Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 May 28

Language desk
< May 27	<< Apr | May | Jun >>	May 29 >

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.

May 28

Chinese characters and readings

What are the Chinese characters featured in File:Chinese stamp in 1950.jpg? And what do they say in Pinyin and translated? The Commons page and some associated Wikipedia articles may need the Chinese text explained. WhisperToMe (talk) 01:31, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

The text at the top says something like "In Commemoration of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance". I can't give you the pinyin, because my knowledge of the characters comes from Japanese. However, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Soviet_Treaty_of_Friendship. Paul Davidson (talk) 08:00, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

These are the characters I can get out of my computer (two are missing): 中蘇友好同盟互助？約？訂記念. Like Paul, I only speak Japanese and don't know pinyin. Hopefully somebody will be along soon to fill in the gaps in the characters and provide pinyin. TomorrowTime (talk) 08:09, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

It is 中蘇友好同盟互助條約簽訂紀念. Each character links to Wiktionary; you can find pinyin there. --Kusunose 08:28, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Man, you fully pwned me. :P {{Sonia|talk|simple}} 10:44, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Here's the pinyin for the top (I'm only a zh-2, though) zhōng sū yóu hăo tóng méng fū zhù tiáo yūe qián dìng jì nìan. The bottom just says "chinese stamp or something like that.".{{Sonia|talk|simple}} 08:24, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for finding the ones for the top! WhisperToMe (talk) 11:02, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

I think the pinyin of "互" is "hù", and "簽" is qiān. luuva (talk) 16:02, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the little characters underneath "1950" are essentially "People's Republic of China postage"; they appear on all PRC stamps to the present. Nyttend (talk) 02:01, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Interesting to note this stamp has traditional characters as oppose to simplified characters that became popularised after this stamp. --Kvasir (talk) 20:52, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Commodity Price Risk

What is "commodity price risk"?174.3.121.27 (talk) 02:33, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

You need to provide the context. A commodity is something that is the same no matter who produces it, such as corn, gold or oil. You probably know what price and risk are. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 02:40, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

It is the risk you are taking by owning commodity, since the price of that commodity may change. So if you bought 1000 tons it at $90 a ton, and the price goes down to $80 a ton, you have lost 10$ on each ton, which is $10,000. That is the risk you are taking when you buy these 1000 tons. --Lgriot (talk) 03:41, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

This sounds like part of the disclaimer in a corporate statement or "forward-looking statement." For example, a beer company might project its forward earnings but disclaim the projection by referring to "commodity price risk," meaning that the price of aluminum might unexpectedly go sky-high and so reduce projected margins on canned beer. 63.17.52.133 (talk) 13:09, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Sao and Neso

Similar to my question above, I'm wondering if anyone knows, or can predict, what the English adjectival forms of names Sao and Neso from Greek mythology are. As in, 'Atlas is to Atlantean as Sao is to X'. — kwami (talk) 03:59, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't know, but on the basis of Sappho/Sapphic, I predict "Saic" and "Nesic". Unfortunately, I can't find either name in Liddell and Scott, so I can't even confirm that these two names decline the same way as Sappho. +Angr 15:09, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

I doubt that anyone has ever felt the need to create adjectives based on these names. Like Angr, I can't tell how they would have been declined in Greek, since Hesiod, who is our ultimate source for the two names, is so discourteous as to use only the nominative forms. I can't even find a Greek or Latin writer who uses the name Erato in any case but the nominative or vocative, drat it. I give up; you can coin whatever adjectival forms sound best to you. Deor (talk) 16:29, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Aha! Apollodorus treats Cleio and Erato (and Clotho) as indeclinable (or at least as having accusatives identical to the nominatives), so something like "Saoan" and "Nesoan" might be the way to go. Deor (talk) 17:52, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. That's a bit OR for my purposes. I'm looking for adjectival forms for Solar System moons; some time ago I figured out "Mimantian" for "Mimas", after seeing a blog where people were at a lost as to what to use (*Mimian, *Mimasian, etc), and now JPL/Cassini has adopted it on their website, so I don't want to get these wrong. ('Mimantian' at least confirmed in a translation of Socrates, even if "Mimas" isn't mentioned.) BTW, I assume "Erotian" for "Eros" is correct, but if any of you want to try your hands at the others (Carpo, Anthe, Metis, + various ones listed as 'unattested' at the bottom of each table), please feel free! — kwami (talk) 18:18, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

