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September 5

Driehoeksy*

What does it probably say, in Dutch, under the drawing shown in Reptiles (M. C. Escher)? It's a hexagonal tesselation. "Triangle [something]"? Maybe "driehoeksysteem"? I don't think that's a real word though. Larger version if that helps any. Card Zero (talk) 04:11, 5 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't see an immediate reason why it couldn't be a word since in Dutch, like in German, I believe you can combine nouns into larger nouns almost as you like. And now indeed, when I enter triangular system escher into Google then it throws out a link description that includes e.g. "2. triangle system I B(3) type 1. " among others, very well suiting the type of nomenclature under the drawing, linking to this site: https://mcescher.com/gallery/symmetry/. Hence Triangle System, I A3 type (roman I I presume) seems more than plausible. -- 2A02:8424:6281:D401:8C0F:D1E3:D59E:57EB (talk) 06:41, 5 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, "driehoeksysteem" is a regular Dutch compound. You may not find it in the dictionary. PiusImpavidus (talk) 08:30, 5 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Here are a few uses in Dutch texts: [1], [2], [3]. ‑‑Lambiam 10:12, 5 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

geral@ email addresses of Portuguese companies

I'm currently dealing with a number of companies from portuguese-speaking countries. Many have a geralexample.com email address. Is this the equivalent of the english sales@, support@ or similar, in the sense that it reaches a general office that can then forward the message to someone more appropriate? The reason for my question is that I translated 'geral' and it came back as meaning 'everyone' or 'widespread' and I'm not wanting to accidentally email everyone in that company simultaneously.

Side question: Does the portuguese Wikipedia really not have a reference desk or something similar? It's not linked in the interwiki links. 91.114.188.133 (talk) 17:12, 5 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd assume it means something like "general" or "main". [4] 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 19:04, 5 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

yes, a quick Google search revealed "general" so that should be the anser 24.190.200.120 (talk) 13:10, 6 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a downward absolute superlative?

Hello, again!

Back in ancient times, there was no distinction between the relative superlative and the absolute superlative since all adjectives upwardly compared using (the ancient equivalent of ) -er and -est.

e.g.

Positive	Comparative	Superlative
celer	celerior	celerrimus

Sometime in the Dark Ages, though, Western languages began using more- and most- (or their local equivalents) for upward comparisons, and the Latin -imus—or its respective German and English calques, "sehr -er" and "a most"—became another way of saying "extremely," "quintessentially," or "incredibly."

e.g.

	Relative Superlative	Absolute Superlative
Spanish	el vuelo más rápido	un vuelo rápidisimo
Italian	il volo più veloce	un volo velocissimo
German	der schnellste Flug	ein sehr schneller Flug
English	the quickest flight	a most quick flight

I can't help but wonder, though: Does there exist an absolute superlative for downward comparison?

Namely, just as one can say "the least charitable organization" when being relative, can he also say "a least charitable organization" when being absolute? Or must he instead stick to an upward comparison such as "a most selfish organization" or "a most uncharitable organization"?

Thank you for reading this.

Pine (talk) 19:02, 5 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The German looks strange, I'd assume it should be 'der schnellest Flug' or something quite similar. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 19:05, 5 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, 'der schnellste Flug'. I should have known. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 19:06, 5 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I just corrected that. Thank you.

Pine (talk) 19:29, 5 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Also, 'ein sehr schneller Flug', I believe. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:18, 5 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And that suffix of schnell (and also of schnellst) is the declension of the adjective for case, gender and definiteness. It's independent of comparatives and superlatives, so it shouldn't be in bold face in the table. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:00, 6 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The superness of 'ein sehr schneller Flug' isn't absolute; it is bested by 'ein noch schnellerer Zug', which may be 'ein höchst schneller Flug'. ‑‑Lambiam 17:26, 7 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reminds me of Schumann's Piano Sonata No. 2, where the first movement's general tempo marking "so rasch wie möglich" (as fast as possible), toward the end is followed by "schneller" (faster) and then "noch schneller" (even faster). ---Sluzzelin talk 00:03, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There's still a way out of the logical dilemma if the technical difficulty of the movement is so high that there's a limitation to the speed at which it can be played, and towards the end that technical challenge is eased in such a way that increasing the speed is possible. As to the German language discussion just above your comment, as Lambiam mentioned one can indeed talk about ein höchst schneller Flug or also ein äußerst schneller Flug, where höchst or äußerst has the form of a superlative. Still, it does not make it the fastest flight possible, it just puts it into some kind of category of extreme speed flights without negating the possibility that there could be an even somewhat higher speed flight. I cannot think of a similar way downwards, ein minimalst schneller Flug could be said but isn't a common way of expressing it, you'd in almost every case use the opposite adjective (langsam for slow). -- 2A02:8424:6281:D401:AC09:ABCA:6359:16B4 (talk) 09:37, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This corresponds to the misnomer "Absolute Superlative" of the query. Both un vuelo rápidisimo and un volo velocissimo just mean "a very fast flight". ‑‑Lambiam 11:58, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Downward comparisons are possible - if you want to quantify something, e. g. little - less - least or small - smaller - smallest (German: klein - kleiner - am kleinsten): He's smaller than you. (Er ist kleiner als du.) He's got less money than you. (Er hat weniger Geld als du.) Or: There are fewer pupils in class than yesterday. (Heute sind weniger Schüler in der Klasse als gestern.) The number of pupils decreased so the comparative forms do not represent a higher degree. Some comparative adjectives represent a lower degree, e. g. young, little, small, short etc.

