Language desk
< January 13	<< Dec \| January \| Feb >>	January 15 >

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.

January 14

Numbers in Hindi

The Hindi version of 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is on TV at the moment, and the two contestants have just won 640,000 Rpees, but it came up on screen as '6,40,000'. Why would this be? --KageTora - (影虎) (Talk?) 00:04, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See Decimal separator#Examples of use. -- Wavelength (talk) 00:12, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ah! Excellent! Thanks! That explains also why it's called Crorepati. --KageTora - (影虎) (Talk?) 00:14, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Indian numbering system might also help. Unfortunately, they decided not to use this system for the movie Slumdog Millionaire, when it's the only system that would have actually been used. Bʌsʌwʌʟʌ ^{Speak up!} 00:24, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

They didn't for the printed numbers, but even the subtitles talked about crores. I was pleasantly surprised by that. Steewi (talk) 06:04, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I once saw a newspaper article that mentioned crores of rupees and millions of dollars. —Tamfang (talk) 07:21, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"house" as a building and the family too

I have just submitted a hook at Template talk:Did you know, reading:

... that The Wodehouse, a country house near Wombourne, has twice produced individuals significant in British musical history?

The first comment this received is that it isn't idiomatic usage. But I mean "house" as in "the house of Capulet" as well as the bricks and mortar. So two questions:

a) Am I right, or is that usage now archaic?

b)Since it doesn't matter whether I am right or not if the "Did you know" team don't like it, can you suggest a better phrasing? BrainyBabe (talk) 03:44, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As "the house of Capulet" actually were named "Capulet", whereas "Wodehouse" is specifically the name of the building, and the family residing therein is named "Hellier", I find using "Wodehouse" to refer to the family to be odd. If you were referring to the family, I'd probably say "the house of Hellier". A better phrasing might be

... that the families living in The Wodehouse, a country house near Wombourne, has twice produced individuals significant in British musical history?

with families, as "more than once the family has died out" -- 70.90.187.65 (talk) 04:52, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"the family ... has" or "families ... have" depending on the facts. --ColinFine (talk) 08:34, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Some people named "Wodehouse" are probably originally named after Woodwoses... AnonMoos (talk) 09:34, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have to say that it's quite bizarre that that article links to Galton–Watson process in the lede. Marnanel (talk) 19:53, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Because twice the family became extinct, as genealogists would have it (i.e. the men died "without issue" -- no legitimate offspring). Women didn't count, because if they married they took their husband's name and if they didn't marry they weren't allowed to procreate. The first few sentences of the Galton–Watson process mention "Francis Galton's statistical investigation of the extinction of family names.[...] There was concern amongst the Victorians that aristocratic surnames were becoming extinct". BrainyBabe (talk) 00:07, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

latín hispánico

What is the RAE referring to in its entry for 'estepa' when it says "Del latín hispánico stippa"? I've never heard of 'Hispanic Latin' before. 70.162.3.214 (talk) 06:39, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I imagine it means the Latin spoken in Hispania during the days of the Roman Empire, i.e. the variety of Vulgar Latin that the Iberian Romance languages are descended from. +An gr 06:48, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What is the RAE? Woogee (talk) 22:50, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Real Academia Española. Adam Bishop (talk) 01:18, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fear liath

How do you pronounce Fear Liath? --Dr Dima (talk) 09:44, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Approximately "fair Leah". In IPA, [fɛɾ ʎiə]. +An gr 10:38, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! --Dr Dima (talk) 22:21, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

He came home to find a friend and his girlfriend using his bed

From context is evident whose girlfriend it was. However, how could such sentences be expressed without ambivalence? 80.58.205.99 (talk) 12:35, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

