User talk:Rintrah/Archive 1

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Litefantastic

Only about a dozen of my articles went to VfD, and a lot of those I had coming to me. I actually turned myself in twice. As for aglet - which was like my second new page ever or something - the issue was, as always, that I was skirting the trivia fringe. So I thank you for your interest and appreciation - but 'relevancy' is the byword of the Wikipedia. Thanks! -Litefantastic 03:33, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Clapping between movements

On my user discussion page, you asked:

Have you ever defied the prim tastes of concertgoers by clapping?

I have, but only when others did it as well; I'm afraid I haven't had the balls/ovaries to do it on my own. But perhaps someday ... What about you? --ILike2BeAnonymous 19:25, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I haven't done it on my own. Some day I might - cautiously. Rintrah 03:33, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry -- Don't know a better way to respond

Hi, Sorry to respond like this. I really don't know how else to reply to a post you left on my User Talk page two months ago.

I greatly appreciate your post and have meant to reply for a while. School work kept from doing so until now. In addition to being intrigued by the content of your post, I was happy to learn that one can post to individual contributors on Wikipedia. Once I figured out how that works, I was also happy to learn that we seem to have overlapping interests. I am a philosophy student with strong interests in languages (I've taken time off from philosophy for the last 2 years in order to learn Latin, Greek, and German) and in poetry, especially British Romanticism (I'm more of a Byron fan, but Blake is cool too). We're even about the same age: I was born in 82.

But on to your post: You wrote:

"Why do insist on adding "Reactionary" to "Cathy Young" on Patriarchy, who is cited as someone who rejects the feminist application of "patriarchy"? With that epithet she is reduced to a puppet whose argument is dismissed by that one word. An article cannot be objective if a cited argument is judged by the language describing it, especially if the topic is controversial.

If you want to make a good editor, I suggest you refrain from silly efforts to push a viewpoint. Rintrah 12:34, 29 March 2006 (UTC)"

First, I would like to begin by conceding that you are right. If you have checked the page over the time since your post, you will see that I have changed my contribution so that Young's argument is not dismissed with the flash of one pejorative epithet. But, since you ask a "why" question, I feel I should explain why I had previously insisted on adding the word "reactionary" to Young's name. I first stumbled upon the Wikipedia article on patriarchy because of a specific question that I had. A friend (an art history student) had told me that he had recently attended two lectures on feminist critiques of architectural history and was surprised that at neither of these lectures did he hear any form of the word 'patriarchy', which seems to be an essential structural component of feminist criticism. He suggested that this could be indicative of a broader trend within feminist scholarship to move away from the term patriarchy. Several days later, while playing with Wikipedia, I decided to see whether I could learn anything about this trend and went to the article on patriarchy. Lo and behold, I discovered that Cathy Young, whom, because of the original context, I understood to be a prominent feminist scholar, was out there arguing that feminism ought to depart from its reliance on the term and concept of 'patriarchy'. Thrilled to have found a source for the phenomenon to which my friend had alerted me, I started to do some research on Cathy Young. I quickly discovered that she, in fact, had no connections to broader feminist movements. Indeed, although the article on patriarchy had cited her as though she were a prominent feminist whose arguments are widely known within feminist circles, she is not only not a feminist but is not even prominent. As I wrote in my revised contribution, she is a minor freelance journalist with ties to extremist neoliberal think tanks and publications.

I am not familiar with the current status of public intellectual discourse in Australia, but here in America it has become a standard -- if not the primary -- strategy of the Right (in all its forms: neoliberal, neoconservative, neonazi, religious fundamentalist, etc.) to appropriate the terminology of the Left in order to appropriate the traditional constituencies of the Left. For example, corporate welfare is "freedom of enterprise"; monuments to Christianity in government buildings is "freedom of religion -- it's not freedom FROM religion"; incendiary hate speech is "freedom of expression" and should be respected as part of a "celebration of diversity"; secular people, people living in cities, intellectuals, queers, Leftists, etc. make up an "aristocratic elite" that oppresses the "regular American" etc. I believe that Cathy Young's writings on gender issues are largely part of this game: "emancipate women" from the "oppressive" constructs of feminism, etc. As such, they ought to be exposed not as good-faith arguments but as the reactionary twitches of a puppet mindlessly following a coordinated counterrevolutionary strategy.

I felt that the Wikipedia article had greatly misled me and I did not want others to be misled in this same way. While Cathy Young's argument would never make it into a normal print encyclopedia, I did not think it would be appropriate to delete it. One of the great things about Wikipedia is that, since it is open-source and electronic, something insignificant like Cathy Young's argument really can appear in an article. However, when it does appear, it should not mislead, and thus I tried to remedy the situation with a quick-fix, a simple one-word tag: "reactionary." As you and others showed me, such a remedy only further debases the intellectual rigor of the article and of Wikipedia in general, which disqualifies it even from the category of 'strong medicine': such vitriol is, indeed, poison. As Philosophy says in Boethius' "Consolatio Philosophiae", "Sed medicinae tempus est quam querelae." In the spirit of these words, I revised my way of approaching the situation and revised my contribution so that it is no longer a voice of complaint but a genuine corrective to the orignal article, supported by substantive explanation. Thank you for alerting me to my previous folly. Feel free to make any further suggestions. All the best, -adam

Thanks

Appreciate it. :-) Bishonen | talk 18:17, 29 July 2006 (UTC).

