Wikipedia:Reference Desk archive 3

I need help from Chinese speakers on some info I have here: Talk:Japanese language. It is about the influence of Chinese on Japanese. I would also like info from Korean, etc. --Juuitchan

See Talk:Japanese language

I am an amateur computer fanatic. I have recently had a genuineintel x 86 family 15 model 11.6 stepping 2 (256 omb ram) installed in my computer, sold as a pentium 4. Can anyone tell me if I have been cheated?

What was the relationship between the Far East Air Force, USAFFE, and the Philippine Army Air Corps? Likewise, what was the relationship between the Philippine Department and USAFFE Headquarters. Where can we get a good OOB and composition figures? Was the Offshore Patrol part of USAFFE or not? What are some good books on this topic? Vera Cruz

looks like you've found some duplicate articles - I'll add them to the list

Shouldn't the saying "You'll be the first to know" actually be "You'll be the second to know". Usually I'll find out before you do and therefore I will know first.

Many sayings and proverbs don't make a lot of sense. For example, as a character in Carl Sagan's Contact points out, the phrase "head over heels in love" should be "heels over head in love" because one's head is normally over one's heels. However, if I actually used the phrase "you'll be the second to know" I am quite certain that I would receive an incredulous stare and be asked the identity of the first person to know. Therefore, I think it is safe to say that the phrase implies that "the first to know" is actually the first person to know besides me. So the expression should actually be rephrased as "You'll be the first person I tell." In addition, I advance that the point of language is to communicate, and if you understood the point of the phrase, does it really matter if it makes sense? -Misfit

See idiom. --Ryguasu

I have noticed some peculiar features of the English language:

• "I want to not..." seems to be ungrammatical. You must substitute "I don't want to...", even though, logically speaking, not wanting to do something is not the same as wanting to not do it.
• "...supposed to not..." also seems to be ungrammatical.
• It seems that it is acceptable to refer to a child of unknown gender as "it", yet it is never acceptable (and would be very insulting) to refer to an adult as "it". Why is this?

Under what heading(s) do these belong?

They are Idioms: "an expression whose meaning has little or no apparent relation to its wording. Encounters with idioms can be frustrating for non-native users of a language" Ortolan88

Regarding it, there was an explanation at gender-neutral pronoun, but it got moved to meta: [1] (http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quest_for_gender-neutral_pronouns). I've moved the relevant section back to it.

Incidentally, I think the distinction between "I don't want to" and "I want to not" is definately not an idiom. An idiom is something like "raining cats and dogs" - the examples here are examples of obscure English grammar rather than idioms. Martin

In my opinion, these issues have nothing to do with idioms. Gramaticality judgements basically lie in the domain of syntax, although they may be influenced by a number of factors, from semantics to, say, human memory systems. As for people's ideas about negation in language, this should perhaps have its own article; recall that English once had double negatives, until some logically mind fellow (so as not to say fool) came along that decided that they didn't "make sense". --Ryguasu

"I want to not go" is ungrammatical because it is a split infinitive. similarly for "...supposed to not...". Hope that helps! Martin

That's true. Note that "I want not to go" is perfectly grammatical but more emphatic than "I don't want to go". However it is rather idiosyncratic. Most native speakers who want to emphasise a statement like that would say "I do not want to go" or "I really don't want to go". -- Derek Ross

Andover, Massachusetts is excluded from the very complete list of town with demographic census data. How can this be fixed?

see North Andover, Massachusetts Martin

Now that there is Chinese New Year this weekend, it would be nice to have a more extensive article abut it. I mean, this holiday is the most important holiday for about 1 billion people and celebrated in dozens of countries all over the world. So are there any people with enough knowledge to enhance the article? I have no background in Chinese culture, so I can only name some customs, but not there meanings: lion dance/dragon dance, mandarines, cakes & sweets, special music (like xmas music in europe & anglo-saxon countries), fire crackers ...

--zeno 07:31 Jan 30, 2003 (UTC)

When there are enough people with an interest in and knowledge of the Chinese New Year, one of them will write an article about it. Even someone with your minimal knowledge knows enough to write a stub and even if it's only a short stub to begin with, it will grow if people are interested in the subject. -- Derek Ross

Tet. Tet. I applaud your comprehensive anticipatory library design science. It will certainly improve use and useability of the Wikipedia. Two16

In film, there's a kind of zoom effect whereby the foreground gets larger and the background appears to recede. It's often used humorously now, eg Wayne's World, Malcolm in the Middle, as a shorthand for a character suddenly realising something devastating (but funny to the audience). What is the technical term for this effect, and how is it achieved? -- Tarquin 11:05 Feb 17, 2003 (UTC)

It's the Hitchcock zoom or "contrazoom". -- Anon.

Thank you, anon. :-) -- Tarquin 13:22 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)