrect? I disagree. First, it is not a phrase. Second, Chicago (CMOS) is not the last word on this – nor on anything else, in my opinion. For what it is worth, though, here is the ruling in CMOS:

6.34 Compound predicate

A comma is not normally used between the parts of a compound predicate—that is, two or more verbs having the same subject, as distinct from two independent clauses—though it may occasionally be needed to avoid misreading or to indicate a pause.

He had accompanied Sanford and had volunteered to write the report.

Kelleher tried to see the mayor but was told he was out of town.

but

She recognized the man who entered the room, and gasped.

Now, beyond the example given last here, there may often be good reasons for indicating a pause. We don't know the context of the sentence. Suppose in preceding sentences the principal has sought approval for all kinds of other things; our comma would then make good sense, as emphasising the plan as opposed to those other items that had been mentioned. In any case, it might be a transcript of speech in which a pause did occur after plan, for some reason or other as determined by the speaker. There may also be the faint possibility of a momentary wrong parsing if the comma is omitted, since the and might momentarily be taken as leading to something else for which the principal was seeking approval. The comma immediately removes that possibility.

The other great style guide in the world, New Hart's Rules, give this as a corrected example, and its form is the same as our example for all relevant purposes:

I like swimming very much, and go to the pool every morning. (4.3.2)

Marco, do you say this is "certainly incorrect", too? Tell it to Hart's! There are few such certainties with use of commas.

– Noetica^♬♩ Talk 01:34, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. I guess that I have been used to working with rather rigid style guidelines. The final example from the Chicago Manual is to me exceptional. Here the comma is used for a kind of emphasis. It is a kind of literary license. The comma in the example from Hart's makes no sense to me. To my eyes, it is simply wrong. This must be yet another case of a difference between British and American usage. Marco polo (talk) 02:42, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Could be, Marco. Or it could be more a matter of different idealised norms toward which American and British English tend. I doubt that most practice in print follows these two guides accurately. Both are often enough internally inconsistent anyway.

M-W's accessible, judicious, and not overbearingly American Manual for Writers and Editors says this:

However, [commas] are often used if the predicate is long and complicated, if one part is being stressed, or if the absence of a comma would cause a momentary misreading.

...

This is an unworkable plan, and has been from the start.

I try to explain to him what I want him to do, and get nowhere.

Our Australian AGPS Style Manual is characteristically disappointing, and seems to have nothing directly relevant.

– Noetica^♬♩ Talk 03:13, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Commas belong to no one. What I meant was that the reader expects an independent clause after a ", and", not that there is a hard-and fast rule that there cannot be a comma one place or another. We are all free to sprinkle commas throughout our writing as the mood strikes us, but if we put one there in the sentence in question we'll trip up the experienced reader, who will have to readjust when he encounters no subject in the second half. Sure, anything goes if you don't mind screwing it up. --Milkbreath (talk) 03:15, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I disagree, obviously. So does New Hart's Rules. So does M-W; and even CMOS is permissive, with its talk of misreadings and indicating pauses. No one "screws it up" by putting that comma in such a sentence. Most readers are not inconvenienced by it in the slightest, and many may be helped: as explained above, and in M-W. There is no point being pejorative about it, MB!

– Noetica^♬♩ Talk 03:25, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

(unindent:ec) As Lynne Truss says, "This is why grown men have knock-down fights over the comma in editorial offices"! I'm with Noetica, and approve of the comma in the above sentence. The context of the sentence would make the choice of punctuation more apparent, as Noetica outlines, but looking at in in isolation we can also see one rationale clearly. The sentence does not require a comma, but the presence of it changes the emphasis. The principal has sought approval for her plan and has not met with opposition. places the emphasis on the lack of opposition. The principal has sought approval for her plan, and has not met with opposition. places the emphasis on the search for approval, and the final clause could be removed without affecting the structure; in such a case, the comma could be considered a bracketing one, a usage RL Trask approves. I don't know if he is American enough for you? Gwinva (talk) 03:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm a big meanie, I know. Commas are as slippery as eels and as ineradicable as cockroaches. There are at least two schools of thought concerning them. I am of what you might call the "mechanical" camp: no comma that doesn't need to be there. I'm a comma nazi, so what did you expect? Other folks take a more casual approach and see them as a way of showing emphasis or cadence. I think that formal writing wants fewer commas than more casual or poetical writing does. I also think that it's a mistake to rely on punctuation for effects you should be trying to achieve with words. It's like in chess where moving a pawn is weaker than moving a piece. I wasn't being pejorative, exactly, I was stating my position forcefully and unequivocally so as to present a large stationary target for rebuttal. The comma in question will tend to disappear if I have access to the text, and nobody coming in cold afterwards will miss it. They might, however, notice it if I leave it, for the reason I've explained. --Milkbreath (talk) 03:56, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Well... perhaps, MB. I do miss commas that might help the reader; and I do often supply them, at Wikipedia and elsewhere. Minimalism is a worthy aspiration, but the real world is complex and variegated, and so are sentences that are uttered in it. Don't imagine that the only alternative to your minimalist "comma nazism" is a "more casual approach". Say rather "a more nuanced approach"; and a rationally nuanced result cannot be achieved aleatorically!