Pleonasim.

Hi, You make a good point. I've changed it to "at the moment". Regards, Ben Aveling 01:53, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Now that I have corrected you pleonasms, I am more concerned about your spelling. Rintrah 16:26, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Re: 666

[[Image:NonFreeImageRemoved.svg<|right|thumbnail|175px|Jim, plotting on Monday evening last]]

Jim, reflecting on world domination, Tuesday afternoon

Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! I am indeed evil!

--Jim (Talk) 16:03, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Ultimate versus True Reality

LOL!!! Thanks for the laugh to start my day. LOL!!! Seriously, I thought I had found it a few times when I was 19 or 20 with the help of little THC. But then I had to grow up. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 07:24, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Recommended Reading

Thanks for the comment you left on my talk page - I'm pleased you enjoyed my recommended reading list. If you haven't already done so, I think you should check out Wikipedia:Unusual articles. TheMadBaron 08:05, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Quote of the day

"hi people this is nina this website is stupid" -Nina

Honestly, how does Oscar Wilde cope with the competition? Brilliant!

Aglet

Thanks. That was one of the first articles I created, and also the first one that I created that would later flirt with death at the VfD -Litefantastic 16:41, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Ta

Or: "Cheers big ears!" Removing and castigating vandals is my current favourite revision-avoidance procedure. Maybe someday I too will have someone write a novel on my talk page (I refer, of course, to "Sorry, don't know a better way to respond") Mmoneypenny 15:24, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Aceptable Omment

Oh, hush. I'm tired and all out of orange juice. :P HawkerTyphoon 16:35, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Further grammar question

Rintrah 08:36, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

In reply to your question, I fear that Wikepedia does not have an exhaustive policy on these things, although there are many articles on grammar issues—which of course are a different matter. In one way, the style manual is useless, because no-one actually sat down and wrote it as the Wikipedia version of Fowler; they just culled what they could from the Chicago Manual of Style and the Guardian style guide, both of which they endorse. If in doubt, I'd follow those two; the first is not online but does go into detail about the matters you mention above. Since Wikipedia supports it, you automatically follow Wikipedia policy by following Chicago. In another way, though, the Wikipedia manual of style is useful: for example, it requires sentence style in headings and certain captions, something which can feel odd to many users of English but is the rule nevertheless. {When I first came here, I used to put capital letters in my headings because I didn't know the rule.)

I have a copy of Chicago on my desk here, and it is worth buying one, though it is expensive. Generally, as you know, people write in whatever slapdash style they like on Wikipedia: the only way they will be corrected is if an individual editor bothers to tidy things up. My main intervention is to pluck commas out, like burrs from a cat's back.

I own some other usage manuals in case I need to check something. As long as you are careful to be correct, you can do no better; and most of the time, your style will not be challenged. We have to be patient, I suppose, and accept that Wikipedia is an infant who, with our help, is still learning how to talk. We cannot yet expect it to be our father.qp10qp 12:02, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

All it says at the Manual of Style, as far as authority is concerned, is:

If this page does not specify which usage is preferred:

• Use other reliable resources as style guides, such as The Chicago Manual of Style (from the University of Chicago Press) or Fowler's Modern English Usage (3rd edition) (from the Oxford University Press).

In my opinion, Fowler's 3rd edition is weak: most of Fowler's original entries have been replaced by Burchard's dreary ones, which sit so much on the fence as to be little help in resolving disputes. I'm embarrassed to say that I have more usage guides in the house than is healthy in a normal man and have read several of them all the way through, so if you do need something looking up in Chicago or whatever, just let me know. (If you quoted Chicago to someone who was arguing with you, you could pretty well say that you had the backing of Wikipedia's style policy, I'd say.) qp10qp 14:48, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Ultimate Reality AfD

I have recently nominated this article for deletion. Your comments would be appreciated on its deletion discussion page -Shaggorama 08:26, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

They might be appreciated, but I can't imagine how they would be needed. I doubt any serious person would consider salvaging it. Nevertheless, I have cast my vote. Rintrah 10:32, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Appositives

From Fowler's Third Edition:

Apposition.

1. The placing of a noun or noun phrase beside, or in (exact) syntactical parallelism with, another noun or noun phrase. This is a major feature of the language, and there are many types. The parallel elements are known as appositives.

