Language desk
< May 28	<< Apr \| May \| Jun >>	May 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.

May 29

Word for someone who loves nature and being outside?

I was just wondering what a good word is for someone who likes being in nature. I was thinking naturalist but I am not looking for this philosophical definition. I am looking for something like nature-lover but more formal. Eiad77 (talk) 02:38, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ontario lumberjacks in their usual habitat

Our local Canadian chorus of mounties, led by Bielle and Adam Bishop is just about to break into a rousing rendition of the anthem of nature lovers. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 08:17, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Heh! Adam Bishop (talk) 16:34, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Outdoorsman? (Although it is sometimes used with connotations—enjoyment of hunting, fishing, etc.—that may not be what you intend.) Deor (talk) 13:01, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Trains

What does unrebuillt mean?68.148.149.184 (talk) 06:10, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Could you clarify your question? Our article Golden Arrow (Scouting), to which your link redirects, contains no occurrence of the word unrebuilt (or unrebuillt) and has nothing to do with trains. Deor (talk) 13:08, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Minor link error by the OP, Deor, should have been Golden Arrow. Speaking as a former editor of a railway-themed publication, I recall that the term was sometimes used in British railway engineering parlance to indicate that a railway locomotive (usually a steam loco) had not been modified, i.e. "rebuilt", to a more advanced standard.

Particularly in the UK, a given design or "class" of locomotive was often built sequentially as several dozen or more essentially identical machines, even though various improvements might have been been devised, and could have been incorporated into later locos, over the span of years that the building took. This standardisation enabled efficiencies in manufacturing, standardised procedures and interchangeability of components for maintenance and repairs and, not unimportantly, a statistically useful body of performance data against which the results of any experimental modification on one or a few class members could be assessed - fuel efficiency (hence lower running costs) in particular was always a major concern on British railways.

(It was reportedly more common in the USA to incorporate the latest improvements into each new loco as it was built, leading to much greater variability within each nominal "class".)

After a class of loco had been in service for some time, certain major improving modifications (think OS Service Pack upgrade) to the design might have become both possible and cost-effective. When an individual "Something" class loco had been so modified, some railway companies would designate it as a "Rebuilt Something" and as-yet-unmodified class members as "Unrebuilt Somethings". The distinction was important to avoid rostering a less capable unmodified loco on to a duty only a modified one was capable of, and also to avoid confusion in maintenance schedules and so on.

In the article to which the OP refers, The Golden Arrow was a Southern Railway (and later British Railways) express passenger service between London and Dover, linked by a Dover-Calais channel ferry to the corresponding French Flèche d'Or Calais-Paris service. Over its history, the Golden Arrow trains were hauled by various classes of Southern Railway locos. The last picture in the current version of the article is captioned "Ex-SR Battle of Britain Class 34072 257 Squadron, an unrebuilt Bulleid Light Pacific, with the Golden Arrow styling."

The SR's sometime Chief Mechanical Engineer Oliver Bulleid, an enthusiastic technical innovator who sometimes skimped on pre-introductory testing, designed and built the Battle of Britain Class (and other similar designs) with a number of radical new features, such as chain drives in enclosed oil baths and "air smoothed" outer casings, which in service proved problematical: in due course several of these features were modified in a rebuild of the class, but not all class members were rebuilt, and Loco No. 34072 257 Squadron remained in unrebuilt state, in which it is preserved to this day.

There may well have been one or more actual locomotives named Golden Arrow (loco names were sometimes re-used, just as navies do with ships' names) which probably hauled trains of The Golden Arrow service (cf Flying Scotsman and The Flying Scotsman, which most journalists perennially confuse). If so, it might or might not have been rebuilt during its lifetime and thus have been at some stage "unrebuilt", but I regret I don't have sufficiently detailed references to hand. 87.81.230.195 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:53, 29 May 2009 (UTC).[reply]

Wow, that is amazingly indepth. Good show, 87. Livewireo (talk) 20:43, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What is Tampanian English?

