User talk:Ruakh/Archive 1

Wikipedia:How to edit a page

Hi Ruakh, and welcome to Wikipedia!

I reverted your change to the aforementioned page, because the example is supposed to resemble a pseudo-programming language. Code is one of the common uses of preformatted, fixed width text. --Ben Brockert 00:50, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

Inclusive and empty lines

Thank you for your contributions to inclusive. That article looks much better now. I have just one remark. One should not leave more than one empty line in a place in an article. The Wiki markup used here is not HTML, and empty lines are not ignored. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov 05:26, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Good call, thanks. Ruakh 05:32, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

From Pablo D. Flores

I'm not sure I'm satisfied with the Polypersonal agreement article after the change in the intro paragraph. I understand PPA as a feature of the language (or better, of the verbal morphological system), not of particular verbs. That's why I don't like how the article now starts by talking of "polypersonal verbs".

I'm sure it's entirely possible for a language to have some verbs (valency > 1 of course) that agree with several arguments, while others (also valency > 1) do not, this difference being lexically or pragmatically determined. But AFAIK this is not the case; polypersonalism is clearly a feature of the verb morphology and thus of the language, not a treat of specific verbs (and it is treated thus in the literature I've found in the web). Is there a compelling reason why I should not revert?

As for the comment on isolation, I agree that it was incomplete and therefore better left out (if expressed in full, it would be intrussive).

I'm copying this to Talk:Polypersonal agreement for future editors' reference.

--Pablo D. Flores 22:12, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

From deus ex machina

The French grammar article really does need help. Does there really need to be verb charts? Maybe have a separate French verb conjugation article? I'd appreciate your views on these matters, and you can use my talk page to reach me.

24.151.231.81 16:21, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

I've replied to your comment at Talk:French grammar, as I think our discussion might be useful to other people working on that article (if there are any). Ruakh 18:53, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Sorry about the -ir table! I didn't check the information before transferring it. — deus ex machina || talk || contributions | 05:02, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

From Ken Hughes

Regarding talk:modal auxiliary verb:
Thanks for the concision and the data on grammar, communications and culture. It'll be a long learning curve to find wikiness.
My ambling off-topic questions, and your answers, moved to my modals page. Wikipedia is an eye opener. · ken^(t) 16 August 2005.

Retention of the pronoun in the relative clause

You were refering to such examples as האיש שהוא החכם ביותר יזכה להצלחה. But the הוא here is not a subject pronoun, it is a copula. If it were a subject pronoun, it would be ungrammatical to repeat it; such that a sentence like האיש שהוא קנה את הבית מחזיק באדמות would be unacceptable. So the rule of the suppression of the subject of the relative clause is, indeed, a consistent one. --Shlomital 10:53, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Hmm. I could see an argument for regarding "הוא" as a copula, at least in this context, but it's always been presented to me exclusively as a subject pronoun. (Is there a source that you can cite to support your viewpoint? I'd be interested to see it.)

At any rate, I've rephrased the sentence in question in a way that I hope you'll find acceptable. (If there's a reputable source saying that "הוא" is exclusively a copula in this context, then of course it would make sense to remove the "except" phrase altogether).

Thanks for your comments, BTW; they're quite informative. :-) Ruakh 23:40, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

The grammar-books of Hebrew say that the third-person pronouns can each function as a copula (אוגד) as well as a subject pronoun (כינוי גוף). If the sentence already has a subject that isn't a third-person pronoun, then it's unambiguously a copula. For example הבעיה הזאת היא אחת הסבוכות ביותר - since you already have הבעיה הזאת as the subject, then the היא can't be anything but a copula. In modern Hebrew the demonstratives (זה,‎ זו,‎אלה etc.) can also function as copulas, though this is usually avoided in writing. The use of the third-person pronoun as copula is found in Arabic as well. --Shlomital 16:15, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Fair enough. My apologies, then. Ruakh 21:16, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

From snoyes

Hello, welcome to Wikipedia. Here are some useful links in case you haven't already found them:

• How to edit a page
• How to write a great article
• Naming conventions
• Manual of Style

If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

Tip: you can sign your name with ~~~~

snoyes 19:17, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

From Erin O'Connor

Thanks for the welcome! I know you from livejournal--I'm kirinqueen. I have absorbed some of the tricks to editing and whatnot here, mostly from existing markup. I saw the four tildes thing mentioned somewhere and then immediately forgot it. Thanks for the reminder. :) ErinOConnor 23:28, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Restrictive clause

Hi. I liked your latest contribution to English relative clauses - a very neat and clear formulation of what we've been groping towards. I wonder if you could have a look at restrictive clause (and also its talk page) and say what you think about what's going on there. My own feeling is that it should not just be about English, but the question is whether we have anything useful to say about restrictiveness in other languages. Best, --Doric Loon 18:19, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Subjunctive

Hi Ruakh, I hope you're having a nice weekend! I like your changes to the English subjunctive; "pluperfect" would be my own word of choice, but I think I convinced myself that it suits the likes of French more than English, and thus opted for "past anterior". One curious thing, though - the OED labels "discernible from" (in the sense of "distinguishable from") as "Obs.," so we probably shouldn't use it - in as much as I've no qualms about its removal, I'm going to have to write to the OED and tell them it's very much alive and well in Belfast. In fact, I would never have imagined that it wasn't a common construction. Well you learn something new everyday! Have a good one, Brian 15:30, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Einstein and WP:PEACOCK

I reverted your change to the Einstein article. Please take this to the talk page - in the general case, I agree with the policy - but Einstein is special, in my opinion. --Alvestrand 21:53, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Churchill's adpositions

Hi Ruakh. I agree with most of your improvements to my adposition contributions, but I wondered why you thought it necessary to remove the Churchill quotation. What's your position on that?

best wishes, OrangUtanUK 12:58, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi OrangUtanUK, thanks for your comment!

One issue is that it's not a genuine Churchill quote.[1] Another is that the article isn't specifically about English, nor about grammatical disputes, nor about preposition-stranding, so it's not reasonable for a discussion of the dispute over preposition-stranding in English to take up more than half of the section on prepositions. (Especially since that section already links to Preposition stranding.) To be honest, I'm not even sure the Fry quote should be there; but the Churchill quote, given that it was misattributed, seemed ripe for removal.

What do you see the Churchill quote as contributing to the section? Maybe we can find a different way to achieve its effect.

Ruakh 13:16, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't know that. Still, who ever did originate the quotation, I think it serves as an excellent example of the problems you can get into if you attempt to apply Latin grammar to English (ie, a sentence may not finish with a preposition). I don't think the relative size of the sub-article is at all relevant.

Perhaps - may I suggest? - it would be useful to include some examples in the full article, anyway. It is very difficult to appreciate the concepts as they are dressed up in such formal language. :o)

best wishes; OrangUtanUK 12:56, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, the Churchill quote is cheating anyway: by traditional analysis (the kind of analysis that might view preposition stranding as incorrect), "up" is not a preposition, but an adverb. It's a better example of how people will say anything in an attempt to prove a point.

As for your more general suggestion, I've nothing against examples, but I feel like the article already has plenty. Even so, if there are examples that you think would be useful, then you should be bold and add them. :-)

Ruakh 13:32, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Continuous and progressive aspects

Thanks for editing my changes to Continuous and progressive aspects. I must have been really tired last night; I didn't realize I made so many errors. —Umofomia 21:42, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh, you're welcome, though most of what I changed weren't errors at all; I was just making the text flow as smoothly as possible (hopefully). Ruakh 02:47, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Spelling script changes too much.