N.B.: der schnellste Flug, ein sehr schneller Flug (because the positive is used here, cf. der sehr schnelle Flug > change of declination because of the definite article: ein alter Mann vs. der alte Mann [an old man vs. the old man] > ein älterer Mann vs. der ältere Mann [an older man vs. the older man] > ein Ältester vs. der Älteste, der älteste Mann).--92.210.44.183 (talk) 15:22, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ein Ältester doesn't really make sense though. The superlative requires a determined article. Except in its modified practical meaning where it is no longer a Superlative, e.g. Ein Dorfältester (a village elder). -- 2A02:8424:6281:D401:C0F4:A89:DEB2:CF9F (talk) 16:04, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's a noun that is derived from the adjective, cf. die Eltern ('parents', derived from die Älter[e]n 'the older people, the older ones' < älterer 'older', cf. Middle High German alt - elter > eltern). "Ältester" is a title (elderman), mostly used in compound nouns such as Stubenältester oder Dorfältester. I used it to show the different declination because as you said the superlative is often used with the definite article oder "am". The derived noun is inflected like the adjective or in this case like the superlative/elative. Maybe mein ältester Sohn vs. der älteste Sohn (my oldest son vs. the oldest son) would have been a better example to show the different suffixes however the possessive pronoun mein 'my' could have been confusing because I had used the indefinite vs. definite article before.--92.210.44.183 (talk) 13:48, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

September 7

Footnote number placement with abbreviation in parentheses

If I've abbreviated a term in parentheses and I want to add a footnote, should the footnote number go immediately after the spelled-out term or after the abbreviation?

Here's an example: "a credit default swap² (CDS) contract" vs. "a credit default swap (CDS)² contract."

Thanks!107.3.188.14 (talk) 00:09, 7 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is this for a Wikipedia article? Wikipedia uses footnote letters. Unless this is meant for deployment in our article Credit default swap, I'd expect the term "credit default swap" to be linked to the article, and if the purpose of the footnote is to explain the term, it is then not needed. In general, it may depend on the purpose of the footnote. The Manual of style does not discuss this.

I'd try to avoid the issue by rewriting, or putting the footnote tag after a full noun phrase, not a noun adjunct, as in "a credit default swap (CDS) contract.²" ‑‑Lambiam 03:51, 7 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

September 8

Fill it with rue

[5] Among other questionable bits of romantic advice, the linked book page (idk what book it is) suggests:

Take a shoe that the woman you love has worn, fill it with rue, and hang it over your bed to make her love you.

Any idea what "rue" is in the above? wikt:rue only suggests versions of sadness or regret, and those don't seem to fit the context. Thanks. 2601:644:8581:75B0:B98F:F94E:669F:D6D3 (talk) 06:13, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See Rue or wikt:rue#Etymology 3. ‑‑Lambiam 06:42, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, somehow I missed that in the wiktionary page. Thanks. 2601:644:8581:75B0:B98F:F94E:669F:D6D3 (talk) 08:33, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you steal a woman's footwear, you may well end up ruing that decision. Matt Deres (talk) 19:29, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Rue was historically used to (attempt to) induce abortions...maaybe that's the implication, if the couple aren't married? 2601:205:4386:CE40:880:E7F8:901F:95D9 (talk) 21:43, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

September 10

Questions

In English, are initialisms ever spoken as words? For example, is "LED" in all caps ever pronounced as [lɛd]? In Finnish the same acronym is pronounced more commonly as a word than as "äl-ee-dee".
Do people in the US say "10th day of September" or "10th of September"?
Do any English speakers, even those who mostly use 24-hour clock, consider it significant when time changes from 19:59 to 20:00, as it has a "rollover" in its numbers like from year 1999 to year 2000? Or do any non-English speakers consider it significant?
In English, are all-numeric dates like 10/9/2025 ever used in running prose? It is common to write like this: "The event runs from 8/9/2025 to 14/9/2025."
Does English ever say: The shop closes at 18 today"? They can say "The shop closes at 18:00 today", but what about dropping the ":00" part?
Why do English- and French-speaking countries put house number before street name and placename before postcode, if most other countries do the opposite?