In browsing Wikipedia I encountered a list of English dialects. This list page includes a list of American dialects that included an entry that perplexes me. It mentions Tampanian English under Southern English. I have never heard of this dialect nor do I know what makes it distinct from general American usage, although I have lived in the Tampa Bay area all my life. A Google search revealed nothing but mirrors of this page and a few 404 Not Found errors. Any light you can shed would be extremely helpful. What is Tampanian English? SoLowRockerMan (talk) 06:36, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It was added on 30 December 2006. -- Wavelength (talk) 07:12, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would remove it if there's no source. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 21:00, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In this version of the article (immediately after that addition), the seventh external link is to a website with an index page about English, which includes the keyword "tampa" in two places. Each of those is associated with a link to a page with a recording of speaking by a person from Tampa, Florida. That is the closest thing to a source that I have been able to find from examining the Wikipedia article. -- Wavelength (talk) 00:13, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently, the best reference for the word "Tampanian" is: http://sticksoffire.com/2008/12/23/tampan-or-tampanian/.

-- Wavelength (talk) 00:25, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The name Tony Antony or Anthony

I sometimes have to write letters to people of this name. I'm always puzzled by whether I should include an "H" or not? Which is most likely to be correct? Is the other variation also valid commonly or rarely? Are the H version and the H-less versions prounounced any differently? 84.13.164.142 (talk) 10:38, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See List of most popular given names. You don't say where you live, but using the link for the United States' tool, over the past 70 years, "Anthony" is far more common than "Antony". The former is consistently in the top 50 names, while "Antony" is typically about the 800th most popular. But note that "Antonio" is more likely than "Antony". -- Coneslayer (talk) 11:47, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The name Anthony (with an "h") is often pronounced Antony by British people. We had a Deputy Prime Minister named Doug Anthony, pronounced exactly as it's spelled, but UK media persons tended to refer to him as "Doug Antony". -- JackofOz (talk) 16:13, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you're writing a letter to someone, you need to use the spelling that he uses, whether it's the most common one or not. Otherwise you make quite a bad impression. (And I hope certain relatives of mine who often mispell my name when they send me a Christmas card are reading this! <grin>) --Anonymous, 02:50 UTC, May 30, 2009.

The word misspell is a commonly misspelled word. -- Wavelength (talk) 05:58, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hah, good point! In this case it was only a mistyped word, though. --Anon, 06:57 UTC, May 30.

Now that's a nice distinction. Even if you knew the correct spelling but inadvertently typed the wrong spelling by a slip of the finger, the end result is still a misspelling, isn't it. -- JackofOz (talk) 12:41, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A tag question (such as "isn't it") should be followed by a question mark, even if the intonation is falling, as it usually ~~does~~ is in a question using an interrogative word. -- Wavelength (talk) 15:37, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

[I revised my comment of 15:37, 30 May 2009 (UTC). -- Wavelength (talk) 15:43, 30 May 2009 (UTC)][reply]

Therefore, shouldn't (such as "isn't it") be (such as "isn't it?")? :) :) -- JackofOz (talk) 22:40, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If isn't it? is followed by a question mark, the result is isn't it?? If, by definition, the word question includes the question mark, one could rephrase the clause with the verb end: A tag question (such as "isn't it?") should end with a question mark. Alternatively, one could be ambiguous: There should be a question mark at the end of a tag question. Does the word question, by definition, include the question mark? That is the question. -- Wavelength (talk) 15:33, 31 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"What is your question?" requires a question mark, so I think the answer to your question is No. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:33, 31 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Commonly misspelled words#Typing errors says that it is. -- Wavelength (talk) 14:41, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I know, the latin name Antonius is of Etruscan origin, and the meaning is unknown. The form Anthonius is later, I think of Medieval time, and it is due to a false etymology, that is, from the ancient Greek ἄνθος (flower). --pma (talk) 07:53, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is it commonly written with 'h' in any language other than English? —Tamfang (talk) 23:26, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently, the th-form exists in English only (a quick google search gives: Anthony, Antonius, Anton, Antony, Antonio, Tony, Toni, Tonio, Tonie, Toney, Antonio, Anthony, Antone, Antoine, Αντώνιος) --pma (talk) 06:41, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What language is this?

