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June 16

"Shopkeeper" in American English

Does the British English "shopkeeper" become "storekeeper" (or something else) in American English? 108.171.128.167 (talk) 10:01, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

American here. I would say that either would be universally understood in the States. Dismas|^(talk) 10:11, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

That's good. Is either more natural or more common or preferred? Or is there nothing in it? 108.171.128.167 (talk) 10:31, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

"Store manager" might be more common than either. But of the two, I think "storekeeper" would be more common. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:57, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Sure, we recognize and understand both terms in the USA, but agree with Bugs that we natives don't commonly say them. Also I think there must be a time as well as geographic window for which the word even makes sense. It was different in the USA ~40-50 years ago, but today many people in the USA primarily have access to big box stores, and very few mom and pop shops. So while I might use "shopkeeper" to refer to the proprietor of my local bike shop, there's nobody at e.g. Home depot that would really merit the moniker (instead they have cashiers, managers, stockers, sales assistants, team leaders, and all sorts of other titles on their badges). Finally, my WP:OR is that "storekeeper" sounds much weirder and occurs much less often than "shopkeeper," but I've moved about a good bit and worked with many Brits. SemanticMantis (talk) 13:38, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

I disagree with Bugs. Storekeeper is not a word in common use in American English. Certainly it is used by some people some of the time, but it is not the usual word to refer to the owner or manager of a store. If it were, since North American English has roughly as many users as Commonwealth English, we would expect roughly as many Google hits for storekeeper as for shopkeeper. Instead, we have 8.7 million hits for shopkeeper and about 800,000 for storekeeper. The normal equivalent to the British shopkeeper in American English is either store owner, which gets 5.7 million Google hits, or store manager, with 37 million hits. I agree with SemanticMantis that shopkeeper, which sounds quaint and is used mainly for quaint little shops, is heard in American English more often storekeeper, which is almost rare. Marco polo (talk) 13:43, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Here's a google ngram graph of the terms you mention [1] - it's a little more rigorous than simple google searches, but then again it's a corpus of books, which are different than speech and casual web speak. I don't think it will be easy to tell what proportion of books are BrEng vs AmEng, but we can assume your rough equivalence works here as well.

Anyway, 'storekeeper' did have higher frequency than 'shopkeeper' for a bit in the 1940s, so Bugs' suggestion was more in line back then (and that makes sense, since most of his jokes seem to come from that decade as well ;) SemanticMantis (talk) 13:53, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

I am surprised to see that storekeeper scores higher than store owner or store manager today, since it is somewhat alien to my speech community. It makes me wonder whether storekeeper is actually in wider use outside the United States because it is parallel to shopkeeper. Too bad Ngram can't distinguish the nationalities of writers. Marco polo (talk) 14:04, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

• I find the equation of store manager and shopkeep(er) odd. The manager works for the owner or for a chain, while a shopkeep is the owner/proprietor. When people decry the death of the Ma & Pa store they are not lamenting the loss of the store manager position. μηδείς (talk) 17:20, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

• The store manager serves the same role, in that they are the highest person you can complain to, on site, if there is a problem. StuRat (talk) 17:33, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Ah, yes, the famous Napoleonic line that "England is a nation of store managers." μηδείς (talk) 20:35, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

In a case where the store is actually owned by a person on-site, I (US English, Detroit) would either call them the "owner" or "proprietor". Note that there may also be both an owner and a store manager present, in some larger shops where the owner can't manage it all alone. StuRat (talk) 17:33, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

In South African English "storekeeper" is actually the title of an occupation. You can go to college and take a course in storekeeping, but it has little to do with directly serving retail customers. One of my cousins started his career as the storekeeper at an automotive repair company, he managed the on-site store of spares. It was his job to see that the workshop got the items they needed and that they don't run out of brake-pads, spark-plugs, etc. A "lite" version of warehouse management. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 12:22, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

This meaning of storekeeper (aka storeperson, formerly storeman) is also still current in the UK: the company I work for has a couple. One perhaps-not-universal feature is that they deal with stock levels, but not to the detail of tracking individual Serial Numbers of (expensive) non-fungible items, which can be a problem (which we're trying to address). With reference to the US equivalence to "shopkeeper", I would be expect to encounter this usage in a US period setting such as a Western novel or film, less so in a modern context for the reasons discussed by others above. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 13:17, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Isn't ambiguity the reason why an American "store" is not likely owned by a "storekeeper"? The quartermaster has charge of the stores, and when somebody wants something out of the stores they go to the "storekeeper" to get it. 5.150.92.20 (talk) 19:26, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

What is the Burrand Bush?

The article on Battle_of_Stoke_Field describes `` ... a large stone memorial with the legend "Here stood the Burrand Bush planted on the spot where Henry VII placed his standard after the Battle of Stoke 16 June 1487" ``. What is the Burrand Bush? --Dr Dima (talk) 14:58, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Hm. Could be an obsolete common name. Looking at the stone [2], it's maybe possible to read it as "Burr and Bush" - as though two plants were planted, or it was the name of a pub. Oh, just found this book [3], which claims 'Burrand' was synonymous with 'Burham', and in 1828 it was "a large, lofty and ancient thorn tree" - so perhaps one of the Crataegus spp. is a good starting guess.SemanticMantis (talk) 16:26, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

... but not the name of this pub. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:40, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

I don't see any space that would indicate it was meant as "BURR AND BUSH". It appears the lettering was otherwise done by a competent engraver, so I don't think omitting the space accidentally is likely (or that they would fail to replace it, had made such a mistake). StuRat (talk) 17:40, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Looking at the stone, I think it may be a mistake to read "burrand bush" as a proper name that should be capitalized. One possibility is that -and is a present participle ending. This was the regular present participle ending in Middle English in the Midlands. In this case it could be a reference to a bush that bore burs. Marco polo (talk) 19:11, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

You have a pretty good case, I'd say. At least it's not the Bush that bored boys. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:37, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

What do you think of the claims made in the book I linked above? I don't know if the proposed Burrand/Burham interchangeability makes sense, but the 1828 quote further says the tree "...has borne the appellation Burham Bush for time immemorial". But Hawthorne is still a likely candidate, whether it was named after Burham or that it bore burrs or both. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:09, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

I found Nottinghamshire Hidden History Team - Nottinghamshire’s Part in Richard III’s Story by Frank E Earp (scroll down almost to the end of the article): "The Burrand Bush: Curiously, the bush became known as The Burrand Bush, a name which makes no reference to the purpose to which it was supposedly planted. Thorn bushes, White Thorn and Black Thorn, have for thousands of years held a sacred connection to Sovereignty and it is not surprising to find a bush of this kind being used to mark such a site. What I find interesting is the fact that a thorn bush twice plays a role in Henry VII life at a time when his rightful kingship is challenged. We do not know how-long the original bush lasted or if, as it died and decayed, it was replaced by another, but what is certain is that the bush was eventually replaced by a succession of stone markers know as The Burrand Stone. Again it is curious that the stone bares (sic) an inscription which seems to first commemorate the bush rather than the raising of the standard; ‘Here Stood The Burrand Bush Planted On The Spot Were Henry VII Placed His Standard After The Battle Of Stoke June 16th 1487′." Alansplodge (talk) 15:47, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