Your spelling script changes too much; for example, in this edit, I think the only real change was changing conjuction to conjunction, but the script made so many superficial changes that the diff is useless. The script should really just change the one thing that its user is trying to change, not reformat the entire page. Ruakh 16:11, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

My spelling script doesn't make any formatting changes (well, it isn't supposed to). It indeed only makes specific changes that the user approves. Any other changes were probably done by the editor (User:Rjwilmsi in this case). Wmahan. 16:26, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I'm sorry. I'll bring it up with Rjwilmsi, then. Thanks for your quick response. :-) Ruakh 23:26, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

In the case of the article you referred to, I did fix the spelling mistake, (conjuction >> conjunction) and also clicked on the basic formatting fixer of the User:Cacycle/editor tool I use. I agree that it doesn't look very pretty using the diff option afterwards though. Rjwilmsi 11:20, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

But the formatting was just fine beforehand; there's no rule that says you need == foo == instead of ==foo==, or that you shouldn't have a blank line before a new heading, or any such. I don't think any of your formatting changes even affected the HTML in the resulting page. Ruakh 11:38, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Central Asia

Anything you can do would be appreciated, and I'm not even sure how helpful I'll be due to too much travelling. Aelfthrytha 20:35, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Central Asia

WikiProject Central Asia has finally been created! If you're interested, please consider joining us. Aelfthrytha 21:56, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Nondimensionalization

Hi Ruakh, I have read your article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondimensionalization), and I would like to ask you this question:

The brachystochrone equation (cf. Johann Bernoulli) is the nonlinear ODE

$(*)\qquad \qquad \qquad \qquad y\left(1+y'\,^{2}\right)=c$

where $c>0\,$ is a physical constant and $y^{'}={\frac {dy}{dx}}$. We have two equations:

$(1)\qquad \qquad \qquad \qquad sin^{2}\alpha =2gk^{2}y$

$(2)\qquad \qquad \qquad \qquad sin^{2}\alpha ={\frac {1}{1+y'\,^{2}}}$

The first is Snellius' law and the conservation of energy; the second is geometry and calculus. By equalling (1) and (2), we have (*).

The constant $c\,$ is defined by $\qquad \qquad \qquad \qquad c:={\frac {1}{2gk^{2}}}$

The physical dimension of $c\,$ is

$(3)\qquad \qquad \qquad \qquad [c]=L^{-1}T^{2}L^{2}T^{\,-2}=L$

that is, $c\,$ is a length. Looking the left hand side of (*) we see that it also have dimension of length. Ok, (*) is dimensionally correct.

---

Now, Ruakh, how can I do the "nondimensionalization" in (*)?

Is the following equation correct (corresponding to (*))?

$(**)\qquad \qquad \qquad \qquad Y(1+Y'\,^{2})=1\,$

The left hand side seems to tell that this is a lenght, but the right hand side is adimensional... :/

Thank you for any help on the subject.

[]s

Bob
wackensackªhotmail.com

From 72.56.64.209

Thanks for the welcome :) I am actually registered, but sometimes when I read Wikipedia and am not logged on at the moment, I correct small typos/grammar mistakes in articles when I encounter them without logging in. I'll try to login next time.

(PS: Sorry for the bad english :))

Calling programmers

We need coders for the WikiProject Disambigation fixer. We need to make a program to make faster and easier the fixing of links. We will be happy if you could check the project. You can Help! --Neo139 09:15, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Qualified?

Sorry to see you leaving - I don't think you're any more or less qualified than the majority of people there, including me (I have no formal training and mainly contribute by searching all of wikipedia and linking in articles which are missing categories or otherwise linkless). Aelfthrytha 14:02, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your comment! To be honest, the main reason I left is that the project has become huge and daunting. I didn't want to say that in the edit summary, though, because I was concerned people might interpret that as a criticism of the project, which it isn't: just because I'm daunted by it, that doesn't mean there's something wrong with the project. I figured my edit summary was the least potentially-drama-induucing edit summary. Ruakh 16:58, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

It's I/It's me

Hey dude. I see that you were dissatisfied with your original reply — hence its deletion. I won't reply to your re-reply on the talk page because it would probably lead to many replies and re-replies, and it pertains to a topic already deleted from the article.