--40bus (talk) 16:50, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(British English):

1. Always the acronym "LED" (el-ee-dee) [6]

4. Not in prose. It's more likely to be "The event runs from 8th to 14th September 2025.", with the definite article "the" implied before each day number.

5. No.

6. Because that's what the postal service requires: see Address format by country and area. The question could be inverted to ask about, say, Finnish. Bazza 7 (talk) 17:20, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Replying from a British English point of view.

1. Not infrequently in my experience, if they are pronounceable and if they would not potentially be confused with a same-sounding word. For LED, "ell-ee-dee" is however more common because of the existing words lead (the metal) and led (past participle of lead the verb). In general there is no overarching preference in casual speech for either convention, and both are used.

2. This Brit would expect the Americanism ""10th September" and find "10th day of September" to be an archaism, but Americans may very well correct me.

3. Not that I have ever heard of, in the UK or any other Anglophone country.

4. Yes, that would be quite usual in such an instructional circumstance, though not in literary prose.

5. That would never be said in BrE, though it might appear written, particularly on the sort of printed shop door sign that has adjustable numbers.

6. As far as I know, it has always been done in both countries, and from my brief residence in (West) Germany, is done there also. I imagine when the idea of individual house numbers was adopted at various times in various countries, each made the decision based on circumstances peculiar to them.

{The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.98.196 (talk) 17:26, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Re #2: In the U.S., both "September 10th" and "10th of September" (depending on context) are said frequently; "10th September" not so much. "10th day of September" would be almost completely restricted to written texts such as formal documents. Deor (talk) 17:50, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

1. Some people would say that initialisms are by definition never pronounced as a single word. According to this nomenclature, a sequence of letters pronounced as a single word is called an acronym, and a sequence of letters pronounced letter-by-letter is called an initialism. However, not everyone uses this nomenclature; some people call both types acronyms. So I'm not clear on exactly what you're asking. If you want to know whether a sequence of initial letters is ever pronounced as a word, yes, there are many examples of such acronyms, such as "NASA", "radar", "scuba", "OPEC", "AIDS", "modem", "laser", "MIDI", "MILF", etc.

2. People in the US would rarely say either "10th day of September" or "10th of September" in casual conversation. The latter is slightly more common if prefixed with "the", but more common would be "September 10th" or "September the 10th".

4. Yes, all numeric dates are common in written prose. Unfortunately, the order differs between countries: in the US, MDY is most common while in England and many other countries, DMY is most common.

5. Yes, it would be common to say "the shop opens at 8" to mean 8:00am, or "the shop closes at 5" to mean 5:00pm. In the US, 24-hour time is rarely used, so "the shop closes at 18" would not be heard or understood. CodeTalker (talk) 18:30, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

3. Do any English speakers consider it significant when the clock shows the current year (20:25)? --40bus (talk) 19:23, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Aside from the military, such a thing has never and can never happen for Americans as we do not use the 24 hour clock. The last such occurrence would thus have been more than 700 years ago.-- User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 20:21, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any English-speaking countries where 24-hour clock is common? --40bus (talk) 21:27, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am sure that most if not all of them other than in North America have 24-hour clocks (and other time displays) as well as 12-hour analog clocks (i.e. circular, with hands).

I (in the UK) am looking at the 24-hour time in the corner of my computer screen, and it is also displayed on my microwave oven, and optionally on my digital wristwatch (though I have a 'fancier' analog 12-hour watch too), and on my car dashboard, but my father's previous car had a 12-hour analog clock. Bedside clock-radios often have (or had) 24-hour displays. Railway and bus station train-arrival/departure displays always use 24-hour times, including the current time, and some stations had mechanical 24-hour clocks even before the advent of bulb, LED and other such electrical displays (although they also usually had, and have, 12-hour clocks as well). In short, in the UK both are widely used by everybody, depending on the particular circumstances, and many electronic devices can be configured to display either as preferred. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.98.196 (talk) 21:53, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

6. I worked as a taxi driver for a time (before the GPS era), and most people would tell me where they wanted to go using the standard order: house number, street name, suburb. Nothing exceptional about that; except, the first thing I needed to know was the suburb, then the street name, and finally the house number (which I usually didn't even need to know until I pulled into the street). Exactly the reverse of the usual order. (The cultural dominance of the postal service to the detriment of humble transport workers is something that should be studied at the highest level.) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:12, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

