Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 June 21

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June 21

"Experience" vs. "experiences"

"Experience" is a word that can be used both as a countable noun and an uncountable noun. For a section heading in a resume, would you use "work experience" or "work experiences"? Are they both correct? If so, which is more common? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.49.18.4 (talk) 12:28, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

I'd suggest "work experience". They want to read about your general career, the variety of jobs you've done and places you've worked, not about that cool time you had with that brunette from accounts in the filing room late one Friday night after everyone else had gone home. That would be one of your "work experiences". -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 12:40, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

[edit conflict] I think that "work experience" is the standard term. Employers are looking for people with experience. They aren't very interested in peoples' "experiences". The plural form, experiences, has a subjective and emotional connotation (pleasant experiences, unpleasant experiences, experiences while taking drugs, etc.) that might put off employers. Marco polo (talk) 12:42, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

You both seem to have worked in more exciting places than I did. ;o) Wanderer57 (talk) 13:56, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Experience is considered by the prospective employer to be a plus. The purpose of the section heading in the resume is to establish that the applicant has relevant and good quality work experience. The number of discreet experiences that comprise one's work experience is not necessarily what the section heading is referring to. As an interesting side note, "experienced" has enjoyed an applicability somewhat apart from its usual meaning in a 1967 song by Jimi Hendrix with the title Are You Experienced? Bus stop (talk) 14:13, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

I think (British English here) that "work experience" would refer to the totality of your work experience, an overview of where you worked, what positions you held and what you achieved: while "work experiences" would refer to specific events that occurred to you while you were at work. Employers may ask you for the latter at an interview: at the first stage, they are looking for a summary. --TammyMoet (talk) 17:42, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Old Church Slavonic

Which modern Slavic language would you say is closest to Old Church Slavonic? The article says the language is sometimes known as Old Bulgarian or Old Macedonian, but with modern Bulgarian's many Romanian loanwords and both languages losing a great deal of their morphology (e.g. declension) I doubt the two are particularly similar any more. It also says Old Slovenian, which is interesting, as the Slovene language is largely unintelligible with other Slavic languages (even Croats and Bosniaks have told me they have trouble understanding Slovenians) and still retains a few archaic features of grammar. I'd be inclined to guess it might be closest to Slovene. Thoughts? - filelakeshoe 13:32, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Rusyn phonologically and Slovenian gramatically. Rusyn is the transitional dialect between East and West Slavonic, and not far removed from Serbo-Croat. I spoke some to my Russian prof, he thought I was speaking some sort of Old Slavonic, and was able to make myself undertood to a croat well enough to conduct basic business. I don't believe there is an article on the Ruthenian recension, but see: Ruthenian Catholic Church, [1] and [2]μηδείς (talk) 04:52, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I can't give much satisfactory input on this, but as far as loanwords are concerned, present-day Bulgarian and present-day Macedonian feature large numbers of Turkish loanwords in their vocabularies, as well as many words with ultimately Arabic and Persian origins that have entered through Turkish (and are erroneously considered by some to be actually of Turkish origin). About the Romanian loanwords in Bulgarian, I wouldn't say that they are many; conversely, significant amounts of the Romanian lexis are made up of Slavic loanwords (for example, there are two common Romanian terms for "love", both of which are of Slavic origin). --Theurgist (talk) 05:38, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Does any Slavic language use the cognate to our dragoste as a word for "love"? I usually only here this form in words like dragoy in Russian (sorry, I suck at both Cyrillic and correct spelling in Russian), which is like our dragă, "dear", and not the actual noun for "love". 80.123.210.172 (talk) 08:25, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like it's cognate to Czech drahota, which is the noun from drahá, which means dear. - filelakeshoe 08:31, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

What filelakeshoe said. The Slavic root is "drag", which means 'dear' in all (?) Slavic languages. There was apparently a semantic shift within Romanian. No such user (talk) 08:36, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, there was a semantic shift apparently, thanks for the answers. Having two words for "love" is confusing, I don't know why we didn't just stick with iubire. 80.123.210.172 (talk) 08:52, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Isn't iubire a Slavic loanword too? It looks a lot more like Russian ljubov’ than like Latin amor. —Angr (talk) 09:14, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

