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September 24

Can "the father" not take "his father" as antecedent?

I had this sentence in Travis Kelce (edited for brevity):

Kelce said he pronounces his surname /ˈkɛlsi/ following his father, although the rest of the father's family pronounces it /kɛls/.

A user later changed it to:

Kelce said he pronounces his surname /ˈkɛlsi/ following his father, although the rest of his father's family pronounces it /kɛls/.

I objected to this change on the grounds that a father has already been introduced by the time we reach "although", so repeating "his father" is ambiguous and could refer to Travis's grandfather, but they maintain that there is so few instances where you can say "the father" and have it logically make sense, this is not [one] of those instances [1]. Is that true? And assuming it is in this user's idiolect, is it not appropriate encyclopedic language to refer to someone's father (and not, say, a Catholic priest or "Hippocrates is the father of medicine") as "the father"? Nardog (talk) 08:31, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'd never heard of this unusually surnamed person. My three-second ultra-skimread turned up "He is the younger brother of Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce." Thus he has at least one sibling. This and any other sibling are, I presume, in both Travis's family and Travis's father's family. Indeed, Travis himself is in his father's family, implying that Travis's pronunciation differs from his relative Travis's [i.e. his own] pronunciation. Are readers likely to care which Kelce, Travis aside, have which pronunciation? If so, perhaps this needs more radical rephrasing; and if not (as I'd imagine), then perhaps simply "he pronounces his surname /ˈkɛlsi/, although others in his family pronounce it /kɛls/." -- Hoary (talk) 09:12, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Better phrasing is of course possible, but, the reference desk being no place to hold content disputes/suggestions, what I'm curious about the most is whether the first sentence makes sense (syntactically and semantically). (We actually kind of do care about which Kelce has which pronunciation. See the section in question and this correspondence for details.) Nardog (talk) 09:17, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

(FWIW, by "the father's family" I meant excluding Jason and Travis (said father's sons). The original quote is "I say /ˈkɛlsi/ because that's what my father says, but everyone on my father's side says /kɛls/", which AFAIC clearly refers to the family the father was born into, not like his spouse or children.) Nardog (talk) 09:30, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

To me, your version makes perfect sense, until I concentrate, whereupon it occurs to me that he's in his father's family (etc etc; see above), although there may be some sort of implicature that he isn't. If that is a problem, then it's just as much a problem in the version by "a user". So much for the semantics. As for the syntax, I see nothing wrong with either. I have to say that the version by "a user" sounds fully idiomatic to me, whereas yours sounds slightly unidiomatic; I can't say why. When an NP is definite, a definite determiner/specifier is used. "The" is one such determiner/specifier, but "my" is another; cf the indefinite construction "a [noun] of mine". (Incidentally (i), English words spelt "*lse" are pronounced /ls/ but they're rare: else, false, pulse, impulse, repulse, convulse, and that's about it. (ii) If the pronunciation was plain /kɛls/ a couple of generations ago and is now more commonly (even within the family) /ˈkɛlsi/, I'd unencyclopedically and irresponsibly speculate -- here, not in the article -- that the change may have been influenced by the fairly dramatic rise in popularity of the name "Kelsey".) -- Hoary (talk) 12:40, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. What about the ambiguity? Does it occur to you that the two "his father"s could be referring to different people (i.e. the latter is the grandfather)? Nardog (talk) 12:50, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ambiguity is always present in language. There's often more ambiguity in written language, as when people are conversing, there are a lot of context clues as to meaning which are lost in written language. Stress and tone of voice, which place different kinds emphasis on different words, are often lost in writing. Also, the context of the greater conversation, including what the people have been talking about around the sentences in question, who is around, their relationship with each other, etc. is all part of giving meaning to words that can be lost in writing. When you say "Can "the father" not take "his father" as antecedent?" the answer "it could, but it depends on a lot of things whether or not it is". --Jayron 32 16:15, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not asking if there's any ambiguity. I'm asking if the first sentence, comparatively, has less ambiguity than the second. As for the section title, the other editor's position was that "there is so few instances where you can say 'the father' and have it logically make sense, this is not [one] of those instances", hence the question. Do you agree with them? Nardog (talk) 17:11, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

