Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 October 29

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October 29

‘

’El.

What do you mean by ’? Many other words have it too. For now, I can only say, mainly Godly words. -- (Russell.mo (talk) 12:00, 29 October 2014 (UTC))

The brief article Modifier letter right half ring, regarding the symbol, may be of interest to you. That particular symbol, I think, is common in Hebrew, Arabic, and other related languages, to denote a glottal stop. El (deity) lists it with that character as well ? ~Helicopter Llama~ 12:32, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Yeah you are right. I'll view through the links you posted. Thanks. -- (Russell.mo (talk) 12:50, 29 October 2014 (UTC))

The symbol in this section's title (‘), however, is Modifier letter left half ring which is used in Arabic and some pronunciations of Hebrew to transliterate Ayin, the voiced pharyngeal fricative ([ʕ]). These two symbols are often confused by those unfamiliar with their use.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 04:24, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Eh? For me the character both in the section title and in your first parenthesis is U+2018 LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK (SINGLE TURNED COMMA QUOTATION MARK). —Tamfang (talk) 07:15, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Postnominal determiner in English

I read somewhere that in English determiners occur before a noun. However, in phrases like "chapter 1", "channel 3", and "love potion number 9", I think the postnominal cardinal numbers act as determiners. I did a web search on postnominal determiners; the hits didn't seem to be about English.

Is it correct to think of the numbers in my example phrases as postnominal determiners? If so, would it be a correct articulation of the syntax in English to say that pre- and postnominal determiners cannot be used together?

Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.227.60.98 (talk) 12:55, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Those numbers are not really determiners. Determiners are words that indicate a quality or quantity of a noun and that can be used in the same way with different nouns. The numbers in your examples don't work that way. Instead, they are part of specific proper names. (For that reason, they should be capitalized.) They are examples of a pattern of English proper name formation consisting of a general term followed by a more specific term. Other examples would be "Chef Chandler", "President Obama", "River Thames", "HMS Pinafore", and so on. And in fact, you can use (prenominal) determiners with proper names of this kind. For example, you could ask "Do you mean this Chapter 1 or that Chapter 1?" Marco polo (talk) 14:34, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

OK, maybe "love potion number 9" is different, but the other two of my examples are (intended to be) generic nouns. Although "Channel 3" could mean a particular broadcasting station, in my example "channel 3" is the third frequency on a certain frequency plan. I'm thinking that "XXX N" is equivalent to "the N-th XXX", and since "the" and cardinal numbers are both determiners (examples of central and postdeterminers), postnominal cardinal numbers should be considered determiners too. Is that reasoning somehow flawed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.227.60.98 (talk) 15:02, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Am I alone in wondering how well Love Potions 1–8 worked? {The poster formerly known as 87.83.210.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 20:04, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Don't know about Love Potions No. 1 through 7, but according to this reference, No. 8 worked spellbindingly well. --96.227.60.98 (talk) 02:16, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

About as well as Chanel No. 4, I'd guess. —Tamfang (talk) 08:12, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

I see what you mean. Those probably are determiners. They are a form of cardinal number, as you suggest. They may be an exceptional case in English. However, it still is not true that prenominal determiners can't be used with these. You could ask "Is it the channel 3 in this frequency plan or in that one?" Of course, articles are determiners. Marco polo (talk) 17:39, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Volunteers required

Hello!

I'm looking for a re-writer(s), someone who possesses impeccable English writing skills. Is this the right place?

Russell.mo (talk) 13:40, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

No. Try looking in the small ads in your local area for a copywriter or copyeditor. Craigslist might be a place to start. --Viennese Waltz 14:01, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm currently living in a so called 'third world' country, beside, I'm looking for volunteers. Thanks for the name of the website, looks useful. -- (Russell.mo (talk) 14:11, 29 October 2014 (UTC))

Amazon Mechanical Turk. But you do have to offer some payment. — SMUconlaw (talk) 14:25, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

If this is for improving Wikipedia, then it is appropriate to ask WP for help. You could ask on the talk pages for specific articles, or at the relevant Wikipedia:WikiProject. If it is a personal project, we certainly won't re-write or edit the whole thing, but often on the language desks we comment and correct a few short sentences for users. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:34, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

This is a reference desk. Not the right place for this kind of query. If you want to address the WP community maybe the Teahouse is a better place but again searching for volunteers would only be appropriate if the project has something to do with WP. On the other hand there might be Internet forums out there where you may find volunteers for help on a non-WP project. To find such forums you could post a question at the Computing Reference Desk. Contact Basemetal here 15:41, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

surprised no one has mentioned the WP:GOCE yet, that's definitely an "impeccable" resource ~Helicopter Llama~ 22:29, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Someone has but for other reasons, view the following link (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions#Volunteer.28s.29_re-writer.28s.29_required). Can I still do what I wish to do HelicopterLlama? -- (Russell.mo (talk) 09:17, 2 November 2014 (UTC))

By the way, "required" is pushing it a bit. It would be better to say "requested". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:08, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

"sought" would be good too. —Tamfang (talk) 08:14, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Sorry!

What do you mean by "sought", as in "Volunteers sought"? -- (Russell.mo (talk) 09:17, 2 November 2014 (UTC))

In a passive construction like this, the past participle of the verb is used. "Sought" is the past participle of "seek". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:36, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Okay. Thanks JackofOz. -- (Russell.mo (talk) 19:59, 2 November 2014 (UTC))

Alveolar ridge vs. alveolar process

What's the difference? Or is it basically the same region in the mouth? Well, the process is a bone, the ridge is more like the "dam" formed by the bone, right? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:38, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Comparing alveolar ridge and alveolar process plus various diagrams on dental websites, I'm pretty sure you're right. The process typically refers to the bone itself, whereas the alveolar ridge is the external soft tissue, but I've also found a couple citations using both to mean the bone structure. "Alveolar ridge" seems to be predominantly used in linguistics, whereas anatomy and dentistry tend to use "alveolar process", but also less frequently use "ridge" for the same structure. SarahTheEntwife (talk) 14:16, 4 November 2014 (UTC)