Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 18:45, 8 May 2008

Jeh is busy in real life and may not respond swiftly to queries.

...then again, I am busy in real life, and sometimes welcome distractions. *wink*

PLEASE NOTE: If you post a message to me here, I will reply here, and I will expect you to reply to that here, and so on. I don't understand the notion of replying via each other's talk pages.

I will archive older, inactive discussions, just to keep this page clean (not because they are either large or numerous).

I apparently registered before the following bit of boilerplate was in use. It's a useful reference, so I am pasting it here for my own reference, and for others'.

Hello jeh, and welcome to Misplaced Pages! Here are some recommended guidelines to help you get involved. Please feel free to contact me if you need help with anything. Best of luck and happy editing! Getting started Misplaced Pages Tutorial How to edit a page The five pillars of Misplaced Pages Manual of Style Be bold in editing How to write a great article WikiProjects Getting your info out there Cite your sources Neutral Point of View Point of View Verifiability Uploading images Image use policy Getting more Misplaced Pages rules Policy Library Getting help New contributors' help page Where to ask a question Help Desk Frequently Asked Questions Getting along Wikipedians Wikiquette Civility Sign your posts Conflict resolution Getting technical Pages needing attention Peer review Utilities Village pump

Saint

I don't have any of the MP3s of the Saint radio shows, however you can download shows via a link in the External Links section of the Simon Templar article. Cheers. 23skidoo 06:35, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

64-bit Windows

You seem to have some incorrect information on 64-bit versions of Windows XP. The Itanium version is named 64-bit Edition, not Professional for Itanium. The x64 version is named Professional x64 Edition, not Professional for x64. "Original" is to distinguish the first release of Windows XP 64-bit Edition (5.1) from Windows XP 64-bit Edition 2003 (5.2). For these reasons, I'm going to revert most of your last 2 edits to Windows NT. - Josh (talk | contribs) 01:48, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not finding any discussion of this on any talk page with the exception of my above comments. By the way,here is evidence of Windows XP 64-bit Edition Version 2003's existence. - Josh (talk | contribs) 02:25, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Somehow I dropped an edit. See the talk page there in a few moments. :) Jeh (talk) 03:13, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

...which is why I said I knew I was going to regret this...

In the sentence

"There are a small number of differences between the two instruction sets."

"a small number of differences" is the implicit subject. The actual noun is "number". What kind of number? A number of differences. "of differences" modifies the noun "number".

Try this one:

"There are a bucket of chicken legs sitting on the table."

This is not right because we're not talking about chicken legs, we're talking about a bucket. Similarly, the verb in the original sentence is not about the differences, it's about the number. Regards,--NapoliRoma (talk) 20:15, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry but that is not correct. If we said "there are differences between...", "are" would clearly be appropriate, yes? Similarly if we said "there are two differences" or "there are fifty differences" or "there are many differences" or "there not many differences".

"A number" is a collective noun. You would not say "there is a dozen differences" just because you have only one dozen.

Or... let's try removing pieces. "There are differences between..." would be a perfectly valid sentence; the meaning is changed only slightly. But if you remove what you claim is the adjective, you're left with "There is a small number between the two instruction sets", which makes no sense at all. Therefore, clearly, the object of the sentence is "differences", not "number". See? Jeh (talk) 21:09, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

This is admittedly a tricky one, because both

number of differences

and

differences

serve as nouns, and it appears as though "number of"—by the fact that it can be removed without apparently changing the meaning in this case—is a modifier of "differences".

However, consider my example above: both

bucket of chicken legs

and

chicken legs

stand as nouns, but the meaning very clearly changes if you remove "bucket of". This is because "of chicken legs" modifies bucket, not the other way around. The sentence "There is a bucket sitting on the table" would be saying exactly the same thing as "There is a bucket of chicken legs sitting on the table", short the description of exactly what is in the bucket.

"A number" is a collective noun.

Which is pretty much my point. "Number" is a collective noun, and American English considers collective nouns to be singular. "The team is sitting on the bench". "ABC is proud to present".

You would not say "there is a dozen differences" just because you have only one dozen.

If this were British English, yes, we would say "a murder of crows are perched in the oak tree." You would not say "there is a dozen differences" not because "dozen" is a collective noun—it's an adjective—but because "differences" is a plural noun.

But if you remove what you claim is the adjective, you're left with "There is a small number between the two instruction sets", which makes no sense at all. Therefore, clearly, the object of the sentence is "differences", not "number".

Nope. The sentence is syntactically correct; it only makes no sense because you've removed the modifier explaining which number you're talking about. Similarly, "Don't go to house, go to house" is syntactically correct but nonsensical unless I include modifiers clarifying which two houses I'm talking about.--NapoliRoma (talk) 21:47, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

"However, consider my example above" -- that's the problem; your example is not parallel. This sentence is about "differences", not "number". What if we said "There are between 12 and 20 differences"? "A number" still strongly suggests that the number is greater than one, hence plural.

Even if (for sake of argument) I accept that the object here is "number", from the 1992 Gregg Reference Manual: "The expression the number has a singular meaning and requires a singular verb; a number has a plural meaning and requires a plural verb." Now I have to admit that someone on the site where I found that claims this isn't applicable, but I don't see why not. I'm sticking with this and we will have to agree to disagree.