June 17

Horshoes

The Wiktionary entry for "horseshoe" states that it's always pronounced /ˈhɔːs.ʃuː/ in RP, but alternatively /ˈhɔːrs.ʃuː/ and /ˈhɔːr.ʃuː/ in US English. (1) Does the former pronunciation ever get used by USAians? I've only ever heard /ˈhɔːr.ʃuː/. (2) Do a significant number of UKians ever say /ˈhɔːs.ʃuː/? To my USAian tongue, the transition from s to ʃ is awkward, probably partly because I can't think of any other words that possess it; I don't understand why it wouldn't occur at all (or occur at all significantly) in UK English. Nyttend (talk) 02:47, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

For me (BE) it depends entirely on how slowly and carefully I'm speaking whether or not there is a distinct /s/ before for /ʃ/. --ColinFine (talk) 12:05, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

For me (South African English) it sounds identical to "whore shoe" (i.e. protitute's footwear) in fast speech - the "s" in horse dissapears, but not when pronounced more carefully. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:40, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

• I have spent most of my life in the NYC and Philly area, and say /ˈhɔ:rʃ.ʃuːz/. The ess is assimilated to esh except in very careful citation form elicitations, and without the gemination you end up with whore shoes. μηδείς (talk) 19:02, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

UKer here, and I pronounce the 's' distinctly from the 'sh' when speaking slowly. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 10:58, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

I have heard Americans pronounce the "s" sometimes (in fact, I have also heard issue - is/shu, not as often as i/shu or from other countries, i/su) Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:11, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Forvo has a recording of a male from Minnesota saying /ˈhɔːrs.ʃuː/ at http://forvo.com/search/horseshoe/.

—Wavelength (talk) 19:13, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

I did not mean to imply that I could not say it or wouldn't say it if using the citation form. In most cases it would be odd to hear an American make the effort if he weren't enunciating carefully on purpose. μηδείς (talk) 19:34, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

As an American, I might say 'let's play hor/shus', but than 'hang the hors/shu over the door'. And perhaps because of all the s's in the phrase, I could easily say, 'close only counts in hors/shus and hand grenades' Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:36, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

common root of greek puros and latin purare

It struck me that the english words purify and the prefix pyro- are probably linked in etymology (purifying flames, and all), but the page on Greek and Latin roots in English suggests that they are from latin and greek respectively. Is there a common route here, or just coincidence? --137.108.145.25 (talk) 15:55, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

I mean root, of course:) --137.108.145.25 (talk) 15:55, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Just a coincidence - fire (and Greek pyr) are from wikt:Appendix:Proto-Indo-European/péh₂ur. Pure is from a different root that Wiktionary does not have an article for. Adam Bishop (talk) 17:04, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Lat. pūrus < PIt. pūro- "pure" < PIE ph₂ú-ro- "clear, cleansed". Connected to Gr. πῡρός, OE fyrs "wheat" < PIE puHro- "wheat" (Lubotsky 2008: 500-501).--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 17:59, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

The Modern English for fyrs is furze. μηδείς (talk) 19:05, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

June 18

I'm looking for nine English words, pronounced almost equally, except for a single monophthong - by which they are phonetically different from each other.

Meanwhile, I've found a set of eight words: seat, sit, set, sat, sot, sought, soot, suit.

Please don't use proper nouns, nor acronyms (e.g. SUT).

Btw, I need nine, because the main English accents have nine undisputed monophthongs - as phonemes: FLEECE KIT DRESS TRAP STRUT THOUGHT FOOT GOOSE BALM (or BOMB). Please note that the "balm-bomb split" is disputed (GA doesn't have it), so I choose to omit it. Additionally, the last monophthong of "sofa" (and likewise) may be considered in GA - not as a phoneme - but rather as an allophone (e.g. of the monophthong of "cut" or of "calm" or of "set"), whereas the words "fur" "her" "were" "curt" (and likewise) may be considered in GA - as having consonants only - or as having an allophone of the monophthong of "cut", so I omitted their monophthong as well.

HOOTmag (talk) 09:44, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

To your first set can be added soot, but there doesn't seem to be a "sut(t)". Deor (talk) 11:01, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I have already noticed that, and changed it before I saw your comment, but after I saved my change I saw you had preceded me by two minutes... HOOTmag (talk) 11:24, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

I can get nine, in my non-rhotic British accent, using your nine examples, with one word I didn't know: PEAT, PIT, PET, PAT, PART, PUTT, PORT, PUT, POOT (which according to the OED can be a fart ("U.S. regional (chiefly south.)"; or "an insignificant or contemptible person"; or an interjection "expressing exasperation". AndrewWTaylor (talk) 11:06, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

You could replace "part" by "pot", so you could have eight undisputed words (agreed by GA as well): peat pit, pet, pat, putt, pot, put, poot. HOOTmag (talk) 11:28, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

I can get 12 with H and a little fudging - heart, hate, heat, haughty, hole, Hoo (as in Sutton), hat, het (as in "rosexual"), hit, hot, hut, hood. Tevildo (talk) 12:07, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Your dozen does not satisfy my basic requirement: words "pronounced almost equally, except for a single monophthong". Not only do some of your words (e.g. "hate", "hole") have a diphthong instead of a monophthong, but they are different by consonants as well. HOOTmag (talk) 12:31, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

How about teat, tit, Tet (I guess that works? Or tête if we take that as a borrowing in English), tat, tart, tut, taught, tort, toots (as in slang for a woman, toot - that's 10, in my Canadian English accent, although I suppose taught and tort would be the same vowel for some other accents? Tot is another possibility, tot and taught are the same vowel for me but probably different for others. Adam Bishop (talk) 13:41, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Toots is irrelevant, because it's different from the others by its final consonant as well. Tart and tort are irrelevant in your rhotic Canadian accent (as well as in GA), so to sum up: you have eight undisputed words only - including in GA (or seven words in your Canadian accent): teat, tit, Tet, tat, tut, toot, tot, taught (the last one being irrelevant in your Canadian accent). However, I suspect Tet is not an English word (but rather is a Vietnamese one). HOOTmag (talk) 16:27, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Aw, nuts. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:07, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

This uses some less familiar words and pronunciations......leeks, licks, leks, lacks, lucks, lawks, luxe (rhyming with dukes), looks, locks. Herbivore (talk) 18:23, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

I suspect luxe does not rhyme with dukes but rather with looks... Btw, Luke's could work, and you could also remove the s from all of the words and get the same result, however Luke is a proper noun, as opposed to my initial requirement. HOOTmag (talk) 18:47, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

M-W at least lists \lüks\ as one pronunciation of luxe. This would rhyme with dukes. --Amble (talk) 19:20, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Correct (I hadn't noticed that), but it's disputed (e.g. Wiktionary does not indicate this pronunciation) while my post deals with "undisputed" words only. HOOTmag (talk) 19:39, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Wiktionary lists this pronunciation as /luks/: wikt:luxe. If you don't like that, you could drop the esses and replace luxe with wikt:luke, which is listed in Wiktionary as a common noun meaning lukewarm. --Amble (talk) 00:30, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

