Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 September 26

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September 26

Minor or major?

Even on those many occasions when I do my own thing writing-wise, I still like to know what the pedants would have preferred, if only to be prepared for criticism. Sometimes, I'm a touch unsure. A case in point is this bit of text I wrote in Music written in all 24 major and minor keys:

• E-sharp major and minor (4 and 1 double sharps respectively)

My inner pedant says I ought to have written:

• E-sharp major and minor (4 double sharps and 1 double sharp respectively).

There's a similar issue on the next line:

• F-flat major and minor (1 and 4 double flats respectively).

I'd appreciate the views of others as to whether this is a trifling point I can safely stop worrying about, or a shocking error I must correct immediately. Or something in between.

Thank you. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 03:05, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Not that I am offended, (and I am clueless), but shouldn't this go on miscellaneous or entertainment or humanities? μηδείς (talk) 04:37, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I thought it was a language issue. Viz, whether it's OK to write "1 double sharps", or not. The context has no relevance to the issue in this case. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 04:52, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Oh. You mean, should you have written "four sharps and one double"? That would be standard modern usage. μηδείς (talk) 05:00, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

(EC)It's a language question, isn't it? All answers will be subjective, but I think Jack's alternative structure reads a little more cleanly. If there had been more than one key change, the original structure would be a good start. You can probably get rid of "respectively," but that's also a personal preference. Zoonoses (talk) 05:02, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Ugh. Yes, if I finally understand you, the respectively makes the "4 and 1 double sharps" fine. μηδείς (talk) 05:04, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, all. Sorry for assuming people would know that a "double sharp" is not just 2 sharp signs but a different symbol entirely - see sharp (music). -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 07:23, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

"One double- and four sharps" might also work. μηδείς (talk) 16:34, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I think your inner pedant's preference ("4 double sharps and 1 double sharp respectively") is the clearest and the least likely to be misunderstood. Angr (talk) 17:33, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for all the input, folks. I could rewrite it as per Angr, but I’m still undecided what I should do if the circumstances didn't lend themselves to a rewrite. I applied the issue to a contrived case:

• Roosevelt, Nixon and Bush senior were elected four, two and one times respectively.

I can't decide whether that ought to be "times" or "time".

Or whether it's undecideable, given the clash of plural and singular numbers in the same phrase. There has to be some rule that helps out here. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:12, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

• Seriously, the rule is "rewrite it so it isn't a problem". If you check any decent style guide or writing guidelines or anything like that, the first recomendation when dealing with an awkward construction is to avoid the problem altogether by choosing a completely different way to say what you are trying to say. If that means using a few more words, or something like that, fine. Economy and clarity are sometimes at odds, and when they are clarity should always win. --Jayron32 21:43, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I would also go with something like "four times, two times, and one time, respectively". I can't find the section specifically about this in the Chicago Manual of Style (if one exists), but their advice is generally similar to what Jayron suggested, i.e. to find some other, less confusing way to write the thing, rather than rely on readers to know a convention for writing it the original way. "four times, two times, and one time" doesn't sound bad; the only problem would be if you tried to write something like "four times, twice, and once", which creates a noticeably non-parallel structure.  dalahäst ^{(let's talk!)} 21:52, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

See, and I would just say "Roosevelt was elected four times, Nixon two times, and Bush Sr. once" or something like that. Unambiguous and clear, and it really isn't much longer than the initial list would be. --Jayron32 21:56, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

• Check that. I guess my unstated issue is that, if I rewrote it, some people would see it as being needlessly pedantic, or worse. Let me explain. To resolve the "1 double sharp/sharps" issue, I could rewrite it as I intimated up front and as Angr supported. But that introduces the perception that I'm teaching my readers how to suck eggs. It looks like I'm assuming they would misinterpret 4 and 1 double sharps as "4 sharps and 1 double sharp" (exactly as Medeis assumed above, initially), unless they're told explicitly it's "4 double sharps and 1 double sharp". Most people interested enough in the topic to be reading the article would not have made that reading error, and it seems sorta presumptuous to appear to be over-explaining this minor point and insulting their intelligence. On the other hand, I sometimes read articles of which I have zero subject matter knowledge, and I expect them to be comprehensible. Others do too, and if I write only for some assumed educated elite, I am lower than scum. That sort of writing may be fine in RL, where a writer is free to define his own audience, but here we need to consider the widest possible audience and all levels of knowledge (including none). So, I have to re-write it, and that resolves the "1 double sharps" issue.
• Thanks for letting me think this through and indulging me as I sailed perilously close to the edge of the world, Guidelines-wise. Sometimes, writing my thoughts is the only way I can process them. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 22:34, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

"-do-" = ditto?

I was reading an old book recently, and some of the entries in the book's tables were simply: -do- . I'm assuming from the context that this is meant to equate to "ditto" or equivalent marks (like " ), but can someone confirm? Thanks muchly :) -- saberwyn 10:53, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

That's right. See Ditto mark, and particularly the image used in the article, File:PerthGazette 1833 06 01 1 ditto.jpg, which contains examples. - Karenjc 11:01, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Ha, that clipping looks like a modernist poem, especially if you read it as "do": "Prime Irish pork, in barrels / Ditto American, do, do. . ." Lesgles (talk) 15:58, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Was in a museum here in Australia two days ago and saw a hand-written table from around 1860 which used the "do" abbreviation. The usage involved putting a longish horizontal line either side, like "- do -", as suggested in the title here. HiLo48 (talk) 22:53, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Nachgeordneter Zweig

What is the meaning and English translation of "nachgeordneter Zweig" as it appears in de:Johanna von Hanau-Münzenberg? bamse (talk) 16:35, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

It's what you'd call a cadet branch in English - "Zweig" in this case means a branch of a noble family, and "nachgeordnet" because the branch is descended from some younger son of the family (and thus is not the main line) -- Ferkelparade π 17:16, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. bamse (talk) 18:28, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Is the Guardian Scandinavian?

