Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 October 16

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October 16

Dashes

I am new to the world of dashes. To understand how to use them, I read the article on Dashes. However, I have seen dashes being used in ways not mentioned there. One usage I have seen is in memos/mails. For example,

• John – Can you please send me the required documents?

The second usage I have seen is to join to related sentences. For example,

• Sorry, I made a mistake – Can you please send me document X, instead?

Are these examples correct—both, grammatically and stylistically? — Such a gentleman 03:19, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Dash it all, man, I'd use a comma in the first instance, and a semicolon in the second. Clarityfiend (talk) 04:04, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Style guides vary, but en-dashes are generally used to indicate a range (1–10; July 1 – July 5), rather than a pause, which would be indicated by other symbols depending on the intended meaning (per Clarityfiend above). Em-dashes are generally used to offset a parenthetical remark.--Jeffro77 (talk) 04:22, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

The punctuation (and grammar and spelling) used in memos and emails is usually much more informal than one would expect in a published work. Relatively few people know how to use the various types of dashes — or even where to find them on the keyboard.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 07:28, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

The usage described by Jeffro above is now a bit dated. Over the last several decades, printers have tended to reduce white space: M dashes were originally provided with lots of space on either side, then the space shrank until the dashes were usually set without separating space. Then running M dashes were often replaced with spaced N dashes, which is the usual practice in current typesetting. Similarly the spacing after colons and full stops has been shrinking as well. (I have to say I'm not a fan of the new style, but there it is.) -- Elphion (talk) 15:21, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

English Translation please

Recently I found a text in Sanskrit which reads like this. आर्या पथ्या स्वराट् श्रीकमलपटुधरा स्रग्विणी पुष्पिताग्रा दोलाक्रीडाकलानन्दथुपरवनिता शालिनी मौलिमाला । मत्ताली भारतीला प्रमुदितवदना भासिनी फल्गुमध्या लीलाचित्रा विचित्रा शशधरसुमुखी राधिका कीर्तिगौरी ।। Could any body please help me in translation into English? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 113.199.221.22 (talk) 08:04, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

A mish mash of unrelated words. ☯ Bonkers The Clown \(^_^)/ Nonsensical Babble ☯ 12:30, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

It is not a mish mash.It is an excerpt from a metred text in so called Shragdhara metre. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 113.199.241.4 (talk) 07:43, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Who comes up with chemical names?

This is just hilarious. Which sadistic human being came up with the chemical name for Titin, as well as the other long, long chemical names there are in the English language? ☯ Bonkers The Clown \(^_^)/ Nonsensical Babble ☯ 12:30, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Those are not actually names, but a list of all the molecules (?) that make up a particular substance. "Titin" is the name someone has come up with. It's as if, instead of saying cake, you said "baked-compound-of-eggs-flour-salt-sugar-yeast-butter-...", but using only equivalents derived from Latin or Greek to make it more abstruse. --Xuxl (talk) 12:52, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

It's a little moe complicated than that. The name looks like some form of chemical nomenclature, which is designed to give a lot of information about the molecule in the name (useful for trichloroethane, not so useful for large molecules). In practice, they are rarely used for anything that gets used enough to have a common name such as 1,3,7-Trimethyl-1H-purine-2,6(3H,7H)-dione-3,7-Dihydro-1,3,7-trimethyl-1H-purine-2,6-dione or N-(4-hydroxyphenyl)ethanamide, or even plain old dihydrogen monoxide. I don't think it's really fair to count them as words for the purposes of determining the longest... I'm sure someone sufficienly determined could come up with one for a chromasome that would be hugely long. MChesterMC (talk) 15:03, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

The name for that protein is Titin. The 'name' used there is nothing but it's amino acid sequence (not molecule sequence, though yes amino acids are molecules), which has nothing to do with the name. It would be the same as calling you ATCGTTAGCTCGGTAGCTA... (+ the rest of your genomic sequence). Also, nobody 'came up' with that sequence, unless you count evolution. 131.251.133.28 (talk) 15:23, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

I would be happy if the English language sounds like in the video. :)--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 02:55, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

What's the name for...

...when you are writing a story and while narrating something that happened you start narrating something that happened before that? I am very confused. e.g.

We were dancing at the courtyard. I could see a smile on his face but suddenly the terrible image of what happened two years ago came to my mind:

'I told you not to blah blah....' he cried at te top of his lungs .....

The memories blew my mind and in the blink of an eye I was running away, leaving an icy rut after me.

Anyone? Miss Bono ^{[hello, hello!]} 19:05, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

• Flashback. μηδείς (talk) 19:15, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

I think Flashback (narrative) is the link you want, Medeis. Deor (talk) 19:18, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 20:02, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

is it possible to do while writting?? Miss Bono ^{[hello, hello!]} 20:03, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

And if you have flashbacks within flashbacks, then you are getting into stream of consciousness writing. StuRat (talk) 20:14, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Miss Bono, not only is it possible to do when writing, but it's very common. Many famous novels use flashback not only as a short stylistic device over a line or two, to help a reader understand a character's history and motivations, but as an integral part of their overall structure. One quick example that I happen to know quite well: Thérèse Desqueyroux by François Mauriac starts in the present, then almost immediately the lead character goes off into an extended flashback that takes up a fairly large chunk of the novel in order to tell you how she got to the point where we came in. You have to read for absolutely ages to find out what happens to her just two hours after the start of the book! Writers who use flashback are in distinguished company. - Karenjc (talk) 21:21, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

I thought she was asking if the writers themselves have flashbacks while writing. μηδείς (talk) 22:18, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

μηδείς it's my awful English hitting again :P I just cannot find the way, once I've started a flashback, to stop it and not to tell all that happened before the scene I am writting about. Miss Bono ^{[hello, hello!]} 13:02, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

I'd bet good money Ken Kesey did, as well as his fictional narrator. - Karenjc (talk) 03:55, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

There are also some wrIters who seem addicted to the use of the pluperfect as a way of bringing readers up to speed, rather than using a flashback, and this becomes very tiresome very quickly. Typically they'll start off in the simple past, then some character is introduced and as a way of explaining what this person's relationship to the existing characters is, it'll be: "He turned a corner and almost bumped into Jim. Jim had been an old college pal of his but they hadn't seen each other for years. He and Jim had hit it off quickly back then; they had dated the same girlfriends, and they had taken the same courses. Jim had stayed at Peter's parents' place, and Peter had taken Jim hunting. They had had the inevitable fallings-out, but had remained close friends for a long time. But it had been over 20 years since they had last seen each other. They had ... had ... had ... had ... had ... had ... had ... had ........", droning on for a couple of pages. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:00, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

had had had had had had had had had had had? Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 22:16, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Very good. The flashback was parodied to a somewhat extreme effect in a Seinfeld episode where the first short scene was in the "present", and each subsequent scene was farther back in time. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:29, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

When solving that riddle, I, while my friend had had "had had 'had had', had had 'had'; 'had had' had had", had had "had had 'had', had had 'had had'; 'had had' had had"; "had had 'had', had had 'had had'; 'had had' had had" had had a beter effect on the person reading it. MChesterMC (talk) 12:55, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

If only you hadn't have [sic] said that. :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:59, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

It reminds me of Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.... Miss Bono ^{[hello, hello!]} 13:02, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

We have that article too: Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:06, 17 October 2013 (UTC)