In wiktionary, /luks/ is the pronunciation of both "luxe" and "looks", so it does not rhyme with "dukes", pronounced by wiktionary as /du:ks/. As for "lukewarm" (and "luke" deriving from "lukewarm"): its pronunciation is considered by Wiktionary as disputed, since it's pronounced in GA as /lukworm/ - while /lu:kwo:m/ is the pronunciation in UK. Please note that I asked for "nine" words, just because the main English accents have nine undisputed monophthongs (as phonemes) only, although the accent in UK has eleven monophthongs (as phonemes). HOOTmag (talk) 07:43, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

No, "looks" is /lʊks/, while "luxe" is /luks/. These are different vowel sounds. Perhaps your browser isn't correctly rendering ʊ? Note that /u/ and /u:/ are the same vowel sound, with /u:/ simply held longer. That has no bearing at all on the straightforward fact that the /u/ in "luke" is the same vowel quality in either dialect. The common noun "luke" is pronounced identically to the name "Luke", which you already acknowledged satisfies your requirements apart from being a proper noun; General American English simply has no contrastive vowel length in general. I'm not sure where you're seeing any "dispute". Herbivore's list answers your request perfectly, as does the version without the esses and with "luke". (for those without cot-caught merger anyway.) --Amble (talk) 15:03, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

1. The pronunciation of "luxe" is disputed: Not only is it pronounced in two different ways in US - as indicated both in the (American) M-W dictionary and in Wiktionary (without any indication about how it's pronounced outside US), but it also never rhymes with "dukes" in the British Collins Dictionary (which indicates that "luxe" only rhymes with "looks" or with "lucks").

2. The very word "luke" (as an adjective rather than as a proper noun) is absent in the (American) M-W dictionary, and is indicated in Wiktionary as a Britishism, so I suspect it's not recognized outside UK.

3. Both lawk and lawks are indicated in Wiktionary as Britishisms, and I can't find them in the (American) M-W dictionary.

HOOTmag (talk) 08:22, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

laced, last, least/leased, lest, liced, list, lost, lust, loosed. (Not sure liced is a word, strictly speaking.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:11, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Neither "laced" nor "liced" have a monophthong. HOOTmag (talk) 19:25, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

How do you figure? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:28, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

See English phonology and note that IPA uses two vowel symbols to describe those diphthongs. See also the discussion of English in Diphthong. Marco polo (talk) 19:37, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

In my part of America, a word like "laced" is pronounced with a single long A. No dipthong involved. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:43, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Are you in the Upper Midwest? If so, then it's possible, but /ai/ in "lice" would still be a diphthong (albeit probably slightly raised).--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 20:03, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes. And the "i" in lice would be pronounced the same as "I", as in my-myself-and... Is that "I" also considered a dipthong? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:19, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes: The word "I", pronounced as the name of the letter I, is pronounced as a diphthong - generally indicated in IPA by /ai/. Just as the word "a", pronounced as the name of the letter A, is pronounced as a diphthong - generally indicated in IPA by /ei/.

Do you pronounce the vowel in "laced", as you pronounce the vowel in the name of the letter A? HOOTmag (talk) 20:47, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes. So are you ruling out all the "long" letters? That's going to make it hard to find nine words in a given series. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:16, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Why hard? Herbivore has found: leek, lick, lek, lack, lock, luck, lawk, look, Luke (the only problem in the last one being my initial requirement to avoid proper nouns). HOOTmag (talk) 07:43, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Calling the long I a dipthong just because of the way IPA renders it is pretty strange. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:38, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

It's not because of IPA. Please note that IPA is just a symptom. Actually, the long a,i,o,u (as in "ray", "lie", "no", pure") are diphthongs, according to the very definition of the concept "diphthong". HOOTmag (talk) 13:46, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Long I is not a dipthong to a native English speaker. In Webster's, it's rendered as simply a letter I with a horizontal line over it, as the other "long" letters are. In a language like Spanish, which lacks a long I, it has to be simulated with something like "ai", hence the IPA rendition. But the long I occurs naturally in Engliah. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:54, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

The concept of diphthong is objective, not depending on any given language. Just as the concepts of consonsnts (and vowels) are objective. HOOTmag (talk) 13:59, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

You're confusing Webster's style of representing sounds (which is really just a typographical convention) with the actual phonological concept of diphthongs. It's certainly possible for the letter "I" to be a monophthong in English. In southern US English, for example, it is sometimes - if you can imagine it being spelled in eye dialect as "ah", "ah do declayuh" or whatever, that's a monophthong. But unless you're a southern belle, your mouth is combining two different phonemes, whether you realize it or not, and regardless of however some dictionary types it. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:07, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

I'll take the reality over the theory. "I" is a single sound. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:09, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

I suppose it's possible you have an accent with a monophthong I instead of simply not knowing what you're talking about. But...well, you know. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:25, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Reality is, in standard American English, "I" is a diphthong, meaning you start making one vowel sound and transition to a different one. That is, in the course of pronouncing the first person pronoun, your actual sound making apparatus changes its shape while pronouncing it. It is fundamentally different sounds, because you physically alter your vocal apparatus while making it. This is different from monophthongs, like "ah" or "eh" in words like "bed" where the vowel sound represents a single orientation of your vocal chords. This is different from the word "bide", where the "i" represents two different orientations of your vocal chords. That's what makes it a diphthong. (again, this discussion is void for English dialects where such a sound is an actual monopthong, such as the "Scarlet O'Hara Southern Belle" dialect.) --Jayron32 14:29, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Also, even if you did have such an accent, then you aren't even using the sound that is represented in Webster's. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:32, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Also also, Bugs, have you ever actually read the front matter in the dictionary, instead of just guessing what the funny symbols might mean? Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.), Guide to Pronunciation on page 35a, says "this sound is a diphthong." Adam Bishop (talk) 14:47, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

In fairness, hearing that the long "I" in "like" is actually two distinct sounds pushed together is hard! Or at least it is for many people who are not (yet) trained to hear it. I too was skeptical at first. You have to really listen to what you're saying, and think about how your mouth moves. If you have a way to record yourself saying it (video or audio), that would probably help. Another thing to try - say "lah" and then "eek". Then say them closer together. Then closer. Eventually it will sound just like "like". SemanticMantis (talk) 14:54, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

The only way I would be convinced would be if I recorded my voice saying "I" and then played it at a much slowed speed. If it sounded like "ah-ee", then I would concede. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:52, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Or you could just, like, pronounce it slowly. Say it with another word, especially one that starts with a vowel. You know how Popeye says "I yam what I yam"? That's because it's a comical exaggeration of the way "I am" is actually pronounced. The "y" part comes from the second part of the "I" diphthong. Adam Bishop (talk) 17:06, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Bugs, the above descriptions of English long i as a diphthong are correct. If you say "ah" you will notice that your tongue does not move, while if you say "ah", then transition to long i you will notice that the front of your tongue rises from the bottom of your mouth to just behind your teeth. (You can feel this motion of the tongue towards the top of your mouth if you place the tip of your finger on the front of your tongue while saying "ah" and "I". Then say "ee" and you will see that the tongue stays where it ended up at the end of "I". While "I" does count as one phoneme in English, it consists of two vowel sounds, or better, a shift in sound, making it a diphthong.) It is dropping this motion that causes some Southerners in the US to say "Ah did not have sex with that woman." A good test for a diphthong is to see if you can elongate the vowel until you run out of breath without moving your tongue. You can do this with eeeeeeeee, no problem. But if you tray to do this with long i you will get aaaaaaaaaahee or aheeeeeeeeeee. μηδείς (talk) 19:04, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Maybe Bugs should consult an oncologist, to check that his symptoms are not indicative of vowel cancer. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:14, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