This particular point does seem to be a matter of non-consensus; if you google for

"there are a number of" "there is a number of" grammar

you'll find a large number of (heh) pages discussing the issue. And not a few pages that use BOTH expressions, on a page discussing other topics of grammar! Googling each phrase individually reveals that "is a number of" has a very, very small edge in usage count. Jeh (talk) 22:28, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Now see what you've done? When you said "I'm sticking with this", I thought, "Gee, so much more I could say, but I'll respect his wishes and drop it..."

So: I still think the example is parallel. Your comment that "the sentence is about..." is irrelevant. The sentence about a bucket of chicken legs is, at its heart, about chicken legs; nevertheless, the object is still, irrevocably, "bucket" and "chicken legs" the modifier. When you say "between 12 and 20 differences", the object is "differences" and the modifier is "between 12 and 20". When I say "the team of squamish players", the object is "team" and the modifier is "of squamish players", and here in Amurrica we would say that team is sitting on the bench.

So, I firmly stand behind number being the object in question, and stand behind it being a collective noun. However...

The Chicago Manual of Style agrees with the Gregg Manual: the preceding article defines whether or not number is plural. Seems like a cop-out to me, but there we are. I gave up on fighting hopefully a long time ago, too. :-) Cheers,--NapoliRoma (talk) 23:19, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

If you mean e.g. "Hopefully, we have settled this matter" not meaning "We hope we have settled this matter", I agree. Cheers, Jeh (talk) 23:45, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Followup

This discussion is closed AFAI am concerned, but I had some more thoughts I wanted to write down, and this seems as good a place as any.

I did miswrite earlier when I used the term "collective noun." "A number of differences" is a plural, not collective, just as "23 differences" or whatever other non-1 number would be. So the British vs. American usage rule for collectives doesn't apply.

Another way to recast the sentence: From "There are a number of differences", we could go to "A number of differences exist..." or "Differences exist..." or "32 differences exist..." Clearly the subject here is "differences", not "a number".

The bucket of chicken legs example is not parallel. In "There is a bucket of chicken legs sitting on the table," it is the bucket that is doing the sitting. The chicken legs are not sitting directly on the table, as they are contained by the bucket. Hence the subject of that sentence is the bucket. Not so with "There are a number of differences..." "Differences" can exist, but "a number" cannot in this sense exist on its own and cannot in this usage be the subject of a sentence -- it has to be a number of something.

I think what is tricky here is the ordering: We are used to seeing constructs like "of somethings" being used as adjectives to a preceding noun, as in "bucket of chicken legs". But "A number of differences" or even "A number of chicken legs" is not the same sort of construct, even though it looks the same. The reason is that "A number of" is really just like "Numerous" or "some" or "many": "There are numerous differences between..." It is even less precise than those but it's a plural just the same, even though it has a singular article in front. Jeh (talk) 18:41, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmm.

Did you ever have a user ID starting with a Q, which of course would stand for "San Diego"?--NapoliRoma (talk) 20:48, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Boy, that's going back aways! Yes. No idea who you might be, though. Jeh (talk) 21:12, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

R ("as in Northridge"), wrote Cyber BBS. No worries if that doesn't ring a bell... .--NapoliRoma (talk) 21:57, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmm... I knew a few R's in those days. I'm afraid I have no idea which of them might have become NapoliRoma. If you want to email, I'm easy enough to find, or I can create a throwaway gmail account. Jeh (talk) 22:34, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Morse code tapping

Thanks Jeh. I suspect what happened is that you used the "undo" option, and the original change (to add the comment about tapping) was done in two parts. The result was that you undid only the second part. No problem, of course. "Show preview" helps to catch this kind of thing, but then again for a small change in a big article I find myself overlooking things even with that button. "Show changes" can help in that case. Paul Koning (talk) 15:56, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

About sandboxes

{{helpme}}

Is it permissible and desirable to create a sandbox under an article talk page? For collaboration purposes on a major section of the main article page? e.g.

talk:some_Subject/sandbox/proposed_revision_to_second_section

?

Thanks in advance for any reply! Jeh (talk) 06:46, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately it's imposable to do so, see here for reference. I suggest you create a sub page of your user page and do it there. You can provide a link to it on the Article talk page. Hope this help, Tiddly-Tom 06:55, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

See also Category:Misplaced Pages workpages. Bovlb (talk) 07:08, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Hm. It seems to me that that actually says you CAN use them that way:

Writing drafts of major article revisions, e.g Example Article/Temp in the main namespace, as you can get there accidentally using special:randompage -- write these in the talk namespace, e.g. Talk:Example Article/Temp.

No? Jeh (talk) 07:23, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

So basically, yes, you can create a subpage either on your User: space or in the article Talk space for working with major revisions (e.g., it's okay to create Talk:Cat/Hugerevision. Just don't redirect anything from the main article space into the talk workspace (like pointing Cat to Talk:Cat/Hugerevision. Cheers =) --slakr 10:40, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

ok, thank you! This seems a lot less "owning", i.e. better, than putting such in my own sandbox. Jeh (talk) 12:08, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Conventions in discussion threads

I ignore the convention because it makes discussions quickly unreadable. I also think there's no reason to indent each comment when you're not straying from a quite linear discussion and you're actually addressing the person you respond to. Threaded display of discussions isn't bad per se but Misplaced Pages simply does not provide the necessary tools unlike e-mail clients for example. I respond to this here because there's already enough off-topic talk over there. I don't mind adding the extra colon though. I'm just telling you, so that you know my reasons. --217.87.90.29 (talk) 18:01, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

np, thanks! Jeh (talk) 18:15, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Emergency note

Report Fnagaton ASAP before he reports you. --Multiplexor (talk) 18:45, 8 May 2008 (UTC)