Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 December 11

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December 11

Nihongo translation again! (Sorry :3)

Hello! I want to know what the bunny girl is saying on this page: http://www.ntv.co.jp/kasoh/index2.html Sorry to ask again, but the page changed just today (and it does so only twice a year...) Thanks in advance! --Kreachure (talk) 02:04, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

It says the date of broadcast has been decided, and that it will be broadcast at 7PM on 9th January (Sunday). In blue it says there is also another program 'right before it' and says that will be broadcast from 1:15PM. Then it asks for everyone to watch. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 03:14, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm a little unclear on whether the 1:15 pre-performance broadcast is on Jan. 9 or on Dec. 26, the date of the actual competition. I guess the former makes more sense. I saw this show once, 14 years ago, and had completely forgotten about it. It was pretty neat. I'm surprised there isn't an English-language fan page. -- BenRG (talk) 03:37, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Cheers, BenRG - I'd forgotten what the 'official' English name was when I and Mari translated the first time. That link says 'Costume Grand Prix' - sounds better than my 'Fancy Dress Party Awards' above :) I'll remember that next time this comes up. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 04:23, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

The 1:15 pre-performance broadcast is on Jan. 9. It's a kind of a promotional program. Kreachure, you can watch some selected videos of past winners by clicking "2009/06/15・名作動画集を公開しました！" in the paler yellow box on the left bottom. Enjoy! Oda Mari (talk) 05:27, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, this is the official page for the Kasou Taishou event. I record the show and upload the skits on my Youtube page, but since my Japanese is very limited, I have to ask for your help every six months... :D So now I know I'll have to be ready by January 9! I'll also have to check out the video archive on the page which I had no idea of until now! Doumo arigatou gozaimashita, minna-san! ^_^ --Kreachure (talk) 13:38, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

What was the Book called, and who wrote it ?

While I was at Intermediate school around 1979 or 1980 - hard to know since we had the same teacher and most of the same kids both years in a row, our teacher read us a book. I believe it was called the Eighty Acre Farm, but have found no reference to it on Wiki or Google. It was a comedy about a man with a family who bought what he believed to be a farm of 80 acres, but it turned out to be only one, and he was told that it was one acre in area, but eighty downwards. On the farm things grew faster and bigger. Can anyone tell me what the book was, which obviously was published up to or before 1980. Also, I see that the article on Jason Statham gives his birthday as 1972, as well as 1967, but which one is it ? At our age, those of us near forty can pass for mid thirites to fifty, so just by looking at him one could not know. Thanks. The Russian The Russian Christopher Lilly 07:03, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Looks like it could be McBroom's Wonderful One-Acre Farm by Sid Fleischman. --Onorem♠Dil 07:16, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

• Yes, that's definitely it. There were a number of sequels, too. - DustFormsWords (talk) 06:22, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, thank Yous - that clears it up nicely. The Russian Christopher Lilly 04:33, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Czech “ř”

Why is the sound “ř” of the Czech language very hard to pronounce? --84.61.182.248 (talk) 09:26, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Whether it's hard to pronounce or not will depend on your mother tongue. I don't find it hard to pronounce at all, but the sound may be foreign to your native language and so you may find it hard to pronounce. There's really little else that can be said in answer to your question... TomorrowTime (talk) 10:53, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

The Liquid consonants are actually quite a complex set of sounds. Even there are dozens of them, most languages only make use of a few of them, say one or two or maybe 3 and they are pretty much all represented orthographically in western languages by either "r" or "l". Consider "r" for a second. Phonemicly, most languages recognize only one or 2 "r" sounds, but there are lots of sounds that this covers. There are multiple types of "trill"-r's (such as uvular trills, alveolar trills, etc.), there are rhotic r's and non-rhotic r's where the r "colors" the vowel preceding it, but is not distinctly pronounced. In New England (a non-rhotic accent), there's even a peculiar labio-dental r which is used when the r needs to be pronounced. The short of it is that speakers of one language find the liquids of another language to be somewhat dificult to pronounce, such as Japanese speakers who find difficulty distinguishing the english R and L, and english speakers who have difficulty with trills. --Jayron32 15:52, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Liu Xiaobo ITN

I asked this on the Main Page discussion... page, but it might be a job for the Language Desk. The ITN piece sounds like this: "the first time since 1936 that neither the recipient nor any of his relatives has been able to accept the prize", and it seems wrong to me - shouldn't it be "neither the recipient nor any of his relatives have been able"? Rimush (talk) 12:14, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

My understanding is that a zero quantity is treated as singular - so "No one has seen him", and "None of my friends has seen him". In that sentence, "my friends" suggests (to our ears) that it should be followed by a plural form, but the subject is "None of my friends", not "my friends", which is why it is followed by the singular form.