6. In olden times in America, mail sent to someone in a small town would often be addressed as simply "so-and-so, small-town-name, state name" or whatever. In fact, if the mail originated in that town also, it might be simply addressed to "so-and-so, city" and nothing else. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:50, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

According to legend, in the late 1700s Erasmus Darwin (Charles' granddad), from England, sent a letter to Benjamin Franklin and addressed it:

Benjamin Franklin

The New World

and, it reached its target destination (though surely it would not had the addressee been, say, Jack Fisher, rather than Benjamin Franklin). 76.20.114.184 (talk) 22:52, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is also a (presumably apocryphal) story that a letter from China, addressed to "Boerhaave in Europe", reached its destination.^[7] ‑‑Lambiam 11:52, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

1. again: as a general rule, three-letter abbreviations are pronounced as seperate letters (an exception is "CAT scan"), while longer acronyms are often pronounced as a single word if at all possible, or sometimes a combination of the two. An example of the latter is V/STOL which is pronounced "Vee-stoll". Alansplodge (talk) 14:33, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

regarding all numeric dates in Wikipedia, due to the confusion, the guideline states to always write the month in full. Either DMY or MDY can be used depending on if the article has (strong) ties to the US or not, or depending on what date format the article started with. The YMD format 2025/9/16 is just unnatural and is mostly only used in sorting, as well as in China, Korea, Japan and Hungary. Its common for all numeric dates to be written in prose, provided that the information is within a country.

And with the 12/24 hour clock, the 24-hour clock is almost never said out loud, except in the context of railway timetables. For example, 17:00 would be pronounced 'seventeen hundred' and 17:20 would be 'seventeen twenty'. When the clock is in display, it tends to be 50/50. Its a bit like on weather to use the imperial or metric system since the UK (and Canada) is in a mess. The 24 hour clock has advantages on which you could calculate how long you've been doing something between 10:00 and 16:00 compared with 10am and 4pm.

Also with acronyms, initialisms and abbreviations, an acronym is a shortened form pronounced as a word (NASA) but in practice, the three terms are often used interchangeably. JuniperChill (talk) 16:01, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Languages of countries

Why English has not become majority native language in former British colonies of Africa and Oceania like Spanish has become the majority language in former Spanish colonies in Latin America? --40bus (talk) 21:29, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oceania? You mean, like Australia and New Zealand? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.98.196 (talk) 22:00, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly due to the European colonization of Africa having lasted shorter, and having been marred by significant in-fighting, but English is still a very important language on large parts of the continent. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:15, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In former French and Belgian colonies in Africa, French hasn't become the majority native language, although it has become the lingua franca. Maybe you should look at the ratio of natives versus descendants of colonists. Which in turn comes down to: in the Americas, the natives were almost wiped out by European diseases. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:35, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is true in, particularly, northern America (US & Canada), but he was specifically comparing to Latin America, where the demographic situation is markedly different: in many (most?) Latin American countries the majority of the populations are a European/Amerindian mix. In the Spanish colonies the practice of integration/assimilation with the native peoples was largely the norm, while in the English colonies it was mostly nonexistent. Of course the "Spanish model" was also problematic in other ways, i.e., the indigenous cultural loss in various countries was often greater. 76.20.114.184 (talk) 00:56, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Paraguayan Guarani is the most common mother tongue of the Paraguayans; see Languages of Paraguay. And Spanish is also not the majority native language in Bolivia, although it is the most common native language; see Languages of Bolivia. ‑‑Lambiam 11:41, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

With the Philippines, the original second official language was Spanish, but since the Americans took over, English replaced it. Nether Spanish nor English is a common native language, with the various languages of the Philippines being spoken natively. There does exist a Spanish creole language called Chavacano. JuniperChill (talk) 16:55, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A few questions that came to mind.

Why are German and Italian not as widespread as English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch? And why didn't Eastern European countries like Poland and Russia colonize like Western European countries did?
Why so few people in English-majority countries can speak more than one language?
Why none of language maps show entire countries speaking only their colony's language in former colonies' case? I used to find it odd that e.g. India is not shown as speaking English entirely, or French and British colonies in Africa speaking French and English entirely, respectively. Despite that I associated India with English language, and African countries to their colonial languages. Even for South Africa, it was strange to find English being spoken only around Johannesburg and Cape Town, despite it feels like a country culturally similar to USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand and I classify it as the seventh member of the group of these countries.