I can still rebut your assertions, however. (I won't make it comprehensive because of time constraints, and the topic doesn't interest me enough to pursue it zealously; and I am a very hungry at the moment!). I will write this quick, by my definition, reply:

So-called "traditional grammar" forbade a lot of things — split infinitives, stranded prepositions — that speakers and writers of Standard English have always used; traditional grammar was simply wrong much of the time, partly because those who dictated it often tried to transpose Latin norms onto English.

This is only true if you impose a selective interpretation on "traditional grammar". The most influential grammarians — Fowler et al — rejected the prohibition on split infinitives and stranded preposition, and even derided those maintained them. A few so-called language experts advocated them for specious reasons, but their argument never had great influence. However, they are a favourite example for those who want to prove — by refering to the worst examples and thereby rejecting principle of charity — advocating principles against certain trends in usage is irrational. A sober counterargument to grammarians (or "presciptivists", as they are known in linguistics) would not refer to the most irrational principles, which are uninfluential. Classics, Shakespeare, beautiful poetry, and beautiful prose make ample use of split infinitives and stranded prepositions. They can be quite elegant.

Some language speakers imposed Latin norms on English mostly because they were steeped in Latin, and prefered its norms as a style. Others who imposed Latin norms, for pedantic reasons, did so because they sought to make English's mostly Latin base more consistent with Latin grammar. The irrational impositions were swept away by usage by the common people, and by artistic and scholarly writing and speech. The Latin influence was not entirely malignant: Shakespeare used Latin to enrich our language. Clearly, no one went as far as making the syntax identical.

It is not accurate to assert that adherents to traditional grammar imposed Latin norms dogmatically, and others preferred more rational usage and defeated irrational reforms. The reformers each had their own agenda, which often clashed, and most of their influence stems from a time when English was rapidly changing. The modern, self-professed experts who proposed irrational ideas based on tradition were generally ignored over time as their irrationality was exposed. Many have opportunistically used non-influential experts in straw man style, imposing their ideas on the consensus spuriously, to prove that grammatical constraints are wrong — I am not suggesting you are as bad as they.

You do not mention that some influential writers tried to make English conform to its Saxon roots, in Old English.

There was no single "traditional grammar", at least before the 19th century,: those language experts and those others who sought to shape English resorted to their own principles when it was still in flux. From about the 19th century it became more fixed, and the principles were firmly established. The irrational attempts at reform were mostly defeated; but there are some relics which are mostly forgotten (like the difference between "get" and "forget" in Australian and British English); those, however, are accepted as much by linguists as "prescriptivists".

ordinary Standard English uses objective pronouns everywhere except as the subject of a finite verb or as a grammatical possessor. (In the interest of intellectual honesty, my previous comment mentioned some exceptions, but you don't seem to have liked that, so whatever.) One exception is that above a certain level of formality, it's common to use subjective pronouns as predicate nouns; indeed, this is about the same level of formality above which contractions tend to be avoided, such that "it's me" and "it is I" get far more hits on Google than "it is me" and "it's I" get. But this doesn't mean that it's more correct to use a subjective pronoun, any more than that it's more correct to avoid contractions; it's simply that it's more formal.

I won't comment on the grammatical possessor comment because I can't be bothered looking the word up.

Formality is not necessarily consistent with grammatical Standard English, and is often at odds with it. Many people in the wealthy classes, when speaking formally, use "for X and I", which violates the rule that an object of a preposition must be in accusative case. In Australia, the Governor General (the nominal head of state) used "for my wife and I..." in a ceremonious speech. Formality is also affected by making the subject a reflexive pronoun — e.g., "X and myself are...". The reflexive pronoun used in this sense can be justified as a formal address in eloquent oratory — for instance, in 19th century british parliamentary debates or in Shakespeare. But in most modern cases, wherein it is used thoughtlessly, it is most often misused, in my opinion, because it is used by habit, and not for its designed purpose. Most speakers who do not learn grammar rigorously in school instinctively choose "it is myself", instead of "it is I", for formality.

