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August 4

corrective discipline

The following is a quote by W.H.Auden in his prose "Reading": "All the judgements, aesthetic or moral, that we pass, however objective we try to make them, are in part a rationalization and in part a corrective discipline of our subjective wishes." I wonder how the phrase "corrective discipline" as the author uses can be understood. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.249.217.19 (talk) 03:27, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

He's saying that we use our judgements as a way of bringing our wishes under control, making them in effect less desirable. Perhaps he's implying that, if we have wishes that are unrealistic or unattainable, it's painful for us to continue to nurture them. So we make judgements to make our wishes seem less important. --Viennese Waltz 07:37, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

He's saying that all the judgements we pass, no matter how objective we try to make them, are partly based on rational (objective) thought process and partly based on the mind's subjective desire to effect a change, which it perceives as a justifiable correction. Here, 'corrective discipline' means the subjective mind's system of rules or school of thought (discipline) that cannot tolerate the situation as it stands, and demands that a correction be made. Akld guy (talk) 08:50, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

"Escalation" in management

Some text I have to revise suggests that the term "escalation" is used in English also for shifting any problem requiring resolution to a higher authority (as it is, respectively, in German). But neither the disambiguation Escalation, nor the respective Wiktionary entry mention such a use. So as an example: Would it be correct to answer an urgent customer complaint with "Your request has been escalated", when it has been transferred from a low-level to to a senior customer account manager? --KnightMove (talk) 09:34, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

That's much the same example as is used in the Cambridge Business Dictionary entry. I can't, offhand at least, think of other things that are escalated (in business contexts or otherwise) except problems (bugs, complaints). One wouldn't, for example, "escalate" approval for this year's budget, even though that approval comes from higher in the org tree. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 09:38, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Quoting Wiktionary is kind of self-referent, I guess. But wikt:escalate is kind of interesting:

1. It's a back-formation from escalator, which was a coined word (with good antecedents, don't get me wrong)
2. Escalate also has transitive and intransitive meanings of intensification ("The shooting escalated the problems"). It doesn't say so at Wiktionary, but you're right. To escalate (as a verb) always implies that something bad is being intensified, not something good.
3. An "escalator clause" in a contract doesn't necessarily imply something bad happening, but you don't tend to hear the verb form of "escalate" used in this context. StevenJ81 (talk) 17:02, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

To escalate (as a verb) always implies that something bad is being intensified, not something good. Not sure that I agree entirely with that, Steven. In management settings, escalation is usually a response to a situation that has not been satisfactorily resolved at the first level interaction. The badness of the situation has intensified because of its non-resolution, but the escalation is a recognition that something different needs to be done, and by a more senior person. It would normally be a positive step in itself. The escalation can be initiated by the staff ("I'm sorry, sir, but I don't have the authority to approve the refund you're seeking, so I'm referring the request to my manager, with my recommendation that it be approved"), or by the customer ("I'm not happy with how you've dealt with this. Can I please speak to your manager".) That's in the management sense. In some other contexts, like civil strife, I agree that escalation would be the intensification of the trouble itself. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:17, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

I take your point, Jack. I really meant it the way you wrote it. I only meant that if one sees the word escalation, it is highly likely that something negative is currently being dealt with, and requires intensified focus/attention/authority. One certainly hopes the escalation resolves it positively! StevenJ81 (talk) 19:49, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Kruti Dev Font Licensing

Hi, I want to know if the font Kruti Dev is a paid licensed font or is it free for usage or re-distribution for commercial use as well. One of the Wiki links( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kruti_Dev ) says it is free however wanted to be double sure before I start re-distribution of the same- 4-Aug-15. 59.163.27.14 (talk) 10:37, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Do not rely on Wikipedia for such statements. We cannot give legal advice (which answering your question would clearly involve), and we can make no guarantee about the accuracy of articles. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:42, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Subjunctive

1. If I won the lottery ...
2. If I was rich ...
3. If I were rich ...

Which of these are subjunctives? If #2 is a subjunctive, then why is "If I were" so often singled out as an example of a subjunctive? If, on the other hand #1 is a subjunctive but #2 is not, then why the difference? 86.157.175.138 (talk) 11:51, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Higher up there is a discussion of how more frequently used words have a greater variety of forms. "If I were" is certainly a subjunctive, but less commonly used verbs may not have a separate form. 86.134.217.6 (talk) 12:19, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

86.134.217.6 (talk) is one of several London area IP sockpuppets of banned User:Vote (X) for Change

As our article Subjunctive mood states, the subjunctive expresses various states of unreality. Therefore, #1 might or might not be considered subjunctive, depending on whether in fact you did win the lottery. (If you didn't win it, then won is subjunctive, because it is a counterfactual conditional.) Your #2 is not the "correct" form for a subjunctive. According to prescriptive grammar, the only correct past-tense subjunctive form for the verb to be is were. As for "why the difference", in English, the verb to be is the only verb with a distinct past subjunctive form, and it is distinct only in the first- and third-person singular, where was would otherwise be expected. According to prescriptive rules, #2 should be used only for statements of reality. For example, "I was rich between the ages of 30 and 40. If I was rich at the time that we met, then I was living in Beverly Hills." For counterfactual conditionals, the "correct" form would be "were", as in your #3. For example, "If I were rich, I would buy you a nice house, but since I am not, we will have to keep living together with my roommates." That said, linguistic description is more interested in people's actual practice than the "correct" forms put forth by prescriptivists. And in practice, many native English speakers do not use subjunctive forms and would use forms such as your #2 even for counterfactual conditionals. Marco polo (talk) 13:24, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

I would add: At least in the US, even good language arts programs often do not teach subjunctive as subjunctive. Speaking from personal experience (ok, it's OR): I was correctly saying "If I were rich" as a child. But I didn't know that what I was doing was using the subjunctive until I started learning French in middle school. StevenJ81 (talk) 15:26, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

I'll agree with that observation. I had heard the word subjunctive, but it wasn't until I took French in high school that I actually started understanding what things like that and pluperfect meant.

To get a better grip on the subjunctive, consider these alternatives:

Indicative, dealing with facts in the past:

• I won the lottery. John asked if I won the lottery on Monday, or Tuesday.
• I am rich. John wanted to know if I was rich due to my investments or an inheritance.

Subjunctive, dealing with non-facts in the present/future:

• I haven't won the lottery. If I won the lottery some day, I would buy a boat. But I don't buy tickets.
• I am not rich. If I were rich, I would lend you the money you need. But I am not.

μηδείς (talk) 17:13, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree that the subjunctive is not a topic addressed in school grammar lessons in the United States. Medeis is right that, although were is a past-tense form, it deals with "non-facts" in the present. However, there is also a present-tense subjunctive form in English, which is identical with the infinitive, used after verbal phrases stating requirement or certainty, e.g., "I insist that he wear his uniform" or "It is imperative that it be finished by the end of the day." There is also a way to express non-facts in the past, using pluperfect forms: e.g., "If I hadn't won the lottery, I would not buy this boat." Marco polo (talk) 17:35, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

The version of that last example that seems to be gaining ground is "If I wouldn't have won the lottery, I would not buy this boat". I despise it, but there you are. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:00, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

I sense that except in the case of "to be", the subjunctive mood is disappearing. Even where it is correct, people work to navigate around it. StevenJ81 (talk) 21:13, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Ancient Egyptian pronounciation

Could a linguist or an egyptologist please give me some advice , which are those still living and spoken languages , which might help to try to reconstruct ancient Egyptian pronounciation ??

I have already one-one basic audio CD about Hebrew ( Ivrit ) , Amharic , Tuareg and Hausa.

There is in process a purchase of a CD of the Oromo language too.

Are there any languages , which may help ??

Maybe Somalic ??

Or Kisuaheli , which is though not an afroasiatic language but as far as I know has some afroasiatic loan-words.Istvancsiszar1969 (talk) 13:45, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

You want to stick to the languages that are closest to ancient Egyptian. The starting point for any reconstruction of the ancient Egyptian language has to be the Coptic language, whose pronunciation is better known than that of earlier forms of Egyptian because its script includes vowels. Most Afroasiatic linguists consider the closest relatives of Egyptian to be the Chadic or Berber languages, though any common ancestor of these would have been spoken at least 7,000 years ago. You won't be able to make any valid, direct deductions about the pronunciation of ancient Egyptian from the pronunciation of modern Afroasiatic languages, since their pronunciation has certainly diverged far, probably in different directions, from any tongue ancestral to Egyptian (as has Coptic pronunciation). The methods accepted by linguists are the comparative method and internal reconstruction. The comparative method would require you to consider the phonology of as many known languages in each Afroasiatic subfamily as possible in order to reconstruct the proto-language of each of those families (for example, proto-Berber and proto-Chadic). You would also need to study the work of Egyptologists, who have used data such as transcriptions of Egyptian words and names in other ancient languages at various dates, as well as internal reconstruction, to reconstruct varieties of Egyptian earlier than Coptic. Then, by applying the comparative method to the earliest variety of Egyptian supported by these data and to the reconstructed proto-languages of kindred Afroasiatic subfamilies, it might be possible to reconstruct the phonology of a parent language shared by these Afroasiatic subfamilies. This reconstruction might assist in the reconstruction of earlier varieties of Egyptian than are supported by the documentary evidence. Much of this work has already been done, and there is no point in your starting from scratch. Instead, you want to study historical linguistic methods, then study the existing historical linguistic literature on the Afroasiatic languages, which will have applied the comparative method in many of the ways I've suggested. Then you might consider how to take these methods a step further. Marco polo (talk) 15:00, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