With a system of grammatical switch reference or with separate reflexive pronouns as in Scandinavian, German and Dutch. In English they can only be disambiaguated by adding extra words such as "own" e.g. "He found his friend and his own girlfriend" would make it clear that the girlfriend was not the friend's.·Maunus·ƛ· 12:40, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(e/c) To answer this we need to know whose girlfriend it is. Is she the girlfriend of the "he" or of the friend? If it's the former, then you can say "He came home to find his girlfriend and his friend using his bed." If it's the latter, then it's harder to remove the ambiguity. You might have to say something clumsy like "He came home to find a friend of his, with his (the friend's) girlfriend, using his bed." --Richardrj ^talk ^email 12:46, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We don't really need to know that since he is basically asking what possibilities there is to disambiguate between the two possible readings. ·Maunus·ƛ· 13:00, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK then you can strike out the first sentence of my reply. The rest of it answers the question. --Richardrj ^talk ^email 13:11, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The best way to avoid ambiguity in English in a case like this is to replace ambiguous pronouns with nouns:

1) He came home to find his girlfriend and his friend using his bed. (In this case the pronouns are not ambiguous.)

2) He came home to find his friend and his friend's girlfriend using his bed.

Marco polo (talk) 15:17, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Or somewhat more formally:

2) He came home to find his friend and the latter's girlfriend using his bed.

— Kpalion^(talk) 15:40, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Of course if his friend is female, it's clear whose girlfriend was in bed with her. +An gr 15:56, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

~~Errrr, no. Not at all.~~ --LarryMac | Talk 17:08, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No? "He came home to find a friend_fem. and his girlfriend using his bed." Unless the "his" is looking outside of the sentence for its coreferent, it can only refer back to the subject "he". +An gr 17:26, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

right, lost sight of the initial question, as sometimes happens. --LarryMac | Talk 17:35, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'...to find his friend and his friend's girlfriend...' is also ambiguous. Is it the friend's girlfriend, or is it the girlfriend of the friend's friend? --KageTora - (影虎) (A word...?) 16:02, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Or indeed the girlfriend of another friend of the original "He". I suppose you'd have to say 'his friend and that (or another) friend's girlfriend...' AndrewWTaylor (talk) 17:05, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Have we considered that she could be the girlfriend of his friend and his other friend? :) Marnanel (talk) 18:55, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We should note that the ownership of the bed is also ambiguous: his male friend could be his flatmate. Ian Spackman (talk) 18:34, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is also not clear how many people are using the bed, or which ones: ‘He came home to find his friend, and [to find] his girlfiend using his bed’. Or indeed, ‘He came home to find a friend and his girlfriend, [by] using his bed [as his means of transportation].’ Ian Spackman (talk) 19:16, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is true that the sentences I constructed do not rule out the ambiguities suggested here. However, I think that in English there is an implicit understanding that pronouns refer to the person most recently mentioned in the discourse, unless otherwise specified. Therefore, while those sentences are theoretically ambiguous, I think that their meaning is clear and unambiguous in practice for most native speakers of English, assuming these sentences stand alone. Also, unless the context indicates otherwise, a native speaker of English would not interpret the sentence to mean that anyone was using the bed for transportation, since that is not a normal use of a bed. (The mere use of the word "girlfriend", with its sexual connotations, would lead an English speaker to assume that the bed is being used for sex unless otherwise specified.) Of course, if the sentence does not stand alone, the context could change its meaning in any number of ways. Marco polo (talk) 19:28, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's not ambiguous in practice, because of real-world knowledge, but there's still a formal ambiguity. (I think the canonical example is "I saw a man on the road wearing a hat". English speakers will puzzle over this if you tell them it's ambiguous, but only because their real-world knowledge will not admit the concept of a road wearing a hat.) Marnanel (talk) 19:58, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Have we considered "He came home to find his girlfriend and his friend using his bed" versus "He came home to find his friend, whose girlfriend was with him in his bed"? Marnanel (talk) 20:01, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. Without further explanation we have no real sure knowledge of in what way the bed was being used.--KageTora - (影虎) (A word...?) 22:27, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'Someone came home to find a friend and his girfriend using his bed' seems to be better example. 'He' requires coreferent itself: usually 'John's girlfriend' insted of 'his' perfectly fits. --95.84.241.53 (talk) 10:10, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

：：Whose bed?　--KageTora - (影虎) (A word...?) 15:37, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A bed of somebody [else?]:) I mean, sentences starting with 'he_i' refer to some John_i in outside. With 'one'/'someone'/'somebody' we may get rid of this John. --95.84.241.53 (talk) 05:21, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Equi-"height"?