Similarly, "any" is treated is referring to any one of the set referred to, and as such is treated as singular. So "if anyone has seen him..." and "if any of them has seen him".

In the present case, the subject of the clause is "neither the recipient nor any of his relatives". This is singular, as is "any of this relatives". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 14:47, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the info! Rimush (talk) 15:29, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

No: a zero quantity is plural, not singular. Consider I have zero watermelons, *I have zero watermelon. In "Neither the recipient nor any of his relatives has been able to accept the prize", I read "nor any of his relatives" as a parenthesis. The reason it appears as singular in "None of my friends has seen him" is a quite different kettle of fish: none was (at one time) considered to be derived from not one. The justification is specious[1], but it has influenced some prescriptivists. Marnanel (talk) 01:36, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

That's a different construction. Constructions like "none" or "not any" can be singular or plural depending on what you would expect if there were any. "Which man is your leader?" — "None is; our leader is a woman". But "How many are of you are right-handed?" — "None are." The original example works the same way. Only one person would accept the prize, so the singular is correct. --Anonymous, 02:32 UTC, December 13, 2010.

In the US, our high school textbooks (prescriptive grammar alert) taught that "none"-ish subjects take singular verbs. In real life, both are used. rʨanaɢ (talk) 09:51, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Someone – They

In Jean M. Redmann’s book Death of a Dying Man I read the sentence: “I think someone tried to harm him and I can’t be sure they won’t again.” My question: Is it standard English when “someone” is referred to by “they”? Or is it a way of speaking which is often used in New Orleans?

Or is there more to it? Can I conclude that the speaker thinks that there was one person who tried to harm “him”, but that there are several persons who might try to harm “him” once more? Or would such a conclusion be too far-fetched? -- Irene1949 (talk) 21:37, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

"They" works for both singular and plural, and it's more flowing syntax than "that someone" or "that person." I don't see Redmann meaning more than one person. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 21:46, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

See singular they. Whether it's standard or not is a controversial point, and has political connotations. --Trovatore (talk) 21:47, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

A police spokesman might be tempted to say something like: It appears that a person or persons unknown attempted to occasion the gentleman grievous bodily harm, and it is possible that a person or persons unknown may make further such attempts, but whether the same person or persons unknown who may have already attempted to cause the gentleman harm or a different person or different persons unknown or one or more of the original persons unknown and one or more new persons unknown is unknown.

But real humans are not so tempted. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 22:47, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Would it be correct if the speaker had said: “I think someone tried to harm him and I can’t be sure he or she won’t again”? -- Irene1949 (talk) 22:59, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it would be "correct", but not necessarily any more so than using 'they'. Lexicografía (talk) 23:14, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Grammatically fine, but do we know the agent of this harm was a single individual? In a situation where there's evidence an attempt to harm someone has been made, it's sometimes possible to know how many people were involved even if their identities are not known, but generally speaking we don't know that. Even though the "I think someone tried him" appears to assume there was a sole perpetrator, the speaker would not exclude the possibility it was more than one person. It's just a figure of speech. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 23:15, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

The context: The speaker has reasons to think that “someone tried to harm him“ by slipping him some cocaine – and that cocaine was dangerous for “him”, because he was very ill and his medication increased the effect of the cocaine. In such a case, I’d assume that it was probably one person who did the crucial act of slipping the cocaine to the victim, but this person may have had an accomplice who provided the cocaine.

When I looked up these details, I noticed that they are not in the book Water Mark but in the book Death of a Dying Man. I apologize for mixing them up. Now there is the correct title in the first sentence of this section.-- Irene1949 (talk) 00:17, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your interesting answers. -- Irene1949 (talk) 18:57, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

This question points up the single most obnoxious feature of the English language, the inability to refer to an individual person without specifying gender. "They" is wrong in a strict grammatical sense, but is used because the alternatives are "he" or "she", either of which would make an unjustified assumption, or else "he or she", which sounds too formal and stilted. Anybody who does a substantial amount of writing finds themself (see?) confronted with this problem over and over again; it is very annoying. Looie496 (talk) 06:38, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The unmarked he, with no implication as to sex, worked fine until the idea arose that it ignored women. I have never been convinced that that was ever factual. --Trovatore (talk) 06:44, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Wow! Are you old enough to remember the time before Chaucer? ("And whoso fyndeth hym out of swich blame // They wol come up [...]") Hans Adler 19:49, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