A considerable complication is that the Egyptian language (even disregarding Coptic and focussing on pre-Christian times) was spoken over a span of more than 2000 years, during which the pronunciation and other aspects of the language (such as the grammar) changed pretty radically. For comparison, 2000 years ago, much of Europe and Northern Africa was ruled by the Romans under the emperor Tiberius, and modern Romance languages such as French or Spanish did not exist yet, only regional dialects of spoken Latin. English did not exist yet, either, only some early form of Germanic ancestral to it, similar to what is found in early runic inscriptions. You should keep in mind that Old Egyptian, Middle Egyptian, Late Egyptian and Demotic are quite different in pronunciation. Egyptian language#Phonology has some general information, but if you are interested in the pronunciation of specific words, you'd better consult an Egyptologist. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:49, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Iustinus (talk · contribs) is not very active on en.wiki, but he would certainly be able to help you out here. Adam Bishop (talk) 17:13, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

This is, indeed, a pet topic of mine, but I'm not really clear on what you're asking. Feel free to contact me directly. --Iustinus (talk) 00:44, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Traps in action

Bombs go off and you can set off a bomb. What does a trap do? --Pxos (talk) 17:15, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Same. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 17:21, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

One can spring a trap (or a surprise), as well. Tevildo (talk) 19:02, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Irrelevant conversation about Slinkies
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
And the oddities of English being what they are, you can seal a Slinky into a box, which is trapping a spring. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:28, 4 August 2015 (UTC) Sufferin' succotash, Bugs! StevenJ81 (talk) 21:13, 4 August 2015 (UTC) User:Baseball Bugs, Not much fun sealing a Slinky into a box, because they don't behave the same when you kick them down the stairs. Wives are more fun because they bounce, and you can pick them up and keep doing it until the football comes on TV. Then when she wakes up from her unconsciousness, you can get her to make you a sandwich. Always worked with my ex-wife. Lovely sandwiches, shame about the wife. KägeTorä - (影虎) (もしもし！) 00:13, 5 August 2015 (UTC) Where I come from, we don't consider wife-beating jokes to be funny. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:05, 5 August 2015 (UTC) Where I come from, User:Baseball Bugs, we don't consider a Slinky to be a productive form of entertainment. KägeTorä - (影虎) (もしもし！) 06:17, 5 August 2015 (UTC) Do you really have Slinkies over there? I remember them from about fifty years ago as a coiled spring which you could position at the top of a staircase and it would walk down to the bottom. They were a short - lived fad like hula hoops and pogo sticks. 80.43.198.251 (talk) 10:43, 5 August 2015 (UTC) I'm in the UK, mate, same as you. You can still buy Slinkies (and hula-hoops and pogo sticks). I just never had any of them. KägeTorä - (影虎) (もしもし！) 16:01, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Can one say "trap some crap"? If yes, could someone create a little collapsible box, put in some of the banter above and throw away the key? Thanks. --Pxos (talk) 16:16, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

You could also trigger a trap. StuRat (talk) 16:06, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

You can trigger a bomb, as well. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 16:15, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

You can also set up us the bomb.--Shirt58 (talk) 01:05, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

August 5

"The Assyrian", "The Hun", etc

"The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold", as Byron put it. I'm not quite sure in this case if "The Assyrian" means the Assyrians collectively, or the commander of this army, but I've definitely seen other cases where the singular form of a demonym has been used to refer to the people collectively. The most common example I can think of is "The Hun" (used both for the actual Huns, and WWI-era Germans), and in older works I've occasionally seen "The Turk" as well. I have three questions related to this:

1) Is there a term for this particular way of refering to a people?

2) Are there any other peoples that are commonly refered to this way?

3) All the examples I've seen have been (from the perspective of the writer) references to aggressive, marauding foreigners. Is this form ever used positively, or is it only ever used to describe threatening Others?

Iapetus (talk) 10:16, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't know if there is a name for it, but the most common example I can think of is "the Jew". Adam Bishop (talk) 10:52, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Ah, of course. I forgot that one. And it continues the pattern of being perjorative. Iapetus (talk) 11:03, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)There is a certain ambivalence in the use of the definite article. Portugal got it's name from the Latin portus (port) plus cale (whatever that means). It's second city is Porto, "port" in Portuguese, but it is linked to the definite article, thus ha vinhos no Porto, "there are wines in Oporto". Again, mora no Brasil, "he lives in Brazil". Some countries take the article, some don't. The same is seen in English. Some Ukrainians get upset when we talk about "the Ukraine" rather than "Ukraine" as they think it condescending. We can choose between constructions such as "the Argentine" as opposed to "Argentina". 80.43.198.251 (talk) 11:05, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Here is the origin of "Portugal".[1] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?}

carrots→ 12:36, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't see anything disrespectful in this. One can easily say "the Arab", "the Frank", "the Goth", "the Moor" etc. It's just a grammatical construction. 80.43.198.251 (talk) 11:14, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Bugs,that's very interesting. There is a place in Portugal called Vila Nova de Gaia, vila being the Portuguese word for "town" and nova meaning "new". It's where the wine lodges are, on the banks of the Douro ("river of gold") so it will be a suburb of Oporto. 80.43.198.251 (talk) 13:15, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Actuallly, 80.43...., I think this is just about always pejorative and disrespectful—when the demonym is used, capitalized, as a noun, after "The". (When the same demonym is used as an attributive adjective, and it's a reasonable adjective form, that's not necessarily true.) One is personifying a whole people as one vague, non-specific individual, and people just don't do that when they're being respectful. You will sometimes see such a construction in sociological, historical, anthropological settings. Even here, if it's not quite outright disrespectful, there's still an air of "looking down at" the object. StevenJ81 (talk) 13:32, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

As with Mel Brooks' song in one of his films: "The Inquisition / Let's begin / The Inquisition / Look out, sin / We're on a mission / To convert The Jew..." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:47, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

A more recent example is that the Argentinian forces in the 1982 Falklands War were collectively known to the British as "the Arge" (definitely not respectful). News of their surrender was transmitted by the phrase "The Arge have folded!" (still looking for a ref). Alansplodge (talk) 17:28, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

• This is simply the collective nominalized adjective: e.g., "the rich and the poor". There's certainly no offense grievance mongering necessary. Many languages allow the singular (Spanish El gordo "the fat one") but English usually requires a dummy one in the singular, without the one the term is usually understood as plural. μηδείς (talk) 18:28, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

This is an example of synecdoche, and specifically singularis pro plurali (i.e., the singular stands for the plural); see Mey, Concise Encyclopedia of Pragmatics. Mey notes that ""Particularizing synecdoches like the 'foreigner,' the 'Jew,' and the 'American' serve stereotypical generalization and essentialization, which refer in a leveling manner to a whole group of persons." It can in principle be used to refer to any people, and it is not necessarily pejorative; Mey gives the example "The Swiss is industrious." John M Baker (talk) 18:40, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

"The Swiss is industrious" would be a compliment to a Swiss national. I don't see why a phrase like "The Eskimo are a resourceful people" should be regarded as demeaning. 80.43.198.251 (talk) 20:05, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

This question is about "The Eskimo is... " not about "The Eskimo are ... ". Both are grammatical, but in modern usage there's a huge difference in connotation. --ColinFine (talk)

Here's a newspaper article from 1934, referring a handful of times to "the aborigine", in the sense of "aborigines generally". That paternalistic-sounding usage has very much gone out of favour in Australia. I've seen it used in relation to other indigenous peoples, and non-whites were generally fair game. It always sounds as if what is true for one particular individual is seen to be true for their entire race. But nobody would say that of white people, so it has an inherently racist tinge. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:15, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Who am I to argue with Mey? Want me to concede the point in principle? Fine. In practice, such usage is out of favor in the US, just as Jack described for Australia. I would add the following:

• In current US usage (but not necessarily in UK usage) we would normally say "The Swiss are industrious." The verb pluralizes the subject, which takes it out of generalization we are discussing. And 80's second example (which probably needs to be "Eskimos" anyway) has (a) a plural verb and (b) explicitly describes the Eskimos as a people, again, taking it out of the generalization.

But want me to yield to Mey? Fine. StevenJ81 (talk) 23:31, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Nobody? Seriously? You can easily find phrasings such as "the white (man)". It's no more or less racist to make generalisations using "The white/aborigine ..." rather than "Whites/aborigines ...". --Florian Blaschke (talk) 04:04, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

"The Englishman is a rabid nationalist." (Ralph Miliband) Oh noes, Miliband must've been racist against himself! Seriously, these sound like counter-examples to Jack's assertion to me. The racist tinge is in the generalisation, not in the metonymic phrasing (which is merely old-fashioned). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 04:15, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

There is one interesting case, that of the Maori (native people of New Zealand). In the Maori language, plurals are expressed in the singular form, eg. waka can be either 'canoe' or 'canoes', marae is either one ceremonial meeting ground or multiple meeting grounds. This distinction is retained when writing Maori words in formal New Zealand English documents, ie. one doesn't (or shouldn't) write 'wakas' or 'maraes'. And so it also is with 'Maori' itself, which can mean either one individual, or two, or twenty, or a whole tribe (iwi) or even the entire Maori population of the country. If one sees or hears 'the Maori' when the context means multiple individuals, it's implicit that the entire population is being referred to, and unlike the other examples on this page, there can be no connotation attached such as there might be in those cases, since the correct form is being used. Akld guy (talk) 05:29, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Ralph Miliband of course was not a native Englishman and was speaking from experience I believe. --TammyMoet (talk) 08:27, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Not relevant
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Interesting. I once wrote an article on Edward Iwi, but he was not a Maori. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 06:05, 6 August 2015 (UTC) @JackofOz: I fail to see the connection. Is that meant to be funny? Akld guy (talk) 20:45, 6 August 2015 (UTC) @Akld guy: No, I never joke about my important work for the submerged log company. It's just that "iwi" is such a curious word that it caught my eye. I even once checked out - on this very desk - the ethnic origin of my friend Edward Iwi before writing the article, because it certainly isn't English but I couldn't pin it down. Maori was one of the possibilities that crossed my mind at the time (see the ref desk question here). I'm sorry for having created a diversion, but I didn't anticipate much or any response to my marginalium about Edward Iwi. I'll draw a discrete veil over this interlude. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 21:17, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

August 6

"Canadian-based" or "Canada-based"?