Someone added some unusual text to an article (and thankfully removed it quickly), which I definitely can't understand. Any ideas what language it is? I believe that it's an actual language: some words appear multiple times in different sequences, so it's obvious that the poster wasn't simply copy/pasting random strings of text. However, I'd not a clue what language: all those "...it" and "...ik" bits sound Nordic, and all the occurrences of "x" make it look like Chinese, but the rest of the words make it blatantly obvious that it's neither. Nyttend (talk) 12:25, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The results of a Google search for strings of words in the passage suggest that it's used as meaningless placeholder text, like Lorem ipsum. Deor (talk) 12:53, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My Google search gave the same result, nevertheless this does not explain the origin of the "language". There are no matches for whole sentences, just words, so the samples are not copies of the same text. On the other hand, the large number of identical words appearing both within one text and across different text means that it is not just a result of random typing. (And for the record, it's not ROT13 either.) I'm puzzled. — Emil J. 13:01, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This certainly is from some language, not random. I could find the chunks of words used in several blog replies, other descriptions etc. Doing a google translation check also does not give me any match. It doesn't seem to be a European language at all. My bet is that it is the transliteration of some little spoken language. This is proving incredibly hard to find now. I am also puzzled as well as immensely curious. - DSachan (talk) 13:12, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Its MacLorem [1] - X201 (talk) 13:21, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Quoting the web page: Going even further, the preferences settings allow you to generate text using vocabulary from fifteen different languages. So, which of them? Is it item #15, "Gibberish (entirely non-language text)"? — Emil J. 13:28, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I haven't got the software so I can't check. I just knew a likely suspect to point the finger at. - X201 (talk) 13:39, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

None of the words seem to be from Lorem ipsum Latin, all-uppercase version called LOREM IPSVM, Champagnois Old French (a language many medieval poets used), Old English, Middle High German, Old Dutch, Ancient Greek or Japanese. Not sure about other obscure languages like Swahili, Etruscan or Hawaiian, or for that matter Quenya (it uses quite a lot of diacritical marks, so I am discounting it as well). This seems to be far from being gibberish. Somebody please double check it and tell me what languages the first three word of the text 'Harle groum morvit' are from? - DSachan (talk) 13:42, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It does not look even remotely similar to Swahili, Quenya, or Hawaiian. I've never seen an Etruscan text, but it doesn't seem likely either; the mere fact that it uses English letters (including funny ones like q, x, w), but no letters with diacritics, is very suspicious, and at odds with the sample words at Etruscan language. — Emil J. 13:55, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Looks to me more of a cypher than a language - possibly a simple letter-replacement type, with one vowel replacing another and one consonant replacing another. Several words appear more than once, like "Morvit". If anyone wants to try to break the cypher, I'd suggest starting by seeing whether the X can be replaced with T or S. Grutness...wha? 13:59, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've left a note on the users talk, they may pop by and solve the mystery. - X201 (talk) 14:14, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If we are lucky, then yes. Otherwise Mfwills is likely to come next year judging by his contribution history page [2], which already spans 4 years. Although he seems to be more active in 2009, especially in May, so maybe we are really lucky. - DSachan (talk) 14:27, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Cryptography#Participants. -- Wavelength (talk) 14:38, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

At first glance it seemed to be Maltese, but it probably isn't. -- JackofOz (talk) 16:10, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is, in fact, placeholder text from MacLorem, what they call Gibberish. Someone was keeping the sandbox busy, so I tested live then deleted it. -- Mfwills (talk) 23:13, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, thanks. Maybe that's why Google had its mind boggled when we were searching for your text in there. But it really looked like some kind of language, I don't know why. - DSachan (talk) 00:18, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Because this sort of text is designed to look like natural language, because that's what it's a placeholder for. The idea is that you don't notice it's something else until you start looking at the content instead of the layout or whatever. --Anonymous, 02:56 UTC, May 30, 2009.