In the sentence Sir James Murray, the lexicographer, was born in Hawick, the second element, the lexicographer, is appositive to the first, Sir James Murray. Similarly, in the sentence The highest mountain in New Zealand, Mount Cook, is called Aorangi by the Maoris, the second element, Mount Cook, is appositive to the first, The highest mountain in New Zealand. In both cases the second element syntactically duplicates the first. This is the most straightforward type of apposition in English.

2. Appositives may be either restrictive (i.e. defining) or non-restrictive (i.e. descriptive), though there is considerable overlap between the two types: (restrictive) the grammarian Otto Jesperson; William the Conqueror; Blenheim Palace, the Duke of Marlborough’s house in Oxfordshire; (non-restrictive) he picked up the goods at the warehouse, a huge complex of brightly painted buildings; she loved the paintings of Claude Monet, one of the leading exponents of impressionism.

3. The appositive element is placed first in the type ‘title or descriptive label + personal name’, e.g. Chancellor Kohl of West Germany; singing sensation Bles Bridges; British Rail lobbyist Richard Faulkner; Caledonian Society secretary John McGregor. Originally US, this type of construction is now rapidly becoming adopted in all English-speaking countries, especially in newspapers.

4. Appositives can be introduced by and or or, e.g. he worked in Duke Humfry, a section of the Bodleian Library, and arguably one of the most elegant rooms in the whole library; their political interests lay in the Gulf, or the Persian Gulf as it is often called.

5. Most of the above types show the appositives divided by a mark of punctuation, but this sentence from John Fuller’s Flying to Nowhere (1983) shows a type not requiring punctuation: But I do not find a tipsy man reliable witness.

The Chicago Manual of Style tends to be longer on examples than explanation; here are a few:

5.49

• Unless it is restrictive, a word, phrase, or clause that is in opposition to a noun is usually set off by commas (dashes or parentheses might also be used):

The leader of the opposition, Senator Darkswain, had had an unaccountable change of heart.

Jeanne DeLor dedicated the book to her only sister, Margaret.

The paintings by three impressionists, Monet, Sisley, and Pissarro, were arranged chronologically.

• Sometimes an appositive is disguised by the conjunction or:

The steward, or farm manager, was an important functionary in medieval life.

• An appositive phrase or clause may also begin with a repetition of the element being explained or amplified:

He had spent several hours discussing the strategy, a strategy that would, he hoped, eliminate the resistance.

• If the appositive has a restrictive function, it is not set off by commas:

My son Michael was the first one to reply.

Walpole had borrowed the rusty bread slicer from his friend Teetering.

O’Neill’s play The Hairy Ape was being revived.

(And there are also examples of appositive maxims and quotations.)

qp10qp 16:30, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

In reply, I'd say that apposition is a description of form rather than a prescription of form; so long as it sounds right and careful attention is given to the punctuation, it is fairly straightforward, a matter of following idiom, I would have thought. There is, of course, the issue of disjointed apposition, a result of bad writing. Garner (Modern American Usage) gives the example: "A respected English legal authority on the common law, the view of William Blackstone permeated much of the early thinking on freedom of expression." This fails because the phrases in apposition shouldn't be separated. But this is obvious.

On Wikipedia, I'd say the most difficult area is appositive titles, where there's some difference between British and American style on whether to use capital letters. (Charles, the French king, or Charles, King of France etc.).

Have you got a particular example in mind?qp10qp 17:09, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you entirely that such forms are to be deprecated, though I don't suppose we're entitled to call them wrong. They're encyclopedia-ese, giving the illusion of cramming in as much information as possible. I'd go with something like: "They are fast sprinters, capable of reaching speeds of about 50 km/h (about 30 mph) for short distances". A lot of introductory phrases can be got rid of in that way, by putting the main subject and verb at the beginning of the sentence, where they sit best, in my opinion. But you can justify your edit on grounds of style, for sure. qp10qp 17:41, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Usage questions

Burchfield (Fowler’s Third):

Owing to: Owing to is as often as not a suitable substitute for due to, meaning attributable to, as in owing to ill health or the trains were delayed owing to a signal failure.

Due to: There are circumstances where due to is uncontroversial, for example with the meaning payable to, as in pay Caesar what is due to Caesar, or with the meaning supposed to or announced as, as in it was due to start at four o'clock, or with the meaning ascribable to, as in he died due to heart disease.

However used as a prepositional phrase in verbless clauses, it is controversial.

Speaking for myself, Qp10qp, here, I never use it at all. Burchfield's weasely comments as follows illustrate why he is such a dreary, fence-sitting successor to the great Fowler:

Used as a prepositional phrase in verbless clauses, due to was described as "erroneous" by W.A.Craigie (1940) and was said by Fowler (1925) to be "often used by the illiterate as though it had passed, like owing to, into a mere compound preposition". Opinion remains sharply divided, but it begins to look as if this use of due to will form part of the natural language of the 21c., as one more example of a forgotten battle.