Would one describe a company based in Canada as "Canada-based" or "Canadian-based"? I believe it should be "Canadian based" but User:Largoplazo disagrees. Can someone please tell us which is correct and provide a reliable source? I've found a source here which says "some people get it wrong with nations and use the noun form when they should be using the adjectival form, so say things – incorrectly – like "Britain-based company". It should be British-based company, Swiss-based company, French-based company (not Britain-based, Switzerland-based, France-based etc)" but Largo rejects the source and the argument.Horatio Bumblebee (talk) 04:29, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

You two have a content dispute. Keep it on the article talk page where it belongs. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:01, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm looking for some grammar advice and hopefully reliable sources. This is the place to go with grammar and language questions, isn't it? Horatio Bumblebee (talk) 05:26, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

What have you found on the internet otherwise? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:29, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

That's not a very helpful response. He's come here for an authoritative answer, he's under no obligation to go looking for himself first. To the OP: you are right, this is the place for such questions. --Viennese Waltz 12:43, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Since when is Wikipedia "authoritative" an anything? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:03, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

All this assumes there is a definitive, correct answer to this. I'm not so sure there is. StevenJ81 (talk) 13:07, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Agreed, I'm not sure there is a definitive answer. But in my opinion (a professional opinion, as a writer), I would use either "a Canada-based company" or "a Canadian company".    → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 13:14, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

It's similar to the issue of whether "English footballer" or "England footballer" is correct. In my day, the former was used, but it's now nearly always the latter.--Phil Holmes (talk) 13:20, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

In that case, Phil, wouldn't it depend in part on whether you were referring to the nationality of the footballer or the fact that he plays for England's national side? StevenJ81 (talk) 13:22, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

And, by the way, I'd agree with Michael J. But I'm not sure I could go so far as to say that "Canadian-based" is wrong. StevenJ81 (talk) 13:22, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Please see my reasoning against it at User talk:Largoplazo#Canadian-based. If it's been established through usage and that fact has been recognized in style guides and the like, it's one thing, but otherwise there's no rationale for it. —Largo Plazo (talk) 14:06, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

The word based refers to the location of the firm, not its ownership. The firm is based in Canada, so it is Canada-based. It is not based in Canadian. Incidentally, I think English footballer vs. England footballer is an unrelated issue. An English footballer is any footballer with an English nationality, whether he plays for Manchester United or Real Madrid. Probably because of the internationalization of the sport, the term England footballer has come to refer to a footballer playing on England's national team, not just any English footballer. However, a firm based in England would be an English firm, not an England firm. Likewise, a firm based in Canada is a Canadian firm. Still, that firm is Canada-based. Marco polo (talk) 14:12, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

I think Canada-based is wrong as per this explanation because "Canada" is not an adjective. "Canadian company" is perfectly correct but "Canadian-based" is also perfectly correct and is in fact used by both the government and quality newspapers such as the Globe and Mail e.g. "New faces, new hopes for Canadian-based NHL clubs" [2] Globe and Mail and "CANADIAN-BASED MULTINATIONALS: AN ANALYSIS OF ACTIVITIES AND PERFORMANCE"[3] Industry Canada (Government of Canada), and I also see it's used in the New York Times and by Associated Press e.g. "Of the five Canadian-based teams in the postseason, Montreal was the last to be eliminated. The Canadiens, in 1993, were the last team from Canada to win the Cup." in "Revival by Steven Stamkos Puts Lightning in East Finals"[4]. Horatio Bumblebee (talk) 14:29, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

"It's similar to the issue of whether "English footballer" or "England footballer"" - wouldn't the difference there be that "England" is also the name of the national football team so saying "England footballer"? It would be the same as saying "Manchester United footballer" but I don't think you'd ever say British Leyland is an "England company" or that it's a "Britain-based" company as opposed to "British based". Horatio Bumblebee (talk) 14:40, 6 August 2015 (UTC) I don't see the value of again citing the same source by an author who arrives at his conclusion, not by reference to any observations of accepted usage, but through his own reasoning, after I've shot that reasoning full of holes and demonstrated that logically it leads to the opposite of the conclusion that he arrived at. I also don't see why the reasoning of that other arbitrary person is compelling to you and why you feel it's fine for it to be included in this discussion, while reasoning from me is to be dismissed as "original research". —Largo Plazo (talk) 15:39, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

"after I've shot that reasoning full of holes" i.e. original research. The problem is you can't cite a source to support your reasoning other than yourself. Horatio Bumblebee (talk) 17:04, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Basic logic and the ability to discern nonsense isn't "research". I wonder where you got the idea that you can cite any source you like and not have whether it qualifies as a reliable one subject to scrutiny other than by playing dueling sources. See my earlier analogy, on my talk page, with plurals of nouns. If you found a web page out there that claimed that the plural of "spoon" is anything other than "spoons", no, there would be no burden on me to find a source that anticipated that foolish claim and said, explicitly, "By the way, if you ever see someone claim that the plural of "spoon" is anything other than "spoons", it's incorrect." —Largo Plazo (talk) 17:27, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Then cite a source that supports your position. Horatio Bumblebee (talk) 06:28, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

In case anyone was wondering, the article in question is EasyDNS. I see that another editor has recently attempted to neutralize the dispute by changing the wording to "Canadian" and omitting the "-based". Personally I don't like either "Canada-based" or "Canadian-based", not because one or the other of them is wrong but for stylistic reasons. It's trying to pack too much into the sentence. It would be better to write "...an internet service provider based in Canada, which supplies..." I repeat, I prefer this option not because it avoids the dispute, but because it reads better. --Viennese Waltz 14:52, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

We have Canadian bacon and Canada geese. I'm not sure there's truly a "right" answer, but convention would suggest "a Canadian company" as you say. The "based" part seems superfluous. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:15, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

The reason I wrote "Canadian-based" rather than "Canadian" is the company is based in Canada but operates internationally. "Canadian company" may imply that they only operate in Canada.Horatio Bumblebee (talk) 17:03, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Then follow the example of other articles about international companies, and call it a Canadian international company or an international company based in Canada, the latter being VW's good suggestion. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:12, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

For example BP is called a "British multinational company". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:15, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

I think that people who go looking for rules are on a fool's errand. Before 1982 the word "Argentinian" denoted "pertaining to Argentina". Then the word "Argentine" served for both the country and its inhabitants. People don't talk according to rule, they talk according to convenience. 80.43.218.51 (talk) 17:49, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

present perfect tense

What does the author intend to convey by using the present perfect tense in the following context? "A bad reader is like a bad translator. In learning to read well, scholarship, valuable as it is, is less important than instinct; some great scholars have been poor translators." Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.249.210.17 (talk) 08:20, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

It conveys the fact that he may be talking about both past and present scholars. If he had written "some great scholars were poor translators", that restricts it to past scholars. If, on the other hand, he had written "some great scholars are poor translators", that restricts it to present scholars. This way, both past and present scholars are included in the statement. --Viennese Waltz 09:08, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Very well put. μηδείς (talk) 17:11, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

And more broadly, the author is conveying that the activity described continues into the present, or somehow has an effect on the present. (For example, compare the difference (a subtle one) between "Cars made the buggy obsolete" and "Cars have made the buggy obsolete.") Herbivore (talk) 16:05, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Apostrophe s

Are St James' Park and St. James's Park pronounced in the same way or differently? Thanks, --Komischn (talk) 11:23, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

I would pronounce James' as "JAYMS", but James's as "JAYM-zes". — SMUconlaw (talk) 12:51, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable (I would've intuitively done the same). But can anyone explain the double genitive to me? I recently wondered about St. James's Park on my own talk page (go to the very bottom of the section). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:28, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

There is some material of relevance at John Wells's phonetic blog. --Theurgist (talk) 17:13, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

How can you have a double genitive? There is a St James's Church in Paddington and a St James' Church in Chipping Campden. The difference is in the pronunciation, not the duality of the possessive. 80.43.218.51 (talk) 17:32, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

See double genitive: that's how. But that is not what's happening with James's. The head word "James" is neither genitive nor plural, it just happens to end with an -s. There's a convention that singular nouns ending in -s are possessivised by adding an apostrophe only, not -'s, but there are many exceptions. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:35, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

There's also a convention that singular nouns ending in -s are possessivized by adding -'s just the same as other nouns. This is recommended by Strunk and White with a few exceptions. --Amble (talk) 21:05, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but please pay attention. I'm talking about possessivisation, and you've gone off onto a completely unrelated tangent, possessivization.  :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:06, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

It's not a tangent, it's just that you now can go back to the OP's question and work out whether St(.) James has been possessivised or possessivized in each case. --Amble (talk) 01:28, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

• To directly answer Florian Blaschke' question above, James is the nominative singular, like Jacobus, it just happens to end in ess in English. James's is a normal, not a double genitive. μηδείς (talk) 01:25, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

When I was a mere youth, lo! these many years ago, singulars ending in s might still be possessivized here in the States with just an apostrophe, per Jack's comment above. But I have come to understand that in the States, the convention has now swung strongly in the direction suggested by Strunk, White and Amble—namely, s's. StevenJ81 (talk) 01:43, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

What do they say about Moses's, Jesus's, Croesus's, rhesus's, Isis's, Perseus's, Tarsus's, faeces's, grocers's, juices's, nooses's, et al? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 12:12, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Have you seen English possessive#Nouns and noun phrases and Apostrophe#Singular nouns ending with an “s” or “z” sound? Classical names such as Jesus, Moses, Augustus, Pappus, Pythagoras, Thales, Socrates, Xerxes etc. are exceptions, but whether James is included is unclear – it's probably not, because James comes via Old French, not (Anglo-)Latin (and ultimately via Ancient Greek from Hebrew), unlike Jacobus. James is not a nominative singular because a nominative case does not exist in English (unlike in Old French). (Plurals are treated the same as classical names, hence faeces', grocers', etc.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 09:33, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Since when does a nominative case not exist in English? Have the experts yet again decided among themselves to restructure our language and not tell us users about it? Are you referring only to nouns, or to pronouns as well? If I, you, he, she, it, we and they are not nominative, what are they? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:31, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Since about the high medieval period. Since James is not a pronoun I'm not sure how pronominal paradigms are relevant here. Clearly I'm talking primarily about nouns. Given that only a few pronouns (you and it are not among them, by the way) have separate "subject forms" in English, and any trace of a distinction between nominative and oblique case forms is restricted to a few pronouns, it does not make a lot of sense to say that "a nominative case exists in English" (as a general concept), unless we are talking about syntactical cases (but we were talking about word forms, not syntax). See Grammatical case#Indo-European languages at the very bottom. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 10:34, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

My understanding is that even the monosyllabic Zeus is included in these exceptions, hence Zeus', not Zeus's. Is this correct? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:48, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

I refer you, without comment about agreement or correctness, to Possessive: St. James's/James'/James Park? | WordReference Forums.