These things become established only through usage, and if there hasn't been any usage, there can't be a "standard" or "accepted" form. I don't see any reason why "Erotic" wouldn't be just as acceptable as "Erotian", for instance, if there were no agreed-upon usage, especially since -ic comes from a Greek adjectival suffix, whereas -ian is Latinate. As far as I know, there are no real rules—other than euphony, perhaps—governing which suffixes are used in forming English adjectives from proper nouns. The stem of mētis (in Attic Greek, at least) is mëtid-; so should it be "Metidan" or "Metidian" or "Metidic" or something else? If I'm the first person to use the adjective, I get to decide, though my usage might be superseded by what others agree on. (For some reason I'm reminded of an early science-fiction novel, whose title escapes me at the moment, in which the inhabitants of Mars are called Martials.) Deor (talk) 18:56, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

I would assume Metidian, but in latter usage the d dropped, and the deeless forms seem to be more common from what I remember of the concordances. So Metian might also be expected. I haven't been able to find either. — kwami (talk) 02:54, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Along similar lines, many people have found the adjectival form for the planet Venus - "Venusian" - ugly, but the more regular and euphonious "Venereal" has unfortunately been pre-empted! Some astronomers and others have preferred the alternative "Cytherian" derived from an alternative name of the same goddess. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 21:33, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

I've finally gotten around to looking at List of adjectivals and demonyms of astronomical bodies, Kwami, and I must say that the "sourcing" in that article is rather odd, to say the least. Adjectival "Thalassian", for a moon that wasn't discovered until 1989, is sourced to Robert Browning (presumably The Ring and the Book, 9.893), a person who died in 1889 (even though thalassic is a much more common English adjective derived from Greek thalassa)? "Larissean" is sourced to an English translation of Boccaccio's Teseida? Is there any evidence that any astronomer at all has ever used these forms when referring to the moons in question? Isn't scientific usage, or at least some evidence of usage with regard to the celestial objects themselves, what is needed for verification of these proper adjectives? Deor (talk) 23:17, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

I was just trying to find sources for adj. forms of the names, regardless of whether those are attested in astronomical contexts. If a moon is named after a character in Pope, it's not a stretch to assume that the derived forms of the Popean name will be inherited by the moon. Of course, specifically astronomical forms may also exist. "Thalassic" may be perfectly good; I've pretty much only looked for justification for the forms already in the article. — kwami (talk) 00:40, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, analogy with adjectival forms of similar names would suggest that all the Greek female names ending in -e should have adjectival forms ending in -ean ("Arsinoean", for example, has been used as a demonym for the inhabitants of any of the places named Arsinoe) and that those of female names ending in -a should end in -an; but I doubt that you'll find any prior uses for most of them. I'll be curious to hear what you come up with for Juliet. One would expect that someone would have felt the need for an adjectival form of the name, but "Juliettish" is the only thing that occurs to me offhand. And "Mab" is even worse! Deor (talk) 01:05, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I was rather surprised at being unable to find anything for Juliet.

Ah, "Mabbish" comes up. But like "Juliettish", no good for a demonym (as if there'd ever be need for such a word). — kwami (talk) 00:15, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Tsk, tsk, such blinkered thinking, Kwami! Science fiction writers are not the slightest bit bothered about the non-existence of their characters, hence Martians, Venusians and all the rest. The logical next step is writing about little green people from Juliet (moon). :) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:27, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

You're right, a thousand pardons. But Mabbites sound so much more threatening that Julietites! — kwami (talk) 02:57, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Malayalam pronounciation

Malayalam has the epenthetic vowel ŭ in word-final position. Our article gives the pronounciation [ɨ̆]. However there are many Malayalam place-names in whose romanized form the epenthetic vowel is omitted, e.g. Palakkad (Pālakkāṭŭ), Wayanad (Vayanāṭŭ), Lakshadweep (Lakṣadvīpŭ), Kozhikode (Kōḻikkōṭŭ) etc. Our article on Kozhikode gives the pronounciation as [koːɻikːoːɖ]. There is also an audio file, in which clearly no epenthetic vowel is audible. Now I'm wondering if the epenthetic vowel is really always omitted in correct Malayalam pronounciation - anyone knows more about this? --BishkekRocks (talk) 09:37, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

"The Nasty Party"

The Conservative Party in the UK has an image they have struggled and tried for well over a decade to shed. Even now they are in power it seems that it hasn't entirely gone away (last night's Newsnight spoke of avoiding going back to the days of The Nasty Party). Where did this phrase come from, do we know who coined it and so on?