What in the world does Pat Condell mean by his use of Scandinavian to describe The Guardian 30 seconds into this clip? Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 18:13, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I guess he thinks that Scandinavian countries are as anti-Israel as he perceives the Gruaniad to be. I'm not up to speed on Swedish-Israeli foreign relations and so couldn't comment on the veracity of his thesis. --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:20, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I can't figure out if he is using Scandinavian primarily as if it were a regular adjective with which to modify intensity ("The sun shone with a Scandinavian intensity"?) or in a broader scope as if the Guardian itself is somehow Scandinavian. μηδείς (talk) 18:30, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I parse it as "hates Israel with the intensity of Scandinavians", fwiw. --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:34, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Scandinavian is here used as a reference to the Scandinavian countries being more inclined to supporting the Palestinians, and with them, Hamas and Hizbollah, and condemning Israel for defending its citizens from rocket attacks. (Whether such a perception is justified is, obviously, up for discussion.) I don't know the extent to which this applies to official Swedish/Norwegian-Israeli foreign relations, as much as it would refer to the politically correct segments of Scandinavian media/opinion leaders, and problems of anti-Semitism amongst immigrants in Scandinavia ('Jew' being a frequently used a condescending swear-word in schools), which has been handled so poorly that Scandinavian Jews don't dare display their Jewish identity and with some even choosing aliyah over staying in the country where they were born and raised. V85 (talk) 19:08, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, I am definitely not looking for a discussion of the politics. My main concern is, how would one linguistically describe the difference between the adjectival uses here? One could interpret Scandinavian as merely an idiomatic modifier of intensity, as if Scandinavians were typically intense, as in "He always plays the car radio Scandinavianly intense; the volume cranked to 11." (Although I have never heard it used that way.) Or one could assume, which seems the consensus, that analogously he meant the Guardian's intensity on the issue was similar to the intensity of Scandinavians on the issue. How might one describe the two different ways the adjective is being used in these examples using linguistic terms? It reminds me of Zulu, which has a small closed class of real adjectives for size and color, and has to use what are more like stative verb phrases along the lines of which-is-Scandinavian elsewhere. μηδείς (talk) 19:41, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't wan't to get into a political debate here, but your description of the situation for Jews in Sweden is nothing like how it is generllay perceived. It seems you have been watching a "documentary" or read an "article" that had no interest in fair or unbiased reporting. The GuardianCondell is probably right in that there is comparatively strong anti-Israel sentiment in Sweden, though that doesn't automatically mean there's antisemitism, as the supporters of Israel always seem to want to imply./81.170.148.21 (talk) 21:09, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

What we have: Antisemitism in Sweden, Antisemitism in Norway. Not pretty reading. --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:13, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

That kind of coatrack articles never are. --Saddhiyama (talk) 21:17, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

How clever you are, 81.170.148.21. First stating that you don't wan't{ [sic] to get into a political debate, and then doing just that. I have now added several main-stream media sources to your 'citation needed' request; it seems pretty clear that the Jews who have been asked have experience what they themselves would term 'anti-Semitism'. The point here is that while 1 in 3 Jewish children are harassed for being Jewish, compared to only 5% of Muslims, 'islamophobia' receives a lot mot attention than anti-Semitism. V85 (talk) 06:11, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I did what said I didn't want to do, and that was probably a bad choice. Interestingly enough, there have been quite a number of recent reports of the situation actually being a lot worse than I thought. I can defintely admit that before yesterday, I was truly under the impression that the amount of harassment of jews in Malmö was significantly inflated by people with agendas. I now know more. So, apologies for trying to 'defend the honour' of my country, not being fully aware of that all was not as well as I thought./ 81.170.148.21 (talk)

It's easy to "support" Hamas and/or Hizbollah when you don't have to live next door to them. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:37, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

That goes both ways. It's easy to "support" Israel when you aren't occupied by them. Just saying.../81.170.148.21 (talk)

References

Well, thanks for those refs. Now can someone suggest an answer to the language question as to the two types of uses of the adjective, or do I have to start a new thread? μηδείς (talk) 18:18, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

As an amateur linguist, my answer will only be partial, but I think that as has been pointed out on the talk page, the use of adjective here has more to do with rhetoric than with linguistics. I therefore think that words such as 'analogy' or 'metaphor' are probably what describe this use of 'Scandinavian' best. (I wouldn't go for 'simile', since the rule of thumb for that is the use of words such as 'like' or 'as'.) Furthermore, given that there are many things that could be described as 'typically Scandinavian' (and whether 'anti-Semitism', in fact, could be counted as 'typically Scandinavian' is, indeed, a separate discussion with its own merits), I would suggest that metonymy is also a word that could be used in this context. V85 (talk) 18:50, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, well, I used the word analogously above, so that seems a bit apropos. Whether what I am looking for is a linguistic or a rhetorical term, it's still wortschaftlich, languagistical. I am reminded of the Soundgarden lyrics "I'm looking California but feeling Minnesota" from the song "Outshined". I had suspected that a "Scandinavian intensity" might be like a "Minnesota feeling", but here the use is much more literal. μηδείς (talk) 21:28, 29 September 2012 (UTC)