Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 September 6

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September 6

French gerund

In French gerunds are in the form 'en [participle]', i.e., 'en donnant' for the gerund of 'donner'. How are these used? For this example, would we say 'L'en donnant des cadeaux' for 'the giving of gifts'? Thanks. 76.229.214.25 (talk) 00:30, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

No, in that case you just use the infinitive as a noun, "le donner de cadeaux" (although sometimes there is already a noun derived from the verb, like here I think "le don de cadeaux" is more correct). "En donnant cadeaux" would mean "while giving gifts" or "by giving gifts". Adam Bishop (talk) 00:38, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

"En donnant cadeaux" is a subordinate clause, and needs to be attached to a main clause... AnonMoos (talk) 03:57, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

The upcoming Hebrew year

The Hebrew calendar year 5771 begins this week. If I understand correctly, the year will be written תשעא in Hebrew numerals. How is that pronounced? Tasha'a? Thanks -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:49, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Most of the Hebrew speakers would simply say: "tav shin 'ayin aleph". If you insist on pronouncing it as one word, you will say "tash'a" (note that I've used here the sign ' for denoting the consonant 'ayin). Eliko (talk) 01:29, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

So would 5770 and 5771 have the same pronunciation if spoken as words? -- Mwalcoff (talk) 02:28, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

In formal pronunciation there would probably be a syllable-break difference: ta-sha vs. tash-a... AnonMoos (talk) 03:46, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

It depend on whether you know to pronounce correcly the 'ayin, as a different consonant from aleph. Most of the Hebrew speakers know how to pronounce the 'ayin correctly, though not using this pronunciation in everyday life, so if a Hebrew speaker doesn't say tav shin 'ayin aleph, then they will probably say tash'a, while pronouncing the 'ayin correctly (see our correspondent articles about both consonants and about their correct pronunciation). I personally pronounce 5770: tesha' (i.e. tehsha' ), because the acronym of 5770 (as one word) is an existent Hebrew word pronounced tehsha' (that means: nine), and I pronounce 5771: tav shin 'ayin aleph, like most of the Hebrew speakers. If I had to pronounce 5771 as one word, I would probably pronounce it: tash'a, which is not only different from tesha' (the way I pronounce 5770) but is also different from: tasha' (the way you suggest for pronouncing it). If you both pronounce 'ayin like aleph, and also want to pronounce the year as one word, and you don't want to pronounce 5770 as I pronounce it (i.e. tesha' ), then you will probably have to adopt AnonMoos's suggestion, but I never heard people say tash-a (i.e. not tash-'a but rather tash-a). Eliko (talk) 10:09, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Eliko -- insofar as the aleph א and ayin ע consonants have any realization in mainstream non-Sephardizing non-archaizing modern Israeli Hebrew pronunciation, it pretty much comes down to changing the syllable breaks. I don't know about year gematria acronymic pronunciations, but in more ordinary words, the difference in pronunciation between לירות ("liras/pounds" or "to shoot") and לראות ("to see") is [li-rot] vs. [lir-ot]. Of course, even this distinction can disappear in casual pronunciation... AnonMoos (talk) 16:59, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

AnonMoos -- you're absolutely correct as far as "lir-ot" is concerned. However most of the Hebrew speakers, who really don't use the correct 'ayin in everyday life (although a considerable minority may use it in their everyday life), would try to pronounce the 'ayin whenever pronouncing it like aleph may bring about a misundersanding, e.g. in: "I'm destitute", for making a distinction between ani ("I'm") and 'ani ("destitute"). They may say ani for both "I" and "destitute", when no misunderstanding may arise (e.g. in: "I saw a wretch"). With regard to the 5771st year, they may say: tash'a, or even tash-'a (if not: tav shin 'ayin aleph), but I've never heard tash-a, probably beacuse tash-'a is clearer (most of the speakers being able to pronounce the 'ayin correctly), and because tav shin 'ayin aleph is much more common. Eliko (talk) 19:57, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

So what is the "proper pronunciation of ayin?" In Hebrew School in the U.S., we were told that both aleph and ayin are "silent letters." -- Mwalcoff (talk) 20:33, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Hear. Eliko (talk) 10:51, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like a French "r." Certainly nothing like I was taught. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:30, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

No. Hear the French r (which is identical to the r in Modern Hebrew), and now listen again to the Hebrew 'ayin. Eliko (talk) 08:17, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