Thanks, 130.88.162.46 (talk) 11:33, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Theresa May ("During her speech at the 2002 Conservative Party Conference while making a point about why her party must change, May controversially stated that the Conservatives were currently perceived as the "nasty party"") - X201 (talk) 11:40, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd agree that May was the first to popularise the "nasty party" epithet, but the idea behind it goes back a long way - as Bevin said "That is why no amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party that inflicted those bitter experiences on me. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin." DuncanHill (talk) 11:50, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Bevin may well have thought that, but the popular image of the Tories as nasty, correctly identified by the OP, doesn't go back that far. It dates back to Margaret Thatcher. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 12:41, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

So Theresa May definitely coined it but the feeling that led to it pre-dates her, by a disputed amount. Thanks, that's pretty much exactly what I was looking for. Next academic year I'm doing a course on British Political History, so hopefully I'll learn a fairly definitive answer to the second part. Prokhorovka (talk) 14:37, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

There is, I suggest, also an unstated sub-text that the term "Nasty Party" echoes "Nazi Party" (especially since in British English the "-z-" in the latter is most often pronounced "-tz-"), both being perceived as too "Right Wing" by non-supporters and the latter having sometimes been referred to as "the Nasty Party" or "The Nasties" back in the WW2 era. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 21:27, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Churchill was one of the very few public figures who didn't say "nah-tzi". His "nah-zee" became one of his trademarks. But yes, most everyone says "nah-tzi". (Was there ever a Chinese philosopher named Na Tzi, by the way?) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:51, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

I've always found it sort of morbidly ironic that the largest Jewish ethnic group is called Ashkenazi. +Angr 07:48, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Some people whose names are derived from the ethnic group, like Vladimir Ashkenazy, get around that by use of a judicious and conveniently appropriate romanisation. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 11:47, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Two-part title of book

These are language questions for two reasons, because they involve terminology for some features of literature. Recently, it has become common for a book title to have two parts, as in the example "An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It". What is the professional term, if there is one, for a book title of that kind? What is the professional term for the first part, in this example, "An Inconvenient Truth"? What is the professional term for the second part, in this example, "The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It"? -- Wavelength (talk) 16:28, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

As far as I know, the name for the part after the colon is the subtitle. (When I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation, my sister congratulated me on managing to give it a title without a colon in it!) +Angr 16:32, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Subtitle it is. As you can see from the article, it's not really a new phenomenon. decltype (talk) 16:36, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

For (possible) interest, a formerly common alternative method of subtitling was to use the conjunction "or" instead of a colon, as in, for example, Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. On actual title pages, punctuation such as the comma in this instance was often omitted, and instead the "or" would be set on its own line between the title and subtitle in smaller type than either. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 20:54, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

To illustrate 87.81's remark, I just felt like pointing out that, in addition to our wonderful list of works with the subtitle "Virtue Rewarded", we also have a list of works with the subtitle "Constancy Rewarded". Both feature titles which are not recent at all. ---Sluzzelin talk 21:10, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

These belong in the top 100 Unusual Articles list. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:42, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

[Wikipedia has Wikipedia:Unusual articles. -- Wavelength (talk) 22:32, 28 May 2010 (UTC)]

They were long a feature of opera titles, too, and plays. In fact, some operas are far better known by their subtitle than by their official main title - Don Giovanni's full title is Il dissoluto punito, ossia il Don Giovanni (The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni). -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:41, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Are the answers to my three questions, respectively, "double title", "main title", and "subtitle"?

-- Wavelength (talk) 22:37, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

computador and computadora?

Spanish has both masculine and feminine forms? Does Spanish differentiate between them in some way? --117.204.81.235 (talk) 20:43, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Googling round a bit it seems that both words are used but that computadora is more common in South America[1]. Similarly in the Spanish Wikipedia the words are considered interchangeable [2]. Richard Avery (talk) 07:27, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Do they have male and female USB ports? Alansplodge (talk) 08:49, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Dirty boy!! Richard Avery (talk) 09:18, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

The Diccionario de la Real Academia Española [3] also suggests that these are interchangeable, but seems to also imply that "computadora" is preferred/more common. Perhaps this is underscored by "computadora" being the main title of the article on Spanish Wikipedia. For the record, I had always been taught that the "correct" form was "computadora."--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 18:06, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

computador and computadora are not like el/ella or perro/perra used to differentiate between sexes, there is also organizador, used in spain, computadora is by far the most common term used throughout latin america and also understood in spain, computador is lightly used, and i have only ever heard it in the chilean dialect —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.248.94.143 (talk) 06:08, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

The IP above meant ordenador is used in Spain [4].--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 19:23, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

You can also use the informal term compu and avoid the ending problem entirely. Calliopejen1 (talk) 21:03, 1 June 2010 (UTC)