No, all he needs is a proper vowel movement, and he'll be as right as rain. StuRat (talk) 03:53, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

heed/he'd, hid, head, had, hud/hudd, hod, hawed, hood, who'd. --Theurgist (talk) 16:38, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Both hud and hudd are indicated in Wiktionary as Britishisms, and I can't find them in the American M-W dictionary. HOOTmag (talk) 20:07, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

You never specified that the words must or must not be Britishisms/Americanisms/Australianisms/whatever. Also, hudd is actually not indicated as anything in Wiktionary, because Wiktionary doesn't have an entry for that word (note that Wiktionary article titles are case-sensitive even for the first letter, so wikt:Hudd is a different entry - which, by the way, isn't indicated as a Britishism either). --Theurgist (talk) 18:32, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

How to list phonemes

How to list phonemes/sounds in the text:

1. /a o u/
2. /a, o, u/
3. /a/, /o/, /u/

I incline to the second, but what is the most accepted style in scientific circles?--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 20:07, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

The third option is the correct one, but maybe you can use #1 and #2 as informal options. HOOTmag (talk) 20:39, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

I looked through some books. Some use #3 variant consistently, especially from the Cambridge UP and Routledge. "The Handbook of IPA" uses #1 as well as some books from the CUP. "The Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World" uses #1 (p.19), #2 (p.16) and #3 (p.34). Strazny's "Encyclopedia of Linguistics" uses #3. So there seems to be no standard as such, but I'd prefer #2 as it's both economic like #1 and contrastive like #3. --Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 04:53, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

I see this differently: It seems that the sources which use #3 prefer the formal style, while the other sources prefer the more convenient style - despite its being informal. HOOTmag (talk) 15:16, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

June 19

Editor who speaks Norwegian?

Hi. I'd like a smidgen of help from someone who speaks Norwegian. Anyone? --Dweller (talk) 10:56, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Speaks or understands? If you want translation from written Norwegian (preferably Bokmål) into English I'll have a go, but if it's the other way I'd struggle. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 11:46, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

For questions of this nature, there is always Editors who speak Norwegian.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 11:51, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Native speaker, will be happy to help! --NorwegianBlue ^talk 12:19, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll drop by your talk page. --Dweller (talk) 12:46, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Does the word orphan apply to adult children?

The word orphan (typically) refers to a child with no parents (for example, a child whose two parents are deceased). If an adult – say, someone in their fifties or sixties – has two deceased parents, is he properly called an "orphan", also? Or not? (I read the Wikipedia article, and I'd like further input, if any.) Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 14:26, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

The OED defines an orphan as "a person, esp. a child, both of whose parents are dead", so describing an independent adult as one is technically correct, I suppose, but rather meaningless, especially after the age of 50 or so. The idea of adult orphans features farcically in The Pirates of Penzance - the Major-General begs for mercy on the grounds that he is an orphan, it having been previously established that the pirates are so soft-hearted that they never attack orphans, so all their potential victims plead orphanhood. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 16:26, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

The word origin means "parentless child", which is normal usage.[4] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Baseball Bugs (talk • contribs) 16:43, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

As others have mentioned, it would be technically correct, but odd. The term orphan is usually reserved for underage children who lack parents. However, I have sometimes seen it used to denote parentless adults in cases where the relationship was especially close or where they continued co-habitating until the death of the parent. I suppose it could be used to convey the sense that they feel just as helpless as a young orphan would be. Matt Deres (talk) 18:15, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Clifton Webb, for example. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:32, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

• Orphan comes from the Greek reflex of the PIE root *orbh- which meant bereft of a father or deprived of free status. Cinderella, raised by and forced to drudge for her wicked step-mother, would be an orphan in the original sense, while an established adult would not. μηδείς (talk) 18:46, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
• I think calling an adult an "orphan" is weird. If I heard an adult called an orphan, I would probably even assume it meant they had been orphaned as a child. 109.152.147.80 (talk) 03:17, 20 June 2015 (UTC)
  • My loving parents died when I was a fully independent adult, and I would never refer to myself as an "orphan". But when I think of my parents, there are definitely feelings associated with the connotations of the word "orphan" deep in my heart. The sense of loss and being somewhat adrift persists even after many years. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:28, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

I am sorry for your loss. Thanks for sharing your input. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 00:54, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, all. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 00:54, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Why is "may" optional?

I hear these idiomatic phrases often.

• God bless.
• God damn it!

When I look up the etymology, I notice that the terms originally had "may", which makes sense, because the action verbs are supposed to be subjunctive, not indicative. But I still don't get why the "may" should be removed. Why remove the "may"? 66.213.29.17 (talk) 15:15, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

This source (which isn't necessarily the best) shows that the oldest use they could find (older than the online Oxford dictionary) lacked a "may."

My guess would be that the "may" was probably inserted for theological reasons: to avoid sounding like one was commanding God, but may still implied in most other uses. Ian.thomson (talk) 15:27, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

The subjunctive in English is not always expressed periphrastically, with a modal auxiliary. See (before it gets archived) the thread #The Our Father near the top of this page, which discusses "Thy kingdom come" and "Thy will be done" as subjunctive expressions. Deor (talk) 15:30, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Yep, hortatory subjunctive is what I thought of. Often the grammatical mode can be sort of implied (and is sometimes somewhat ambiguous). SemanticMantis (talk) 17:56, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Actually Optative mood may be more appropriate. I learned this stuff through Ancient Greek and Latin, so I'm a little rough on what gets called what in a language like English. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:01, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

It is indeed an optative usage of the English subjunctive, but the Germanic languages don't have an optative mood separately conjugated from the subjunctive. Periphrasis such with modal auxiliaries such as "may..." or "would that..." are typical of modern English, but they still govern the subjunctive: "May he show mercy", not *may he shows mercy or *may him to show mercy. μηδείς (talk) 18:53, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Side question on optative/subjunctive terminology