That's right, both their words for "love" are Slavic loans (which isn't too unexplicaple, given that Romanians sometimes refer to themselves as "Romans in a sea of Slavs"). iubire is the long infinitive of the verb a iubi, which descends from Slavic ljubiti. The same online dictionary gives Slavic dragostĩ as a source for dragoste. Supposing they have meant *драгость, that should mean something like "dearness", which is a little less distant form "love" in terms of meaning than "dear" is. --Theurgist (talk) 09:25, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Now that Angr mentions it, we also sometimes use the word amor, as in a face amor instead of a face dragoste or a face sex. It was apparently borrowed from Italian at some point. 80.123.210.172 (talk) 10:39, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

There is a WordReference thread here, which touches on the topic; you could open a new one in their Slavic Languages forum. I would say "Russian and Bulgarian", at least on the lexical level: OCS had the most lasting influence on their lexis (and they share a lot of word stock, especially that of higher register, either through common OCS heritage, or through Russian influence on Bulgarian since mid-19th century). On the other hand, it is true that their grammar (Bulgarian) and phonology (Russian) significantly drifted away from OCS. [Btw, Bulgarian has many Turkish but little Romanian loans.] No such user (talk) 06:38, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Romanian also has a lot of Turkish loans, so maybe that's why the OP thought that Bulgarian loaned words from Romanian. 80.123.210.172 (talk) 08:25, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

That might be it - I really have no knowledge of Turkic languages. I did notice some words which are definitely Romance though (like bira instead of pivo) - filelakeshoe 08:33, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I assume you mean bere :P Romanian also has lots of Slavic loanwords, so maybe that's where some more of the similarities with Bulgarian come from. 80.123.210.172 (talk) 08:53, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

What is the word please?

Meaning biological father; begins GEN? Kittybrewster ☎ 15:14, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Does this help? All I can think of is "genetic father". Bus stop (talk) 15:57, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

There is also genitor. ---Sluzzelin talk 16:07, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

That is it, Sluzzelin. Thank you. Kittybrewster ☎ 17:06, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

The meaning of the Latin word "sed"

Hy there, could somenone tell me the meaning of the word "sed"? It appears in the sentence: Dura lex sed lex, which was translated into: [the] law [is] harsh, but [it is the] law. Thanks. Flamarande (talk) 16:41, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

In that sentence, "sed" means "but". I've checked my Collins Latin dictionary, it is the only real meaning (very slight variations are given). Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 16:44, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

See wikt:sed.—Wavelength (talk) 16:45, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

In general, one could also check Whitaker's words which is known for its thoroughness of cases, verb forms, etc. (in this instance it will merely tell you the same). Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 16:48, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

A more literal translation that will help you understand every word of the Latin sentence is: "harsh law, but [still] law". The Spanish Wikipedia has an article on it. --Theurgist (talk) 03:45, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

The currect literal translation is: Harsh is the law, but law. --188.28.167.165 (talk) 12:12, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