Your argument that 'Since it is designed to look like a language because that is what the placeholder is for and that's why I thought it is a language' is not a valid argument. I was asking what it is in there which is making it look like a language even though it is complete gibberish. - DSachan (talk) 08:12, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you'd said that in the first place, I wouldn't have answered that way. You just said "I don't know why", which is a rather vaguer statement. "Not a valid argument"? You weren't asking for an argument. --Anonymous, 12:06 UTC, May 30, 2009.

What is 'in there' is the letter frequencies and letter-pair frequencies of Latin, or some other Romance language. This makes it look readable. You can write a computer program to turn out this stuff just based on the probabilities of one letter following another in a given language. There's an online program that you can play with here. --Heron (talk) 10:00, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am curious to know the preferences settings selected by Mfwills. -- Wavelength (talk) 14:47, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

reading

Arab languages go backwards to read. Any languages go from bottom to top? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikivanda199 (talk • contribs) 16:03, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See Hanunó'o script. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:22, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See http://www.omniglot.com/writing/hanunoo.htm. -- Wavelength (talk) 17:47, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mongolian script does. (The Vulcan alphabet on Star Trek also does.) Chinese and Japanese can be written that way, can't they? By the way, Arabic is not "backwards", it goes right-to-left. From their perspective, our alphabet goes backwards. Adam Bishop (talk) 16:30, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, Chinese and Japanese could be written that way, but they aren't. --ざくら木 16:37, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Um, Japanese, Mongolian, Chinese, Manchu and the like all go from top to bottom, not from bottom to top, which is what the OP asked for. 173.77.69.117 (talk) 21:32, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

173 beat me to it. I don't know about Chinese, but I was going to say that while Japanese does have it quirks, it never goes bottom to top. It does go left to right and then down in magazines; top to bottom and then left in books; and right to left in shrine name plaques - this last one, I'm told, is an extreme version of the top-to-bottom book style - it is actually top to bottom and then left, with only one character for every downwards line. TomorrowTime (talk) 21:37, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But, still no down to up. There is a massive amout of visual poetry, concrete poetry,strange musical scores, even paintings with letters, but does any of it go down to up?--Radh (talk) 05:31, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For a twist, see Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 May 2#Book Titles.-- Wavelength (talk) 05:48, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Never would have thought of that one. Maya steles or pergaments? The ones I can remember were basically top to bottom (and all over the place), but are there not parts in the pergaments that go up? Maps can be read down to up. Chinese oracle signs on turtle shells? P. S.: And then there is hopscotch--Radh (talk) 06:16, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See Posting style#Top-posting. -- Wavelength (talk) 07:09, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Words can be read in any of eight directions in a word search. -- Wavelength (talk) 17:36, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The numbers on measuring cups and on graduated cylinders increase upwards. The same is true of many thermometers.

I recently rode in an elevator car which had two sets of buttons (flanking the door), one set ascending and one set descending. Evidently installed during Be Kind to Short People Week. —Tamfang (talk) 23:51, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See The Straight Dope: Why do telephone keypads count from the top down, while calculators count from the bottom up? for a history lesson. -- Wavelength (talk) 23:35, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ĩ love this, but there really is no natural language at all, which is written from bottom to top. Which is a bit strange.--Radh (talk) 08:23, 31 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The comment above about hopscotch reminded me of words painted on road surfaces and read in a forward ("upward") direction by drivers and cyclists, but I was unsuccessful in my search for a corresponding image. Likewise, I was unsuccessful in my search for a video of a teleprompter with text scrolling downwards and readable upwards. -- Wavelength (talk) 14:13, 31 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A quotation from Johnathan Swift's Gulliver's travels should be in order... Does anybody have it? --pma (talk) 20:03, 31 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See SiSU created WordIndex for: Gulliver's Travels. -- Wavelength (talk) 00:15, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Here it is (Chapter IV; Gulliver is speaking of customs of Lilliputians)

I shall say but little at present of their learning, which, for many ages, has flourished in all its branches among them: but their manner of writing is very peculiar, being neither from the left to the right, like the Europeans, nor from the right to the left, like the Arabians, nor from up to down, like the Chinese, but aslant, from one corner of the paper to the other, like ladies in England.