—Wavelength (talk) 02:20, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

From that blog, Spira's comment (eighth from above) "Although we continue to pronounce it as though the second S was present" one might conclude that both variants are pronounced the same way, i. e. "JAYM-zes", whereas Smuconlaw's first answer names two different pronunciations. Native speakers here? --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 11:09, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

There is some information about the pronunciation of St James' Park in our article, at St James' Park#Name. DuncanHill (talk) 11:51, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

I can see how people construe a double genitive, claiming that St James's Park is the park of the church of St James, but if we consider the churchyard, is there any evidence that people think "Oh my, this is the yard of the church of St James, so I must call it "St James's churchyard", rather than (St James' church) yard? This argument seems to me to be of the "I know that he knows that I know" variety. The internet seems to not like even single genitives - if you type http://www.sainsbury's.co.uk into your browser you will not get Sainsbury's website, but if you type http://www.sainsburys.co.uk in you will. 78.149.204.165 (talk) 13:33, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

To pronounce "St James'" as anything other than "St James's" sounds rather affected to me. DuncanHill (talk) 13:39, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Then your version of St. James Infirmary Blues would sound really funny! - Nunh-huh 13:59, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

St James is not the same as St James'! St James Infirmary is not the same as St James' Infirmary. Punctuation matters. DuncanHill (talk) 14:08, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

By one of those coincidences which have to be seen to be believed, someone left a business card on the table which I picked up, and inscribed thereon was:

.... Cleaning Services Ltd

.... House, 278-280 St James's Road, London, SE1 5JX

Can we just accept that there is no rule and leave it at that? 78.149.204.165 (talk) 17:18, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

The second person singular is still used in the north (thou, thee, thy) and worldwide in prayers ("for thine is the kingdom"). "You" actually is an inflection - when Parliament was dissolved the town crier of the City of London made the traditional announcement from the steps of the Royal Exchange - "Hear ye, hear ye ...". I wouldn't say that "Zeus" is monosyllabic - it has a yod in it. I believe that cases are still important in parsing sentences (though I haven't had to do it since I left school). I don't know if today's schoolchildren are taught it. It's a great shame that languages are not taught the way they used to be - the last state school to teach Ancient Greek recently dropped it from the curriculum and Oxford dropped compulsory Latin last century. 78.149.122.51 (talk) 12:45, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Curse words against the Virgin Mary in English?

Does English have any curse words against the Virgin Mary? Is "Marry!" in Romeo and Juliet a Marian oath? Is it as bad as curse words against God? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 19:47, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Can you tell us ignorami where that appears in R & J? As to cursing Mother Mary, I can't say I've ever heard any, but maybe it's a different situation in England. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:23, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

In Romeo and Juliet opening scene, one guy was saying "Marry!" A quick Google search suggests that the usage is a corruption of "By Mary" to avoid the statute of profanity. I am wondering whether there are more marian oaths. 71.79.234.132 (talk) 20:29, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

I have heard "mother of God", "Mary mother of God" and "Jesus Mary and Joseph" used as profanity in English. Adam Bishop (talk) 20:38, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

WP:OR I hear those too, all over the USA. I profanity is an odd concept. Usage in "a way that shows you do not respect God or holy things" is of course very subjective. A preacher may say "Jesus! Thank you for blessing me with this beautiful view", and be fine, but if I say "Jesus! That hurt!" it's a little murkier. Maybe I'm praying, or maybe I'm taking the lord's name in vain. My point is, "Jesus, Mary and Joseph" can be used in away to make an exclamation seem less blasphemous. I don't know if the God of Christians agrees or not, but the idea is that one is then invoking a holy family, not just blurting out a name as an expletive/curse/oath. "Mother of God!" as an expletive comes out more like a good old-fashioned blasphemous curse. Recently, there's a whole "Mother of God" rage comic image that gets used fairly frequently, see [5]. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:55, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Our Bloody article says: 'One theory is that it derives from the phrase by Our Lady, a sacrilegious invocation of the Virgin Mary. The abbreviated form By'r Lady is common in Shakespeare's plays around the turn of the 17th century, and interestingly Jonathan Swift about 100 years later writes both "it grows by'r Lady cold" and "it was bloody hot walking to-day" suggesting that a transition from one to the other could have been under way. In the middle of the 19th century Anne Brontë writes in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: "I went to see him once or twice – nay, twice or thrice – or, by'r lady, some four times"' Alansplodge (talk) 20:59, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

In answer to the second part of your question, the Reformation in England effectively ended the veneration of the Virgin Mary until the 19th century Catholic revival, so using her name in profanity would have appeared less grave to a 17th ot 18th century English Protestant than to a Catholic. The examples quoted by Adam Bishop above have an Irish ring about them (to my ears anyway). Alansplodge (talk) 21:07, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)(multiple) Yes, the OED regards the oath "marry" as obsolete, but gives the definition "expressing surprise, astonishment, outrage, etc., or used to give emphasis to one's words" with cites from 1375 to 1960. It's an oath rather than a curse, and there is a suggestion that it was originally "by St Mary of Egypt" (see Mary of Egypt) rather than the wife of Joseph. Adam's and Alan's examples above are common and would be "Marian oaths". The usage is indeed a euphemistic form, but predates the Profane Swearing Acts of 1623 and 1694. Dbfirs 21:25, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Madre de Deus is an exclamation in Portuguese which means literally "mother of God". Whether it offends the proscription "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain" is a moot point. If it doesn't it's no more objectionable than the Italian Mama mia or the English "Gordon Bennett!". 80.43.232.241 (talk) 14:59, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

August 7

Chinese exonym for the American continent

What was the oldest historical Chinese exonym for the Americas? Before Gold Mountain (金山). During the time of the Spanish China trade in the Philippines or the Portuguese trade with the Ming Dynasty. --KAVEBEAR (talk) 20:32, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

[Wikipedia has an article "Gold Mountain (Chinese name for part of North America)".—Wavelength (talk) 15:55, 8 August 2015 (UTC)]

I knew of its existence already.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 16:01, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Luau in British English

I looked this word up in my Oxford English Dictionary, and didn't find it: [6] !

So, is this just an oversight, or is this word genuinely unknown in British English ? If so, what do they call a Hawaiian or Polynesian-themed party ? Or, do they just never have those, ever ? StuRat (talk) 21:57, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

See http://www.onelook.com/?w=luau for definitions in many dictionaries, including British ones.

—Wavelength (talk) 22:03, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Oxford says "This word or phrase is not in this dictionary, but is in the Oxford Advanced American Dictionary". That seems to support it not being considered part of Br.E. StuRat (talk) 22:16, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Collins English Dictionary has http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/luau,

and Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary has http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/luau.

—Wavelength (talk) 22:28, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

You didn't look it up in the full Oxford English Dictionary: this entry (which you may need a subscription to access, or a visit to a library to read). There are two definitions, added in 1976: one for the party or feast and one for the cooked dish. You are correct that the word is rare in British English, appearing almost exclusively in books about Hawaii and Hawaiian cooking. Dbfirs 07:11, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

The second definition (a type of meal) is unknown to me, and, I suspect, most Americans. Only the Hawaiian-themed party meaning seems to have made it into US English in a big way. StuRat (talk) 15:08, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

I've never heard of it, and I suspect that if anybody over here ever had a "Hawaiian or Polynesian-themed party" they would probably call it just that. As for the dish, I've never heard of it either, but then I doubt that you'd find stargazy pie in many American dictionaries. Alansplodge (talk) 17:33, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Partially supporting and partially contradicting my hypothesis, I found this UK website which describes itself as a "specialist Hawaiian Theme Party online shop" and although it does mention the word "laua". I'd be astonished if many of its readers knew what it meant or how to pronounce it. Alansplodge (talk) 17:48, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

You don't get Hawaii Five-O or Hawaii Five-0 over there? Criminal! Book'em Danno. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:14, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Surely you've seen Blue Hawaii on one of its thousands of repeat screenings? Even I have done so. Admittedly, they've now given way to the thousands of repeat screenings of Adam Sandler movies, and movies with the word "Wedding" in the title - strangely, often the same movies. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:45, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

I've never seen Blue Hawaii and Hawaii Five-O had a certain popularity in the 1970s, but you'll have to trust me that Hawaii does not figure highly in British culture; except maybe Hawaiian pizza or those lurid shirts worn by middle-aged-men-who-should-know-better. Perhaps another British editor might be able to contradict me, but we used to have enough exotic colonies of our own. Alansplodge (talk) 10:21, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Hawaii was never a British colony, but James Cook is generally accepted as its first European discoverer (hence the Union Jack in their flag). Cook named Hawaii the "Sandwich Islands", which was weirdly prophetic, because the Hawaiians made mincemeat of him. Literally. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 13:27, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Literally? --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 14:57, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

I always choose my words carefully. See this film, from about 1.34:00 to 1.37:00. It seems he was surrounded by about 2 dozen Hawaiians with spears, and was subjected to the full force of their rage for close to 3 minutes. Maybe not his entire body, but his back was certainly converted into mincemeat. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:22, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Ah-ha. It's hard to see the other pie filling ingredients there, but it does seem to suggest ground meat of some sort. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 17:36, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

British editor here, happy to agree with Alansplodge rather than contradict him. Bazza (talk) 15:03, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with Alan: the average UK resident is unlikely to have met the word. By the way, the second OED definition was "A cooked dish of young taro leaves served with coconut cream and octopus or chicken." Dbfirs 06:56, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

I would never have guessed that this word is practically unknown in UK. Even for Americans, though, how often do people really use "luau" for "Hawaiian-themed party"? As far as I ever heard it used, it was only for a "real" luau, or at least something very closely approaching it (starting with the roast of a whole pig). StevenJ81 (talk) 17:42, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

August 8

Honesty demands that...