So the mode is subjunctive, but the semantics are optative, but we don't call it an optative because it's not morphologically marked? But the subjunctive is not morphologically marked either, as you say, we use auxiliaries. I understand you're reporting conventional terminology, but I don't see why we don't say "let them eat cake" is an optative form in English, and say that "If I were to eat cake, I'd be happy" is a subjunctive construction. Or is it just that optative mood isn't sufficiently distinct from subjunctive in languages that don't inflect verbs to indicate mood? Why is wishing optative in Ancient Greek but considered subjunctive in English? SemanticMantis (talk) 20:49, 19 June 2015 (UTC) Um, I kinda think you've got those two backwards, if I'm understanding correctly. Or at least you're putting together different uses of the English subjunctive that are confusing in context of the discussion. In English, at least in the traditional interpretation of these things, it's the present subjunctive that is used for third-person imperatives. "Let them eat cake" is a third-person imperative rendered with an auxiliary, whereas "John eat cake" would be a third-person imperative in the subjunctive. It sounds odd in today's English, but we have plenty of fixed phrases that use it ("God save us", "Devil take the hindmost", etc). I don't think that's "optative". The other major use of the present subjunctive is in sentences like "it is important that you be prompt", which is not a third-person imperative. I'm not quite sure what this one is called. I was calling it jussive for a while but I don't think that's exactly right. The optative can be rendered using the past subjunctive in phrases like "I wish I were seventeen again". --Trovatore (talk) 21:02, 19 June 2015 (UTC) Maybe I got the examples switched, but here was my rationale: I got "If I were to $foo" straight from Subjunctive_mood#English, which uses that as an example of the future subjunctive. I got "let them eat cake" my analogy to "may you have a long life" in the optative mood article. Another more canonically optative form would be "Would that I ate cake!" - which is how I was instructed to formulaically translate the ancient Greek optative of wish into English. Another way of putting my question - why do they say that English has no morphological optative, yet acknowledge "may you have a long life" as an "optative meaning", while we consider English to have a subjunctive, even though it is not marked morphologically in the verb ("I owned" is the example for past indicative, while "that I owned" is the example for past subjunctive). To my eye, neither is marked morphologically on the verb, and both convey semantic information via auxiliary words. So why not say English has an Optative just like a subjunctive? Or say that it has neither as morphological grammatical modes, but has both as constructed forms? Maybe the answer is that the verb to be does have a morphological subjunctive, even if almost no other verbs do? SemanticMantis (talk) 21:27, 19 June 2015 (UTC) I am not sure this "future subjunctive" idea is really standard. I would call it past subjunctive. The "were" is certainly morphologically past tense. The past subjunctive is morphologically marked only in the "were" case, whereas the present subjunctive is marked in the third-person singular, and in all persons and numbers with "to be". But I don't think "may you have a long life" is subjunctive at all; it's just "may" functioning as a modal auxiliary. --Trovatore (talk) 21:32, 19 June 2015 (UTC) SemanticMantis, there are two basic considerations. First, the subjunctive in general expresses things counter to fact. So, "It's important that he arrives on time" is indicative (it states a fact, and gives a reason he should get a raise) while "It's important that he arrive on time" is subjunctive, because the implication is that he may be late. In English, the subjunctive and indicative differ in certain forms, especially the third person present. We can also say in English, "Would that he arrive on time" which is an optative construction, but the subjunctive form is used, as there is no separate ending for the optative. In Greek, however, there are separate verb endings for all three moods. Indicative is "he looses", λύει; subjunctive is "that he loose", λῡ́ῃ; and optative is "would that he loose", λῡ́οι. (The verb wikt:λύω "I (set) loose" in Greek examples for technical reasons, as it lacks irregular forms.) Since the conjugational endings between the indicative, subjunctive, and optative are all different in Ancient Greek, we speak of three separate moods in the conjugation. (The optative in the Ancient Greek verb is characterized by an iota (i) after the stem vowel and before the personal ending.) Because English only has two sets of endings (which in many cases overlap) English is identified as having two moods in its verb conjugations, with the subjunctive having the role of both a counterfactual and as an optative. Eventually the optative also disappeared in Greek, with the subjunctive taking over its role there too. μηδείς (talk) 18:21, 20 June 2015 (UTC) User:Medeis thanks, that helps clear it up. I guess the subjunctive is sometimes morphologically marked, so that's enough to consider it a full mood, while optative never is, so it isn't. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:41, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Overuse of 'different' and 'separate'

It seems that everywhere my eyes or ears are focussed these days, I see and hear 'different' and 'separate' overused.

Typically, it's Australian media, which exposes me to reports such as "The longstanding local member is facing a challenge from nine different candidates in the upcoming election". I read that and I wonder whether the use of 'different' is to make sure that readers don't think the nine candidates are all identical clones of each other.

Or "Victoria has had a horror weekend on the roads, with six different people killed in four separate accidents". Again, no doubt just to clarify that it wasn't one person killed six times in different places and (probably but not necessarily) at different times, a really stunning case of multilocation and multiple resurrection that would put Christ to shame.

Is this just a Down Under phenomenon, or do the media of the other allegedly civilised/developed countries engage in this rubbish as well?

(I can hardly imagine the reporters from third-or-higher-world countries ever falling for this juvenile "at-all-costs-copy-whatever-the-others-are-saying-no-matter-how-absurd-it-sounds" trap. But if they try really hard, they might become developed and then they'll qualify to talk as we do. Hooray!) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:51, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

I haven't noticed this in the US. In the first case they may be trying to say that there are nine candidates, each challenging him in separate campaigns, versus all working together to "unseat the king" with a joint campaign. In the second case the "different people" is truly silly, unless they mean to distinguish them from conjoined twins, but the "four different accidents" is probably trying to say they are four unrelated accidents. (Related accidents can happen due to a shared hazardous condition, like a blizzard, road flooding, or object in the road.) StuRat (talk) 01:53, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

• That would be interesting if one of the six victims had been killed in three of the four separate accidents. It's Orson-Wellesian bad writing if the announcer is reading from a script; off the top of his head it's just the normal sort of disfluency one can expect in rushed utterances. The first sentence sounds fine to me, the announcer is emphasizing that there are nine Black Riders, not just a few. The second example is not anything I would expect to hear or can say I have ever heard in the US. μηδείς (talk) 22:13, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Yes, I was rather suspecting it's just the TV channels and newspapers typically trying to out-"shock! horror!" each other, which is why some rags have a standard huge black headline taking up almost half the front page, as if there's a new world war breaking out every single day. And on TV, everything is dramatised to hell, so that every minor or even just-barely-newsworthy development in an ongoing story is "a bizarre new twist in the XXX saga", and each minor issue in politics is "XXX has been plunged into crisis", and every time the police are called to a suburban incident, we're startled to learn that "XXX is in lockdown". So, from this histrionic perspective, it's simply not enough to tell us that 6 people were killed on the roads today; no, it has to be "6 different people" and "4 separate accidents". As for "horror smashes", don't get me started. But I'm somewhat surprised to learn this "different/separate" thing is not known in other parts. Maybe we're a journalistically creative nation after all. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:42, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

"a bizarre new twist in the XXX saga" lol μηδείς (talk) 18:00, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

We have other horrors in news reporting in the US. They are apparently afraid of being sued for mentioning that anybody is wanted for a crime, so instead of calling them a criminal, they call them a "gentleman", and throw in lots of "alleged"s, as in "The alleged gentleman allegedly shot the alleged neighbor's alleged dog for allegedly barking in his alleged neighbor's alleged back yard". The police also don't want to call anyone a suspect, for fear they might run or lawyer up, so everyone is now a "person of interest". So, when a "gentleman" becomes a "person of interest" they know they are in trouble. StuRat (talk) 17:49, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Actually, even more than "person of interest" or the slightly more ambiguous "wanted for questioning", police and their media departments now use statements like "may have information related to", which the news has been using more frequently in the past few years in the U.S., such as "Here we see a video of a man unloading his gun into the chest of the store owner. If you have seen this man, he may have information related to the murder of the store clerk in the video. Please contact the local police department". Such abuses of the language are comical. Here are some recent examples: [5] and [6] --Jayron32 14:12, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

