Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 August 20

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.

August 20

how doers austin powers sound to a britihs person?

authentic? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.229.13.215 (talk) 00:24, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Not really, no, although I admit I wasn't around in the sixties, so I suppose it's possible people talked more like that then. Marnanel (talk) 00:29, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I think Mike's father was British-born, so he might just be imitating (and exaggerating) his father's own accent. In any case, it's safe to say that the Austin Powers series is not intended to be taken as a documentary. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:03, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

As a Brit, I think he sounds like a parody of the sort of "swinging" media personality who was around in the sixties, with a generic English but slightly mid-Atlantic accent - like Simon Dee, who was a prominent radio and TV personality of the period and who the Powers character is supposedly based on, or even Tony Blackburn. Myers' parents came from Liverpool, and I haven't detected any trace of the (to Brit ears, very distinctive) scouse accent in the character. Ghmyrtle (talk) 06:47, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

How are his other accents? The Scottish of Fat Bastard, or the father in So I Married an Axe Murderer, and the British one in Inglourious Basterds? Adam Bishop (talk) 14:22, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Is Austin Powers even meant to sound British ? Like Ghmyrtle, I always assumed his accent was an intentionally exaggerated mid-Atlantic parody. However, Myers' Scottish accent when playing Shrek sounds very authentic to my (Sassenach) ears. Gandalf61 (talk) 14:55, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Lao (Laosian) language

Hopefully, the wikipedia community will come through for me on this! My Administrative Assistant will be returning to school in a week or two. She is from Laos. To show my appreciation for all of her exemplary work, I purchased a small plain wood box for her (she can put stuff into it). Anyway, I wanted to personalize it a bit by putting the words "Happiness" and "Good Luck" on it. Is there anyone who could translate these words into Lao for me (ideally in Lao script). I spent hours on the net today trying to find a free translation but it was a frustrating exercise. Can anyone help me? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.250.117.26 (talk) 01:06, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

The Lao word for "happiness" seems to be ຄວາມສຸກ, according to Wiktionary. But I don't know whether it would be appropriate if you use this word in that case, because I don't speak Lao. Hopefully someone who does will arrive soon and provide some help. --Theurgist (talk) 02:51, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Unfortunately for me, all I see are squares rather than the Lao wording. Not sure what I can do about that. 142.46.225.77 (talk) 17:03, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

See the Main Page of the Lao Wikipedia. There you will find a link providing a free download of Lao Unicode. Also, you may be interested in their Wikipedia Village pump, the place intended for asking general questions, or the equivalent page of the Lao Wiktionary. You may ask your question at one of those places, and probably someone will help you with the translations you need. But please note that you may not receive a fast response, because the activity of the editors of both the Lao Wikipedia and the Lao Wiktionary seems to be very low. --Theurgist (talk) 17:56, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Got it! Thanks. 99.250.117.26 (talk) 00:49, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Jingle Palace

Anybody know how to write Jingle Palace in Chinese? I can't seem to be able to search for anything about it because of pinyin is exactly like the word jingle as in jingle bells. Maybe I spelled it wrong/--Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 02:39, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

If you enclose "Jingle Palace" in quotation marks when you do a Google search, you'll get mostly relevant results. Deor (talk) 02:48, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Maybe 净乐宫. Oda Mari (talk) 15:23, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Looks like it's 静乐宫. --Cam (talk) 20:06, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Depends on whether you want it in Simplified or Traditional Chinese. ~AH1^(TCU) 20:10, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

净 and 静 are different. I saw this page and thought it seems to be 净乐宫. I think it would be 浄樂宮 in traditional Chinese. Oda Mari (talk) 14:34, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

More chinese -translation

东方红6型是资阳内燃机车工厂1981年专为上海黄浦港生产的内燃机车。

只生产1台。

I got "The 'East is Red' locomotive type version 6 produced by the Ziyang locomotive locomotive factory in 1981 ..?.. Only 1 made"

The end of the first part I don't get - something about it being produced for the Shanghai-Huangpu port - but only 1 was made - and Huangpu port is not in Shanghai ? Does anyone know what actually place this was made for or what it says? Thanks.Sf5xeplus (talk) 14:54, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

"The "East is Red" version 6 is an automobile manufactured by the Ziyang Automobile Factory at Huangpu in Shanghai in 1981." Everything between 是 and 的 is describing the 内燃机车 at the end of the sentence. Chinese subordinate clauses can be really difficult! Steewi (talk) 05:01, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

It's not an automobile. It's a locomotive, probably a Diesel locomotive. See the image. 东方红6型 might be "Eastern Red type 6". Oda Mari (talk) 05:23, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

See our articles. List of locomotives in China#Diesel-hydraulic transmission and China Railways DFH shunting locomotives. Oda Mari (talk) 05:33, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes it's locomotive not automobile - but Ziyang locomotive works is definately in Ziyang, Sichuan, so I'm still confused about where Huangpu and Shanghai come into it.. oh just found that Huangpu District, Shanghai exists, I only knew Huangpu District, Guangzhou - that should explain it.77.86.82.70 (talk) 10:24, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Hmm... I had it as locomotive, but I changed it to automobile when I looked it up. MDBG wasn't as reliable as I'd hoped. Thanks for the correction. Huangpu isn't just a dstrict in Shanghai, it's also the river. Steewi (talk) 04:05, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Grammatical query

Could you please explain what is wrong grammatically incorrect with this sentence:-

There will be no presentation this evening unless the winners are in attendance.