How to understand "Honesty demands that he describe it to his readers."? Does it mean that he should describe it to his readers honestly? The context is: "So long as a man writes poetry or fiction, his dream of Eden is his own business, but the moment he starts writing literary criticism, honesty demands that he decribe it to his readers, so that they may be in the position to judge his judgements." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.249.237.6 (talk) 04:34, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

"Does it mean that he should describe it to his readers honestly?" No, it means that the honest thing to do is to explain or justify his criticism. That is, he should expand on it by giving a point by point analysis to his readers so they can understand why he is condemning or praising. That is the honest thing to do. It would be dishonest and a disservice to the writer of the work he's reviewing to simply pass judgement without explanation. Akld guy (talk) 08:40, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

As I read it, the antecedent of "it" is not "literary criticism" but "dream of Eden". In other words, the writer of criticism needs to explicitly describe his idea of what makes for good fiction or poetry. Deor (talk) 11:36, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

The nearest antecedent to "it" is "literary criticism", if we discount "honesty" which is plainly not intended. Akld guy (talk) 12:17, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

"Nearest antecedent" doesn't apply here because that implies that "it" has multiple antecedents in this sentence. It doesn't. It has one. The question here is which one thing in the sentence is the antecedent of "it". It's "dream of Eden", the thing that the opposition in the sentence is about: Under one set of circumstances, the "dream of Eden" is "his own business"; under another, he is obliged to "describe it to his readers". —Largo Plazo (talk) 14:36, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

The trouble is that describing one's "dream of Eden" could well require a book of its own (or an entire library of books). And what good would that do anyway, unless it's related to the text in question? No, I agree with User:Akld guy here. The critic cannot just come out with "This book is rubbish", or "This novel is a waste of time", without explaining why. Criticism is more an educative process than one of belittlement. So, the critic is duty bound to mention the boxes he felt unable to tick and how they fell short. That would be an act of describing his criticism, not merely being pejorative. I say this not because it's the nearest antecedent, but because it makes the most sense to me on sober reflection.

Ironically, the facts that this sentence even required sober reflection, and that we band of siblings here at the ref desk are debating its meaning, mean it is not as clearly written as it could be. It can do with some literary criticism of its own. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:46, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

But it doesn't make sense. "... the moment he starts writing literary criticism, honesty demands that he decribe it to his readers". Point #1 to make here is that the sentence doesn't say "explain", as you worded it, it says "describe". As for describing: I start writing an article on literary criticism—and honesty demands that I describe my literary criticism? I'm giving you my critique; how do I also "describe" it, apart from what's already in it? I also don't see why it would take a whole book for a literary critic to summarize where he's coming from. And your interpretation leaves the whole "dream of Eden" mention just hanging there unresolved, when it's pretty clear, to me at least, that it was supposed to be the focus of the whole sentence. —Largo Plazo (talk) 13:03, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

I gave two examples of a literary criticism that does not describe, it just asserts. As I see it, the first part of the sentence is about someone writing poetry or fiction (So long as a man writes poetry or fiction, his dream of Eden is his own business). He remains within his own private universe, he makes his own rules, and he does not need to state what those rules are. That's why his dream of Eden is his own business.

The next part (... but the moment he starts writing literary criticism, honesty demands that he decribe [sic] it to his readers, so that they may be in the position to judge his judgements). That is, he is now engaged in discussing, nay judging, another author's work. He has to write his own words in order to do this, but the focus is now external. Nobody can ever say that a poem is "wrong" or that a piece of fiction does not truly represent what was in the author's mind. But when it comes to criticism of another's writing, there has to be a basis beyond just the Ebertian "I hated this book. Hated, hated, hated ... it". And that basis has to be stated in some way, so that readers of the criticism can understand where the critic is coming from, and can either agree or disagree with the criticism. Nobody can ever disagree with "I hated this book". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:54, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

• I agree with Deor: otherwise why mention "dream of Eden" at all? But I see less dichotomy here than some do. —Tamfang (talk) 05:18, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

• I too agree with Deor, and see nothing unclear in the sentence. DuncanHill (talk) 10:24, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

The quotation is from "The Dyer's Hand" by W H Auden, incidentally, following directly from the "corrective discipline" passage in the OP's previous question. Reading up on the passage, it would appear that Auden intended "it" to refer to the "dream of Eden", in agreement with Deor's interpretation. Tevildo (talk) 23:46, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

It would appear that "it would appear" really means "I think". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 13:11, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

If you prefer, "other published authors who have commented on Auden's work have interpreted "it" as referring to "dream of Eden"." I also consider that "dream of Eden" is the only realistic referent, but this only goes to support Auden's thesis that all criticism is subjective. Tevildo (talk) 15:19, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

The phrasing "Honesty demands..." always seemed to me to be a personification of honesty. Long ago, human attributes were often personified as various gods, goddesses, muses, etc. So, in this case, "Honesty" is pictured as a deity of some type, which is requiring that humans be honest. Of course, this isn't to be taken literally today, but rather symbolically. StuRat (talk) 16:41, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

English transcription

What is he saying at around 05:17?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlDeIZ0On_k

"?*! at university" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 157.157.90.195 (talk) 09:00, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

I think it's "timeouts", but I wouldn't put money on it. Tevildo (talk) 09:32, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

I think it fits. Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 157.157.90.195 (talk) 10:01, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

"Thammasat University" In context: "When I first came to Bangkok, I would hear this music being played every morning. And, I heard it was like the advert for Ovaltine, because it sounded just like the way that it used to be advertised in England. But like in, say Thammasat University or in the streets, people would just stop in the tracks when they play it over the loudspeakers. [Laughs] Everyday, it's twice a day." Robert T. Edison (the speaker) is discussing เพลงชาติไทย (Phleng Chat Thai), the Thai National Anthem. -- ToE 23:33, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

August 9

Demonym - Englishman, Frenchman, Spaniard, Scotsman, etc.

Why are some demonyms so gender-specific and others not? There are Englishman, Scotsman, Welshman, Frenchman, and Chinaman. Then, there are German man, Russian man, Korean man, and American man. Note the latter list has spaces between the ethnic demonyms and gender. Why? What accounts for the difference? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 01:01, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

You have used the wrong demonyms: English, French, Scottish, Welsh and Chinese.
Sleigh (talk) 12:45, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Why are they wrong? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 13:46, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Damn. @Sleigh, all these years, I have getting famous joke formula wrong. So it should be "An English, an Irish, and a Scottish walk into a bar...."? KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 14:28, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

FWIW "Scot" is correct. Collect (talk) 15:22, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

• To answer the IP's actual question, without all the politically correct special pleading, consider that for quite a long period of earlier modern history, an Englishman might meet an Irishman, Welshman, Dutchman, Scotsman or Frenchman, as his kingdom bordered those lands. Even a Norseman! But Russians and Arabs and Koreans were ever more exotic. So the terms for people in bordering countries with who trade or war would be frequent over long periods of time would naturally evolve nativized compound names. μηδείς (talk) 04:51, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

The Roman empire was cosmopolitan. So in York, for example, you would meet black people from Nubia. With extensive trade and sailing ships there was plenty of contact. Thus forms such as "Chinaman" and "Musselman". 78.149.122.51 (talk) 12:51, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Some of it is probably traceable to euphony. Germanman, Americanman, Russianman, Koreanman are all a bit awkward to say, too. StevenJ81 (talk) 19:54, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

To follow up on Medeis's point, though: I suspect most of these coinages/constructions occurred during some particular interval of time. It would be interesting to know that. Until 1492 (pace the Vikings), there was no such thing as an American (Canadian, Brazilian, Mexican ...). At all. I'm not quite sure what someone in 15th-16th century England would have called someone from "the Germanies". And did people in Europe really know that Korea was a distinct place from China then? I'm really not trying to be flip about that at all; I just wonder if some of those nations didn't exist from the perspective of England until this sort of demonymic construction was passé. StevenJ81 (talk) 20:03, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

It should be pointed out that German is in a sense the oldest of such terms in the West, to wit Germanicus, but it comes from spear-man, not "man from the land of Ger". The root *man- is from PIE. μηδείς (talk) 20:59, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

That may or may not be related to an old version of 1st cousin: cousin-german. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:53, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

How is "Atlas V" pronounced predominantly in the Space Community?

