Language desk
< December 31	<< Dec \| January \| Feb >>	January 2 >

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.

January 1

Unwritten rules

Is there a name for the unwritten rules that govern language usage? As an example, the phrases "athletic performance is heavily dependent on fitness" and "athletic performance is largely dependent on fitness" are both acceptable even though a dependence can neither be heavy nor large. Also, "heavily" implies an extreme while "largely" does not, meanings that can't be determined from the literal meanings of the words "heavy" and "large". --99.237.96.81 (talk) 01:39, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say idiom covers that. To greater or lesser degree, all languages employ words in certain contexts that, when removed from those contexts, mean something different. Different languages use different words in such contexts, which is why a word-for-word translation of a text, without regard to the meaning of words within the context of the text (as opposed to their basic dictionary meanings), often produces a ludicrous outcome. -- JackofOz (talk) 01:56, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What's wrong with just grammar? 69.77.195.242 (talk) 15:44, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, since you ask, I'll say that both sentences supplied by Friend 99 are grammatically correct. Now, one could also say "athletic performance is sizeably dependent on fitness". It only makes half-sense, but it's still what I would call grammatically correct. But is it idiomatically correct? No way. There may be some languages where size-related adverbs are employed where English prefers those from heaviness and largeness. That's their idiom. Ours is whatever ours is. In translating such a sentence into English, the translator would need to be aware of this and should render the word as "heavily" or "largely", not as "sizeably", as a machine translator might put it. -- JackofOz (talk) 19:26, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Can I help who's next?

A couple of the girls I work with call out to the line of customers (which is usually more of a cluster than a line): "Can I help who's next?" Is this correct? It seems to me like it should be "Can I help whoever's next?" but I'm not sure. It could be correct if you think of it as "Can I help [the person] who's next?" but "the person" is omitted as extraneous sentence bits often are in English. But it still sounds weird to my ears. Then again, now that I look at it, my version doesn't sound quite right either. How should it be worded? Cherry Red Toenails (talk) 02:45, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You can break it down to 2 questions: "Who's next?" spoken to the group, followed by "How can I help you?", directed at the person they've just identified as next in line. But if it's concatenated into one question, it would be more usual to say "Can I help whoever's next?", rather than "Can I help who's next?", because "Can I help" should be followed by a pronoun (e.g. "you"), a noun, or a nounal phrase, whereas "who's next" is not such an animal but a question. I suppose you could repunctuate it as: "Can I help? Who's next?". -- JackofOz (talk) 02:56, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For all those stumbling across this post: In the US the form "How may I help you?" is considered a lot more useful in terms of job retention. Some stores and take-out places actually have posters hanging by the phone spelling it out in big letters.76.97.245.5 (talk) 05:16, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I often hear "can I help the next in line?" (You did say it's more of a cluster than a line, but by saying "line" you're implying an order.) That's commoner in some situations like grocery stores than "can I help the next person in line?" In any case, I wouldn't rush to correct the wording of coworkers, especially if "Can I help who's next?" has the effect of causing the next person to step forward. --- OtherDave (talk) 17:22, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I often hear this as a statement, "I can help who's next." Everyone says it, everywhere, so I thought they must be trained that way. Adam Bishop (talk) 13:49, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How should it be worded? In whatever way it is most clear to the customers. It doesn't really seem like there's any confusion and a (presumably) retail/service environment can probably be a little lax with the grammar. But it would be cool if they said something like "whomsoever is next in line, having been waiting the longest, let him or her step forward so that I may help in an effort to fulfill his or her requests." :-) --LarryMac | Talk 14:38, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Like the Larsen cartoon of the psychic chicken, they could just lose it and shout "Ne-ext!" Julia Rossi (talk) 05:45, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"who" is a pronoun foremostly, and there's no need to say "he or she". -lysdexia 14:10, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, yeees. Sometimes it's a relative pronoun (The man who never was), and sometimes it's an interrogative pronoun (Who is that man over there?). The technical difficulty with "Can I help who's next" is that "who" is trying to be both relative and interrogative simultaneously. It's doing too much work and it runs out of puff, and the whole sentence suffers. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:20, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why are males more interested in non-fiction?

I read a newspaper article a while back that said men generally preferred reading non-fiction rather than fiction. I'm male and that's definitely true for me. I prefer to read newspapers and autobiographies rather than novels. I can't think of any reason why other than non-fiction seems more interesting. By the way, Happy New Year to everyone at the ref desk 165.228.151.7 (talk) 05:41, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That must be one of those "6 of 10 interviewed" things. I could not corroborate those results in doing my own tally of the individuals of male persuasion in my Social circle (not the village in GA). My very own specimen of male bookworm subsists on a diet of Science fiction and Alternate history. Among friends and family many genres of fiction are enjoyed. One of my brothers reads stuff like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, some of our friends read popular fiction by the likes of Michael Crichton whereas others devour Crime fiction. Evidently there are reasons why people prefer reading something besides textbooks and the news. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 07:01, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