(Bleagh!)

Looking into the original Fowler, I find a perfect statement of the case, which Burchfield is criminal to have cut:

Due "must like ordinary participles be attached to a noun, and not to a notion extracted from a sentence".

(Owing to, on the other hand, is fine, he says.)

Burchfield is useless on on account of, making no judgement at all. I never use it, but I like the expression on that account, used at the end of a sentence, though it sounds a bit rhetorical.

In theory, because should not follow a comma, but in practice I often find it necessary to include one to stop a sentence miscuing. Burchfield is an unreadable mess on because, so here is a clear explanation of the point from Lapsing into a Comma by Bill Walsh:

Many arbiters of usage insist that because should never be preceded by a comma, but I disagree. Negative constructions in particular often need the comma to clarify which part of the sentence because modifies. Observe the difference between the following examples:

She didn't wear her raincoat, because it was too warm.

She didn't wear her raincoat because it was raining; she wore it because it matched her outfit.

We have a distinction between an essential clause and a nonessential clause. In the first example, you can drop the clause and the sentence is still true, In the second example, the sentence's meaning depends on the clause.

On as, sod Burchfield, I'm going straight to the original Fowler:

To causal or explanatory as clauses, if they are placed before the main sentence (As he only laughed at my arguments, I gave it up) there is no objection. The reverse order (I gave it up, as he only laughed at my arguments) is, except when the fact adduced is one necessarily known to the hearer or reader and present in his mind (I need not translate, as you know German), intolerable to anyone with a literary ear. All good writers instinctively avoid it; but, being common in talk, it is much used in print also by those who have not yet learnt that composition is an art and that sentences require arrangement.

Chicago, being a style manual rather than a usage guide, has little to say on these matters.

qp10qp 13:49, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Poida

Hi, sorry about deleting your comment! You're right, I shouldn't have, I think I got mixed up - thought it was on the article not the talk page. My apologies, I've restored it. Regards, --Canley 14:08, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Canadian literature

Well, you've done a great job of that opening. (Sometimes it's more satisying to clear out the woodshed than to polish the ornaments.) I'll drop something in there about Alice Munro, sometime, with a couple of references (my paper, The Guardian, is always raving about her, so that shouldn't be too difficult). Leonard Cohen also cries out for a mention, in my opinion, so I'll do that, too. But I'll have to put my lumberjack shirt on first, to get in the mood. qp10qp 22:10, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Changes to Illegal Immigration

Can you explain how using "immigrant" is non-neutral? [1] As I understand the words, 'immigrant' and 'alien' have identical meaning, except for 'alien' generally connoting someone who is unwelcome, and 'immigrant' just meaning one who immigrates. I was thinking of copy-editing the article, but I am hesitant of making edits which might be reverted. Rintrah 11:22, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Happy to. The distinction between "immigrant" and "alien" is due to the fact that "immigrant" and "alien" are legal categories - "immigrant" refers to someone who has entered a country and/or is residing in a country lawfully. Some people on Wikipedia have taken it upon themselves to push for a POV argument that the lawful distinction doesn't matter. I've included below some sources on the issue

• "An alien who has been granted the right by the USCIS to reside permanently in the United States and to work without restrictions in the United States. Also known as a Lawful Permanent Resident (LPR)."

www.irs.gov/businesses/small/international/article/0,,id=129236,00.html

• "An immigrant can be any of the above-listed temporary residents (refugee, asylee, parolee)."

dhfs.wisconsin.gov/international/refugee/definitions.htm

• "Any person who is residing in the United States as a legally recognized and lawfully recorded permanent resident."

www.visalaw.com/03aug1/2aug103.html -Psychohistorian 11:36, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Youse must be joking

As a test, I changed the you's in Literary language to youse's, and no-one noticed! The changes remained for eight days, until I was sympathetic enough to revert them. Oh dear. Some articles are doomed to remain ugly, like permanently malformed children. Rintrah 13:17, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, you see, that's perfectly good Scouse! qp10qp 14:54, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I don't know if you're aware of these two resources; the texts are of course ancient but are still full of exquisite advice:

• Fowler, Henry, and Fowler, Francis, The King's English (1909).
• Strunk, William, The Elements of Style (1919).

Also, here is a wonderful Google Group; I don't post there much, but "search this group" yields many treasures:

• alt.usage.english.

qp10qp 15:21, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Encyclopediaronicoieae

Question: What is the plural of encyclopedia? Is it declined like a Latin first declension noun, or does it conform to the English convention of receiving an "s" in its plural? Neither my dictionary nor dictionary.com answers this for me. Rintrah 15:24, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

That's a good question. "Encyclopedias" appears in three dictionaries on "Onelook" and "encyclopaediae" on none. I don't think the latter would be strictly inaccurate, however, just slightly pretentious. The word "encyclopaedia", grandiosely classical though it sounds, apparently has a hybrid etymology and so invites whatever lexical abuse we wish to heap upon it, I suspect ("Wikipedia" springs to mind). qp10qp 16:01, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you.