--pma (talk) 08:07, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is fun and really should be made into an article?--Radh (talk) 10:02, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there's Writing system#Directionality and the other articles it links to. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:24, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That article implies that the right-to-left direction is a fairly localized phenomenon. Is that correct? If not, an article like List of languages by orthographic direction or similar might be in order. Matt Deres (talk) 22:48, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See Omniglot index by writing direction, and, more specifically, Ancient Berber script and Ogham alphabet.

-- Wavelength (talk) 00:43, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank You, that seems to be the stuff I was looking for. If you are intersested also in straight righting in strange places, there is a massive real-Kanji photo archive [[3]] For the Maya, see also this essay from Gordon Brotherston of the famous essex school of marxist americanism (I kid you not) [[4]], 5 small illustrations. Some beautiful chinese stuff (traditional) [[5]]. Slightly garish colours, but showing the way of the brush [[6]]. Brion Gysin [[7]]. (Also more Gysin and see also the round paintings of Manny Farber-google pictures). see the Druillet panel and see also the photos from this flickr user[[8]] Primate Poetics and Writing (there are some examples of writing buried there somewhere): [[9]]

(My message begins here.) The direction of reading and writing varies in mathematical notation (for example, with continued fractions, exponentiation, positional notation [see under "Notation"], derivatives, integrals, summations, and product sequences), and also in musical notation, chemical formulas [see under "Isotopes"] and structural formulas). -- Wavelength (talk) 20:23, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A person adding a column of figures might proceed from the top to the bottom, then check by adding from the bottom to the top. An auditor examining a financial statement might begin by looking at the bottom line. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:28, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"I do hate sums. There is no greater mistake than to call arithmetic an exact science. There are ... hidden laws of Number which it requires a mind like mine to perceive. For instance, if you add a sum from the bottom up and then again from the top down, the result is always different." Mrs Maria Price La Touche (1878), quoted at the head of chapter 4 of The Art of Computer Programming. —Tamfang (talk) 02:23, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Japanese books are read from back to front, so the direction of reading the pages of a book follows the direction of reading the lines on the page. Books are read as if they were one huge page. But what about the movement of the eyes on a page (which is more like looking at pictures). Reading mathematical notation requires much more discipline? Are japanese abaci also the "wrong" way?

Is there an significant cultural differences re the places where tattoes are normally placed first on a body?.--Radh (talk)

Sensible of

"I am sensible of my responsibilities in this regard".

I heard that expression in a movie or TV show recently, and I was reminded of this expression "sensible of ...". These days we prefer "aware of ..." or "sensitive to ..." when talking about duties and responsibilities. "Sensible" is pretty much confined to use as an adjective meaning "using or displaying common sense". I think I've only ever heard "sensible of ..." from British speakers, and then, only from a certain class of person, viz. upper crust. Is my perception correct, and is this expression still widely used in the UK, in that crust or any other crust, or anywhere else? -- JackofOz (talk) 23:20, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've seen it in books written in the 18th century. In the 20th century, it was used by the king who abdicated in 1936; I think it may have been in some written explanation of why he wanted to abdicate. Michael Hardy (talk) 01:34, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It didn't appear in Edward VIII's Instrument of Abdication or in his radio broadcast following his abdication. -- JackofOz (talk) 04:14, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Speaker as a lower-crust Brit, I rarely hear sensible used in that way, and I suspect that nowadays the man in the street would not understand it. It would be used only in a historical context or by the sort of person who says "an historical". --Heron (talk) 09:54, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm wracking my brain to remember exactly where I heard this recently. It was only in the last week, on TV, in some show or movie set in the present. The speaker was a well educated British male aged around 50, running some organisation, and the scene was in his office. He was in a suit and tie, and had the obvious demeanour of a managerial type who is well connected, knows a thing or two, gets thing done, and is not the sort to be messed with. It turned out he was the baddie, so his choice of refined language came to nothing in the end. However, I've heard this expression before, and it always seems to come from someone representative of the British public school system, if not the aristocracy. I've never heard an Australian or American say it. It's not a common expression at all, but seems to be well enough known that a character can be made to say it without the listeners wondering what the hell he's talking about. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:32, 30 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]