C'mon Lisa4edit, logging in isn't that tough is it? hydnjo talk 03:18, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the journalist was speculating. She observed that most book clubs tend to have females as members. She also noted that book clubs targeted towards males almost always had non-fiction books on the reading list. It's more of a sweeping generalisation than anything based on published studies. Although, I suspect that there's more than an element of truth to her claims. 124.171.130.103 (talk) 10:46, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't draw too many conclusions from the membership of book clubs. I don't think I know anyone who's a member of a book club, and I wouldn't want join one myself, but most people I know read quite a few books. Off the cuff, I'd say there's not a lot of sex-based difference overall in the ratio of fiction to non-fiction among them. Obviously, what my friends do isn't proof of anything in itself, but my point is that I really don't think book club members represent an average reader very well. (For starters, simply presenting people with a list of books that in itself shows bias like this would skew the results.) -- Captain Disdain (talk) 04:43, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. The membership of books clubs is not representative of the general reading public. In a book club one must want to meet with other people, and to talk about the book, in addition to actually reading. Another interpretation of the results is that women are more likely than men to want to socialize with others about a book, and the men who do want to discuss a book, are more likely to prefer non-fiction. Perhaps because non-fiction is a harder read or it brings up issues that are better absorbed after discussion. (For example, I'm a male who likes to read fiction, but I actively dislike discussing them afterward. I wouldn't join a book club, not because I don't read fiction, but because analyzing a book ruins it for me.) -- 128.104.112.113 (talk) 18:27, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think we were talking about book sales clubs rather than book discussion clubs here. (The idea is that the former, being organized and keeping records by necessity, would yield decent statistics, while the latter, being informal and having a pretty small (and often nebulous) membership, would not -- at least not easily.) -- Captain Disdain (talk) 17:02, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Double period

Hi. In English, is it ever appropriate to use two full stops (..) at the end of a sentence? This is not homework. If so, when, and why isn't there are article? Thanks. ~A H 1^(TCU) 19:38, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No. Algebraist 19:41, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is: Haplography. You're welcome. --Milkbreath (talk) 19:48, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That appears to say no to double periods. --Nricardo (talk) 19:54, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It does, because Algebraist's answer was correct and complete as to whether it is ever appropriate. I took the OP's "if so" to apply only to the "when", and I was answering "why isn't there an article?". (Interestingly, in standard American usage, that last sentence would not have the final period.) --Milkbreath (talk) 20:00, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, a sentence can end with an ellipsis to indicate that it is deliberately incomplete. This is normally written as three dots and often is typed by pressing the "." key three times. So in a sense the sentence ends with two dots (the last two of the three). But those dots are not serving as full stops (periods), just as a decimal point is not; they are really just part of the ellipsis. --Anonymous, 09:58 UTC, January 2, 2009.

The only systematic use of two dots I've seen is in OED and SOED, where they are regularly used instead of the usual three-dot ellipsis. In quoting OED I typically replace that custom single-character ellipsis with three dots (such as Anonymous has just mentioned): the only sort of ellipsis I ever like to use, and the only one recommended at WP:MOS. I do not like to use the preformed single-character ellipsis (…). The CD-ROM SOED's two-dot ellipsis, strangely enough, is two separate dots rather than the OED's single-character implementation; but SOED sometimes has such an ellipsis next to a full stop, and then it uses a single-character for the three dots together. (Don't get me started on ellipses with four dots, or spacing between the dots and around the whole ellipsis, or associated kerning, or hard spaces preceding or following, or effects of adjacent punctuation on such spacing, or the general chaos and ignorance concerning ellipses and indeed hard spaces – or waterboarding.)

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 12:00, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So, you're saying that every single time I see something in an article written with two dots (eg. "This is an incorrect solution..") that isn't quoting something else, I should correct it to either one period or an ellipsis? ~A H 1^(TCU) 16:55, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are you saying you have a sighting in the wild? Point us to it, please. --Milkbreath (talk) 22:07, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Such an occurrence in the wild would almost certainly be a mere slip, MB.

Astro, yes. The doublet is either a mistake for a full stop or a mistake for an ellipsis. Determine which is intended, the best way you can, and make it either a single full stop or a proper ellipsis. Now, here's the more important point: even if the mistaken doublet occurs within a quote, it should be corrected to either a standard full stop or an ellipsis. This is quite normal "silent" correction of a sort advocated by both Hart's Rules and Chicago Manual of Style. Only if the doublet is textually important should you retain it and annotate it with "[sic]" – when the topic itself is, say, non-standard or sloppy punctuation. For the general idea I have raised see "allowable changes" in the Wikipedia Manual of Style; for "[sic]", see immediately above that subsection.