French Language learning

OK I know I should be studying instead of hanging around here, so let me ask this quick question then get out of your hair. My school recently lost the French program :( I've already had 4 years and I want to continue learning French on my own, but obviously I won't have many contexts to actually have a spoken conversation. My best resources are limited to recordings of native speakers talking (via the internet and the library) and to other French-speakers on Facebook/chat where I can type out conversations. What would be the best way for me to continue my French education without spending any money? 76.230.209.53 (talk) 01:55, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Get Skype so you can have real conversations with your heretofore online friends. Read a lot—that's my advice for building vocabulary in any language. Lastly, look for a local French society. Even Milwaukee has its French Alliance. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 02:13, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

There must be web sites intended for the use of people learning French, where among other things they can ask questions. Use Google..... Michael Hardy (talk) 06:33, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

RFI have free podcasts on their website on a huge variety of different subjects, including all their news bulletins. They have a Journal Français Facile podcast which comes with a transcript, this might be too easy for you though. Tinfoilcat (talk) 10:35, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

This might interest you, [1] . Rishi.bedi (talk) 19:11, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

communication

what is impression management in non-verbal communication?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tapyboi (talk • contribs) 06:12, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

See Impression management -- Q Chris (talk) 10:30, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

give up, etc.

To give up does not mean to donate in a vertical direction. To set out to do something does not mean to place things in an external location. Etc. The English language has lots of phrasal verbs of the kind that consist of a verb followed by a small word that in other contexts may usually be used as either a preposition, an adverb, or a conjunction. In some cases it matters whether the latter word comes before or after the object of the verb; e.g. "I see through him" does not mean the same thing as "I see him through". And then there are cases like "I overlooked it" and "I looked it over".

Two questions:

• Is there a list of such verbs somewhere? On the internet or in a book?
• Is this a result of the Germanic roots of English? In particular, is it really the same phenomenon that manifests itself in the form of verbs with separable prefixes in German?

Michael Hardy (talk) 06:39, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Regarding your first question, in the "external links" section of our article on phrasal verbs there are some links which seem to be lists of phrasal verbs, although I can't vouch for their completeness. Maybe one of them will help you? — QuantumEleven 07:16, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Some books I happen to have include "A Dictionary of Idioms for the Deaf" (ISBN 0-8120-0613-5) and "English Verbal Idioms" by Frederick T. Ward (ISBN 0-671-47894-X ??). As for the historical linguistics question, English has two residues of the ancient Indo-European adverbial / adpositional modifying verb construction: Where the preposition is compounded as a prefix to the verb ("to understand"), and where it's a separate word after the verb ("to give up")... AnonMoos (talk) 17:10, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

The word "up" is sometimes used a a preposition ("He went up the ladder") but in "give up", I don't think it makes sense to call it a preposition. Wikipedia's article on phrasal verbs does say that things like "give up" are related to German separable prefixes. Michael Hardy (talk) 00:52, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

"I see through him" is not exactly a phrasal verb like "look up", "call up", etc. For true phrasal verbs, a pronoun can't follow the particle (c.f. "*look up him" vs. "*look up his number", "*call up her" vs. "call up her roommate", etc.). Also, in phrasal verbs the particle is not actually a preposition and doesn't contribute much semantically to the verb, whereas in "see through" there is definitely some semantic contribution of the "through". rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:15, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Osmosis

What, if anything, is the verb form of "osmosis"? Osmose? Osmote? Osmosize? And if there is no verb form, why the bleep not? 71.104.106.143 (talk) 07:16, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Wiktionary has osmose Rojomoke (talk) 07:21, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. 71.104.106.143 (talk) 07:35, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

"Osmose" definitely feels like a back-formation (in particular, there's a mild desire to laugh at it. Back-formations do that. I remember how hilarious an Arab thought it was when I told him the etymology of the Swahili word darasa.). Is it? Michael Hardy (talk) 17:11, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Have no idea on that, but one often-repeated example is that English "keep left" was supposedly borrowed into Swahili as kipilefiti "traffic sign", and the ki- interpreted as a class prefix, giving the plural vipilefiti... AnonMoos (talk) 17:22, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

If you understand ki- and vi- in Swahili, then you might appreciate this one: the plural of "darasa" (classroom) is "madarasa", from the Arabic "madrassa". Michael Hardy (talk) 00:49, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Osmose is actually the older word; it was originally a noun, then turned into a verb, while the noun changed to "osmosis". Lexicografía (talk) 17:58, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Why is "Jew boy" considered derogatory?