--40bus (talk) 18:41, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To answer 1, Germany and Italy had colonial empires for much shorter periods than other European powers. But many people emigrated from Germany into (former) colonies of other European powers, so German was widely spoken by communities in places like Canada and the US (and Brazil and various other countries), but after WW1 many of these communities integrated more with the rest of society and ceased speaking German. Russia did colonise, just slightly different from others: they colonised the almost contiguous Russian Empire, famously including Alaska. But the Russian Empire was vast and underpopulated, so they actually invited other people in as colonists (as subjects of Russia), for example the Volga Germans. —Kusma (talk) 18:57, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

September 11

Writing phone numbers in french

I know in France they write phone numbers in pairs of two digits (01 23 34 56 78) but is that just how it's done in France or part of the french language? If one is writing a text in french that mentions a british phone number, do the same rules apply or would the number be written in the british format ((012) 345 678)? --91.114.187.136 (talk) 12:44, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In my view that depends very much on the individual and the situation. When reading a phone number that is not visually structured in bundles of two then it will usually be much more efficient to read them digit by digit (or perhaps even take them as hundreds like in your example) rather than un- and rebundling them to the familiar structure. If it's easy rebundling, eg. if a number comes in three bundles of four digits each, then that French individual might well revert to their familar structure of reading them in bundles of two digits. -- 2A02:8424:6281:D401:FC28:D70C:40B:4C94 (talk) 16:44, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

These days, the normal practice when sharing phone numbers by text or email seems to be to write the whole thing out in a single string with no spaces i.e. +4412345678. Not very easy to read and you have to be extra careful when calling the number or entering it in the contacts section of your phone. --Viennese Waltz 07:35, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've been trying to look up some examples: [8] (bundle of three to indicate the code for Morocco, the remaining digits all lumped together); [9] (keeping the bundles of two digits wherever possible), [10] (everything lumped together), [11] (only numbers in France shown in the French format; this is an international rather than a French site though). -- 2A02:8424:6281:D401:D5AC:AA49:EE3A:CB74 (talk) 07:40, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In France, they group numbers by two (i.e. 15.83.etc would be quinze - quatre-vingt-trois - etc), while in Canada, the numbers are said individually (un - cinq - huit - trois etc.) Country codes are pronounced as a two-digit or three-digit number in France, but are rarely used in Canada, as most people use internet-based apps to make calls overseas. Most other French-speaking countries follow the French practice. This is from personal experience from having lived both sides of the big pond. Xuxl (talk) 12:40, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@ User:Viennese Waltz. Yes, most online places do require single strings without spaces, and that's how many businesses do it on their signage, business cards etc. But if they only understood how counter-productive this way is. Have they never heard of the 7 plus or minus 2 thing? Don't they understand that 0423119814 is hard to remember? And that it's much better conveyed, understood, and remembered as 0423 119 814? That way you're only dealing with 3 pieces of basic information. The other way demands users remember 10 pieces of information. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:48, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

When an app or webpage requires spaceless strings, I cannot simply copy-and-paste a spaced number from one corporate webpage to the string-hungry input field. It forces me to retype the number without spaces. This process is error-prone, and I suppose this is an argument for businesses to present numbers unspaced. Instead, input fields should IMO be programmed to simply accept spaces in long strings being input and normalize them by eliding spaces as required, not only for phone numbers but also for bank account numbers, credit card numbers, and so on.

According to the official rules introducing the Dutch postal code system, long before the Internet, each code consisted of four digits, followed by a space, followed by two upper-case letters. For example, it could be 2500 GG. Today, the Dutch post no longer cares about this space, but some web sites still require a space between the digits and letters and reject 2500GG, while some others reject codes with a space. ‑‑Lambiam 10:23, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My local library network has the world's clunkiest, dumbest, most frustrating user interface. If I want to browse the catalogue, put a book on hold, or anything else, I have to log in. This requires me to input my membership number, which is 14 digits long in one spaceless sequence. It allows for a library membership population 10,000 times as large as the the population of the Earth - an ever-so-slight overreach, perhaps? It's printed on my library card. The number contains a sequence of 5 zeros embedded inside 9 other digits. Have I ever miscounted the 5 zeros as 6, or 4? You betcha. Then my password. Then when I've successfully logged on to the overall system, I have to log in all over again to get into the reservation sub-system, entailing the same hazards as before. High time I gave the powers that be some useful feedback, methinks. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:41, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