Thanks for your encouraging message about my edit of Amateur Theatre! You made me feel very welcome on my first day. IrisWings 05:18, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

What the best-dressed secretary is wearing

I can't find much about you in Fowler, apart from advice against mixing it with one (I get the impression he was a hardened one man; but, then, he also twirled his moustaches). I find no objection to the construction in other usage books; Theodore Bernstein inThe Careful Writer says:

In the sense of one, the word you can convey directness and informality in writing: The scientists have never demonstrated that if you lower blood cholesterol by change in diet, you also decrease the risk of heart attack and hardening of the articles. Like any other device, this one should not be overdone. In particular it should be avoided if it suggests the writer is talking down to the reader.

Garner, in Modern American Usage makes a useful contrast between two legal passages:

The second-person pronoun is invaluable in drafting consumer contracts that are meant to be generally intelligible. Consider the difference between the following versions of a lease provision:

Resident shall promptly reimburse owner for loss, damage, or cost of repairs or service caused in the apartment or community by improper use or negligence of resident or resident's guests or occupants.

vs.

You must promptly reimburse us for loss, damage, or cost of repairs or service caused anywhere in the apartment community by you or any guest's or occupants's improper use.

*

On marijuana: it certainly does have therapeutic qualities. For example, it made it possible to listen to Jefferson Airplane albums at university (compulsory in my day) without actually smashing up the record player. Not a great treatment for lung cancer, on the other hand.

*

On dogs: have you equipped yours with a pair of these yet? Doggles.

qp10qp 13:22, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

desk!

Thanks - I totally forgot to make a desk. 70.108.90.59 15:50, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Ack! wasn't sign in. Natalie 15:51, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that's fine. I looked at Compact Disc player really briefly and I think I can do that. Natalie 16:16, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Appositive/Apposition

Good afternoon Rintrah,

I haven't been on for quite some time but when I logged on I found that you had written on my talk page about Apposition around October 6th. To which article was this refering? Was this meant for another Victoria? I haven't been active on wikipedia for a while so I apologize if I have forgotten.

Just from a quick peek at your talk page it seems that you have put forth a lot of effort here. I especially appreciate the time, research, and hard work you put into ironing out the grammar of wikipedia.

--Victoria h 19:15, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Mantua copyedit tag

Pardon the delayed reply to your note on my user page regarding the copyedit tag on Mantua. I was unconnected for about a month. I see you've since removed the tag. Thank you very much for asking. The article's looking good! -- Muffuletta 20:37, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Two beers or not two beers

I assume that this appalling form didn't exist in Fowler's day, or I'm certain the old boy would have blown a few gaskets over it. He called that sort of thing periphrasis, or putting things in a roundabout way (It has come about that periphrasis and civilization are by many held to be inseparable; these good people feel that there is an almost indecent nakedness in saying "No news is good news" instead of "The absence of intelligence is an indication of satisfactory developments").

I'm an admirer of Orwell; having read several volumes of his journalism, I've come to agree with him not only that everything can be said clearly but that clear expression is a political act, a safeguard against elitism and misrepresentation. Your last point reminded me that I objected to the following sentence in the Catharism article:The Catharist concept of Jesus might be called docetistic — theologically speaking, it resembled modalistic monarchianism in the West and adoptionism in the East. Eventually someone replied that, as I had suspected, the pretence of learning masked unclear thinking (to say the least). I agree with you that immediate actions are essential in a sentence; a decent sentence should have a clear actor and action in the form of a subject and active main verb, both placed as near the beginning of the sentence as possible. Unfortunately, not a lot of people, as Michael Caine is characterized as saying, know that. qp10qp 20:08, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Aduthurai

Hi, I find with article that are obviously poorly translated from english if I can't directly contact the person who put the content in there originally, I actually just remove the confusing sections from the article and put them on a talk page with a note for someone who knows the subject matter to reword and then reinsert. I will have another go at the page and leave my comments on Talk:Aduthurai. JenLouise 03:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

A bee paused, as if to dab its brow

It comes over as encyclopedia-speak to me (the urge to squash as much information into a sentence as possible). I like the principle that a sentence should have one idea only; here the information about the females' appearance is one idea and the action of clustering on cactus pads another, so the sentence will never be at ease, however the deckchairs are rearranged. I'd take out one element:

The females are wingless and about 5 mm long.

and follow that with a new sentence:

They cluster on cactus pads.

making:

The females are wingless and about 5 mm long. They cluster on cactus pads.

It's all a matter of taste, I suppose.

