Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 November 8

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November 8

Russian question

One article I saw referred to a "kareyenka" as being a Russian word for a "Korean woman" How is that written in cyrillic? WhisperToMe (talk) 01:35, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

"kareyenka" is a misspelling/mispronunciation. The correct word is "кореянка" (koreyanka); not to be confused with "корейка" (koreyka), which means "pork ribs". --Itinerant1 (talk) 01:59, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

(ec)According to Google Translate, "Korean" translates to "корейский", and "Korean woman" translates to "кореянка". Does that help? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:00, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

That helps. Thank you very much :)

WhisperToMe (talk) 03:09, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

To explain how you get to the approximate spelling "kareyenka", in Russian the stress is on the YA of "кореянка" (koreyanka), and thus the unstressed "ko" is pronounced "ka". --Xuxl (talk) 10:55, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

That's a reasonable approximation, yes. For people who can understand phonology-related articles, there's more complete info on this phenomenon at our page on Vowel reduction in Russian --Miskwito (talk) 15:31, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

In Russian, an unstressed "o" is reduced to "a" (akin to the "u" in "upon" or the "a"s in "America"), but it's perfectly fine and even strongly preferrable to keep it as "o" in transliterations - that's why Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Lermontov aren't known as "Talstoy", "Fyodar Dastayevsky" and "Lermantav". However, if you'd like a phonetic transcription to teach someone how to pronounce a Russian word like Russians do, "a" would be a nice option. --Theurgist (talk) 01:15, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

When I learned Russian (quite a few years ago...) I was taught that unstressed "о" is pronounced as "a" only when it came immediately before the stressed syllable, and otherwise is approximately a schwa. The word "хорошо" (good), which is stressed on the last syllable, was given an an example of a word containing all three variants of the pronunciation of "о" - huh-rah-sho. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 09:41, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

That's usually true, and transcriptions of those two appear on Wikipedia as [ɐ] and [ə] respectively (the "a"s in "America" are also schwas). But more or less exactly the same applies for ‹a›, as explained here: Vowel reduction in Russian#Back vowels. That's why ‹a› could be, and usually is, a common misspelling of any unstressed ‹о›, no matter its position in relation to the stress. --Theurgist (talk) 10:41, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I am a native Russian speaker and this is the first time I hear about this distinction. In my mind, the first two "о" in "хорошо" sound exactly the same. --Itinerant1 (talk) 03:16, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, maybe there could be something like that. It depends on the language variety, of course. I do sort of feel that the second "o" is somewhat more open than the first "o" listening to recordings by natives, but my intuition can't be fully reliable, because I'm just a learner of Russian. For the record, it says here (permlink) that "After hard (non-palatalized) consonants, both reduce to [ə] or [ɐ]; [ɐ] appears in the syllable immediately before the stress and in absolute word-initial position. Examples: паром [pɐˈrom] ('ferry'), облако [ˈobləkə] ('cloud'), трава [trɐˈva] ('grass')."

notes

Anyway, do you feel the first two vowels in each of the phrases, for example, "опознать облако" or "посолить яблоко" to be any different from each other and any different from the last two vowels in each phrase? --Theurgist (talk) 17:35, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I did some thinking and some googling. If I try to speak clearly at a normal pace, I would pronounce all unstressed a's and o's in "посолить яблоко" as [ʌ]. But, in a rapid speech, it is possible that most vowels will get reduced further, get shorter and become barely audible: "pъsalIt' jAblъkъ" where "ъ" is not exactly a schwa, it's just a very short, non-distinctive sound. There may be some geographical variations, too. I saw an article that described this two-level reduction pattern as one of the characteristic properties of Muscovite speech. --Itinerant1 (talk) 22:22, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

In fact, if you go to your link, you can hear the same phenomenon: the speaker 'quail' reduces the first 'o' all the way, the speaker 'Jewelin' reduces it somewhat, the other three speakers say 'hʌrʌʃO'. --Itinerant1 (talk) 23:24, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Plural or singular?

[A]By the government's own admission, as much as 20 percent of all chicken and 30 percent of turkey [is/are] contaminated.

[B]By the government's own admission, 20 percent of all chicken and 30 percent of turkey [is/are] contaminated.

[C]By the government's own admission, as much as 20 percent of all chicken [is/are] contaminated.

[D]By the government's own admission, 20 percent of all chicken [is/are] contaminated.

[E]By the company's own admission, as much as 20 percent of all the paperback novels and 30 percent of magazines [is/are] misprinted.

[F]By the company's own admission, 20 percent of all the paperback novels and 30 percent of magazines [is/are] misprinted.

[G]By the company's own admission, as much as 20 percent of all the paperback novels [is/are] misprinted.

[H]By the company's own admission, 20 percent of all the paperback novels [is/are] misprinted.

