Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 January 30

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January 30

what is a 夜归人?

what is a 夜归人? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.6.176.77 (talk) 09:45, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

It literally means someone who comes home late at night. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 10:56, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Hebrew Wikipedia Version of {{Expand English}}

So I want to put an expand from English article tag on a Hebrew-language article. Unfortunately my Hebrew has become so horribly bad that I would not be able to find it on the Hebrew Wikipedia. Anyone know what I would put there? The Russian and Bulgarian Wikipedia as well? Thanks! Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 29 Shevat 5774 13:32, 30 January 2014 (UTC) Just to note, my questions are being asked here because they're technically foreign language questions (and shouldn't be asked at Help Desk as a result) and asking them on the appropriate wikis would give me a major headache because of all the translating.Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 29 Shevat 5774 20:02, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

@Flinders Petrie: See תבנית:להשלים‎. הסרפד (call me Hasirpad) 21:53, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

@הסרפד: I'm not immediately seeing the Hebrew version of the Expand language template. I want to put on the Hebrew version of the Tel Kabri article given that the Hebrew one is a, lacking in material, and b, has an inaccurate statement or two. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 30 Shevat 5774 12:11, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

@Flinders Petrie: You're right, my mistake, the link I gave is the equivalent of {{expand}}. After much browsing of Hebrew template categories it seems that there is no equivalent. Perhaps a note on the talk page will do? הסרפד (call me Hasirpad) 18:09, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

I guess so, for whatever good it will do.... Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 30 Shevat 5774 19:06, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Harvard ref system on Italian Wikipedia?

How does one use {{sfnp}} on Italian Wikipedia? I'm trying to translate an English article, that uses Harvard references, to there.Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 29 Shevat 5774 20:02, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

This seems to be the closest match, but not quite what you're looking for. הסרפד (call me Hasirpad) 21:59, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

That's exactly it. Thank you very much! Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 30 Shevat 5774 12:11, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Although the formatting on Italian wikipedia is very disorganised, inefficient, and sloppy. This might take some getting used to.... Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 30 Shevat 5774 13:28, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

How many different ***types*** of languages are there?

Note: I did not say the number of languages. I said the types of languages, as in gutteral or tonal or rhotic whatever. 140.254.227.21 (talk) 15:30, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, but guttural and rhotic are not recognized types of languages. There are many ways of classifying languages, and different ways of classification are overlapping. So, for example, a language may be both tonal and isolating, as Chinese is, or tonal and synthetic, such as Navajo. Then there is classification by common origin (Chinese is a Sino-Tibetan language, Navajo, Athabascan). There are innumerable possible classification schemes (including relatively minor classifications such as pro-drop versus non-pro-drop). I don't think anyone has ever listed all of the possible ways to classify languages, and in fact, no one has bothered to use some of them because they aren't very useful (such as languages that have /g/ as a consonant and those that do not). So there is no way to answer your question. Marco polo (talk) 16:26, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, to put names on the two main ways languages are classified, there are comparative linguistics, and historical linguistics which deal with genetic classification, and linguistic typology, which deals with features and linguistic universals. As MP says, the number of ways of classifying languages or their features (pro-drop language, isolating language, SOV language, is uncounted. μηδείς (talk) 18:19, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I think, reading the original question, that you meant something a bit different from what has been answered; something like "how many categories are there which people have put languages into". Like categories in Wikipedia, this is a different question from classification. because a language may well be put into several different categories, and the categories may relate yo many different (and even incompatible) theoretical models and classification schemes. Having said all that, though, the answer is still "probably impossible to list the categories, or even estimate their number". --ColinFine (talk) 18:40, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I think the others have answered it adequately. To give you an example of the complexity of it, though, just take tone versus stress. That's a fairly basic opposition. But is pitch accent a tone system, or is it fundamentally a stress system with a different realization, or is it a third type of system? Does the tone play a grammatical role, lexical role, or both? Are the tones a contour system, or a register system? And is it purely tone or is phonation included (confusingly also called register system), or is phonation included and colors the tone but they are otherwise separate parts of the language? Is stress lexically fixed, or fixed on a particular syllable, or does it respond to the weight of the syllable? And if it's weighted, what affects the weight? Is it right-bounded or left-bounded or unbounded? And what happens if a language has both word-level stress and word-level tone? And then there's those that appear to have neither. Pretty much every major way of categorizing languages, such as word order, morphological alignment, locus of marking, level of synthesis, all have these kinds of complexity and are all potentially different types of languages. It just depends on how you're counting. The World Atlas of Language Structures might be a good place to start if you're wanting a list of different possibilities, though. Lsfreak (talk) 23:21, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

