Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 January 26

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

January 26

Using parentheses

Which of the following two sentences are correct?

1. This is a sentence (With an add-on).
2. This is a sentence (with an add-on).

I know which I prefer and I also know which is quite common on Wikipedia. Also is this some sort of English variant? CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 16:58, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

The 2nd, I believe, for a sentence fragment. Of course, in your example I wouldn't use parens at all. I'd only capitalize a standalone sentence, like so:

This is a sentence (although, admittedly, not much of one).

This is a sentence. (Although, I admit, it wasn't much of a sentence.)

StuRat (talk) 17:03, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

The word "although" is a subordinate conjunction, for introducing a subordinate clause, and it requires a main clause, either before it or after it, in the same sentence. Without a main clause, a subordinate clause is a sentence fragment. The adverb "however" has a similar meaning, but is not synonymous with it.

—Wavelength (talk) 17:41, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I was curious as to which capitalisation within the parentheses was correct. Of course I can't find an example right now. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 19:28, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Definitely 2. One begins a parenthesis with a capital letter only when what precedes it is a complete sentence ending with a full stop (period). Compare the first example sentence in WP:MOS#Sentences and brackets. Deor (talk) 20:27, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Further, if the opening parenthesis comes in the middle of a sentence in the outer content, the parenthetical content doesn't take a period of its own even if it is a complete sentence. (It may take an exclamation or question mark.) In formal writing this sort of construct is best avoided. On the other hand, if the parenthetical content is outside of any sentence in the outer content, is is punctuated and capitalized normally.

• If that noise was a bear (any kind of bear), we're in danger.
• If that noise was a bear (he thinks it is), we're in danger.
• If that noise was a bear (does he think it is?), we're in danger.
• If that noise was a bear, we're in danger. (He thinks it is.)

If the parenthetical content is two or more complete sentences, it's best to keep it outside of any outer sentence.

• If that noise was a bear, we're in danger. (He thinks it is. There are lots of them around here.)

--65.94.50.4 (talk) 22:37, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

This is off-topic, which hardly ever happens at the Reference Desk. I say it only because (1) we're at the Language Reference Desk, and (2) it's obvious that you care about using the language correctly, or you wouldn't have started this thread. No offense intended. It's Which of the following two sentences is correct?. The subject, "which", is singular. That is, unless you intended that both of the following might be correct. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:55, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks everybody. I should have guessed that there was something in the MOS but for some reason I didn't think of it. That and the MOS is far to large. I've seen quite a few sentences where the first word in the parentheses is capitalised and it almost always looks wrong. User:Mandruss I'm not offended. It would take a lot more than that to offend me. I wasn't too sure if the capitalisation was an English variant or not. It was possible that both of them could have been correct. I must admit that if after 40 years of living up here I'm not surprised that I make the odd language mistake. I'm surprised that I don't make more. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 10:04, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Dafydd ab Owain Gwynedd in English and Welsh

I know how Dafydd, Owain, and Gwynedd are pronounced, but how is "ab" pronounced both in English renderings of the name and in proper Welsh? Also, does the /b/ have various allophones, or cause mutation or other sorts of sandhi phenomena in different contexts (e.g., pre-consonantally)? Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 18:21, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Nothing to do with consonant mutation in this case, just that "ap" is used before consonants and "ab" before vowels (incidentally that is how we get the surnames "Powell" and "Bowen"). Adam Bishop (talk) 21:01, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

That helps, are these [ap] and [ab] or is the vowel reduced or different from [a] in English or Welsh? I have never heard such names pronounced. μηδείς (talk) 21:37, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

The vowel is not reduced in Welsh. I don't know of any convention for how Welsh names are pronounced in English - I would generally pronounce them more or less as Welsh even when talking English. --ColinFine (talk) 21:55, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I'd use [ap] and [ab], not [əp] and [əb]. Some speakers of conservative RP in the UK would change [a] to [æ] if they were not familiar with Welsh. It's a stronger word in Welsh than "of" in English that tends to get reduced to [əv] and [ə]. The Irish "O'" tends to retain its strong form, unlike the equivalent in my local dialect that tends to get reduced (e.g. "Bill [ə] Ben's", but this usage is now almost extinct, I think). Dbfirs 22:26, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

It's Greek to me

I'm trying to determine what this Ysplix article is referring to, it's probably the result of a translation or transliteration error. The urls in the article are no longer valid except for this that I dug out of webarchive. When I run it through google translate it does say the item is a "Ysplix"; anyone know what the closest equivalent in English would be? Vrac (talk) 20:42, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it's an early form of what we normally call a "starting gate" in English -- sure enough, the "see also" section of that article links to Hysplex, which is just a different romanization of "Ysplix", though the Hysplex article makes more sense, and has some English-language references. Based on content, the Ysplix article should be deleted, and "Ysplix" should redirect to the Hysplex article. (Or shuffle things the other way if it can be shown that "Ysplix" is the more common Romanization.) SemanticMantis (talk) 20:02, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I've redirected Ysplix to Hysplex. The ancient Greek word was ὕσπληξ (Liddell & Scott, sense 3), for which hysplex would be the normal romanization. "Ysplix" (or "Isplix") looks like a representation based on how the word would be pronounced in Modern Greek. Deor (talk) 20:18, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks @Deor: ! SemanticMantis (talk) 20:31, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks all. Vrac (talk) 20:42, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

what is the meaning of swarajit (in bengali)?

what is the meaning of swarajit(in bengali)?Swarajit110 (talk) 13:02, 26 January 2015 (UTC)26/01/2015§

This would be an excellent Q for the Language Ref Desk. StuRat (talk) 17:24, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Done. μηδείς (talk) 20:13, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

If you provide (or if someone else provides) the spelling in Bengali characters, then you or I or someone else can search for it in http://www.doroja.com.

—Wavelength (talk) 21:52, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

We have an article on Swaraj ("self-rule")... AnonMoos (talk) 00:37, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Sorting Arabic names

Hello, I am composing a table of people which needs to be sorted alphabetically (based on WP standards for sorting people by name). I am not at all familiar with Arabic names, and so I was hoping that someone might tell me how these two can be sorted: Ismail Loufti Bey and Al-Farouki Samy Pasha. P.S. They are taken from British sources over 100 years old. Many thanks, —Noswall59 (talk) 22:34, 26 January 2015 (UTC).

The first rule is to throw away the definite article prefix when alphabetizing. Beyond that, it may be difficult to offer much guidance that will be valid in all situations, since traditional Arabic names can be quite complex, and may or may not contain a component similar in function to a European surname. Sometimes it's best to go by the nisba, but Saddam Hussein's nisba was "al-Tikriti". In your examples, Bey and Pasha are honorifics originally taken from Turkish... AnonMoos (talk) 00:31, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Okay, thank you. Am I right in thinking that it would likely be "Lofti, Ismail" for the one, and "Farouki, Samy Al-" for the other? —Noswall59 (talk) 11:24, 27 January 2015 (UTC).

You can sort names with "al-" and "ibn" by the second part, so "al-Farouki, Samy", under "F". Although if this is for invisible sorting of Wikipedia categories, it would have to be "Farouki Samy". Adam Bishop (talk) 14:49, 27 January 2015 (UTC)