Do most professionals at NASA, SpaceX, JPL, etc. say "Atlas five" or "Atlas vee"? 75.75.42.89 (talk) 01:29, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

The former. Here is a video of last month's Atlas V launch where you can hear the ULA launch announcer pronounce it "Atlas Five" a few seconds in. -- ToE 01:41, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

That would be consistent with the Saturn V ("Saturn Five") rockets which launched the Apollo Moon missions. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:35, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

I heard people talking about the "George and Ivy" pub and thought it was something like George and Mildred, which must be the funniest TV comedy show which ever aired. Walking one day I noticed the pub, and when I saw the picture on the inn sign I realised it was the "George IV". That reminds me that the only thing I remember of my parents' conversations when I was very, very young was them mentioning "The Spring - Green Lady". I wondered a lot about who she might be, then we moved away from the village and many years later, while consulting a hotel directory, I saw the village mentioned and right there was the name "The Spring - Green Lady". It turned out that this was the name of an inn or pub. 80.44.166.96 (talk) 16:48, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Case Assignment in Fused Relatives Cross-Linguistically

In languages that have fused relatives where the relative words inflect for case, how does case assignment generally work? For example, I found a source that says in German, if the matrix and relative clauses assign the same case (or two different cases where there is syncretism), then use that inflection, otherwise look at the two cases assigned according to this order: Nominative - Accusitive - Dative - Genitive. If the relative clause assigns the case farther to the right, that case wins, but if the matrix clause assigns the case farther to the right, the construction is syntactically blocked. In English, there seem to be two camps: those who say the relative clause always governs, and those who say that conflict blocks the construction entirely in formal style (though informal style can always use "whoever", of course). So my question is a little open ended: is what I said above correct for German? What is the data for for English? (I understand there probably isn't a clear answer for English due to the moribund status of "whomever", but a survey of variation in actual usage should still be possible.) What was the rule in Latin? In Old English? In other languages where this issue arises? 2601:645:8101:54AA:B4AF:9577:4284:3EC7 (talk) 01:57, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

I imagine the lack of responses means everyone else is having as much trouble as I am figuring out what this means...could you give us some example sentences to help us understand? Adam Bishop (talk) 19:05, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Sorry for being unclear. By "fused relative" I mean a construction like "what you want" in "what you want is impossible to get". These are sometimes also called "free relatives" or "nominal relatives". The word "what" doesn't inflect for case, but if it did the matrix clause (with verb "is") would indicate nominative while the relative clause (with verb "want") would indicate accusative. I'm asking how different languages resolve this conflict. In English it only comes up with "who(m)ever" - as in "I will tell who(m)ever asks", where "who(m)ever" is subject of ask but also head of a construction that is object of "tell". I'm more curious what the rule is in languages other than English (since English speakers don't really have a native intuition here). For example the source I found for German says *"Ich folge (wem/wen) ich bewundere" ("I follow whomever I adore") is ungrammatical with both dative "wem" and accusative "wen" because the matrix verb "folge" wants the dative while the relative verb "bewundere" wants the accusative, and the construction is syntactically blocked because the relative "loses" to the matrix. But "Wen Maria mag wird eingeladen" ("Who(m)ever Maria likes is invited") is grammatical because the relative clause selects accusative and the matrix clause selects nominative and accusative "beats" nominative when selected by the relative clause. I'm asking whether that's an accurate account of German and also how it works in other languages where this is an issue. (I did some research and it looks like - if I understand - Old English uses a special indeclinable word for fused relatives so maybe Old English isn't relevant here). 2601:645:8101:54AA:99C1:99FB:B2C8:162C (talk) 21:45, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

I found http://www-01.sil.org/linguistics/glossaryoflinguisticterms/WhatIsAMatrixSentence.htm and "English relative clause#Fused relative constructions". I am guessing that most languages do not have fused relatives. If I remember correctly, Japanese does not even have relative pronouns. (See http://www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/~ts/japanese/relativeclause.html.)

—Wavelength (talk) 22:03, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

My understanding is that Japanese uses interrogative words as relative pronouns, like many languages, [edited to add: or I may be confusing myself thinking of "何も"-type constructions, which aren't really relative pronouns but more of an exhaustive conditional thing] but Japanese doesn't feature wh-movement (is there a better cross-linguistic term for this? "Wh-movement" is awfully anglocentric) so I would expect that a dummy noun like こと or something is always required and there is nothing like fused relatives (though my knowledge of Japanese grammar is limited). But I was under the impression that fused relatives are a common feature at least among Indo-European languages, and I would have expected them to be common (though not necessarily universal) more generally among all languages that have wh-movement. I know Spanish has them, but Spanish isn't relevant here because the relative/interrogative words don't inflect for case in Spanish. I don't know much about Latin but I thought it did have fused relatives, and my understanding is that Latin relative words do inflect for case, so I figured Latin would provide an example of a language where this question is meaningful. 24.7.88.102 (talk) 23:25, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Some non-English terms for "wh-movement" are at https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2658424.

—Wavelength (talk) 23:41, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Japanese does not have case, nor number. It uses particles and order of words to modify the meaning of the part of the sentence to convey the meaning. This is especially true in well written Japanese literature. In modern Japanese speech, however, these particles are very often dropped, and the word order is also random. A case in point, 'Akachan, tabeta?' (modern Tokyo speech) could mean two things. "Has the baby eaten?" or "Have you [or somebody else we are talking about] eaten the baby [and which baby?]?" Relatives are expressed with word order only, as in, 'Watashi no akachan wo tabeta moto-otto' (The ex-husband who ate my baby', parsed as 'My no baby wo ate ex-husband'. The Japanese version of "Whomever Maria likes is invited" would be parsed as "'Daredemo' (whoever') Maria -ga- likes - is invited."

— Preceding unsigned comment added by KageTora (talk • contribs) 15:12, 10 August 2015

Hmm, I think I see! Well, I can say that in French, "what you want" in this case is "ce que tu veux...", with "ce que" being a phrasal pronoun I suppose (literally "that which you want"). There is always a direct object ("ce") and either another direct object ("que") or an indirect object. There would be an indirect object if you say "ce dont tu as besoin..." ("what you need" or literally "that of which you have need"), or "ce à quoi tu t'attends..." ("what you expect"). There's no confusion because there is no single word that would translate "what", you have to use the two- or three-word phrase. The same solution would occur if you said something like "I am talking to the person whom you are talking about", which would use the verbal phrases "parler à" and "parler de", so "je parle à celui dont tu parles".

As for Latin, which does have pronoun inflection, the problem is actually resolved the same way, you just stick another object in there. For example, "I want what you need", "desidero id cuius eges", where "desiderare" takes the accusative ("id") and "egere" takes the genitive ("cuius"). Presumably this is the origin of the French construction. All the Romance languages have an equivalent construction, don't they? I think the other part of what you're asking has to do with apposition, maybe?. Maybe that's not the right word, I can't think of the proper one, but in Latin, whatever goes with "est" would be nominative, no matter what the case of the preceding noun phrase was. Adam Bishop (talk) 01:26, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Right, so the two-word construction would be an ordinary or non-fused relative. Are fused relatives ever possible in French? Looking through the List of Latin Phrases I see "alterius non sit qui suus esse potest", "quae non prosunt singula multa iuvant", and "vincit qui patitur", which all look like fused relatives to me. If I'm not mistaken, there is no case conflict in these examples. I'm wondering whether this construction is always blocked (requiring the two-word phrasing) when there is a conflict or not. EDITED TO ADD: (I hope this is the right wiki etiquette) Looking further I find: "quem di diligunt adulescens moritur" where "quem" is unambiguously accusative despite the relative construction being the subject of "moritur". This is consistent with the German rule, though there could still be some other rule in Latin. The question then is what other case combinations are permitted. Another edit: Except adulescens can also be a noun? I don't know if a parse where adulescens is a noun is possible here. If so, it would mean this isn't necessarily a fused relative. This is the danger in trying to analyze the grammar of languages I don't know much about on my own. Third edit: It looks like the existence of the passive voice makes conflict very easy to avoid. I'm having trouble finding unambiguous examples of case conflict in that list. Possibly they are prohibited in Latin. 2601:645:8101:54AA:4C67:6FA5:82D3:86E9 (talk) 02:49, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

In your first three examples, those are all nominative subject pronouns, so no relative clauses to work with there. "Quem di diligunt" would seem to fit, the whole phrase is taken to be the subject of "moritur". "Adulescens" is a participle being used as a noun, "he whom the gods love dies as a youth". But let's change that sentence so it uses a verb that takes another case, "*quem di diligunt obviant" ("they are meeting the man whom the gods love"), that would not work, because obviare takes the dative. You would have to say "ei quem di diligunt obviant". But even if the the verb takes the accusative, "quem" can't be the object of both verbs, you would have to add another accusative object: "eum quem di diligunt laudant", "they are praising the man whom the gods love". Maybe "quem" could do double duty in this last example, in poetry or in pithy proverbs, but in normal prose it sounds wrong to me. Adam Bishop (talk) 03:59, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the help, I was a a little trepidatious trying to parse Latin grammar without any background in it. So would "quem di diligunt moritur" be grammatical? It's clear that "adulescens" is a subject-oriented predicative complement and not the subject (I.e. It can't be "a youth whom the gods love dies")? I'm afraid I don't quite understand why the first three examples aren't fused relatives. In "quae non prosunt singula multa iuvant", isn't "quae" working with both "prosunt" and "iuvant"? I would have guessed "quae non prosunt singula" is the subject of "iuvant". Am I mistaken? Is this nominative double-duty also striking at a poetic register? If fused relative constructions containing "quem" can serve as subject, are there any other cases that can do this as well? Editing again: If Latin follows a rule similar to that of German, then we would expect "*quem di diligunt obviant" to be ungrammatical but "cui obviant di diligent" ("the gods love whom(ever?) they meet"(?)) could be attested. Have you ever seen a Latin construction like that?2601:645:8101:54AA:4C67:6FA5:82D3:86E9 (talk) 04:59, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Right, "adulescens" is a complement, the sentence is still grammatical without it. For the other three, "quae non prosunt singula" is the subject of "iuvant", so you're right, "quae" is the nominative subject for both verbs. I was thinking before that "quae" and the others are just the subject pronouns, but they are actually the subject for both verbs separately. Maybe it normal prose it would be "ea quae". So if that is the definition of fused relatives, then I guess they would be fused! I can't think of any examples for the other cases, but they would be able to behave this way as well. Maybe something like cuius regio, eius religio, with genitives? Adam Bishop (talk) 20:02, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