Grammatical Standard English stresses correct syntax: that the predicate nominative be rendered in nominative case, hence its name. Formality does not require this; it mostly requires that speakers use Latinate or foreign words and use formal idioms.

By the "usage" interpretation, a sentence is grammatical if it is deemed so by speaker and audience; and by analogy, by speakers and their social group (or demographic), more generally. By the "principles" interpretation, a sentence is grammatical if it is consistent with the general principles of traditional grammar retained by educated speakers, and the language in belles lettres — it is difficult to define this idea precisely. This latter interpretation still admits unorthodox idioms and unorthodox syntax in an artistic medium, like poetry — and this over time will influence the standard language. "There is.." is thereby a valid construction, despite the strange syntax. Good language speakers do not resort to naked pedantry, but to principles of euphony and rhythm, etc.

It is a false dichotomy to declare that someone must adhere to either interpretation; there are grades in between.

Evidently, "it is I" is not merely more formal — there is another argument for using it instead of "it is me", which I have tried to outline.

I apologise if this seems too hasty or too long — I am not writing an academic essay, and don't have time to refine my argument and prose to make it more readable. I have not studied grammar, linguistics, or language formally; most of my knowledge comes from self-study, though probably less than most would think, and what I have learnt from others. I am not a pedant. I accept usage by all classes as a legitimite force of change. However, I object to the influence of mass-media and the present system of education — which emphasises vernacular over the style in oratory and good literature (for instance) too much. And I object to such construcions as "he done a good job", which my step-father would use. These ideas I do not care to elaborate (because it would take too long). Rintrah 15:20, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your comment.

I don't think that traditional grammar was wrong in everything, but it makes little sense to cite it as an authority, as your comment did, since it's a very broad term that includes a lot of total B.S.

You really don't know what grammatical possession is? Please tell me you're joking.

I disagree with your claim that "correct syntax" requires that "it's me" be replaced with "it is I," and you don't seem to be providing any support for that claim.

It's you, not me, who drew the "principles"–"usage" distinction, so I think it's kind of silly of you to claim now that it's a false dichotomy.

Ruakh 20:00, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

You sound slightly bitter.

I do know possession — that was a lapse, I concede.

"Traditional grammar" is a generic term — as you pointed out —, a simplification. It is not necessarily an authority per se. The authorities are the good individual writers and speakers together, whose language forms Standard English. The syntax of this language is described by secondary authorities, and it is taught to children and adults as part of an educational cirriculum. The definition of Standard English is necessarily partly subjective. It is very difficult to describe this precisely.

If common language aberrates from good usage, as I argued, it is not good to always sanction it, and call it Standard English. The argument for this is quite intricate (for instance, explaining and justifying what is bad), so I won't bother for now. Certain syntatic requirements in Standard English remain, like a nominative nominative predicate, which you have called, as I understand your argument, "formal English". Standard English is one language, not an array of dialects. So there is no formal and informal Standard English. Grammatical sentences are determined in relation to this one language.

it's a very broad term that includes a lot of total B.S. — I don't need to point out that is an appeal to prejudice.

I cannot be bothered writing another argument for "It is I" vs. 'It's me". So I will leave what I have already written.

Yes I did draw that distinction. However, I did not insinuate that you misunderstood it; I added that sentence for clarity. I see now that you didn't like it. Rintrah 20:41, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Bitter, no; annoyed, yes. You give no evidence for your position besides the mere existence of the term predicate nominative, even though eminent authorities (such as The Columbia Guide to Standard American English [2] and The American Heritage Book of English Usage [3]) not only accept objective-case predicate nominatives in informal speech, but actually point out the inappropriateness of subjective-case predicate nominatives outside of formal speech. You then attempt to cover up this lack of evidence by splitting hairs on irrelevant points — and even your hair-splitting has mostly been wrong. Paranoid though this may sound, I almost feel like your sole goal in this conversation has been to waste my time by any means necessary. Ruakh 22:16, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you're right: it is paranoid.

