Language desk
< October 28	<< Sep \| October \| Nov >>	October 30 >

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.

October 29

All-New Improved RD5000!

Why is it that so many products, particularly those associated with either crazy scientists/tinkerers/engineers in TV shows or infomercials have names that include large multiples of 1000? Examples include: HAL 9000, the creations of Widget from Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!, and a huge number of vacuum cleaners associated with these numbers, particularly 3000, 5000 and 9000 (a quick Google search will show what I mean). Now 2000 I could understand, especially in the latter years of the 20th century, and then 3000 would seem to be the logical choice for oneupmanship, but then what about the others? When did it all start? And when will it end? Confusing Manifestation 00:41, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know the answer, but I think that, if anyone knows, it should be added to product naming. A.Z. 01:20, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The use of a higher number has a psychological effect. It has a vague but unprovable implication that there have been so many thousand different models, and this is the latest one. The use is simply an advertising gimmick (although the models will usually come in order - i.e. 1000, 2000, 3000). Brand Engagement and Marketing might help you understand the need to use these techniques in their advertising. Steewi 03:03, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good points, both of you. I realised that in some cases, it may also be a whole range (e.g. "The 3000 series"), in which individual products have model numbers in that range (e.g. 3312, 3016, etc.). Confusing Manifestation 03:09, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For many products, the higher the number the newer, bigger, or better the product, such as the BMW 1 Series, 3 Series, 5 Series, etc. Therefore, the highest numbers imply the newest, biggest, and best. They don't typically want to make the product name difficult to say or recall, though, so that limits the numbers to nice round numbers under 10,000, or possibly with an easy to recall sequence, like the Boeing 7x7 planes. StuRat 23:29, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Canon EOS digital cameras go the opposite way. Entry-level models have three digits, more advanced models have two digits, and the really expensive cameras only top professionals ever use have only one digit. And there the 1 is also better and more expensive than the 5. I've always wondered why this is so. JIP | Talk 07:09, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Re 10000 upper bound, and round numbers: Intel x86 chips started 8086, 80186, 80286, 80386, 80486 before abandoning numbers. Similarly Motorola 68k (68000, 68010, 68020, 68040, 68060). But then computer chips are marketed at math geeks, who're not afraid of bigger, less round numbers. jnestorius^(talk) 12:40, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To π or not to π, that is my question

Hi Wikipedians, This is a question between language and math, so it may have to be transferred.

The number Pi is an irrational number, starting with 3.14159265358979323846...
Is the following a reasonable assumption:
If the letters of the alphabet were to be coded in some way, say A=14, B=15, etc, the infinite fractional part would turn into an infinite string of characters, containing letters, spaces et al in all permutations.
Somewhere, in between a load of senseless gibberish, there must be a verbatim copy of the Bard´s Hamlet.
Somewhere else, of course, there is Homer, James Joyce, a question of Cookatoo to the WP:RD/Language and, indeed, the sum of everything which can be represented in written symbols.

So, all one has to do to achieve a modicum of omniscience is a l∞t of time and the book of Π ?
Given the limited infinity of monkeys, this would seem almost trivial...
--Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM 13:51, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To the best of my knowledge, it is unknown whether or not pi has the given properties (note that there are irrational numbers which do not, such as any whose decimal expansion contains only 0s and 1s). It is, however, generally believed to be true, since it follows from pi being a normal number, which most mathematicians seem to believe. If this is the case, however, then pi is not special in this regard: almost all real numbers are normal, and hence have this property, and one could in any case just dispense with numbers and list all possible finite strings of characters in order (ordering first by length of string, then by dictionary ordering, for example), and thus obtain a string of characters that contains all possible finite substrings. I suppose you could encode this as a number if you wanted; indeed it's rather similar to the construction of the Champernowne constant. Algebraist 14:04, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I thought I remembered this: essentially the same question was asked before: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Mathematics/2006 November 11. Algebraist 14:09, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Jorge Luis Borges explores similar ideas in his short stories The Library of Babel and The Book of Sand. Gandalf61 16:24, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Long before this string of letters representing pi produces the whole of Hamlet, it should be able to come up with a good line or two, such as this one of Shylock's from The Merchant of Venice which we saw not long ago on another desk - "Thou torturest me, Tubal, it was my turquoise. I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys." Xn4 16:40, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And somewhere I'm sure there's a story about a boy trapped in a lifeboat with a tiger. —Preceding unsigned comment added by BradV (talk • contribs) 19:33, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the answers. I must have missed the one from last year; Sorry.--Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM 09:13, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Don't be, the search function is terrible. I found it by googling some stuff I vaguely remembered being said back then. Algebraist 21:40, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is no reason for an irrational number, even if it has an infinite decimal expansion, to encode anything. One can have an irrational number that looks like 1.010010001000010000... (which pi does look like, in that it can be encoded in a very small way). Obviously, the information contained in this encoding isn't much, but it can look significant in expansions in other bases. The point is that there is no reason for pi to contain any sequence as it is not a random sequence. However, the final answer is that, since we have no complete decimal expansion of pi, then we don't know if it contains Hamlet. But it could very well not, and still be irrational. SamuelRiv 04:12, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Welsh dictionary with pronunciations