That verb may well be understood, but there's no way it belongs in a "literal" translation, because it simply isn't there in the original text. Currect? -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 12:37, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Since you were kind enough to ask, the answer is "no, incurrect". For example, the literal translation of "veni, vidi, vici" is not "came, saw, conquored" just because English insists on an explicit pronoun whereas it is absent in the Latin. Instead, the Latin sentence literally means "I came, I saw, I conquored", and so the most literal English sentence must include that meaning. Now, in the Latin sentence "dura lex sed lex" the sentence is a complete one. Implying that "hard law but law" is the "literal" translation is as bad as saying "came, saw, conquored" is the "literal" translation of "veni, vidi, vici". In fact, "came, saw, conquored" is not a sentence in standard English, and neither would "hard law but law" be. That's why the literal translation includes the verb, wihch for the sake of concordance is put in italics. --188.28.141.244 (talk) 17:14, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I disagree with that. The full Latin expression meaning "I came" is veni. They use one word where we require two. (It is possible to write ego veni, but that adds a different nuance.) It would be wrong to translate veni in any way, literally or otherwise, other than "I came". Now, "dura lex" is two words, an adjective and a noun. Latin speakers would understand the verb "est" is understood, but English translators have a problem; it's not idiomatic to say "Hard law but law", so we need to convert it into something that doesn't jar with the way we normally speak (such as "The law is harsh, but it is the law"; there are other possibilities.) OK? But if we're talking about a literal translation, that means we take the text verbatim, word by word, and translate each word literally, all by itself, without adding any understood words. Not any. That's the very definition of "literal". As soon as we add anything, it ceases to be a literal translation. This is why literal translations have very limited application. (Btw, I applaud your consistency, but it's "conquered". The word "concord" is something else; look it up.) -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 21:13, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I am improving English by introducing to concord (as a verb), by insisting on conquored, as well as by consistently talking about a currect translation. Everything you've just written is very incurrect, however. If someone asks you to translate the words "dura lex" literally, you have a problem: EITHER the words form a sentence, meaning "The law is hard" OR they are just a noun: "hard law". You can only guess which translation you should produce. Now if I give you a bit more information, and ask you to translate "dura lex, sed lex" the second possibility disappears. Certainly you are not talking about a hard law anymore, or the hard law. Now you are saying the law is hard. Let me put it to you this way. As a speaker of English, what is the correct way to translate the word "fulsome praise"? It has two meanings, one is insincere and one is generous. Either you are giving someone generous praise, or you are giving someone insincere praise. Surely the target language will not happen to have a single ambiguous word for both: no matter. The literal translation must capture the meaning of the original sentence, not all the possible meanings of every individual word. In this case, we have to guess, and say, fuck, 'fulsome praise' is probably generous praise. We could be wrong. If we got more of the context, it could turn out we were simply wrong. If someone asks us to translate "dura lex" we have to pick: is it a sentence, or it is a noun phrase? If we pick "just a noun phrase" and then get more of the context: dura lex, sed dura, then it means, fuck, we picked wrong. We gave an incorrect translation by saying "A hard law". We were literally wrong in this case, just as someone is literally wrong when they translate "biweekly" as something that in the other language means once every two weeks, if in fact in this particular case biweekly had meant twice a week: the literal translation was wrong. Now, for dead languages we only have fragments of, it is possible that we simply cannot get the currect translation, period. But Latin is not such a language. --188.28.141.244 (talk) 23:59, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

If you've decided to "improve English" in the way you describe, then obviously anything goes. There's no point discussing anything with you, because you will just change the rules to suit whatever whim has you by the balls at any given moment. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 10:53, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Seconded. Might as well back away from the incredibly dead horse. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 11:17, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Certainly easier than addressing the actual issue at hand (fulsome praise, for example). --188.28.141.244 (talk) 11:28, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Besides, that's no more correct. "Dura" is an adjective, and there is no word for "is" (you can add on in if you want, but you said 'literal'. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 12:44, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I wonder what part of speech you think "harsh" is. --188.28.141.244 (talk) 17:14, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

"Harsh" is an adjective, which is what it is in all the versions given so far. I don't understand what fault you are correcting. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 18:08, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

First of all, I wasn't "correcting" anything. I said the currect listeral translation is "Harsh is the law, but law" (and I put "is the" in italics for the sake of people trying to concord the currect translation with the original). What you and everyone else replying to my currect translation misses is that my translation is the only one that currectly captures the real meaning of the original: it does so by saying "harsh is THE law, but LAW". The translation is beautiful and very currect. Word-by-word, I would have had to say "harsh is law, but law" or "harsh is the law, but the law", wouldn't I have? But neither translation would have been currect. The currect translation si "Harsh is the law, but law." That is beauty, plain as day. I guess I can go hide my face amid a crowd of stars for it though. --188.28.141.244 (talk) 18:49, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Also, just to reiterate, this is just the currect literal translation. The currect translation into Englsih in a broader might be completely different, and I have not spoken on this subject. (Neither has anyone else here). Something in the vernacular would be something like this: "yeah the law's a bitch man - but it's the law." it's not a particularly deep or insightful statement... no different from any other latin quotation in this respect... :)