But to get some handle on the main ones in practical use, the OP could check out Wikipedia's Category:Languages and its sub-cats. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:14, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Jack. I was wondering about that, and assumed there must be some sort of category system here, but I am not good with such things. μηδείς (talk) 00:02, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

For a long time I avoided it too. I cannot now remember what my problem was. Category surfing, browsing, sorting, shuffling, creating, linking, fixing etc has become my second favourite thing to do when I'm home alone and feeling open-minded. If you're a "big picture" person like me, it will appeal to you endlessly once you let it into your life. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:26, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Better word choice: revoked or rescinded?

For the 86th Academy Awards, one song received a nomination for Best Song; subsequently, the Academy disqualified the song from competition. Which is the better word – "revoked" or "rescinded" – to describe what the Academy did with the song's nomination? Do both words mean the same thing, in this context? Or is there some subtle distinction? Here is the source article: Scott Feinberg (January 29, 2014). "Academy Disqualifies Oscar-Nominated Song 'Alone Yet Not Alone'". Hollywood Reporter. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:10, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, the CNN article says "revoked" in the headline and "rescinded" in the article.[1] EO suggests they are near-synonyms.[2][3] The words literally mean "to call back" and "to cut back". Another term they could have used was "pulled". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:51, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Neither, because it was not the Academy that put forward the nomination. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 17:58, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

According to the CNN article, it was the Academy that revoked the nomination. According to Academy Awards, it seems that the Academy governs the nomination and selection process. Perhaps you're speaking to a technicality that's escaping me. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:04, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Baseball Bugs. Of course, it is the Academy that extends the nomination. Maybe – technically – we should say it is the "members of the Academy", and not really just the "Academy". But, I think the membership element is implicit. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:36, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I suppose "de-nominated" would be best? Collect (talk) 17:56, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I like it. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:04, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it either revocation or rescission. The story says the song was "disqualified", and I think that's the best word. If you talk about revoking or rescinding, it sounds like they changed their minds about the nomination. They didn't change their minds; they applied a sanction against certain promotional behavior. (I make no judgment about the correctness of that decision; I'm just reporting what they say.)

It's like an athlete invited to ski at Sochi, who then gets booted because he fails a urine test at the games. The invitation is not revoked or rescinded; it's valid as a historical fact, but he was disqualified later. --Trovatore (talk) 18:50, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

To Trovatore: I’d like to make two points to your response. First: yes, I agree that they disqualified the song. The question is what did they do with the nomination? In other words, what verb is applicable? They disqualified the song; they did not "disqualify" the nomination. So, I am looking for the transitive verb to fill in there, when "nomination" (not "song") is the direct object. Second: this is all semantics, clearly. But I would say that they indeed did change their minds. In other words, they put forth a nomination. Later on, when they learned of new information, they changed their minds about offering that nomination. No? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:14, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't think they did anything to the nomination, per se. --Trovatore (talk) 20:05, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

They revoked it. It's no longer a nominee. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:31, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

No, they didn't revoke it, because they didn't have to. See below. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:35, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Also, your Olympic example is somewhat distinct. The athlete was offered a spot, contingent on the implicit assumption that (later on), he would not use drugs. It is looking forward to a future event; the invitation (with all of its rules, regulations, and qualifications) is extended contingent upon "good behavior" in the future on the part of the invited athlete. The Academy Awards situation is looking backward, not forward. If they could turn back the clock, that nomination would never have been offered in the first place (if they had this information on January 16th instead of on January 30th). So, they essentially extended a nomination that should never have been extended in the first place. The Oscar nomination was not extended with the understanding or expectation of the future behavior of the nominee (as with the Olympic athlete example). Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:31, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I was going to make the same point about the song vs. the nomination. There's no doubt the song was disqualified because some rule had been broken, and as you say, had the Academy known this information earlier, the song would never have been nominated in the first place. The question is: Once the Academy chose to invoke the rule and disqualify the song, what occurred to the nomination? Wasn't it simply an automatic consequence of the disqualification of the song? I prefer to think of it more as a (passive) invalidation than an (active) revocation or recission. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:57, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I mean, could the Academy have said: "They broke the rules and therefore the song is disqualified for nomination. Nevertheless, for reasons A, B and C, the song remains in nomination"? No, they certainly could not have said that, not without reducing their credibility to zero and sparking WWIV among the film-making community. This is why I say what happened to the nomination was an inevitable and immediate and passive consequence of disqualifying the song; the Academy did not have to, and did not, make a separate decision about the nomination, as it was the other side of the disqualification coin. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:35, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