Does a dictionary of the Welsh language exist that shows pronunciations of each word? I am having trouble finding one (interested in a book as opposed to a Web site). Thanks. --Cam 16:41, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The very best is Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru: Dictionary of the Welsh Language (University of Wales Press), comparable to the Oxford English Dictionary. You might also like to get hold of Welsh Language Pronunciation Guide by Peter N. Williams. Xn4 16:49, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! --Cam 16:53, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, dear, I've just taken a look at Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru, and it doesn't have pronunciations for every word (no doubt chiefly because of the variations in pronunciation between the Welsh dialects, see Welsh alphabet). But the Williams book may be all you need, as Welsh spelling is much, much more phonetic than English. The Welsh Learner’s Dictionary by Heini Gruffudd (1998) does give a pronunciation for every word, but his approach isn't in IPA, and you can only treat it as a rough guide. Xn4 17:04, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, we have an article on the Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru. And does it show pronunciations for any words? —An gr 20:47, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No. Xn4 23:28, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Backtranslate a machine-translated text?

In Suomen Kuvalehti 42/2007, Kristina Carlson writes that her TV's instructions were machine-translated to Finnish as follows:

Näin muodoin ahdistaa VOL -/+ hotellipoika eli ohjelmoida antaa tehtäväksi joukko hotellipoika jotta asento halu kanavoida... HUOMAUTTAA PROG jotta käyttää LAPSI KIEHKURA raivo olla hapantua lähettää.

The translation is so bad that I cannot deduce what it is intended to say. Mechanically translated back to English, this is roughly as follows:

As such oppress VOL -/+ hotel boy that is program instruct a group hotel boy so that position desire to channel... NOTE PROG so that use CHILD LOCK (as in hair, not as in key) rage be turn sour send.

Carlson says that "hotel boy" should be "buttons", the translator must have found the translation "buttons -> hotellipoika" in a dictionary but missed the fact that it was a different meaning of "buttons". I could not have guessed that as I was not aware such a slang meaning exists. Can anyone supply a guess at what the original text was? JIP | Talk 18:07, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would guess that the source language was not English so you're looking for connections in the wrong language. Most likely the text began in Japanese, Chinese or Korean, was machine-translated to English and thence to Finnish. Donald Hosek 18:36, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's too bad. If it was translated directly from English, I could do some guessing, but my knowledge of Japanese and Chinese only extends to basic greetings, and my knowledge of Korean doesn't even go that far. JIP | Talk 19:22, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

At a guess it is "When the VOL -/+ button is pressed, it programmed as a group of buttons that can be used to change channels. Please noot that the CHILD LOCK must not be in use." But then, that still doesn't make sense - why would the volume button change the channel? Steewi 03:16, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Irrelevantly this reminds me of something I heard on the radio recently. During one period Johann Sebastian Bach cranked out a large number of harpsichord works, mostly by adapting earlier works; in at least one case scholars, by applying his known techniques of adaptation in reverse to a harpsichord piece, reconstructed a lost concerto for flute & oboe. —Tamfang 21:44, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Could that be violin & oboe (see List of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach#Reconstructed concertos, BWV 1060r)? --Lambiam 23:00, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oops. I guess I was thinking fiddle and substituted another f-word. —Tamfang 20:40, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

f-hole, perhaps? :) -- JackofOz 23:23, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Apapapapache

How can you install Apache if you don't have a Network Domain, a Server Name, or an Administrator's Email Address? Vitriol 20:41, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You could start with asking on the Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing instead. JIP | Talk 21:10, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I meant to do that... guess I wasn't thinking properly. Vitriol 21:17, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you asked on the Language Board because you have a stutter ? :-) StuRat 23:15, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]