In Russian your examples are (in translit) Ya skazhu l’ubomu/tomu (Dat.), kto (Nom.) vsprosit "I will tell everybody/that one who asks" and Ya poydu za l’ubym/tem (Instr.), kogo (Acc.) ya l’ubl’u "I will follow everybody/that one, whom I like". The latter also ...kem (Instr.) ya voskhishchayus’ "whom I adore" and kto (Nom.) mne (Dat.) nravits’a literally "who is liked by me".--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 23:56, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, it looks like in each of those examples there is a head word to the noun phrase in the matrix clause being modified by a relative clause with a separate pronoun so that they may each bear their respective case. Is there any Russian construction that permits both roles to be filled simultaneously by one word? Perhaps only in situations where both cases are the same? Maybe possible in the translation of a sentence like: "Who steals my purse steals trash"? 24.7.88.102 (talk) 01:24, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

M. Lozinsky thought it's Укравший мой кошель украл пустое or Ukravshyĭ (Past Participle; =who has stolen) moy koshel’ (=my purse) ukral pustoye (=[he] stole nothing). So I forgot about Russian participles. Possible alternatives from above: Ya skazhu sprosivshemu (Act. Past P. in Dat.) and Ya poydu za l’ubimym (Pass. Pres. P. in Instr.). Although the first sentence is somewhat contradictory: you speak about the present using a past participle.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 17:29, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Your sentence triggered an association with proverb "[he] who flies high falls low", which can be pretty much word-for-word translated into many European languages. See e.g. this WordReference thread. There is a question whether a separate pronoun (he/the one/that) acting as antecedent is required (@ColinFine: does it qualify as a resumptive pronoun?), but it seems to be facultative. That's the case at least in my native Serbo-Croatian: [Onaj] ko visoko leti [taj] nisko pada.
Thinking about Serbo-Croatian fused relatives, they kind of work when the case is the same, at least in some examples: koga voliš nemoj mučiti ('whom_ACC you like don't torture', with like and torture both taking the ACC argument), although there is a proverbial, condensed, tone to it; more unmarked would be onog koga....
I found an usage where a fused relative triggered case mismatch, awkwardly resolved using a resumptive, and working mostly because of distance: *koga god da vidim da nekog vređa reći ću mu ('whom_ACC-ever I-see that insults someone I will tell him...'). No such user (talk) 14:14, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

If I'm following the gloss correctly, the reći ću clause is the matrix and the relative has been dislocated to front position? How does "recí ću koga god da vidim da nekog vređa ..." sound? Unacceptable? If so, would it still be unacceptable if the matrix and relative selected the opposite cases? 166.170.38.79 (talk) 16:02, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Sorry for incomplete gloss. Yes, the word order is loose. What we have at hand is a relative pronoun "trying" to be the head of two clauses simultaneously; in SC, it is grammatical only if it requires the same case, i.e. verb rections are the same. In the above sentence, reći 'tell' requires dative but vidim 'see' accusative, so it's not grammatical. However, substitute the former with e.g. napasti 'attack', also requiring accusative, and it becomes grammatical: napasti ću koga god da vidim....
To make the original fully grammatical, you need another relative such as onaj 'one, that', which however blocks the particle god ('-ever', just as in English *one whoever): "reći ću onome_DAT koga_ACC vidim da nekog vređa...".
Even the case-matching case dances around the edges of grammaticality, so it might not be the same in all Slavic languages. Lüboslóv? No such user (talk) 19:34, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Does Serbo-Croation not feature dislocation, as in "my father, he is a surgeon", or "He's a real joker, that guy" or indeed "whoever is responsible for this, they will pay"? This type of construction is somewhat limited in English, but I understand it occurs all over the place in French, for example. I ask because I would have parsed your example as that, and figured the "mu" matches the matrix case. One type of construction that at least tentatively appears to be acceptable in German and maybe Latin is where the relative phrase is accusative and the construction functions as subject. Can you confirm that that would not ordinarily be encountered in Serbo-Croation? Does your judgment that fused relatives skirt the boundary of grammaticality apply in the case where nominative is selected by both clauses? 166.170.38.79 (talk) 20:15, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

It does not feature dislocation, not nearly as French. I would say that its relative constructs are more similar to English (it lost the elegant Russian participles and became more analytical in this regard). Yes, you parsed the first example correctly and "mu" does match the matrix case, but I qualified it as "awkward" (I dug that sentence from an internet forum, apparently ill-conceived by the author; similar mental path as for English "whomever..." could be raced).
As for my judgment about grammaticality, I would quote Steven from below: Most of the time, I suspect these cases are driven by intuition, rather than pure prescription. And intuition can be flexible: as I described above, there are times I might choose to be more "correct", and other times I wish to sound less "pedantic". - the forms with added resumptive pronouns are always more "pedantic", while the fused ones are more marked; on a scale of 1-10, I would generally judge fused relatives at 8 for nominative case; 6-7 for accusative; 5 for dative (hard to find an example); 1-3 for other cases or mixed-case. And there are always idioms and set phrases which resist the analysis: a quite fine translation for the below-mentioned Samuel 25:11 would be ...i dati_GIVE ga_IT ljudima_PEOPLE-DAT koji_WHO-REL dolaze_COME od_FROM ko zna gde_{WHO KNOWS WHERE}, the latest being a set phrase in NOM, mismatching od which takes GEN argument. No such user (talk) 20:57, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't think the construction exists in Latin: like the Russian examples, Latin would use a resumptive pronoun. --ColinFine (talk) 07:09, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure that OP is right that there is no native intuition (or at least school instruction) in such matters. In OP's original case, I was taught very clearly that the correct answer would be "I will tell whoever asks." We did a lot of sentence diagramming in my high school freshman English class. For the purpose of selecting the correct pronoun there, the choice would be governed by the pronoun's position in the clause where it actually lives, which would be apparent from the diagram. The fact that the subordinate clause has the role of object in the main clause would be irrelevant to that. StevenJ81 (talk) 14:57, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Similarly, in Wavelength's 2601:645:8101:54AA:99C1:99FB:B2C8:162C's example above ("Whomever Maria likes is invited"), the immediate grammatical function of whomever is as direct object of the subordinate clause ("Maria likes whomever"), so the relative is in objective or accusative case—even though the subordinate clause as a whole serves as subject of the independent clause. StevenJ81 (talk) 15:27, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

These days, of course, most people in speech would start with whoever, and probably most people even in writing would do the same. Whom/whomever survives best these days (a) in more formal language and (b) where the word order seems to fit it more naturally. English rarely sees objects preceding subjects in everyday language or in prose writing, so it can be pretty difficult to convince people that whomever would be correct in this setting. And in speech, whomever would probably sound just. plain. pedantic. So even someone like me would use whoever in speech here if I need not to sound pedantic. To some extent, that sort of reasoning is why the language continues to evolve. I wouldn't be surprised if the prescription in Standard English will have changed by 20 years from now. StevenJ81 (talk) 15:35, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

School instruction isn't native intuition. I'm interested in a descriptive account in languages where case-marking in these situations is governed by syntactic constraints even in colloquial speech, so English isn't really relevant. The account that you were taught in school is problematic because it fails to explain how the verb number is syntactically controlled by the relative phrase (not just selected according to semantic factors), it fails to explain why preposition fronting is ungrammatical in fused relatives, and it fails to explain why fused relatives can appear as non-extraposed subjects in post-auxiliary position. 166.170.38.79 (talk) 16:18, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Look, I thought I responded to what you wrote above. If it left you with additional questions, it does not mean that what I was taught in school was problematic. It means that I had no idea whatsoever that the points you now raise were relevant to the answer. Either I am not enough of a professional linguist to understand you—and I'm not one—or you were not terribly clear in your communication—and you weren't. Enough said on that. I could probably answer at least the first point you raised, but since you have just said you are not interested in English, I'll break off here. StevenJ81 (talk) 17:32, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, my tone may have seemed hostile which is not what I intended. What I meant was that I'm aware that the rule of agreement being controlled by the matrix clause is one of the common prescriptive positions. However my issue with that is that it is based on a theory of the proper analysis that says the function of the relative construction in the matrix clause is irrelevant, and importantly, this analysis is not reached based on the usage data but based on the assumption that there can be only one verb controlling the case. In all the languages other than English where this type of construction exists that have been discussed here, both verbs impose constraints on the case and the construction may be blocked entirely (requiring an overt head noun "anyone who(m)" instead of who(m)ever) in at least some cases of conflict. It's possible English is unique in that the matrix verb imposes no constraints at all, but I'm not aware that this position is well-supported by the data. My understanding is that there is great variation in prose even if we limit ourselves to the most respected authors. That is, actual usage is something of a mess here. I also may have overstated my lack of interest in English. To the extent the data of English usage is consistent, it is worth mentioning, I just don't expect that it will be consistent enough for a clear rule to emerge. I would be interested to know if there is statistical evidence that case-conflict is or is not typically avoided by rephrasing or alternation to non-fused relatives, but I understand such evidence would be a lot of work to produce. 166.170.38.79 (talk) 18:58, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

I accept your apology.

I'd probably agree with you that (a) English usage, especially colloquial/informal usage, is probably not consistent enough to analyze, and (b) it would be hard to produce the evidence, especially given (c) the "moribund" state of whom/whomever. I suspect, but would have a hard time proving, the following for English:

• In formal English grammar, they way we learn it from a book, the matrix clause verb really has no impact on the case in the relative clause. I would have no way to know how unique that really is.
• In less formal or colloquial use, there are "light" conflicts and "heavy" conflicts. A light conflict is a situation where the difference between the case demanded by the matrix verb and the case demanded by the relative verb differ only by a fairly simple and similar word substitution ("whoever"/"whomever"). Most of the time, I suspect these cases are driven by intuition, rather than pure prescription. And intuition can be flexible: as I described above, there are times I might choose to be more "correct", and other times I wish to sound less "pedantic". Those are instincts, too. The de minimus example of this is where there is no case difference at all, which is most of the time in English. (It's not unlike the subjunctive mood, which we were discussing here recently. Frequently, the subjunctive and indicative forms of verbs are the same in English, so there is no difference to parse.)
• I think if the conflict is "heavy", then people restructure the sentence.