If an eminent authority (or more) proves an argument, I only need to refer you to Fowler. What you call hair-splitting was in the first part, an argument against your claim about Traditional Grammar (to show that your prejudice wasn't well founded); in the second part was an argument against the idea that the formality you refered to was part of Standard English -- in which I showed that recognised formal language could violate Standard English. I argued that on principles, which by your definition seems to be a guise for usage. If my "hair-splitting" is wrong, you may enlighten me with your counterarguments. I argued against those points because they seemed important in your original argument, which, in the two paragraphs you devoted to it, were probably not merely asides.

Your last sentence is more consistent with bitterness than being annoyed. If you saw my supposed design in the beginning, you chose for your time to be wasted by debating this. Rintrah 07:06, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Look, I'm sorry if you think you've actually been making valid, relevant points; but you really haven't. And when this conversation began, I had no way of knowing that it would be a huge waste of time. Ruakh 11:52, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Sure. I'll just throw a tantrum too and say that everything you said was invalid. Na na na na na! I'm not listening anymore!! You wasted my time. *Sob*. Ok. We've concluded. Rintrah 13:31, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

k, sounds good. :-) Ruakh 21:26, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

merge template

Posted a request in Template_talk:Merge#Extra param. Thanks for suggestion. `'mikka (t) 16:23, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Haredi Editors and your "Medieval Judaism" comment

Hello, it's worth pointing out that Wikipedia has a number of Haredi editors, and User:CrazyRussian is a Haredi administrator. Appropriate sensitivity would be appreciated, per WP:Civility and WP:Etiquette. Best, --Shirahadasha 02:16, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi! I appreciate the tip — you seem to mean well by it — but it's actually CrazyRussian who made the "Medieval Judaism" comment, not me. Your assumption of good faith would be appreciated, per WP:Assume good faith. Thanks again! Ruakh 04:02, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. No worries. --Shirahadasha 07:20, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Section headings in edit summaries

Thanks for the tip! :-) FilipeS 17:01, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Social Choice and Individual Values

Hi, Ruakh. I can see merit in your revision. (Also liked your hidden note, whose method I was unfamiliar with.) As you probably noticed, I'm not exactly averse to revising, starting with my own stuff. I have great respect for your area of study and its uses. Thx for the clean-up. I'll study it. BW, Thomasmeeks 13:13, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Portuguese Language

FilipeS — I don't know how arbitration requests work, but if you need a character witness or something, let me know. — Ruakh 12:25, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! And here I thought an accuracy dispute would settle this... ;-) FilipeS 13:00, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh notable, holy wind

Hi Ruakh, re; my idea on a notability rating. The article on Green Day would attract a notable rating/icon, but you would only read it if you were interested in Green Day. In a Boolean sense, however, seeing a non-notable rating/icon at the top of an article would immediately alert you to move on and stop wasting your time (unless you were of course, interested in that particular subject - in a string theory sense). I browse random articles and do copy-editing or info expansion where I can, and the non-notables outweight the notables by about three to one, in my probably-not-humble-enough opinion. Yrs in anticipated notability, Lgh 01:30, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I just think it's a really bad idea to have administrators go around deciding which topics are the most notable; if you're looking for good material to read, why don't you read some featured articles? Ruakh 04:17, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Prod on Kissing Cousin.

Just so you know, I removed your prod on Kissing Cousin. Frankly, when I searched for the article on Kissing Cousins, I initially searched for Kissing Cousin, since WP guidelines normally stick things at the singular. I was half-tempted to go to WP:RM on that one, but I think a redirect works too. Anyway, I think that an article on a random horse or a Fraiser episode would definitely still be fine under the (horse) or (Fraiser) treatment, since most people looking for it would find it from episode lists / the search function.