By the way, you might like to revisit eg., which is an abbreviation of two words: exempli gratia. The punctuation is therefore normally e.g. or (sometimes nowadays) eg without any dots.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 23:18, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a sighting in the wild: Charles Schulz routinely ended sentences with two dots in Peanuts (example). He also used zero, three and four, but I'm not sure he ever used just one. I've always wondered why.. On an unrelated note, double periods are used (in place of ellipses) for numeric ranges in many programming languages, including Pascal, Perl and Haskell. -- BenRG (talk) 01:09, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you are communicating to a computer via a command-line interface, entering two periods accesses the parent directory. (See the last heading at DOS Command: CHDIR.) However, the syntax of programming languages differs from the corresponding rules of natural languages.

-- Wavelength (talk) 03:34, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Punctuation Predicament

I am not sure if my punctuation is correct in the following phrase:

Without realizing it, I whispered "Nice job."

Does anyone agree with this? Disagree with this?

Thanks. --Think Fast (talk) 21:10, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

From your "To Do" list, I'm guessing you're American. You folks put the period inside the quotes, whereas others put the full stop outside the quotes (on the basis that a sentence can end only with a full stop/period, question mark or exclamation mark, never with a quote, comma, colon, dash etc etc). If you are an American, I would say it's well punctuated. Some people feel the need to put a comma before a quote (in this case, after "whispered"), but that's unnecessary. Well done. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:20, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm one of the people who feel the need to put a comma before a quote, and I do consider it necessary. If I were your English teacher, I'd dock you half a point for not writing:

Without realizing it, I whispered, "Nice job."

And I think even non-Americans would put the period/full stop inside the quotation marks in this case since in context, "Nice job" is a complete sentence, so the period/full stop belongs to it. —An gr 22:47, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

He answered "This non-American would never do that, nor would any of his teachers or countrymen". -- JackofOz (talk) 22:54, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In what way is "Nice job" a complete sentence? It is just a noun and an adjective. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.16.196.156 (talk • contribs) 00:15, 2 January 2009

Kinda like Oh, Pretty Woman with an interjection or Good job Brownie as popularized by W? hydnjo talk 02:56, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Sentence" has different meanings. In this context it includes a fragment; the point is that if you were writing it down outside of quotation marks, you'd end it with a period. Therefore the period inside the quotation marks is appropriate. --Anonymous, 10:01 UTC, January 2, 2009.

Absolutely right, Anon. As JoO says, it's a complete sentence in the sense relevant to punctuation, just like Absolutely right, Anon. Much confusion is wrought by not attending to the distinction. Much.–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 10:45, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm the one who said that. Jack says he'd put the full stop outside the punctuation, and would even do so in the case of a complete sentence with a subject and verb, as shown by his above response of 22:54, 1 January 2008 (UTC). —An gr 12:36, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry Angr. Of course you're right. Though JoO did seem to have assumed the same "punctuational" meaning for sentence, he did not make the statement I attributed to him.–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 23:00, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It was 2009, but let's not quibble over a trifling 366 days. :) Which of the following looks right:

A. "Without realizing it, I whispered "Nice job. Really good." He answered "Thanks." Then we had lunch.
B. "Without realizing it, I whispered "Nice job. Really good". He answered "Thanks". Then we had lunch.

I'd go with B every time. Having an end quote followed by a space (or 2 spaces) and then the first letter of the next sentence just looks somewhat unfinished to me. I appreciate the rationale for including the period inside the quotes, because it's a part (at least a grammatical part) of the person's utterance. But how does that theory hold when it comes to a comma, which Americans also include inside the quotes, even though it is most definitely NOT a part of the speaker's utterance in cases like:

"Without realizing it, I whispered "Nice job," and he answered "Thanks." Then we had lunch. - which I would render as:
"Without realizing it, I whispered "Nice job", and he answered "Thanks". Then we had lunch. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:41, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd put a comma before the quote (though otherwise I don't like commas much) and
put the stop inside the quotes because it belongs to the quoted sentence and stands as a stop for the whole statement. Outside the quotes in this form it looks like a dot rolled away.. .-) Julia Rossi (talk) 06:23, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Complete book of myriad treasures / wanbao quanshu

There was a household encyclopedia published in Ming dynasty China called The Complete Book of Myriad Treasures. It sounds really interesting, but I don't read Chinese. Has it ever been translated into English or French? Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.251.48.59 (talk) 21:14, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing that can be located online. It seems to be transliterated as Wan bao quanshu [1] This one's spelled in two words. They don't have a translation, though. [2]. The German Institute of Chinese Studies at the University of Heidelberg seems to have a copy in Chinese, but no translations either. [www.sino.uni-heidelberg.de] Portuguese might actually be a better bet for a translation than English or French, but I couldn't find anything there either. Good luck. Lisa4edit76.97.245.5 (talk) 07:58, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Translation from Hungarian into English

This greeting was on a postcard. I think it is Hungarian. Need English translation: Naggom sokszer csokol benneteket.63.215.26.209 (talk) 22:24, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]