– Noetica^♬♩ Talk 04:13, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Why should a style guide determine what is right and what is wrong? By what rule do they have such authority? The styles that are en vogue change, and style guides follow. Authors of literary works may employ commas for effect, and a good deal can be said for the rule of putting a comma where you want the readers of the text to insert a brief pause. The rule of putting a comma before an independent clause can be phrased as: put a comma before an independent clause but not before a dependent clause, which is useful to help the reader distinguish the two. As the part following the comma in the sentence about the approval-seeking principal is neither, the rule does not apply. There is no rule that commas must only be used before independent clauses; in fact, most commas in careful prose are not followed by an independent clause.  --Lambiam 10:47, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

(You probably want to think about rephrasing that last bit.) The style guides are to be adhered to if the publication you're writing for specifies one or another. Otherwise, we're on our own. I'm sure few of us would say that anything goes, though, and the guides are helpful in that they reflect the considered opinion of professionals in the field. Commas are particularly nasty. People get attached to their commas. People place them lovingly, with meaning in mind, which is good if they also place them carefully, with mechanics in mind. This is another way that the guides are helpful; it's better if Miss Lonelygirl's poems don't have commas in them that the reader will mistake for parentheticals or appositives or Oxfords or any number of housekeeping commas. Too many writers think that writing is made of emotions when in fact it is made of words and symbols. In encyclopedic writing (which is essentially the kind I'm trying to address) this is especially true. --Milkbreath (talk) 11:36, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Right, I somehow mixed this up with the rule for restrictive versus non-restrictive relative clauses.  --Lambiam 05:07, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

To answer your literal question, Lambiam, style guides have authority only to the extent that people attribute authority to them. The guides themselves never determine what is right or wrong; when it comes to human communication, the concept of "right and wrong" is close to meaningless. It's the same with dictionaries: we all go to a dictionary to check out the spelling or meaning of a word, on the basis that it contains only "right" information. But dictionaries are always behind the 8-ball when it comes to recording words, spellings and meanings that people out there are actually using today. When they've caught up, there'll be a whole host of newer words, spellings and meanings that have sprung up in the meantime; and others will have become obsolescent or obsolete or archaic. Wikipedia has guides and policies which we're all meant to adhere to; but fortunately it allows people to sometimes "ignore all rules". Some style guides would also be improved by explicitly acknowledging that there are some circumstances where nothing in the guide will be of any help, and may even lead to a poor solution, and that people should feel free to come up with their own creative solutions that actually work in the context. -- JackofOz (talk) 12:03, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Lambiam, I am pretty well with my compatriot JackofOz, here. You write: Why should a style guide determine what is right and what is wrong? By what rule do they have such authority? The styles that are en vogue change, and style guides follow. Well, they do not determine what is right or wrong, as if that could be an objective matter. But sometimes we are confronted with completely unsupported judgements like this: The comma in the phrase quoted above is certainly incorrect. How to answer such a deliverance? One way is to appeal to "authoritative" statements that disagree.

Good style is largely a matter of convention, yes. But convention is reflected in style guides, dictionaries, and the practice of publishers with a long-established commitment to caring about these things. And all of these are subject to dissent, variation, and slow tectonic shifts in usage. One approach is simply to throw up one's hands and say de gustibus non est disputandum; another is to lay out for consideration the judgements of those who have reflected most carefully on these things.

– Noetica^♬♩ Talk 23:56, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

When two style guides disagree, that shows they have different opinions on the matter. It does not mean that one is wrong and the other is right. It may be the case that no style guide in existence contradicts some pronouncement on a stylistic issue, stating that a certain way of handling it is "certainly incorrect". That does not mean the pronouncement is justified or even meaningful. You can mimic what good writers have done in comparable circumstances, or you can point out such things as that a comma is misleading because it suggests the wrong interpretation, or that (following current style) it is quite unconventional and therefore probably jarring to the reader. Neither is a matter of right or wrong.  --Lambiam 05:07, 14 February 2008 (UTC)