It is perfectly acceptable to refer to a boy who is Christian as a Christian boy, a boy who is a Muslim faith as a Muslim boy, and the same for most other religions. Why is it considered offensive to refer to a boy who is a Jew as a Jew boy? Is it the history of usage or is there an alternative meaning? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.38.213.226 (talk) 07:22, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Why is "Democrat Party" considered derogatory? -- AnonMoos (talk) 08:42, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

It's considered offensive because it's intended to be offensive, regardless of the claims of the speakers notwithstanding. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 20:31, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

The adjective form of the noun "Jew" is "Jewish," and there's nothing at all wrong with referring to a boy who is a Jew as a Jewish boy. "Jew boy" has historically been used as a taunt or insult. 71.104.106.143 (talk) 07:34, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Consider, although they do not have the same history colouring them, "Christianity boy" and "Islam boy". While they lack the powerful feeling of having been used despicably in the past, they still have less dignity and more of a derogatory feel than "Christian boy" and "Muslim boy". 86.164.78.91 (talk) 14:57, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Those would correspond to "Judaism boy," surely. And actually I think they sound like superheroes. The difference between "Jew boy" and "Muslim boy" is that Muslim is definitely a noun adjunct, and Jew might not be, since there exists the adjective Jewish. Calling somebody by an unexpected noun often sounds like an insult, desk-reader. 81.131.68.139 (talk) 16:06, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with 71.104.106.143. AnonMoos points to a parallel in American politics. "Democrat" is a noun ("I am a Democrat," as in, "a member of the party") but is often used as an adjective where Democrats themselves would use "Democratic" ("the Democrat Party" rather than "the Democratic Party"). Former Senator Bob "Democrat Wars" Dole, always adept with the rhetorical shiv, enjoyed both the usage and the reaction of his more easily-riled opponents.

When the people being discussed wouldn't use the same label, and when the one using it leaqps quickly onto the High Horse of Disingenuousness ("Isn't the boy a Jew? Isn't the senator a Democrat?"), there's more going on than simply description. --- OtherDave (talk) 16:14, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

"Jew boy" has often been used as an insult, and is not often used in any other sense, so it is insulting. A Jewish mother would more likely refer to her son as a "Jewish boy," or "Steve." It isn't insulting because of the grammar- it's insulting simply because the people who use it are using it as an insult. In the same way, no one uses "Democrat Party" except Republicans who are trying to be insulting, and so it is insulting. The insult is in the intent, and in the most common usage. Black Boy, which is neutral when referring to a child but insulting when referring to an adult, is a pretty good novel. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 18:03, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Hmmmm...I've lived in US all my life and never realized that "Democrat Party" is considered derogatory. Of course, I never heard of "kike" until that Michael Jackson song. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:12, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Being oblivious to the meaning of insults is not necessarily a bad thing. :) Republicans say "Democrat Party" to imply that the Democrats don't believe in "democracy", while the G.O.P. supposedly does. (G.O.P. stands for "Grand Old Party", but Pat Paulsen said it stood for "Group of Old People"). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:37, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Early documented usage in English was already derogatory, according to M.E. Sharpe, An Encyclopedia of Swearing: The Social History of Oaths, Profanity, Foul Language, and Ethnic Slurs in the English-Speaking World, 2006 - Language Arts & Disciplines, page 270:

"The literal origin of jew boy is explained in a British Police document of 1796. ”Jew boys Boys . . . go out every morning loaded with counterfeit copper, which they exchange for bad silver, to be afterwards coloured anew, and again put into a circulation.“ Within a few decades the term was used offensively of grown-ups. The sense that the Jews were ”different“ or ”alien“ is shown in the considerable number of compounds such as Jew-butcher, Jew-physician, Jew-pedlar, and Jew-fencer (buyer or seller, generally of stolen goods)." ---Sluzzelin talk 18:31, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Note: I mistakenly spelled "boy" with a minuscule initial letter. The text I was quoting has "Jew Boys", and so do other quotes of this document I found. I'm pointing this out because the capitalization might be evidence that it is indeed used as a label, not as a synonym for "Jewish boys". ---Sluzzelin talk 07:51, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

As a rule, referring to any adult male as a 'boy' will be considered insulting, regardless of race, because it implies that the person should (for some reason) be treated as incompetent and irresponsible, without the consideration and respect that adults receive. Adding a racial qualifier of any sort only serves to imply that the man in question should be treated as a child because he belongs to that race, which is an inherent racial slur. the same is true of 'girl', of course, but most societies are historically less sensitive about asserting that women should be treated as children (see patriarchy). --Ludwigs2 18:54, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Ludwigs2: I don't know where you live, but here in the US it's common for women 18 and over to be referred to as girls in casual settings and not considered offensive or to mean they should be treated as children. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:12, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