I assume you mean "correct" not "currect". You seem to be applying a different meaning of the word "literal" to me. I take the word "literal" to mean anything other than implied, i.e. everything that is actually stated. A translation that attempts to capture the implications of a phrase might be a more useful translation, but it isn't a literal one. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 19:07, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Literal is what the sentence means (what the words + the grammar equates to). It is not what the speaker means, nor is it the imagery the speaker uses, or the statement he is trying to make. Thus for my example "veni, vidi, vici", literal translations would run the gammut from "I came, saw, and conquored" to "I came and I saw and I conquored" or whatever else you wanted along those lines. You have very little leeway to do anything when it's a literal translation: all you can do is take the words + grammar that started out in Latin and use the words and grammar of English that correspond to those meanings and do the same thing. The result usually makes for very bad reading. What you seem to think is that "literal" means that a computer program looks up the verbs and nouns and spits out the first result. But in that case, the literal translation would be "hard law but law". But that doesn't mean anything in English, so it obviously can't be a translation at all. --188.28.141.244 (talk) 20:01, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

"A harsh law but law" makes sense in English, as did the translation the OP used. Personally, I take the defintion of "literal" as "Representing the exact words of the original text" in other words translating what it there rather than not there. You say "you have very little leeway to do anything when it's a literal translation" as if you are arguing my point of the argument. Yours is more embellished, perhaps for the better, but it is less literal all the same. Do you believe that "A harsh law but law" (for example) is less literal than "Harsh is the law, but law"? Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 20:47, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

It's not "less literal". One is wrong, one is right. "A harsh law but law" is correct (and my version wrong) if the Latin phrase we got appears in a context in which it is merely a noun phrase (we have a sentence fragmant). "A harsh law but law" is incorrect and "harsh is the law, but law" is correct if the sentence we got is a complete sentence. A glance at the original context will tell you which translation is correct and which is incorrect in this particular case. Absent other evidence, obviously it is far more likely that the correct translation here is "The law is harsh, but it is the law" or something else like that and "A harsh law but law" is an incorrect translation. Of the former, I submit that the currect rendition is "Harsh is the law, but law" for the purposes of the OP in particular who, if you read the OP's original question, is trying to figure out which word of the translation corresponds to which word in the original, without having any knowledge of Latin. (sed is a very basic word, easily in the first twenty someone would learn.)--188.28.141.244 (talk) 23:49, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

It looks like 188.28 is following the KJV's practice of italicizing any words that have to be interpreted into the translation. Using that trick, one could also translate it: "Look, I know the law is really unfairly harsh, but it's still the law, so we have to follow it until we can get it changed." —Angr (talk) 13:09, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

It's not interpreted into it. It's what the original means. The original is a complete sentence, it's not just a phrase. --188.28.141.244 (talk) 17:14, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Say it in Broken English Bus stop (talk) 18:05, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I was under the belief that Latin, like English, requires a sentence to have a verb, although it is often merely implied.Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 18:11, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

What would you say, Grandiose, if someone told you "Latin verbs, like English, require a subject, although it is often merely implied." (For example, if someone says that the verbs veni, vidi, and vici, do require a subject, and in this case it is implied.) --188.28.141.244 (talk) 20:03, 22 June 2011 (UTC)Just curious... )

You have to realize that in all languages, words that are not there can be understood by the reader. Translating between languages makes this even more pronounced simply because languages are different. In the case of the OP, his translation is perfectly fine because that's what the saying is supposed to mean. The translation does not need to be literal nor do an excess amount of words need to be added. Aacehm (talk) 18:23, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