I particularly dislike introductory clauses; I prefer subject and main verb to show up early in a sentence. And too many parentheses and subordinate clauses sap the energy from prose, in my opinion.

qp10qp 19:45, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Culture of Indonesia

Well, I'm not judging your edit, but you introduced some redundancies. I spotted also my redundancies after sometime I didn't read the lead. Some of your edits also changed the meaning, so please don't take my edit to your edits personally. Cheers. ;-) — Indon (reply) — 10:21, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Suffering Dinosaurs

It’s the sort of word people use to avoid the passive or to avoid sounding plain, neither of which is wrong in the right context.

The dinosaurs became extinct would be unexceptionable; but to some that might not sound active enough, to others not dramatic enough.

Distrust of the passive tends to grip the a-little-knowledge-is-a-dangerous-thing police. Yes, too many passives clog the broth; but in small pinches they make fine seasoning.

The word catastrophic is abused in the example, in my opinion—though it is a convention to slap it on the extinction of the dinosaurs. But an extinction is bound to be catastrophic, in the Greek sense of a tragic overthrow of the existing order (how could there be a non-catastrophic extinction?) Catastrophic is also used to imply suddenness; but it took the dinosaurs far longer to die out than is commonly realised. We don’t talk of the dodos "suffering a catastrophic extinction". Why not? Because they were cute and clownish? But what greater catastrophe, what greater suffering, than to be clubbed to death one by one by pox-nosed matelots within a few decades?

Anyway, my suggested copy-editing policy for suffered: keep it with a preposition (suffered from, suffered with); ditch it without.

qp10qp 16:04, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd pack impact in

Fowler himself never mentioned it—I presume because it was little used in his day. In my opinion, the usage is unexceptionable when literal, as with an impacted tooth; but the metaphorical use is vile.

Just to illustrate why Burchfield is so dreary, here is his advice, followed by a more bracing comment from Wilson Follett:

It seems advisable to refrain from using the verb in ordinary non-scientific and non-medical contexts—at least for the present. It is very likely that it will pass into uncontested standard use as time goes on. (Burchfield, The New Fowler.)

A bad verb robs the whole sentence of movement. There can be no doubt that the absence of deductibility will impact our work in the coming year. This statement warns of some sort of trouble ahead, and a good verb would tell us what kind or how much. But who can tell whether impact has stolen the place of curtail or cripple or force suspension of or make altogether pointless? And any one of these verbs would not only inform us but also make the sentence move. A faint awareness that the verb is a dud has led to the stilted impact on, which only enlarges a waste of good space. (Wilson Follett, Modern American Usage.)

I would add that in literal usage the noun means something different from the verb. The noun means the striking of one thing against another; the verb means to pack firmly together.

--qp10qp 16:34, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Roman empire

Those two parts of the sentence need to be distinguished from each other. "...such illnesses as encephalitis, which can cause mental derangement, hyperthyroidism, or..." The part on mental derangement is talking just about encephalitis, not about anything else on the list and it needs to be distinguised from the rest of the list. It's like a quote within a quote: "'Blah, blah'". "...such illnesses as encephalitis, which can cause mental derangement; hyperthyroidism; or just a nervous breakdown..." It's no big deal, but it makes it a bit easier to read, especially for people who have trouble reading.

By the way, it was me that made the edit, I was just logged off. -- §HurricaneERIC§ archive 22:58, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I think I understand your objection; however, I did not contribute that sentence, and my total contributions to the article amounts to changing a few words. But since you have left this comment on my talk page, I am intrigued by it. I actually haven't read anything past the First emperor section.

I agree, the syntax of that quote is ambiguous. You amended it correctly: the relative clause beginning with which is parenthetical, and the rest of the list, from hyperthyroidism, coordinates with mental derangement; therefore, semicolons are necessary to demarcate the subordinate clause within the two commas as complete. Thank you for the spectator sport. Rintrah 07:44, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Battle of Marathon

I will try to cleanup the size of opposing forces though I cannot guarantee that you will like the result. In any case do not expect it before next week, I am quite busy Ikokki 18:51, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I have done some copyediting at size of the opposing forces and moved some text talking about army size from the battle description there. I have added references from hard sources and removed a few non-aademic on-line sources. Why I am not very satisfied I am not capable of ding much better. Hope I have helped Ikokki 15:31, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Latin poetry

Hi. You seem to be an authority on Latin, so you seem the right person to ask. In Latin poetry, are the words chosen so the verses follow the determined sequence of long and short syllables, or are the words pronounced contrary to their usual pronunciation, if necessary, in accordance with the metre? Thanks. Rintrah 14:01, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Not sure exactly what you are asking here. However, in Latin poetry, the words are chosen to follow the set sequence of long and short syllables demanded by the form. Long syllables are not made short, nor vice versa, in order to conform to the sequence. The stressed syllable may be short, but the word stress does not affect the sequence of Latin poetry, nor do the stressed syllables necessarily coincide with the long syllables of the verse form. - Smerdis of Tlön 14:41, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Copywriter's League