June 20

Latin translation help

Hi, can anyone come up with a Latin translation of "Situation normal, all f***ed up"? It is for a spoof motto, so it needs to sound "pithy", and if the vulgarity of "f***ed up" can be captured then even better. Google Translate is giving me "Normalis situ, omnes ..." but it won't translate the last part. Anyway, I do not fully trust Google Translate (though it would be good to retain the recognisability of "normalis" and "situ" if that part is actually correct). 109.152.147.80 (talk) 03:04, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Am I misunderstanding your question? You want Google Translate to translate "Situation normal, all f***ed up" into Latin. They did translate the first half ("Situation normal, all"), but they did not translate the second half ("f***ed up"). Is that the case? Do you really think that there is a Latin for the "F" word? I highly doubt it. If I were trying to translate that part of the phrase into Latin, I would use some equivalents like "all messed up", "all screwed up", "all in disarray", "all in error", etc. Those words will have Latin translations. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:34, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

What makes you think the Romans didn't cuss just as much as we do? The etymology section of our article Fuck points to the Latin noun Futuo as a possible origin. The correct conjugation/declension I leave to the Classics scholars among us. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 06:45, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Latin had a ton of vulgar words, we even have an article about Latin profanity. I don't think a form of "futuo" really works here, though. "Fuck" in English has become too versatile, and really defies being translated literally. I'm sure there's a way to express this in Latin, just not with "futuo". Adam Bishop (talk) 10:23, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

On the contrary, I think a literal translation would be quite acceptable given that the purpose is a "spoof motto" on the lines of "Semper in excretum sed alta variat". Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 10:52, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Okay, then how about "perfututus", since our Latin profanity article notes that it means "totally fucked". That's meant in a good way in Latin, but it's still pretty rude. There are lots of ways to say "situation" and "normal", but we could say "status ordinarius, perfututus". Adam Bishop (talk) 12:54, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

My point was that Latin may (and probably did) have a word for "sexual intercourse", but not for the "f***cked up" phrase that the OP was inquiring about. If the OP wants to translate "this is all f***cked up" into Latin, he would go the route of Latin phrases that mean: "all messed up", "all screwed up", "all in disarray", "all in error", etc. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:39, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Quam damnatus est--Jondel (talk) 14:25, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

The meaning of "When was it not?"

Would you please teach me the meaning of "When was it not?" in the following passage?

    He had always hated Sean Walsh. Benny wondered could it have been about him.
    "The problem is Sean, you see," she began tentatively.
    "When was it not?" Dr. Johnson asked.
    "If the mother was in the shop and properly there, taking notice..."
    "Yes I know."
    "Do you think she'll ever be able to do that? Or am I just running 
    after a pipe dream."---Meave Binchy, Circle Of Friends, p.411.

153.130.204.41 (talk) 03:31, 20 June 2015 (UTC)yumoko

It means Sean has always been a problem. As in "When was Sean not the problem ? I can't think of a time". StuRat (talk) 03:45, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I was just going to add essentially what StuRat said. Dr. Johnson asked, "Yes, of course, the problem is Sean. When was Sean not the problem?" Or, perhaps, more formally and more stiff: "When was it the case that Sean was not the problem?" So, Dr. Johnson is saying Sean has always been the problem. Exactly as StuRat above stated. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:38, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

A good example of the tendency, in English at least, to respond with incomplete sentences because the subject is understand. A common example in my part of America: "I'm going to the store." "Can I come with?" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:22, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Is that an improvement on "Can I come?" Widneymanor (talk) 09:06, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Valleyspeak?
Sleigh (talk) 09:54, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

It's a variation. Like this one: "I've got a new radio. Should I take with?" And I dunno about Valspeak. I've heard it in the Midwest for a long time. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:56, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

I think it comes into English from German or Yiddish or both. Darf ich mitkommen? Ja, komm mit. Perhaps spread by the movies, because it sounds more American than British. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:55, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Could be. There are a lot of German descendants in the Midwest. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:02, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

I've always believed it to be a peculiarity of South African English, glad to see we're not alone! Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 10:58, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

I've heard a few people use that construction in the UK, but I suspect that they've been watching too many Hollywood films. Alansplodge (talk) 18:24, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Is there any safe exposure level to Hollywood films ? What's the LD50 ? StuRat (talk) 22:10, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

King & Royal animals

Does the "Royal" in Royal tiger and the "King" in King cobra or King crab bear the same connotations - of the animal being honored as the "king" of its likes? What about the Kingfishers? --KnightMove (talk) 20:17, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

"King" often means they are larger than similar species. In the case of the king penguin they needed a name for an even larger one, so we got the emperor penguin. Our kingsnake article says "The 'king' in the name (as with the king cobra) references its eating of other snakes."

"Royal" might well refer to them having once been a royal possession. Or, either term could mean they have a rather fancy appearance. Since many different people came up with the names, there's no reason to expect consistency.StuRat (talk) 22:16, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

"King salmon" is an alternate name for the Chinook salmon, which is the largest and most prized of the salmon species. All king salmon on the market is wild caught, and widely considered superior in taste to farm raised Atlantic salmon. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:37, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

As is noted at the end of Kingfisher, the name was originally "King's fisher" for obscure reasons. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 08:11, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Russian question

I have heard very many Russian speakers say something that sounds like "Whop shee" (with the first word rhyming with "cup" as in "cup of coffee"). I'm not at all sure about the spelling, as I don't understand anything of the Russian grammar and the pronunciation is far too different from Finnish. Does anyone have any idea what this could mean? JIP | Talk 20:39, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

I suspect you're hearing various verb and adjective endings rather than a single distinct word. There are lots of endings that could sound vaguely like that: for example verb forms ending with -овший -ovshiy, -овши -ovshi, -евший -evshiy, -евши -evshi, -овавший -ovavshiy, -овавши -ovavshi, -вующий -vuyuschiy, adjective forms -овский -ovskiy, -евский -evskiy. If you really are hearing one word, it could be общий obschiy meaning general, common, public. (This one has audio pronunciation on wiktionary.) --Amble (talk) 21:55, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

I was interpreting JIP's "shee" as /ʃiː/, seems others may have interpreted it as /ʃe/. JIP, could you clarify which you meant? --Amble (talk) 16:19, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Your interpretation is correct. I was trying to spell it as an English word, as this is the English Wikipedia. I'm aware that both in my native Finnish and in IPA the sound is written as "i" rather than "e". JIP | Talk 20:55, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

• (ec) The word обще (obshche) means "generally". Users Любослов Езыкин and JackofOz may have a better suggestion if that is not it. Standard Russian has no w or h sound, so a word would be very unlikely to start with an English wh- which indicates an /hw/ sequence in those who distinguish it from /w/. μηδείς (talk) 22:01, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

I have no particular new suggestions. I'd need to hear it in context to have a real idea. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:18, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Вообще́ / voobš́é is usually pronounced as ва(а)пще́ /vɐ(ː)pˈʃe/ or even ва(а)ще́ /vɐ(ː)ˈʃe/. It has various meanings (see any dictionary), often it's like a sort of an interjection or particle.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 23:07, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

That sounds extremely likely, see google for possible English translations (Russian vo means "in"). μηδείς (talk) 03:45, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

If we want to find out what JIP is hearing, perhaps he could find an example on Youtube that sounds like the "Whop shee" he's hearing? --Amble (talk) 16:13, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

See and hear http://forvo.com/search/вообще/. Wavelength (talk) 19:05, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