In America, notably in the south, white men often refer to other white men as "boy", and it's considered folksy and friendly; but calling a black man "boy" (especially with a certain tone of voice) is highly insulting. Likewise, across America, women often refer to each other as "girl", while men have largely gotten away from that except in certain contexts that are considered safe. "Girlfriend" and "boyfriend" are still in common usage regardless of age. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:34, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Even "man" isn't used a lot in informal contexts. People tend to use "guy" instead. I'm in the midwest US. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:38, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Guys and gals. Informally, I think I hear "man" more often as part of an exclamation than anything else, like, "Oh, man!" or "Hey, man!" (much the way "dude" was used before it took on a more specific implication). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:51, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

"parashah" + "portion" etymology

Is there an etymological link between these two similar-sounding and similar-meaning words? ╟─TreasuryTag►estoppel─╢ 12:04, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

According to Wiktionary Portion traces back to a (similar) Latin word, which strongly suggests it's Indo-European. Parashah seems to have a long history as a Hebrew word (predating the Greek and later Roman hegemony over the region), and there is an evidently cognate Pasha in Arabic, another Semitic (i.e. not Indo-European) language, suggesting this is unlikely to be an IE->Semitic loanword. Such resemblances in sound and meaning between two words in unrelated languages are statistically likely to crop up occasionally. However, a definitive answer would require the input of a knowlegeable historical linguist. (87.81 posting from . . .) 87.82.229.195 (talk) 13:02, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

The word "Portion" didn't even have a "sh" or [š] sound until relatively recent centuries. In French, it had an [s] sound, in early medieval French or Late Vulgar Latin it had a [ts] sound, while in classical Latin it had a [t] sound. Also, Hebrew etymologies proceed by triconsonantal roots, except in certain out-of-the-norm cases (loanwords, etc.), so the basis of parasha is actually p-r-sh... AnonMoos (talk) 16:35, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Looking for a Spanish word

I've been trying to find a word in Spanish that has the same shades of meaning as English "run". I.e. running, and perhaps (but not necessarily) running away. Do any of y'all know of such a word? Lexicografía (talk) 12:10, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean a single verb that is used in all the different ways that "run" is used in English? Or just a subset? Because "run" is pretty diverse:[2] It comes from old English, and the common ground of all of the usages is the idea of "flowing", as with a stream or river. My Spanish/English dictionary has a full page of different words that relate to the English "run". Correr, "to run", seems to be a fairly diverse word in Spanish, and its root connection to English words like "courier" and "course" seem fairly obvious. However, to run something in the sense of managing a business are terms like dirigir (to direct, also cognate with "dirigible") and administrar. Likewise, idioms such as "run away (from)" don't use those terms, they use more specific terms, such as fugarse (de) (obvious cognate with "fugitive") and evadir (obvious cognate with "evade"). You can also use correr and fluir for "to flow". I don't think there's a single word that answers your question, but the family under correr might be the closest. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:21, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Note that there are no phrasal verbs in Spanish (or if there are, they are tiny exceptions). English creates lots of verbs from a core verb and prepositions, Spanish uses instead a huge number of different verbs, each one with its own specific meaning. MBelgrano (talk) 20:38, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. You can go back to the old English root and see what the original usage was, and the subsequent diverse usages can generally be tied together. And of course we use both approaches in English, it being a hodge-podge of Latin-based and Germanic-based words. We "run" things or we "direct" things or we "administer" things. How foreigners ever figure out how to speak English, without going crazy in the process, is a wonder. I noted with some amusement that the book translated "to run well" as ir bien. That literally means "to go well". I wonder if the languages arrived at that expression independently, or if one borrowed from the other. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:44, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

No, not all of English "run"'s senses, just those two. I found "huir" but it doesn't seem to have the sense of merely running, and not running away. Lexicografía (talk) 21:29, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

According to this[3] huir is derived from the Latin fugere, probably via another route than the one that created fugarse. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:38, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

How go languages deal with template messages?

It is quite common for software systems to provide templates for messages, which have parameters.For example a template might say:

Dear ${title} ${surname}
Thank you for your order. Since you have specified that you want to collect the order from a nearby
store, it will be sent to our ${storename} store, the closest to ${address.town}. Please let us know if 
we can assist you or ${spouse-title} ${surname} in the future....