September 12

Social Politics

I have been somewhat confused by the negative use of the term empathy by, primarily, right / conservative politicians. To me (an ESL speaker) empathy is a fundamental emotion which enables the cohesion of a community and the existence of all figurative art. I now learn that empathy (as cited by a recently deceased political activist) is a problematic catchphrase created by New Age (?) subcultures. Our Wiktionary article sheds no light on these New Agers. 1) How, why and when did this term change its meaning? 2) Is this novel meaning used mainly by evangelical conservatives? 3) Has empathy gained an additional / altered meaning solely in the US or is this semantic change also notable in the UK / Australia? Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 14:36, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly speaking, to me this is a manipulation of public opinion by narcissistic sociopaths who are leading much of the current wave of politics in North America. Narcissistic sociopaths do not feel empathy; in fact it causes some consternation to them how others are taking actions that do not benefit themselves. Their followers mãy be different; they may feel empathy and act accordingly but in the context of the charisma of their leaders will be ready to believe that empathy is a tool of the evil forces; there may be different ways of rationalizing it but basically these followers might simply deny that their empathy is the same thing as what the [libs, deep state, whoever] call empathy. -- 2A02:8424:6281:D401:D5AC:AA49:EE3A:CB74 (talk) 15:14, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do I detect a whiff of Newspeak in your answer? --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 15:34, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well not just a whiff I guess. -- 2A02:8424:6281:D401:D5AC:AA49:EE3A:CB74 (talk) 16:14, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The meaning of empathy has not changed. What's different is the attitude of some so-called "Christians" that feeling others' pain is somehow "weakness". It's actually Dogbertism: "You're not me, therefore you're irrelevant." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:58, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If someone tells you that empathy is in some way a bad thing, be afraid. Be very afraid. They will murder you quite cheerfully. They see you, and all humanity, as a mere thing to be used. DuncanHill (talk) 19:21, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Bingo. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:41, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Criticism of empathy and compassion as feelings and approaches that need to be overcome is older than the extreme right-wing of the 21st century and definitely not limited to the anglosphere. Go back, at least, to Nietzsche (whose writings targeted Christian moralities of compassion, among many other established views). Read The Dawn of Day or Beyond Good and Evil, for example. Or don't read them (😉), but they are written in your mother tongue, Cookatoo, and, stylistically, they are very well written ... ---Sluzzelin talk 22:54, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would dislike murdering Duncan Hill, but empathy as a concept has a downside. This phrase "Narcissistic sociopaths do not feel empathy", though true by definition, strikes me, ironically, as a way to emphasize the otherness of those you disagree with and avoid putting yourself in their shoes. If phenomenon X is, in your value system, a terrible thing, but is of little importance in the value system of the other, then of course they won't have strong feelings about it like you do: but strong feelings alone don't make you morally right, and being dispassionate doesn't make the other person morally wrong. If the act of feeling is made into the preeminent virtue, critical thinking becomes a sin, and anyone with a thought-out opinion can be dismissed for failing to feel. This is indeed redolent of the New Age reaction against scientific rationality, but also of populism. Card Zero (talk) 04:09, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

One can formulate a moral rule as a categorical imperative or golden maxim, but I cannot think of an objective argument why the rule should not be the right of the strongest in the struggle to come out on top. Any argument why one moral rule is morally better than another moral rule presupposes a moral judgement, so it is moral turtles all the way down. ‑‑Lambiam 09:38, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Jesus often spoke of the rights of the strong to dominate the weak. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:02, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Are you referring to "Render unto Caesar"? Or perhaps to "That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also" from Matthew 5:39, part of the Sermon on the Mount? Otherwise I wouldn't know what saying of Jesus this might refer to. ‑‑Lambiam 11:01, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm guessing sarcasm :) Card Zero (talk) 11:20, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well yeah, but most would agree on a couple of basic criteria like "which approach creates more suffering". There's at least a widespread consensus nowadays in Western society that killing others (for no "good" reason like self-defence) isn't a great thing, and that society should put limits to the freedom to suppress others, and that what the Nazis did wasn't good. Otherwise we're in nihilism territory. One could also reject the axioms of maths and build your own ones, and therefore refuse to comply with the ones that the teacher proposes to use in school. -- 2A02:8424:6281:D401:A5C6:BAE1:FCE3:B1AB (talk) 10:56, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Goodness, no, utilitarianism is terrible. Minimising the intuitively-defined "suffering" leads to dilemmas - admittedly that's nothing unusual in moral arguments, they're everywhere - but it brews up extra ones, like "are two people's small sufferings worth one person's big suffering?", and leads to silliness like wondering whether we should assign rights to large language models. Card Zero (talk) 11:12, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The notion that less suffering is better than more suffering is inherently moral, but hardly convincing to me (see also The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas). You may find moral nihilism repulsive, but that is not an objective ground. Moreover, social Darwinism is hardly nihilism. Its moral values may be incompatible with the consensus nowadays in Western society, but are compatible with the societally arranged euthanizing of human beings with heritable physical or mental deficiencies. ‑‑Lambiam 11:13, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nihilism isn't social Darwinism. Nihilism enables social Darwinism creeping back into the "mainstream" by negating that there are moral criteria against which societal approaches should be assessed. -- 2A02:8424:6281:D401:92C5:ADA5:8AC1:4C1C (talk) 10:51, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