It might be particularly efficient to look for it in a political discussion show. Since 4 or 5 people all talk at once, you have 4 or 5 times as many chances to find what you're listening for. --Amble (talk) 00:08, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Commissary gallery

What is a "commissary gallery" and did they have them in Biblical times? Where does this name come from? 86.156.248.178 (talk) 20:42, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

A quick search gives the immediate source of the phrase as "Po' Lazarus" by James Carter and the Prisoners, as featured in O Brother, Where Art Thou? This might be of assistance to anyone who can track it down further. Tevildo (talk) 23:14, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

The commissary in this case is a prison commissary. See Prison#Ancient times and Mamertine Prison for some material on prisons in Roman times; it's unlikely that they had a separate building where the prisoners were fed, but this is speculation on my part. Tevildo (talk) 00:31, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

The context of the lyrics makes it unlikely that it is a prison commissary that is being referred to. The song was an African-American spiritual first recorded over half a year ago by musicologist Alan Lomax. I found a website that interprets the lyrics as coded language describing the death of Jesus. That website says the phrase means "porch". I believe that the second word "gallery" means "porch". I think "commissary" in this context means something like "restaurant" or "soup kitchen" but that is just a hunch. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:51, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Over half a year?! If you listen to this performance by The Fairfield Four (who are in O Brother, Where Art Thou? with a different song, I think) you will hear one of the group explaining the word as "porch" and getting a laugh from the audience. In the film the song is used as a work song. So the Lazarus in the title is not the Biblical one, but it would have been a popular slave name. As Tevildo says, it seems it was a common word in 1930s US: "In 1930 the U.S. Department of Justice authorized and established a Commissary at each Federal institution." We'd never use that word in UK, much like "penitentiary", etc. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:11, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

[ec] Um - that's what a prison commissary is. I agree that it's fairly obvious to give the song a Christian interpretation, but the superficial story is about an American fugitive criminal, who is shot "with a forty-five" - a prison would be a reasonable place to display such a criminal's body. See also Pilate's court and Ecce Homo, although I doubt if such a conscious allusion was intended by the song's author. Perhaps a more scholarly reference about the song itself can be found somewhere? Tevildo (talk) 09:18, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I was convinced by the two mountains (Matthew 27:38), the pains in his side (John 19:34) and the mother grieving over her only son. But I wasn't sure about the "big number" (45), and the commissary gallery seems very far removed from the garden tomb of Joseph of Arimathea? Martinevans123 (talk) 09:37, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

From various books, it doesn't look like commissary refers to a prison - here it says "he stuck up the commissary and got away with the payroll", here it says "complex versions begin with him robbing the commissary of the company he worked for", here he "broke into the commissary". It is unlikely that someone would rob a prison. Hzh (talk) 10:34, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

That looks like a good source, and the use of that word is intriguing. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:42, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

This might be it - Commissary (store). Hzh (talk) 14:14, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

I see that Pinn, in one of your sources, has Po' Laz'rus, after he's been killed, laid on the commissary counter rather than the "gallery" or porch. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:19, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Another source (Wells) also says "counter" (lower down it says "commissary table"), but I have no idea if this means that "commissary gallery" means "store counter", or there are different versions of the lyrics. Hzh (talk) 17:47, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

I'd have thought that a porch area was more suitable for a dead body, unless the Sheriff and his men were particularly keen on irony. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:53, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

According to the book by Wells, he wasn't dead, but was left to die on the counter. The book says he was begging for water but the rich man refused. The lyrics by James Carter also suggest he wasn't dead when placed on the commissary gallery, since he said "my wounded side, lord, lord, my wounded side". Hzh (talk) 18:14, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

dead body Unsavory small talk. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:09, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Spanish for Mr.

I'm watching a film that is in (Colombian) Spanish with English subtitles. In most (if not all) cases where the subtitles say Mr. x , the word spoken in place of Mr. sounds like "doktor" with a long first O. None of the referenced individuals are medical doctors, it's unlikely they are all PhD's, and, if they were, the subtitles would say Dr. instead of Mr.. I would have expected the spoken word to be "señor". Can anyone explain what's going on here? ―Mandruss ☎ 23:31, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

It will help if you can give the name of the film and a time stamp. Plus, subtitles often ignore much of what is being said, even when there is an exact match in English for the foreign word. μηδείς (talk) 03:42, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

"Pablo Escobar, el patrón del mal", a TV series available via Netflix streaming. Two good examples seconds apart at about 11:20 (32:10 remaining) in Episode 37. Per the subtitles, the dialogue is as follows:

• Woman: Wait, mister...?
• Man: Sabogal.
• Woman: Mr. Sabogal.

The woman says the doktor-like word twice, in place of mister and Mr. The man is not a doctor or a PhD and the woman has no reason to believe that he might be. The series has numerous other examples of the same, involving other people. Re subtitles often ignore much of what is being said, this is not about subtitles ignoring something, but rather the spoken dialogue not making sense in the context — unless "doctor" is idiomatic for "mister" in some Spanish-speaking cultures. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:49, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

I wonder if we are dealing with some type of slang. At one point in the US it was common slang to call anyone smart "professor", regardless of their education level or job. StuRat (talk) 17:42, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

I have not heard the term, but that doesn't mean it's not used, there is not a large Columbian community in NYC. Slang is a strong possibility, especially if the person is a fixer or an expert of some sort--hence an affectation his part to insist on being called doctor. Urban Dictionary doesn't help, although it says "doctor" means drug dealer in the Eagle's song "Life in the Fast Lane" (this explanation seems improbable to me). I don't have Netflix, and Dailymotion has some episodes, but only in the #90's-110's range. μηδείς (talk) 17:56, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, and that might explain why the subtitles didn't include the term, if the person writing them was unfamiliar with this slang. As for why they chose to include that term in the audio, despite it not being broadly understood, I imagine it's to be more "authentic". StuRat (talk) 17:20, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

June 21

"Peppersass"

The first Mount Washington Cog Railway locomotive has been nicknamed "Peppersass" for its likeness to a pepper sauce bottle: [7] However, does the spelling "sass" probably reflect the modern meaning of wikt:sass, and if yes, in what way? If no, what else might have been the reason for this spelling? --KnightMove (talk) 07:23, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

The words "sauce" and "sass" both derive from "salsa".[8] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:34, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Besides being the usual spelling used nowadays (though not in The Lord of the Rings) when the "impudence" sense of sauce is meant, sass, in pronunciation if not necessarily in spelling, is a fairly common (in the U.S.) variant of sauce in its other senses. It's covered, with examples, in the Dictionary of American Regional English s.v. sauce. What was in the mind(s) of the locomotive namer(s) is, of course, unknowable absent some specific comment; but there seems no reason to suppose that a reference to impudence was intended. Deor (talk) 13:35, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Gahuza language?

There is apparently a new concept: the "Gahuza language", made up of Kinyarwanda and Kirundi, the official languages of Rwanda and Burundi respectively, which both belong to the Rwanda-Rundi group of languages, maybe in the same way that there have been proposals to create the concept of a "Nguni language" which would collect into the concept of a unified language all of the Nguni languages (Xhosa, Zulu, Swazi, ...)

The strange thing is the concept of a "Gahuza language" seems to be used exclusively by the BBC World Service: Gahuza service.

How new is the concept? Who else than the BBC uses it? I can't find anything on the Web.