My mind is doing mental gymnastics with all this, and I am probably confusing myself. So, Jack of Oz, you are saying that a correct verb would be "The Academy invalidated the nomination" ... ? Or are you not saying that? Actually, that does seem like a good verb. No? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 22:36, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I think you could say they implicitly invalidated it. They didn't explicitly do anything at all to it. --Trovatore (talk) 23:04, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I think I'd say "The Academy disqualified the song, which caused its nomination to be invalidated". However, that may sound too legalistic for some purposes. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:11, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, all. Much appreciated input. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 15:16, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

intramural

I have been puzzling for a while over whether, in the lead section of Cresta Run, "The sport of intramural sled racing" is a correct use of "intramural", and whether the link to the target article Intramural sports is also correct. "intramural" was originally "intermural" and was tagged as needing clarification. It was then changed to "intramural" and the link added, without explanatory comment. I wondered if perhaps "intermural" was originally intended to mean literally that the sled run was between two walls of snow or ice. Because I am not familiar with the word "intramural" in the sense used in Intramural sports, I find it hard to judge whether the current wording is what was intended or even makes sense. Since there seems a very low chance of getting a response at the article's talk page, perhaps someonee here could offer an opinion? 86.130.66.42 (talk) 20:30, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

That term "intramural" does literally mean "between the walls".[4] It refers to sports that are held within the confines of an organization. For example, when I was in high school, intramural sports were competitions held among students of that particular school. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:35, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

That's not as "literally" as the sense in which I suggested it might have been originally meant. 86.130.66.42 (talk) 20:37, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, somewhere between EO and this page I misquoted. Intramural means "within walls", while it's "intermural" that means "between walls".[5] In my day a lot of students pronounced "intramural" as if it were spelled "intermural". And if that weren't confusing enough, intermural redirects to intramural sports. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:51, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

The term "intermural" was introduced several years ago by an editor named Fabartus.[6] The user edited as recently as a month ago, so maybe could give an explanation of just what he was getting at with that term. [He is labeled as semi-retired, but I went ahead and invited him to come here and clarify.] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:39, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

For the record, the word is, has always been, and always will be intramural. There are no intermural sports. Depending on the context, you would use different words meaning "between different organizations" rather than "within an organization" which is what "intramural" means. For example, interscholastic, intercollegiate, etc. --Jayron32 02:43, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

According to at least one dictionary, there is a word "intermural", meaning "Lying between walls; inclosed by walls". This may make sense if "intermural" was originally meant literally, and was not intended to be anything to do with this other meaning of "intramural sports". However, I don't know that of course; that is what I am trying to discover. 86.130.66.42 (talk) 04:04, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, sure, but the word meaning "a sporting competition" of any sort would only be "intramural". --Jayron32 04:35, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

In fact, another dictionary also defines it as meaning "of, pertaining to, or taking place between two or more institutions, cities, etc." and even gives the sporting example "an intermural track meet". The handling of Intermural and Intermural sports definitely needs tidying up. These currently redirect to two different articles, neither of which mentions the term anywhere. I do not feel qualified to know how to best fix it. 86.130.66.42 (talk) 04:38, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes this definition of "intermural" meaning between different institutions, as opposed to "intramural" meaning within a single institution was in common use in the 970s at least, and I think long before, so it was not invented in 2006, although it may have been introduced to Wikipedia then. I don't have a cite to usage patterns off-hand, but I can attest that many people, including officials of high-school and college sports organizations, used the terms in that way during the 1970s and 1980s in the Northeastern and Midwestern US. DES ^(talk) 19:40, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

At Intramural sports it says "'Extramural' or varsity games, are games played between teams from different geographic regions or towns." Do you think that "extramural" and "intermural" mean essentially the same thing in this context? 86.128.6.107 (talk) 22:00, 6 February 2014 (UTC)