Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 November 21

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November 21

Copy Editing Guidelines

I wanted to know the basic copyediting guidelines which will make my article stronger without any grammer mistakes. I want to know what punctuations to use, where and when. What small mistakes can be avoided and make the article a good copy which can be published.... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.115.222.123 (talk) 06:35, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Here's a web link to the "General Writing" page Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL).Consider subscribing to the highly active Copyediting List ("CE-L") online forum of English-language editors, where you can lurk and also ask particular queries. Note that copy editing basically covers correct word usage, spelling, and grammar at the sentence level. Unless you're talking about self-publishing, a publisher will generally employ a proofreader to catch typos, punctuation and capitalization, etc. and correct these before the material goes to press. However, the matter of "good copy" that's suitable for publishing may require general editing and even rewriting. For this, I highly recommend a book by William Zinsser,On Writing Well, that deals with non-fiction, especially magazine articles. -- Deborahjay (talk) 07:09, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Diabetes

How does the humorous pronunciation "diabeetus" differ from the regular pronunciation of "diabetes"? --Komischn (talk) 09:22, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

The other pronunciation is "diabeeteez". But "diabeetus" is also a regular pronunciation, it's not meant to be humourous. I'm not sure why it is seen that way...maybe because that's how Wilford Brimley says it, and he's a funny guy? Pauline Chan, a health reporter for CTV in Canada, also says it like that. Adam Bishop (talk) 09:26, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Know Your Meme discusses it here. Dismas|^(talk) 11:55, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

KYM refers to it as a "mispronunciation" but it isn't. I do think it's a rather old-fashioned pronunciation though, and kids find it amusing to make fun of old folks' pronunciations that are different from their own. Kenyon and Knott lists the "diabeetus" pronunciation first and the "diabeeteez" pronunciation second, but that's a pretty old dictionary with many pronunciations that are now out of date. John C. Wells in the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, 3rd edition (2008) lists "diabeeteez" first for British English, but for American English actually lists "diabeetus" first. But he's British himself and isn't always aware of how American English has changed over the years. Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:01, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

However, I observe we're not really answering the OP's question, namely how the two pronunciations differ. If you go to [1] and click on the loudspeaker icon you can here a pronunciation of the "diabeeteez" pronunciation (in IPA, [daɪəˈbiːtiːz]) and if you go to [2] and click on the loudspeaker icon you can here a pronunciation of the word "Epictetus", which rhymes with the "diabeetus" pronunciation (in IPA [daɪəˈbiːtəs]). You just have to mentally replace the "Epict-" part with "diab-". Since you (OP) are German, you may have trouble hearing the difference between /z/ and /s/ at the end of a word, but you should definitely be able to hear the difference between the /iː/ and the /ə/ in the last syllable. Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:30, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you all. --Komischn (talk) 04:02, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Ambiguously parsed sentence

There is a well-known Finnish poem starting with:

Olen unessa useasti sinun kaduillas', koulutie

meaning literally "I am in my sleep often on your streets, school-way". The intended meaning is "I often dream of walking on your streets, school-way", but schoolchildren discovered fairly early that it can also mean "When walking on your streets, school-way, I am often walking in my sleep". Can a similar construction be used in English? Can anyone attempt to describe how the two ways of parsing work linguistically? JIP | Talk 18:11, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Is this anything like "Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana" or maybe "Eats Shoots and Leaves, both of which are famous sentences that play on ambiguous meanings of words? --Jayron32 18:15, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

No, it's not. Each word has an unambiguous meaning by itself. However, the entire sentence can be understood in two different ways, depending on how the words in the sentence relate to each other. JIP | Talk 18:30, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

I think Syntactic ambiguity is what you're looking for. Thincat (talk) 18:49, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Last night after dark I shot an elephant in my pajamas! What was the elephant doing in your pajamas? μηδείς (talk) 19:58, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Very funny line. For the record, I think the original quote is "One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know." 86.160.216.217 (talk) 20:26, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that's the exact quote. One subtlety: a slight pause between "elephant" and "in". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:41, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Quite so; see Animal Crackers. Or from The Goon Show - Eccles: "How do you open a door?" Bluebottle: "You turn the knob on your side." Eccles: "I haven't got a knob on my side!" Alansplodge (talk) 20:50, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

No one wakes up wearing pajamas. Or, at least, I never do. μηδείς (talk) 23:51, 21 November 2013 (UTC)≥

That's not so unusual. What would be more concerning is if you were wearing them when you went to bed... and woke up wondering what happened to them. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:50, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

No, I always know exactly what happened to them. See Dangling modifier, JIP. μηδείς (talk) 01:24, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

See Collection of Ambiguous or Inconsistent/Incomplete Statements.

—Wavelength (talk) 00:03, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

The "Lexicon of Inconspicuously Ambiguous Recomendations" at the above link reminds me of a story my dad told me. He was writing a recommendation for an incompetent and annoying worker, who was leaving for a competitor which had just taken a large amount of work from my dad's company. The recommendation included the line "We hope he works as dillegently for you as he did for us". MChesterMC (talk) 11:32, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Spanish speakers in Texas

Hi!

I'm from France and I can speak a lil bit of Spanish (very similar to our language). I've spent 2 days in Houston, Texas and I'd like to know about the use of Spanish there (so many people speaking it in the streets). Are Spanish speakers recent immigrants from Mexico or are they from families who used to live in the Spanish-ruled Texas and who kept their language? Are there many people in the States who kept their Spanish language after several generations like the Quebec people kept their French?

Thx for your answer!: 92.97.194.203 (talk) 22:35, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Our article seems to state that some 31% (2010 census) of Texan residents are Mexican Americans. There may be useful references to the demographics of the state´s Mexican Americans in this article. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 22:56, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

• Chicanos are residents whose ancestry predates Texan statehood and doesn't result from immigration. Most Spanish speakers in Texas are more recent immigrants than Chicanos. μηδείς (talk) 23:06, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Actually, the term Chicano has varying meanings. It often refers to politically conscious Americans of Mexican descent regardless of when their ancestors arrived from Mexico. In this sense, most Chicanos are not descendants of people who were present in 1848 in the territories then taken from Mexico by the United States. A term that is more specific to the descendants of the early Spanish settlers is Tejano, though even this term's meaning is not precise. Descendants of the original Spanish settlers are relatively few in number in Texas, because the Spanish population there was so small. Some have continued to speak Spanish at home through the generations, particularly in San Antonio. Spanish speakers in Houston are very unlikely to be descended from the original settlers. On the other hand, most Spanish speakers in New Mexico probably are descendants of the original settlers there. See Nuevomexicanos. Marco polo (talk) 00:02, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

If I understand your clarification, you are saying there are recent immigrants from Mexico who call themselves Chicanos? The distinction as always made would then seem meaningless. μηδείς (talk) 01:20, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

As I understand it, Chicanos are people born in the U.S. of Mexican ancestry, regardless of whether it was their parents who immigrated or distant ancestors 200 years ago. But the term does not properly apply to people born in Mexico, although I would understand if they want to identify with Chicano culture. Aɴɢʀ (talk) 09:51, 22 November 2013 (UTC)