The idea is that a different template could be used for different languages, but the parameters stay the same. Someone pointed out to me that in some languages verbs, etc. change ending depending on the gender of the person, and in others the name ending itself may change depending on the context in the sentence. Is there a way of wording template translations in these languages to avoid this sort of problem? Is it something that people are used to computers "getting wrong" where the language has these additional changes? -- Q Chris (talk) 14:07, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Article is Mail merge, but it doesn't seem to have directly useful info or pointers... AnonMoos (talk) 16:28, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I would imagine that, when someone creates a Chinese (for example) version of this template, he would have to add a new parameter specifying the gender of the recipient, and that parameter would control the way the pronouns are displayed. As for things like discourse factors you mention, that shouldn't be a problem, since the actual translation from one language to another would have been done by a human and thus any discourse-critical stuff would already be hard-coded into the wording of the template; the only stuff that's variable is stuff linked to the names in the parameters. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:45, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Chinese, being an isolating language, is easy. The thing is that in order to make it work correctly for inflected languages, the database of recipients would have to contain the complete declension of their names (or at least, some indication of the declension paradigm), and the template would have to do stuff like "Dear ${title-vocative} ${surname-vocative}" and "we can assist you or ${spouse-title-dative} ${surname-spouse-dative}". Sounds like lot of hassle, and like something which could not be readily used for several languages simultaneously. I don't know how they actually do it in practice.—Emil J. 17:04, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

(Yeah, Chinese [traditional] was just the first example I could think of in which the pronouns in question have different variants for genders. For other languages, of course, there are other issues to consider.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:21, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

In Finland the usual approach is to word the text so that declined word forms are not necessary. Basically, names are used only to say "Dear {recipient}". It helps that Finnish doesn't have a special vocative form for names. It would probably be too much effort to have data entry clerks enter declined forms of names in any case. 130.188.8.11 (talk) 08:41, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

An approach that has been used (can't remember where; Perl?) is to use functions. Bear with me here, because I don't know any languages where this applies, but consider:

$name, you can $KOREAN_GENDER($gender, collecto, collecta) the goods on Monday.

The function $KOREAN_GENDER would use "collecto" if $gender equals "male" and "collecta" if "female", so you'd get

John, you can collecto the goods on Monday.
Laura, you can collecta the goods on Monday.

As the name indicates, this function $KOREAN_GENDER would be language-specific.

83.81.60.233 (talk) 17:24, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

What is a hyponym to another hyponym?

Dear Wikipedians! I have a problem in my English class... I've been explained the relationship of hypernyms and hyponyms, but a nuisance of a nuance attempted to avoid my focus! What, pray tell me, is a hyponym to another hyponym? Such as... I wouldn't know, "teal" to "aurora", under their hypernym "blue"? If the colours are slightly unlike each other, nevermind please! What I know is they -may- by some stretch be synonyms, but I am more concerned with a hyponym-to-hyponym relationship. Is there a term coined for this yet? If not, can I please get to name it? Badassinym, they would be called. Much obliged for any answer! 88.90.16.109 (talk) 19:28, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

According to the article WordNet, they're "coordinate terms". That's a bit of jargon unique to the context of WordNet, though, I think. Badassinym still has a chance to take root. 213.122.12.95 (talk) 20:30, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

We use "coordinate term" on Wiktionary too. —Internoob (Talk · Cont · Wikt) 22:53, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

If you want to be specific on the fact that there are exactly 2 levels of hyponymy between them, we could coin the phrases grand-hyponym and grand-hypernyms, based on grand daughter / grand-father etc. --Lgriot (talk) 08:07, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Chinese phrase - what is a proper translation?

What is the specific meaning of the phrase 自有永有. The best I can come up with is "perpetual self possession," but I'm sure this is incorrect. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 22:01, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't know the best English way to translate it, but what it seems to mean is basically "innate"--自有 means something is innate and 永有 means it always will be that way. For instance, God's line "I am what I am" from the Old Testament is translated as "我是自有永有的" (I am 自有永有). This search on baidu zhidao (like Yahoo Answers for China) turns up a lot of uses of the term, including one explanation that basically describes it as "something that just is, and will never change, like 2+2=4". rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:52, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

That's very interesting. As a Korean, it's easy to reach the wrong conclusion: in Korean it means "To have freedom forever." I guess it's totally different in Chinese. --Kjoonlee 08:33, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Hm...in [old] Chinese that might be 自由永有? Almost the same but not quite. rʨanaɢ (talk) 18:29, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

It might help if I told you the context in which the phrase was used. The Chinese history forum I belong to has an "off topic" area where anything can be discussed. One member posted an online article about Stephen Hawking's new book where he claims God was not needed to create the universe. I posted that, as an atheist, I am always interested to hear about the most current scientific theory on the subject. Another member posted that my comment "hinted even atheists can not avoid 自有永有." The member is a polite intellectual, so I doubt it was directed in anger. I just want to make sure I have a firm grasp on his implied meaning meaning I reply. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 18:42, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Eeeeek! I take it back. I didn't know the correct spelling for 自由. Please ignore what I wrote above. Thanks. --Kjoonlee 13:53, 9 September 2010 (UTC)