But why drag Jesus in at all? Isn't he already having enough of a rough time as school counselor at South Park Elementary? ‑‑Lambiam 02:33, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You're invoking the is-ought problem, I think. Our article phrases that as an ethical or judgmental conclusion cannot be inferred from purely descriptive factual statements. However, in my opinion moral knowledge is objective, because all reality is ultimately objective. So I'd phrase it as ... from non-moral precepts, to avoid the implication that morality is subjective (the opposite of "factual" might be "subjective", depending how you define factual). That is to say, those moral turtles are all objective arguments in my book. But is a feeling? Card Zero (talk) 10:59, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't get your argument that we can avoid morality being subjective. Unless you say feelings are not part of reality, they can only fail (according to your criterion) to be an objective argument by not being an argument. But why shouldn't people's feelings be part of the argument? The question is more, how can we objectively show that someone's claim to be the ruler of the universe (and acting accordingly) is morally wrong? How is the "knowledge" that this is wrong grounded in reality? Or are you implying that such a claim is not morally wrong? ‑‑Lambiam 11:28, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I think people's feelings are, sort of, very basic arguments. Not very persuasive ones, though, except subjectively. I think of morality as the answer to the question "what to do next?" - I think that's a quote, but I've no idea who it comes from - and I don't think of moral knowledge (or any knowledge) as hierarchical, but I do think moral knowledge exists on a separate plane because it all relates to this matter of what to do next, and to the fundamental mindless human urge to do something, according to one's particular take on the purpose of life, which can be very sophisticated but in general boils down to something like to persist, or to grow, or to learn and explore, or less charitably to interfere with stuff. Hence, yes, feelings (and baseless urges) are in there somewhere, in the murkier parts. Really though if we want to get somewhere in a discussion there's more clarity to be found by invoking common values than by using feelings as a lever (in an emotive think of the children argument). Card Zero (talk) 11:36, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A utilitarian reason could be that dominance can result from dumb luck rather than strength, so if you're trying to select for actual strength, you have to dampen the tendency of mere dominance to swamp out strength or other types of merit, by tilting towards egalitarianism. See Discrimination#Game_theory. Walter Scheidel's book The Great Leveler also argues that on historical scales, letting inequality increase without limit eventually results in violent societal breakdowns. Unpleasant. 2601:644:8581:75B0:B9C9:35BE:BB0E:CC0C (talk) 23:53, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, empathy is not only important in terms of the cultural ethics you outlined in the original post, Cookatoo. Understanding another person's perspective is also relevant when interacting with real and potential adversaries (in all sorts of constellations). I just listened to an interview with Florence Gaub where she emphasized and explained the strategic importance of empathy in situations of military conflict. ---Sluzzelin talk 21:37, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Cockatoo, "empathy" as a perjorative in US politics emerged from then-President Obama using the word while looking for a SCOTUS nominee in 2009. See here. From web search for "empathize right on your behind" for which there are many more hits, some of which might be interesting. I remembered it from back then. 2601:644:8581:75B0:B9C9:35BE:BB0E:CC0C (talk) 00:16, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

September 14

AI voice

[12] Because I'm gullible, it took me a while to figure out (and I'm still not sure) that the narration is being done by a bot rather than an actual human. Is there a quick way to tell? Is it obvious to others here? The content seems to be Wikipedia articles probably munched by an LLM.