Which verb (is or are) would be the most appropriate for [A]~[H]? I'm certain that F and H are definitely [are], but I'm not so sure about the others. I thought the answer for A was [are], but my English teacher insists that the subject for the sentence is "much" and thus the answer should be [is]. I have no idea what he's talking about, and now I'm not so certain about the rest either. Help me? Johnnyboi7 (talk) 15:02, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Mass nouns and collective nouns are considered singular in American English, though I believe in British English it is more nuanced. Thus, if you are using the term "chicken" in the sense of "A bunch of chicken meat", you would say "The chicken is contaminated" or "40% of the chicken is contaminated", at least in American English. That's because American English almost always uses formal grammatical agreement; agreement between the subject and the verb in American English depends on the form of the word, not on the antecedent of the word. British English uses different conventions, so you may not have one set of rules which applies to all varieties of English. Also be careful with terms like "much" and "many". Much is a mass noun, and many is a plural noun. Thus, "much is" but "many are" is standard in American English. Again, British English may handle this differently. --Jayron32 15:17, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Jayron that the rules may differ between American and British English. I am not qualified to comment from a British English perspective, but for American English, A–D are all clearly singular, I think because of the "as much as" and because the nouns following "of all" are singular (even though there are two such nouns). F and H are plural, because, in the phrase "percent of x" (without a preceding "as much as"), the number of x (I think) effectively governs the number of the phrase. E and G are problematic. You will come across expressions like this. Intuitively, I'd say most speakers would use the plural, because they are used to basing the number on the number of the prepositional object in "percent" phrases. However, I think that these sentences are a bit substandard. In other words, while sentences like these occur, they do not conform to normative grammar. To be "correct", I think that you have to change "much" to "many" in E and G so that the number of this pronoun agrees with the plural of the governing prepositional object. Marco polo (talk) 16:00, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't think there is any difference in UK English. The confusion comes with words like "Norwich City", "Girls Aloud", and "the Cabinet" (a sort of "collective" specifically, not merely a mass nouns) which could all take either singular or plural. The much/many thing I feel Marco's right but cannot say. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 16:12, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, British English follows the rules on agreement of number just like American English. The only difference is where we assume an implied "members of" in some circumstances, and consequently use the plural when Americans insist on singular. We can say either "the team is ..." (team as a unit) or "the team are ..." (implying "members of the team"). Dbfirs 09:32, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

English English: [ABCD] "is", [EFGH] "are". "chicken" and "turkey" (as a type of meat) are singular, wherease novels and magazines are plural. Bazza (talk) 16:17, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Exactly the same results for American English: [ABCD] "is", [EFGH] "are". If your English teacher tells you that only "are" is correct in sentence [A], you need to get a new English teacher. Likewise if your English teacher is laboring under the delusion that the subject of sentence [A] is "much". Angr (talk) 16:35, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Not sure whether you noticed, but the OP only asserted that his teacher thought the subject was "much" - the teacher thought the answer was "is". Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 16:38, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Oops, you're right. So his teacher is only half as unqualified as I thought. Sorry about that! Angr (talk) 16:50, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

You could say "20% of chickens are contaminated", or "20% of chicken is contaminated". The former would refer to the birds; the latter to the meat. And as with chickens, so also with novels: the noun is plural. 156.99.40.14 (talk) 20:21, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

pronouns.

I've got another one for you.

[a]He ran up the ladder => He ran it up/ He ran up it.

[b]He passed by the house => He passed by it/ He passed it by.

Which form is correct? I thought the answer should be the latter for [a], and both for [b], and those are the answers that sound natural to me, but something about the grammatical rule "the pronoun must come between the verb and the adverb (ex: turn the volume down => turn it down)" tells me I'm wrong. Can anyone enlighten me? thanks. Johnnyboi7 (talk) 15:08, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

In (a) (at least in standard American English), "He ran up it" means he, himself, climbed the ladder, while "He ran it up" usually means he sent another object up the ladder. In (b), both forms are acceptable, but the first sounds more natural, the second has a more poetic feeling to it. I believe the interchangability of (b) and the noninterchangability of (a) has to do with the difference between the words "by" and "up" in some way, but I'm having troubly putting my finger on the distinction here. --Jayron32 15:22, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

To "pass by" and to "run up" are somewhat idiomatic expressions, and in those cases the second words are particles rather than prepositions, which means the pronoun comes in between them. Thus, when you say "He passed it by" you are using the verb pass by and are saying something different than when you say "He passed by it" (in which case you are using the verb pass and also a prepositional phrase). Likewise for "He ran it up" (the verb is run up) versus "He ran up it" (the verb is run, and there's a prepositional phrase). rʨanaɢ (talk) 15:27, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