The problem is he does imply gender, and the third-person singular non-gender pronoun "it" specifically EXCLUDES humans as an antecedant. Other languages, like French, have a "non-gender-specific, non-number-specific third person pronoun". In French, this is the pronoun "On", which implies nothing about the gender or number of the subject. English lacks this. --Jayron32 06:47, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

He implies gender, in the sense of grammatical gender. There isn't much left of grammatical gender in English, but there are some remnants. It need not, however, imply sex. --Trovatore (talk) 06:49, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

If you refer to a woman as "he" directly, you get some serious flack from said woman. --Jayron32 06:50, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

As we're on the language desk, I should point out that it's flak, not flack AndrewWTaylor (talk) 09:32, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

True, but that's a different context. --Trovatore (talk) 06:51, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Not really. Speakers of English, when they hear "He..." expect testicles to be in the picture somewhere. That you wish they wouldn't doesn't reflect the reality of the language as it is used. You are falling into the trap of expecting grammatical rules to be proscriptive rather than descriptive. It may be possible (and I have yet to have see this proven), that people at some point in history may have used "He" in a non-testicular-related application, but that it used to be the case doesn't mean that today, in 2010, it is the case anymore. There are lots of words and grammatical rules which aren't in force today. This is not a good thing, this is not a bad thing. This just is what it is. No one uses "ye" as an article or uses "thou" as a second person pronoun anymore either. --Jayron32 07:10, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

It may be that the "unmarked he" is genuinely no longer heard, but if so, I think that came about for political reasons founded on the claim that it wasn't there in the first place. It's that claim that I have never been convinced was ever factual. --Trovatore (talk) 07:17, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure that its terribly useful to lament the loss of the "unmarked he" for whatever reasons, if it really doesn't exist anymore. That it doesn't exist in 21st century English is all that is really relevent, the reasons why it doesn't exist may be a useful discussion elsewhere, but it sidetracks this issue. In modern English, the "unmarked he" is not used anymore. Whatever reasons caused it not to be used anymore are largely irrelevent. --Jayron32 07:20, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's true that it doesn't exist anymore. It is less common, and risks misunderstanding, but it is not gone. --Trovatore (talk) 07:23, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree. It is still widely found in traditional literature, and occasionally in modern writing and speech. Many of us feel compelled by "political correctness" to add an apologetic "or she", but sometimes we resist the compulsion. Dbfirs 09:06, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I've been hearing the same complaint for 40 years - we really need a new gender-neutral pronoun. So, I'm wondering why we as a society are being like the people Mark Twain talked about. You know, the ones who complain long and loud about the weather but never do anything about it. The article (@ Invented pronouns) talks about the various attempts that have been made going back to the 1850s - all so far unsuccessful. If it's the case that nothing anyone can come up with is going to be acceptable, then why do we continue to complain? Maybe one of these new pronouns needs a high-profile champion, someone universally admired and respected, who's seen as a role model for young and old, black and white, men and women, straight and gay, conservatives and liberals. (Sorry, but my schedule is full.  :) ) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 09:55, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I am not a linguist nor a big fan of 'political correctness', but I would agree that gender-neutral 'he' has largely died out in common parlance and is easily taken as sexist. Honestly I don't see what's wrong with "they" as a singular – it's been around for several hundred years (unlike new coinages) and despite grammarians' best efforts, is pretty well established and accepted. Lexicografía (talk) 20:38, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I'd say the singular "they" is fully accepted in colloquial discourse, but not so fully accepted in writing of a certain degree of formality. The more formal, official, legalistic or "proper" the writing context is, the more stringent and pedantic the rules seem to be. Who makes these rules anyway? -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 22:22, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

As Webster's Dictionary of English Usage observes, singular they has been in use since Middle English! There is nothing wrong with it except that pedants with a poor sense of language are incorrectly over-analysing things and then vigorously advertising their incorrect conclusions. It's the same as with many other features of English, such as the perfectly standard practice of applying less to countable nouns. (E.g. "less words", as in: "Swa mid læs worda swa mid ma, swæðer we hit ȝereccan maȝon." Alfred the Great, 9th century.) The best solution is to ignore the pedants and follow the lead of the best writers. Hans Adler 19:56, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Grammar