Thank you for cleaning up the errors that I missed in my copyedit of DBAG Class 210, 215 - 218, 219 old. I'm trying to assemble an organized Wikiproject to better organize the cleanup of the copyedit backlog. Although I don't know how much you have on your plate at this moment, and I don't want to overextend you, I think you would be an asset to this project, if you are interested please come add your name to the temporary proposal page. User:Trusilver/Wikiproject Copyeditor's League Trusilver 05:29, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

DJ Dean

Thank you very much for your copyediting of the article. I appreciate your efforts, and will now be linkifying it to bring to a higher standard. Thanks again for your contribution. Gimlei 14:35, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Latin dictionaries

Almost all of the more recent Latin dictionaries mark syllable quantities. Traupman's Bantam dictionary does, as does Liddell & Scott, and the Oxford Latin Dictionary. - Smerdis of Tlön 06:23, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Your edits to Battle of Grozny (November 1994)

Thank you for contributing to Wikipedia, Rintrah! However, your edit here was reverted by an automated bot that attempts to remove spam from Wikipedia. If you were trying to insert a good link, please accept my creator's apologies, and try to reinsert the link again. If your link was genuine spam, please note that inserting spam into Wikipedia is against policy. For more information about me, see my FAQ page. Thanks! Shadowbot 20:40, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Albert Barillé

I have spoken with the author of this page and he verifies that the quote, in fact, is correct. Go figure... Trusilver 19:05, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

League of Copyeditors

Hi, thanks for the message. If I join that group do I have to do anything special? Why do they move articles to that list... can I just keep copyediting and then removing the template like I have been, or am I supposed to list them there? Kat, Queen of Typos 04:54, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi: thanks, I noticed the league page and have been looking at it for a few days. Compared to what I see other copyeditors do, however, I am not an expert. I often have more questions than answers. Hmains 03:23, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks!

Greetings to you as well. I look forward to cleaning up and editing Wikipedia as much as possible between classes. I must say that I have admired your work and the hard work of other established editors. Maintaining the integrity of Wikipedia must be a challenging, yet rewarding, exercise. I just hope that my small additions may provide the Wiki community with the same benefit as you and your colleagues have provided.

A small question I have (as I am a n00b), if I wish to ask a specific question that I couldn't find an answer to, where would I go?

Cheers! Lincoln187 07:34, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Bakersfield

Thanks for the encouragement. :)

This article is such a mess! I admire you for doing as much as you already have. IrisWings 00:01, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

defending WP policies

Hi

I've tried to help with Balikpapan. Could you please take a look Talk:Académie_française#Requested_move, where i seem to be the only one defending WP policy and observance of accepted usage in other encyclopedias. --Espoo 09:46, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your detailed answer on my talk page. Sorry to hear you were feeling unwell. Hope you're healthy again!

I was very surprised and disappointed to see that you removed your name from the LoC. You were one of the or the most active and productive member. I hope you reconsider your decision. Maybe you just overworked yourself and would enjoy coming back if you take on much fewer articles per week? Even if you reduced your workload by 90%, you'd still be doing more than some of us :-) --Espoo 20:00, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi. You're right, I have been doing a lot of work, and it is rash to delist myself. I was feeling very ill yesterday and I realised I should scale back my activities on wikipedia — because there is so much else to do. By copyediting so many articles, I hoped to improve my own writing. I wanted to elevate myself from an amateur copyeditor to a professional one. I shall continue copyediting, and finish what I set out to do. I have thus put my name back on the list. Rintrah 05:25, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Great to see you're back! I think there's really only one bit of advice that you might need from a professional like me because you're doing fine with the technical aspects of the job. Although we provide an invaluable service to mankind in helping people with inferior language skills present their ideas in a way that these are respected and heard, we are often only considered menial laborers and nitpickers. The first is an insult, but there is some truth in the latter; we have to be careful to not let our virtues and skills take too much control of our work and our lives, especially since our job is very exhausting even if we don't notice it (because we enjoy it). Trying to understand what somebody else meant and rephrasing it better without changing the content is perhaps one of the most difficult jobs in existence; in any case, the ability of humans to put themselves in another human's (or even other creature's) shoes is what distinguishes us most from animals and is the basis of all culture and humanity. --Espoo 22:34, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Logical quotes & other bogan type stuff

The advice on quotes, no worries. Given indirectly, yes, but the page history is the first place one looks when war in in progress, no? Might you ask me punctuation questions in future if you have any, certainly, and I shall give you answers if I have any. Your war has my blessing, give my regards to Asa01 and Petrus4. Good luck to you and Asa01 and may the best editor win. Jimp 23:47, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Concerning edits to Claymore (manga)