See also phrasal verbs. Textorus (talk) 15:37, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Rjanag's answer is correct, but I want to point out the key issue: With particle verbs, which include a separable adverb (or particle) that is really an integral part of the verb, the adverb/particle comes after any pronouns used as objects of the verb. However, some words that serve as particles/adverbs can also be used as prepositions, sometimes after the same verb that they may follow (with a different meaning) as a particle/adverb. Up and by are both words that can serve as either prepositions or as adverbs/particles, sometimes after the same verb. When they are working as adverbs/particles, they follow a pronoun used as an object. When they are working as prepositions, they precede a pronoun forming the object of the preposition. An example of this is point out. I have just pointed out a feature of English grammar. I have pointed it out. I am now pointing out the window at the airplane. I am pointing out it at the airplane. See the difference? Marco polo (talk) 16:14, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't entirely agree with either Rjanag or Marco Polo. I agree that "pass by" is a phrasal verb, which licences "passed it by" (though "pass by" doesn't often take an object). But "run up" is not a phrasal verb in this sense (it is in other senses, meaning "arrive", "incur a series of expenses", and "quickly make something by sewing"), so "He ran it up" is for me impossible in this sense. The other form "ran up it" doesn't involve a phrasal verb . --ColinFine (talk) 00:19, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

"Ran it up" works for me -- "How did the score get so high?"/"They ran it up". Although I'm not sure if it works for me in the sense of 'to run something up a flagpole', so in that case maybe it is non-phrasal and just "run" has a different sense than 'going for a run'. rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:46, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

The phrase "he ran it up" gives me the image of him selling a ladder and entering the price on a till. This could be Idiomatic UK English from several decades ago, when I worked in a shop as a student to "ring something up" meant to enter it on the till. -- Q Chris (talk) 16:11, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

More Chinese help

There is a complex in Chinatown, Philadelphia called "Hing Wah Yuen" - The meaning is "Prosperous Chinese Garden" according to an NYT article - But I haven't been able to determine which Chinese characters make up the Chinese name.

What would the corresponding characters be?

I imagine that some of the characters could include be:

• 華 (hua "Chinese" or "magnificent/splendid/flowery"), 園(yuan "park"), and/or 花園(huayuan "garden")

WhisperToMe (talk) 17:23, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

It is most likely 新華苑 which means "New Chinese Garden". -- kainaw™ 19:47, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I'll check google searches and see if there is confirmation that "Hing Wah Yuen" is the name stated. Thanks! WhisperToMe (talk) 20:27, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Also, in the case of Yick Wo - The characters are 益和 - The first is Yì - How would the second be read?

The choices are:

• Hé
• hú
• huó
• huò

Thanks, WhisperToMe (talk) 20:03, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

As a name, it would be Hé. -- kainaw™ 20:22, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! WhisperToMe (talk) 20:27, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

One more question: What are the Chinese characters seen in this picture? http://static3.echalk.net/www/factschool_school/site/layout/FACTS_SPRINGFEVER_01.jpg Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 21:48, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Also, with Cantonese:

• In 信德中心

Which "zung" (中) is it? WhisperToMe (talk) 22:35, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

It should be 兴华园/苑/院, if "Hing Wah Yuen" means "Prosperous Chinese Garden". 新 xin /New is not supposed to writen as "Hing" in any dialects. The initials of 新 and 兴 in old Chinese are different, roughly, 新 s but 兴 h. And the finals -in and -ing are also different though some dialects confuse them. The Chinese characters in picture are 民[间]艺[术]学校=folk art school in clerical script, in right to left, top to bottom order. --刻意(Kèyì) 22:52, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

"興華園", google "民藝學校 費城" (Prosper China Garden, Philadelphia), and it'll come up in actual Chinese links referencing this urban development project. user:刻意 is also correct, depends on if you use traditional or simplified (Mainland Chinese). Tendancer (talk) 23:57, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! It makes sense, as I am seeing the hits! The first character has two Cantonese readings - "hing1, hing3" - Which one should I use? WhisperToMe (talk) 01:29, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

BTW, what is one of the Chinese characters in http://static3.echalk.net/www/factschool_school/site/layout/FACTS_SPRINGFEVER_01.jpg ? - It seems like three are 民藝學校 - With the ? I can't tell which one it is... WhisperToMe (talk) 01:29, 9 November 2011 (UTC) - I think I found it - it's 民藝學校 WhisperToMe (talk) 03:36, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

A new who/whom dilemma

I am a grammarian, and completely understand the rules of using who and whom. However, I read something in a book a while ago that rocked me to my core: "I'm going to kill whoever drank the rest of my cherry Kool-Aid!". (You don't need to know the context...) I was about to criticize it for not using whom but then I realized: not only is it the object of kill, it's also the subject for drank! So which part of the sentence takes precedence? I lean towards whom, but I'm probably wrong. Interchangeable|talk to me 23:58, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Whoever is correct. The whole clause "whoever drank the rest of my cherry Kool-Aid", not the pronoun itself, is the object of kill. Whoever functions as the subject in that clause, so it should be in the subjective case. Deor (talk) 00:04, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