Can a Britisher understand a sentence like "There is a tree is in front of it."? If we make a composition like this，we can get 40%-60% of full mark only.--铁铁的火大了 (talk) 22:07, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

As a Briton (not 'Britisher'), "There is a tree in front of it" makes sense - if you've already established what 'it' refers to. Or even "There, a tree is in front of it", but what you have written makes no sense. What are you trying to say? AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:27, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

We study English, Grammar is more important than spoken. Your essay (composition) use sentences like "What I want to say is that…", that is a great composition. I want to know, in daily life, you always chat use complicated subordinate clause? --铁铁的火大了 (talk) 22:34, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

In reading your sentence, I hadn't seen the second occurrence of the word is (so I had trouble understanding Andy's response). Now that I see it, I have to ask, is that what you intended to write? Maybe the second is was just a typo? --Trovatore (talk) 22:37, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Right, a clerical error in a test.--铁铁的火大了 (talk) 22:39, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Grammar is more important than spoken — please be aware that all languages use grammar in their spoken forms. Marnanel (talk) 01:27, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

The sentence can be corrected by the removal of the second is, or by the insertion of the relative pronoun which. The second option produces: There is a tree which is in front of it.

̀—Wavelength (talk) 01:01, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Seems the question, though, is whether a native speaker can understand it. Yes, we can understand it very easily, and the mistake is difficult to spot. In fact you make typos like a native, but it is quite plainly incorrect. 81.131.28.145 (talk) 01:07, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, Wangxuan, all English-speakers use dependent clauses in informal speech. There's nothing formal about embedding. I am puzzled by your remark, "Grammar is more important than spoken". Perhaps you understand "grammar" to mean formal written language. But in English it doesn't have that meaning. We don't make much of a distinction between spoken and written language, in stark contrast to Chinese. In English, what is grammatical in writing is grammatical in speech as well. LANTZY^TALK 01:17, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

In fact. About "Grammar", what I want to say is that we spend too much class hours to learn it but not spoken. And "There is a tree is in front of it." ,You can understand what I'll say, but teacher may be think this is a C-Level essay. A essay use complicated syntax, but when he speak, you only can say "Pardon?"…… May be you know, Chinese don't use tense and plural, so we hardly to learn grammar. --铁铁的火大了 (talk) 07:12, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Wangxuan, I'm not sure you've understood everyone here. We don't understand what you wrote. "There is a tree is in front of it" makes no sense - we can only guess at what you are trying to say.

But if I understand what you are really trying to say correctly, this is just a diatribe against what you perceive as a weakness of English education in China, is that right? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 12:26, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

May be you are right. But you think in my English test only a clerical error make me get 14(25 is full mark of writing) is fair? This writing let us write a letter to a US pen pal to bewrite my school. Some one didn't write "Best wishes." but can get 21. --铁铁的火大了 (talk) 14:05, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

You know that everyone starts off by thinking their native language doesn't have much in the way of grammar? Chinese has a reasonably complicated grammatical system of its own; it's just not very similar to the one used in English. (We have an article about it at Chinese grammar, in fact.) For example, serial verb construction is not terribly easy for English speakers to get their heads around. It may seem like a trivial matter for you, but that's because it's your native language. Marnanel (talk) 14:46, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

There are many different between two language.

In fact, in Chinese Mainland, a senior high school student only to know 3,500 words and phrases(besdies simple words like dog, a lot of). To understand what you say, I have to look up dictionary again and again. I think that leraning more culture(reading or spoken) instead of spending a lot of time in learning grammar. --铁铁的火大了 (talk) 14:05, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Piggybacking off Marnanel's comment: "Chinese has no grammar" is something lots of Chinese people like to tell me. These people believe that "grammar" can only mean suffixes (verb conjugations, tense suffixes, etc.)... rʨanaɢ (talk) 09:57, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Our teacher repeat "xx subordinate clause" everyday, it seems that English equals grammar but not to USE.--铁铁的火大了 (talk) 14:05, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

事情的起因是考试中一不小心作文写了"There is a tree is in front of it."这句话，结果25分得了14分。所以事实上我发帖的原意是想知道英国人能不能看懂这种句子，看得懂的话我想不至于因为这样一个笔误的14分，后来就越扯越远了。对你的回复，我想知道英国人上课，教师也是天天重复“主语从句”，“先行词”等等的么？--铁铁的火大了 (talk) 11:53, 18 December 2010 (UTC)