If it's still a big deal, I suppose there's always WP:RFD. SnowFire 03:06, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

---

This isn't a huge deal, but I thought I'd point out that your last edit summary at Kissing Cousin isn't quite accurate: Wikipedia policy (specifically Wikipedia:Naming Conventions#Lowercase second and subsequent words) would prevent Kissing cousins from appearing at Kissing Cousin. Ruakh 03:08, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Er. Maybe I'm missing something, but I just read that, and it doesn't say anything at all about that. The subsequent section does suggest that Kissing cousins should be moved entirely to Kissing cousin, though. SnowFire 03:13, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

You do seem to be missing something. You've just read the section titled "Lowercase second and subsequent words", and you don't see what's wrong with the title "Kissing Cousin" for an article about kissing cousins? Ruakh 04:25, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

And, er, what the heck? You just moved the article. One moment. SnowFire 03:13, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Okay, the OED seems waaaaaaaay too slim to pin the move on. The kissing cousins article surely needs work, but that's the way the term is actually used. Compare 186,000 Google hits for "kissing cousins," 84,800 for "kissing cousin," and a mere 6,050 for "cousin couple." I've never heard of "cousin couple," at least as a phrase. SnowFire 03:18, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand your objection. There are almost 30 times as many hits for "United States of America" (59,300,000) as for "Organization of American States" (2,070,000); does that mean that United States of America should be about the OAS rather than about the USA? Ruakh 04:25, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, I'd never heard of "cousin couple" either, until I read the article, and if there's a more common term for the concept, I'd gladly support moving the article to the appropriate title; but "kissing cousins" is obviously not the right title for the article that's currently at Cousin couple, since all the major dictionaries (including at least the Oxford English Dictionary Online, the American Heritage Dictionary, and the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary) all agree that it refers to a very different concept. Ruakh 04:25, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

May I suggest you move it back with db-move, and then propose a move formally if you still feel this is warranted? If you don't, I will probably request a move back myself. SnowFire 03:18, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't know what db-move is. Ruakh 04:25, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Log in

Hello Ruakh, It's happened several times that I logged in in another language. By switching languages it gets lost. Then I notice too late that any change I make gets credited to my IP-Address. (84.174.9.35). If you could delete this in favor of my Wikipedia-name I would be quite gratefull. Cakeandicecream 07:08, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer and tips. Cakeandicecream 07:26, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

sorry

I am sorry you feel that way. I am not attempting to hide my edits in the diffs, I have spent my whole morning making numerous edits and contributions to the layout and formating of the articles, I do not check the articles Diffs afterwards so I was unaware of my script even having that effect on the diffs. I can only offer my apologies and hope that you will be understanding.

I understand what you are saying, we are here to stop vandalism and your comment proves to me that you are a great wikipedian. I hope to someday be as good as you are but for now I am just a 15 year old school goers who enjoys making contributions to the encyclopedia.

If you have anything else to say I am willing to answer on my talk page. I hope you do not feel I am here to disprove theories or vandalise articles as I have spent as much time as I can proving that this is not the case, my edits were supposed to make the articles display properly and should supposidly reduce download times on the pages. However if that is not the case i will stop using the script. Thanks for your concern -- JiMoThY^TALK 15:20, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

French preterite

(This discussion is about Preterite#French.)

Dear Ruakh,

wouldnt the passé composé be better even thought its not a preterite.
The Past Simple isnt used and my 2 high school french teachers who both lived in france for
10 years each both said to use the passe compose because the past simple is only used for
Formal Writings/speeches. Im not trying to argue though. I just want to know your prospective on this issue.

goodbye. adiós. au revoir. [user gonzo_2008]

Hi! The problem is, the article is about the preterite. The French preterite is the passé simple; it's true that the passé simple is fairly restricted in its uses in modern French, but that doesn't change the scope of the article. Now, if you feel that the French section should simply be removed, since the French preterite is not so commonly used in modern French as, say, the Spanish and German preterites are in their respective languages, then you can bring that up on the talk-page; but it makes no sense to have the French section of Preterite be about a tense other than the preterite. Ruakh 03:45, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

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Hi – care to offer your opinion of my post at Template talk:Db-author#Poor wording? (Sorry, I'm really impatient about waiting for input.) Thanks -- Omicronpersei8 (talk) 02:23, 4 October 2006 (UTC)