See, I parse the "the" in that sentence as attached to "family", with "father's" as a modifier. --Jayron 32 18:18, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That's surprising to me. What does (or could) it mean then? Can you think of any situation in which "the father's family" parsed that way makes sense? Nardog (talk) 18:26, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"The Family", "Which Family?" "The Father's Family" parses the same to me as "The Ball", "Which ball?", "The Red Ball". --Jayron 32 18:38, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't you go "Which father?" right after that? Nardog (talk) 18:43, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see what function "the rest of" performs in that sentence, and whereas I understand the logical/grammatical issue you're raising about the/his, this version *sounds* better to me:

Kelce said he pronounces his surname /ˈkɛlsi/ following his father, although his father's family pronounces it /kɛls/.

although I'm not sure I can explain why it sounds okay. Logically, "the rest of his father's family" = "father's family minus father", but since we already know how father pronounces it (due to following) no information is lost by dropping the rest of. Mathglot (talk) 18:49, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Good point re "the rest of". The repetition of "his father" gives me a pause and makes me wonder if it's referring to the paternal grandfather for a second, but perhaps this is one of those things L1 speakers simply "know". Attributives and possessives indeed seem to interact with definiteness in a weird way (like how you can say "Raise your hand"). Fascinating. Nardog (talk) 19:48, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Anyway, I've changed the phrasing to make it clearer. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:44, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Clarityfiend: "his father" is ambiguous Oh, so you agree with me? But your version doesn't really resolve the issue as it still repeats "his". Do you have any problem with "although [the rest of] the father's family pronounces it /kɛls/"? "following" is also unclear How so? To me "because his father does" not only is verbose but sounds much more like it's a conscious choice than "because that's what my father says". What about "after" in place of "following"? (I know these things ultimately don't matter and I don't really care about the article. I just want to understand where people are coming from and be a better writer/editor.) Nardog (talk) 08:23, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The second sentence reads slightly better than the first. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:50, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think the second sentence is ambiguous (it could mean, "... the rest of the latter's father's family ...") but only in theory. A reader will normally interpret it the same as the first. If the second occurrence of "his" is emphasized, however, the grandfather interpretation comes to the fore. --Lambiam 22:17, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Who bold-faced the his? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:09, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Me, of course, not to emphasize the word but to highlight the difference. If someone did that in article prose it would immediately be undone. Nardog (talk) 23:21, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Without that bolding, the meaning seems clear enough. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:34, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is actually a problem of tone. I recognize the construction from news reports, invariably where something tragic has happened, as in "... accused her father of stealing her life savings to fund one drunken night of gambling. The father was not available for comment". The tone suggests that we know nothing about the father, and we're not sure whether we like the father or even want to grant him full status as a person: it's objectifying. I'd use "Kelce's father'. Card Zero (talk) 21:32, 26 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the OP. The crucial consideration should be, how to avoid ambiguity, so "his father" should be avoided. Syntactically, I see no problem with "the father", but there are other - less controversial - solutions, e.g. "this/that father", or simply: "Travis's father" (I'm sure that's what Card_zero above me meant, writing "Kelce's father" by mistake). 185.120.124.33 (talk) 10:20, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If I saw,

Kelce said he pronounces his surname /ˈkɛlsi/ following his father, although the rest of this father's family pronounces it /kɛls/

[my emphasis], I might start scanning the preceding paragraphs for a missed mention of some other father. --Lambiam 07:42, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

So "Travis's father" is the best solution. 185.120.124.33 (talk) 22:45, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

September 25

Dialog doubt in Loving Vincent

Armand and Marguerite are discussing Vincent's life:

Armand: I know that he tried hard to prove he was good for something.
Marguerite: Yes, he did. That's why I take flowers to his grave. That's all I can do for him now. He would appreciate the delicate beauty of their bloom even each blade of their grassy stems.

