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September 25

Is this an error of style?

This is an excerpt from my version of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (I have the audiobook read by Stephen Fry): "... as though this was the signal Harry had been waiting for, he jumped to his feet, at the same time pulling from the waist-band of his jeans a thin wooden wand as if he were unsheathing a sword."

Is there a reason why 'was' is used in the first bolded bit and 'were' in the second bolded bit? Would this be considered an error of style? 150.203.2.213 (talk) 06:13, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Here's an extensive discussion on was vs. were.[1] However, from reading it, I'm not sure what the answer to your question is. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:10, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I guess that the signal could be considered actual, and the sword fictional, if I am to hazard a guess. For what it's worth. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:01, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ohh okay, I can see how that might motivate the difference. Thank you! 150.203.2.213 (talk) 12:04, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Some stylists recommend not repeating a formula in close proximity, except when done to achieve a rhetorical effect. --Lambiam 13:18, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, but this case is akin to using "He and I did ..." in one place, and "Me and him did ..." in another. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 17:48, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not really. The subjunctive is dying out, and it's not reasonable to call every instance of "if I was..." an error. --Viennese Waltz 18:01, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It might still feel a bit off to use the subjunctive seemingly randomly. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 19:05, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The issue that bothered the OP may be the intermingled use of was and were. Had the quoted fragment started with "... as though this were the signal ...", I surmise it would not have engendered the raising of even a single bushy brow. --Lambiam 08:13, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

September 29

Short audio translation request

Japanese clip Zarnivop (talk) 18:06, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What's the context? Anime? J-Drama? My Japanese isn't good enough to catch more than snippets, but it sounds rather theatrical. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 18:58, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's smoething a soldier says after he scored a kill, taken from a voice pack of a mod. Zarnivop (talk) 19:32, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I hear kujikenu kokoro ga asu no shōri ni tsunagaru no, or 「くじけぬ心が明日の勝利につながるの」 (with asu being a short form of ashita, 明日). GalacticShoe (talk) 19:21, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

From a quick online search, I'm presuming this is from Soulcalibur V. There's a wiki page which apparently has this and other voice lines, if you need to reference them. GalacticShoe (talk) 19:33, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So "A resilient spirit will lead to victory tomorrow"? (Google translate) Zarnivop (talk) 19:33, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Something along those lines, yup. GalacticShoe (talk) 19:36, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A profusion of thanks! Zarnivop (talk) 21:41, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

September 30

Memento Aomori

According to our article on Aomori, the original name of this Japanese city was 善知鳥村 Utō-mura. Now, how to you get that pronunciation from those kanji? If I'm not mistaken the last character 村 should be -mura (village). But the rest? Thank you! 95.238.49.112 (talk) 14:56, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

By morpho-ambulating helplessly through jawiki, it seems it corresponds to an old form of ja:ウトウ, the name for the Rhinoceros auklet, who I deem a cute little guy. Apparently, that's ultimately a loanword from Ainu, neat! Remsense ‥ 论 15:10, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect it is a nanori. ColinFine (talk) 17:34, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Turn it up now"

In 1950s England, was this phrase:

Equivalent to "settle down", or
In its French translation, one of the few phrases known to a beginner, for some reason?

I ask because I'm curious about the phrase as it appears at the foot of this page in one of the Nigel Molesworth books. Card Zero (talk) 17:52, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Turn it up!" means "stop it", "settle down", "lay off", etc. The French looks like Molesworth's attempt. DuncanHill (talk) 18:31, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, so it really does mean that. Interesting in the light of wikt:turn up sense #6 (and the song Turn down for what, which by all reports intended that sense). I see Molesworth's sense of "turn up" is missing from Wiktionary, although the nautical sense 5 (fasten lines down) might be related? Card Zero (talk) 19:18, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"turn it up", not "turn up". OED has "transitive. slang (chiefly British). To give up, abandon (an activity). Formerly also intransitive: †to throw up or abandon one's work, to give up (obsolete). Now only in imperative as turn it up: used as a warning to desist, esp. from objectionable talk; ‘shut up’, ‘come off it’. DuncanHill (talk) 19:45, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Seems counterintuitive. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:10, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

An idiom (which this is), by definition does not mean what it would if read literally, and has to be learned from its cultural context and use. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.6.86.81 (talk) 21:35, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I just wonder where it came from. Typically, "turn it up" would mean to increase something, not decrease it. A more fitting expression would seem to be "dial it down" or "dial it back". English is weird. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:15, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The usage is cited back to 1819, rather earlier than your dials. A related usage is "transitive. To give up, renounce, abandon, cast off, discard (an associate). Now rare (slang in later use)" which goes back to 1541. DuncanHill (talk) 22:34, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. My question is why? What is "it" that's being "turned up"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:59, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The "it" is whatever activity the speaker wishes to be ceased. Perhaps it originates from a once familiar activity where 'turning up' was a thing: one possibility that occurs to me is that on a sailing vessel with fore-and-aft rig (like most yachts), one can come to a standstill by turning the bows up to point directly into the wind. (This application of 'up' is still in use, as anyone following the current activities in Barcelona will know.)