Also (if you know either Kinyarwanda or Kirundi) are texts, podcasts, etc in the two standards mixed on the web site? I don't suppose that the BBC World Service has manufactured in this short a time a "Standard Gahuza" half-way between them, so that I suppose in practice the two languages are used concurrently as representatives of that unified concept, but I would like to verify that fact with someone who knows (one of) those two languages.

I've found another Web site connected with Rwanda and Burundi using the term "Gahuza", namely www.gahuza.com, but I can't tell if they use it in a linguistic capacity. In any case that site is in French without any texts in either Kinyarwanda or Kirundi.

Contact Basemetal here 07:31, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Is the BBC using Gahuza to refer to a language or something else? For example here it says "BBC Great Lakes service – Gahuzamiryango, or "bringing people together" – provides two daily 30-minute programmes in Kinyarwanda/Kirundi for a massive audience in Rwanda, Burundi and neighbouring countries." Hzh (talk) 13:59, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

All I know is they use "Gahuza" as a term for their combined Kinyarwanda and Kirundi site. I had assumed that it was the name of a language. But I might have been too hasty. That's why I asked. I have not seen the BBC explicitly use "Gahuza" to refer to a language. Contact Basemetal here 14:46, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

The BBC uses whichever that is convenient, sometimes it gives the language, or the country, or something else (e.g. Mundo for Latin America, BBC in this Chinese site, News (I think) for the Scottish Gaelic service). There is also no reference to Gahuza as a language here. You can always contact the BBC if you want to be certain (or ask the person who wrote the blog post in the previous link). Hzh (talk) 15:25, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

There are other news sites from this part of Africa that use the word gahuza, so presumably it simply means "news". Adam Bishop (talk) 10:18, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

June 22

Lords and Graces

With regards to nobility, why is it "My Lord" but "Your Grace"? Dismas|^(talk) 06:13, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Presumably because he was literally your liege lord back then, but the grace (or majesty or whatever) is his/her own supposed property, not yours to appropriate, Your Wikipedial Subliminity. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:18, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

"Your grace", "your majesty" etc. are ways of "indirectly" addressing royalty or nobility or whatever. Likewise with "My Lord." Third person singular. I suppose you could say "My King", but the others are customary. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:14, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

But instead of guessing, here's a reference (applicable to the UK):

"Your Grace: This covers dukes and duchesses. If the Archbishop of Canterbury is present, 'Your Grace' (or 'Your Graces' if a duke or duchess is also attending) should be mentioned before 'My Lord Chancellor'. Similarly, the Archbishop of York is covered by including 'Your Grace' immediately after 'My Lord Chancellor'.

"My Lord: For peers other than dukes, peers by courtesy, for diocesan bishops by right and for other bishops by courtesy. In the absence of any peers, the form 'My Lord Bishops' may be used."

See Debrett's - Preamble Precedence. Alansplodge (talk) 15:45, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Google "your majesty third person", and then you can retract your insulting comment about "guessing". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:20, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

If it's so easy to get good references, why did you not include any in your posting on the reference desk? Or even in the second comment? A google search is not a reference, and certainly not a WP:RS. Without a reference, we can't tell if you are guessing or making things up. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:03, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Eine Frage zum "Hanover" oder "Hannover" <note: post contains comically bad German>

Hallo WP:RD/L Leute.
Auf Deutsch es ist "Hanover", aber auf Englisch es ist "Hannover". Auf Deutsch es ist "Hannover", aber auf Englisch es ist "Hanover".Was ist der Deal mit dass?
It doesn't seem to be adequately explained at Talk:Hanover.
One thread would seem to relate it to vowel umlaut. Obviously incorrect, as this is about consonants. (Büt thät spürïöüs thïng ïs äll pärt öf thë fün.)
So what should it be in English: Hanover or Hannover?
Pete AU aka --Shirt58 (talk) 10:43, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

It's Hanover in English. I don't know why the other n was dropped. Maybe it was lost in Munich? Matt Deres (talk) 13:07, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Actually the German spelling is Hannover -- see for example https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannover. "Hanover" is an English variant. Looie496 (talk) 13:21, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

In the 18th century, spelling had not yet been standardized in German or in English. When George, Duke and Prince Elector of Hanover became King George I of Great Britain in 1714, Hannover's name was still sometimes written with just one 'n' in German, and it was this version of the name that became current in English. Marco polo (talk) 14:30, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Gender of Pronouns Question About non-English Indo-European Languages

Most Indo-European languages have either three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) or two genders (masculine and feminine). English has three genders in pronouns but no grammatical gender for common nouns. My question has to do with usage in other Indo-European languages (Romance, non-English Germanic, other) when the antecedent or referent is an animal. Animals have biological gender that sometimes is the same as their grammatical gender but not always. The question is whether, if the biological gender of the animal is known, as it normally is when referring to specific horses, dogs, and cats, and some other farm animals, the pronoun used is the one that matches with the referent noun as opposed to the one that corresponds to the actual animal or the proper noun by which the animal is known. (In English, where the common noun is essentially genderless, either an animate pronoun or a neuter pronoun may be used, and the speaker who uses a neuter pronoun may be corrected.) Robert McClenon (talk) 17:54, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

in German, if the gender of a common mammal is known and relevant, then an appropriate gendered noun will be used, and the pronoun will reflect the animal's biological gender. For example, the generic word for "the dog" is der Hund (masculine). This word would be used if the gender of the dog is unknown or unimportant, and it would call for masculine pronouns (which also depend on grammatical case). However, if you want to emphasize that the dog is male, you would say der Rüde ("the male dog"), which likewise takes masculine pronouns. On the other hand, if it matters that the dog is female, you would say die Hündin ("the female dog), a feminine noun that takes feminine pronouns. Most common mammals have generic and gendered names. This is true to some extent in English, where we have, for example, boar for an adult male pig and sow for a female pig, though these terms are not so often used off of farms any more. Marco polo (talk) 18:54, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

"Biological gender" is a confusing term. Do you not simply mean "sex"? There are a few notions of non-human gender, but if you happen to really mean that (i.e. some property of an animal that is not simply its sex), then you'll have to explain what you mean (a female chicken that performs male chicken gender roles?) and maybe have a look at Joan Roughgarden's Evolution's Rainbow, wherein (from gender) "[she] argues that some non-human animal species also have more than two genders, in that there might be multiple templates for behavior available to individual organisms with a given biological sex.[39]"

I can't comment on the guts of your question, but in English it's not always so simple either - many of the words we use as common nouns for animals are sex specific (even if grammatically ungendered), we just forget. You will occasionally hear people get things mixed up - "A male cow", "A female peacock", etc. Then there's some that can either be sex neutral or sex specific, depending on context. E.g. "Duck" means a female bird in the phrase "ducks and drakes", but often doesn't carry sex meaning "there are ducks in the pond". SemanticMantis (talk) 18:56, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

In Dutch, the practice of using pronouns corresponding to grammatical gender is considered a bit archaic and it not commonly used in today's standard Dutch. Instead, the default pronoun for animals is masculine. When it is known and relevant (e.g. if it has a name) that an animal is female, a feminine pronoun is used. Analogously to English, a person using a masculine pronoun may occasionally be corrected. - Lindert (talk) 18:57, 22 June 2015 (UTC)