Translation of research project title

I did not hear it, but did she say “stadiwms” or “stadiums”? The correct form would have been “stadia”, of course :wink:

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Grammar geek here (professional editor). In UK English, if you have a hyphen the first word qualifies the second, so data-ethnology is a kind of ethnology that uses data. If both words are equal then I would use an en-rule (data–ethnology) to signify that. (The poor en-rule lives in the shadows, many people ignorant of its existence. I know - why bother making the distinction if no one knows what it means? I just do as I’m told…)

None of this usually applies in US English, though (apart from the odd academic keen to keep the distinction; they are often overruled if their publisher insists on Chicago style, though).

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That depends on your definition of ‘correct’, of course :wink:

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Wow - never heard of the en rule. I read somewhere last night that some scientific conventions used in the scientific literature are over-ruled in other publishing conventions/media. Using IUPAC conventions you never put a hyphen between a number and the scientific units of measurement, so 25 kilograms and not 25-kilograms, but the hyphen or is it called something else here is a requirement in other publishing conventions.

This paper title has two “hyphens” that are examples of the en rule I think:

2-Propanol Dehydration via Extractive Distillation Using a Renewable Glycerol–Choline Chloride Deep Eutectic Solvent: Vapor–Liquid Equilibrium

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Until it ends up in a database and users searching for data–ethnology start tearing their hair out because they’re using the search term data-ethnology. Fortunately, modern fuzzy search algorithms (“did you mean to search for…?”) are wise to this, but it’s still the kind of error that creeps into quick-and-dirty bespoke systems. :slight_smile:

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G[quote=“sarapeacock, post:23, topic:7450”]
your definition of ‘correct’,
[/quote]

Yes, it is my definition, granted :smile: But I was wondering about the presenter being confused (? - not sure, didn’t hear the broadcast) after saying stadiau/stadiums - stadiau to me sounds more natural for multiple reasons than stadiums/stadiwms/stadiymau, but I have no idea what the ‘correct’ plural is

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I have never heard of the en-rule, or most other things grammatical. Is it the thing that MSWord uses when you don’t want it to split words on the hyphen? It looks like a long hyphen. I may have used it by accident! :slightly_frowning_face:

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That was probably an m-dash.

http://www.thepunctuationguide.com/em-dash.html

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Yeeees… except that is more usual in US style; UK style would have an en-dash with spaces either side – like this.

(Sorry … probably shouldn’t have started this!)

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A helpful article on the use of hyphens, en and em dashes — http://www.getitwriteonline.com/archive/091502enem.htm. Sorry — must find out how to insert a proper link!

Oh! I just have done it seems :slight_smile:

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Shouldn’t TechScaping have one of these things — whichever and whatevers -_- in between the Tech and Scaping?.

Yes, this is clear. But again this is US style – they use a closed-up em-rule where we’d use a spaced en-rule. But who knows, if enough people int he UK start reading these sorts of guides and following them perhaps the convention will change here as well in time.

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They seem to have decided it’s one word (‘camel case’ they call that conflation of words using initial caps). Who am I to disagree? :wink:

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I blame MacDonaldisation and the dot-com bubble and have to admit to it all being a bit kiSwahili to me.

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Interesting! That’s German usage as well, as far as I know.

I thought English usage was unspaced em dash; interesting to know that that’s specifically US usage and that UK uses spaced en dash.

Yes, in the case of ‘techscaping’ we wanted to reference the word landscaping hence the single word.

This whole discussion is fascinating as it’s really making me think about how grammatically best to represent what we are trying to get at. I now wonder whether we are talking about data - ethnography (em dash) rather than data-ethnography as the point is precisely to leave somewhat ambiguous the relatioship between data and ethnography (the research will both entail ethnographic research about how people are producing and using environmental data, and the incorporation of specific kinds of environmental data into our study in the hope that this data will shed new light on, or at least raise interesting questions about social dynamics in the estuary (e.g. pollution data).

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sorry - I mean to write en rule

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So, data and ethnography? If so, an en-rule might be entirely appropriate. But I wouldn’t begin to know how to represent that in Welsh! :wink:

The beauty of looking at things like this with a bilingual or trilingual hat on is that there could be a way of expressing the same thing in another language, that might open up a different perspective on it. I met a management professor once who was blown away by dysgu, because with one word she could express what she was thinking in terms of teaching and learning.

Even if in this instance the title was a straight translation into welsh, it might be an interesting discussion asking people in other languages to read papers like this and then suggest alternative titles in their own languages - it could open up new research questions and lines of thought.

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That’s a great insight.

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