I believe there is a technical term for such indeterminate 'its', which I've forgotten. Another example: when we say "It's raining", what exactly is "it"? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.6.86.81 (talk) 01:47, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe you're trying to remember "dummy pronoun"? --Antiquary (talk) 08:38, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like a merger of "turn in" and "give it up", if I am to guess. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 23:23, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We may never know. Idiomatic phrases arise amongst us hoi polloi, who have no reason to record definitions of them in writing. By the time the lexicographical elite notice them, nobody may remember their actual origin. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.6.86.81 (talk) 14:01, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Etymonline has "turn up" as attested from c. 1400 (originally "dig up, uproot"), which kind of fits. But then, the nautical meaning of "tie it down" also kind of fits, as does the other nautical meaning of "stop your yacht". Card Zero (talk) 17:42, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

October 3

Yours'?

My name is Adam. Your name is Bert.

My name is Adam. Yours is Bert.

My name's initial is "A". Your name's initial is "B".

My name's initial is "A". Your name's is "B".

My name's initial is "A". Yours' initial is "B".

My name's initial is "A". Yours' is "B".

Are the last two lines ungrammatical or just unusual, would you say? For the sake of argument, assume that the distinction between "your name's initial" and "your initial" signifies, so that simply dropping the possessive apostrophe from the last line may (or may not) subtly change the sense.

- 2A02:560:4D27:B100:ED8D:9D51:1B0C:D4CB (talk) 16:00, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's ungrammatical. In a situation where there's a meaningful difference between ownership being yours and being your name's, you'd need to spend additional words to be clear. As far as I'm aware we don't have second-order possessive pronouns in formal English, like "mine's" or "his'" which would describe possession by a party that itself belongs to another party. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:28, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's pretty safe to say that "yours'(s)" doesn't exist in any form of quasi-standard English... AnonMoos (talk) 19:52, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's your'n opinion. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:47, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Or y'all's. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:21, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

October 6

Terbium, Erbium, Ytterbium

These elements were all named after Ytterby village. Questions:

Which element was named first??
How were the element names able to deviate (independent of the statement that each element needs its own name)??
How was it decided which element got which name??

Georgia guy (talk) 00:38, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Looking up Svenska Akademien's dictionaries, yttrium is from 1818-1820, terbium from 1843-1844, and erbium and ytterbium from 1881-1888. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:58, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yttrium was discovered in 1794, erbium and terbium in 1843, ytterbium in 1878. Burzuchius (talk) 16:08, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Burzuchius, please remember that this is about the names of the elements, not the elements themselves. Georgia guy (talk) 16:29, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

When it comes to advice here, ya get what ya pay for. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:25, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As explained at Erbium#History, the names of erbium and terbium became switched along the way. Deor (talk) 17:44, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Martinus Nutius Translation

Good afternoon, hopeful for some assistance on this. An editor has requested translation on a couple of parts of the above article, and I'm having trouble with making sense of it, and I don't know where the original text came from to find context, I'm hoping you can help. The text is:

In 1541 his address was "In Sint Jacob, naest die Gulden panne, op die pleijne van de Iseren waghe"

Which I believe to mean "In Saint Jacob, next to the Golden Roof, on the square of the Iseren wagon" (or possibly Iseren Weighing house if we say it should be waegh instead of waghe) except as best I can tell, Saint Jacob was/is a church, and the rest doesn't really fit. The second section is:

In 1543 he was buyten die Camerpoorte in den Gulden Eenhoren

Or, "outside the Camerpoorte in the Golden Unicorn", I can find that The Golden Unicorn house was a property at the time, but can find nothing on "Camerpoorte", closest I can find is this which mentions the Golden Unicorn was in the "Kammenstraat", the printers quarter, so perhaps Camerpoorte is an error? Thank you for your help--Jac16888 ^Talk 15:45, 6 October 2024 (UTC) --Jac16888 ^Talk 15:45, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's Old Dutch, so the orthography differs. I guess Iseren waghe could be "Iron waves" which is befitting a golden church roof. Camerpoorte is probably akin to kamerpoort, chamber gate. My Dutch isn't that great, but hopefully it could be a start. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 16:22, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I guess panne could be pan, other than roof, as well. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 16:24, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The addresses are discussed in this text. Isere waghe is translated into French as Poids de fer, i.e. "iron weight". Cammer is translated as brasseur, i.e. "beer brewer". The Camerpoorte sounds like the name of a city gate, and the Golden Unicorn would have been outside. There is a nl:Kammenstraat, and a pension (one star on Tripadvisor, got to be good) by the name of "Camerpoorte" in nearby Nationaalstraat. In Sint Jacob would mean "in the parish of Sint Jacob" (if that wasn't clear), so in today's Universiteitsbuurt. --Wrongfilter (talk) 17:16, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, walking around on Google maps, I find an alley by the name of Izerenwaag, just off Kammenstraat, but at some distance from Sint Jacob.--Wrongfilter (talk) 17:23, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Middle Dutch iseren means "(of) iron", waghe can mean "wave", but also, more likely here, "weighing scales" as well as a building where goods are officially weighed, which typically would be located on a square. While cammer means "brewer", the expected form of a compound meaning "brewer's gate" is cammerspoorte. Camer may be a clipped form of camere, which means "vault", "chamber", so the Camerpoort may have been a vaulted city gate, but also a gatehouse accommodating some guild or guild-like society, such as a chamber of rhetoric. --Lambiam 12:59, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Gulden panne" means Golden pan (as in the thing you use for cooking). I suppose that's the name of an inn or something like that. PiusImpavidus (talk) 17:20, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

October 7

Is it better to put similar items together in a list?

"We began by varying the radius of the coil while holding fixed the velocity of the magnet and the number of turns in coil."

This sounds odd to me. My intuition is that the sentence should read "We began by varying the radius of the coil while holding fixed the number of turns in coil and the velocity of the magnet", so that the two items about the coil are put together. Is this a standard intuition? Is this aimless pedantry? 150.203.2.201 (talk) 04:29, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If the velocity is a more relevant variable than the number of terms, to the paper and to the reader, than it's appropriate in prose to say the more relevant term prose (but that's not a fixed rule of course). Velocity is more relevant if the subject of the paper is presumably something like Lorentz force and not ordinary magnetic induction. SamuelRiv (talk) 04:46, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

German dialect

Someone on youtube comments:[2]

Merci für diä videos wo du machsch ha dis buäch sit jahrä und ersch sit churtzem usä gfundä das du YouTube machsch 🇨🇭🇨🇭

I can sort of read it but am wondering mostly what dialect it is. From the context and the Swiss flag codes, can I infer that it is Swiss German? Thanks. 2602:243:2008:8BB0:F494:276C:D59A:C992 (talk) 21:36, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, I asked chatgpt about it, and it agreed that it was Swiss German. Fabrickator (talk) 21:42, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

🇨🇭🇨🇭 would indicate Switzerland, yes. Then, Swiss German is pretty much a dialectal area, anyway. It's not a particularly uniform variety, I believe. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 21:47, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You may want to pose this query on the German reference desk, available under the language selector in the header of the ref-window. Allemannic dialects are spoken from the Alsace, down Switzerland and Baden-Württemberg to South Tyrol. As mentioned above, it is a range of dialects and any written form seems unreliable. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 15:41, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(native Swiss German speaker speaking) It's clearly Swiss German. As there is no standard orthography, it's not easy to say exactly which Swiss German dialect the author speaks, but it could almost even be mine. (and just in case you want to add to your "sort of" reading, this is the translation: "Thank you for those videos you make. Have had your book for years, and only recently discovered that you do YouTube." (my unauthorized punctuation) ---Sluzzelin talk 21:50, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

October 8

Popularity of Greek

On 6 October 2024, the 'Top read' article was Greek language (Still visible on mobile app; I don't know if the list can be linked from here?) with 1.6M views. Given that the Greek language is neither a singer, a YouTube influencer, a US politician, or recently deceased^{[citation needed]}, what caused this outburst of interest in it? -- Verbarson ^talk_edits 19:09, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It wasn't actually Greek language, but Greek alphabet. Somebody reported the spike earlier today on Talk:Greek alphabet; nobody had a good explanation for it yet. The statistics can be seen here: https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&redirects=0&start=2015-07-01&end=2024-10-06&pages=Greek_alphabet. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:35, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also, the stats page shows it was literally a single-day spike, jumping from around 10,000 per day to 1.6M on just one day (5 October), and then immediately back to normal the next day. I'd say that almost certainly excludes an explanation by a genuine sudden spike in human reader interest – I expect it must be some bot activity, software glitch or some such. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:40, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ooops! My bad. Thanks for the correction. But that explains why there was no mention at Talk:Greek language. -- Verbarson ^talk_edits 20:03, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

October 9