What is the meaning of "blade of their grassy stems"? Rizosome (talk) 02:43, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What kind of flowers were they? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:15, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It is irrelevant what kind of flowers they were. The question is about the stems, which we are told are grassy, i.e. like grass, being thin and flat like blades of grass. Maybe the flowers were something like montbretia.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 11:01, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Since the OP didn't seem to understand what grass and stems are, I was trying to find out more information about the flowers. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:49, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Here the last sentence of the quote above is rendered as two sentences: He would appreciate the delicate beauty of their blooms. Even each blade of their grassy stems. This is more likely how this was written in the script. The laminae (flat parts) of grassy leaves are commonly referred to as "blades". --Lambiam 11:43, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's certainly sounds a bit odd to have blade-like stems, but irises could be described that way I suppose. The film is about Vincent van Gogh who painted those plants several times, notably in Irises. Note that "grassy" can mean either "covered in grass" or "resembling grass". Alansplodge (talk) 21:04, 26 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The stems are grassy and have blades. That does not imply the stems are blade-like, merely that they are like the stems of a grass. --Lambiam 10:50, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm... if you ignore the "grassy" adjective, the quote certainly describes the stems as blades, and actually iris stems are rather blade-like in my opinion, although a lot more substantial than blades of grass. But it's certainly a confusing construction. Alansplodge (talk) 17:49, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If I write "each of my house's windows", do I describe the house as window-like? —Tamfang (talk) 02:59, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Point taken (but the stems are still blade-like). Alansplodge (talk) 13:59, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It is well worth noting, since no one else has, that irises are monocots, a group that also includes grasses, and which shares many morphological features, including blade-like leaves and stems. --Jayron 32 11:12, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

September 26

False canard

Suppose somebody is arguing against a particular plan, and they raise a problem with it, but deceptively. The person is opposed to the plan for a different, less persuasive reason, and they secretly don't believe the stated problem to be as serious as they make it seem. They are putting obstacles in the path. Can that spurious problem be called a canard? Looking it up on Wiktionary, I see it defined only as a hoax story. By habit, I not only want to say "that's a canard" in these situations, but "that's a false canard". This doesn't seem to be an actual phrase in use anywhere! I also have it in my head that canard means "flag", which it doesn't (it means "duck"). Can you untangle my malapropism? Is there a proper phrase for this concept that sounds at all similar? (It's not "false flag", nor is it "petard", which confusingly goes along with the word "hoist", like hoisting a flag, but is actually a firecracker and "hoist" there means to blow up, and anyway there's no "false petard" - is there?) Card Zero (talk) 21:49, 26 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Red herring is somewhat close (?) "Your stated reason for objecting the plan is a red herring -- you actually appose it because..." --2603:6081:1C00:1187:DD45:E1CD:EA6A:4AD0 (talk) 03:03, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

On the Wikipedia "Antisemitic canard" article, the functional definition of the article topic is basically false narratives which -- no matter how often they are factually debunked -- get revived again and again and again and again, long past the time when the Energizer bunny's batteries have run down. Not sure if that's in any dictionary.

-- AnonMoos (talk) 05:22, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Pauk Krugman calls these "zombie ideas" or, for short, "zombies".^[1] --Lambiam 22:44, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Anyway, one term for what you describe is "hidden agenda", but there's nothing relevant on the Hidden agenda disambiguation page... AnonMoos (talk) 05:26, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't "false canard" a redundancy? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:09, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A false canard would be ... the truth? Clarityfiend (talk) 11:15, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Or at least a fake fake. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:19, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Face it. You can't handle a false canard! Clarityfiend (talk) 01:50, 28 September 2021 (UTC) [reply]

Per the dictionary, a canard is "An unfounded rumour or story". As such, I think calling something a "false canard" is either redundant, or means something that looks like a canard but isn't. I'm also not sure that what is described in the original example actually is a canard. Iapetus (talk) 09:11, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If it walks like a canard and quacks like a canard, it is a true canard. --Lambiam 10:13, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'd call it a "fake objection" or "false objection". --Lambiam 10:45, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you all, especially User:AnonMoos for the retrospectively obvious phrase "false narrative", which is what I should be saying if I want to be understood (always puts you at an advantage, when arguing, if you're understood). My feeling is that this is a very 21st century phrase, and prior to its arrival I had probably been trying to stretch canard to fit, except it's too grand a word to apply to mundane casual half-truths. I guess ad hoc justification is another way of expressing roughly the same concept. Card Zero (talk) 18:28, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

BTW: "A petard is a small bomb used for blowing up gates and walls when breaching fortifications", see Hoist with his own petard. Alansplodge (talk) 22:39, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Quite recently, Jeff Bezos was hoist with his own petard. --Lambiam 12:02, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In Newspapers.com (pay site), I'm seeing the expression "false canard" as far back as the 1870s. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:55, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ooh. So I'm not making it up, I'm just a bit archaic. Good to know. :) I'd be interested to see an example of context. Card Zero (talk) 14:37, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There is a type of mathematical curve called a "false carnard" which is unintelligible to me but appears in Singular Perturbations: Introduction to System Order Reduction Methods (p. 145). Alansplodge (talk) 18:02, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As for the misleading premise definition, a couple of recent examples are;

Blaming climate change is a false canard that excuses the incompetence of elected officials...