But these are just guesses. StevenJ81 (talk) 19:31, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Slight caveat: I haven't quite worked through whether there are examples of where a potential case conflict of a fused relative could actually block a construction outright in English. I'm a native speaker, and maybe my brain instinctively assumes things like that don't exist. I am pretty confident that where a fused relative construction can exist, its case is governed entirely by the relative clause verb, not the matrix clause verb. StevenJ81 (talk) 21:52, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

A "true" case of blocking of a fused relative for case reasons in English would be difficult to find. In Standard Modern English, "who(m)ever" is the only word that both can have a fused relative function and inflects for case. And "whoever" is almost always acceptable in informal style, so blocking in the formal register would typically take the form of an informal-style "whoever" (or rephrasing) being mandatory. The only "evidence" of a blocked whomever would be one that sounds especially stilted, but usage of "who" is random enough that I would say it's more a matter of some usages being more common than others. In a brief comb over some examples it does seem to me like case-conflicting examples are a bit more rare than case-matching examples in pie es that make full use of "whom", though that could be explained for reasons other than "partial" blocking. In general, pied-piping is the only situation that rules out "who" in all registers (which is really just the result of a style conflict - pied-piping doesn't usually occur in informal style), but preposition-fronting isn't an option in fused relatives regardless of case issues, so it would be hard to construct a real blocking situation. 166.170.38.79 (talk) 23:30, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

StevenJ81, that example was provided by someone editing from 2601:645:8101:54AA:99C1:99FB:B2C8:162C, and not by me.

—Wavelength (talk) 16:06, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

My eyes aren't what they used to be. Thanks for catching that. StevenJ81 (talk) 16:11, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

In these times of digital multitasking and of many people with short attention spans, it seems to me that resumptive pronouns are often used by such people and for such people, when simpler options are available. However, similar structures are found in some translations of the last part of 1 Samuel 25:11, which seems to be somewhat more complicated.

—Wavelength (talk) 18:38, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

The may (probably?) come(s) from the fact that the Hebrew itself uses a resumptive pronoun. Syntactically, I would translate the Hebrew of the end of the verse as "... and give it to men that I do not know from where they come." StevenJ81 (talk) 18:57, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

I never saw "whomever" before today. What literature does it exist in? "Anyone whom" is definitely wrong. 78.149.122.51 (talk) 19:08, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

"Anyone whom" can be correct: "I try to protect anyone whom I love." This, though, is exactly the type of prescription-vs.-intuition case that 166... and I were just discussing above. The grammar book currently prescribes whom here, although to be fair grammar books these days are probably calling this one as ok either way. But I suspect that most people's instincts here say who, and that is part of the reason things are moving in the direction they are moving. StevenJ81 (talk) 19:36, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

August 10

Bad, wicked, decadent - words with definitions and uses that mean the opposite of the primary definition

Why are these terms used to describe something pleasant or good or favorable? People use "decadent" to describe chocolate and market it as such! When people see an awesome thing, they say, "That's wicked!" Michael Jackson sang a song about being bad, but I think he probably meant that he's awesome, unless he actually thought of himself as evil. Why is evil good? Are there words to describe bad things good than good things bad? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 16:52, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

There isn't always the same answer for these things, but in many cases, irony, argot (in the case of "bad = good", that's clearly developed from youth argot), or semantic drift (which accounts for the opposite meanings of the verb "to cleave") are all plausible explanations. --Jayron32 16:59, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Absolutely no source for this, but along the lines of irony, uses such as "wicked" seem to stem from the fact that the bad guy in a story, Smaug, Scorpius tends to be the most interesting one, and uses like "decadent" to describe things like food are an unabashed rejection of puritanical restrictions and boring moderation. μηδείς (talk) 17:11, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

With food, there has always been an association between the devil and certain foods, usually red and/or spicy (although devil's food cake isn't so much spicy as a contrast with angel's food cake). So, a food can be said to be "wicked hot" or just "wicked", and, in time "wicked" can then become a generic term for anything good. StuRat (talk) 18:09, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

"Wicked" is a word that emerged in the teenage sub - culture about the time that good old ballads gave way to "house" and "garage". I think it started off in the black population and was copied. Am I right in thinking that since that time there has been very little in the way of memorable pop music? 78.149.122.51 (talk) 19:02, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't know about that, but "wicked" was regional slang for "superior" (or whatever) in New England long before that. StevenJ81 (talk) 19:37, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Wicked in New England is not an adjective meaning superior, it's an general adverb intensifier which is a near perfect synonym of "very". The adjective use of "wicked" is not used at all in New England English, but rather is associated with California English. --Jayron32 20:24, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Also "sick", "fully sick" etc. There's also a reverse phenomenon. Ivan the Terrible would never have been so named had he lived a few centuries later. Back then, it meant "inspiring terror", not "of very low quality". In the KJV of the Bible, the word "awful" is used - of God Himself, no less - to mean "awe-inspiring" or, as people say these days, "awesome". To call someone "awful" these days, Dick Emery aside, is not much of a compliment, really. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:26, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

And now "terrific" is positive, though it used to be negative. But "terrifying" is still bad. Semantic shift is fine, the alternative is rampant neologism, e.g. "amazeballs" [7] :) SemanticMantis (talk) 22:59, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

"Neologism" was once a neologism. Not sure of its rampitude, though. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:19, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

IIRC, "fast" has about the most contradictory meanings of any word in the OED - rapid, or immovable; entirely and almost; etc.. "Make" has the longest entry, but most of its meanings make sense with regard to each other. Collect (talk) 23:33, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

etymology of 'normal' as related to army study in Tennessee circa 1913-15

I listened to a explanation of the etymology of the word 'normal' from a PhD psychologist in a one-hour therapy session that I have been unable to follow up on. I can't find any information on the topic. Will someone please direct me to the history/research (if it exists).

I was told that 'normal' first shows up in the English language in reference to a study commissioned by the U.S. Army sometime between 1913-1915 to determine the qualities that make a good soldier for recruiting purposes for WWI. There were two study groups studied: current 1913-15 'good' soldiers (as defined by professional psychologists conducting the research study) and 'bad soldiers' (as defined by professional psychologists conducting the research study). Group participants were provided by the army.

One-third of the participants in the 'good soldiers' group were named Norm. Therefore, the 'good soldiers' group were called 'normal'. Thanks a whole bunch. 134.228.197.104 (talk) 20:15, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Nope, according to the online etymology dictionary "etymonline", which is a pretty solid source on word origins, the word normal dates to at least 1500 with the meaning "common" or "typical", and "conforming to common standards" dating to 1828 at the latest, and probably much earlier, while that of a "normal person" to 1890; though that usage does not seem to be all that distinct from the earlier meanings, especially the 1828 cite. The story you give is purely apocryphal, I can find no evidence in serious scholarly works to confirm it, and given the long history of the use of the word normal as you describe, clearly it can be discounted at face value as purely fanciful. If someone has a login to allow them access to the full Oxford English Dictionary, you can also get a more detailed etymology. --Jayron32 20:21, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

The OED agrees, and notes mid-fifteenth-century French "normal" and English "enormal" (Fro þeise rewlys be owtakyn alle verbe neutyr enormalys, for þei folow no ryth rewle of coniugacyon. Qwech be verbe neutyr enormalys? Patet per versus: Sum, volo, fert et edo sunt enormal(i)a credo. around 1450 from D. Thomson's Middle English Grammatical Texts. ), and, of course, Classical Latin "normalis". Dbfirs 22:04, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

By the mid 19th century, "normal school" was the typical name for teacher training colleges. Maybe "normal" was first used in reference to a soldier a century ago, but the word goes way back. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:19, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Right, I think that's through French, e.g. École_normale_supérieure. That article should probably be linked at normal school... SemanticMantis (talk) 22:49, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

• Consider the anecdote may have been intended as a joke. SemanticMantis (talk) 22:51, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

The government will announce today ...

See this story, for example. What is the deal with this strange form of communication? The news agency obviously got these details by way of a press release from the relevant government department or minister's office. Surely that press release amounts to an announcement itself? If not, what is it? There may be a speech or a press conference later in the day, at which an announcement is made orally by the minister or some spokesperson. And maybe more details are provided at that opportunity, and questions can be asked and evasive answers provided. But does the press release count for nothing? Written communication tends to be given greater weight.

Sometimes formal announcements are made by something going online, not a face-to-face meeting of humans. What then is the status of the earlier press release? I presume press releases are provided online to news organisations these days, rather than via a paper circular shoved in the relevant pigeon holes, as was the traditional practice. So why does one online announcement outrank an earlier online announcement? And what if there was some bureaucratic glitch and the government decided to delay their announcement, or postpone it indefinitely? Would they then do a new press release saying "The government has decided not to announce that it plans to cut carbon emissions by at least 26 per cent of 2005 levels by 2030."? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:20, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

The reason for the careful word usage is that it's not official until the actual announcement, and they can always change their minds until then. If the plans were changed, the news agency would say they either decided to cancel the announcement or delay it, either of which would be news in and of itself. StuRat (talk) 22:53, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

In such a case, it wouldn't be wrong to say, "The government announced that it was going to announce X, but then announced it had decided not to announce X after all". Could these press releases be called "meta-announcements"? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:31, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

I would think of it as a "heads up" kind of thing. It also reminds me of Dilbert's boss and his "preliminary pre-meeting meeting".[8] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:46, 11 August 2015 (UTC)