@188.28: I actually see your point. Latin phrases tend to omit the verb "to be", as in "ars longa, vita brevis", or as in "libri vitae, dei populi magistri" (the latter is a foolish example I had to invent on myself, because I was unable to think of a suitable actual phrase). You are suggesting that the original sentence can be read as something like "dura est lex, sed est lex", and I catch the point. --Theurgist (talk) 18:52, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Neither Latin, nor English require a verb when the verb is easily understood in context. We call this ellipsis (linguistics). 24.38.31.81 (talk) 19:36, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

That's true, that's why there's just one verb in my translation "Harsh is the law, but law". The ellipsis comes after the comma. In Latin, however, "The law harsh." would be a complete sentence. Latin does not require "est", English does require "is" in this example sentence: it is an essential linguistic difference, such as the fact that you can drop "ego" in places you cannot drop "I" in English. --188.28.141.244 (talk) 20:13, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

See The Faster the Speed, the Bigger the Mess.—Wavelength (talk) 20:21, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

"Harsh is the law, but law", "conquored", "currect" ... what other gems do you have in your treasury of "improved English"? -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 11:44, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Seems like a pretty ad hominem attack, but since you asked and I am to Assume Good Faith I have the following gems in my treasury of improved English. 1) it's for the possessive form of "it", and 's in general for the plural of any word I or anyone wants to pluralize unambiguously, whether it's about the 60's, about computer hard drive's, whatever. Basically apostrophe = HERE COME'S INFLECTION. The reason for this is that English is hardly inflected at all. Saying someone inflect's English is a perfectly great way to make the rare verb "inflect" unambiguous. In standard English, by contrast, "inflect's" doesn't mean anything at all. If you're interested in parking lot's, I have lots to say on that subject too. See how that works? Much better. You asked about improvements to English, but I would really like to improve a lot of the poetic canon -- but that's neither here nor there. (made you look: that's is fine in standard Engilsh too). but seriously: http://www.bartleby.com/126/55.html would be better without the first word of every fourth line (you have to rewrite the one with hath). "No birds sing", etc. The punctuation changes as well (and I omit the most obvious changes -> I love thee true -> Love me true, etc). Another example would be ,you can improve Poe's The Raven very substantially just by taking out the filler words and putting in imagery that he didn't bother to think up. That's left as an exercise to the reader. Load's more where that came from. --188.29.15.168 (talk) 01:38, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

This just gets better, You talk of apostrophising nouns, but you're also doing it to some verbs (Here come's inflection; someone inflect's English). Is that also part of your grand scheme, or were those what is known, as it were, in a manner of speaking, not to put too fine a point on it, as errors? Which verbs are to receive the benefit of this apostrophic magnanimity, and why? -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 08:42, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

whatever one's you want, man. I think the best way to go about introducing the change is to say it's not an actual apostrophe, but a robostrophe (my name's robert), which looks the same as a normal apostrophe with the difference that you can sprinkle it anywhere. How do you like:

O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has wither’d from the lake:

No birds sing.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms!

So haggard and so woe-begone?

The squirrel’s granary is full:

The harvest’s done.

etc.

? Would you like me to improve Poe? (The bar is pretty Loe). --188.29.15.168 (talk) e11:10, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Oh, of course, a robostrophe! How silly of me not to have known that.  :) Gotta move on now; I'm having an illegal amount of fun here. Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 11:45, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I accept your offer of a draw, and hereby dedicate all of the preceding to BrainyBabe. --188.28.47.94 (talk) 20:30, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

It's not just the Ides of March you should beware. --Dweller (talk) 11:39, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Following my suggested improvement immediately above, no one would ever be under the mistaken impression that they were talking about the Ide's of March. As it stands, a good percentage of readers think so now. 188.29.15.168 (talk) 01:51, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I think you need to click on the link. --Dweller (talk) 09:34, 24 June 2011 (UTC)