You're half right. The subject of the relative clause is "whoever". The object of the verb kill is NOT "whoever", but an invisible pronoun ("him" or "her"), which is qualified by the relative clause "whoever drank the rest of my cherry Kool-Aid". "Whomever" is therefore incorrect. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 00:10, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

No, Dominus, I was wholly right. The clause introduced by whoever is a noun clause, not a relative clause, and there's no "invisible pronoun". Deor (talk) 00:32, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't responding to you about being half right. I was responding to the OP. And calling the relative clause a "noun clause" is not really correct. The noun clause would be: "(him or her) who drank the rest of my my cherry Kool-Aid". The objective case pronoun can be elided in English. Compare to German, in which the pronoun cannot be elided. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 00:45, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Compare this with "I'm going to kill him who drank the rest of my cherry Kool-Aid!" (not "I'm going to kill he who drank the rest of my cherry Kool-Aid!"). -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 00:15, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

True, although you'd be surprised how often people misquote John 8:7 as Let he [sic] who is without sin cast the first stone. Angr (talk) 07:22, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I can't find any English translation of the Bible with the exact phrase "without sin cast the first stone". Is this another mass-misremembering? 75.41.110.200 (talk) 16:06, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

No, you remember it right. I get more than five million Google hits with the whole phrase in quotes. You must have made a typo someplace. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 16:11, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

But how many of those five million Google hits are direct quotes from a Bible translation? The KJV says, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her"; the NASB says, "He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her"; the NRSV says, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her". More translations here, none of which has the exact phrase "without sin cast the first stone". I think there's a difference between the popular saying and the precise Bible story it's based on. Angr (talk) 16:29, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Update: The Geneva Bible and Bishops' Bible say, "Let him that is among you without sin, cast the first stone at her", so those two do have the exact phrase. 75.41 may not have found it because those two translations are usually quoted in the original archaic spelling, i.e. sinne for sin and (in the Bishops' Bible) caste for cast. Angr (talk) 22:37, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

For me as a native speaker of German it's easy because the distinction, while nearly obsolete in English, is still very much alive in German and works exactly the same way as it did traditionally in English. (The only difference I know is that in English, "I saw someone interesting yesterday." -- "Whom?" is not grammatical. I found this example here.) It's a clear case of "whoever" being correct because the object of the main sentence is the entire relative clause, not just its pronoun. (Of course the object could theoretically be the relative pronoun instead, as seems to be the case in some other languages.) For my ears it's almost always OK when people use "who" where traditional grammar requires "whom", but when people do it the other way round it sounds terribly wrong to me. Your example sentence is one of a type where this error is made so often that it has a good chance of becoming a new grammatical rule. See [1] for more. Hans Adler 16:40, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe that you are correct in that respect. Whom is correct. What is understood after it is "Whom (did you see yesterday)?" Your answer would be "I saw him yesterday", so you use whom. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.22.163.154 (talk) 17:03, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Wrong, according to traditional grammar. Just look it up or follow any of my links above to Language Log. You would once have been able to say "I'm going to kill him [object] who [subject] drank the rest of my cherry Kool-Aid". If you replace "him who" by a single relative pronoun, it is treated as the subject of the relative clause, not as the object of the main clause. In other words, the structure is conceived of as "I'm going to kill (whoever drank the rest of my cherry Kool-Aid)" rather than ""(I'm going to kill whomever) drank the rest of my cherry Kool-Aid". Hans Adler 01:45, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
I may have misunderstood 142.*'s comment. See below. Hans Adler 23:54, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I beg to differ, Hans. I am a native speaker of American English and quite competent in usage and style. Any descriptive linguist would agree that those qualifications suffice to justify my asserting that there is nothing wrong with your intuition that it is perfectly acceptable to formulate one's query as "Whom?" when seeking disambiguation in the face of the statement "I saw someone interesting today." I respect Arnold Zwicky, the author of the log entry you cite, but his assertion strikes me as far too prescriptive, especially given its counterintuitive nature.—PaulTanenbaum (talk) 23:06, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I think you are referring to my parenthetical remark "The only difference I know [...]". What you say confirms my own intuition on this, so I am inclined to believe I was too ready to believe the expert in this case. But this was only a minor distraction from my main point anyway. -- And now I see that 142.* may also have been referring to that parenthetical remark. I first understood the IP as saying that "I'm going to kill him whomever drank the rest of my cherry Kool-Aid" is correct, and this is why I responded the way I did. Hans Adler 23:54, 11 November 2011 (UTC)