Is there any adjective meaning "of the same height"? Something like "equidistant" only meaning equally tall instead of equally distant. 96.244.43.203 (talk) 19:25, 14 January 2010 (UTC)Indubitably[reply]

There is the Latin "aequialtus" (not a classical word, but Renaissance/neo-Latin). In Greek there is apparently "isohypses"; that leads me to the English word "isohypse" which is a redirect to contour line. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:36, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There is the less specific word commensurate. -- Wavelength (talk) 18:45, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In Esperanto, new words can easily be formed from existing roots (see Esperanto vocabulary#Word formation). Therefore, we have the following derived adjectives.

samalta ("of or having the same height")
samlarĝa ("of or having the same width")
samlonga ("of or having the same length")
sampeza ("of or having the same weight")
samgranda ("of or having the same size")
samvalora ("of or having the same value")
samtemperatura ("of or having the same temperature")
samlatituda ("of or having the same latitude")
samlongituda ("of or having the same longitude")
samlingva ("of or having the same language")
samproksima ("of or having the same nearness")

-- Wavelength (talk) 17:08, 16 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Japanese IME on Vista

OK, not necessarily a language question, but I figure I've more chance of getting someone who uses the Microsoft IME language bar seeing this question here than on the Computing RefDesk, so I'm posting here. Is there any way to switch between English Input and Japanese Input using a keyboard shortcut? The method I have been using for the last few years is unsatisfactory. Cheers! --KageTora - (影虎) (A word...?) 21:41, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have a Japanese made PC? Those usually have an extra key (labeled 半/全 if memory serves me, between the ESC key and F1) that changes input modes by pressing ALT+<said key> (or was it CTRL? wait, I think there was another separate key between ALT and CTRL... Anywho, it's there, somewhere...). If not, I'm not sure a shortcut is possible, unless you have a compwiz friend who can create a MSWord macro or sth for you. Me, two laptops ago my laptop was a Japanese-made, and I had to use awkward MSWord shortcuts for "š", "č" and "ž" (rather common in my language, unheard of on a Japanese keyboard) when I translated a 700 page book, so I feel your pain :/ TomorrowTime (talk) 22:26, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ha! Cheers! The PC I am using here is British, so, no. My Japanese WinXP laptop has the key you mention, of course, but I'm asking about this PC. Sorry, I should have clarified that, and that's why I came back here just now, before seeing your answer. :) --KageTora - (影虎) (A word...?) 22:34, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If the Japanese IME is similar to the Korean IME, then it would have a Japanese input mode and a plain QWERTY input mode, at least. Instead of switching from JA input to QWERTY input, you could switch from the Japanese IME to the English IME, by installing them both and pressing Alt-Shift. If you weren't using that already, that is. --Kjoonlee 23:24, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Neat, thanks for that. TomorrowTime (talk) 06:44, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And to answer the original question, I think Alt-CapsLock and Ctrl-CapsLock might work. --Kjoonlee 05:20, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Nope. ALT+Caps Lock just switches to katakana from hiragana. CTRL+Caps Lock has no effect. ALT+Shift works, though, thanks. The only problem is that after switching from Japanese>English, when I want to switch back I have to go through Korean, Chinese (simplified) and Chinese (Traditional) first. No worries. It's better than using the mouse! Thanks! --KageTora - (影虎) (A word...?) 15:31, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Toggling between Japanese and English in the Japanese IME may be done with Alt + ~. As for switching between multiple IMEs, besides the already given left Alt + Shift, you can give each a key sequence to activate. Open up Text Services and Input Language. Switch to the Advanced Key Settings. Click on each IME, then the Change Key Sequence... button. I use Ctrl + Shift + 1 through Ctrl + Shift + 7 for my various IMEs. 61.121.241.17 (talk) 10:09, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 January 14

Contents