Energy Made Easy: Helping Citizens Become Energy-Literate (2019)

Let us not focus on the microgeneration of electricity; we believe that this is a very false canard.

House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs (2007-2008)

Alansplodge (talk) 18:25, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

How marvellous. Apparently a canard explosion has been encountered in many applications ranging from chemistry to neuronal dynamics, aerospace engineering and ecology. Card Zero (talk) 19:29, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

September 29

Translating Albert Einstein's brief joke, heard on Youtube in German, for three seconds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAxQERKy6Ug#t=20

Unfortunately I don't understand German. Youtube's automatic translation into English, gives a partial translation only: "I'm drinking it", but that translation seems to have omitted some words in the German sentence. 185.120.124.33 (talk) 10:33, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's given immediately after by the translator: "He says he doesn't drink. So he's not interested in this question". Martinevans123 (talk) 10:42, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The interviewer asks: "What do you think of prohibition, Professor?" Einstein answers: "Ich trinke nicht, also ist mir das ganz gleich." More literally: "I don't drink, so I don't care." Not the epitome of wit. --Lambiam 12:16, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes "ist mir das ganz gleich" = "it's no difference to me". Seemed to go down quite well, though? Martinevans123 (talk) 12:25, 29 September 2021 (UTC) (Note: I have not used an un-named machine translation device)[reply]

Quite the same, ganz gleich. 185.120.124.33 (talk) 16:23, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

More literal than "so I'm not interested in this question". Note that the crowd laughs instantly following the professor's reply in German, before the reporter's translation. Did they all understand German? Or would they have laughed as merrily if the great man had said, non-sequiturially, "Beim frühen Morgenlicht erwacht mein Herz, also ist das Schöne etwas anderes als das Gute"? --Lambiam 07:11, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't (really) care might catch the gist...Lectonar (talk) 16:29, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Es ist mir wirklich egal. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:30, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

September 30

Old(er) French phrase

S'il vous plaît, can someone translate this bit of French - from, I think, the Vulgate Cycle - into English for me? Neither Google nor my remnants of high school French are being much help: "n'a an soi nule vertu de Nostre Seignor qui en estant le tiegne". Something about Godly virtue and ringworms?? Wikignome Wintergreen^talk 15:22, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can figure out, "n'a an soi nule vertu" means "he hasn't got any virtue in him" (in modernized French orthography: "[il] n'a en soi nulle vertu"); "en estant" seems to mean "standing" or "being" (cf. here, and "tiegne" must be a subjunctive form of "tenir" ('hold'), so my conjecture is it means something like "He hasn't got any virtue in him to keep him upright". Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:39, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think it just means "He has none of the virtues of the Lord in himself that you have". I'm wondering if "le tiegne" is actually just modern "le tien" and not a form of "tenir". More literally it's "he has none of the virtues of the Lord in himself, the likes of which are yours". Kind of clunky but that's often how old/middle French is. Adam Bishop (talk) 18:30, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Can't really follow this reading, I'm afraid. What would the syntactic structure be? "en estant" can't be a finite verb; the only possible verb in the "qui" clause is "tiegne" (the spelling of which exactly matches the form we have for the subjunctive of "tenir" in the Wiktionary entry). Also, why would "le" be masculine if "le tiegne" was really "le tien", referring to "yours" (i.e. "your virtue"), when "vertu" is feminine? My reading, where "tiegne" is the verb, "le" is an object referring back to the (omitted) subject of the first clause, and "en estant" is some form of adverbial, is syntactically straightforward; nothing "clunky" about it at all. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:37, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I found this in wikisource [[2]], under IV, 4th line...which would point to "tenir". Lectonar (talk) 18:43, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As of yet

This "expression" seems to be gaining a foothold. I just saw it in Generative grammar, of all places.

To me, it seems like a merging of "as of now" (+ a negative statement), with "not yet" (+ a positive statement).

Example: I could say "As of now I've seen no evidence of this", or I could say "I have not yet seen evidence of this".

"As of" is usually followed by a specific point in time: 1954, last month, yesterday, now, etc. "Yet" can sort of stand for "at this time", not just "this time", so I don't see how it can validly be connected to "as of".

Please tell me "as of yet" is frowned upon by those on high. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:17, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]