Okay, I've only just finished correcting Claire's name. It's not Claire, it's Clare. I have volume one of the manga, and I just noticed that error. Tomorrow, I'll start looking at sentences and see if I can correct them. Thanks for the help. Is it bad for me to just focus on Claymore only, and not the rest of the backlog? I feel guilty about that. Well, actually, I've copy-edited other articles, but not as much as Claymore. Oh, and is it okay if I answer or ask questions here? I've been pretty random lately, so I'll be switching from my page to here unexpectedly. Thanks, Kyo cat^{¿Qué tal?♥meow!} 04:27, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and thanks for welcoming Sasuke-kun. I laughed my butt off when you told him to get to work! Kyo cat^{¿Qué tal?♥meow!} 04:27, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

You may ask and answer questions here — I permit it. I do not have the manga, so I am liable to introduce errors — which you will probably clear up. Whether you focus on Claymore or the backlog is up to you. Claymore is on the backlog, so either choice is productive. Your keeness to work on both is very encouraging. Rintrah 07:12, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

RE:Muffin top

hey...thanks for agreeing with me. :-P have a great day! BTW, I suggest that you use the automatic archival by Werdnabot as your talk page is sooooooooo full....... :-p tc! kathzzzz® 07:42, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks!

Hi Rintrah! Thanks for signing my autograph book, I really apreciate it. By the way, do you copyedit, or does your dog do it for you? ;-) | AndonicO ^{Talk | Sign Here} 11:55, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Editor's comments on Claymore article

(My original comment and replies are here. Rintrah 16:35, 6 December 2006 (UTC))

Sir of Madame,

I reverted your edit to the "Claymore" page because your version was highly inferior in terms of grammar, composition, and just spacing in general. Of course it is possible that I am mistaken and accidentially re-edited or that it was edited multiple times rapidly, in which case I am sorry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.207.77.204 (talk • contribs) 10:53, 6 December 2006

Upon further inspection, it appears that this was the case. My appologies for causing you additional work; my intention however was the same as yours. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rintrah (talk • contribs) 16:05, 6 December 2006 (UTC).—Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.207.77.204 (talk • contribs) 10:53, 6 December 2006

Re: Random comment

Are you teasing me about not smoking? :)

My teacher instinct is still with me--I'm trying to be a good role model. :P IrisWings 20:13, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Or, rather, the fact that I would take time to edit "Chocolate milk" shows how pathetically limited my sphere of knowledge is. :D IrisWings 07:39, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Alas, no. Science is my bugbear. :P

Also, don't encourage me to sound more pretentious--it's already such a struggle to avoid doing so! O_o IrisWings 07:50, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid you're above me there--I know nothing about Latin. I'm just a prole with a better accent. IrisWings 08:00, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

lol, very true. Equality is one of the best and worst things about Wikipedia--anyone can add rubbish, but anyone (like us) can delete it. ^_^ IrisWings 08:16, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

When I taught, I cursed the "anyone can edit" policy, since some of my students enjoyed messing about with the articles and then showing me their "research." >_<

I appreciate it more now, though it does lead to a lot of problems. I would probably never have a chance to work here if there was a lengthy application process.

One policy I wish they would add is to lock articles once they are feature quality. I certainly wish I could lock the "Yaoi" article; all my hard work has gone for naught--someone even reverted my lovely IPA pronunciations. :/ IrisWings 08:26, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I'll concede editing by members of a certain rank would be preferable to my suggestion, but is it feasible? Except for administrators, are members arranged in a hierarchy? If so, how do I make it to the top? :P IrisWings 08:51, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

lol Thanks for the imagery. XD

I looked at your previous work on "Bilocate" before I touched it. :) I noticed the version in which Every Single Word Was Capitalized. That would have made me too angry to fix it.

How many of these articles that we're copyediting are likely to be deleted? Several of the short ones seem...not exactly noteworthy. IrisWings 09:04, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

*sigh* I guess that's just the way it goes. I've already seen an article that I actually thought was helpful get deleted (list of theatre terms), while silly articles about things no one ever heard of remain.

I actually think the list of fads could be really useful (to put on a campy 90s-revival play, for example), but it was horribly written before you got to it. Even now, I have doubts about the accuracy of a lot of the items. IrisWings 21:37, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

re

You're right...Its nice to have friends here on wikipedia... though I dont think I have one as I am not really active when it comes to contributing stuff..work really keeps me busy. Thanks by the way for being nice to me. Pls include me on those you refer to as friends. Have a great day! kathzzzz® 23:48, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi its me again.. I just wanna if you could help me how to know if a picture I saw on the net is free-licensed or a copyrighted one. Thanks! kathzzzz® 06:18, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Hey... How did u know Im really looking for free-licensed pics of Michael Jordan?? :-) Anyway, I checked the site's gallery that you recommended, at the bottom of every pic it says that no copyright information is available. It that okay to upload it here since the main page of the site says the pics are believed to be of public domain? Im really sorry for disturbing u and thanks so much for all the help! :-p kathzzzz® 00:08, 8 December 2006 (UTC)