One of my friends seems to think there is indeed an error there, however for the life of me I cannot see why!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.69.53.201 (talk) 15:01, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't see a grammatical problem, just a logical one: How will the winners know they are supposed to be there? Unless they've been notified in advance. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:06, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Can't see anything wrong. Only change I could suggest is "unless all winners" but what is there already isn't wrong. Depends on context though and who the winners are. - X201 (talk) 15:20, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't see anything wrong with it. Perhaps your friend thinks "are" should be in the subjunctive, i.e. "unless the winners be in attendance". Tinfoilcat (talk) 16:10, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

But subjunctives in that context are very old-fashioned and only occur today in legal language. I see nothing wrong with the sentence as given, either in terms of grammar or anything else. --Anonymous, 16:30 UTC, August 20, 2010.

Agreed. The only quibble I have with it is that I would probably reword it as "There will be a presentation this evening if the winners are in attendance" to avoid making my listeners/readers remove the negatives themselves. There's a slight shift in meaning, but a large increase in clarity. Matt Deres (talk) 16:49, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

There's a huge shift in meaning, not a slight one. The original sentence means that if they don't attend, there won't be a presentation (but if they do attend, it doesn't say anything, and we don't know whether there'll be a presentation). Your sentence, Matt Deres, says if they attend, there'll be a presentation (but if they don't attend, it doesn't say anything, and we don't know whether there'll be a presentation). Your sentence is the converse of the original, and is not logically equivalent to it.—msh210℠ 17:11, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Following the above suggestion, while the sentence may be grammatically correct, it may also be awkward. I think saying "There will not be a presentation this evening unless the winners are in attendance." 142.46.225.77 (talk) 17:07, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Bottom line, the sentence as you presented it is quite correct grammatically. Marco polo (talk) 18:03, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Deragatory modifiers

There are a few terms used in grammar for words/phrases which offend — in particular, pejorative. What I'm wondering is if there's a word for those words which, when coupled with certain neutral words, create a pejorative phrase.

If one refers to a "crazy woman", there is no (or little) implcation that the speaker considers all/most women crazy, but the phrase "greedy Jew" does imply that (the speaker thinks) Jews tend to be greedy. The relative prevalence of the prior stereotypes is almost certainly the reason for this; what I'm wondering is, what's the grammatical/linguistic term for this phenomenon? $\sim$ Lenoxus " * " 20:12, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I'd say the phrase "crazy woman" does imply something about the craziness of all women. Otherwise, why would you say "crazy woman" and not "crazy person"? If you said "crazy black woman", you would be further implying that her skin colour, as well as her gender, were relevant. Just like when people say "She's one of those women who..." they are implying that this is a behaviour common to a certain sort of woman, and hence implying a judgement about the nature of women in general. If I say "He's one of those men who behaves like a toddler", I'm implying something about the nature of men that is different from the nature of women: that they are more prone to acting like children. Just like if I called a man a "manchild"; it isn't some special linguistic effect. So I'd say what's going on is that when you include information about people when disparaging them, people assume that information is relevant. Why else include it? 86.161.255.213 (talk) 20:21, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Everything depends on the context. Imagine that there are eight people in a room: two black men, two black women, two white men, and two white women; one black man, one black woman, one white man, and one white woman are what the speaker calls "crazy", while the others aren't. If the speaker doesn't want to use names, "crazy black woman" is the most precise wording. Nyttend (talk) 20:48, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

• (ec) If I said "I was just sitting at my desk getting on with my work, when this crazy man burst in and held me at gunpoint", that doesn't say that all men are prone to holding strangers at gunpoint, any more than women are prone to such behaviour. There are times when it's appropriate to specify the sex of the person, without being remotely sexist about it. In fact, one would generally avoid referring to individual people by the word "person". If it's a man, we usually say so; same for a woman, girl, or boy.
• It has a lot to do with intonation: if I said "He's a greedy Jew", that's distinguishing greedy Jews from all the other types of Jews, who are not assumed to be greedy. But if I said "He's a greedy Jew", then that is saying that all Jews are greedy, but it's still worth mentioning if I want to add weight to my pejorative diatribe.
• ..when people say "She's one of those women who..." they are implying that this is a behaviour common to a certain sort of woman, and hence implying a judgement about the nature of women in general:
  • I can't see how you arrive at that final conclusion. They're talking about a certain set of women, period.
• If I say "He's one of those men who behaves like a toddler", I'm implying something about the nature of men that is different from the nature of women: that they are more prone to acting like children.
  • Again, how do you justify that statement? All he's saying is that there are certain men who behave this way. There might just as well be certain women who behave this way too, but this person happens to be a man. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:04, 20 August 2010 (UTC)