This one on a different youtube channel running a similar scam, uses an English accent. Does it sound authentic at all? I listened to a different episode last night and it fooled me for quite a while, before repetitions in the script and unbelieveability of some parts of the story tipped me off. So I think that channel is pure AI slop. I feel like I suffered some kind of brain damage from it since the voice stuck with me for some hours afterwards and I had some weird dreams afterwards. I'll presumably recover, but I'm saying this to caution against anyone listening to too much of it. It's crap anyway. I'm asking this question in the hope of not being caught out so easily. Thanks 2601:644:8581:75B0:B9C9:35BE:BB0E:CC0C (talk) 21:42, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Added: This one is definitely a human produced video, very meticulously produced in fact. It's about developing an AI bot to play a video game. The narration is in English with a French accent. The script is seemingly human written. But now I'm wondering whether that is also a bot voice. Any clues? Thanks. 2601:644:8581:75B0:B9C9:35BE:BB0E:CC0C (talk) 22:30, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The scripts of these videos were written by human intelligences but turned into speech using text-to-speech software. The stories are real and well researched. For that about the criminal wartime spy, see our article Eddie Chapman. For the second video, see on Wikipedia articles like Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, Robert S. Johnson and Adolf Galland, and books such as P-47 Thunderbolt vs German Flak Defenses: Western Europe 1943–45 and Thunderbolt to War: An American Fighter Pilot in England. The YouTube page states: "Audio tracks for some languages were automatically generated." ‑‑Lambiam 02:26, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Somebody here has a suggestion for preventing or avoiding auto-dubbing. Card Zero (talk) 14:03, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The one about Eddie Chapman was not too bad, but the one about the P-47 was definitely LLM slop. This was obvious from the way various rhetorical devices were repeated in the narration (the devices work once or twice but not 5+ times in the same narrative). Same with the one about the food in US POW camps served to German WW2 prisoners. Both were also ridiculous triumphalism too. German prisoners of war in the United States is much better. In fact there's a shorter one about the P-47 using an abridged version of the same script, and with a different speaking voice. 2601:644:8581:75B0:27E9:7218:F197:FD31 (talk) 21:12, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

September 16

Very abstract imperative

What's the grammar of commands such as:

Prevent fires

Drink Guinness

Report thefts

They don't specify which fires/Guinness/thefts, and the time is at any time, ongoing. What name can I call these kind of commands, to distinguish them from commands like fix [your] bayonets or [put your] hands up?

Card Zero (talk) 13:53, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Life hacks? -- Verbarson ^talk_edits 20:36, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The lack of specificity is not connected to these sentences having an imerative verb form:

Fires can be deadly.
Guinness is good for you.
Thefts must be reported without delay.

‑‑Lambiam 23:01, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What's on my mind is that some imperative commands look the same as these. If Captain Kirk says "set phasers to stun" he implicitly means your own phasers right now, and not just phasers in general, and not just more often. It's not general life advice. But can I do better than the bolded phrase? Isn't there a "general advisory mood" or some other technical term? Well, maybe that's for the best. "Minimize the use of jargon," as the MOS says. Card Zero (talk) 23:40, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You're familiar with grammatical mood, but this is actually a different axis of the tense–aspect–mood system. Specifically, grammatical aspect, how a verbal action, event, or state, extends over time.

Your examples fall under imperfective aspect, used for situations conceived as existing continuously or habitually as time flows ("I was helping him"; "I used to help people"). The relevant subtype is habitual aspect which refers to long spans of time. There is also gnomic aspect which refers to generalities.

Habitual aspect:

provides structural information on the nature of the subject referent, "John smokes" being interpretable as "John is a smoker", "Enjoh habitually gets up early in the morning" as "Enjoh is an early bird". The habitual aspect is a type of imperfective aspect, which does not depict an event as a single entity viewed only as a whole but instead specifies something about its internal temporal structure.

Gnomic aspect:

is a grammatical feature (which may refer to aspect, mood, or tense) that expresses general truths or aphorisms. [...] Used to describe a tense, the gnomic is considered neutral by not limiting action, in particular, to the past, present, or future. Examples of the gnomic include such generic statements as: "birds fly"; "sugar is sweet"; and "a mother can always tell".

Blepbob (talk) 03:02, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Prevent fires and Report thefts have the same structure: a finite verb in the imperative mood followed by a direct object. What sets it apart from Fix your bayonets or Put your hands up is the definiteness of that object. They are indefinite. That's the only grammatical difference.

Guinness is a substance (unless you're talking about a container filled with Guinness) and substances have their own rules concerning definiteness. Drink Guinness may still be said for a particular occasion to drink it. PiusImpavidus (talk) 08:15, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So @Card Zero, it seems you have the option to call your commands either "indefinite habitual gnomic imperatives" or "general life advice". Dealer's choice! Blepbob (talk) 22:47, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Let me try this out:

A command like join hands, chop wood, skip rope, hands up, or weigh anchor, despite lacking the definite article or a determiner, is semantically definite. From context it has the perfective aspect (referring to a single completable action), despite resembling the habitual aspect.

Can I really combine habitual with gnomic? That would lead to ... hobbits surely.

I'm unclear about chop wood and skip rope. In any likely context they refer to the (or some) wood or rope, but maybe these two are indefinite anyway. Or vaguely definite. I've been working with a Romanian guy, he seems unwilling to risk the use of English articles or determiners, so I have to interpret a lot of confusing minimalistic commands like these. Card Zero (talk) 02:05, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

September 19